HKU Comparative Education Research Centre – serie

Paints a clear, research-based picture of how Chinese students and their teachers see the context of their learning both in Hong Kong and abroad. The focus of much of this research is the question, "How can Chinese learners be so successful academically?".

The book describes the background (in both development contexts and educational reform contexts) to the emergence of the concept 'non-formal education' (NFE). It contains an important new analysis of development paradigms in which the controversies surrounding non-formal education grew up and which shaped its purpose and impacts.

Full Circle is the story of a life transformed by long exposure to the people and culture of China and East Asia. The stories of many people in Hong Kong, China and Japan are interwoven into this narrative account, as Ruth Hayhoe shares what it was like to live through a series of major transitions - from the Cultural Revolution in 1967, to Hong Kong's return to China in 1997.

This monograph explores the evolution of parental and community partnerships in education in Hong Kong and Singapore, and the local and global forces that have shaped those partnerships. It focuses on the work of two government advisory bodies established to spearhead partnership advocacy: the Committee on Home-School Co-operation (CHSC) in Hong Kong, and Community and Parents in Support of Schools (COMPASS) in Singapore. Key policy actors and local academics in the two places were interviewed to gain insiders' perspectives on the 'micro-politics' of educational partnership.

This study analyzes an important feature in English-language Malaysian fiction that has been considerably neglected in scholarship -- the theme of religion. Through interrogating this theme, the multilayered textures of cultural memories that are infused with "spiritual" dimensions are revealed in the narratives under discussion.

In most societies the school subject of History reflects and reinforces a sense of collective identity. However, in Hong Kong this has emphatically not been the case. Official and popular ambivalence towards 'the nation' in the shape of the People's Republic of China, and the sensitivity of Hong Kong's own political and cultural status, have meant that the question of local identity has until recently been largely sidestepped in school curricula and textbooks. In this ground-breaking study, Edward Vickers sets out to reexamine some of the myths concerning colonialism and schooling under the British, while showing how in postcolonial Hong Kong these myths have been deployed to legitimise a programme of nationalistic re-education. In a new Afterword, he emphasises that it is Hong Kong's fundamentally undemocratic political context that has thwarted and continues to thwart efforts to make history education a vehicle for fostering a liberal, democratic sense of regional and national citizenship.

China's economic rise has surprised the world, and most governments and large corporations feel the need for a China-strategy to shape their relations with this emerging super-power. What do they know, however, about the educational ideas and achievements that have contributed to this economic success? Names of political figures such as Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin are household words, yet how many people have heard of Li Bingde, Gu Mingyuan, Lu Jie or Ye Lan? Substantial research has been done on Chinese educational development by Sinologists and Comparative Educationists, making a wealth of data and analysis available to the specialist reader. Most of these studies have been framed within Western social science parameters, integrating an objectivist assessment of Chinese education into the international research literature. This book conveys an understanding of China's educational development from within, through portraits of eleven influential educators whose ideas have shaped the educational reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978.They are portrayed in the context of their cultural heritage, families, communities and schools, offering their own deeply reflective interpretations of Chinese education. The book is written for the general reader, to provide glimpses into the educational context of China's recent move onto the world stage.

School curricula are established not only to prepare young people for a real world, but also to beckon an imagined one anchored in individual rights and collective progress. Both worlds - the real and the imagined - increasingly reflect influential transnational forces. In this special edited volume, scholars with diverse backgrounds and conceptual frameworks explore how economic, political, social and ideological forces impact on school curricula over time and place. In providing regional and global perspectives on curricular policies, practices and reforms, the authors move beyond the conventional notion that school contents reflect principally national priorities and subject-based interests. Some authors emphasize a convergence to standardized global curricular structures and discourses. Others suggest that changes regarding the intended contents of primary and secondary school curricula reveal regional or trans-cultural influences. Overall, these comparative and historical studies demonstrate that the dynamics of curriculum-making and curricular reform are increasingly forged within wider regional, cross-regional and global contexts.

This book responds to the growing unease of educators and non-educators alike about the inadequacy of most current educational systems and programs to meet sufficiently the demands of fast changing societies. These systems and programs evolved and were developed in and for societies that have long been transformed, and yet no parallel transformation has taken place in the education systems they spawned. In the last twenty years or so, other sectors of society - transportation, communication, health services - have radically changed the way they operate, but education has continued essentially the same. There is no doubt: education must change. To those ready to accept this challenge, this book represents a welcome guide. Unlike most books on educational policy, this volume does not focus on improving existing educational systems but on changing them altogether. Its focus is not on doing things better, but on doing better things; not on doing things right, but on doing the right things to prepare students for a fast changing interdependent world.

Globalization has brought dramatic changes to the character of education in most countries around the world. Contextualised in the literature on globalization, this book examines how policies of decentralization have affected the running of education in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and China.

This book is a landmark in citizenship and citizenship education discourse. Its themes include citizenship paradigms, democratization, patriotism, social tolerance, globalization and information society, and colonialism. The volume explores various perspectives on citizenship, including Confucian, Islamic, humanist, global, indigenous, cultural, political, and comparative. The book covers a wide range of countries and regions, including China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Taiwan and Vanuatu.

Based on case studies of societies in the world's most dynamic region, this book signals a new direction in the study of the citizenship curriculum. Following their very successful "Citizenship Education in Asia and the Pacific: Concepts and Issues", the editors have gone beyond broad citizenship education frameworks to examine the realities, tensions, discontinuities and pressures that influence citizenship curriculum. Comparative cross-case and reflective analyses show a complex picture of curriculum reform that reflects struggles between global and local agendas. On the one hand, the cases reveal a global rhetoric and rationale dominating reform discourse across societies. On the other hand, this discourse does not necessarily extend to citizenship curriculum that continues to be constructed according to distinctive social, political and cultural contexts.Whether the focus is on Islamic values in Pakistan, an emerging discourse about Chinese "democracy", a nostalgic conservatism in Australia, or a continuing nation-building project in Malaysia - these cases show the distinctive social values and ideologies that construct citizenship curriculum in these new times, reflecting the diversity of the region. The editors are widely regarded as leaders in the field in the Asia-Pacific region.

This work analyses ways in which teachers in Hong Kong and China think about their teaching and the ways in which they conduct their teaching. Differences between Chinese and western approaches are identified and lessons are drawn for educational reform.

This edition throws light on the links between education and political transition in a dynamic part of the world. Themes addressed by the book include globalization, internationalization and localization; democratization and nationalization; and liberal versus democratic approaches.