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Globalization and Education
Integration and Contestation across Cultures
2nd Edition
Edited by Nelly P. Stromquist and Karen Monkman
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD EDUCATION
A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
Published by Rowman & Littlefield Education
A division of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2014 by Nelly P. Stromquist and Karen Monkman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stromquist, Nelly P.
Globalization and education : integration and contestation across cultures / Nelly P. Stromquist and Karen Monkman. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4758-0527-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4758-0528-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4758-0529-1 (electronic)
1. Education and globalization. 2. Education and globalization--Cross-cultural studies. I. Monkman, Karen. II. Title. LC191.2.S77 2014 370.9--dc23
2013049338
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
11 Growing Up in the Great Recession: Revisiting the Restructuring of
Hanging
Preface
We are pleased to present the second edition of our book on globalization and education, an intellectual effort we can trace to 1997 when the two editors of this book selected “globalization” as the theme for the western regional conference of the Comparative and International Education Society. At that time, we felt that although the concept had attracted considerable interest in the academy and throughout most of the world, it had been examined primarily as an economic and technological phenomenon, seldom from an educational or cultural perspective.
During the years since, globalization has attracted the attention of educators across the globe who have in turn produced a large body of literature. The expanding interest in the intersection of education and globalization has brought up several new topics, including the salience of global policies with an education content (notably Education for All and the UN Millennium Development Goals), the expansion and differentiation of higher education, a greater emphasis on work-related training, and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
PURPOSE, SCOPE, AND UNIQUE QUALITIES
We approach this book with the knowledge and experience gained over the fourteen years since its first edition. The contributors to this book comprise many of the original authors but also several new ones. They represent well-known scholars in the field of comparative education, but also represented are newer scholars. We have maintained the initial geographical coverage in terms of authors and, with the exception of the Caribbean, the countries and regions examined.
We offer here a collection of chapters that reflect that broad range of issues in accessible yet theoretically grounded detail. Authors who contributed to the first edition now expand on their data and reflection, demonstrating the dynamic nature of globalization and its wide range of consequences. This edition comprises important changes in content, deepening the treatment of key concepts and dimensions of what we have come to accept as globalization. It includes six chapters by authors new to the book. Most of the other chapters have been completely rewritten and the rest have been significantly revised and updated.
In terms of research methodologies, the reader will find essays that bring together the academic literature and a sharp analytical lens focused on several conceptual issues and levels of education. Also present is a chapter on qualitative methodologies especially suitable to the v
understanding of the intersection of globalization and education, as well as several chapters employing ethnographic techniques to comprehend taken-for-granted truths about current national educational policies and global initiatives.
The authors analyze phenomena on the global plane, in local spaces, and in the connections between the global and the local, distinguishing this book from others in the field, which tend to center on one issue (e.g., policy processes, labor, or international assessments), lack theoretical depth about the notion of globalization, or limit their focus to one geographical region. We consider that the integration of levels of education, scales of analysis (the global and the local), and the recognition of national diversity and context make this book unique.
While education is gaining widespread attention as a means to individual social mobility and national economic competitiveness, educators and policy-makers must continue to give globalization close scrutiny if we are to assess its impact on education in developing countries and on the interplay that is occurring between central and less developed countries. Consequences of globalization on the enormous expansion of higher education and global policies such as those seeking the provision of universal basic education need to be understood in their fullest implications. Innovations affecting the community college, the provision of distance education, restructured curricula, and the role of the university in the economy are emerging as powerful new agendas closely linked to globalization initiatives.
In fundamental ways, the forces of globalization challenge the previous approaches and theories of national development. In the minds of some observers, globalization is an exaggerated form of global capitalism; in the view of others, it is a wake-up call to look for alternative forms to the new social and cultural arrangements that are being both spontaneously and deliberately generated by globalization
ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK
This book is organized in three sections. The first addresses conceptual and methodological issues underlying such notions as globalization, internationalization, and multilateralism. The second presents empirical data from various countries and provides examples of shifts and transformations within a specific level or modality of the educational system. The third looks at the totality of educational changes taking the nation as the unit of analysis. These countrylevel case studies bring together in concrete and detailed ways the impacts of globalization at the multiple levels of the modalities of the education system.
We remind the reader that in this book we are not considering the popular media even though it is an important aspect of globalization. The absence of media chapters is not due to our lack of recognition of their importance but rather to the scope of the book, namely, concentrating on education, albeit defined in broad terms.
In the first section of this book conceptual and methodological issues the editors, Nelly P. Stromquist and Karen Monkman, begin with an essay defining globalization and assessing its implications for all levels of education. We find that two actors are imposing themselves on educational policy agendas: the market and the transnational corporation. The changes they are promoting affect not only the formal educational system but also the construction and restructuring of local cultures. The university, the educational level most affected by globalization, has seen enormous expansion accompanied by differentiation of institutions. At the same time, knowledge is being created at multiple sites, among which the university is only one. Globalization is promoting increased knowledge, a by-product of the constant and rapid exchange of information made possible by computer-mediated technologies. This new type of knowledge is likely to generate winners and losers at individual and national levels even
though the current discourse of globalization glosses over this possibility, preferring to talk instead of opportunities for persons and countries to develop their “comparative advantage.”
Martin Carnoy’s chapter brings together two key issues surrounding globalization: the impact of ICTs on the education system and the consequences of globalization upon the nation-state. On the question of ICTs, Carnoy finds that, despite improvements in hardware and software, ICTs’ impact on student learning has been mixed, in part because of problems in computer access and teacher training. At the university level, impacts have been positive as research and teaching networks have expanded. The emergence of new forms of virtual education for instance the massive open online courses hold the promise of making knowledge accessible to large groups, including previously marginalized persons, but it remains to be seen to what extent massive open online courses enable certified knowledge at lower costs. While globalization has moved education policies toward privatization, there are signs of explicit decision-making to protect the quality of certain universities even though this occurs at the expense of poor students attending non-elite universities. Carnoy finds evidence that for the state some functions have been weakened and others strengthened, though in balance, he argues, countries still retain considerable decision-making space and pressures to move into unsuitable global policies can be successfully resisted.
Karen Mundy and Caroline Manion focus on global governance specifically, the work of global institutions and transnational actors with educational mandates agendas from a historical perspective, drawing on theories of global governance and international relations. They ask “how changes in world order and the international society of states over the last halfcentury have shaped existing institutions, and how global institutions have in turn developed new patterns and possibilities for global governance.” Their chapter examines the “evolution of the international education for development regime alongside the United Nations mandate in education,” calling to our attention the rise of the World Bank as the “preeminent global governor of this regime,” and the “putative success of the ‘education for all’ movement over the last decade.” The chapter examines also the involvement of nonstate actors and networks, including both powerful corporations and consulting firms as well as grassroots organizations. It concludes with a consideration of current shifting global patterns of geopolitical and economic power, and their implications for a future legitimate global governance in the area of education.
Monisha Bajaj’s chapter shifts our focus to human rights, which, she posits, is the primary organizing force in global education policy discourse today. Three orientations education as a human right, education with human rights, and education for human rights frame her analysis of changes in international discussions and policy-making. She then presents a case study of the Right to Education Act in India, using the concepts of decoupling and loose coupling to understand the “intermediation of human rights education by ideology, context, constituency, and locale” in India, where “rights” talk informs understandings of quality. She concludes: “the use of rights talk to frame a particular vision of education, while contested, utilizes global discussions as a foundation but goes far beyond international agreements on the right to access primary schooling to entrench a far more comprehensive vision.”
The chapter by Kathryn Moeller provides a stark example of transnational corporation engagement in education. Ostensibly seeking to improve gender conditions in developing countries, one such corporation, Nike, has endorsed the concept of “The Girl Effect,” which targets adolescent girls and young women. This approach, based on the logic that girls are not only a vulnerable group but also a population that must be attended to before they become adult women and face more complex problems, at first sight has some merit. However, Moeller’s ethnographic account shows that, while investing in young women in Brazil, Nike
funds short-term education programs that essentially train girls for job preparation without helping them to problematize gender issues. Entering the terrain of national development, Nike reinforces narrow definitions of gender and, by focusing on poor girls, also fosters the racialization of gender. Through Moeller’s case study, the de facto political role of transnational corporations in education is brought clearly into the open.
Noel Gough’s chapter on curriculum, informed by narrative theory and poststructuralism, is guided by the question, How does globalization work? rather than, What does it mean? Based on his long experience as a curriculum specialist, Gough depicts how difficult and complex is the process of curricular renewal and the frequent reluctance to embrace the concept of individual and cultural differences. His interest in “what curriculum workers (teachers, administrators, academics, researchers) do, and produce, with the concept of globalization” takes shape in his exploration of the transnational curriculum conversations and deliberations related to global perspectives on school curricula through which culturally inclusive curriculum is probed and examined and of the internationalizing nature of the field of curriculum studies (i.e., ways in which local knowledge is globalized). His chapter raises many questions for readers to ponder.
Raising a voice from Africa, Catherine Odora Hoppers’ chapter offers a sharp critique of the mirage of globalization as the new path to democracy and well-being. She finds that Western economic interests are omnipresent and that the Western notion of modernization not only prevails but its deployment further marginalizes different peoples and cultures, especially those in Africa. From her perspective, education conditions in Africa are defined by outsiders and education research often helps to legitimatize the particular framing supported by international financial and development agencies. The conclusions of these agencies converge on identifying African governments as incapable of carrying out reforms and subsequent programs to improve education in their countries. Odora Hoppers presents accounts from several African countries showing the imposition of external education agendas. She calls for stronger affirmation of African values and perspectives in the shaping of education policies as well as in the production of knowledge that precedes them.
We close the first section of the book with a chapter focusing on qualitative methodologies deemed especially appropriate for the understanding of the complexities and nuances that can be found in globalization processes. The chapter by Lesley Bartlett and Frances Vavrus begins with a question: What new methodological approaches are required to examine globalization and education? They lay out a variety of frameworks related to globalization (influenced by anthropologist Tsing), sociocultural policy research, actor network theory, and the notion of policyscapes, as a grounding for their argument that a multi-sited, ethnographic approach is needed for nuanced, multi-faceted understandings of globalization. They describe the vertical case study approach as a methodology that captures the richness of these phenomena as they occur in multiple levels (vertical), multi-sites (horizontal), and across time (transversal). The interconnecting nature of global phenomena occurs in local contexts, within relationships or networks that stretch across space and time, and connects scales, places, and actors. The authors then present a case study of a learner-centered pedagogy in Tanzania to demonstrate the use and strengths of vertical case study research.
Part two of the book brings to the fore a discussion of the impact of globalization on various educational levels ranging from adult education to higher education. It also considers current developments in the community college model across national settings, and changes in vocational education in the changing global labor context.
Jan Currie and Lesley Vidovich focus their analysis of globalization’s impact on university sectors in France, the Netherlands, and Australia. They look at how policy-makers are posi-
tioning Europe in the global marketplace of higher education, and how the three countries mentioned respond. The authors lay out a detailed analysis of university ranking systems and research assessment exercises, as they demonstrate elements of the neoliberal model of “best practice.” This model influences responses within higher education, although there are differences in how and how much each country responds. Historical traditions and political economy shape what they adopt and how they adapt it. France, for example, has resisted some elements of neoliberalism, whereas the other two countries have more often emulated the world’s leading universities. The dominance of English language higher education institutions in this global competition make for an uneven playing field.
