Bringing the State Back In: restoring the role of the State in Chinese higher education

In the last few decades, in the wake of three major crises in political faith and the overall instability that followed the end of the Cultural Revolution, the post-Mao Chinese government has sought to improve the lives of its citizens and to restore political legitimacy through rapid economic growth that has focused almost exclusively on GDP. This strong focus has brought about rapid, widespread economic growth to China, and has, by classical market standards, been a success. At the same time, issues of social development and human well-being have received less attention. Before the Hu-Wen leadership's formal accession to power, the Jiang-Zhu administration sought to adopt neo-liberal ideas and practices to reform the delivery of social services and the implementation and funding of social policy. In this context, major fields of social policy such as health, education, and housing have been going through the processes of marketisation and privatisation, which have placed much of the financial burden of meeting these social welfare needs on China's citizens. After several decades of privatisation and marketisation in the educational system, the Chinese government has been the subject of repeated criticism for failing to tackle what is popularly known as the ‘new three mountains phenomenon’, namely, the rising cost of health, education, and housing in recent years. Against the wider policy context described above, this article examines the social and political consequences of the privatisation and marketisation of education. It also discusses the major policies and strategies recently adopted by the Chinese government to restore the role of the State in the education system in order to address the negative consequences of the privatisation of education. Finally, it critically examines the main implications of major reforms undertaken in higher education in Mainland China.     

陈献章儒道兼综的道德文化

陈献章作为明代社会变化的感受者和见证者,为救人心、救社会、重建道德主体哲学,摆脱束缚,大胆创新,实现了学术文化由理学向心学的转向。在这种转向过程中,透过陈献章对生死、苦乐、名利、仕隐等道德文化问题的阐述,可以看出其儒道兼综的道德文化特色。     

Wittgenstein's ‘Relativity’: Training in language‐games and agreement in Forms of Life

Taking Wittgenstein's love of music as my impetus, I approach aporetic problems of epistemic relativity through a round of three overlapping (canonical) inquiries delivered in contrapuntal (higher and lower) registers. I first take up the question of scepticism surrounding ‘groundless knowledge’ and contending paradigms in On Certainty (physics versus oracular divination, or realism versus idealism) with attention given to the role of ‘bedrock’ certainties in providing stability amidst the Heraclitean flux. I then look into the formation of sedimented bedrock knowledge, or practices of knowing, by comparing Wittgenstein's remarks on animal habituation and initiate training into human forms of life. In the latter case, mastery of techniques—our common education—secures agreement in judgment. Finally, I entertain Wittgenstein's obscure references to Einstein's Relativity in Zettel, showing initiate training as a way of ‘setting the clocks’ with variable degrees of certainty, relative to the language‐games played. Together, these three approaches help us to stop the ‘endless circling’ when philosophers try to address knowledge questions through the logic of object and designation, or verification of correspondence between propositions and things. Instead, attention moves to the way we educate our children and how we employ agreements and bedrock certainties in practices.     

“我们在哪里？”——论铁凝《永远有多远》的生存哲学思考

铁凝在《永远有多远》中诉诸人物故事展开一种道德的反思,人文精神的追寻。她以＂永远有多远＂的询问和期待,对中华民族古老的传统美德在商业大潮冲击下的迷失与残存进行了深入的历史思索,表现了自身的人文理想及道德期盼。铁凝的作品始终贯穿着一种主体精神,即对女性的生命关爱和深刻的女性忧患意识。《永远有多远》是铁凝这种主体精神的续延,白大省的形象是铁凝对女性自身的弱点的再度思索,并由此引导人们思考：在当下,我们需要什么样的生存哲学,换句话说,要追问＂我们在哪里？＂。这种主体精神的续延,体现了＂五四＂以来知识分子所追求的人文关怀。     

Education policy as an act of white supremacy: whiteness,critical race theory and education reform

