In this paper, Leonard Waks investigates connections between listening and expertise or mastery, contrasting approaches from Eastern and Western philosophy. The first section accounts for listening in the Daoist classic "Zhuangzi", a work addressing themes in Chinese philosophy through metaphor and story narratives. In one story a…

Superdiversity now highlights the complexity of diverse societies. Celebrating and encouraging diverse populations, therefore, remains a priority to ensure fair and equitable treatment for all. Multiculturalism, once seen as part of the solution to diversity issues, is now regarded as problematic, although this is by no means new. Asian contexts…

I propose and argue for an account of humility in "Zhuangzi," which I call perspectival humility. In the opening of the article, I will present a view of humility found in pre-Qin Confucian texts; then, I will explain the idea of Zhuangist humility, which provides a contrast to Confucian humility. Zhuang Zhou does not think that any…

This paper focuses on learning that takes place outside formal classrooms within groups or teams. Based on the conceptual framework of informal learning, adult learning and lifelong learning, it investigates how two contrasting groups of adult learners in Vietnam, Mekong doctors and Hanoi hairdressers, learn, interact, and collaborate through…

Cultivating "wenhua dacai" (great cultural talent) is a central goal of the ongoing "dujing" (classics reading) education movement, which is an integral part of the broad Confucian revival in contemporary China. Focusing on the concept of "wenhua dacai," this article explores three interrelated issues. First, as a…

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…

While historically and ideologically peripheralised in modern Chinese politics, traditional culture has been discursively rehabilitated by the Chinese communist regime in recent years. Existing literature on this phenomenon tends to focus on the politicisation of culture, that is, how Chinese culture, particularly the Confucian tradition, is…

Humility as an aspect of our humanity is an important concept in both Confucian and Western philosophy. In the modern world, whether Western or not, there seems to be a growing need to promote humility, especially intellectual humility, as a fundamental virtue among students. In this paper, I first compare and contrast the Confucian and Western…

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…

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…

How do people acquire modesty? A simple answer is: if people see that modesty is a worthy trait, they will incorporate it into their character. However, sometimes the knowledge that one is modest would undermine one's modesty. So, Driver claims that the modest person must not know his merits. If we are to accept Driver's claim, it would be…

This paper discusses the nature of Chinese ideology and the policy of citizenship education from a cultural perspective, in the light of traditional life philosophies and current tendencies. The aim is to understand the Chinese conception of citizenship and the education of citizens as a nation-specific cultural formation and a production of…

This article analyses the youth social movements in Hong Kong employing 'conscientisation' popularized by Paulo Freire. It is argued that the youth, as historical beings, promote humanisation by seeking to effect structural changes with the help of the social media. However, the youth-led movements in Hong Kong differ from Freire's ideas in two…

This paper analyses how 'criticality' is negotiated in the global policy frameworks on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and re-conceptualised in Vietnamese ESD policymaking. Taking the context of Viet Nam, this paper reflects on what constitutes criticality in education in the light of cultural and historical contexts of the education…

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…