Rosalind Raby considers the community college model of post-secondary education and its diffusion in many countries. She outlines the various forms it takes, and discusses why this model is of interest and how it is implicated in international development education. The latter international development education is motivated by privatization or humanitarian interests that are facilitated by globalization agendas. She finds similarity across structures and locations, yet unique local interpretations. Many forms of the community college focus on vocational and technical education for segments of the population without access to universities. She identifies five repercussions of globalization: financial, academic, cultural, applied, and philosophical.
Peter Kelly and Jane Kenway engage readers in examining the restructuring of gender, education (primarily vocational education and training), and work through young people’s narratives in the era following the global financial crisis of 2008, and an analysis of a chef training program. Within this changing context, their research shows how young people, who are marginalized from and by education and labor markets, are discursively portrayed in negative terms as having low self esteem, self-defeating behaviors, and the like, and situates vocational education and training programs such as Jamie’s Kitchen as key to their transformation. To be employable in the globalized labor markets, they argue, “the self must think about, act on, and perform itself as an enterprise.” The authors juxtapose this with text from “I am the 99 percent” which portrays youth as active, driven, hard-working, and able, but not having access.
Shirley Walters’ chapter takes South Africa as its object of attention to discuss various aspects of adult education as they are being influenced by globalization trends, particularly economic globalization. Special attention is given to the national qualifications framework, a policy designed to recognize the knowledge and skills acquired through prior work experience a strategy particularly relevant to South Africa, where the struggle against apartheid impeded the regular schooling of large populations. As the first country to try to integrate all levels of knowledge through its national qualifications framework, South Africa constitutes a rich site for examination of this policy, now in place in almost 150 countries. In the changing world of work created by globalization, many skills are used for a large variety of jobs, and workers themselves come increasingly from diverse cultural origins. The selection of criteria for the recognition of prior knowledge and skills proves to be a complex exercise, complicated by the fact that it is those in power who retain the final word on what is accepted. Global developments affecting the definition and status of adult education create new obstacles and possibilities for the adoption of lifelong learning strategies.
Section three of this book presents six case studies of particular countries. They comprise Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, Malawi, South Africa, and Australia. Through these case studies, we can see, in specific contexts, how globalization has engaged with particular educational policies, discourses, and practices.
Lynne Parmenter examines how globalization is interpreted, negotiated, and appropriated in Japanese schools and higher education. A shift in discourse from “anti-globalization” to “diverse globalizations” in Japan signals more acceptance of the influences from globalization, although tensions are clear: between the national and the global, between cultural homogeneity and a global orientation. The centralized structure reflecting an entrenched system resists change and has developed an incrementalist approach to educational reform in an effort to maintain stability and coherence. Parmenter demonstrates this in a look at how changes are made to courses of study and textbooks. She reveals a tension between the priorities of promoting global citizenship and recognizing diversity while also assuming homogeneity. In higher education, neoliberalism has welcomed market forces in shaping reforms. Internationalization efforts focus on attracting international students to Japan via the Global 30 initiative and situate Japan as a regional hub for higher education. Interestingly, however, this initiative is not driven by economic interests, but by a desire for full integration into the global education sphere.
Rosa Nidia Buenfil Burgos situates her analysis of Mexico within a broader discussion in which she problematizes the meanings of globalization, looking not at whether education has tended toward the universal or particular (or homogenization or heterogeneity), but a more complicated look at how “globalization travels throughout different social scopes, as it moves from the international recommendation, to the national policy, to the school-specific program (curriculum and syllabi), and finally to the classroom.” She focuses on a policy called Modernización Educativa (Educational Modernization), 1988–2006, and its impact on teacher identity, the “revaluation” of the role of teachers, and the changing meanings of the notion of “quality.” Buenfil sees “the particularity (local) overflowing and contaminating the universal (global).”
Centering on Malaysia a country recognized as one of the few successful industrializing countries where “globalization of the economy” has been the basis for its growth Molly Lee examines how globalization forces have affected the entire educational system of her country through an interplay of homogenization and particularization. As a result of the government’s comprehensive review of Malaysia’s education system, a set of eleven “shifts” is outlined relative to curriculum revisions, early childhood and secondary education expansion, improving resources for special education, upgrading and professionalizing the teaching force, administrative decentralization, ICT training, and encouraging private higher education. The particular forms of national response to challenges emanating from the global realm are formulated through the interplay of conflict and compromise. Implementation is then further shaped by local contexts, creating different practices for seemingly similar policies.
Nancy Kendall and Rachel Silver’s contribution provides an in-depth look at the consequences of the massification of basic education in Malawi, a country seriously affected by external debt and subjected to stringent structural reforms imposed by international financial and development institutions. Weaving a narrative that juxtaposes economic opportunities and social status with formal schooling, Kendall and Silver demonstrate how parents, aware that government will not supply jobs and that the formal economy offers reduced possibility for well-being, opt for pursuing agricultural rather than academic skills for their children. The economic context of Malawi, characterized by the considerable importance of agricultural (tobacco) production, creates its own particular dynamics, promoting contestation from below (through parents and students) to global policies that are imposed from above and make little sense in their society. Not surprisingly, formal education enjoys low acceptance when it cannot meet expectations for a better life.
The chapter by Salim Vally and Carol Anne Spreen, the second in this book that centers on South Africa, probes the reach and outcomes of education policies that have encompassed and reflected elements of social justice. The call to be “internationally competitive,” however, has produced a dominant discourse lodged in human capital theory, which assumes that socioeconomic development is contingent on the “productive” and instrumental role of education and training. The corollary to this belief is that unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, is seen as result of their lack of skills for the labor market. Vally and Spreen show how postapartheid education policies around education and training relate directly to global trends fueled by neoliberalism. The policy and practice of limiting education to narrowly constructed objectives and economic rationales and the seduction of the global knowledge economy and corporate competitiveness has permeated major post-apartheid educational reforms, ignoring the broader purposes of education.
We close the book with a chapter on Australia by Jill Blackmore, who introduces the case of an industrialized country (as did Parmenter, discussing Japan) whose path may not be drastically different from less powerful countries in the developing world where structural and other policies associated with globalization affect both marginalized countries and individuals. Blackmore’s chapter revisits the impact of globalization on higher education in Australia over the past ten years. She finds a solidification of neoliberal norms and practices as universities have adopted unambiguously the strategy of serving the market through scientific and technological products. Continuing her focus on gender dimensions of globalization, Blackmore finds that women in Australia as in many other countries have increased their participation as students in universities. However, women continue to occupy lower academic positions at the university and to have uneven participation across fields to study. They are increasingly located in teaching assignments and non-stable academic positions. The massive corporatization of these institutions has brought a competitive ethos that turns concerns with equity into preferences for efficiency. A number of government and institutional measures in recent years has dismantled equity and adopted the more neutral notion of diversity. The managerial university has created an opportunity for more women to enter mid-level administrative positions but, in the absence of efforts to resolve work-family tensions, these women find themselves in stressful positions. Thus, while women have become more visible in universities, the essential patriarchal arrangements remain uncontested.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIELD AND AUDIENCE
With this revised edition of the book, we raise a number of theoretical issues and bring a greater level of concreteness through reference to specific instances of the force of globalization as it affects education and the way selected countries have responded. The emerging terrains of convergence, dissonance, and conflict have helped us clarify the implications of globalization for education and knowledge in the twenty-first century.
This book will be particularly useful to researchers in the areas of globalization and education, global education policy, and the fields of comparative and international education, anthropology and sociology of education, women’s/gender study programs, and other disciplinary intersections with education (political science, economics, cultural studies, etc.). We expect it to be required reading for graduate students in many programs and courses related to globalization, international development, comparative/international education, and disciplinary courses that focus on education; gender-related courses that are global or international in nature (e.g., gender and development, gender and education globally, and transnational gender studies) will also find it useful. Policy-makers, planners, and development workers have in
this volume information on how others facing challenges similar to their own have dealt (or been unable to deal) with them; educators and others who seek to better understand how global forces are shaping their world will gain insight here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank Nancy Evans, our editor at Rowman and Littlefield, for her warm and generous reception to the idea of a new edition of this book. Her encouragement and advice have been constant and most valuable. We also wish to thank our copy editors, Carlie Wall and Christopher Basso, for their authoritative assistance at various moments of production. Deep thanks go to all the contributors to this book who were willing to accept critique and produce even better versions; they are all very busy professionals but found time to respond to our calls. Finally, we want to thank Mallory Wessel and Brittany Young, graduate students at DePaul University, who helped us with logistics, research, and editing, and asked good questions that helped us to improve our process and product.
Defining Globalization and Assessing its Implications for Knowledge and Education, Revisited
Nelly P. Stromquist and Karen Monkman
GLOBALIZATION DEFINED
Globalization, a contemporary term well ingrained in people’s consciousness, is a phenomenon that comprises multiple and drastic changes in all areas of social life, particularly economics, technology, and culture. Not surprisingly, its meaning varies depending on the angle that is emphasized when defining it. Globalization can be discussed in economic, political, and cultural terms. It can be found in neoliberal economic perspectives, critical theory, and postmodernity. While initially centering on convergence/divergence, homogenization/heterogeneity, and local/global issues (Stromquist and Monkman, 2000), it now is understood as a much more multi-faceted and complex dynamic (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton, 1999), one that is contingent, ambiguous, contradictory, and paradoxical. Despite its ability to capture in its unfolding changes the involvement of the entire world in one way or another, globalization remains an inexact term for the strong, and perhaps irreversible, changes in the economy, labor force, technologies, communication, cultural patterns, and political alliances that it is shaping in every nation.
As Harvey has nicely encapsulated, under contemporary capitalism we have a “time/space compression” (cited in Castells, 2010, p. 448). English is emerging as the global language and social/economic transactions are being formulated within what Castells (2010) calls the “network society,” a rise in horizontal connections among related institutions and communities in diverse localities and dependent on computer-mediated technologies.
A useful definition of globalization is that offered by Gibson-Graham (2006): “a set of processes by which the world is rapidly being integrated into one economic space via increased international trade, the internationalization of production and financial markets, the internationalization of a commodity culture promoted by an increasingly networked global telecommunications system” (p. 120).
Globalization has many faces. In the area of economics, practices favoring free trade, private enterprise, foreign investment, and liberalized trade prevail. In the social area, new consumption patterns and lifestyles with consequences for family relations and social organization have arisen. At cultural levels, the flows of people, goods, information, and images
reflect the influence of communication processes (Appadurai, 2002; Featherstone, 1990) and new identities and imaginaries are taking shape. At the political level, there is increased acceptance of pluralistic systems, multi-party democracy, free elections, independent judiciaries, and the call for human rights (Ghai, 1987; also see Bajaj, this volume). Some observers are skeptical that these practices and norms will alter the real economic order. For instance, González Casanova (1996) sees the term globalization as a rhetorical device for the reconversion of dependency, as it hides the effects of economic policies that are creating major social problems in many developing countries. As Amin (1996) notes, globalization affects not only trade but also the productive system, technology, financial markets, and many other aspects of social life. So far, because there are still people outside the modern economy, globalization has not affected the lives of every person in every country, but increasingly, it appears that ultimately all groups will be brought into conformity.
