Spring, Joel. (2001). Globalization and Educational Rights: An Intercivilizational Analysis

	Spring, Joel. (2001). Globalization and Educational Rights: An Intercivilizational Analysis. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pp. 188 $21.00 (Paper)     ISBN 0-8058-3882-1 $49.95 (Cloth)     ISBN 0-8058-3881-3 Reviewed by Mengying Li Arizona State University June 24, 2003 What are educational rights? Is there a single definition that can be agreed upon in cross-national contexts? In the book Globalization and Educational Rights: An Intercivilizational Analysis, Joel Spring explores how educational rights are defined and interpreted in the world’s four major civilizational contexts, namely Confucian, Islamic, Western, and Hindu. Taking educational rights as a global concept, Joel Spring examines the contributions of different cultural and educational traditions to educational rights and considers its impact on those civilizations. This reciprocal interaction shapes his conclusion on educational rights. In the preface, Spring explains that his original motivation to study educational rights from an intercivilizational perspective was sparked by Asian scholars’ questioning the West’s self-appointed role as the gatekeeper of human rights. He indicates clearly that his statement on educational rights is “intended to serve as a model for the inclusion of educational rights in national constitutions” (p. 1). The individual chapters provide a general description of the four major civilizations and their contexts/contributions to education rights. Spring focuses on two central themes: educational equality, and freedom of speech. Spring acts as a guide, by walking readers through the various meanings of educational rights and by immersing readers in the cultural traditions of each civilization. This allows readers to understand educational rights as being both a consequence of global flow and local cultures. Chapter one illustrates why an intercivilizational analysis of education rights is necessary and important. Like other human rights, educational rights inevitably are the product of tension among the global flow of ideas and different traditions of civilization. Spring notes how each of the four major civilizations have contributed to or inhibited the global discourse on education given their conducive or inhibitive stances to educational equality and freedom of speech. Unfortunately, the current globalization of culture has given rise to a misunderstanding of educational rights. Moreover, the lingering legacy of colonialism sometimes has been used to justify the interventionism of Western countries’ in the affairs of non-Western nations. Education rights and notions of equality can also become narrowly construed along Western ideological lines as merely ensuring the freedom to compete and consume. Consequently, it is of great urgency and significance to discover the contributions of different civilizations to the concept of educational rights, and reaffirm its intercivilizational nature. The subsequent chapters delve into individual civilizations and provide a historical and contemporary overview of their understandings of educational rights. Spring also reviews of each civilization’s legal and constitutional provisions that relate to educational rights. Chapter two analyzes that thought of Confucius, Mencius and Mao, as background to the socialist modernization of China. Originally, Spring contends that the Confucian concept of equality was interpreted as the equality in moral capacity. From this perspective, all people are seen as being born with the equal ability to be moral. Inequality arises as people make unequal efforts to learn and develop their moral capacities. Later, Mencius related equality and freedom to social duties. By ascribing different social roles to different groups of people, his interpretation of equality and freedom actually justified the inequality among people with different social statuses and opened the door to gender inequality. During the period of colonial aggression, equality was interpreted as equality of work experience and equality of social duties. Spring contends that, after the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), Mao Zedong extended the concept of equality to include the moral obligation for all people to think of others as equal. Mao also maintained that all social duties hold equal value, thus eliminating the inequality caused by unequal values carried by different social duties. During the current social modernization, the Confucian concept of educational rights continues to be highlighted. Equality is linked to social duties, but free speech is limited by the requirement to speak out for morality and justice. With the goal of maintaining social harmony, freedom of speech is seriously compromised because only the government is in the position to judge whether speech is for justice or not. According to Spring, the major contribution made by Chinese civilization is to combine the notions of rights and duties. As stated in the Chinese Constitution, all people “have the right as well as the duty to receive an education” (p. 53). In this chapter, Spring provides a good overview of educational rights as a historical construct. However, equality and freedom in the social modernization of China seems to be a bigger issue than he can easily