An examination of global forces helps us to understand how school curricula in a nation are shaped. This emphasis on global forces is important especially when we deal with foreign languages as a school subject, because the study of foreign languages, unlike other school subjects, is more likely to be influenced by world political and economic situations. This study is designed to examine what impact the emergence of the new economic order, or global economy, has brought on language study in the United States. The impact of economic transformation will be measured by analyzing language enrollments at various educational levels, state and federal educational language policies, and U.S. corporate attitudes towards the value of language competence
