A world-class university in China? The case of Tsinghua

Higher education, an integral part of China’s nation-building project, is a critical element in China’s strategic policy initiative of building national strength through science and education. One way to achieve this goal is to develop a higher education system of international stature. Perhaps more than any other country, through national programs such as 211 and 985, China has been explicit in selecting its best universities for intensive investment, with the expressed aim of making them world-class within coming decades, and contributing more to overall R&D and scientific development. Analysing how these top-tier universities in China are reaching for the gold standard, and using Tsinghua University as an example, this article examines the role of higher education in China’s rise and how Chinese universities are responding to the drive for innovation, against a background of globalisation and internationalisation. It analyses the experience of Tsinghua, a Chinese flagship university, sometimes dubbed ‘China’s MIT’, through an in-depth case study in an international context, seeking to answer the question of how far Tinsghua embodies the qualities of a world-class university.     

Who makes higher education graduates ready for work? The case of teacher education in Slovenia

This paper starts by focusing on the problem of students' transition to working life in the domain of teacher education. Second, it problematises the teacher educator concept. Particular attention is paid to the question of which professionals regard themselves as teacher educators, and why. Third, it presents young teachers' acquisition of working experience and their transition from education to work in Slovenia as linked to three processes: practical and developmental work in schools during studies, traineeship period, and continuous professional learning. The general findings indicate that teacher education, training and professional development are all characterised by a sharp division between the role of academics (transmitters of theory), and senior teachers (facilitators of teachers' practical experiences). In our findings we demonstrate that young graduates lack a well-considered and integrated acquisition of practical experience as they move from education to the labour market. The paper is concluded with a call for better understanding the role of academics in preparing graduates for the world of work.     

Girls’ participation in formal education: a case of Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania

Educational Research for Policy and Practice - The study explores the participation of girls in primary education among the pastoralist community of Tanzania, and the way formal education...     

Is exam hell the cause of high academic achievement in East Asia? The case of Japan and the case for transcending stereotypes

High student achievement across East Asia is often explained as an outcome of highly competitive, stress‐inducing college entrance exams across the region. This ‘exam hell’ drives students to study longer and harder than their peers worldwide, a race that leads—unsurprisingly—to higher marks in international comparisons such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Yet, the race comes at a considerable cost: psychological pressure, forfeited childhoods, regimes of rote memorisation, lack of creativity and private outlays for cram schools. In this article, we seek to refute this outdated narrative by focusing on changes in Japanese education over the past three decades. We first analyse quantitative data for learning time based on three longitudinal surveys conducted by researchers in Japan to show that learning time for Japanese upper secondary students declined during 1980–2000 (Study 1). We then turn to analyse PISA 2015 data to show that now Japanese students study less than their peers in major Anglo‐American countries: the USA, the UK and Australia (Study 2). These findings run counter to well‐worn images frequently rehearsed in both the academic and popular literature. In helping to remove one of the most persistent stereotypes about East Asian education, we seek to help make visible other explanations for East Asian student achievement.     

Is student-centered pedagogy impossible in Hong Kong? The case of inquiry in classrooms

Hong Kong has been actively promoting a student-centered approach to teaching since the 1980s. Despite this effort, students in Hong Kong still tend to be traditional learners who rarely experience and gain from real student-centered learning. While teachers hold a “quantitative” concept of learning and focus on transmitting declarative knowledge to students (Biggs and Watkins, Classroom learning: Educational psychology for the Asian teacher, 1995), students generally practise “rote learning.” Constructive learning models such as inquiry remain little used by students in most Hong Kong classrooms. This article reports a study that examines the feasibility of implementing inquiry method in Kong Kong’s primary classrooms. It analyses the implementation and some outcomes of an inquiry-based project conducted in two local primary schools—a traditional elite Catholic school and a progressive, less-privileged school. Finally, it discusses the contextual factors as well as cultural issues on teachers’ perception and implementation of inquiry in teaching. These factors include the following: impacts of prevailing ideology in the community of Hong Kong, and the top-down policy-making and management by the government.

Chemistry for whom? Gender awareness in teaching and learning chemistry

Marie Ståhl and Anita Hussénius have defined what discourses dominate national tests in chemistry for Grade 9 in Sweden by using feminist, critical didactic perspectives. This response seeks to expand the results in Ståhl and Hussénius’s article Chemistry inside an epistemological community box!—Discursive exclusions and inclusions in the Swedish national tests in chemistry, by using different facets of gender awareness. The first facet—Gender awareness in relations to the test designers’ own conceptions—highlighted how the gender order where women are subordinated men becomes visible in the national tests as a consequence of the test designers internalized conceptions. The second facet—Gender awareness in relation to chemistry—discussed the hierarchy between discourses within chemistry. The third facet—Gender awareness in relation to students—problematized chemistry in relation to the students’ identity formation. In summary, I suggest that the different discourses can open up new ways to interpret chemistry and perhaps dismantle the hegemonic chemistry discourse.     

