We live in an extraordinary period of social change, driven by such factors as new communications technologies, the global integration of markets, vast movements of people, and cultural diffusion via the mass media. Most of the world's societies still struggle to meet basic human needs, while the gap between rich and poor on a global level increases precipitously. As the world's first truly global communications network, it is appropriate to explore development and globalization on the internet. While the internet still connects only a relatively small connection of the world's population, it is increasingly affecting the lives of more and more people.
Let's start by going to the U.S. Census Bureau website [http://www.census.gov/] and finding out the estimated population of the world at this very moment.
1. Current world population:
Close the Census Bureau window and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
Now take a look at geographical maps of the internet at the Atlas of Cyberspace [http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/geographic.html]. This interesting page may be somewhat slow to load.
2. Which region of the world has by far the least internet access and use? Asia Latin America Africa Europe
Close the Atlas of Cyberspace window and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
For a quick overview of development in the 20th century, take a look at Human Development: 1900 and 2000 [http://www.newint.org/issue309/facts.html], maintained by the magazine, New Internationalist. Read through this page and study the interesting graphics and answer the following questions:
3. What proportion of the world's tropical forests were destroyed between 1950 and 2000? 4. In 1900, what proportion of the world's land surface was controlled by colonial powers in Europe and North America? 5. If we compare the number of chronically-malnourished people in the years 1930 and 2000, we find that the number of such people declined remained almost exactly the same increased 6. Between 1900 and 2000, life expectancy in developing countries increased from years to years.
3. What proportion of the world's tropical forests were destroyed between 1950 and 2000?
4. In 1900, what proportion of the world's land surface was controlled by colonial powers in Europe and North America?
5. If we compare the number of chronically-malnourished people in the years 1930 and 2000, we find that the number of such people
declined remained almost exactly the same increased
6. Between 1900 and 2000, life expectancy in developing countries increased from years to years.
Close the Radical 20th Century window and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
Let’s explore the record of the largest developing countries in Latin America, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia at the extraordinary U.C. Atlas of Global Inequality [http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/]. This data-rich site enables one to explore a great variety of important topics, but for our purposes, click on Database near the top.
In Step 1, click on Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and, as a point of comparison, the United States, moving each country to the right-hand box by clicking on the arrow.
In Step 2, click on :
GDP Per Capita Illiteracy Rate, adult female Mortality Rate, infant Population, total
In Step 3, choose By Decade, Beginning 1960, Ending 2000.
In Step 4, choose By Country, By value ascending, On Year 1960, By indicator GDP Per Capita.
In Step 5, choose Report/Table. Click on Submit Query.
There are a lot of things we can glean from this table, both in terms of differences among developing countries and differences between them and developed countries like the United States, moving each country to the right-hand box by clicking on the arrow. Consult the table to answer the following questions.
7. Which of the developing countries progressed the least in terms of GDP Per Capita during these forty years? 8. In terms of its forty-year rate of increase, which country made the most progress in terms of GDP Per Capita? 9. In which country is over half of the adult female population still illiterate? 10. Among the developing countries, is there a consistent relationship between GDP Per Capita and Infant Mortality (that is, the higher the GDP per capita, the lower the infant mortality)? Yes No 11. If we take the United States as representative of the developed world, what does the table tell us about what has been happening to the level of inequality between the developed world and the developing world during this period? Discuss below, discussing both the inequality in GDP Per Capita and one of the social indicators.
7. Which of the developing countries progressed the least in terms of GDP Per Capita during these forty years?
8. In terms of its forty-year rate of increase, which country made the most progress in terms of GDP Per Capita?
9. In which country is over half of the adult female population still illiterate?
10. Among the developing countries, is there a consistent relationship between GDP Per Capita and Infant Mortality (that is, the higher the GDP per capita, the lower the infant mortality)?
Yes No
11. If we take the United States as representative of the developed world, what does the table tell us about what has been happening to the level of inequality between the developed world and the developing world during this period? Discuss below, discussing both the inequality in GDP Per Capita and one of the social indicators.
