Much of the literature exploring Chinese international student engagement with critical thinking in Western universities draws on reductive essentialisations of 'Confucianism' in efforts to explain cross-cultural differences. In this paper I review literature problematising these tendencies. I then shift focus from inferences about how philosophy…

Assessment for Learning (AfL) describes the powerful role assessment plays in shaping how and what students learn. AfL is associated with formative assessment and is placed in contrast to the summative role of certification. This article, however, focuses on AfL in Confucian-influenced cultures and finds that this summative/formative binary does…

Higher education has long established primary importance to the formation of students, manifest in ideas such as Confucian "xiushen" (self-cultivation) and "Bildung." However, despite the shared focus on the idea of humans becoming humans, "xiushen" and "Bildung" are built on divergent philosophical…

Learner-teacher relationships have a profound impact on teaching and learning quality with many universities focusing on relationship-rich educational experiences. Engaging students as partners (SaP) has emerged as a way of enhancing learner-teacher relationships with research reporting numerous benefits and challenges. In this article, we address…

Yinyang philosophy encompasses an essential understanding of the mechanism and laws of nature, cosmos, and human society in Chinese culture, and reaches to many other parts of Asia and around the world. The purpose of this article is to explore how yinyang philosophy can serve as a philosophical underpinning of mixed methods research (MMR). In…

Despite the reforms to improve the quality of China's higher education and to adopt certain Western leadership theories, the heroic leadership model is still dominant in Chinese higher education institutions. Therefore, employing educational leadership may be complex in traditional Chinese culture. Thus, this special issue brings four articles…

Existing academic literature on higher education in China tends to promote an argument that current norms of academic freedom and the broader intellectual-state relationship can be attributed primarily to Chinese political and cultural traditions, particularly Confucian political thought, creating a false dichotomy between 'Western' liberal…

To examine the perceptions and experiences of Chinese university students blood donors. A semi-structured, face-to-face interview was conducted with 19 university students blood donors and an inductive thematic analysis was performed to analyze the interview. Five themes were generated from data analysis, that is, participants' attitudes toward…

This study aimed to determine the relationship between entrepreneurial training and intention among Southeast Asian students who are influenced by Confucianism. The conceptual model was tested with a sample size of 281 students enrolled in a business administration program. The most significant findings from the study were: (i) students'…

This article discusses how a new APRS service-learning model was implemented in a new service-learning project in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) orthopedics curriculums at three Hong Kong institutions. The APRS model adopting flipped learning approach consists of four cyclic stages, including Application, Practice, Reflection and…

This study aimed to characterise academics' conceptions of teaching in fully online undergraduate distance education courses with no on-campus component. The study aimed to fill a gap in the literature, as previous research had examined conceptions of teaching in face-to-face courses, with a few studies of blended teaching via the Internet in…

Students' engagement in academic readings has become a concern in Australian classrooms. There has been a strong call for innovative strategies to better engage students in academic readings and improve their understanding of this area. This study deployed a self-study methodology to examine what was offered by international academics and…

Through a narrative analysis of 33 interviews with Vietnamese early career academics, we explore whether a Confucianist/collectivist academic context in Vietnam has a key influence on academics' identity work, within the embrace of encroaching managerialist practices. We show how these academics from 11 universities negotiated identity alignment…

In this article, we examine how the concept of world-class universities has emerged in Chinese higher education at both the sectoral and institutional level. We examine policy decisions related to creating world-class universities on China's mainland and institutional responses to these policies. We then read these policies through "cultural…

Since the 19th century, Chinese societies, as latecomers to modernization, have prioritized Western learning. Modelled on European and North American experiences, modern universities were created to serve this purpose. Having little linkage to their indigenous cultural traditions, they operate in Confucian socio-cultural contexts, with constant…