Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate Peter Senge's ideas from the perspective of the spiritual ideal of harmony/He ([foreign character omitted]). Design/methodology/approach: Following a literature review of the conceptualization of Senge's fifth discipline and harmony, an appreciative case study of Alibaba is adopted to…

The purpose of this study is to explore whether happiness is the ultimate goal of higher education. In order to discuss this article systematically, four research questions are addressed. First, what are the concepts and principles of happiness in terms of religion and philosophy? Second, what are significant factors of happiness? Third, what are…

The aim of this article is to show that an aesthetics of exemplarity could be a useful component of projects of moral self-cultivation. Using Linda Zagzebski's exemplarism, I describe a distinctive, aesthetically-inflected mode of admiration called moral attraction whose object is the inner beauty of a person--the expression of the 'inner' virtues…

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…

This paper makes the case for including "critical harmony" as a complement to justice within civic education. The concept of harmony is significant for civic education because it acknowledges the crucial role that relationships play in society--an important moral, ethical, and social ideal in many cultures around the world. Harmony must…

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…

There have been questions that are directed toward the outcome of using an exemplar in moral and character education. Meanwhile, the role of the narrative in the context of moral and character education has often been viewed as being didactic and being used to indoctrinate moral lessons only. On the other hand, some scholars have also attempted to…

Offering an ethical foundation for global citizenship education, this paper draws upon the ideas of neo-Confucian thinker Wang Yangming. Focussing on UNESCO's goal to help learners acquire a sense of belonging to a broader community and humanity, this paper elucidates Wang's concept of innate knowledge ("liangzhi"). The article explains…

In traditional Chinese philosophy, silence occupies a pivotal position by not being merely treated as the absence of speech, but also as the transcendence of it. Silence in early Confucianism implies the timing, subjects and issues to which one should not teach and talk about, and in depth it also refers to the manifestation of utmost sincerity…

This paper delineates the rise, fall and re-emergence of "tongshi" education in Chinese higher education history, and in doing so hopes to reveal the underlying forces behind the two waves of "tongshi" education and capture their important 'Chinese' characteristics. Based on a comparative-historical examination of the Chinese…

The Chinese "tianrenheyi" thesis bespeaks a correlative cosmology irreducible to the Western metaphysics. This article historicizes "tianrenheyi" for new implications to help rethink the given concepts of 'person/thing,' 'environment/nature,' and 'relationality' in contemporary ethical and environmental education in three…

In China as elsewhere in the world, human bodies and body parts have long been used for a wide range of medical and non-medical purposes. In recent decades, China has played a considerable role in some of the public exhibitions of plastinated bodies and body parts, and the commercial trade in organ donations. These contemporary developments have…

'Christian pyrexia' and 'education fever' have contributed greatly to the empowerment of women in Korea and helped with the transformation of Korean society more broadly. This article begins with an overview of the Confucian gender constructs and delimiting social expectations of women in the pre-modern period. It then focuses on the changing…

In response to the dearth of research focusing solely on immigrant fathers, we propose the Integrative Conceptual Model to investigate the psychological well-being of recent immigrant fathers from East Asia to the United States. This model addresses how multiple factors in the society (e.g., policy), work and community (e.g., employment), family…

In this essay, I draw upon Ellen J. Langer's notions of mindlessness and mindfulness to identify and delineate Confucius' views on mindfulness. Langer's theory exemplifies a social-cognitive approach to mindfulness which is a prominent orientation in the extant research. I argue that Confucius, like Langer, rejects mindlessness that is…