Transforming Culture Through Education

Education as a system has been considered as an effective platform for cultural transmission from the older generation to the younger generation. Critical literature identified that the dominant group in society tended to use education for imposing its cultural values to the entire society. In many cases, the group is less likely to make room for other cultures and perceives others’ culture as threats to its cultural hegemony. Such an approach to a certain degree will lead to cultural homogeneity that is associated with intolerance and oppression. In this keynote speech, I offer a different perspective on how education should be tailored to accommodate different cultural values and to transform society’s way of life and way of thinking. This thought promotes cultural transformation that is drawn from Durkheim's three-fold of cultural values in schooling and my understanding of the current global trends in educational reform. Educators in official and pedagogic recontextualisation fields need to reconsider for introducing their students to different cultures and the values inherited from the community and global society. Regarding the trends in educational reform, my research on educational policy, that I present in this paper, has outlined the dual goals of education: cultivating local culture and preparing youth to face global competition.