Education for Sustainable Development in Ethnic Autonomous Areas of China: A Comparison of Two Curriculum Initiatives and Their Educational Implications

This paper examines the educational implications of two curriculum initiatives in China that have produced curricular materials promoting education for sustainable development (ESD) in minority-populated ethnic autonomous areas in China. The two curriculum projects present distinctive discourses, conceptions, models, frameworks and scopes of ESD in the country. Nonetheless, there is a likelihood that the actual implementation of the curriculum initiatives, especially the enactment of the curriculum materials produced, might be thwarted due to structural and systemic educational constraints, an anthropocentric approach to sustainable development, poor teacher support and teacher training, omissions of the affective learning components in curricular contents, as well as loopholes and weaknesses in the development of the curriculum materials themselves.     

Regenerating narrative inquiry for teacher growth on a Toronto-Shanghai Sister School partnership landscape

In this paper, I demonstrate a way of conducting narrative inquiry that is oriented towards understanding and improving teachers’ experiences in a particular Toronto–Shanghai/West–East Sister School reciprocal learning partnership. I show how this narrative inquiry process is informed by a Deweyan way of thinking about experience and is enriched by the Confucian idea of being a good guest. I illustrate how this inquiry process involves teachers and researchers as collaborative and reciprocal learners on the Dao of further personal and professional growth and learning. I suggest that conducting narrative inquiry in a Canada–China interschool setting could give rise to West–East reciprocal learning communities that have the potential of bridging the cultural and historical narratives that underlie Chinese and North American education. It could also create the harmonious and democratic educational conditions for fostering global citizens as learners in our 21st century.