Riding over socialism and global capitalism: changing education governance and social policy paradigms in post‐Mao China

In coping with the challenges of globalization, various reform measures, in the field of social policy, have been initiated in post‐Mao China. Strategies such as privatization, marketization, commodification and societalization have been adopted to redefine the relationship between the state, the market and other non‐state sectors involved in social policy provision and financing. In particular, the restructuring of state‐owned enterprises and the de‐monopolization of the state in social policy provision has inevitably led to significant changes in the post‐Mao welfare regime. This article has chosen a theme ‘riding over socialism and global capitalism’ to examine how the Chinese government reinvents its social policy delivery by adopting new governance strategies to cope with the growing impacts of globalization. With particular reference to higher education, this article focuses on how the three major aspects of higher education governance, namely, provision, financing and regulation, have changed since the economic reform started in the late 1970s. This article concludes by asking whether the introduction of new governance strategies and new reform strategies in education have weakened the state capacity.     

Teaching, Teacher Knowledge and Constructivism

An effective education program delivers a satisfactory level of achievement for every student. For this to happen, we must examine carefully the implications of educational theories and research for teaching and learning. The way a teacher conducts his or her lessons must also be examined critically. This paper will deal with teaching, teacher knowledge and constructivism. For teaching, some reasons were suggested for the observation why it had not changed significantly since the last 40 years in Asian classrooms. In the area of teacher knowledge, the authors report a recent research finding on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) development. The paper concludes with a discussion on whether constructivism is indeed a better way to teach. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Music students’ perception of the use of multi-media technology at the graduate level in hong kong higher education

The core purpose of this paper is to draw together research issues and concrete problems with the use of multimedia technology at the graduate level in higher music education by examining one university’s responses to the challenges posed by the use of multimedia technology as a teaching and learning aid for music education. Between June and July 2006, this study conducted a simple questionnaire and interview survey of 16 postgraduate students. The results suggest that music students are confident in their abilities to use multimedia technologies but that many do not believe that the introduction of multimedia technologies into the curriculum will improve the quality of their education. Whilst students’ motivation to learn depends on their interest in the subject and their lecturer’s approach, the incorporation of technology should always be relevant to each individual module. The results of this case study could help other universities respond to the changes brought about by electronic learning and other educational multimedia technology.     

Writing motivation and performance in Chinese children

Reading and Writing - This study examined the relationships between writing motivation and written composition performance in Chinese among 388 Chinese children in Grades 3 to 5 in accordance with...     

Reforms in pedagogy and the Confucian tradition: looking below the surface

This Forum article addresses some of the issues raised in the article by Ying-Syuan Huang and Anila Asghar’s paper entitled: Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers’ perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan. An attempt is made to highlight the need for a more nuanced approach in considering the Confucian education tradition and its compatibility with education reforms. In particular, the article discusses issues concerning the historical development of the Confucian education tradition, challenges in reform implementation that are in reality tradition-independent, as well as opportunities and points of convergence that the Confucian education tradition presents that can in fact be favorable to implementation of reform-based pedagogies.     

Making sense of teacher leadership in early childhood education in China

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical discussion on teacher leadership in early childhood education (ECE) in Chinese contexts. Since 2010, the Chinese government has initiated a comprehensive education reform in ECE, with strategies for developing teacher leadership and promoting education quality. However, at the school level there is a lack of leadership preparation and development, along with a gap between policy initiative and its implementation. How to narrow this gap between policy and practice in teacher leadership has become a critical issue for ECE in China. This paper suggests that ‘formal role or informal role’ and ‘role or practice’ are important dimensions of teacher leadership in a Chinese, policy-driven context. In this regard, it is worth exploring how teacher leadership is conceptualized and enacted in the process of quality improvement and related contextual factors. In doing so, an agenda could be identified for future research, contributing to theories on the development of teacher leadership in the global discourse.     

Hong Kong Student Achievement in OECD-PISA Study: Gender Differences in Science Content, Literacy Skills, and Test Item Formats

This study examined gender differences in students' scientific literacy as measured by OECD-PISA. In particular, we focused on the 2437 students from 140 Hong Kong schools. Hong Kong boys' and girls' science scores did not differ overall. However, boys scored higher than girls at the higher percentiles (75th and above). Moreover, specific test components showed gender differences. Boys tended to score higher on tests with more earth and physical science items, understanding of scientific knowledge items, and closed items. Meanwhile, girls tended to score higher on recognizing questions and identifying evidence items. These results suggest that a science test assessing diverse content and literacy skills in a variety of response formats provides both a more comprehensive picture of students' capabilities and a more likely gender-equitable assessment.     

A comparative study of music education in Shanghai and Taipei: westernization and nationalization

This study compares the music taught and its associated cultural values in Shanghai and Taipei primary and secondary schools. Both owe their cultural ascendancy to traditional Chinese music and western musicology. How do the music education systems of these two Chinese communities reflect their respective public cultures and political ideologies? Data from a sample of 3204 Shanghai and Taipei Chinese school students showed that tensions between classroom music activities and pupils' musical preferences arose from the difficult preservation of cultural and political identity in both Mainland China and Taiwan. Dilemmas concerning the use of music for patriotic and ideological purposes are also discussed in this study.