Emerging Perspectives on Education in China - Böcker

State Schooling and Ethnic Identity examines the influence of state schooling on Tibetan students' ethnic identity. Zhiyong Zhu has developed a case study of Changzhou Tibetan Middle School after a preferential educational policy was put in place by the Chinese government in the early 1980s. By examining and analyzing student diaries, Zhu has developed a theoretical model for the construction of ethnic identity. Comparing the Neidi Tibetan Schools (those of inland and coastal regions) with the Changzhou Tibetan Middle School, the author takes into account the amount of influence over ethnic identity wielded by the state. State Schooling and Ethnic Identity is a unique study appropriate for readers with interests in China or Tibetan Studies, educational theory, anthropology, and sociology.

One of the most controversial policies in Chinese minority education concerns the so-called inland ethnic minority schools or classes in Han inhabited areas in China. Since 2000, boarding Xinjiang Classes have been established in the eastern cities of China for high school students from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in order to educate young Uyghur and other ethnic minority students through the national curricula. Although the Xinjiang Classes are supposed to promote ethnic integration between the Muslim Uyghur minority and the Han majority, there often remains a gap between the stated policy goal and its actual implementation. Guided by the theoretical framework of social capital analysis, this book therefore examines how Uyghur students in the Xinjiang Classes respond to the school goal of ethnic integration. Chen conceptualizes the process of Uyghur students' responses to the school goal of ethnic integration as social recapitalization. While their former social capital from families or communities in Xinjiang is constrained in the boarding school, Uyghur youths are able to develop independent and new social capital to facilitate their schooling. Nonetheless, they lack "bridging social capital," which makes the goal of ethnic integration more difficult to achieve.

China has been experiencing great economic and social changes since the late 1970s when the Reform and Opening-Up policies were accepted. While some Sinologists argue that such changes have made the Chinese structure of authority fragmented and discrepant, and have weakened the directive power of the Central Government, a few others emphasize that despite a certain degree of economic decentralization and segmentation of public power, the Central Government has been seeking ways to hold the nation together. Consequently, while the former argue that due to the centrifugal nature of the political system, policy implementation is bound to deviate from the route specified by the Central Government, the latter hold that national policies are carried out faithfully, with minor deviations only in certain circumstances.This book studies the processes of policy implementation in contemporary mainland China by taking minban/private education at the level of basic education in Shanghai as an example. Based on 65 interviews conducted during 2001 and 2004, three moduses of policy implementation are proposed, and the Model of Structural Fracturation is advanced as the prevailing modus of policy implementation in contemporary China. The model argues that policy metamorphosis during implementation is not something random; in contrast, it is determined by structural factors that no single policy actor can manipulate. The pyramid of Chinese politics is a loose construction, with vertical and horizontal fracturations between different layers. The model highlights the fact that governments at the county/district level are remote from and beyond the control of the Central Government and the provinces. They deserve more attention than they have received.Contrary to Western perspectives which regard the structural fracturation in the Chinese polity as dangerous for national stability and unity, this book takes the fracturation as an important and delicate element of the Chinese mode of governance, and suggests that the very strength of the state lies in its capacity to tolerate local deviation and to embrace it into national institutions.

Identity and Schooling among the Naxi examines the identity construction of Naxi students in Lijiang No.1 Senior Secondary School in China, focusing on the changing roles of school, community, and family in the identity construction of the students. Through participant observation, interviews, and student essays, Yu finds that Naxi students of the school retain a strong Naxi identity while also managing to fit into mainstream culture through a process she characterizes as "harmonious creative identity engagement". Three main forces affecting the identity construction of the Naxi students are highlighted: the state and the school, Naxi intellectuals, and socialization in the family and community. As an institution of the state, the school conveys national ideology and instills a sense of ethnic unity and an understanding of the culture of the Chinese nation. However, the school also takes an active role in ethnic identity construction of the Naxi students. At the same time, Naxi intellectuals, through their research publications and responses to state policies, preserve and revitalize Naxi culture. Socialization within the community and family allows the Naxi students to learn about their heritage. These factors result in both an asserted and assigned identity of the Naxi.

