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This essay aims to answer the question of whether or not online education is a source of globalization. For this to be achieved, the general concept and implications of globalization will be explained and discussed. Furthermore, the position of online education within the context of a world molded by globalization and its forces and agents will be presented. Finally, the main arguments of the essay will be summarized and the fundamental question of the essay will be answered in the conclusion. To begin with, globalization, in the words of Anthony Giddens (in The Consequences of Modernity, 1990, p.64), is defined as ‘the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa’. In other words, this means that globalization is the compression of time and space and the intensification of transnational relations everywhere across the globe. This has been achieved in time as a result of multiple factors, such as the steep technological development that has occurred in recent centuries and more importantly the economic interest of Western nation states in less developed parts of the world and their consequent exploitation. That has enabled early globalist processes to take place, such as slavery or the involvement of Western nations in foreign politics. That has allowed for further processes to happen that in turn served to increase the link between different parts of the world previously and unconnected. One of the most significant phenomena that contributed to the development of globalization was colonialism, with its specific systems and implications still bearing an evident mark on the present. As a result of colonialism, the establishment of anthropology as a field of inquiry. Once this social science was recognized as such and distanced itself from the colonialist agenda, education was also impacted as a result. Thus it became more inclusive and less Eurocentric, a process which snowballed and slowly transformed into the contemporary education that is formally taught in institutions worldwide today. Evidently this is a great generalization but stated merely with the aim of highlighting the pronounced globalist character of contemporary education. Now that globalization and its effects on education have been by and large framed, the position of online education and its role can be examined. Firstly, the education received online arguably has a more international, standardized, all-encompassing and thus globalist nature simply due to the fact that it takes place through the greatest, utmost inclusive, globalist medium that exists, the biggest result and arguably also reinforcer of globalization: the internet. In practice, each country has ‘its own internet’, so to say, with an example being the Chinese whose social media platforms are only inhabited by Chinese people. However, with the increasingly prominent role and importance of English worldwide and the growing interdependency of different corners of the world on each other, the internationally, globally standardized online education available on the internet is becoming ever more important. Moreover, given the expansive, all-inclusive nature of globalization, it inevitably takes its toll on education, especially online education. This, in turn, promulgates globalist elements even deeper into societies via the internet. Furthermore, given the increasing number of people which pursue or seek to further their education online, regardless of their geographical location, now basically irrelevant, this becomes a vicious cycle. A good example of this are the transnational and multinational corporations demanding and offering education to their employees. The more globalization there is, the more globalization is created. Online education is inevitably part of this ceaseless perpetuation. To sum up, globalization has seriously developed since the colonial days and it permeated through most spheres of human existence: political, social, economic etc. These have in turn shaped education. Since the inception of the internet, these influences have been accentuated, resulting into the international online education. This has been shown in the previous paragraph to be a direct result of globalization as well as a reinforcer of it. Conclusively, the question that this essay is based on can be unequivocally answered: online education is undoubtedly a source of globalization.
