Culture Studies / Comparing Cultures / Modernization

Grade Level: 10-12

1. The problems and prospects of modernization are a world concern.

   Practically all Developing Nations nations are attempting to create modern economies--yet success is slow. This often puzzles students. Why can't other countries simply do what the United States did--industrialize? Such thinking often leads to the notion that Developing Nations countries aren't as "good" as the United States.

   To deal with this, you can create a comparison between industrialization in the U.S. and the culture(s) being studied. Here are some key ideas and questions to consider:

   1. How do physical and human resources compare? Note that the U.S. began industrializing with a small population and huge deposits of untapped resources.
   2. Compare traditions and values that encourage or discourage economic development.
   • The U.S. had no aristocracy with a stranglehold on wealth, land or political power.
   • Enterprise capitalism was an accepted value even in colonial times.
   • Ideas of equality and representative democracy were well established when the U.S. began industrializing.
   3. Compare the role of government.
   • Consider the U.S. Government's favorable attitude toward business and its control of land distribution.
   4. What outside help contributes to industrialization? E.g. European capital helped build American railroads as a profit venture.
   • When European or American sources have financed ventures in developing countries, what strings have been attached?
   5. What sources of competition do new industries face?
   • In the U.S., European goods were obstructed by tariffs. The nation had expanding population and territory as a ready-made market.
   • Developing countries have to compete with developed economies.

     How can Turkey, for example, create an electronics industry that could compete in, say, sales of television sets with American or Japanese firms?

   6. All of the above points can be used to get at this central question: Why is it so difficult to develop a modern economy in today's interdependent world? You might want to turn that question into a hypothesis and use the comparisons above for testing it.
   
   
   
2. Culture change: Is a global culture emerging?
   1. To what extent are cultural patterns becoming worldwide? Whatever cultures are studied or compared, the class will gain important understanding of global interdependence if they consider the extent to which those societies are adopting culture patterns that are becoming world-wide.
   2. How might global culture be measured in terms of materialism?
   • Analyze the appearance of cities in various cultures and note similarities--the structure of buildings, the automobile congestion, modern factories, etc.
   • People's lives, too, are influenced by the same sort of consumer goods--automobiles, bicycles, transistors, television sets, household furnishings and so on.
   • How does this worldwide materialism influence people's values and aspirations? Is the great majority of humankind linked by the desire for the same sort of life-style?
   3. Other aspects of global culture to consider would include - common tastes; e.g.
      • youth styles in clothes, music, recreation; expressing opposition to established ways
      • escapism (drugs, etc.)
      • cult movements
      • terrorist activities
      • movements to correct injustices in existing systems, e.g., human rights protests in China; ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; the demand for honest government.
   4. Are we all becoming alike? In spite of these elements of global culture, traditional culture patterns remain.
      • Ask the students to list ways in which the societies being studied mix traditional patterns with emerging global patterns.
      • In other words, the class should see that global society overlays all societies--some more than others. This creates a dualism of a growing common, pattern plus the diversity of existing patterns.
   5. How does this growing global culture illustrate the increasing interdependence of the world's people?
      • To what extent does the class find this to be a healthy trend?
      • Do the students find any dangers in this pattern of development?

Adapted from: Culture Studies / Comparing Cultures / Modernization in Interdependence, Number One in a Series of K-12 guides, (Part C, 7-9 & Part D, 10-12). David C. King, ed. Global Perspectives in Education, New York, NY, 1976. pp.34-37.