Higher Education as a Field of Study in China: Defining Knowledge and Curriculum Structure concerns the complexity of higher education as an academic field—the evolving nature of the field in light of the overall development of higher education in China. It reviews how higher education as a field of study has evolved in China since 1978 and how the field has been shaped by political and social forces, as well as institutional culture. Xin Wang argues that higher education is becoming an interdisciplinary field rather than a subfield under the discipline of education, especially when higher education has become an enterprise with such a broad scope in China. Wang also expresses a belief that the field of higher education is being challenged by the professional need for preparing and training competent professionals for various administrative positions in China. Higher education as a field will be professionalized with its own knowledge base and a set of skills in applying this knowledge to practical areas. This book also provides an account of the U.S. model of higher education as an example—how the field was formed and developed, how it has evolved from a generalized area of inquiry into a professional specialization, how programs of higher education are structured, what classes they offer, and what challenges they face. The U.S. model presents a comparative perspective for Chinese scholars and program directors about higher education as a field of study.

Educational researchers have long been concerned about the factors that influence the patterns of attendance in higher education and the extent to which higher education has been accessible to all students regardless of their socioeconomic status. Extensive research has indicated that a variety of class-related factors, such as cultural capital, social capital, and economic capital, exert remarkable impacts on the amount and type of education that one receives. Drawing on cultural capital theory, this study aims at analyzing how students' college choice process varies by social class in China. By exploring different cultural and financial factors that influence different stages of students' college choice process, this study hopes to contribute to identifying the most appropriate policies and practices for raising the representation of students from the lowest social class among college participants.

Minority students in China often receive preferential treatment for access to universities. However, very little is known about minority student experiences and perceptions on campus after they are accorded what's called "meaningful access" to university. The Mongols emerged as a distinct ethnic group in China starting in the 11th century and, in the centuries that followed, conquered a large part of the world. However, in modern times this nomadic people's influence has declined, and even their survival in China has been threatened. This decline is evidenced by the fact that increasing numbers of Mongols have abandoned their native language and traditional customs, especially those who live in cities.How do Mongol university students, who form the backbone of the Mongol intellectual community, identify themselves in a modern Chinese context? How do they react as university students to the way in which their culture is recognized and represented? Do Mongol students suffer from injustice in the cultural dimension of campus life? China's Mongols at University: Contesting Cultural Recognition seeks to answer these questions.Zhenzhou Zhao addresses these issues by comparing the university discourse (on minority culture policy, institutional structure and daily life) and the Mongol student discourse (concerning their experiences, perceptions of recognition, and dedication to self-representation on campus) Additionally, Gao compares three universities in China. Located in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Beijing, and Hubei Province, respectively, each of these universities represents one of three types of higher education accessible to minority students in China: universities located in ethnic areas, standard universities, and universities for nationalities.China's Mongols at University explores and discusses an intrinsic connection between marketization and globalization and the disadvantages faced by minority groups. This book argues that China must move from a policy of preferential tre

Becoming a Model Minority: Schooling Experiences of Ethnic Koreans in China looks at the manner in which ethnic Korean students construct self-perception out of the model minority stereotype in their school and lives in Northeast China. It also examines how this self-perception impacts the strength of the model minority stereotype in their attitudes toward school and strategies for success. Fang Gao shows how this stereotype tends to obscure significant barriers to scholastic success suffered by Korean students, as well as how it silences the disadvantages faced by Korean schooling in China's reform period and neglects the importance of multiculturalism and racial equality under the context of a harmonious society.

