This article provides an overview of the politics of education as they affect regions and communities on the periphery of the People's Republic of China. Drawing on the articles in this special issue of Comparative Education, it analyses tensions related to the attempted imposition of Bejing's homogenising and totalising vision of Chineseness…

Purpose: This study aims to answer the following questions: (1) Why have attempts to transplant Western vocational education models failed? (2) Is there anything we can learn from the experiences of Eastern Asian countries when developing their own vocational education models? Design/Approach/Methods: This study reviews the history of…

The idea of the public good of higher education is closely related to the political, social and educational cultures in which higher education is embedded. It varies across contexts. However, widely used notions of the 'public' aspects of higher education, including the concepts of economic public goods and private goods, conventionally assume…

Humanist ideas in education have been promoted by both Western thinkers and classical wisdom texts of Asia. Exploring this connection, I examine the educational philosophy of an iconic ancient Tamil (Indian) text, the "Thiruvalluvar Kural," by juxtaposing it with a contemporary humanist classic, Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the…

The discourse regarding globalisation and particularly 'global competition' has appeared in a range of socio-economic areas and higher education is no exception. Global competition has been the policy context in which a range of national excellence initiatives have been developed. These have often involved competitive processes with significant…

This article responds to the work by Marginson and Yang in this special issue from an epistemological lens. It focuses on how to observe China and Chinese education. After offering an overall review of contemporary social sciences, it then reminds us of the need for overcoming dichotomous mode of thinking in social research in the context of…

Universities and scholars around the world teach and research extensively in the field of peace education; yet, despite a plethora of diverse scholarship, educational programs are often critiqued as dominated by the English-speaking world. This paper employs the intersecting lenses of decolonization and postcolonial theory to explore and challenge…

The paper compares Anglo-American and Chinese approaches to the outcomes of higher education, primarily but not solely collective outcomes, by examining the Western domain of 'public good' and 'public goods' and parallel or near parallel activities in China. It reviews scholarly discourses of society, state and higher education in the respective…

The current discourse on higher education internationalisation is mainly Western, and there is a need to examine non-Western perspectives on internationalisation informed by different contexts, traditions and goals. Reported in this paper is a study that aims to glean the Chinese conception of internationalisation in higher education among 37…

This paper focuses on an emerging group in Chinese higher education -- students in transnational higher education (TNHE). Recent research has documented much about students' motivations for attending TNHE institutions. However, the impact of such institutions on student outputs remains under-researched. This study conducted interviews with 78…

Claims regarding Western neo-colonial domination over scholarship in Comparative and International Education (CIE) have recently commanded much attention -- for example in a 2017 special issue of the journal "Comparative Education Review" (CER) on the theme of 'contesting coloniality.' Stressing their marginal 'positionality,' the…

Background: The global introduction of complex measures directed at the containment of the COVID-19 spread has spurred a massive shift to distance learning among educational institutions. As far as such a learning mode is rather forced and, probably, only a few establishments faced no difficulties with it, the matter of assuring teaching…

This article analyzes "Xueji" ([Chinese characters omitted]) and discusses some of the myths and facts in Western perceptions of Chinese educational practice. It also looks at the similarities and contrasts between Eastern and Western conceptions of teaching and learning. A careful study of "Xueji" ([Chinese characters…

Will my children's creativity be hindered if I place them within the rigidity of an East Asian school? Conversely, could my children's math and science skills benefit from the high expectations of an East Asian curriculum and teacher? The purpose of this study is two-fold. Firstly, it aims to demonstrate that comparison between Eastern and Western…

Education is under pressure to respond to the changing modern world. Education system worldwide aims to develop students into well-rounded citizens and help them become creative problem-solvers. Several theories have been proposed in the research literature which emphasizes the importance of social and cultural context to creativity. Eastern and…