The paper presents an empirical analysis of education policy in England that is informed by recent developments in US critical theory. In particular, I draw on ‘whiteness studies’ and the application of critical race theory (CRT). These perspectives offer a new and radical way of conceptualizing the role of racism in education. Although the US literature has paid little or no regard to issues outside North America, I argue that a similar understanding of racism (as a multifaceted, deeply embedded, often taken‐for‐granted aspect of power relations) lies at the heart of recent attempts to understand institutional racism in the UK. Having set out the conceptual terrain in the first half of the paper, I then apply this approach to recent changes in the English education system to reveal the central role accorded the defence (and extension) of race inequity. Finally, the paper touches on the question of racism and intentionality: although race inequity may not be a planned and deliberate goal of education policy neither is it accidental. The patterning of racial advantage and inequity is structured in domination and its continuation represents a form of tacit intentionality on the part of white powerholders and policy‐makers. It is in this sense that education policy is an act of white supremacy. Following others in the CRT tradition, therefore, the paper’s analysis concludes that the most dangerous form of ‘white supremacy’ is not the obvious and extreme fascistic posturing of small neo‐nazi groups, but rather the taken‐for‐granted routine privileging of white interests that goes unremarked in the political mainstream.     

Researching educational policy and change in ‘new times’: using critical discourse analysis

A number of writers have drawn attention to the increasing importance of language in social life in ‘new times’ and Fairclough has referred to ‘discourse driven’ social change. These conditions have led to an increase in the use of various forms of discourse analysis in policy analysis. This paper explores the possibilities of using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in critical policy research in education, drawing on a larger research project which is investigating the equity implications of Education Queensland’s reform agenda. It is argued that, in the context of new times, CDA is of particular value in documenting multiple and competing discourses in policy texts, in highlighting marginalized and hybrid discourses, and in documenting discursive shifts in policy implementation processes. The last part of the paper discusses how such research might be used by policy activists inside and outside education department bureaucracies to further social democratic goals.     

草木诗人许雪萍诗歌生命意识探微

许雪萍是当下广西诗坛实力派青年女诗人。作为很有个性的＂草木诗人＂,对大自然的诗意捕捉——在大自然的诗意抒情中,建构诗人的生命意识、追寻和探索生命的价值、探寻生命的家园,这是许雪萍诗歌的主要内容特点。     

A Minority within a Minority? Social Justice for Traveller and Roma Children in ECEC

This article discusses recent policy developments in Europe regarding Roma and Traveller integration and Early Childhood Provision. After a long history of oppression, Roma issues have recently become prominent on the EU policy agenda. The article discusses how these relate to developments in other areas of policy: the European children's rights agenda and the recognition that early childhood education and care is a key policy tool to combat social exclusion. It gives background information on Roma and Travellers in Europe and discusses the consequences of subsuming the various communities under one umbrella term: Roma. The EU Commission is concerned with responses from Member States to the European Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies. The article argues that in order to address Roma children's experience from a holistic perspective, social justice and equality need to be key elements of early childhood education and care provision and training. The European policy developments that frame the article are examined from a local vantage point: the experiences of Traveller and Roma children in Ireland and the Irish Preschool Education Initiative for Children from Minority Communities.     

It Ain’t What You Say...

This essay takes as its starting-point the recent announcement that GCSE English, the high-stakes test taken by 16-year-olds in England, will no longer include the assessment of speaking and listening. It attempts to place this decision, and other recent policy interventions that will have an impact on how talk in the classroom is conceptualised and valued, in a longer history of schooling, attitudes to spoken English and the notion of a spoken standard. The essay then explores, through an account of an observed GCSE English lesson, something of the complexities involved in taking talk, and the assessment of talk, seriously.     

难以逃离的瘫痪——从空间批评视角解读乔伊斯的《阿拉比》

空间批评关注空间的社会文化等属性,文本中的空间是一种蕴含多维意义的指涉系统。乔伊斯在其短篇小说《阿拉比》中分别从景观空间、社会空间和个体空间三个角度呈现精神瘫痪的都柏林。景观空间反映出都柏林社会的沉闷压抑、毫无生气、令人窒息;社会空间为情节提供了发展的广度;个人空间则折射出主人公压抑的心情。这三种空间成为小说中的一种指涉系统,成功地展现了都柏林这座瘫痪中心的全景。