Can mission predict school performance? The case of basic education in Oman

This article reports on a study that examined the relationship between the mission statements and performance of Basic Education Schools in Oman. The process of mission statement framing was also investigated. A sample of 161 school mission statements was randomly collected from the Ministry of Education school mission portal database representing 19% of the total population. A sequential mixed method of analysis was chosen. The mission statements being classified with respect to 12 themes of which the most frequently of them appearing Academic Achievement (74.5%) and the least frequent Scientific Research Methods (26.1%).

Results show that Learning Outcomes Excellence significantly correlated with a theme around Reconstructing School Environment (r?=?0.243). Also, Islamic Values and Ethics significantly correlated with Scientific Research Methods (r?=?0.221). It was also appeared that school principals spent great efforts on designing school mission statements that directed schools towards achieving their purpose and improving their performance.     

The role of new technologies in competence teaching in higher education： The case of accounting

The Spanish educational system will require certain changes in order to achieve the Bologna objectives for the European Higher Education Area, including a more professional profile, with new activities and roles for both students and teachers, who must assume new skills that will affect concepts and attitudes related to the teaching and learning processes within the framework of training projects. However, students must also take a leading role in the educational process by adopting independent, meaningful and cooperative learning methods. This process will imply a notable change of mindset for the typical Spanish students and will involve a high degree of collaboration between students and teachers. Teachers will have to choose suitable methodologies for achieving those objectives, within the academic framework and considering the characteristics of professional training in skills. In addition, they must create the appropriate structural and organizational conditions to carry out these activities （class size, space, educational organization, etc.）. This paper describes the authors＇ experience in designing learning methodologies for the teaching of accountancy in the business administration degree course at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part describes the methodology designed for teaching accounting, based on PBL （problem-based learning）, compiled with Internet-based technologies. We analyze its use and evolution in two accounting subjects in the first and the fourth years of the degree. The second part presents the results for each subject in these years. The authors also point out the differences between students who chose the learning methodology described and those who used the traditional approach. The final part of the paper presents the conclusions obtained from the statistical treatment of the results and the analysis of different options for correlating the information obtained. These results show that there is a direct correlation between the use of an active learning model--through the teaching methodology--and obtaining satisfactory exam results in the subject. Finally, the authors analyze these results and consider how they should be used for evaluating the suitability of the methodology and to determine whether it is necessary to redesign the methodology to fit in with the characteristics, conditions and limitations of the teaching and learning processes.     

Producing multiculturalism in higher education: Who's producing what for whom?

This essay explores ways in which multiculturalism is institutionally produced in a small liberal arts college. When the offices of admissions or student life deploy the categories multiculturalism and diversity, they are likely to seek academic expertise from humanities or African American, Latino, or Women's Studies Programs, the disciplines most closely matching identity slots on the college applicationforms. In doing so, they recreate the presupposed categories of person that shape U.S. perceptions of race. This leaves little room for an anthropological perspective that examines the bases on which concepts of person and social identities are constructed.     

The case for mixed methodologies in researching the teacher’s use of humour in adult education

Inconsistencies within the literature result in teachers not having sufficient guidance to develop their humour use in support of learning without risking their professionalism. This article argues for more comprehensive evidence to guide teachers’ use of humour, based on mixed methodological approaches. The case is also made for the Interpersonal Communication Competence Model (ICCM) to be used as a consistent theoretical framework when researching teachers’ use of humour. A methodological literature review design is deployed to explore the conceptualisation, methodologies and situational factors within the selected research. The selected research is analysed in accordance with the ICCM’s five key concepts of motivation, knowledge, skills, outcomes and context. Comparisons are made against a depiction of humour based on the ICCM. The analysis reveals a diversity of conceptualisations of humour and different situational factors influencing teachers’ use of humour, and shows that findings conflict with ‘competent communication’. No research studies linked the various influencing factors together to provide all-embracing guidance for teachers. Studies based on mono-methodologies using qualitative or quantitative research designs only appear to provide the teacher with pieces of the jigsaw pertaining to humour use in teaching. Although mixed methodologies have their own design concerns, the author argues that they offer an opportunity to merge multiple situational factors to produce a more accurate representation of humour use within a teaching context. In conclusion, he proposes that future research utilises a mixed methodological approach along with the ICCM to capture supportive and contradictory perspectives of humour use.     