ESTABLISHED ACTORS IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
The unfolding dynamics of globalization have brought several major players into the economic and political decision-making process. The first of these is unquestionably the market; the others, the more tangible ones, are the transnational corporations (TNCs) with indisputable roles in the market and politics.
The Market
Today, with the demise of the centrally planned, socialist economies, great promise and reliance are placed on the role of the market to release creative energies and minimize inefficiencies. Through competition of firms, the market is expected to enable production to reach its highest volume and quality. Competitiveness, then, is a major principle in the globalized market.
Castells (2010) identifies sources of competitiveness in the global economy. They operate through four distinct processes: (1) the technological capacity of a country or the articulation of science, technology, management, and production; (2) access to large, integrated, affluent markets such as the European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement, or Japan; (3) a profitable differential between production costs at the production site and prices at the market of destination (including not just labor costs but land costs, taxes, and environmental regulations); and (4) the political capacity of national and supranational institutions to guide the growth strategy of those countries or areas under their jurisdiction (pp. 103–105). In this list, knowledge as technological capacity emerges as a key component in the attainment of competitiveness; as we will see later, knowledge might not be accessible to everyone.
The power exercised by markets does not benefit all. And this is the problematic situation, as no market self-regulatory apparatus exists. Financial markets behave in extremely speculative ways; not only do they not engage in productive investments but they have triggered currency devaluation of entire countries (e.g., Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and Russia), with corresponding consequences in reduced national wealth and limited public spending. One million children in Asia were unable to return to school after the crisis in the late 1990s. And, we have seen the damaging consequences of this economic agenda on education and other social services, family well-being, and local and national economic infrastructures following the 2008 global economic crisis.
A feature of contemporary markets is their clustering in regional blocs to attain benefits of scale, coordinate production, and target specific populations. Three such blocs have emerged
(Europe, North America, and East Asia) and they are preparing themselves for increasing competition.1 Together with the global market, we are seeing the creation of macroinstitutions to facilitate economic and political exchanges. Examples are the growing influence of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in numerous countries, the creation of the World Trade Organization and the General Agreement on Trade in Services, and the redefinition of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to address sociopolitical problems within European countries. On the other hand, world institutions such as those needed for the creation of a new international economic order are not being fostered. Through structural adjustment programs, and subsequently the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, coordinated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the process of capital accumulation continues while impacting negatively on the process of distribution and reallocation of the social product (see Kendall and Silver, and Odora Hoppers, this volume) and shaping such distributions in ways that maintain existing hierarchies between and within nations. Neoliberalism, which can be defined as the economic doctrine that relies on market forces as the main adjudicator of social decisions, has solidified itself over the past twenty years.
Transnational Corporations
Some forty-three thousand large firms qualify today as TNCs (Vitali, Glattfelder, and Battiston, 2011). TNCs are both the primary agents and major beneficiaries of globalization (Ghai, 1987; Gibson-Graham, 1996). It is estimated that 70 percent of the world trade was controlled by the five hundred largest industrial firms in 2002 (Share the World Resources, 2013). Through access to highly mobile capital, TNCs have created global factories, relying on the cheapest combination of labor and skills for selected tasks. TNCs thus have generated increasingly integrated and interdependent systems of capital-labor flows across regions and between states. With the support of international financial institutions, TNCs can engage in substantial and speedy capital investment, technology transfer, financial exchanges, and increased trade.
The emergence of institutions that are less publicly accountable, such as TNCs, banks, and media conglomerates, has produced a society in transition with new philosophies about government (Independent Commission on Population and Quality of Life, 1996, p. 257). Blackmore (this volume) warns that, “Whereas the welfare state previously disciplined the market within its national boundaries, in a globalized context the corporate state now mediates transnational market relations in education … ” (citing Rizvi and Lingard, 2010). A worrisome development is the recognition of TNCs in U.S. courts and in the discourse of UN documents as citizens and thus as having the same rights as “people” (Crookshanks, 2008; Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era [DAWN], 2013).
The emergence of TNCs as major players has implications for education. With business and profitability as the main referent, “social and public service interests are devalued” and “appropriate knowledge becomes increasingly narrowly defined” (Bhanji, 2008; Kempner, 1998, p. 455). At local levels, there is an increased presence of business in cooperation with the schools, determining what constitutes quality and what is needed.
Recently eyes have been on the Occupy Movement, the Arab Spring, and other global movements that seek to push back or limit the neoliberal agenda, limiting the economy’s strong hand in shaping life chances (Hale, 2013). Whether there will be a long-term effect on economic structures, policies, or actors, and what it would look like, remains to be seen.
CULTURE
The impact of globalization on culture is universally felt. However, there are opposing viewpoints about current developments. While some observers see a tendency toward homogeneity of values and norms, others see an opportunity to rescue or even reinvent local identities. Communication technologies such as cell phones and satellite television and the many modalities of Internet expression are accelerating cultural change faster than ever before. Advances in transportation and its decreasing costs are facilitating travel abroad, which fosters exposure to other ways of life. Through the mass media (television, film, radio, video), not only is English becoming the global language but there has developed a tendency, particularly among elites and middle classes all over the world, to adopt what might be termed an “American way of life.”
For Cvetkovich and Kellner (1997), the cultural forces reflected in the global media influence roles, identities, and experiences. In their view, old identities and traditional ways of seeing and being in the world have been challenged, and new forms are being constructed out of the “multifarious and sometimes conflicting configurations of traditional, local, national, and now global forces of the present time” (p. 10). But they also argue that “although global forces can be oppressive and erode cultural traditions and identities they can also provide new material to rework one’s identity and can empower people to revolt against traditional forms and styles to create new, more emancipatory ones” (p. 10). Nonetheless, globalization fosters a greater synchronization of demands as well as a greater similarity in taste and preference within the national markets. In a way, this homogeneity is necessary to ensure a more standardized, and thus easier to produce, supply of products and services such as leisure and foreign travel.
It is likely that globalization is creating forces that will divide people economically but it might also generate forces with the potential to offer new bases for solidarity (Kenway, 1997). While the world is becoming smaller and more homogeneous at some levels, in a variety of ways local cultures are making efforts to retain their identity and, in some cases, even to rediscover it. One such example concerns recent developments in Latin America. While for many years there raged a debate as to whether the indigenous question should be about social class or ethnicity, indigenous organizations have opted for the second position, which does not deny or ignore the exploitation indigenous peoples face but prefers to challenge it through an affirmation of ethnic identity (Stavenhagen, 1997). Some scholars argue that the renaissance of the local might be emerging as a defense against the impossibility of joining the global on favorable terms. In any case, efforts to recapture traditional identities and values come as unintended effects of globalization.
The prevailing values that are emerging bring a twist to traditional definitions. “Flexibility,” for instance, means less the ability to accept cultural differences than the ability to adjust economically and adapt innovations in the production of goods and services. While there have been significant changes in production processes, which have moved into “post-Fordist” forms, current labor practices and work organization continue to have a hierarchical network structure. Large companies in central countries offer their workers reward systems based on seniority and cooperation with firm-based unions; but firms in developing countries, which Castells terms those “in the periphery of the network,” treat labor as expendable and exchangeable, relying on temporary workers and part-time employees, among whom women and poorly educated youth are the majority. In other words, production forms seem to have changed more than the values and norms attached to the way production is organized.
Culture and Gender
An important dimension of culture regards the formation of masculinity and femininity. Institutions such as armies, bureaucracies, and even the stock market have served to export norms of violence, aggression, and domination that established masculinity as the dominant norm (Connell, 1998). In the globalization era, the mass media, including social media, function as a source of new ideas regarding gender equity but also serve to heighten messages that reproduce gender asymmetries.
The most positive feature of globalization for women has been their incorporation into the labor market, providing a potential source of economic independence. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), this incorporation in the seven major national economies grew about 30 percent from 1970 to 1990, a growth that Castells calls a “massive incorporation of women in paid work” throughout the world (2010, p. 269). Yet, this incorporation has taken forms that have not been particularly advantageous to women. In Japan, the third major industrial power in the world, women still massively enter the labor force in their early twenties, stop working after marriage to raise their children, and return later to the labor force as part-timers. This structure of the occupational life cycle is reinforced by the Japanese tax codes, which make it more advantageous for women to contribute in a relatively small proportion to the family income than to add a second salary. While the strict labor participation pattern of Japan is not found to the same extent in the United States, the U.S. tax code also penalizes two-income families. Globally, more than 50 percent of immigrants, and 60 to 70 percent in some places, are women; many end up in low-status, lowwage jobs, often in gender-segregated and informal economies, and become more vulnerable to exploitation and sexual violence (UN Populations Fund, 2013). For some, children are left at home while mothers seek work in the global economy. With border restrictions and tightening migration policies, transnational family arrangements become more difficult, as fathers and mothers are often less able to return home and families are separated.
Part-time jobs represent about one-fifth of the jobs in OECD countries; under globalization, these types of jobs also have a tendency to increase. Women, more than men, favor flexible time and part-time work because it accommodates their needs to combine their childrearing tasks and their working lives. It should be obvious, however, that this “accommodation” tends to reproduce highly gendered social relations. Craske (1998) maintains that the neoliberal project that accompanies current globalization processes depends on women retaining their “traditional” family-oriented identities without undermining their availability for the labor market to provide low-wage competition.
Jaggar (2001) observes that neoliberal globalization promised that it would undermine local forms of patriarchy and would make women full participants in politics and the economy. In her view, as this form of globalization has undermined peace, democracy, and environmental health, while strengthening racism and ethnocentrism, it is hostile to women. She further observes that neither technological developments nor communication developments have altered policy-makers’ disregard for the private sphere. Today, there is a visible struggle to secure more rights for women; these demands have emerged primarily from grassroots activism and constitute an example of globalization from below (Jaggar, 2001; Stromquist, 2007).
Through greater engagement by women’s groups as well as by UN machinery, considerable attention is being paid to gender issues: domestic violence, women’s access to property, sexual and reproductive rights, and employment, among others have moved to the forefront of social concerns. Women’s movements are increasingly recognizing on a global scale that to advance the condition of women a multidimensional approach is required, one that includes
not only cultural change but also reform in the financial, monetary, and trade systems (DAWN, 2013). However, schooling continues to be seen by financial institutions, UN and bilateral agencies, and the women’s movements in general in uncritical ways. Stakeholders seek greater access by girls and women to formal education, but do not envisage the school system as a major venue for transformation through the provision of new knowledge and classroom experiences. It is assumed that increased access to education plays a transformative role in the creation of gender identities; this is, however, amply demonstrated as untrue by the visible reproduction of gender norms and practices in most countries. For example, a recent document prepared by UN Women (2013) on policies to be adopted following the UN Millennium Development Goals seeks to increase women’s access to secondary education (and thus the goal goes beyond basic education). Yet, it is mute about the urgent need to train teachers in gender issues so that representations of femininity and masculinity, domestic violence and sexual harassment, and women’s assignment to the private sphere may be challenged.
