Education%20and%20Training%20and%20the%20New%20Public%20Diplomacy

1
Education and Training and the New Public
Diplomacy

• Eleanor J. Brown, W. John Morgan and Simon
  McGrath
• UNESCO Centre for Comparative Education Research
• University of Nottingham

2
The Changing Nature of Public Diplomacy

• Traditional Diplomacy ? few few style
• Open Diplomacy ? few many style
• New Public Diplomacy ? many many style
• Demos Report on Cultural Diplomacy

3
Cultural Exchange and Partnerships in Education

• Language Teaching
• Academic Exchanges
• Professional development links
• Teaching of the global dimension in schools

4
International Education Aims

• Build tolerance and understanding
• Communication
• Developing relationships between nations
• Recognize and appreciate diversity
• Prepare young people for life in a global
  community and economy

5
Aims of this paper

• Examine connections between international
  education and training and new public diplomacy
• Consider implications for policy at national and
  international levels
• Look at the traditional relationship between
  education and cultural relations to see if it has
  changed in light of new trends in public diplomacy

6
Public Diplomacy

• Propaganda
• Nation branding
• These are about the communication of information
  and ideas to foreign publics with a view to
  changing their attitudes towards to originating
  country (Melissen 2005 16)
• Cultural relations
• This has traditionally been close to diplomacy,
  although distinct from it, but recent
  developments in both fields now reveal
  considerable overlap between the two concepts
  (ibid 16)
• There is now a shift toward the cultural
  relations and away from propaganda

7
The Hierarchical Nature of Traditional Public
Diplomacy

• Work aiming to inform and engage individuals and
  organizations overseas, in order to improve
  understanding of and influence for the United
  Kingdom in a manner consistent with governmental
  medium and long term goals. (Carter 2005)

8
The Changing Environment

• Multi-actor international environment
• Civil society organizations
• - NGOs
• - Trans-national advocacy networks
• International Organizations
• Cyber literate public
• More international travel and business
• ? This leads to a demand for public diplomacy
  that is not so bound to the raison detat and
  which acknowledges the advantages of mutually
  beneficial and equal partnerships

9
New network based public diplomacy

• A network based model that is more than a
  bilateral mechanism for the dissemination of a
  particular agenda can benefit from engagement
  with participants from various civil societies,
  each contributing to common, beneficial outcomes
  (Fisher 2006 4)

10
New Public Diplomacy

• Mutual benefit
• Equal participation
• Network based
• Not hierarchical
• Cooperation
• Shared values
• Two-way street
• Listening as well as telling

11
From hierarchy to network

• There seems to be more support for the idea that
  the future of international cooperation for peace
  and development can only truly be achieved
  through genuine cooperation and shared values and
  these can never be enforced successfully in a
  hierarchical way.

12
Power and Cooperation

• Hard power ? Soft power ? New public diplomacy
  Cooperation and Facilitation
• Telling ? Listening
• New network based public diplomacy will be better
  received because it is a two-way street
  (Melissen 2005 18) unlike propaganda it listens
  as well as tells and is therefore more likely to
  build trust and respect than the traditional
  models.

13
The importance of Education and Training

• In the new many-many environment of public
  diplomacy education and training is vital because
  the general populations attitude to
  international issues and cultural affairs is key
  to projecting a positive image of the country.

14
The Internationalization of Higher Education

• International students
• Global partnerships
• Links and collaborative projects
• Campuses overseas
• Educational exchange

15
Britain and Brazil

• Study of links between Britain and Brazil
• Set out to replace the traditional North-South
  relationship of donor and recipient with genuine
  academic partnerships
• Do partnerships help maintain and perpetuate
  colonial links?
• Use of language
• Understanding strengths and weaknesses

16
Education and Neo-colonialism

• Neocolonialism is the deliberate policies of the
  industrialized countries to maintain domination
  (Canto Hannah 2001 28)
• Education is one essential element of the
  neo-colonial structure. It helps to maintain and
  to some extent perpetuate colonial links. (ibid
  29)

17
Equal Partnerships

• Existence of previous knowledge of the other
  partner to establish realistic expectations
• Genuine sharing of each others experiences
• Application of each others knowledge rather than
  a one-way transfer
• (Canto Hannah 2001 32)

18
Conclusion of the Canto and Hannah Study

• In each of the case studies examined, vertical
  or traditional elements continue to exist
  alongside horizontal or advanced elements,
  representing neither a neo-colonial nor an equal
  partnership, but elements of both. (Canto
  Hannah 2001 37)

19
School links and Partnerships

• Global citizenship
• Links and the international school award
• Ambassadors of the future
• Global gateway
• British Council, UNESCO ASPnet,
• The meeting of cultures

20
The importance of global citizenship

• We are no longer represented just by our
  leaders. Knowingly or not, we are all
  representatives of our countries and we have the
  tools to make an impact. We are all diplomats
  now. It is therefore critical that we ensure that
  our British citizens especially young people
  have the skills and capacity to cope with this
  new era of global cultural connections (Bound et
  al 2007 76).

21
Global Citizenship

• Important part of the curriculum
• Taught across a range of subjects
• Equipping young people to be good ambassadors
• Seeing things from a world perspective

22
Key Concepts of the Global Dimension in School

• Global Citizenship
• Conflict resolution
• Diversity
• Human Rights
• Interdependence
• Social Justice
• Sustainable development
• Values and Perceptions

23
International Linking

• Partner schools all over the world
• Conduct projects with students in far away places
• Take an interest in developments in parts of the
  world where there is an international connection
• asking questions and developing critical
  thinking skills, acknowledging the complexity
  of global issues, revealing the global part of
  everyday local life, understanding how we
  relate to the environment and to each other as
  human beings (Oxfam 2006 3)

24
Cultural Sensitivity

• Cultures are meeting mingling and morphing
  (Bound et al 2007 19) and we must all, as
  citizens, be ready to adapt to this. For this
  reason the international dimension in education
  and training is vital to the new public diplomacy.

25
Aims of the Study

• Does the experience of international partnerships
  in education provide a setting for greater
  cultural awareness and understanding of
  international issues?
• Are such partnerships are a neo-colonial or an
  equal relationship, why this is the case and
  where can improvements be made?
• Are equal partnerships are indeed more
  successful?

26
Hypotheses

• Educational partnership projects are far more
  likely to succeed and build positive attitudes
  and cultural sensitivity if they are genuinely
  mutually beneficial, horizontal and equal
  partnerships. Countries, particularly former
  colonial powers, need to be careful when claiming
  to support mutual links that in practice may be
  neo-colonial activities, serving to maintain the
  status quo. Recommendations on the future of
  academic partnerships will be based on this
  premise.

27
Research

• This will focus initially on British Council
  partnerships in education and training
• It will also be a comparative study of projects
  in Serbia and Jordan

28
Contact details

• Eleanor J. Brown
• Research Associate
• UNESCO Centre for Comparative Education
  Research,School of Education, University of
  Nottingham, Nottingham, NG8 1BB.Tel 44 (115)
  95 14467
• Fax [phone]E-Mail
  eleanor.brown_at_nottingham.ac.ukwww.nottingham.ac.u
  k/education/centres/uccer