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The Assault on Global Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

James A. Caporaso  and
James H. Mittelman
James A. Caporaso
Affiliation:
Harvard University and Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
James H. Mittelman
Affiliation:
Queens College, City University of New York
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Extract

Who has the right and responsibility to determine the content of education about foreign affairs? Should the Department of Education (DOE) seek to influence what the schools and universities teach? These questions are the subject of a smoldering debate sparked by the regional office of the DOE in Denver, Colorado. Answers to them would tell us a great deal about the environment for making foreign policy.

There can be no doubt that in the United States, knowledge of foreign policy problems is extremely low. Surveys regularly show that in comparison to students overseas, American students lag in their awareness of other cultures. In a study of 30,000 10- and 14-year-olds in nine countries, undertaken by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Americans ranked next to last in their comprehension of foreign cultures. According to a recent New York Times poll, 44 percent of Americans questioned did not know that the Soviet Union and the United States were allies during World War II. Only 14 percent of American respondents in the same poll were aware that the United States had joined Britain, France and Japan in the invasion of Russia to fight the Bolshevik forces in the civil war of 1917 (“Flawed,” 1986). While there is also ignorance in the Soviet Union and other countries about the United States, the place to tackle the problem of provincialism is at home.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , Winter 1988 , pp. 36 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1988

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