Transnational Cultural Space, Education, and a Sense of Belonging
Mobility is an emerging focus in studies of education and globalization; it also has implications culturally. Transnational mobility of people, technology, money, media, and ideas or in Appadurai’s (2002) terms: ethnoscapes, technoscapes, financescapes, mediascapes, and ideoscapes contributes to reconfiguring social, political, and economic relations and global positions of influence, situating them on a global scale and within transnational spaces. Sassen (2012) argues that global power and processes are increasingly concentrated in “global cities,” within which a “disproportionate share of the corporate economy and the disadvantaged” (p. 1) are strategically situated. Such changes in the global configuration of social, economic, and political processes reconfigure the spaces within which education functions and how it seeks to shape societies. Several new trends are worth noting: transnational forms of education (the international baccalaureate, higher education), new identities, and the role of schooling in shaping character and a sense of global citizenship.
Brown and Lauder (2009) have examined the emergence of international systems of education and “international rather than state-certified forms of credential[ing]” (p. 130), as manifested in two examples: the International Baccalaureate (2013) program and in higher education. They argue that control of teachers and systems (e.g., through credentialing and accreditation) is increasingly situated beyond the nation state, shaped by the increasing power of the market, and results in a shift in the “character” (p. 131) of the students produced by these systems.
While this population is quite small, there are many more children being influenced by global media, curricula, testing regimes, etc., thereby promoting an orientation toward a broader context. The growth in “global education” curricula and programs, particularly in industrialized countries, reflects concerns about instilling in the next generation such a broader orientation, one in which children are more knowledgeable about the world and situate themselves within that broader world, understand global phenomena (such as environmental sustainability), and develop a respect for others and a sense of global responsibility. A global notion of citizenship, however, can also make diversity invisible, particularly as it relates to gender and minority groups (Arnot and Dillabough, 2000; Robertson, 2009). Teaching children to be citizens of the world confronts the reality that most formal education systems have a primarily national orientation and so, continue to produce citizens who reflect national identities. Parmenter (this volume) demonstrates this tension in the Japanese context, where the intended “global” orientation clashes with the concern for national cohesion.
KNOWLEDGE UNDER GLOBALIZATION
Rapid and sustained change is occurring in the ways we learn and do things. Boundaries in time and space are being crossed with great ease; people learn of events much quicker than ever before and they can go to distant places with great ease. A positive expectation about the new speed of information diffusion and human mobility is that the invisible hand of the market now also moves faster and with greater efficiency, which will both increase the satisfaction and welfare of consumers and exercise pressures for greater efficiency and thus knowledge among firms that wish to remain in the market.
Globalization increases interaction among people and this creates opportunities for new learning, but also for old learning. Among the new learning, we have now what is called the “cult of technology” and conversely the diminution of respect for spiritual and cultural values (Maugey, cited in Namer, 1999). Similarly, the prioritizing of STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) diminishes the perceived value of humanities and social sciences, and increases the focus on education-for-jobs thereby weakening broader notions of education-for-life. While some ideas indeed are being exchanged freely, it is a struggle to offer and disseminate ideas with weak connection to the market.
According to Giddens (1994), with the rise of multiple technologies and globalization dynamics, there are no permanent structures of knowledge or meaning today. The process of translation and adaptation calls for many changes and this in turn produces changes in intended as well as unintended ways. Giddens predicts the arrival of an era of reflexivity, caused by the growing proportion of people who are knowledge seekers. Because knowledge will be increasingly subject to revision, we might find “doubt” to be a feature of globalization. Giddens is perhaps only partly correct. Science and technology are fields that today receive much respect. But they are also fields whose “knowledge” is predicated on positivistic science with claims of certainty and precision. Such tendencies would generate an impetus for knowledge as certainty. In the social sciences, in fact, we are seeing a tendency toward the understanding of knowledge as precise, decontextualized, and thus fragmented. Such a trend is evident in the current attempts by agencies such as the World Bank to create “knowledge management systems” whose fundamental premise seems to be that knowledge can be reduced to a minimal and yet valid expression.
In a globalized world, as technology becomes its main motor, knowledge assumes a powerful role in production, making its possession essential for nations if they are successfully to pursue economic growth and competitiveness. This search for technological knowledge makes sense at one level, but at another perhaps sets countries on an impossible path. Often, one hears the assertion that workers can be transformed into owners of capital as knowledge can be put into their heads (Curry, 1997), an assertion predicated on the assumption that knowledge is more accessible than the other factors of production: land, capital, and technology (Friedman, 2005). But what this argument ignores is the great chasm that emerges between the poor and the international circuits of production, distribution, and access to knowledge.
In addition to the increased speed of circulation of knowledge, there has been a growth in the quantity, quality, and the density of knowledge embodied in the design, production, and marketing of even ordinary products (Curry, 1997). Consequently, knowledge is increasingly being embedded in technical capital. Countries that depend on natural resources extraction will likely build only minimal technical capital. Extrapolating from this trend, it follows that the knowledge composition of capital will be differentially distributed. If so, the fundamental relation between labor and capital may remain the same as before, even though the knowledge component of capital may be today far more sophisticated than in the past.
Current technological developments have contributed to a belief that technology can be used to dramatically improve learning in schools. The presumption that technology can have an independent effect independent of how teachers are trained to use it and independent in design so as not to substitute for classroom activities normally carried out with paper and pencil is endorsed even by such institutions as UNESCO (Kalman and Hernández, 2013). There have been major improvements in the development of software for educational purposes; problems remain in the areas of computer training and maintenance. Beyond schools, there is the hope that social media will generate political change, not unlike the beginnings of the Arab Spring in 2011. Through the social media, other voices can be heard and, concomitantly, other truths. It remains to be seen how much they can transform the world.
Several communication experts remark that there is a growing contrast between education and communication, the former being rigid, presenting materials in specific sequences, and retaining control in teachers, while communication is increasingly becoming non-linear, informal. Moreover, communication is becoming more visual and more reliant on multiple media. Sadly, however, communication today especially among young people appears overwhelmingly focused on bits of information, entertainment, and social networks rather than critical reflection. A major challenge will be to exploit the pedagogical opportunities created by multiple potential spaces and times.
It is not only technology that is shaping knowledge at present. Culture and politics also have an influence. An example pertains to changes in Islam and related educational policy changes. Milligan (2008) identifies two trends that are evident: one is influenced by fundamentalism, and the other by pragmatism. He argues that Muslim countries, particularly those in southeast Asia, are responding to global forces by formulating and/or accommodating local education policy in ways which seek “to sustain local cultural identities while preserving citizens’ opportunities for effective participation in a globalizing economy” (p. 369). This takes the forms of “Muslim modernists [who tend] to view Islam as irrelevant if not an actual impediment to educational modernization” (p. 369) and also “calls to Islamise education” (p. 369) in several countries. In his case study of the Philippines, he finds active negotiation of knowledge Islamic knowledge, and knowledge conveyed through Western forms of schooling in a context where the dialectic of the global and the local shapes the policy dialogue. Milligan’s detailed philosophical analysis of the arguments leads him to posit that in the Philippines they are more likely to take a more pragmatic path. Part of the influence on Muslim countries to determine their particular policy paths is the anti-Islamic sentiment coming from the West, much of which, Milligan comments, is uninformed and based on stereotypes. As with other situations involving negative stereotypes, responses often seek to conserve the traditional and accentuate difference.
GLOBALIZATION AND EDUCATION
Education is enjoying greater salience than it has in previous decades because the burgeoning global embrace of competitiveness has forced education to become intimately linked to technological and economic development. Education is now considered an undisputable pathway to increased social mobility and works in the global imaginary as key to economic competitiveness of countries. This is the case in advanced countries, where the income distance between a high school education and a college education continues to grow (OECD, 2012). The expansion of higher education has been the result of individual demand in most cases. Consequently, the expansion has led to greater differentiation so that those unable to qualify for the more established universities can enter the growing number of less selective or second-
tier private institutions. Of concern, however, is that despite the considerable expansion of higher education, access still depends on social class. Because the poor have fewer possibilities of attending college and because the colleges they attend are likely to be of lower quality than those attended by their wealthier counterparts, higher levels of education in the population have not produced a more equal income distribution. This has been documented in the case of the United States (Carnoy, 2011).
The increasing importance of the global market has had several repercussions on formal schooling: First, criteria employed in firms for efficiency and productivity are being extended to schooling, sometimes in inappropriate fashion. Second, focus has shifted from child-centered curriculum to work preparation skills. This trend is evident in leading nations such as Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Scandinavian countries, and in important new players such as China and Russia (Walters, 1998). Third, education is losing ground as a public good to become simply another marketable commodity (Benn, 2011). The state has become limited in its responsibility to schooling, often guaranteeing basic education but extracting in turn user fees from higher levels of public education, as any other service in the market. Fourth, teachers’ autonomy, independence, and control over their work is being reduced while workplace knowledge and control find their way increasingly in hands of administrators (Compton and Weiner, 2008; McLaren, 1998).
In primary and secondary education today we see an almost unstoppable trend toward privatization and decentralization, both of which decrease the collective concern and bring heterogeneity of purpose and publics as unquestioned values. To serve the technological needs of the market better, new forms of flexible training in vocational and technical education are emerging through private offerings. Among the unintended consequences of these dynamics are (1) fields less connected to the market losing importance (e.g., history vis-a-vis math and science); (2) pedagogies less linked to the market also losing importance (e.g., classroom discussions based on critical theory as opposed to instrumental problem-solving tasks); (3) on a broader scale, issues of equality and equity concerning women and ethnic minorities are losing ground to the consideration of such issues as efficiency (often reduced to performance in math and reading tests).
Much is being made of the need for individuals to gain knowledge, and particularly technological knowledge, to move their countries into higher levels of economic competitiveness. But what is not taken into account in this argument are the contradictory demands that a technological society might make on its internal labor force. Individuals who will benefit from the new reality by virtue of their mastery of technological knowledge will likely transfer menial forms of service to others. Activities such as house cleaning, childcare, laundry, food preparation, and gardening will not only increasingly have to be conducted by these “others” but will possibly be subject to demands for higher quality. In other words, a “knowledge society” must count on a cadre of individuals whose knowledge is low enough to accept menial tasks or whose social conditions are such that they cannot claim the more dignified, higher paying tasks for themselves. Extrapolating these dynamics into the future, it might be said that schooling will be used to differentiate students in early phases and that, if this does not create a sufficient pool of local workers, migration will supply the missing labor. There is already evidence of migration of trained people from poor economies to wealthier countries (Kamat, Mir, and Mathew, 2004). Many such migrants lack access to jobs that use their skills, such as Peruvians with college degrees working in Chile as nannies, high-school graduates from Paraguay working in menial jobs in Argentina, women from various Caribbean and Latin American countries serving as maids in Europe and the United States, and Filipino women with college degrees working as maids in Kuwait. The “brain-drain” phenomenon occurs
because the educated are the ones who will have the most facility in obtaining information and doing the paperwork needed for migration. But globalization welcomes them less for their higher levels of education than for their willingness to take on the low-skill jobs.
Higher Education
The adoption of the “knowledge society” promise has generated substantial expansion of universities and other institutions of higher education. But as the state has been modest in its educational investment, most of the growth has occurred through private education (i.e., with fee-paying students). Parallel to the universities’ search for revenues, there has been an explosion in the number of international students, who are subject to intense recruitment. Because most international students pay their own tuition, special efforts concentrate on countries that can afford U.S. tuition payments, such as China and India. Not surprising, some 180,000 Chinese students went to overseas universities in 2007, and half of them were high school students. In the United States, international students generate revenues slightly above twenty billion dollars per year.