handle. His discussion appears rather disorganized and hastily done. Interestingly, Spring shows surprising enthusiasm for the phrase “red and expert” (p. 49), which was a highly ideologically-loaded phrase coined in the 1950s, which has subsequently become dead vocabulary in contemporary China. “Red” in this term basically referred to loyalty to the Communist Party, and “expert” meant the development of elite professional skills. Both terms are embedded in the historical context of class struggle, which dominated the newly established PRC. It seems curious that Spring now employs this term persistently and enthusiastically, which seems very anachronistic given China’s current focus on economic construction. In chapter three, Spring discusses equality and freedom in Islamic education. Based on the Qur’an’s position as absolute authority, the Islamic countries reject natural law and individual rights proposed by Europeans, dismissing them as part of a Western plot. In Islamic countries, laws are derived from religion. Education is subordinated to religious goals. As a result, according to Spring, freedom and equality are limited by religious dogma. Education takes the role of training students’ to bolster their allegiance to Islamic culture and government. Although in some countries, like Iran, the Constitution guarantees equal educational opportunity and equality, it does not recognize the rights of minority cultures and languages in education. The equality of women is denied as well. The right to education under Islam, as distinct from non-Islamic civilizations, is regarded a religious right or human right within the religious framework. Chapter four examines the Western tradition of educational equality and freedom of speech. Unlike other civilizations, the Western tradition sees human rights as derivative of natural rights. Unfortunately, as originally formulated by John Locke, rights do not eliminate inequality. Instead, these were formulated only as the rights of “men.” Spring argues that both John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau denied the equality and freedom of women. Although Locke contributed to the development of the notions of equality and freedom by claiming the right to revolt against unjust government, religious concerns and public good limited his concept of freedom. The idea of equality was compromised by Lock’s acceptance of inequality in wealth based on treating women as property. According to Spring, Rousseau, though theoretically against inequality of wealth, seemingly accepted it in his educational philosophizing. His idea of the “general will” compromises equality by subjecting the general will to any group who claim to determine what general will is. Spring contends that in order to justify the inequality in gender, race and economic wealth, the term “equality of opportunity” has been put forward to cloak the underlying inequalities, which are fostered by school and legal systems. When it comes to freedom of speech, all Western constitutions grant free speech as a right. However, it has been limited by the requirements not to interfere with public safety and order. The freedom of choice of schooling does little to improve the situation of unequal access to school. In conclusion, the natural rights arguments do not provide an adequate basis for making education a human right, and the concept of freedom can easily be compromised in Western tradition, just as it can be in Confucian and Islamic traditions. Spring’s first four chapters left me with a sense that each civilization actually nurtures an environment to foster and implement their own “game rules” for promoting educational equality and freedom. For example, in China, when a Chinese publicly criticizes president, the chance is that the person will be put into jail (if he is put into jail) with the charge of “slandering the image of the national leader”, which becomes a public shame issue. Though in nature this is an issue relevant to freedom of speech, it differs in how each civilizational structure hinders the implementation process of the rules of the game. In the United States, the maintenance of a harmonious social order depends on the legal system, against which any disruptive behavior to the society is evaluated as a violation of the law. Thus, charges, even if not relevant enough to lead to prosecution, are intended to fit into a legal framework, which provides the justification for the possible punishments. In Chinese tradition, rites and public shame remain very powerful and are included in juridical tradition. Thus, to sully one’s image in public is thought to be a major humiliation, which explains why the person is punished in the name of “slandering the image of the national leader.” The underlying theme is following the Chinese game rules. Otherwise, you are out of the game. In Chapter five, Spring demonstrates how India contributes to and borrows from the global flow of equality and freedom. Hinduism’s caste system, which has generously lent support to economic, social and gender inequality, largely restricts the traditional concept of equality in India. How can the barriers of Hinduism be overcome in order to realize equality? Spring answers this question well by examining the different ways three prominent figures of modern India--Ambedkar, Gandhi, and Nehru--approached the issue