In 1989, China started charging tuition on a very small scale at a number of universities as a result of the global trend of cost-recovery policies, thus ending the free higher education era in China. It was not until 1997 that all higher education institutions in China started charging tuition and fees. Both the expansion of higher education and the wide gap between income and tuition and fees have created an increasingly high proportion of students who are academically qualified but cannot afford to go to college. To address the problem of the increasing number of financially needy students, in 1999, China launched the pilot Government-subsidized Student Loan Program (GSSLP) in eight cities. This program was extended to full-time students at all of the 1,942 public higher education institutions in 2000, and has been undergoing revisions ever since, including major ones in 2004 and 2007. As of 2009, the number of financially needy students in China reached 5.27 million, accounting for 23.06 percent of the total enrollment of 22.85 million at higher education institutions in China. Behind those statistics are young people who suffer in many ways. This book provides multiple perspectives, namely, global, comparative, empirical, practical and philosophical ones, on the GSSLP, the largest financial aid program in current China. It not only provides information on financial aid policies, especially the GSSLP, in China, but also offers a comparative perspective by examining student loan programs in the United States and Australia, which are more mature and better developed. Using original dataset, the empirical and practical perspectives examine the effect of the GSSLP on students' behavior, and look into the different aspects of the GSSLP, including students' perceptions of and attitudes toward the program, as well as its implementation. In addition to these technical aspects of the GSSLP, this book also examines the larger concepts of equality and social justice from a philosophical perspective, and argues

The education implementation process in China remains uncharted by researchers. The Implementation of Inclusive Education in Beijing: Exorcizing the Haunting Specter of Meritocracy puts forth a general theory on China’s education programs, encompassing policy processes, actions, and interactions and grounded on the views of street-level bureaucrats in China. Kai Yu investigates these processes and presents teachers’ reflections on the change process, as well as implementation stories from four Beijing schools. He reports on their attitudes, their beliefs, and their pedagogical practices for implementing the innovative education program. Yu argues that the imperatives of meritocratic ideology have undermined the detracking policy and its practice. The strength of a program of change rests not so much on the power of the ideas, purposes, and values as on the reinterpretation of the implementers based on their personal understandings of institution and practice.

The educational system in China is marked by its dramatic inequality between rural and urban schools. The challenges facing rural schools are usually understood as disadvantages in funding, facilities, and staffing, which consequently result in undesirable student performance in general. This book, however, penetrates these phenomena on the surface and brings forth a much deeper moral crisis in rural education, a crisis that is entrenched in the complicated interlocking of formal and informal institutions within and beyond the school. The Demoralization of Teachers describes the work and workplace in a rural school from the perspective of teachers who were working there. It faithfully depicts the lamentable state of teachers’ work morale in the school and, little by little as if a detective story, reveals the reasons for the teachers’ demoralization by vivid narratives. The book demonstrates the profound impact on the meanings of teaching exerted by the state curriculum reform, the formal and informal norms and regulations in the school, and the erosion of moral integrity in the state bureaucracy and the society at large. The crisis in the rural school stops to be a “rural” or educational problem in nature, but mirrors the societal-wide transformation in political economy as well as in ideology in the current reform China. The sheer complexity of the moral crisis in this ethnography calls for renewed efforts to identify and investigate the educational problems in rural China from fresh theoretical perspectives that situate rural education in broader historical and social contexts and processes.

Chinese moral education reform in the last three decades represents the most significant decentralization of decision-making power since the foundation of People’s Republic of China in 1949. On one hand, it shows how de-politicized China’s moral education curriculum has become following the introduction of China’s “Open-door” policy and economic reforms and the resultant social transformations. On the other hand, it reveals persistent problems in moral education caused by political stresses and tight state control. To explain these tensions, Power and Moral Education in China analyzes the characteristics of power relationships in school moral education curriculum goal-setting, content and pedagogy selection, and implementation. The ultimate purpose is to identify not only what factors impact Chinese moral education curriculum decision-making at the school level, but also how and why. Through a multiple case study conducted during 2008 in three schools in Shenzhen City, and based on four major data collection instruments (observation, interview, questionnaire, and document review), Wangbei Ye analyzes how power relationships have evolved in school moral education, and how and why school power affects school moral education. Contrary to the common belief that Chinese schools are passively impacted by external forces in moral education curriculum development, this book suggests that school power is a “semi-emancipatory relationship” that acts as a major force shaping moral education. This means that although both the Chinese Communist Party and the state are positioned to control schools and moral education, schools nonetheless have the power to either negotiate for more influence, or partly emancipate themselves by collaborating with other external forces, responding to grass-root needs, empowering school teachers and adjusting internal school management style. This helps to explain the influence of Chinese schools in moral education and suggests a broader theory of power relationships in curriculum.