Across the world, more than 4.1 million higher education students attended college outside their country in 2010; this brings reputation, particularly in the United States and Europe. In 2008, a person with higher education in industrialized countries earned 58 percent more than a counterpart with only a secondary school degree (OECD, 2012). Despite the widening of access to higher education and its positive return, access remains affected by social class. Young people from families with low levels of education are less than half as likely to be enrolled as those with at least one parent with a tertiary degree (OECD, 2012).
Globalization with its sophisticated use of technology and increasing reliance on scientific inventions implies a crucial role for postsecondary education. TNCs have been making broad demands on universities for engagement in research and development, but it must be remembered that some of these companies are moving into their own direct involvement in research and development, portending a consequent reduction of the role of universities in technological development. In the field of microelectronics, the most definite globalization industry, this is certainly the case.
In a situation where universities will be linked more to the market and less to the pursuit of truth, it is likely that the definition and establishment of quality will become the prerogative of managerial rather than academic enterprise (Cowen, 1996; Currie and Vidovich, this volume). Universities have become more “client” or “customer” focused. This orientation is not necessarily deplorable because responsiveness to adult needs has always been a positive principle, but under globalization it is likely that the “client” will increasingly be powerful donors or contractual industrial clients and students from upper- and middle-class families, who might move the university toward reproducing distinctions of class or reducing its areas of knowledge to those research topics of interest to clients and donors (Simpson, 1998). The requirement to produce “consumer satisfaction” will place further emphasis on market-oriented effectiveness (Chaffee, 1998).
The university has long been a source of critical insights about its surrounding society. Dominant globalization ideologies, based on the success of the individual and the drive for competitiveness, have affected the university, placing its professors into a constant struggle to secure funds for research and to engage in research to the detriment of other crucial activities, which range from teaching to participating in community organizing. While a critical social science is essential to the understanding and reconstruction of society, critical educators at the university level find it difficult to introduce notions of solidarity and collective action. In addition, the salience of science and technology as a source of revenue and prestige has
created a considerable split between university professors who do “hard” sciences and those who engage in “soft” disciplines. Fields crucial to the understanding of society such as sociology, women’s studies, and cultural studies have made a “cultural turn,” focusing on representation and discourse of the detriment of examining organizations and economic institutions (Fraser, 2008; Keating, 2013; Moghadam, 1999).
Entrepreneurial cultures now permeate university life in the prevailing “surveillance/appraisal” practices in British higher education and, in an emergent fashion, in the United States. In the United Kingdom, there is a well-established Research Assessment Exercise and a Teaching Quality Assessment program that not only appraises faculty performance but also reduces such performance to a few indicators (McNeil, 1999). As universities compete with each other, and intramural rivalries grow between schools or departments within these universities, this norm of competitive individualism has gradually limited attention to other areas of academic life that are not income-producing. Evaluations have an important role to play in universities, but as conceived in terms of marketability they are leading to distorted forms of academic performance.
Because the main beneficiaries of globalization are the TNCs as well as individuals with professional, technical, and managerial skills (Ghai, 1987), the university is becoming a highly contested terrain. One new form of contestation might be preemptive, via the creation of a highly differentiated postsecondary system, characterized by a small number of elite universities with highly competitive admissions on one side, compensated by an expanding range of other, more accessible, types of postsecondary education, including for-profit institutions.
This trend of affairs is now quite visible in Asia and Latin America, where universities are losing their monopoly over higher education. Many new institutions are emerging, usually simple in character and with no commitment to research. In Latin America today 85 percent of higher education institutions are not universities but a mixed bag of institutes and academies; at present 60 percent of the enrollment is still in universities, but this is likely to decline over time. Many students are also moving into private universities, many of which offer relaxed entrance requirements. In Colombia, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru, more than 50 percent of the enrollment involves private institutions (UNESCO, 2009) The privatization of higher education offers several advantages to the proponents of a more competitive national economy. It reduces the financial burden of the government, satisfies aspirations for higher education of a large number of students (even though the prestige of their university may be much lower than that of the established universities), ensures that fields of study that are directly market-related will be offered in those institutions, and last, but of critical importance, contributes to the depoliticization of the university as students in private universities are readily inculcated by “careerist” as opposed to “critical” norms. For those concerned with the role of higher education in defining and supporting societal goals, the privatization of higher education puts it squarely in the productive sphere and weakens the principle of education as a public good, for its future marked class distinction will not permit all graduates to gather knowledge of similar type and quality or to reap similar rewards from postsecondary education.
Gender or women’s studies in universities tend to be small programs serving a reduced number of students. But they are also crucial places in the production and transmission of critical knowledge. In the area of gender studies, globalization is also producing contradictory effects. With the greater circulation of information, some values, such as human rights, including the rights of women, are becoming increasingly accepted as topics to be examined within the academy. There is also a greater diffusion of gender studies in universities and much more contact among women-led nongovernmental organizations with each other and with academ-
ics in their national societies. Yet, as Blackmore (this volume) argues, globalization has affected the ties between feminists and the welfare state, and has weakened feminist work within the university.
Adult Education
Despite endorsement in principle of “lifelong learning,” such as advanced during the VI International Conference on Adult Education (2009), attention to adult education in globalized times is minuscule. To be sure, the neglect of populations who never attended school or withdrew from it for whatever reason predates the advent of globalization, but its status has been further diminished by the current emphasis on the “knowledge society,” which privileges formal education.
Grassroots movements, as reflected in their participation in annual World Social Forums held in various parts the world, are very active. While they give much attention to the environment and to the human rights of such groups as women, indigenous people, and immigrants, these movements also consider education among their priorities. In the history of many countries, adult education has played a transformative role in the hands of social movements. Nongovernmental organizations and grassroots groups are manifesting a strong voice in favor of adult education; unfortunately, their voice is not being sufficiently translated into concomitant government policies to attend their needs and aspirations.
THE STATE AND PUBLIC POLICY
Most discussions of the state under globalization highlight the relationship between the state and the market and are typified by very divergent views. Neoliberalism offers a negative view of the state in developing countries, characterizing it as corrupt, self-interested, and incompetent (Kendall, 2007; Mosley, Harrigan, and Toye, 1991). Measures of privatization, deregulation, decentralization, and integration into the global economy have, not surprisingly, coincided with a decrease in public expenditures (González Casanova, 1996). This decrease is in part fueled by ideology; in part it is caused by the new economic dynamics. With international pressure mounting for the free exchange of products (in an increasingly deregulated market), we see the reduction of taxes on imports and thus less revenue for the state. The challenge for many governments today concentrates on how to modify the tax structure to gain greater contributions from domestic sources. Guided by neoliberal ideology, which supports a reduced state, many governments today declare themselves to be facing serious financial austerity. Paradoxically, this self-declared limitation is occurring at a moment when the number of fabulously rich persons has increased in the world. The causes of fiscal contraction are not clear but statistics show that the poorest 5 percent in rich countries have an income higher than those of 68 percent of the world’s population (Milanovic, 2010).
Neoliberal ideologies, in existence for almost three decades, have successfully fostered the practice of providing key services such as education and health care through the marketplace, making them available according to one’s ability to pay. Associated government policies such as privatization heighten social class differences and make education an individual rather than collective right. Education, however, is a fundamental right and should thus be equal for everyone in terms of access and quality. But many of the actors now influential in global policies are less inclined to protect equality than to create an expanding cadre of workers to join the globalized and increasingly technological society.
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noire à l’horizon, et coupée çà et là de ces lames d’argent qui annoncent une tempête. Gabrielle, se conformant à l’attitude de son ami, regardait ce spectacle et se taisait. Un seul regard, un de ceux par lequel les âmes s’appuient l’une sur l’autre, leur suffisait pour se communiquer leurs pensées. Le dernier abandon n’était pas pour Gabrielle un sacrifice, ni pour Étienne une exigence. Chacun d’eux aimait de cet amour si divinement semblable à lui-même dans tous les instants de son éternité, qu’il ignore le dévouement, qu’il ne craint ni les déceptions ni les retards. Seulement, Étienne et Gabrielle étaient dans une ignorance absolue des contentements dont le désir aiguillonnait leur âme. Quand les faibles teintes du crépuscule eurent fait un voile à la mer, que le silence ne fut plus interrompu que par la respiration du flux et du reflux dans la grève, Étienne se leva, Gabrielle imita ce mouvement par une crainte vague, car il avait quitté sa main. Étienne prit Gabrielle dans un de ses bras en la serrant contre lui par un mouvement de tendre cohésion; aussi, comprenant son désir, lui fit-elle sentir le poids de son corps assez pour lui donner la certitude qu’elle était à lui, pas assez pour le fatiguer. L’amant posa sa tête trop lourde sur l’épaule de son amie, sa bouche s’appuya sur le sein tumultueux, ses cheveux abondèrent sur le dos blanc et caressèrent le cou de Gabrielle. La jeune fille ingénument amoureuse pencha la tête afin de donner plus de place à Étienne en passant son bras autour de son cou pour se faire un point d’appui. Ils demeurèrent ainsi, sans se dire une parole, jusqu’à ce que la nuit fut venue. Les grillons chantèrent alors dans leurs trous, et les deux amants écoutèrent cette musique comme pour occuper tous leurs sens dans un seul. Certes ils ne pouvaient alors être comparés qu’à un ange qui, les pieds posés sur le monde, attend l’heure de revoler vers le ciel. Ils avaient accompli ce beau rêve du génie mystique de Platon et de tous ceux qui cherchent un sens à l’humanité: ils ne faisaient qu’une seule âme, ils étaient bien cette perle mystérieuse destinée à orner le front de quelque astre inconnu, notre espoir à tous!
—Tu me reconduiras? dit Gabrielle en sortant la première de ce calme délicieux.
—Pourquoi nous quitter? répondit Étienne.
—Nous devrions être toujours ensemble, dit-elle.
—Reste.
—Oui.
Le pas lourd du vieux Beauvouloir se fit entendre dans la salle voisine. Le médecin trouva les deux enfants séparés, et il les avait vus entrelacés à la fenêtre. L’amour le plus pur aime encore le mystère.
—Ce n’est pas bien, mon enfant, dit-il à Gabrielle. Demeurer si tard, ici, sans lumière.
—Pourquoi? dit-elle, vous savez bien que nous nous aimons, et qu’il est le maître au château.
—Mes enfants, reprit Beauvouloir, si vous vous aimez, votre bonheur exige que vous vous épousiez pour passer votre vie ensemble; mais votre mariage est soumis à la volonté de monseigneur le duc...
—Mon père m’a promis de satisfaire tous mes vœux, s’écria vivement Étienne en interrompant Beauvouloir.
—Écrivez-lui donc, monseigneur, répondit le médecin, exprimezlui votre désir, et donnez-moi votre lettre pour que je la joigne à celle que je viens d’écrire. Bertrand partira sur-le-champ pour remettre ces dépêches à monseigneur lui-même. Je viens d’apprendre qu’il est à Rouen; il amène l’héritière de la maison de Grandlieu, et je ne pense pas que ce soit pour lui... Si j’écoutais mes pressentiments, j’emmènerais Gabrielle cette nuit même...
—Nous séparer, s’écria Étienne qui défaillit de douleur en s’appuyant sur son amie.
—Mon père!
