Lesson – Introduction to Globalization Considering what we've learned today should we embrace and encourage globalization? You are about to embark on a journey to explore globalization. But what exactly is globalization. I can give you official definitions, like the ________________ of economic, political and cultural systems around the world, or a growing trend towards _________________ around the globe. You could call it a force for growth or _______________ if you are an optimist, but if you are a pessimist you may say that globalization is a force of environmental and cultural ____________________. Many think of globalization as the creation of a _____________________________, that’s because of technology we are all part of a community, and like a village we have the ability to connect with each other and have a responsibility to help each other if we all want to thrive. Many students don’t quite get why we need to study this because you live in a globalized world – it’s your reality. You probably take for granted that your shirt came from Bangladesh, your breakfast from Central or South America, your phone was made in China, and the car your family drives has it’s headquarters in Korea. But what you may not realize is this world where we buy things from thousands of miles away and travel to distant places with relative ease is fairly _______. By giving you the opportunity to learn about the _______________ of globalization you can better understand how this phenomenon affects other people, or what could potentially happen in the _____________. Globalization impacts us in many different ways. Often people will think about what we buy as the key part of globalization, so an ________________ phenomenon – an economy is the control of goods and services being shared in a society. But the purchase of those goods from other countries does more than just impact our standard of living, it can also impact our _____________ aspects – from the ways in which consumerism is changing our culture to our increased acceptance of other cultures and ideas. And _____________________ globalization is becoming more of a factor, influencing the policies our governments make. It’s important to understand some of the terms that we use when describing this phenomenon because language is how we interpret the world. In fact, there is an attempt to make a universal language called Globish which is based somewhat on the English language. There is a word for a language that is used by various groups – it’s called a lingua franca – so for example on airplanes the lingua franca is _______________ so all pilots must be fluent in English. In the past the lingua franca could be French, or Italian, or Spanish, and in the future some say that Chinese will become the lingua franca. … It’s good to build a strong understanding of many of the concepts we are going to discuss in this course now, because many of the ideas will be repeated in grade 11 and grade 12 Social Studies. Something to have a grasp of is the ideas of _________________ versus _________________ nations. A developed nation has a strong and diverse economy, while developing countries have economies that are struggling. There are many factors that determine the nation’s ability to develop. First is your __________________. Geography will determine your access to resources and your climate which of course impacts things like farming and tourism. Geography also plays a role in how easy or difficult it is for you to transport the goods you want to sell to other countries – for example, transportation over __________ is the least expensive way to do it, so having a coastline can be a real benefit; and hopefully your neighbors are also developed countries so that they can buy those goods you are selling. Your nation will develop faster if you have a solid _________________ system and ________________________ system because you will have a more productive workforce. And if your nation is more productive, it will have more access to ____________, which is money that can be used to invest in things like improved technology, which will make your nation even more productive. More importantly is how stable your _________________ is, which relates to your political systems, and the values of your society – are they more accepting of new ideas and different peoples, or is the nation more repressive and always seems to be fighting with others either within the country or outside. Countries in Africa have an amazing number of resources, but do not have stable ________________________, which is why so many of these countries are so poor. A lot of this can relate to history – although we were a _________________ nation, unlike other developing nations, our colonizers became the majority and established their economic, social and political practices from the mother country. Other colonized nations did not have these advantages when they gained independence… Now look at this list – can you see how fortunate Canada is when it comes to the factors that can promote your economic development. So considering all of this, does Canada have a greater _______________________ to assist those nation-states who have not had the same level of opportunities that Canada has had? Should we help those countries that are sometimes referred to as the “third world”? Have you heard the term before? Or have you ever heard someone say “that’s a first world problem”? Well, those terms originated way back during the _________________ where those allied with the United States were the “first world,” and those allied with the Soviet Union were part of the “second world”. So the “third world“ was everyone else who was not aligned with those two groups – which often meant poor countries. But the thing is, the Cold War is over, and there is no longer a second world so the first world and third world terms aren’t really accurate. So instead we use the terms developed nations instead of first world, and developing nations instead of third world. In a future video we will look at why some people don’t think we should be even using those labels. Another term we use that you should be familiar with is the _______________________. When we say “the West” in reference to a group of countries, we are talking about western Europe, including those regions that were colonized by those countries. So when we talk about the Western world we are including Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand, and members of the European Union. An older term that is not really used a whole lot anymore is the idea of North versus South – which is not actually defined by the equator but the fact that most developed nations are in the north and less developed nations are south of the equator. But the North includes Australia and New Zealand and the South includes China so it can often confuse people and we don’t really use it. Let me pause here for a second and talk about maps. Often the maps we use have an underlying message because we often associate size with ____________________. Does this map look accurate? Do you know that it makes the northern hemisphere look bigger than it is, and therefore projects the idea that it is more important. The reason this happens is when this map was created it was to help European navigators who were spending most of their time in the northern hemisphere – so they expanded the latitude lines the further north you went. Check this out – this is a more accurate representation of the size of the land masses. With this map the latitude lines are not stretched out the further north you go. What about this – would you say this map is upside down? But how can a planet floating in space have an up or down? They are both correct. Finally, most maps are _____________________ – meaning that Europe is in the center. We are going to talk about being Eurocentric in our society – that’s the European way of doing things (which is also how we do most things here in Canada) is better than the way other cultures do things, like our Aboriginal peoples. So now let’s talk about that term _____________________ – it means to be in the land from the beginning or being established before others arrive. The term Indigenous or Native are also very similar. In Canada there are three groups that are our Aboriginal peoples – the _______________________, who are the descendants of the first people living here when the Europeans arrived. The _____________ are Native people who live in the north, and because of political reasons they are not seen as quite the same as First Nations people. Finally there are the peoples that were created from the interaction of the First Nations people and the Europeans – the _________. Sometimes you will hear the reference to FNMI – First Nations, Metis and Inuit. As we discuss globalization, it is important to consider how we describe geography. Yes there is a defined place for various land masses, but there are different ways to define how we identify the location of a place. And that can demonstrate our understandings or _________________________. Let me give you a simple example – in Canada we often describe how far away a place is in time versus physical distance (so Grande Prairie is 3 hours away, not 325 kilometers). That may be due to the fact that we live in an enormous country and distances from place to place are much larger here than say in Europe (you can go through a few countries driving 325 kilometers). We might also consider ____________ versus _____________ attributes when describing a location - so “it’s near the mall” versus streets or GPS coordinates. Considering those human attributes can give you information about the society (the fact that you have a mall shows a level of ______________ and access to goods in your community). As you watch the videos for this class, please remember that this is just a forum to give you the basics, there is no way that I can cover all of the concepts you will be studying this year, but this is the foundation that you must understand in order to formulate and defend your _______ opinions. And don’t just skim over things to get the assignments done – dig deep to really get an understanding of the world around you, which impacts who you are. It’s like the difference between snorkeling and scuba diving. I find snorkeling is okay, because I can get a view of what is in the water. But when I go diving, not only can I get closer look at the variety of things, I also feel like I am more in control, and I have a lot more fun that way. So decide now to _____________ through the course instead of just snorkeling and skimming over it all. After the video 1. Explain the difference between a developed and a developing nation-state (be sure your answer reflects what you learned in this video). 2. Which factor do you think was most important in making Canada a developing nation (be sure your answer reflects what you learned in this video)?