Close the Atlas windows and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
Now let's take a short quiz on innovative solutions [http://www.worldbank.org/challenge/html/innovate.html] to development problems at the World Bank's Millennium site. Click on either Quiz 1 or Quiz 2 and keep a tally of your answers.
12. How many did you get right? Were you surprised by some of the answers? Answer briefly in the box below:
Close the Innovate window and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
A useful source of both news and data from around the world is the Worldpress.org site [http://www.worldpress.org/]. Take a look at the range of new stories on the homepage, and then click on Country Maps and Profiles on the left. Then click on Asia, then Thailand. Scroll down to the text portion and answer the following questions:
13a. Thailand’s infant mortality rate is 13b. Thailand’s GDP per capita (in purchasing power parity) is
13a. Thailand’s infant mortality rate is
13b. Thailand’s GDP per capita (in purchasing power parity) is
Close the Worldpress window and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
For a closer look at Thailand, let's visit the Sriwittayapaknam School [http://www.sriwittayapaknam.ac.th/] in Thailand.
14. Click on English. Under Information, work your way through A Day at School. What’s similar and what’s different about this school and a typical school in the United States? 15. Now find the Life in Thailand on the English Homepage and click to enter this website created by a former student, Pannit Gor Daoruang, at the school. This is a fascinating site with extensive resources both about Pannit Gor's life as a teenager and social life in Thailand generally. As you follow the links about Pannit Gor's life, are you more impressed with the differences or the similarities between his life and the life of an American teenager? 16. Go back to Pannit Gor Daoruang’s ThailandLife.com page and click on Things in My Pocket under Top 10 Pages. (Follow the forward buttons to see how the content has changed over time.) What signs of economic and cultural globalization do we see here? List as many as you can identify. 17. Do you get the sense that globalization means the eclipse of Thai culture by Western culture?
14. Click on English. Under Information, work your way through A Day at School. What’s similar and what’s different about this school and a typical school in the United States?
15. Now find the Life in Thailand on the English Homepage and click to enter this website created by a former student, Pannit Gor Daoruang, at the school. This is a fascinating site with extensive resources both about Pannit Gor's life as a teenager and social life in Thailand generally. As you follow the links about Pannit Gor's life, are you more impressed with the differences or the similarities between his life and the life of an American teenager?
16. Go back to Pannit Gor Daoruang’s ThailandLife.com page and click on Things in My Pocket under Top 10 Pages. (Follow the forward buttons to see how the content has changed over time.) What signs of economic and cultural globalization do we see here? List as many as you can identify.
17. Do you get the sense that globalization means the eclipse of Thai culture by Western culture?
Close the Thailand windows and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
As you can see, the students at Sriwittayapaknam School are very cosmopolitan, and are quite familiar with both their own and foreign cultures. Let's explore how U.S. young adults fare in their international knowledge in comparison to others by looking at National Geographic's Global Geographic Literacy Survey [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geo_survey/highlights.html] of 18-24 year-olds in nine countries.
18a. What proportion of the Americans surveyed could not identify where the Pacific Ocean was on a map?
Now click on "Survey" on the toolbar at the top of the page. Take the survey of twenty questions, noting the comparison with students from other countries
18b. In the question about the population of the United States, what nationality performed the poorest? 19. Work through the rest of the questions. In the textbox below, explain which nationalities did the best and which did the worst. What does this survey suggest about the global literacy of American young people?
18b. In the question about the population of the United States, what nationality performed the poorest?
19. Work through the rest of the questions. In the textbox below, explain which nationalities did the best and which did the worst. What does this survey suggest about the global literacy of American young people?
Close the National Geographic window and return to the Social Change and Development Virtual Exploration.
In this Virtual Exploration, we have explored some of the complexities of development. Progress has been made in many areas, but international inequality continues to increase and development processes have brought with them many costs: cultural, ecological, and more. We have seen that development is not adequately measured by economic measures alone, and that poor countries with sufficiently strong political will have been able to make major strides. Innovative approaches are needed, as evidenced in the examples from the World Bank. We have seen how a Thai school provides evidence of both similarity and difference in comparison to the West, and we have compared the global literacy of young Americans to their counterparts everywhere.
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