The world is undergoing rapid globalization , with increased competition yet interdependence among nations. The United States of America has been a land of opportunity and promise, with its dominant military, economic, and cultural superpower in the world for decades. However, rapid educational and economic development in other nations leads to increased global competition, which poses a threat to Americaâs ascendance, undermining confidence in the governmentâs ability to restore economic growth and superiority.
Although the US economy is still ranked No. 1, it is weakening relative to other competitors such as China and India. For instance, in the United States the GDP annual growth rate dropped from 3.77% in 1996 to 1.57% in 2016 (OECD , 2019a). Although the GDP growth rate slowed down in China and India as well due to the global recession of 2008, the economy in China and India did grow at a much faster rate than that in the United States. In China, GDP growth rate was 6.72% and that of India was 7.11% in 2016 (OECD ). China is poised to overtake the United States as the worldâs top economy as early as 2020, according to a new report by the Standard Chartered Bank. India is also estimated to overtake the US economy by 2030, contributing 42% of total global economy (Johnson, 2019).
Globalization presents potential opportunities as well as challenges to all nations. To succeed in the global race for intellectual and innovative standing, countries have to make substantial investments in human capital , starting with investing in quality education for young children. Economists argue that human capital investments are the key drivers of economic competitiveness in the long term (Eriksson, 1991; Heckman & Masterov, 2007; Schultz, 1961; Sweetland, 1996; Welch, 1975).
This chapter starts with an overview of what globalization theories are and how globalization may have changed the world landscape. Using the human capital theory and cultural ecology theory as the conceptual framework, this chapter further examines how China, India, and the United States invest in early childhood care and education (ECCE) as a strategy in response to rising expectations and fierce competition for jobs, leadership of the future, and the ultimate superpower in the globalized world.
Globalization
Globalization has become a buzz word since the late 1990s and early twenty-first century, but it is by no means a new phenomenon. As Wallerstein (1998) pointed out, the current âideological celebration of so-called globalization is in reality the swan song of our historical systemâ (p. 32). Wallerstein (1974) suggested that globalization as a process originated in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in Western Europe, through which the capitalist world-economy spread across the globe. According to the world-system theory, a long-term crisis of feudalism in parts of Western Europe created a strong motivation to seek new markets and resources; technological innovations, superior military strengths, and means of transportations enabled Europeans to explore and establish economic ties with other regions that favored the accumulation of wealth in the European core (Wallerstein, 1974). By the mid-seventeenth century, the world-system became a capitalist world-economy, in which the accumulation of private capital through exploitation in production and sale for profit in a market were its driving forces. Thus, the world-system was âa system that operates on the primacy of the endless accumulation of capital via the eventual commoditization of everythingâ (Wallerstein, 1998, p. 10). In this world-system, the nation-states are the creatures of the worldwide systems of economic or political powers, exchange, and competition. The nation-state is thus less a bounded actor, more the occupant of a role defined by world economic and political/military competition. âMoney and force, power and interests, are the engines of global changeâ (Meyer, Boli, Thomas, & Ramirez, 1997, p. 147).
In the twentieth century, however, the world-system reached its geographic limit with the extension of capitalist market and the state system to all regions. It also witnessed the rise of the United States as a hegemonic power and the power shift from Europe to the United States. In the meantime, newly independent states and communist regimes challenged core control throughout the twentieth century. New crises of contraction and confrontation cannot be solved by exploiting new markets; challenges to core dominance gathered strength in the absence of a strong hegemonic power and a globally accepted ideology; polarization pushed the world-system to the breaking point. Such new developments in the twentieth century set the stage for a period of transition (Wallerstein, 1998). Although the transition has not produced a more equal and democratic world yet, it does spell the end of capitalist globalization and balance the power between the West and the East.
However, world cultural theory believes that globalization doesnât just occur in economy, but it is âthe compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a wholeâ (Robertson, 1992, p. 8). In other words, globalization accelerates the global interdependence and connects and stimulates awareness or consciousness of the global whole or unicity. According to this theory, the world is a single place, and therefore, how to share this space and how it must be ordered are universal questions. The answers to such questions vary, depending on the position of a nation in relation to both a system of society and the shared properties of humankind. Differences in perspectives and worldviews result in confrontations and conflicts, which means that globalization involves âcomparative interaction of different forms of lifeâ (Robertson, 1992, p. 27).
World cultural theory further argues that global interdependence and consciousness of the world as a whole precede the advent of the capitalist world-system. However, world cultural theory acknowledges that European expansion and widespread of capitalist world-system accelerated the process of globalization since the seventeenth century, especially after 1875 when international communications , transportation, and conflict dramatically intensified relationships across societal boundaries. In this process of globalization , the autonomy of nation-state and individual self was dissolved, and the position and identity of nation-state and individuals became relative. In other words, all parties involved in globalization are constrained to assume a role, to define an identity, and to interpret their existence as relative to the emerging global whole (Robertson, 1991, 1992). No nation-states and individuals can exist in separation and isolation; and therefore, they are subject to universal standards derived from a common conception of humankind. To some extent, the common framework or conception has guided nation-states to respond to world order more consciously.
However, global consciousness does not imply global consensus and peace. In a matter of fact, globalization has turned the world order into a problem by the end of the twentieth century. The reason is that each nation-state interprets the world order differently and responds to the comm...