This article explores the methodological and ethical challenges of doing qualitative fieldwork in an authoritarian state. Drawing on a long-term project conducted in China, I discuss how my interaction with the participants was mediated by the pervasive state power. This phenomenon adds a new layer to the question "can the subaltern…

This paper explores ethnographic fieldwork as moral laboratories. Drawing upon two episodes in my field encounters in Southwest China, I illustrate the nature of our method as a form of moral striving and experimentation. Fieldwork is a stage where practical actions become vulnerable ethical dramas in search for the situated good. Fieldwork…

To date, research on elite interviews has primarily focused on political or business settings in European and Anglo-American contexts. In this study, we examine the procedures involved in conducting elite interviews in academic settings, drawing on fieldwork with 53 senior scholars at 10 universities across five regions of northern China. We…

Transcultural doctoral education has become a space to create opportunities for candidates to construct transcultural knowledge from the Global South. Rancière's ideas about the ignorant schoolmaster and the role of dissensus have created cosmopolitan pedagogies in doctoral education. However, the role of history in transcultural doctoral…

In this paper, we engage with Chinese diasporas research through recourse to Bourdieu's relational, reflexive sociology. We start with the historical and recent developments of Chinese diasporas research and point out the potential of using Bourdieu to strengthen the theoretical underpinnings of this research. While we see a steady stream of…

In this article, we discuss the current state of research on Chinese teacher education as it directly pertains to issues of ethnic diversity. Drawing on an extensive review of the research literature published over the past 20 years, we highlight some of the limitations present within the contemporary research literature on teacher education in…

This article uses two examples from a video-cued ethnography conducted in a Chinese preschool to illustrate the ethical complexities of studying children in cross-cultural settings. Moments that raise ethical concerns also pose methodological questions and challenge the anthropologist's understanding of and sensitivity to the emic perspectives and…

Purpose: Through combing the 40 years' history of the development of Chinese educational policy research, this article attempts to sort out the efforts and lessons learned by researchers in the field of education policy in China. Design/Approach/Methods: As one of the earliest scholars engaged in the study of Chinese education policy, based on the…

Educational theorizing makes use of various tools and perspectives to understand how differentiation processes in education have emerged as responses to socio-historical developments. Drawing on a systematic literature review, this article finds that educational research has framed these responses in five different ways: as structural-functional…

Collective teaching study for teachers in Chinese primary and secondary schools plays an important role in promoting the quality of basic education, and is a major characteristic of Chinese education. This paper looks at the collective study of teaching by Chinese teachers as a product of the historical and cultural traditions particular to China,…

Globalisation and the shift towards a knowledge economy have made researchers among the most sought-after resources. International research mobility has been encouraged at policy levels and has remarkably increased in the past decade. Meanwhile, concerns of policy makers about the possible loss of such human capital are also rapidly growing. This…

Established in 1949, the People's Republic of China has gone through 70 years of history. From China's initial inception to the modern day it has grown quickly and become a major force on the world stage, the basic education in mainland China has contributed to cultivating student's talents and developing qualified workers. Specifically, in the…

This chapter examines the life, learning, and research experiences of an American scholar who immigrated to the United States from China where she received her primary and secondary school education, and taught ESL at the prestigious Chinese university from which she graduated. The scholar reflects on her stories in China and in the United States…

This paper explores the convergence and divergence in the discourses and practices of comparative education in Japan, North America, and Greater China. Research demands, institutional settings, and social and historical background determine the nature of the research discussed and practiced in each place. Some particular patterns were identified…

The philosophy of "publish or perish" has already been adopted as a yardstick by the vast majority of Chinese higher education institutions in their attempts to benchmark Western research universities in recent years, which has led to increasing pressure on university teachers to produce research publications. This paper addresses this…