Equalising schooling,unequalising private supplementary tutoring: access and tracking through shadow education in China

The global expansion of mass schooling has greatly increased opportunities for low-income families, and governments have devoted much effort to equalising access and quality in education systems. Alongside regular schooling, the so-called shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring has grown rapidly across the world. The fact that rich families can purchase more and better quality shadow education undermines the achievements of increased equality of opportunities in formal schooling. Drawing on a mixed-methods study in Shanghai, China, the article shows how shadow education has offset school equalisation policies through differentiation of access and through sorting mechanisms. Shadow education occupies a space beyond strict government control in which privileged families and elite schools ignore and mediate the equalisation policies, seeking competitive advantages. Uneven access to shadow education and tracking within it shape, maintain, and exacerbate inequitable schooling experiences at individual and institutional levels.     

县域义务教育均衡发展:政策与条件——以浙江省慈溪市为个案

慈溪是一个经济发达的县级市,基础教育发展水平一直走在宁波市乃至浙江省的前列,在推进义务教育均衡发展上制定了具有一定特色和力度的政策,包括经费保障、资源共享、师资交流、生源调配、扶贫济弱和监督评估六大方面的政策,不仅确保了"人人能上学、能读书",而且进一步接近了政府"人人上好学、读好书"的目标。制定这些政策的环境条件,主要是慈溪市政府所具有的科学的发展理念、因地制宜的个性化决策以及慈溪发达的经济、蓬勃的民办教育、尊师重教的文化传统、扶贫济困的慈善风气等。对这些政策和条件的分析能够为其他地区尤其是沿海发达地区县域义务教育的均衡发展提供借鉴。     

Schooling of girls and boys in a West African country: the effects of parental education,income, and household structure

This study investigates gender differences in the determinants of several schooling indicators in Conakry, Guinea, using ordered and binary probit models incorporating household-level random effects. Such indicators include grade attainment, current enrollment, and withdrawal from school. The survey, which was conducted on 1725 households, contains detailed information on a wide range of socioeconomic factors such as education, labor force activity and earnings, assets and health. Results indicate that increases in household income lead to greater investments in the schooling of girls than in the schooling of boys. Meanwhile, improvements in the education of fathers raise the schooling of both sons and daughters, while the education of mothers only has a significant impact on the schooling of daughters. These estimates show differences in maternal and paternal preferences for schooling daughters relative to sons. Therefore, the importance of gender, parental education, and household income and composition affect the education of children. However, findings also show that education for girls is unnecessary since they only need to work at home. Moreover, policies that raise household incomes will increase gender equity in schooling, which will also depend on whether and how these policies change the opportunity costs of girls and boys and the labor market returns to female and male schooling.     

Feminist Theorisations of Identity and Difference‐‐a case‐study related to gender education policy

The intention in this paper is to explore notions of identity and difference in relation to gender and ethnic minority status within the context of Australian schooling. This is discussed through an examination of education policies related to gender. It is argued that over a 20‐year period, these policies have reflected shifts in feminist understandings of processes of identification. Initially, such policies were founded on an understanding of gender which was essentialised and in doing so consolidated discourses that denied the subjectivity of ethnic minority women and girls and reinforced dichotomies related to minority and majority ethnic status. Subsequent policies, while adopting a more deconstructive view of femininity and masculinity and indicating the possibility of biculturalism, none the less failed to address the ways in which gender and cultural identifications articulate. The paper explores the need for gender education policies to incorporate feminist theorisations of identity as unessentialised and shifting in response to contextual factors, one of which is schooling.     

Micro-neoliberalism in China: public-private interactions at the confluence of mainstream and shadow education

With its shift to a market economy gathering speed from the 1990s, the Chinese Government embarked on an agenda that brought neoliberal forces into almost all sectors including education. The policies underpinned China’s spectacular economic growth, but in education have had consequences that arguably are problematic.

Drawing on a mixed-methods study in Shanghai, this paper examines ‘micro-neoliberalism’ in China’s education system, i.e. privatization and marketization at the individual, family, and institutional levels, with focus on blurring boundaries between public schooling and private supplementary tutoring. Some dimensions of these processes resulted from deliberate macro-level policies to decentralize control of schooling, raise performance, and empower private education. Other dimensions arose from the market behavior of individuals, families, and institutions that countered government efforts to steer parental choice of schools and to reduce disparities between schools. Education policies are enacted not only in schools but also in the shadow sector which is commonly overlooked. This paper focuses on Shanghai but has implications for other parts of China; and since shadow education is expanding as a global phenomenon, it also has relevance to many other countries.     

Identity policies of education: struggles for inclusion and exclusion in Peru and Colombia

ABSTRACT

Policy initiatives that seek to account for ethno-cultural differences in education and schooling have become increasingly popular over the past few decades. These include affirmative action measures and bilingual education models. The rationale for the implementation of these policies focuses on their potential to rectify historical discrimination by both levelling horizontal inequalities and granting equal value to different cultures and languages in the schooling process. In this framework, however, ethnic communities are often treated as discrete and static social aggregates, and social heterogeneity and spillover effects between groups are disregarded. This paper draws on empirical case studies from Colombia and Peru to show how identity policies of education can increase inter-ethnic competition, leading to protracted social conflicts. These outcomes, beyond negatively impacting local communities, raise important dilemmas surrounding the theoretical and operational foundations of these popular policy measures.     

