The Programme for International Student Assessment has become an important policy tool that has affected educational practices in many countries. Despite some remarkable results in PISA's global ranking tables from China's Eastern provinces, China's distinctive policy response has not been well documented or understood. We systematically examine…

This article analyses the implications of recent policy changes for the portrayal of minority nationalities in the latest China's history textbooks published around 2017. We argue that ideological responses to the fierce ethnic clashes of the late 2000s and the leadership transition since 2012 have generated increasingly contradictory official…

In this paper, "Teaching Expertise in Three Countries" project is used as an example to show the significance and contribution of international comparative research and to think about the possible implications for policy in early childhood education. The project studied the development of expertise in preschool teaching in Japan, China,…

International comparative ethnographic studies of ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) are difficult to conduct but worth the effort. Comparative studies featuring thick description and polysemic interpretations can challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, expand the menu of the possible, expose the provincialism of national approaches, and…

At the global level, prominent narratives about improving the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) promote the recruitment of men into the profession. However, comparing across different policy and practice settings demonstrates contrasting expressions and experiences of how men contribute to ECEC. This article presents findings…

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.…

Recent research has focused either on the internationalisation of China's higher education (HE) as soft power, or on soft power with 'Chinese characteristics'. There is a paucity of research combining these two foci. This paper fills this gap by: (i) unravelling the meanings and features of the 'Chinese characteristics' embodied in the policies of…

Whilst Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 has influenced education in various ways, major reforms perceived as promoting mainland control have been resisted. For two decades, Hong Kong's educational autonomy under the 'one country, two systems' formula was thus largely maintained. This changed radically with the response to the…

University partnerships have been a key dimension of higher education development. Based on documentary analysis and empirical data, this study compares two distinctive models of university partnership experienced by China, first as a "recipient" with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and later as a "provider" with African…

Since Hong Kong's retrocession, the government has endeavoured to strengthen local citizens' identification with the People's Republic of China--a project that acquired new impetus with the 2010 decision to introduce "Moral and National Education" (MNE) as a compulsory school subject. In the face of strong local opposition, this policy…

Both in China and internationally, educators and policy makers claim that vocational education and training (VET) is essential for the sound economic development of a country and the physical and social well-being of its population. However, China looks back upon a century-long history of rejection when it comes to popularising VET, despite…

China's recent education reforms are a result of selective policy borrowing from "the West". Although comparativists have highlighted the importance of cultural context in policy borrowing in China, what remains relatively under-explored is the epistemological basis for cultural views that mediate policy transfer. This article argues…

The paper explores the introduction in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of the new Chinese curriculum for basic education. In contrast to many previous initiatives since 1949 the present reform attempts to change not only what is taught, and by whom, but fundamental notions of how learning is best facilitated. The paper considers the connections…

In the post-Mao era, the Chinese government carried out a series of education reforms to modernise education provision. This paper explores two related aspects of these reforms through comparative case study research in three different school locations within the same region in China. The first focus is upon system reform initiated through…