Tensions and challenges in China’s education policy borrowing

Abstract

Background: This article critically discusses the key tensions and challenges arising from the educational policy borrowing in China, through its current education reform. Focussing on the new curriculum reform (NCR), the paper highlights the interactions and conflicts between foreign and local ideologies and practices.

Sources of evidence: The main sources of evidence that form the basis of the analysis for this article were research data from an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews conducted with 166 school principals, vice-principals and teachers from China between 2013 and 2015.

Main argument: It is argued that the NCR has borrowed selective ideas and practices from elsewhere, such as a school-based curriculum, student-centred pedagogy and formative assessment. It is further suggested that the borrowed policies are mediated and moderated by the ideological attitude of the Chinese educational stakeholders, stemming from the notion of ‘theory-ladenness’ within an exam-oriented paradigm.

Conclusions: The example of China illustrates the effects of an ideological attitude on educational policy borrowing that challenges the notion of universally appropriate ways of teaching, learning and reforming an educational system.     

PISA and education reform in Shanghai

This article examines how Chinese education officials interpret and utilise selective information from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to legitimate and consolidate contested reform messages and initiatives in Shanghai. A content analysis of data obtained from newspaper articles, official documents and education essays published in China yielded two key findings. First, Chinese officials turn to PISA data to highlight the existing problems of academic burden and ‘school choice fever’ that validate the need for reform. Second, they aim to garner support for on-going reform initiatives that seek to redefine the aims and nature of education in Shanghai. In both instances, the education officials do not just rely on the resources from PISA to advance local reforms. They also re-interpret the information in such a way that allows them to create new possibilities and realities. The example of Shanghai illustrates the symbiotic relationship between PISA/Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the domestic education system that is characterised by both dependence and independence.     

Moving Beyond the Brag Sheet: A Meta-Analysis of Biodata Measures Predicting Student Outcomes

Measures of biographical data, or biodata, provide indicators of one's life history and past experiences. Biodata information is often available in various forms during processes of academic admissions to higher education. Such information can be used, in combination with other factors, to predict students’ future academic and extra-curricular accomplishments. There is a scattered body of literature investigating relationships between standardized biodata measures and a number of student criteria in college. The current study uses meta-analysis methods to summarize findings on how various biodata measures—overall scores or scale scores—predict student accomplishments, including grades, self- and other-rated performances, persistence, and extracurricular accomplishments. Data from 46 independent samples, consisting of 38,478 students and resulting in 74 individual predictor–criterion relationships were analyzed. Results indicate, generally, that biodata measures predict substantially students’ academic and extra-curricular accomplishments. Overall biodata scores correlate with grades at .39, persistence at .25, and point-hour ratios at .35. Students’ accomplishments in leadership, visual and performing arts, music, and science were predicted best by biodata measures developed specifically to target those outcomes. This meta-analytic study provides support for the predictive validity of biographical data inventories with respect to student outcomes and adds justification to the use of biodata in academic selection.     

Science Teacher Beliefs and Intentions to Implement Science-Technology-Society (STS) in the Classroom

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Library and Information Services to the Arabic‐Speaking Community: A Survey of Michigan Public Libraries

Public Libraries tout that they serve diverse communities, even having collection development policies, programs, and service that recognize their dissimilar neighborhoods. The authors of this article, having noted the influx of Arab‐speaking populations from Iraq and other Middle East countries to the United States, sought to find out the extent to which this population was receiving library service. The investigators discovered that four Michigan counties comprise a significant Arab‐speaking population; in fact, that population base is surpassed only by that of the Middle East countries and Paris, France. The researchers constructed a survey, based on a successful model used with libraries serving Spanish‐speaking populations and applied it to the Michigan libraries in the counties with a significant Arab‐speaking population. The results reveal that the Arab‐speaking neighborhoods, at least at the time of the survey, were not very well served (except in a few instances) by their public libraries.     

Dear Radio Broadcaster: Fan Mail as a Form of Perceived Interactivity

In an attempt to learn more about perceived interactivity, this study explores the perceptions of radio listeners during the 1920s and 1930s. Radio provides an interesting case for exploring interactivity because, although the medium lacked interactive technological features, millions of listeners perceived that the opportunity to “interact” with radio existed through fan mail. The study finds that fan mail reflects several dimensions of interactivity often associated with the technological features of a medium: user input and feedback, medium responsiveness, two-way communication, and system monitoring. The results suggest that interactivity may be dependent on media content rather than media technology.     

A comparative analysis of project method and learning project

This is the first of two linked papers which explore the implications for professional learning of the ethnic and cultural diversity which marks contemporary developed societies. The first paper considers the responsibilities brought to professionals by multicultural contexts for their practice and reviews educational provision in relation to these responsibilities for one group, namely the police. The two papers are based on a case study of the contribution of continuing professional education to the development of the Race Relations Policy of Metropolitan Toronto Police. This initiative brings lessons for any organization or professional group. The paper describes the Race Relations Policy and sets its development in the context of new models of policing currently being created and the legislative framework surrounding the initiative. The paper considers the implications for professional learning of policy development of this kind, and examines the extent to which continuing professional education programmes respond to issues relating to visible minorities. The paper reviews issues in training and education in police services and summarizes recent approaches to police education and training. Using the foregoing analysis as a base, the paper then focuses on race relations education and training in police services, reviewing different approaches and the successes (or problems) which their proponents (or critics) have claimed for them. This examination, drawing on material from both the UK and Canada, concludes that a focus on the training of individual officers produces only limited effects. Change of the kind needed for the development of Metropolitan Toronto Police Services’ Race Relations Policy, and for their creation of a new model of policing, draws on organizational measures to change institutional life radically. Such an ambitious project is supported by novel forms of learning, undertaken outside the classroom. These will be the subject of the second paper.