Globalisation and the university: Myths

and realities in an unequal world

Abstract
Much has been said about the impact of globalisation on higher education.
Some have argued that globalisation, the Internet and the scientific
community will level the playing field in the new age of knowledge
interdependence. Others claim that globalisation means both worldwide
inequality and the McDonaldisation of the university. It is argued that all of
the contemporary pressures on higher education, from the pressures of
massification to the growth of the private sector, are the results of
globalisation. There is a grain of truth in all of these hypotheses ‐ and a
good deal of misinterpretation as well. The purpose of this essay is to
“unpack” the realities of globalisation and internationalisation in higher
education and to highlight some of the ways in which globalisation affects
the university. Of special interest here is how globalisation is affecting
higher education in developing countries ‐ the nations that will experience
the bulk of higher education expansion in the coming decades.

China, globalisation and the World

Trade Organisation

Abstract
This article claims that membership of the WTO will help industrialisation,
rather than make China more dependent. Hedley Bull's realist paradigm
helps to understand why China joined this organisation, any counter
arguments are wishful thinking. Friedrich List's ideas for self-reliant
industrialisation were used successfully by Mao Zedong, but globalisation
has changed development strategy. Globalisation, if handled wrongly can
make China jobless, voiceless, rootless, ruthless and futureless. If handled
right, it can strengthen independence, sovereignty and self-reliance. The
Chinese government needs stable external, as well as internal economic
conditions. There are benefits for the vast majority of Chinese, but there
are also possible disadvantages. David Ricardo's “comparative advantage”
has not really helped Less Developed Countries, on the other hand, China
should not become a crumbled “Somalia,” this means that China has to
engage with globalisation, and this means also the WTO. After all, agency
does exist and globalisation is a “two-edged sword.”

Globalisation, Effectiveness and

Improvement

Abstract
It is argued that globalisation is imposing pressures upon the nature of
education, internationally. A case is made that school effectiveness
research has contributed to these global pressures but should be
concerned to establish more knowledge about the complex interactions
between culture and schooling. A series of questions are asked about the
extent to which schools of the future should be different from historic
models, and about the potentially important role of educational researchers
in furthering education advance and building a more just society.

Immigrant city, global city? Advantage

and disadvantage among communities
from Asia in Sydney

Abstract
This paper examines the patterns of residential concentration and
dispersion and the socio‐economic profiles of major immigrant groups from
Asia in Sydney at the 1991 Census, taken soon after the largest immigrant
boom in Sydney's urban history, which occurred between 1986 and 1988.
It makes use of detailed birthplace, language and religion cross‐tabulations
by area and socio‐economic indicators, as well as four‐digit occupational
data from the Census. It then tests to what extent immigration flows from
different parts of Asia have been linked to Sydney's emergence as a global
city, and whether the disadvantage or advantage associated with the
settlement of some communities is tied to restructuring, globalisation,
language difficulties, residential concentration, or other factors.