of inequality. Ambedkar accused caste system of being the origin for the evil of inequality. He argued that equality cannot be obtained unless the caste system is abolished. His pursuit of equality led to his conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism. For Gandhi, modern violence was the central issue. He borrowed from theosophy to reform Hinduism by demanding equality between the castes. Nehru’s path to equality turned out to be socialism, which he believed would be able to bring economic equality and equality of opportunity The influence of Western concepts of equality on Indian civilization is particularly apparent. For example, Ambedkar’s struggle for equality of the untouchables in India referenced the fight against slavery in America; Gandhi’s nonviolent movement was influenced by the civil right movement in the United States. Similarly, India’s efforts to increase literacy rates for the lower castes and for women reflect the impact of Western concepts of equality and freedom. Based on Spring’s intercivilizational analysis and his examination of national constitutions, in chapter six he recommends amendments to the constitutions of the world’s nations. Spring believes that his amendments will help provide a corrective to, or improvement on, the growing uniformity of global education. These propositions encompass the natural rights and human capital concerns of the West, the religious concerns of Islam, the spiritual and equalitarian concerns of Indian, and the stress on social harmony and public order in China. (p. 161). Spring is clearly aware that constitutional right to education is far from enough to realize equality of education, so he reduces his goal to ensuring equality of educational opportunity, which is the guideline for his proposed provisions. Overall, Spring’s book presents an overview of the major civilizations in the world. He does an excellent job of developing the breadth of his argument, but the depth of analysis is limited by the span of history and complexity of the traditions he attempts to critique. Thus, the book is more like a warm-up exercise for those who are interested in the intercivilizational analysis of education equality and freedom. As Spring states in his preface, the book is intended to introduce perspective on educational rights for consideration for national constitutions. Lofty as the goal is, it is doubtful that this heuristic exercise will directly influence legislators or national constitutions. A major strength of this book is that Spring manages to address different meanings of educational rights through his intercivilizational analysis. Spring does well in walking the line between being an apologist for the West or uncritical advocate for non-Western traditions. He avoids the extremes of overly criticizing the inadequacies of the Western tradition of educational rights without exaggerating the contributions of Confucianism, Islam and Hinduism. He assumes a critical stance to all the major civilizations and indicates the positive as well as negative aspects of the quest for equality and freedom. It is impressive that Spring sees each individual civilization making some contribution to the global flow of educational thought in different but significant ways. Despite the clear structure of the whole book, some of the individual chapters are organized in rather confusing ways. For example, in addressing educational rights from the perspective of the Chinese civilization in chapter two, Spring ends up forcing various Chinese ideas into the framework of Confucianism. His selection of topics appears to be ad hoc, as does his assumption that Confucianism should provide the lens for their pertinence to equality and freedom. Spring’s interpretation overreaches as he tries to explain everything, including an alleged “Chinese brand of Marxism”, a socialist market economy, and the emergence of private schools, all as manifestations of Confucianism, while giving little regard to whether all of these can be reduced to some latent power of the Confucian tradition. Ultimately, Spring’s haste to cover such a huge topic in such a short space undermines his project. It is apparent that any single chapter in this book could be developed into a thick book. The project is well motivated but the space allotted is insufficient for the ambitious goal required by an “intercivilizational” analysis. In the end, Spring oversimplifies his arguments and comes to conclusions in too much haste. He raises many important issues, but fails to develop them adequately. For example, in chapter two Spring contends that equality of educational opportunity is linked to self-government and citizenship in constitutionalism, without providing sufficient argument or supporting evidence to this argument. The same occurs in his sketchy discussion of the different approaches employed by Japan and China in reaction to Western technology. In conclusion, Spring’s book is the first to explore the meaning of equality and freedom of education in a global context. It provides a useful introduction and overview of different perspectives on educational rights from the major civilizations. It is a useful starting point for the analysis of comparative and universal educational rights, and hopefully, will spark more in-depth analysis of those civilizations with which he deals in such haste.