In this paper, I made a historical and philosophical reflection on the social scientific categorization of "rural children" (nongcun ertong) in contemporary Chinese discourses of educational equality. The empowerment discourse about them as an educationally marginalized group based on scientific inquiry into their problems reflects a new…

Rapid development and expansion of technology has created massive shifts in people's lives around the globe. China's focus on transforming the nation into a global leader in technology has resulted in the proliferation of policies, which are typically interpreted as part of the Western neoliberal economic expansion and imperialism. However, in…

This paper examines the political economy of artificial intelligence (AI) and education in China, through an analysis of government policy and private sector enterprise. While media and policy discourse often portray China's AI development in terms of a unified national strategy, and a burgeoning geopolitical contestation for future global…

UNESCO's relatively high prestige across East Asia has spurred intensifying efforts by governments to use its imprimatur to legitimate official narratives of the past and visions of the future. This article focuses on China's use of UNESCO as an arena for competitive national 'branding' in the education field, especially relating to STEM and AI.…

Hong Kong, as a former colony of the United Kingdom, is characterised as a hybrid of East and West. Its colonial history is commonly seen as establishing many positive aspects of Hong Kong and shaping good qualities of its people, such as the value of rule of law, free speech, freedom of the press, and fluency in English. Yet the majority of…

The reconstitution of the academic committee system is an important part of the construction of a modern university system in China. Through analysis of policy documents, it is evident that, in the historical context of the last half century or more, whenever fundamental changes have been made to systems related to academic power, these have…

As the US-China geopolitical tensions escalated, this study sought to investigate how Chinese students respond to the political circumstances when making their post-graduation plans. Drawing from interviews among 15 Chinese international students who graduated from a US university, this study found that most Chinese students did not change their…

Policy changes are dependent on institutional logic. As they are analogies shared by a group, when metaphors for universities change, they ultimately promote changes to university governance models as well. Taking analogies into account, university reforms have proceeded while revolving around the metaphors of the university as government and the…

This paper provides a critical account of the role of universities in the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong.To do so, the paper examines the political economy of Hong Kong's innovation and technology development. It outlines a finance-led regime, under which the vision of long-term innovation initiatives is transformed into…

Over the past decades, higher education governance and university management have become increasingly complex worldwide in a context of unprecedented expansion and diversification. Driven by both external and internal pressures, higher education reforms in different nations have often been reported to follow a similar pattern: shifting from the…

In the West, the music practice of turntablism continues to gain traction and awareness both inside and outside of the music classroom, as DJing becomes more prevalent in mainstream music culture. This qualitative study investigates the extent and type of turntablism pedagogy in China, a country with different cultural and political values where…

PISA allows for comparisons and contributes to the distribution of certain types of capital among countries, which is converted into soft power. Education has been considered an important pillar of the increased status and power China holds globally. However, Chinese participation in PISA differs from other countries, whereby only some of China's…

Normative notions that classical Chinese texts support authoritarian practices eclipse the possibility that the texts can become contemporary educational resources. Oriented by a conception of relationality, the research engages a Foucauldian approach to writing history as genealogy to argue that the political use of the so-called Confucian texts…

Yali College, a four-year institution operating under the aegis of Yale University, offered a US-style undergraduate education in China's Hunan province from 1914 to 1927. It developed a robust curriculum and an impressive physical plant but collapsed after a little more than a decade. This paper, drawing on new archival research, focuses on the…

Four years after the Chinese Vocational Education Reform was initiated, research in this area has found unfavorable outcomes. The implementation of policy and the dedicated reform actions for promoting the status of vocational education has not effectively improved the equity issue with Chinese society. Previous studies have focused on…