Minority Education in China: From State's preferential policies to dislocated Tibetan schools

This article analytically describes how the state of mainland China addresses the 'periphery syndrome' of education in its 'peripheral areas' of national minorities. It discusses the rationales, policies, implementations and results for the development of minority basic education. The examination of the 9-year compulsory schooling and the boarding school system for minority pupils suggests contradictions and mismatches between state policies and implementations. The article reveals educational, as well as geographical displacement of minority schooling, particularly the internationally little-known Tibetan Schools and Classes that have been radically developed in the metropolises of Han majority. The dislocation of reform for minority basic education, especially the lack of cultural sensitivity, is further compounded by the ubiquitous practices of pupil tracking and school differentiation in the education system. The author concludes that the policy components of cultural responsiveness should be integrated in minority education development.     

Living and Learning at the Intersection: Student Homelessness and Complex Policy Environments

In urban districts, homeless and highly mobile students are an important contributor to achievement disparities—and their numbers are rising. To date there has been little inquiry into how broader education and housing policies shape the schooling experiences of homeless and highly mobile families. Using semi-structured interviews with 132 key community stakeholders (parents, school social workers, other school staff, and community/service personnel) in one urban area, this study explored how families living at the policy intersection of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and federal rehousing policies, such as the HEARTH Act, experience the schooling process. These policies have important impacts on students; the McKinney-Vento Act provides them with a range of supports while recent federal policies such as the HEARTH Act are shifting where and how they are living. Taking a policy perspective and drawing insights from Lin’s network theory of social capital, the findings suggest that these policies both independently and concomitantly shape families’ life opportunities. Implications for schools, communities, and scholars are addressed.     

What level of education matters most for growth?: Evidence from Portugal

We decompose annual average years of schooling series for Portugal into different schooling levels series. By estimating a number of vector autoregressions, we provide measures of aggregate and disaggregate economic growth impacts of different education levels. Increasing education at all levels except tertiary have a positive and significant effect on growth. Investment in education does not significantly crowd out physical investment and average years of schooling semi-elasticities have comparable magnitude across primary and secondary levels.     

School monitoring and quality assurance in the New Zealand school system

This article reports on the New Zealand education quality assurance and school monitoring system, including its framework, and responsibilities of agencies. It first gives an outline of the education system in New Zealand, and then introduces the role of school charters and levels of schooling. To ensure the quality of schools, the methods of school self-review and external reviews of schools are used by the New Zealand government. Schools are given a list of obligations that they have to follow. Assessment policies and the school curriculum are designed to support learning. Fubuki Sakura formerly called William Leung     

Giving the 'Hidden Hand' a Helping Hand? The rhetoric and reality of neoliberal education reform in England and New Zealand

Recent moves in many parts of the world to restructure and deregulate state education have sought to link significant degrees of institutional autonomy with an emphasis on parental choice and competition, thereby creating 'quasi-markets' in education. This paper discusses such developments as part of a neoliberal project for education in two of the contexts in which these policies have so far been taken furthest-England/Wales and New Zealand. It compares five aspects of policy in these countries, namely school autonomy, diversity and choice, private sector involvement, privatised provision and accountability mechanisms. It argues that the rhetoric of neoliberal schooling policies is far removed from their reality, as governments confront the classic tension between fiscal imperatives and the need for legitimation. It points to the need for new political ways forward in a situation where there appears to be little creative thinking about alternatives to the policies of the New Right.     

广东省农村义务教育阶段贫困学生资助的政策与实施

近年来广东制定并实施了农村义务教育阶段贫困学生资助的一系列政策,取得了良好的效果,但政策在执行过程中还存在着诸如农村免费义务教育补助金部分被挪用,免收农村义务教育阶段杂费后学校的收入比不实行免除杂费时要少,部分非农村户口的学生占用了农村户口免费金额等问题。针对这些问题,笔者认为应该建立义务教育经费的投入保障制度,建立科学规范、高效快捷的资金拨付制度等来完善广东义务教育阶段贫困学生资助政策。     

The global–local interface in multicultural education policies in Japan

This paper examines interactions between the global and the local in the context of Japanese mainstream schooling, by focusing on the development of local government policies to manage diversity in schools. This paper reveals how local governments developed education policies in interaction with grassroots professional groups, activists and schools, and by selectively incorporating national policies. These local policies are multicultural education policies but differ in two significant ways. The first is their predominant concern with human rights education, leaving celebration of cultural diversity as a marginal consideration, and the other is the official use of the term ‘foreigners’ in the title of these policies; both of which reflect the pre‐existing local context. The paper demonstrates that new immigrants do not unilaterally impact on supposedly ethnically homogeneous Japanese classrooms, but that the pre‐existing local contexts (national, local and institutional) have mediated global forces in effecting changes.     

