Confucius reinvented the concept of "Junzi" [Chinese characters omitted], an idea of personhood which invites continual assessment whether the concerns people were once devoted to are worthy of ongoing devotion, and how they make a place in the world--a place where they hope they can exercise some governance in their lives.…

This article explores and compares the salient characteristics and educational influences of humanism in both Islam and Confucianism. It is argued that the humanist tradition in both belief systems upholds the development and transforming ability of human beings. A common aim of education is to nurture God/Way-conscious and virtuous individuals…

According to Karl Popper's critical rationalism, criticism is the only way we have of systematically detecting and learning from our mistakes so as to get nearer to the truth. Meanwhile, it is arguable that the emphasis of Confucianism on creating a hierarchical and harmonious society can easily lead to submission rather than opposition, producing…

Chinese culture is widely regarded as being dominated by Confucian thought, which is characterized as focusing on morality, relationalism and collectivism. Also, Chinese culture has been deemed to be very hierarchical and lacking in a sense of autonomy. However, there has been little attention paid to other diverse elements in Chinese culture and…

This article explores a Confucian perspective of self-cultivation in learning and its implications for self-directed learning. Focussing on two key Confucian texts, "Xueji" (Record of Learning) and "Xunzi," this essay expounds the purpose, content, process and essence of self-cultivation in learning. From a Confucian viewpoint,…

The purpose of this article is to pose and preliminarily answer the question, "Can the sense of shame be a virtue?" It offers a brief, empirically informed, affirmative answer to this question. After developing the context of this question, the article describes the emotion of shame and the shame system by situating them in their…

In international educational studies, cultural context matters and demands increased attention by educational researchers worldwide. Along with a globalized discourse, how to map historical-cultural understandings of teaching and learning without getting bogged down in modern Westernized epistemology has become a paradigmatic dilemma. This paper…

In this article we consider historical and contemporary ideologies of childhood in China and critically examine notions of 'child' and 'childhood' in Chinese children's literature. We analyse the themes and knowledge that relate to relevant historical and contemporary political events and policies, and how these contribute to the production of…

Encounters with dignity are learning moments that foster humanization and communal values, even in settings of radical difference. This article probes the potential of such learning, reviewing pedagogies of encounter and analyzing the values of dignity implicit in that work. Diving more deeply into the phenomenon of dignity, the authors analyze…

In contrast to the continued decline and bleak future of liberal arts education and liberal arts colleges in Europe and America, there has been a revival of the liberal arts model in Asian countries in recent years. This paper compares the liberal arts tradition of education in the West and Confucian tradition of education in the East, in the…

This book traces the historical background of liberal arts education from west to east, expounds its implication and fundamental goal of universities, and introduces its application in Western and Chinese universities, particularly its experimentation at University of Nottingham Ningbo China. It takes the University of Nottingham Ningbo China as…

This article approaches Confucianism as a lost art of living and asks how we can make it relevant again for us. Central to this approach is the cultivation of heart-mind ("Xinxue," ??) designed to help cure ourselves of self-oblivion and self-centeredness so prevalent in our culture today. It is based on the idea of "Li" (?),…

In this article, I trace a shift in Confucian scholars' interpretations about the idea of "learning for one's self" vs. "learning for others" from "the Analects": a shift from the philological interpretation to the philosophical one. Despite its defect, most Neo-Confucians accepted the philosophical interpretation,…

Home education, in particular Confucian home education, has been increasing steadily in China over the past decades. However, research relating to home-schooling families has largely been ignored. In particular, the literature grounded in empirical study and focusing on the development of Confucian home education is negligible in the educational…

This paper makes a bold attempt to make sense of contemporary Koreans' common expectation of the educational role of public school teachers by tracing its historical and cultural roots to the neo-Confucian humanistic tradition of the Joseon dynasty in Korea that lasted for about 500 years until Korea began to modernize in the late nineteenth…