The antithesis of inclusion? The emergence and functioning of ADHD special education classes in the Swedish school system

The neuropsychiatric paradigm has substantial impact on schools. The increase in the number of pupils being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an expression of the medicalisation of deviance. There is also an increase in educational classes specially designed to meet the needs of children with ADHD. This is contrary to the notion of inclusion and in conflict with the Swedish school law. Thus, it is important to obtain knowledge about Swedish ADHD classes. A questionnaire was sent to all Swedish municipalities (290, response rate 76%) regarding schooling for pupils with ADHD. As many as 40 Swedish municipalities have classes specifically designed for pupils with ADHD. Although the classes are said to be specifically designed for ADHD problems, they are not properly evaluated. Municipalities with ADHD classes also exhibit ambivalence towards these classes. The emergence, prevalence and functioning of the ADHD classes are discussed in light of the notion of inclusive education.     

Is the Dragon a Suitable Symbol for China?

Recently there has been a heated discussion on whether we should continue to use the dragon as the symbol for our China.Some claim that the dragon is no longer a suitable symbol for China. Whereas others don't think so. A professor Wu in Shanghai who holds the view that the dragon is no good a symbol gives the following reasons.Firstly,the dragon is an evil     

Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) – The case for Recognition of Prior Learning sites and knowledges in South Africa's transforming education system

By definition and purpose, education is the development of human capital towards meeting the individual and social needs of learners and their societies. This transdisciplinary collaboration parallels the underpinning principle of Lave and Wenger's Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave & Wenger, 1990) to South Africa's post-colonial legitimation of alternative sites and enskilment canons. Central to both is legitimation of knowledge acquisition from communities of practice or sites and ‘knowers’ (Mphahlele, 1992) ‘outside formal institutions’ of teaching/learning. Considered and termed ‘informal’ and by deduction, less legitimate for meritorious enskilment, the 62 and 65 decrees a transformative paradigm and method of validating these sites and their skills production. SAQA highlights the fact that the pedagogical approach of such sites is context- and learner-centred with demonstrable socially valuable skills. This post-colonial mandate thus centres the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) as an acknowledgement of multiple foci of skills production, decreeing their overdue certification, as in our case study of the Van Wyk situation. The approach confronts and deconstructs the colonial marginalisation of human capital from outside ‘formal’/official institutions. It is part of the ideological framework of redressing the race and class exclusion mechanisms of artisans and others from the landscape of skills possession. It subscribes therefore to the canon of different ‘ways of knowing’ (Mosala, 1998). Van Wyk's narrative exemplify the merits of ‘outside-institutions’ learning and enskilment to various levels of complexity. The objective of such legitimation is that certification provides credibility and legitimacy, thereby widening the marketability of apprentices' skills. The social recognition and accorded certification thereof carries uncontested confirmation of expertise.     

Tax benefits for graduate education: Incentives for whom?

Numerous studies have examined the enrollment responses of traditional undergraduate students to the introduction of government-provided tuition subsidies, but far less attention has been devoted to the elasticity of demand for graduate education. This paper examines how the tax code and government education policies affect graduate enrollment and persistence rates along with the ways in which students fund their graduate education. Our empirical methodology is based on exogenous variations in the availability of an income tax exemption for employer-provided tuition assistance for graduate courses. We find that graduate attendance among full-time workers age 24–30 is higher when the tax exemption is available, mostly due to higher persistence in public universities and vocational course work. The use of employer aid for individuals enrolled in full-time and public part-time graduate programs also increases. We present some evidence that universities may adjust tuition to capture part of the incidence.     

What kind of citizenship for whom? The ‘refugee crisis’ and the European Union’s conceptions of citizenship

The European Union (EU) plays a dominant role in coordinating the responses to the massive inflow of refugee-migrants into Europe; consequently, the conceptions of citizenship and future integration which are embedded in its policies are significant. We explore and analyse the key EU education policy documents that refer to immigrants to identify the forms of citizenship attributed to various types of incomers by the EU. Our analysis demonstrates that the EU’s conception of refugee-migrants is more closely affiliated with the notion of ‘Global citizens’ rather than with that of ‘European citizens’. Furthermore, we suggest that the EU distinguishes and navigates between various migratory flows, namely internal-European, desired external-European and undesired external-European (refugee-migrants), each associated with a distinctive conception of citizenship as well as with related policy discourses. In the light of the migratory flows into Europe, the particularistic conceptions of citizenship shaping the EU’s educational policy carry considerable implications for the future integration of refugee-migrants in Europe.