Keeping Up Appearances: Uniform Policy for School Diversity?

This paper analyses policies pertaining to school dress codes which have been formulated recently by all state education bureaucracies in Australia. It examines these policies and their implementation in the context of devolution, the marketisation of schools, and cognate social legislation. In doing so it seeks to understand the textual hiatus between government policy and schooling practices.     

Privatization and Commercialization of Public Education: Consequences for Citizenship and Citizenship Education

My purpose is to examine and evaluate the implementation of market ideology and practices in education through the prism of both modern democratic theory and the discourse of rights. I examine the essence and defining characteristics of public schooling in modern democratic theory, explore the democratic purposes of education, and the unique mission of public schools. I also analyze the vision of public schooling that surfaces from the discourse of human rights and children’s rights, examining relevant UN declarations and conventions. I then proceed to discuss some major manifestations of markets in education, question their congruence with the democratic vision of public schooling, and examine their consequences for both citizenship and citizenship education. My conclusion is that markets in education, and the formulation of education policies and practices through decision-making processes dominated by business and parents, are not necessarily fashioned in the best interest of a democratic society.     

Neoliberalism, Social Darwinism, and Consumerism Masquerading as School Reform

Education reform policies harvested from neoliberalism, social Darwinism, consumerism, and free-market ideologies have begun to replace the pragmatic progressivism of the pre-World War II era. In this article, I use three federal and state education reform policies and programs—No Child Left Behind Act, Common Core State Standards Initiative, and national standardized testing—as examples of market-oriented ideologies embedded in the reforms. Further, I rely on Critical Social Theory, following Freire, as a framework to examine how the education policies and programs intersect to potentially impede access to quality education opportunities for children from impoverished backgrounds. I use Freire’s conception of Critical Social Theory because of his focus on how education should be used as a transformational mechanism to improve lives rather than a tool to train and inculcate children to imitate and be subservient to the dominant culture. I argue that some federal education policies enacted since 2002 provide examples of the confluence of ideologies that are creating a new meritocracy-based system. The meritocracy-based system will disproportionately penalize poorer students who have less access to out of school experiences that prepare them for formal schooling. Based on punishment triggers embedded in state and federal education policies, a cycle of educational austerity ensues when a student does not achieve a mandatory achievement benchmark. The cycle of austerity can doom some students to under-achievement in the short term and to becoming under-educated in the long term.     

Policies for inclusive education practices in teacher education in the United Kingdom and France

Implementation of any inclusive policy is dependent on longstanding conceptions, beliefs, and public discourses on schooling, learning, and including children in mainstream schooling. The adoption of inclusive education in education policies in France and the United Kingdom requires discursive support to reshape the meaning and content of teachers' work, duties and practices. Although inclusive education is widely debated, analyses of the variations in policy narratives promoting inclusive teaching in Europe are lacking. This article reports on comparative and international analysis of discourses and policies for empowering teachers for continuous professional development and inclusive school practices. The analysis focuses on an exploration of varieties of articulations, resources, and conceptual dynamics in the UK and France. These elements are discussed within the broader scheme of the teaching profession, with reference to the inclusive education paradigm.     

中国民办高等教育的迅速崛起和发展趋势--"十五"国家教育科研重点课题《民办教育发展研究》民办高等教育发展研究子课题组研究成果报告

中国现有民办高校和高等教育机构1200余所，其中，学历教育的民办高校167所(含8所本科院校)。其发展的主要特点是经费自筹，办学自立，贴近市场，滚动发展，竞争激烈，优胜劣汰。今后，民办高等教育发展的大趋势是：思想进一步解放，政策更加宽松；办学资金多渠道，领导体制多样化；职业教育有优势，贴近市场求发展；内部管理更加规范，办学水平进一步提高；学历教育与非学历教育共同发展，学历教育比重不断加大。     

Diversification of educational provision and school-to-work transitions in rural Mali : Analysing a reconfiguration of inequalities in light of justice theories

Based on an approach focusing on actors and in particular on educational trajectories, this paper analyses the effects of diversification of educational provision on inequalities in rural Mali. It shows that there are considerable gaps in the skills acquired by students, including within formal education. These gaps are perceived as illegitimate by education stakeholders. The skills developed though the familial apprenticeship – which is simultaneous with schooling – play a prominent role in workplace integration. At the same time, the skills acquired through schooling are put into practice for productive activities. Consequences of these results for education policies are also analyzed.     

当前澳大利亚基础教育核心政策及执行情况

自2008年以来,澳大利亚在基础教育领域推出了一系列政策改革举措.在早期教育和中小学教育中,加大联邦政府与州政府的投入,完善早期教育体系,推动薄弱学校办学改革,提高教师教学水平,完善数字化教育资源网络,努力使教育更好地服务于经济发展和民众教育需求,提高质量,促进均衡发展.