Minority Teachers as Change Agents in the People’s Republic of China

China is becoming an increasingly polarized society, in large part due to the inaccessibility of basic education for minority children. Schools can be vehicles for social change and community building, and teachers can be agents of transformation and hope. The PRC, however, is experiencing a critical shortage of trained teachers willing to serve in minority schools and be agents of change. This article examines the problem by first outlining some of the factors that affect teachers’ ability to be change agents. These factors include teachers’ social location, their education, and the context in which they are employed. Next, four possible change agent roles that teachers can assume are discussed. Finally, some strategies for realizing change and outcomes of teacher change agency are presented. We end with suggestions for how the model we use to explain minority teacher change agency in China could be applied by others, for data collection or hypothesis testing, in future research.     

Children’s early numeracy in England,Finland and People’s Republic of China

This research investigated the similarities and differences between countries in young children’s early numeracy skills related to age, culture, and gender. The participants were five‐year‐old children from Beijing (People’s Republic of China), England, and Finland. The rationale for the cross‐cultural comparison originates from research results with older children showing that Asian children outperform children from America or Europe, and from the lack of such information concerning younger children. The results showed that in all locations older children performed better than the younger children. Cultural differences were found: young children from Beijing outperformed those from England and Finland in overall early numeracy performance, as well as in sub‐tests for understanding of quantities and relations (i.e. relational skills), and counting skills. Finnish children had better scores than English children in the whole early numeracy scale and in the relational scale. The results are discussed in relation to culture, instruction in preschools, and learning support at home, as well as the effects of language characteristics. The culture’s appreciation of and approach to mathematics learning in early childhood is a plausible explanation for the cross‐cultural differences found in this study.     

On the Change of Teacher＇s Function in the Curriculum Reform of Artistic Design

面对高职高专艺术设计课程教学改革发展的迅猛趋势,最急需解决的是教师的角色定位和职能转换等问题。教师是办学的根本,是教学改革的原动力,必须持续关注和解决艺术设计专业教师队伍中存在的：专业教师的成员结构与教学状态问题;专业教师的教学能力与定向培养问题;专业教师的知识状态与智力结构问题;专业教师培训与考核机制建立问题;以及专业教师必须面对与解决的系列新要求与老问题等。     

A gendered point of view on the challenges of women academics in The People’s Republic of China

The authors conducted a qualitative study of women’s experiences as faculty members at Northern Research University, a pseudonym for a top 40 university in The People’s Republic of China. Based on 27 semi-structured interviews with women (15) and men (12), and drawing from feminist standpoint theory and symbolic interactionism, the authors identified four key findings that highlight serious barriers confronting Chinese women faculty. They describe these as: (1) working double time, (2) the glass ceiling, (3) the boys club and social exclusion, and (4) comrades in arms. The first three findings support previous international studies of women’s experiences as faculty members and thus contribute to an expanding global body of knowledge about challenges faced by women academics. The fourth finding—comrades in arms—highlights a structural quality somewhat unique to the Chinese university and raises important concerns about the limited role women play in critical personnel decisions influencing academic promotions and advancement.     

Tensions and the Teacher’s Role in Student Teacher Identity Development in Primary and Subject Teacher Curricula

This paper describes a 2-year follow-up study on teacher identity development in different types of teacher education programmes. Teacher identity development was analysed with a focus on student teachers’ views of teacher’s roles and tensions experienced during their studies. Student teachers (n?=?20) were interviewed at the beginning and end of the master-level studies. Three types of tensions were identified: (1) conception of self versus professional role, (2) role expectations versus university training, (3) and multiple professional role expectations. The follow-up study showed that tensions tended to accumulate to some extent. However, successful consolidation of tensions appeared to depend on how the student teachers were able to recognise resources at their disposal, with implications for organisation of reflection support in teacher education.     

The Importance of Parent‐to‐Parent Support among Families of Children with Autism in the People’s Republic of China

This article reports the experiences of families of children with autism in the People’s Republic of China. The caregivers of 43 children with autism attending one of two short‐term (3‐month) intervention programmes for young children with autism were interviewed about their experiences before, during, and after the programme. Parent‐to‐parent support emerged as the main theme. Specifically, caregivers in this study discussed the value of being with other parents who share similar experiences. Two reasons were given for the importance of parent‐to‐parent support: to learn from each other, and to gain moral support and encouragement in a relationship that is more equal and less discriminatory than was experienced from others in society. This report also briefly highlights the factors that are similar to family experiences in western contexts, as well as factors that are influenced by the Chinese context.     