—Gabrielle, dit le médecin en lui tendant un flacon qu’il alla prendre sur une table et qu’elle fit respirer à Étienne, Gabrielle, ma science m’a dit que la nature vous avait destinés l’un à l’autre... Mais je voulais préparer monseigneur le duc à un mariage qui froisse toutes ses idées, et le démon l’a prévenu contre nous.—Il est
monsieur le duc de Nivron, dit le père à Gabrielle, et toi tu es la fille d’un pauvre médecin.
—Mon père a juré de ne me contrarier en rien, dit Étienne avec calme.
—Il m’a bien juré aussi, à moi, de consentir à ce que je ferais en vous cherchant une femme, répondit le médecin; mais s’il ne tient pas ses promesses?
Étienne s’assit comme foudroyé.
—La mer était sombre ce soir, dit-il après un moment de silence.
—Si vous saviez monter à cheval, monseigneur, dit le médecin, je vous dirais de vous enfuir avec Gabrielle, ce soir même: je vous connais l’un et l’autre, et sais que toute autre union vous sera funeste. Le duc me ferait certes jeter dans un cachot et m’y laisserait pour le reste de mes jours en apprenant cette fuite; mais je mourrais joyeusement, si ma mort assurait votre bonheur. Hélas, monter à cheval, ce serait risquer votre vie et celle de Gabrielle. Il faut affronter ici la colère du gouverneur.
—Ici, répéta le pauvre Étienne.
—Nous avons été trahis par quelqu’un du château qui a courroucé votre père, reprit Beauvouloir.
—Allons nous jeter ensemble à la mer, dit Étienne à Gabrielle en se penchant à l’oreille de la jeune fille qui s’était mise à genoux auprès de son amant.
Elle inclina la tête en souriant. Beauvouloir devina tout.
—Monseigneur, reprit-il, votre savoir autant que votre esprit vous a fait éloquent, l’amour doit vous rendre irrésistible; déclarez votre amour à monseigneur le duc, vous confirmerez ma lettre qui est assez concluante. Tout n’est pas perdu, je le crois. J’aime autant ma fille que vous l’aimez, et veux la défendre.
Étienne hocha la tête.
—La mer était bien sombre ce soir, dit-il.
—Elle était comme une lame d’or à nos pieds, répondit Gabrielle d’une voix mélodieuse.
Étienne fit venir de la lumière, et se mit à sa table pour écrire à son père. D’un côté de sa chaise était Gabrielle agenouillée, silencieuse, regardant l’écriture sans la lire, elle lisait tout sur le front d’Étienne. De l’autre côté se tenait le vieux Beauvouloir dont la figure joviale était profondément triste, triste comme cette chambre où mourut la mère d’Étienne. Une voix secrète criait au médecin:—Il aura la destinée de sa mère!
La lettre finie, Étienne la tendit au vieillard, qui s’empressa d’aller la donner à Bertrand. Le cheval du vieil écuyer était tout sellé, l’homme prêt: il partit et rencontra le duc à quatre lieues d’Hérouville.
—Conduis-moi jusqu’à la porte de la tour, dit Gabrielle à son ami quand ils furent seuls.
Tous deux passèrent par la bibliothèque du cardinal, et descendirent par la tour où se trouvait la porte dont la clef avait été donnée à Gabrielle par Étienne. Abasourdi par l’appréhension du malheur, le pauvre enfant laissa dans la tour le flambeau qui lui servait à éclairer sa bien-aimée, et la reconduisit vers sa maison. A quelques pas du petit jardin qui faisait une cour de fleurs à cette humble habitation, les deux amants s’arrêtèrent. Enhardis par la crainte vague qui les agitait, ils se donnèrent, dans l’ombre et le silence, ce premier baiser où les sens et l’âme se réunissent pour causer un plaisir révélateur. Étienne comprit l’amour dans sa double expression, et Gabrielle se sauva de peur d’être entraînée par la volupté, mais à quoi?... Elle n’en savait rien.
Au moment où le duc de Nivron montait les degrés de l’escalier, après avoir fermé la porte de la tour, un cri de terreur poussé par Gabrielle retentit à son oreille avec la vivacité d’un éclair qui brûle les yeux. Étienne traversa les appartements du château, descendit par le grand escalier, gagna la grève, et courut vers la maison de Gabrielle où il vit de la lumière. En arrivant dans le petit jardin, et à la lueur du flambeau qui éclairait le rouet de sa nourrice, Gabrielle avait aperçu sur la chaise un homme à la place de cette bonne femme. Au bruit des pas, cet homme s’était avancé vers elle et l’avait effrayée.
L’aspect du baron d’Artagnon justifiait bien la peur qu’il inspirait à Gabrielle.
—Vous êtes la fille à Beauvouloir, le médecin de Monseigneur, lui dit le lieutenant de la compagnie d’ordonnance quand Gabrielle fut remise de sa frayeur.
—Oui, seigneur.
—J’ai des choses de la plus haute importance à vous confier. Je suis le baron d’Artagnon, le lieutenant de la compagnie d’ordonnance que monseigneur le duc d’Hérouville commande.
Dans les circonstances où se trouvaient les deux amants, Gabrielle fut frappée de ces paroles et du ton de franchise avec lequel le soldat les prononça.
—Votre nourrice est là, elle peut nous entendre, venez, dit le baron.
Il sortit, Gabrielle le suivit. Tous deux allèrent sur la grève qui était derrière la maison.
—Ne craignez rien, lui dit le baron.
Ce mot aurait épouvanté une personne qui n’eût pas été ignorante; mais une jeune fille simple et qui aime ne se croit jamais en péril.
—Chère enfant, lui dit le baron, en s’efforçant de donner un ton mielleux à sa voix, vous et votre père vous êtes au bord d’un abîme où vous allez tomber demain; je ne saurais voir ceci sans vous avertir. Monseigneur est furieux contre votre père et contre vous, il vous soupçonne d’avoir séduit son fils, et il aime mieux le voir mort que le voir votre mari: voilà pour son fils. Quant à votre père, voici la résolution qu’a prise Monseigneur. Il y a neuf ans, votre père fut impliqué dans une affaire criminelle; il s’agissait du détournement d’un enfant noble au moment de l’accouchement de la mère, et auquel il s’est employé. Monseigneur, sachant l’innocence de votre père, le garantit alors des poursuites du parlement; mais il va le faire saisir et le livrer à la justice en demandant qu’on procède contre lui. Votre père sera rompu vif; mais en faveur des services qu’il a rendus
à son maître, peut-être obtiendra-t-il de n’être que pendu. J’ignore ce que Monseigneur a décidé de vous; mais je sais que vous pouvez sauver monseigneur de Nivron de la colère de son père, sauver Beauvouloir du supplice horrible qui l’attend, et vous sauver vousmême.
—Que faut-il faire? dit Gabrielle.
—Allez vous jeter aux pieds de Monseigneur, lui avouer que son fils vous aime malgré vous, et lui dire que vous ne l’aimez pas. En preuve de ceci, vous lui offrirez d’épouser l’homme qu’il lui plaira de vous désigner pour mari. Il est généreux, il vous établira richement.
—Je puis tout faire, excepté de renier mon amour.
—Mais s’il le faut pour sauver votre père, vous et monseigneur de Nivron?
—Étienne, dit-elle, en mourra, et moi aussi!
—Monseigneur de Nivron sera triste de vous perdre, mais il vivra pour l’honneur de sa maison; vous vous résignerez à n’être que la femme d’un baron, au lieu d’être duchesse, et votre père vivra, répondit l’homme positif.
En ce moment, Étienne arrivait à la maison, il n’y vit pas Gabrielle, et jeta un cri perçant.
—Le voici, s’écria la jeune fille, laissez-moi l’aller rassurer.
—Je viendrai savoir votre réponse demain matin, dit le baron.
—Je consulterai mon père, répondit-elle.
—Vous ne le verrez plus, je viens de recevoir l’ordre de l’arrêter et de l’envoyer à Rouen, sous escorte et enchaîné, dit-il en quittant Gabrielle frappée de terreur.
La jeune fille s’élança dans la maison et y trouva Étienne épouvanté du silence par lequel la nourrice avait répondu à sa première question:—Où est-elle?
—Me voilà, s’écria la jeune fille dont la voix était glacée, dont les couleurs avaient disparu, dont la démarche était lourde.
—D’où viens-tu? dit-il, tu as crié.
—Oui, je me suis heurtée contre...
—Non, mon amour, répondit Étienne en l’interrompant, j’ai entendu les pas d’un homme.
—Étienne, nous avons sans doute offensé Dieu, mettons-nous à genoux et prions. Je te dirai tout après.
Étienne et Gabrielle s’agenouillèrent au prie-Dieu, la nourrice récita son rosaire.
—Mon Dieu, dit la jeune fille dans un élan qui lui fit franchir les espaces terrestres, si nous n’avons pas péché contre vos saints commandements, si nous n’avons offensé ni l’Église ni le roi, nous qui ne formons qu’une seule et même personne en qui l’amour reluit comme la clarté que vous avez mise dans une perle de la mer, faites-nous la grâce de ne nous séparer ni dans ce monde ni dans l’autre!
—Chère mère, ajouta Étienne, toi qui es dans les cieux, obtiens de la Vierge que si nous ne pouvons être heureux, Gabrielle et moi, nous mourions au moins ensemble, sans souffrir. Appelle-nous, nous irons à toi!
Puis, ayant récité leurs prières du soir, Gabrielle raconta son entretien avec le baron d’Artagnon.
—Gabrielle, dit le jeune homme en puisant du courage dans son désespoir d’amour, je saurai résister à mon père.
Il la baisa au front et non plus sur les lèvres; puis il revint au château, résolu d’affronter l’homme terrible qui pesait tant sur sa vie. Il ne savait pas que la maison de Gabrielle allait être gardée par des soldats aussitôt qu’il l’aurait quittée.
Le lendemain, Étienne fut accablé de douleur quand, en allant voir Gabrielle, il la trouva prisonnière; mais Gabrielle envoya sa nourrice pour lui dire qu’elle mourrait plutôt que de le trahir; que d’ailleurs elle avait trouvé le moyen de tromper la vigilance des gardes, et qu’elle se réfugierait dans la bibliothèque du cardinal, où personne ne pourrait soupçonner qu’elle serait; mais elle ignorait
quand elle pourrait accomplir son dessein. Étienne se tint alors dans sa chambre, où les forces de son cœur s’usèrent dans une pénible attente.
A trois heures, les équipages du duc et sa suite entrèrent au château, où il devait venir souper avec sa compagnie. En effet, à la chute du jour, madame la comtesse de Grandlieu à qui sa fille donnait le bras, le duc et la marquise de Noirmoutier montaient le grand escalier dans un profond silence, car le front sévère de leur maître avait épouvanté tous les serviteurs. Quoique le baron d’Artagnon eût appris l’évasion de Gabrielle, il avait affirmé qu’elle était gardée; mais il tremblait d’avoir compromis la réussite de son plan particulier, au cas où le duc verrait son dessein contrarié par cette fuite. Ces deux terribles figures avaient une expression farouche mal déguisée par l’air agréable que leur imposait la galanterie. Le duc avait commandé à son fils de se trouver au salon. Quand la compagnie y entra, le baron d’Artagnon reconnut à la physionomie abattue d’Étienne que l’évasion de Gabrielle lui était encore inconnue.
—Voici monsieur mon fils, dit le vieux duc en prenant Étienne par la main et le présentant aux dames.
