GlossaryGlossary of terms and quotations
Worldaware cultivates change, is influenced by changing ideas and is rooted in a context dynamic for its knowledge and understanding. Many of the key concepts are transitional and make use of contested terms. What follows is not, of course, definitive but is included to facilitate dialogue and debate.
average incomes
"By 1996, middle-class consumers in China, India, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand almost equalled the total population of the industrialised countries. The top 20% of Malaysians and Chileans now have higher average incomes than the average German or Japanese."
child-centred curriculum
"Instead of a national curriculum for education, what is really needed is an individual curriculum for every child."
citizenship
"The Global Citizen is willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place."
"Citizenship gives pupils he knowledge, skills and understanding to play an effective role in society at local, national and international levels. It helps them become informed, thoughtful and responsible citizens who are aware of their duties and rights."
culture jamming
"Rodriguez de Gerada is widely recognized as one of the most skilled and creative founders of culture jamming, the practice of parodying advertisements and hijacking billboards in order to drastically alter their messages. Streets are public places, adbusters argue, and since most residents can't afford to counter corporate messages by purchasing their own ads, they should have the right to talk back to images they never asked to see."
development education
"The Development Education Association sees development education as encompassing the following principles:
- enabling people to understand the links between their own lives and those of people through out the world;
- increasing understanding of the economic, social, political and environmental forces which shape our lives;
- developing the skills, attitudes and values which enable people to work together to bring about change and take control of their own lives;
- working towards achieving a more just and sustainable world in which power and resources are more equitably shared."
geography
"Geography teaching offers opportunities to:
- stimulate pupil's interest in their surroundings and in the variety of human and physical conditions on the earth's surface;
- foster pupil's sense of wonder at the beauty of the world around them;
- help pupils to develop an informed concern about the quality of the environment and the future of the human habitat and thereby enhance pupil's sense of responsibility for the care of the earth and its people."
globalisation
"Globalization is often wrongly seen as bringing uniformity (usually American) to every country, a sort of McStandardization. In fact, successful companies do not operate in this way. Successful companies are those whose products and brands are appropriate and adaptable to the many diverse market conditions and desires of local consumers. The company may be multinational but its approach is multi-local."
David Logan and Mike Tuffrey of The Corporate Citizenship Company in Alliance Vol.5, no.2 published by the Charities Aid Foundation.
"It is a word coined to describe the increasing integration of today's world so that trends or changes to the way we live seem to happen simultaneously in many countries. It is a result of a revolution in communications technology and of the increasing links between national economies through trade and investment. The most striking aspect of it for many people is the way big companies now sent to be international rather than national and to have more than governments."
global South
The term Third World implies a hierarchy by some unspecified criteria and is now out of vogue. Developing countries as distinct from developed countries is also unsatisfactory by implication of a process of change on the one hand and a state already achieved on the other. This is partly resolved by 'least' and 'more' in making the convoluted acronyms LEDCs and MEDCs but compounds another issue by isolating 'economic' from the complexity of development issues. 'North-South' has established itself in an international context but is confusing in national and regional terms (cf. Scotland, Italy, Ghana). Referring to 'countries of the global South' is a little clumsy, but combines elements of meaning and usage which is not just a compass direction.
green ideals
"On a motorway, I feel very impatient with green ideals, which would see us condemned to eke out our lives in one little patch, never pushing on here and there for fear of spoiling the ecology. It's a nice life for a tree, but no life for a human in all our restless and complex perfection."
international development
The policy of the government was set out in the White Paper on International Development, published in November 1997. The central focus of the policy is a commitment to the internationally agreed development target to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, together with the associated targets including basic healthcare provision and universal access to primary education by the same date. A new White Paper is expected in the Autumn 2000.
new agenda
In school curriculum terms this combines the citizenship, PSHE and sustainable development elements of the national curriculum 2000 (England).
participation
"Children should be given the opportunity to express their views and to learn to participate in decision-making; they must be listened to and treated with the same respect as adults."
poverty
"We have to realise that poverty is not simply a lack of means. It is certainly true that without sufficient resources, people cannot satisfy even their most basis physical needs. But as Nobel Prize winner Amartrya Sen... has argued, poverty should also be seen more broadly as the deprivation of capability. Poor people lack not only income but meaningful opportunities to earn a living or have a say in political decisions; they are often marginalized by conflict or discrimination. More often than not, the poor define their own lot in these terms - not by 'lack of money' but lack of 'empowerment'."
'Resolving conflict fairly'
"Peace and development - one struggle, two fronts
Clearly, war is not the only cause of poverty, and neither poverty nor inequality by themselves cause war. But one thing is indisputable: development has no worse enemy than war. Prolonged armed conflicts don't only kill people: they destroy a country's infrastructure, divert scarce resources and disrupt economic life. Almost all today's conflicts are civil wars, in which civilian populations are not incidental casualties but direct targets. These wars completely destroy trust between communities, breaking down normal social relations and undermining the legitimacy of government."
"Faced with injustice, many individuals and groups have resorted to violence, and violence must always be repugnant. The roots from which the word is derived imply the illegitimate or excessive use of force, and its effects are at the core of un-peacefulness, in the sense of damaging the fulfilment of our potential. On the other hand, we must recognise the dreadful and long drawn out suffering that has impelled people to resort to violence; the combination of desperation and idealism that led them to follow this course and the reluctance with which they do so."
sustainable development
"Sustainable development means improving the quality of life whilst living within the carrying capacity of the supporting ecosystems."
"Education for sustainable development enables people to develop the knowledge, values and skills to participate in decisions about the way we do things individually and collectively, both locally and globally, that will improve the quality of life now without damaging the planet for the future."
television
"Many wanted more background information, more positive images of lifestyles in developing countries, and more time given to hearing from the people themselves, who should play a more active role in stories. There seemed to be as strong appetite for seeing the ordinary every day life of people in these countries, not just the unusual or exotic. The most important key to engaging audience interest in global programming appeared to be making the issues explicable to viewers, and allowing viewers to identify with the lives of the people featured on the programmes."
"public service broadcasting... guarantees the availability of full and balanced information about the world at local, regional and global levels."
Conferences Continuous professional development Resources Teachers' working groups Valuing Places