This book represents an ethnographic study of an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program in a school in mainland China, serving Chinese students and staffed by teachers from a variety of origins. It offers in-depth descriptions of the way in which students, teachers, and managers interact and communicate with one another in a variety of school activities. Through the communication process, cultural experiences and understandings are negotiated constantly among school participants. The ethnographic study also has a critical intention. Going beyond description, the author discusses the extent to which networks of social relationships in the case are imbued by asymmetries in power, and how this leads to people’s inability, unwillingness, and unawareness to interact with those from different cultural backgrounds. As research findings reveal, where the construction of meaning is less equally available to each participant, prejudice and exclusiveness are more likely to be assumed, impeding individuals’ intercultural learning. The key is to empower those less privileged, giving them legitimacy to come to voice in an institutional context on the one hand, and protecting their reflections on hegemonic discourse meticulously on the other hand. Since the research explores the complexities and subtleties of the communication process that are bound to particular contexts, like most ethnographic studies, it aims at adding a body of experience and humanistic understanding of cultures, rather than testing theories. Although the IB Program being studied can hardly be representative of the overall development of international education in China, the detailed description of contextual issues of the case and the research procedures could facilitate the readers to vicariously experience these events, thus they can make their own decisions about the transferability of the research to their own unique situations.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Community Party (CCP) has launched a nation-wide ethnic identification project to recognize ethnic minorities, which are widely considered as “peripheral,” “barbarian,” “inferior,” “backward,” and “distrusted.” State schooling is expected to play a significant political role in civilizing and integrating these ethnic minorities. As an important part of Chinese state schooling, fifteen tertiary minority institutions have been established, assuming a primary goal of cultivating minority officials who are loyal to the CCP. This study, situating in the context of Minzu University of China (MUC), the best university designated specifically for the education of ethnic minorities, seeks to explore the intersection between state schooling and ethnic identity construction of Tibetan students. Ethnographic data has revealed how educational backgrounds of MUC’s Tibetan students have influenced the ways in which they interpret, negotiate and assert their Tibetan-ness. Four patterns of ethnic identification are discussed: (1) For the min kao min students (meaning having received bilingual education in Chinese and Tibetan prior to MUC) in Tibetan studies, being Tibetan means assuming an ethnic mission of promoting Tibetan language and culture; (2) For the min kao min students in other majors, being Tibetan embodies having a different physical appearance, wearing different clothing, engaging in different religious practices, holding cultural beliefs and generally under-achieving academically in Han-dominant settings; (3) For the inland Tibetan school graduates, being Tibetan means having a reflective awareness of their cultural and language loss due to their dislocated schooling and a determination to make up for the past by innovatively initiating, organizing or participating in Tibetan cultural programs; (4) For the min kao han (meaning having received mainstream education the same as Han Chinese prior to MUC) students, being Tibetan is simply a symbolic identity that they sometimes utilize to gain preferential treatments. With the exception of most of the min kao han students, Tibetan identity has been revitalized and strengthened after studying and living in MUC. In the process, the unity of the Tibetan group has been promoted and enhanced. Tibetan students’ different approaches to ethnic identification provide us with useful lessons about ethnic identity dynamics in relation to education, culture, and ethnic politics. As opposed to other interpretations that see Tibetans as exotic ethnic others, this study reveals that Tibetan students’ ethnic identification is meaningful when they strategically negotiate with the Han-Chinese-dominant narratives. This study contributes to the understanding of ethnic politics and interethnic dynamics in China.