Research on Teenagers Attitudes toward Globalization and Globalism

Here is my project from 2003, in summary, full paper is somewhere on my old desktop at home with full sources:

Introduction

The world is becoming increasingly global. This is a cultural and economic phenomenon. In many ways it is a great benefit. At the same time, many people are concerned with the worlds growing interdependence.

Today's adults are having the discussion about the changing world. Tomorrow's adults will be living out the results of these discussions. In a sense, this is a major oversight and a major opportunity. Today's teenagers are the first people to live in the global world. This is their universe. They are the future. We should know what they think. We can only do this by looking at their ideas of two key concepts; globalism and globalization.

For the purposes of this study globalism is defined as the connection between cultures, nations, and people. Globalism embodies cultural diffusion, the desire to consume and enjoy foreign products and ideas, adopt new technology and practices, and participate in a "world culture". Globalism is a universal, internationalist impulse that the world is connected. A globalist is defined as someone who is aware of world issues, enjoys new ideas, and considers themselves global citizens with an open mind to both criticize and agree with others. Globalization, on the other hand, can also be defined as the increase in trade which leads to more foreign good available, an increase in travel, stronger ties with other countries, and an interdependence of conflicts and interests. Globalization creates its own culture, influenced by trade, communication and technology.

Past studies and others have failed to look at teenagers between the ages of 14 to 18. There are few studies which examine attitudes and practices of high school students around the world relating to globalization and globalism, and clearly more work needs to be done in this area.

Research Information

This research wishes to examine the following hypothesis:
Teenagers are natural globalists: They want to consume more goods and ideas. They are interested in technological developments and want to learn more about technology. They want to learn more about other cultures. International teenagers and American teenagers have the same general natural positive view toward globalism and would agree on its aspects similarly. Teenagers are afraid of globalization: They want limited immigration, trade, and diplomatic relations. International teenagers favor globalization more than American teenagers.

The sample for this study included two hundred teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18, from New York, Lebanon, Azerbaijan, and the Philippines. The locations were urban.

The survey consisted of thirty-six questions. It was constructed with input from Gene Ellis, a professor (Wirtschaftswissenschaft Seminar) at the Eberhard Karls University of Tuebeingen, Germany and from Andrew Mack, an economist and former World Bank staffer.

The analysis looked at the topics of globalization and globalism by grouping questions into sub-categories. Globalization included the sub-categories of immigration, trade, and diplomatic relations. Globalism included consumption, personal freedoms, technology, and culture.

Results

Click Here to Download the Results
In the first chart, results ranged from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest), with a score of over 4 represent support. For the second chart, every result below .05 was considered significant. In the third chart, any results over 9.49 was considered significant with the exception of results for "future plans", where 5.99 was considered significant.

Discussion

The results of our research suggest that both American teenagers and international teenagers are natural globalists and are largely in favor of globalization. Teenagers in New York had higher levels of support for globalization than globalism. International teens were more globalists. Importantly, all teens were very positive towards technology, cultural exchange, trade, consumption of international goods, and immigration.

While adults argue about the processes of globalism and globalization, the results show that teens around the world share a good foundation for cooperation on these issues. Stigliz stated that the general principal of globalization is a positive factor for the future but it is the policies and organizations that prevent it from flourishing (2002). This suggests that the future of international technology, trade, and culture will depend on bringing the concepts of globalization and globalism together.

Our survey data clearly shows the important role that technology plays in the discussion about globalism and globalization. In the future, this may be a great opportunity because the sharing of technology may offer a real bridge between the concepts of globalism and globalization. Furthermore, the Internet seems to be one of the most important tools in linking teenagers globally and this suggests that this sort of communication should be developed around the world at a faster rate. Finally, we believe that the future of culture and trade will depend on the rate of technological progress.

Future research can concentrate on replicating this study with a larger survey population. It would also be interesting to conduct a separate study looking at issues of personal freedoms and diplomatic relations to investigate the relatively negative attitudes of teenagers on this issue. More so, because this study concentrated on age, future studies can look into ethnicity and religion, more vividly. Future studies can further investigate the technology aspect of globalism. This area seems to be filled with unanswered questions. Finally, it would be interesting to do a similar study in two years to see if attitudes of US and international students have gotten closer or drifted apart.

(c) 2003-2006 Yevgeniy Gutsalo