cannyben

Globalization and the attendant concerns about poverty and inequality have become a focus of discussion in a way that few other topics, except for international terrorism or global warming, have. Most people have a strong opinion on globalization, and all of them express an interest in the well-being of the world's poor. The financial press and influential international officials confidently assert that global free markets expand the horizons for the poor, whereas activist-protesters hold the opposite belief with equal intensity. Yet the strength of people's conviction is often in inverse proportion to the amount of robust factual evidence they have.As is common in contentious public debates, different people mean different things by the same word. Some interpret "globalization" to mean the global reach of communications technology and capital movements, some think of the outsourcing by domestic companies in rich countries, and others see globalization as a byword for...

Development refers to improvements in the conditions of people's lives, such as health, education, and income. It occurs at different rates in different countries. The U.S. underwent its own version of development when it became an independent nation in 1776:The average American earned about $1,000 a year in today's dollars, compared with $30,000 today.One in five children died before their first birthday, compared with about one in 143 today.Less than 50% of white children, and almost no black children, went to school; today almost all American children finish primary school.On average, Americans were about four times richer than the people of the world's poorest countries; they are 100 times richer today.Poor countries have experienced improvement as well. Over the past 50 years, there has been more progress in reducing poverty and improving health and education than at any other time in history. Over this period:Diseases such as smallpox and river blindness that formerly...

In the rich world globalization had driven the wedge between social classes, while in the poor world, the main divide is between countries: those that adjusted to globalization and, in many areas, prospered and those that adjusted badly and, in many cases, collapsed.Indeed the Third World was never a bloc the way that that the first and second worlds were. But it was united by its opposition to colonialism and dislike for being used as a battlefield of the two then-dominant ideologies. As the Second World collapsed and globalization took off, the latter rationale evaporated, and a few countries, most notably India and China, accelerated their growth rates significantly, enjoying the fruits of freer trade and larger capital flows. And although these two countries adapted well to globalization, there is little doubt that their newfound relative prosperity opened many new fissure lines. Inequality between coastal and inland provinces, as well as between urban and rural areas, skyrocketed ...

Historically, the dominant power tends to support globalization as a way to increase the ambit of its influence, expand trade and gain economic advantage, co-opt new citizens and possibly show the advantages. This was the case with the Roman, British and now American-led globalizations. But recently, the rich West - which saw globalization as a prelude to "the end of history" - is having second thoughts.Two fears drive this unease with globalization: The first is a fear of job loss due to competition from low-wage countries. The second is the fear of ethnic and cultural dilution due to increased immigration.The cause of the first fear is a fast reemergence on the world stage of China and India. For students of history, the rise of China and India is not a surprise. The two countries are just recapturing the ground lost during the 19th and most of the 20th century. Before the Industrial Revolution, China's and India's combined output accounted for one half of the world...

Educational technology includes all educational resources --- men and materials, methods and techniques, means and media in an integrated and systematic manner to optimize learning. Learning not teaching is the crucial task of the educational process. Technology is one component in this process and can help make learning easy and interesting.A large number of schools have gone headlong into computer education --- not really computer-based education --- and usually what this means is learning how to use a computer for different tasks, including mathematical operations (statistics, spreadsheets, geometric modeling) and desktop publishing (bringing out a class magazine or making posters).Computer-based education, on the other hand, implies the use of computers as a means to educate. Lessons are designed using the capacities of the computer to stimulate, organize information, and present materials that are visual, auditory and text-based, all within the same frame. Such computer-based educ...