Changes in education and globalisation : creativity - a resource for robust hope

This paper grounds its analysis definition of the conflict-ridden notion of 'globalisation' in educational and social changes occurring in Australia and elsewhere. It elaborates on the meaning of this ambiguous concept by looking at concrete instances of educational responses to and expressions of globalisation. In the first section, the idea of globalisation is analysed through two examples of pedagogies being used by teachers to enable their students to gain the ingenuity required for a knowledge economy. Second, consideration is given to who, in Australia, has either benefited from or been disadvantaged by the socioeconomic changes necessary to construct a local/global knowledge society through future oriented reforms to education and training. Third, the question of which values might usefully inform educational change is explored through identifying those that might contribute to a complex synthesis of conservative and moderate perspectives on caring for others. Fourth, consideration turns to what might teachers learn from creative knowledge producers, such as scientists and artists, to develop in students the capacity for front-end creative thinking and action for local/global knowledge-producing societies that publicly and privately value caring for others.