Globalisation and Geographical Education

New communications technologies are being used to increase the democratic process and to empower individual people. They are being used to link information and practice in questioning the effects of globalisation on societies around the world. There is no doubt that examples can be found of misuses of these new communication technologies to promote malicious activitism. However, it is true to affirm that the Internet is now a 'contested terrain' (Kellner 2000: 315) used by groups of all persuasions to further their own agendas. It is likely to be a key weapon in future battles over globalisation. Since geographical educators offer leadership in dealing with spatially oriented information about our world, they are likely to have an increasing rather than a decreasing role to play in understanding the spatial impacts of people's decisions about their planet. To play this role effectively, geographical educators need to understand the various facets of the globalisation process and be able to help learners in educational institutions and in the wider community understand its impact through careful reflection, decision making and action. Globalisation is much too complex for us to merely accept it as already established and beyond question. We have to make sure that people rather than corporations count in the future of our planet.