Étienne les salua sans mot dire. La comtesse et mademoiselle de Grandlieu échangèrent un regard qui n’échappa point au vieillard.
—Votre fille sera mal partagée, dit-il à voix basse, n’est-ce pas là votre pensée?
—Je pense tout le contraire, mon cher duc, répondit la mère en souriant.
La marquise de Noirmoutier qui accompagnait sa sœur se prit à rire finement. Ce rire perça le cœur d’Étienne, que la vue de la grande demoiselle avait déjà terrifié.
—Hé! bien, monsieur le duc, lui dit son père à voix basse et d’un air enjoué, ne vous ai-je pas trouvé là un beau moule? Que ditesvous de ce brin de fille, mon chérubin?
Le vieux duc ne mettait pas en doute l’obéissance de son fils, Étienne était pour lui l’enfant de sa mère, la même pâte docile au
doigt.
—Qu’il ait un enfant et qu’il crève! pensait le vieillard, peu m’en chault.
—Mon père, dit l’enfant d’une voix douce, je ne vous comprends pas.
—Venez chez vous, j’ai deux mots à vous dire, fit le duc en passant dans la chambre d’honneur.
Étienne suivit son père. Les trois dames, émues par un mouvement de curiosité que partagea le baron d’Artagnon, se promenèrent dans cette grande salle de manière à se trouver groupées à la porte de la chambre d’honneur que le duc avait laissée entr’ouverte.
—Cher Benjamin, dit le vieillard en adoucissant d’abord sa voix, je t’ai choisi pour femme cette grande et belle demoiselle; elle est l’héritière des domaines d’une branche cadette de la maison de Grandlieu, bonne et vieille noblesse du duché de Bretagne. Ainsi, sois gentil compagnon, et rappelle-toi les plus jolies choses de tes livres pour leur dire des galanteries avant de leur en faire.
—Mon père, le premier devoir d’un gentilhomme n’est-il pas de tenir sa parole?
—Oui!
—Hé! bien, quand je vous ai pardonné la mort de ma mère, morte ici par le fait de son mariage avec vous, ne m’avez-vous pas promis de ne jamais contrarier mes désirs? Moi-même je t’obéirai comme au Dieu de la famille, avez-vous dit. Je n’entreprends rien sur vous, je ne demande que d’avoir mon libre arbitre dans une affaire où il s’en va de ma vie, et qui me regarde seul: mon mariage.
—J’entendais, dit le vieillard en sentant tout son sang lui monter au visage, que tu ne t’opposerais pas à la continuation de notre noble race.
—Vous ne m’avez point fait de condition, dit Étienne. Je ne sais ce que l’amour a de commun avec une race; mais ce que je sais
bien, c’est que j’aime la fille de votre vieil ami Beauvouloir, et petitefille de votre amie la Belle Romaine.
—Mais elle est morte, répondit le vieux colosse d’un air à la fois sombre et railleur qui annonçait l’intention où il était de la faire disparaître.
Il y eut un moment de profond silence.
Le vieillard aperçut les trois dames et le baron d’Artagnon. En cet instant suprême, Étienne, dont le sens de l’ouïe était si délicat, entendit dans la bibliothèque la pauvre Gabrielle qui, voulant faire savoir à son ami qu’elle s’y était renfermée, chantait ces paroles:
Une hermine
Est moins fine, Le lis a moins de fraîcheur.
L’enfant maudit, que l’horrible phrase de son père avait plongé dans les abîmes de la mort, revint à la surface de la vie sur les ailes de cette poésie. Quoique déjà ce mouvement de terreur, effacé si rapidement, lui eût brisé le cœur, il rassembla ses forces, releva la tête, regarda son père en face pour la première fois de sa vie, échangea mépris pour mépris, et dit avec l’accent de la haine:—Un gentilhomme ne doit pas mentir! D’un bond il sauta vers la porte opposée à celle du salon et cria:—Gabrielle!
Tout à coup, la suave créature apparut dans l’ombre comme un lis dans les feuillages, et trembla devant ce groupe de femmes moqueuses, instruites des amours d’Étienne. Semblable à ces nuages qui portent la foudre, le vieux duc, arrivé à un degré de rage qui ne se décrit point, se détachait sur le front brillant que produisaient les riches habillements de ces trois dames de cour. Entre la prolongation de sa race et une mésalliance, tout autre homme aurait hésité; mais il se rencontra dans ce vieil homme indompté la férocité qui jusqu’alors avait décidé toutes les difficultés humaines; il tirait à tout propos l’épée, comme le seul remède qu’il connût aux nœuds gordiens de la vie. Dans cette circonstance où le bouleversement de ses idées était au comble, le naturel devait triompher. Deux fois pris en flagrant délit de mensonge par un être abhorré, par son enfant maudit mille fois, et plus que jamais maudit au moment où sa faiblesse méprisée, et pour lui la plus méprisable, triomphait d’une omnipotence infaillible jusqu’alors, il n’y eut plus en lui ni père, ni homme: le tigre sortit de l’antre où il se cachait. Le vieillard, que la vengeance rendit jeune, jeta sur le plus ravissant couple d’anges qui eût consenti à mettre les pieds sur la terre, un regard pesant de haine et qui assassinait déjà.
—Eh! bien, crevez tous! Toi, sale avorton, la preuve de ma honte. Toi, dit-il à Gabrielle, misérable gourgandine à langue de vipère qui as empoisonné ma maison!
Ces paroles portèrent dans le cœur des deux enfants la terreur dont elles étaient chargées. Au moment où Étienne vit la large main de son père armée d’un fer et levée sur Gabrielle, il mourut, et Gabrielle tomba morte en voulant le retenir.
Le vieillard ferma la porte avec rage, et dit à mademoiselle de Grandlieu:—Je vous épouserai, moi!
—Et vous êtes assez vert-galant pour avoir une belle lignée, dit la comtesse à l’oreille de ce vieillard qui avait servi sous sept rois de France.
Paris, 1831-1836
LES MARANA.
A MADAME LA COMTESSE MERLIN.
Malgré la discipline que le maréchal Suchet avait introduite dans son corps d’armée, il ne put empêcher un premier moment de trouble et de désordre à la prise de Tarragone. Selon quelques militaires de bonne foi, cette ivresse de la victoire ressembla singulièrement à un pillage, que le maréchal sut d’ailleurs promptement réprimer. L’ordre rétabli, chaque régiment parqué dans son quartier, le commandant de place nommé, vinrent les administrateurs militaires. La ville prit alors une physionomie métisse. Si l’on y organisa tout à la française, on laissa les Espagnols libres de persister, in petto, dans leurs goûts nationaux. Ce premier moment de pillage qui dura pendant une période de temps assez difficile à déterminer, eut, comme tous les événements sublunaires, une cause facile à révéler. Il se trouvait à l’armée du maréchal un régiment presque entièrement composé d’Italiens, et commandé par un certain colonel Eugène, homme d’une bravoure extraordinaire, un second Murat, qui, pour s’être mis trop tard en guerre, n’eut ni grand-duché de Berg, ni royaume de Naples, ni balle à Pizzo. S’il n’obtint pas de couronnes, il fut très-bien placé pour obtenir des balles, et il ne serait pas étonnant qu’il en eût rencontré quelques-unes. Ce régiment avait eu pour éléments les débris de la légion italienne. Cette légion était pour l’Italie ce que sont pour la France les bataillons coloniaux. Son dépôt, établi à l’île d’Elbe, avait servi à déporter honorablement et les fils de famille qui donnaient des craintes pour leur avenir, et ces grands hommes manqués, que
la société marque d’avance au fer chaud, en les appelant des mauvais sujets. Tous gens incompris pour la plupart, dont l’existence peut devenir, ou belle au gré d’un sourire de femme qui les relève de leur brillante ornière, ou épouvantable à la fin d’une orgie, sous l’influence de quelque méchante réflexion échappée à leurs compagnons d’ivresse. Napoléon avait donc incorporé ces hommes d’énergie dans le 6e de ligne, en espérant les métamorphoser presque tous en généraux, sauf les déchets occasionnés par le boulet; mais les calculs de l’empereur ne furent parfaitement justes que relativement aux ravages de la mort. Ce régiment, souvent décimé, toujours le même, acquit une grande réputation de valeur sur la scène militaire, et la plus détestable de toutes dans la vie privée. Au siége de Tarragone, les Italiens perdirent leur célèbre capitaine Bianchi, le même qui, pendant la campagne, avait parié manger le cœur d’une sentinelle espagnole, et le mangea. Ce divertissement de bivouac est raconté ailleurs (S V ), et il s’y trouve sur le 6e de ligne certains détails qui confirment tout ce qu’on en dit ici. Quoique Bianchi fût le prince des démons incarnés auxquels ce régiment devait sa double réputation, il avait cependant cette espèce d’honneur chevaleresque qui, à l’armée, fait excuser les plus grands excès. Pour tout dire en un mot, il eût été, dans l’autre siècle, un admirable flibustier. Quelques jours auparavant, il s’était distingué par une action d’éclat que le maréchal avait voulu reconnaître. Bianchi refusa grade, pension, décoration nouvelle, et réclama pour toute récompense la faveur de monter le premier à l’assaut de Tarragone. Le maréchal accorda la requête et oublia sa promesse; mais Bianchi le fit souvenir de Bianchi. L’enragé capitaine planta, le premier, le drapeau français sur la muraille, et y fut tué par un moine.
Cette digression historique était nécessaire pour expliquer comment le 6e de ligne entra le premier dans Tarragone, et pourquoi le désordre, assez naturel dans une ville emportée de vive force, dégénéra si promptement en un léger pillage.
Ce régiment comptait deux officiers peu remarquables parmi ces hommes de fer, mais qui joueront néanmoins dans cette histoire, par juxta-position, un rôle assez important.