Teacher Professionalism and Professional Development of EFL Teachers in China

The professionalization of teaching has had undergone a long process in China's history. The training of teachers started in 1681 when the first Normal School was set up by the early Christian missionaries. But the concept of professionalization of teaching was not put forward until 1980s, when we no longer face the problem of an inadequate number of teachers. Since then sociologists and educators have had explored the concept of teaching as a profession, and agreed that teachers are pro     

On Teacher＇s Ideal Way of Teaching under the Background of Basic Education Curriculum Reform

在基础教育课程改革的过程中,通过唤醒教师的心灵,使教师寻求到一种本真的教学方式,并在志同道合的共同体中得到完善和提高,是实现基础教育课程改革目标的重要途径之一。     

Quasi-experimental evidence of academic peer effects at an Elite University in People’s Republic of China

This paper examines the effects of roommates on students’ academic outcomes exploiting the randomized roommate assignment system at a selective Chinese university. Unlike earlier studies that could not measure students’ academic quality precisely, this paper makes two important improvements in measuring their English proficiency and overall academic aptitude. I find that randomly assigned roommates’ average pre-treatment academic abilities are not significant determinants of students’ academic performance across a number of different specifications. However, students are significantly influenced by roommates’ decisions in terms of the number of elective course credits taken and the choice of major.

     

Teacher Salaries and the Shortage of High-Quality Teachers in China’s Rural Primary and Secondary Schools

Abstract

Teacher salary level and structure are not only important factors affecting the supply of primary and secondary school teachers, but they are also crucial to attracting, training, and retaining high-quality teachers, thereby impacting the overall quality of education and teaching in schools. The reform of China’s basic education management system has ensured the fiscal security and steady increase of rural primary and secondary school teacher salaries and has effectively improved the supply and quality of rural teachers. The objective gap between urban and rural teacher salaries and benefits has, however, led to the one-way mobility of rural teachers, resulting in the loss of quality teachers and giving rise to a structural shortage in rural schools. To improve the supply and quality of teachers in rural areas, it is necessary to effectively and systemically increase rural teachers’ basic salaries and subsidies according to the law. There is the necessity through various channels to raise primary and secondary school teachers’ salaries and benefits, especially subsidy and allowance standards, to eliminate actual variances in teacher salaries.     

Private Nonprofit Organizations for Child Welfare Cases of South Korea and People’s Republic of China

Private organizations and public sector regarding child welfare services have been two main actors in improving the quality of children ’s lives. In this paper, the author examines two cases of childre...     

A Brief Statement on Educational Principle of the People＇s Republic of China

China issued two educational principles in 1960s and 1990s respectively. Both are composed of three fundamental elements-general aim of education, concrete purposes of education and ways of realizing them. Both emphasize the combination of education and work as well as the all-round development of the educatee. The difference between the two is that the former stipulates that education should serve the proletarian politics and education of laboring people while the latter provides that education should serve the socialist modernization and cultivation of builders and successors of socialism.     

The Tasks of the Class Teacher: Tradition and Renewal – An Evaluation of Development Projects Carried out in the Danish Folkeskole

This paper firstly outlines some of the problems children can experience as a result of transferring from primary to secondary school. It then goes on to describe an initiative by the West Midlands Quaker Peace Education Project, Blessed William Howard Roman Catholic School in Stafford and its feeder schools to coordinate a secondary school preparation project. This involved special training for all primary pupils about to enter the school and a group of sixth formers.     

Strategies for Achieving a Synthesis between the Teacher’s and Learners’Hidden Curriculum

Mismatches between planning, teaching, and learning in the curriculum development give rise to the hidden curricu-lum, which this paper mainly concerns with the explication of the reasons underlying th...     

Teacher agency and school-based curriculum in China’s non-elite schools

Mainland China has been embarking on a nation-wide education reform as part of its modernisation project for the past few decades. A relatively under-researched topic is teacher agency in non-elite schools where educators critically shape their reactions to new situations brought about by the reform. Focussing on the introduction of school-based curriculum in China, this article discusses how some educators from non-elite schools respond strategically to new opportunities and resources by promoting indigenous knowledge via engaging teaching methods. The essay illustrates, through two examples, how non-elite schools seek to provide the best kind of education available to their students by integrating Confucian and ethnic cultures into the formal curriculum. China’s experience demonstrates the exercise of teacher agency that arises from the interplay of human efforts, available capital and contingent factors. It also highlights the potential of utilising indigenous sources and synthesising them with non-local sources as part of implementing education reform.     

The inherent vulnerability of the Australian Curriculum’s cross-curriculum priorities

National curriculum development is a complex and contested process. By its very function, a national curriculum serves to organise diverse interests into a common framework, a task fraught with cultural and political tensions and compromises. In the emergent Australian Curriculum these tensions are manifest in and around the cross-curriculum priorities (CCPs): sustainability, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. These priorities have been under fire since their introduction to the curriculum and the announcement of a review of the emerging curriculum prompted fears of a renewed attack. Studies from diverse fields of education research suggest that a lack of high-level institutional support for initiatives such as the CCPs places them in jeopardy. This paper focuses on two priorities: Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. It employs interest convergence theory as a framework to understand connections between the intentions behind the inclusion of the CCPs and the outcomes of the Review of the Australian Curriculum. Furthermore, this paper draws on interview-based research that explores how the priorities are constructed by those who are expected to work with them, from pre-service through to experienced teachers. This theoretical framework provides an explanation for the perennially precarious nature of these kinds of curriculum initiatives.