P. ROJANAPANICH ET AL. 331
strong positive relationship among various globalization and
cultural dimension factors. The findings suggest that in terms of
the correlation among factors, globalization affects various
aspects of Thai society and all of them correlate to each other.
It is inevitable not to integrate the political, economic, commu-
nication, and cultural impacts in the interpretation of globaliza-
tion effects in contemporary Thailand.
In the analyses, three factors of individualism, cultural glob-
alization and masculinity were evident as predictors of the de-
velopment of the social imaginary and creativity in Thailand.
Power distance was negatively correlated to the development of
social imaginaries, whilst uncertainty avoidance and economic
globalization had no significant effect.
The result from the study was somewhat surprising because
initially, following the literature review, it is believed that eco-
nomic globalization to be demonstrably beneficial as the idea of
economic competition between the countries motivates the
growth of new ideas amongst people in society. In view of that,
society would be motivated to develop new sets of social
knowledge or creativity in response to the effects of globaliza-
tion. For instance, the “modernization argument holds that
economic development in Thailand [has] created a substantial,
well-educated urban middle class people that wanted account-
able democratic government” (Deveney, 2005), and it might be
expected that the changed social location of university students
may have been more strongly reflected in the results about
economic globalization as it linked to the development of new
social imaginaries and creativity.
This study also presents information technology globaliza-
tion as a significant negative predictor to the social imaginary
(p < .01, β = −.212). Based on this result, globalization of in-
formation technology could have a significant impact on social
imaginary, but in negative ways, meaning that it was received
by people unexpectedly and that they may need to counteract it
in the development of social imaginaries. That is to say, infor-
mation technology is important, but not directly to the devel-
opment of the social imaginary.
This seemingly contradictory position is also reflected in
views of others. While Sinlarat (2005: p. 266) argued that “the
growth of globalization and the development of the internet has
made the transfer of knowledge seemingly limitless, countless,
and timeless, creative learning occurs instantly and every-
where”, in contrast to these comments Chareonwongsak (2002),
in discussing the impact of global technology in our lives, says
that “lifestyle and human social behavior are responding much
as they did to all other waves in human history-with great dif-
ficulty and, in unexpected ways”.
Conclusion
The results from this study may be interpreted as saying that
Thai students consider technological, social and communica-
tional factors contributes to creativity. In regards to points on
information technology and global media playing an essential
role in influencing Thai people’s way of thinking, this study
confirmed that Thai university students did not believe that
global technology would heavily impact on their lives and crea-
tivity. They considered technology as a natural element and a
part of the taken for granted (ordinary) life. Conversely, older
people may consider the concept of technological globalization
as more complicated. The gap between the perceptions of these
two groups becomes clearer as we continue to investigate glob-
alization.
A core argument of this paper is that the positive benefits of
globalization must be reflected in creative education, that is, in
curricula and in teaching and learning methods. Moreover, glo-
balization has been significant in encouraging the knowledge
and imagination for young people and such results have shown
that Thai students are in fact willing to participate in many
creative activities.
Finally, while there is a large proportion of research on crea-
tivity in education and organizations in the West, little is known
about the context of creativity in South East Asia. Future re-
search should explore issues that ignite curiosity, adventurous-
ness, and new ways of thinking within the diverse south East
Asian cultural context.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge support from Asso-
ciate Professor Geoff Shacklock from the School of Education,
RMIT University for his ideas for this research.
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