Le premier, capitaine d’habillement, officier moitié militaire, moitié civil, passait, en style soldatesque, pour faire ses affaires. Il se prétendait brave, se vantait, dans le monde, d’appartenir au 6e de ligne, savait relever sa moustache en homme prêt à tout briser, mais ses camarades ne l’estimaient point. Sa fortune le rendait prudent. Aussi l’avait-on, pour deux raisons, surnommé le capitaine des corbeaux. D’abord, il sentait la poudre d’une lieue, et fuyait les coups de fusil à tire-d’aile; puis ce sobriquet renfermait encore un innocent calembour militaire, que du reste il méritait, et dont un autre se serait fait gloire. Le capitaine Montefiore, de l’illustre famille de Montefiore de Milan, mais à qui les lois du royaume d’Italie interdisaient de porter son titre, était un des plus jolis garçons de l’armée. Cette beauté pouvait être une des causes occultes de sa prudence aux jours de bataille. Une blessure qui lui eût déformé le nez, coupé le front, ou couturé les joues, aurait détruit l’une des plus belles figures italiennes de laquelle jamais femme ait rêveusement dessiné les proportions délicates. Son visage, assez semblable au type qui a fourni le jeune Turc mourant à Girodet dans son tableau de la Révolte du Caire, était un de ces visages mélancoliques dont les femmes sont presque toujours les dupes. Le marquis de Montefiore possédait des biens substitués, il avait engagé tous les revenus pour un certain nombre d’années, afin de payer des escapades italiennes qui ne se concevraient point à Paris. Il s’était ruiné à soutenir un théâtre de Milan, pour imposer au public une mauvaise cantatrice qui, disait-il, l’aimait à la folie. Le capitaine Montefiore avait donc un très-bel avenir, et ne se souciait pas de le jouer contre un méchant morceau de ruban rouge. Si ce n’était pas un brave, c’était au moins un philosophe, et il avait des précédents, s’il est permis de parler ici notre langage parlementaire. Philippe II ne jura-t-il pas, à la bataille de Saint-Quentin, de ne plus se retrouver au feu, excepté celui des bûchers de l’inquisition; et le duc d’Albe ne l’approuva-t-il pas de penser que le plus mauvais commerce du monde était le troc involontaire d’une couronne contre une balle de plomb? Donc, Montefiore était philippiste en sa qualité de marquis; philippiste en sa qualité de joli garçon; et, au demeurant, aussi profond politique que pouvait l’être Philippe II. Il se consolait de son surnom et de la mésestime du régiment en pensant que ses camarades étaient des
chenapans, dont l’opinion pourrait bien un jour ne pas obtenir grande créance, si par hasard ils survivaient à cette guerre d’extermination. Puis, sa figure était un brevet de valeur; il se voyait forcément nommé colonel, soit par quelque phénomène de faveur féminine, soit par une habile métamorphose du capitaine d’habillement en officier d’ordonnance, et de l’officier d’ordonnance en aide de camp de quelque complaisant maréchal. Pour lui, la gloire était une simple question d’habillement. Alors, un jour, je ne sais quel journal dirait en parlant de lui, le brave colonel Montefiore, etc. Alors il aurait cent mille scudi de rente, épouserait une fille de haut lieu, et personne n’oserait ni contester sa bravoure ni vérifier ses blessures. Enfin, le capitaine Montefiore avait un ami dans la personne du quartiermaître, Provençal né aux environs de Nice, et nommé Diard.
Un ami, soit au bagne, soit dans une mansarde d’artiste, console de bien des malheurs. Or, Montefiore et Diard étaient deux philosophes qui se consolaient de la vie par l’entente du vice, comme deux artistes endorment les douleurs de leur vie par les espérances de la gloire. Tous deux voyaient la guerre dans ses résultats, non dans son action, et ils donnaient tout simplement aux morts le nom de niais. Le hasard en avait fait des soldats, tandis qu’ils auraient dû se trouver assis autour des tapis verts d’un congrès. La nature avait jeté Montefiore dans le moule des Rizzio; et Diard, dans le creuset des diplomates. Tous deux étaient doués de cette organisation fébrile, mobile, à demi féminine, également forte pour le bien et pour le mal; mais dont il peut émaner, suivant le caprice de ces singuliers tempéraments, un crime aussi bien qu’une action généreuse, un acte de grandeur d’âme ou une lâcheté. Leur sort dépend à tout moment de la pression plus ou moins vive produite sur leur appareil nerveux par des passions violentes et fugitives. Diard était un assez bon comptable, mais aucun soldat ne lui aurait confié ni sa bourse ni son testament, peut-être par suite de l’antipathie qu’ont les militaires contre les bureaucrates. Le quartiermaître ne manquait ni de bravoure ni d’une sorte de générosité juvénile, sentiments dont se dépouillent certains hommes en vieillissant, en raisonnant ou en calculant. Journalier comme peut l’être la beauté d’une femme blonde, Diard était du reste vantard, grand parleur, et parlait de tout. Il se disait artiste, et ramassait, à
l’imitation de deux célèbres généraux, les ouvrages d’art, uniquement, assurait-il, afin de n’en pas priver la postérité. Ses camarades eussent été fort embarrassés d’asseoir un jugement vrai sur lui. Beaucoup d’entre eux, habitués à recourir à sa bourse, suivant l’occurrence, le croyaient riche; mais il était joueur, et les joueurs n’ont rien en propre. Il était joueur autant que Montefiore, et tous les officiers jouaient avec eux: parce que, à la honte des hommes, il n’est pas rare de voir autour d’un tapis vert des gens qui, la partie finie, ne se saluent pas et ne s’estiment point. Montefiore avait été l’adversaire de Bianchi dans le pari du cœur espagnol.
Montefiore et Diard se trouvèrent aux derniers rangs lors de l’assaut, mais les plus avancés au cœur de la ville, dès qu’elle fut prise. Il arrive de ces hasards dans les mêlées. Seulement, les deux amis étaient coutumiers du fait. Se soutenant l’un l’autre, ils s’engagèrent bravement à travers un labyrinthe de petites rues étroites et sombres, allant tous deux à leurs affaires, l’un cherchant des madones peintes, l’autre des madones vivantes. En je ne sais quel endroit de Tarragone, Diard reconnut à l’architecture du porche un couvent dont la porte était enfoncée, et sauta dans le cloître pour y arrêter la fureur des soldats. Il y arriva fort à propos, car il empêcha deux Parisiens de fusiller une Vierge de l’Albane qu’il leur acheta, malgré les moustaches dont l’avaient décorée les deux voltigeurs par fanatisme militaire. Montefiore, resté seul, aperçut en face du couvent la maison d’un marchand de draperies d’où partit un coup de feu tiré sur lui, au moment où, la regardant de haut en bas, il y fut arrêté par une foudroyante œillade qu’il échangea vivement avec une jeune fille curieuse, dont la tête s’était glissée dans le coin d’une jalousie. Tarragone prise d’assaut, Tarragone en colère, faisant feu par toutes les croisées; Tarragone violée, les cheveux épars, à demi nue, ses rues flamboyantes, inondées de soldats français tués ou tuant, valait bien un regard, le regard d’une Espagnole intrépide. N’était-ce pas le combat de taureaux agrandi? Montefiore oublia le pillage, et n’entendit plus, pendant un moment, ni les cris, ni la mousquetade, ni les grondements de l’artillerie. Le profil de cette Espagnole était ce qu’il avait vu de plus divinement délicieux, lui, libertin d’Italie, lui lassé d’Italiennes, lassé de femmes, et rêvant une femme impossible, parce qu’il était las des femmes. Il
put encore tressaillir, lui, le débauché, qui avait gaspillé sa fortune pour réaliser les mille folies, les mille passions d’un homme jeune, blasé; le plus abominable monstre que puisse engendrer notre société. Il lui passa par la tête une bonne idée que lui inspira sans doute le coup de fusil du boutiquier patriote; ce fut de mettre le feu à la maison. Mais il se trouvait seul, sans moyens d’action; le centre de la bataille était sur la grande place où quelques entêtés se défendaient encore. D’ailleurs, il lui survint une meilleure idée. Diard sortit du couvent, Montefiore ne lui dit rien de sa découverte, et alla faire plusieurs courses avec lui dans la ville. Mais, le lendemain, le capitaine italien fut militairement logé chez le marchand de draperies. N’était-ce pas la demeure naturelle d’un capitaine d’habillement?
La maison de ce bon Espagnol était composée au rez-dechaussée d’une vaste boutique sombre, extérieurement armée de gros barreaux en fer, comme le sont à Paris les vieux magasins de la rue des Lombards. Cette boutique communiquait avec un parloir éclairé par une cour intérieure, grande chambre où respirait tout l’esprit du moyen âge: vieux tableaux enfumés, vieilles tapisseries, antique brazero, le chapeau à plumes suspendu à un clou, le fusil des guérillas et le manteau de Bartholo. La cuisine attenait à ce lieu de réunion, à cette pièce unique où l’on mangeait, où l’on se réchauffait à la sourde lueur du brasier, en fumant des cigares, en discourant pour animer les cœurs à la haine contre les Français. Des brocs d’argent, la vaisselle précieuse, ornaient une crédence, à la mode ancienne. Mais le jour, parcimonieusement distribué, ne laissait briller que faiblement les objets éclatants; et, comme dans un tableau de l’école hollandaise, là tout devenait brun, même les figures. Entre la boutique et ce salon si beau de couleur et de vie patriarcale, se trouvait un escalier assez obscur qui conduisait à un magasin où des jours, habilement pratiqués, permettaient d’examiner les étoffes. Puis, au-dessus était l’appartement du marchand et de sa femme. Enfin, le logement de l’apprenti et d’une servante avait été ménagé dans une mansarde établie sous un toit en saillie sur la rue, et soutenue par des arcs-boutants qui prêtaient à ce logis une physionomie bizarre; mais leurs chambres furent prises par le marchand et par sa femme, qui abandonnèrent à
l’officier leur propre appartement, sans doute afin d’éviter toute querelle.
Montefiore se donna pour un ancien sujet de l’Espagne, persécuté par Napoléon et qui le servait contre son gré; ces demimensonges eurent le succès qu’il en attendait. Il fut invité à partager le repas de la famille, comme le voulaient son nom, sa naissance et son titre. Montefiore avait ses raisons en cherchant à capter la bienveillance du marchand; il sentait sa madone, comme l’ogre sentait la chair fraîche du petit Poucet et de ses frères. Malgré la confiance qu’il sut inspirer au drapier, celui-ci garda le plus profond secret sur cette madone; et non-seulement le capitaine n’aperçut aucune trace de jeune fille durant la première journée qu’il passa sous le toit de l’honnête Espagnol, mais encore il ne put entendre aucun bruit ni saisir aucun indice qui lui en révélât la présence dans cet antique logis. Cependant tout résonnait si bien entre les planchers de cette construction, presque entièrement bâtie en bois, que pendant le silence des premières heures de la nuit, Montefiore espéra deviner en quel lieu se trouvait cachée la jeune inconnue. Imaginant qu’elle était la fille unique de ces vieilles gens, il la crut consignée par eux dans les mansardes, où ils avaient établi leur domicile pour tout le temps de l’occupation. Mais aucune révélation ne trahit la cachette de ce précieux trésor. L’officier resta bien le visage collé aux petits carreaux en losange, et retenus par des branches de plomb, qui donnaient sur la cour intérieure, noire enceinte de murailles; mais il n’y aperçut aucune lueur, si ce n’est celle que projetaient les fenêtres de la chambre où étaient les deux vieux époux, toussant, allant, venant, parlant. De la jeune fille, pas même l’ombre. Montefiore était trop fin pour risquer l’avenir de sa passion en se hasardant à sonder nuitamment la maison, ou à frapper doucement aux portes. Découvert par ce chaud patriote, soupçonneux comme doit l’être un Espagnol père et marchand de draperies, c’eût été se perdre infailliblement. Le capitaine résolut donc d’attendre avec patience, espérant tout du temps et de l’imperfection des hommes, qui finissent toujours, même les scélérats, à plus forte raison les honnêtes gens, par oublier quelque précaution. Le lendemain, il découvrit où couchait la servante, en voyant une espèce de hamac dans la cuisine. Quant à l’apprenti, il
dormait sur les comptoirs de la boutique. Pendant cette seconde journée, au souper, Montefiore, en maudissant Napoléon, réussit à dérider le front soucieux de son hôte, Espagnol grave, noir visage, semblable à ceux que l’on sculptait jadis sur le manche des rebecs; et sa femme retrouva un sourire gai de haine dans les plis de sa vieille figure. La lampe et les reflets du brazero éclairaient fantastiquement cette noble salle. L’hôtesse venait d’offrir un cigaretto à leur demi-compatriote. En ce moment, Montefiore entendit le frôlement d’une robe et la chute d’une chaise, derrière une tapisserie.
