This paper analyzes the case of Porto Alegre, Brazil as a counter-hegemonic global city. Porto Alegre is a city with no particular relevance to neoliberal globalization that, nevertheless, was launched to a global scale by transformations in local governance. New mechanisms of deliberative democracy captured the attention of social actors constructing a movement of globalization from below, making Porto Alegre the de facto capital of the World Social Forum. In this paper I focus on the educational policies created in the city, which expanded the social imaginary in education and are a key component of Porto Alegre's "globalization". (Contains 8 notes.)