Impressive strands of research have shown the emergent reality
of increasing world-level interconnection in almost every field of
social action. As a consequence, theories and models have been
developed which are aimed at conceptualising this new reality along
the lines of an institutionalised World Culture. This offers a new
understanding of the worldwide diffusion of specifically modern
i.e. mainly Western rules, ideologies and organisational patterns,
and of attendant harmonisation and standardisation of fields of
social action.
World Culture theories have not gone unchallenged. Rather,
cross-cultural studies have revealed much more complex processes of
regional fragmentation and (re-)diversification; of the refraction,
appropriation, and hybridisation, through distinct socio-cultural
conditioning, of world-level models and ideas; and of the ongoing
effectiveness both of structural path-dependencies and of
specifically cultural aspects such as collective memories, social
meanings, and religious (or ideological) belief systems.
Comparative research has thus highlighted an intricate simultaneity
of contrary currents: of the increasing world-level interconnection
of communication and exchange relations on the one hand, and, on
the other, the persistence of context-specific interpretations,
translations, and deviation-generating re-contextualisations of
world-level forces and challenges.
This research provides the theoretical "problematique" that
animates this volume. The chapters explore the conceptual tools and
explanatory power of theories and models which do not just oppose
or reject World Culture theory, but are instead suited to
complementing and differentiating it. The volume offers an
enlightening conceptualisation of the intricate interaction of
global processes with local agency, and of world-level forces with
the self-evolutionary potentials inherent in specific contexts,
socio-cultural structures, and distinctive meanings
constellations.
This book was originally published as a special issue of
"Comparative Education.""
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