It is crucial to consider that the impacts will vary from place to place, for example London is an extremely multicultural, well connected city, experiencing globalisation through diverse populations, varied cuisine, global political discussions, etc. whereas a rural village in and Archipelago in the for example, might not see the effects of globalisation to much of an extent, and their livelihood might actually be quite similar to how it was decades ago, as technocratic modernised developments have not yet reached every corner of the world to the same degree.

Even within the same counties and regions, the impacts of globalisation can vary significantly, and the extent of the regional impact of globalisation does not necessarily geographically correlate. Take the north east of England for example. Newcastle is one of Britain’s major cities; it has an airport and train station, 2 large shopping centres and several high streets, almost a million houses, with hundreds of schools, places of work, numerous hospitals, etc. yet even 20 miles out near, the residents experience quite a different world despite the close proximity. In Hexham, an old market town, the number of shops and services is significantly fewer, with many independent sellers that have been working in their industry for decades, often inherited from their relatives. There are few large chains such as Starbucks and McDonalds, with large proportions of the population buying their produce from the bi-weekly markets.

And on an even smaller scale, to further highlight that the impacts of globalisation do not discriminate geographically, we can observe the impact between individuals. One individual might for example be in an interracial marriage, travel frequently for their job, regularly interact transnational corporations, even if that just means buying goods periodically from large brands. Whereas another individual might have the majority of their friends and connections from the same town, which they work in and rarely leave, often shopping locally, and yet these individuals could in fact be family members, highlighting quite how much the impact of globalisation varies within the world, countries, regions and even families.

This is integral to consider in such debates, as it highlights quite how individual each experience of such a process can differ, and that we ought not to preconceive ideas about areas that are ‘more’ or ‘less’ globalised in this debate, as such a thing simply isn’t true and cant simplistically be measured (and, that there wouldn’t be much point either, because social dynamics are so fluid and things change so frequently!)

Ethnocentrism is also a fairly abstract concept, and is difficult to quantify. The variation is most recognisable within each community on an individual scale, arguably due to it’s inherent psychological link (thus varies between individuals because we each have unique cognition, influenced by our genetics and our own experiences of the world). This means that some people will be more broadly accepting of other cultures than others, which can be caused due to a number of reasons. In my opinion education and travel are two of the most notable influences on the adoption or rejection of these cultural biases.

Travel is fairly self-explanatory, as those who have been to a greater number of countries, or have immersed themselves more in the culture and way of life than others are more likely to reject ethnocentric attitudes due to their increased cultural exposure. The opposite can of course be considered, as those who have travelled abroad frequently but do not authentically experience the different cultures might still have skewed, distorted ideas about different cultural practises, as their own experience of a certain place might be notably different from the reality of it.

With increased level of education, ethnocentrism generally decreases. This is because education often encourages students to consider counter-arguments and to re-evaluate their ideas, exploring more options within their learning, meaning that they will perhaps be more open to alternative ideas about customs and norms, and are more likely to accept that their way is not necessarily the best way of doing things. Furthermore, as students become more educated, they are more likely to learn about other cultures, and perhaps even concepts of ethnocentrism, therefore due to this educational exposure, this broadens the horizons of their knowledge, making it more likely for more educated students to appreciate cross-cultural variation.

However this can have adverse effects if the education is biased and unneutral. Some nations have arguably quite nationalistic curriculums and ethos’s that school’s are encouraged to promote. Therefore this could increase ethnocentrism, as children in their formative years are essentially told repeatedly that their nation is superior, and they should have national pride, which is regularly reinforced, causing them to learn to shape their world views and opinions around their cultural norms to a greater extent, making them more likely to criticise other cultural practises as they are essentially told that their nation’s way is the ‘right way,’ thus they fill in the gaps and are more likely to conclude that other nation’s way is therefore the ‘wrong way.’