To nail a pudding: metaphorical analysis of the social studies education discourse community on globalization

Abstract

Despite the abundance of studies on globalization in educational research, globalization is often approached as a monolithic and standardized concept. Focusing on the social studies education in the USA, this study explores how the various metaphors through which globalization is framed embrace particular perspectives on how to conceive and educate about globalization. Specifically, this study discusses seven conceptual metaphors: the global as a place, time, container, spectacle, person, threat, and as a force of nature. In doing so, it illustrates how globalization is predominately rendered as an inclusive structure, a disembedded process, and as a permanent threat. The different metaphors, this paper argues, fulfill a twofold role. First, they define a domain of their own, the global domain, creating a distinctive global viewpoint on human agency and social change. Second, these metaphors also release a political imagination structured around particular expectations of what exactly the global means and does.

Keywords:

• metaphorical analysis
• social studies education
• discourse community
• globalization

Notes on contributor

Ayman K. Agbaria is a lecturer in the Department of Leadership and Policy in Education, University of Haifa, Israel. He studies citizenship education and religious education with special interest in minority and identity politics.