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…

While social-emotional learning as a specific education concept originated from North America, the thoughts on emotions and associated pedagogical practices have developed across cultures. Drawing on Confucian and Daoist perspectives, this paper aims to reconfigure an alternative of social-emotional learning, beyond the dominant framework rooted…

The notion of a teacher is an archaic, dynamic, and diverse concept that is embedded in and therefore revealed in the various complex and coexisting cultural and national contexts, ways of teaching and learning, and the entanglements with beings in multiple worlds. However, under the fundamental impacts of westernization, coloniality, and…

Much of the literature exploring Chinese international student engagement with critical thinking in Western universities draws on reductive essentialisations of 'Confucianism' in efforts to explain cross-cultural differences. In this paper I review literature problematising these tendencies. I then shift focus from inferences about how philosophy…

The study of the body remains dominated by Western scholars examining Western bodies and using Western conceptualisations of the body. Though mainstream sociology of the body research is founded within dualisms, often privileging one side of a binary opposition at the expense of another, a thread within Chinese philosophies cut across such…

Despite the reforms to improve the quality of China's higher education and to adopt certain Western leadership theories, the heroic leadership model is still dominant in Chinese higher education institutions. Therefore, employing educational leadership may be complex in traditional Chinese culture. Thus, this special issue brings four articles…

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…

Today, teaching literature has an established place within the school and university curricula in Western and East Asian countries. This seems so natural that we take the educational role of literature for granted. However, history teaches us that elevating literature to an academic subject required a defense of literature against the critical…

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…

A burgeoning body of literature discusses the process of being and becoming a doctoral scholar, suggesting that graduate students should move beyond performing the role of 'good student' and transform into doctoral scholars and stewards of the profession. More recently, research has been conducted to identify more commonly held competencies and…

This article discusses whether social success is the ultimate goal of higher education from a cross cultural approach. To review this study logically, three research questions are addressed. First, what are the concepts of success and social success? Second, for whom and what is social success? Last, is social success indeed the ultimate goal in…

This paper responds to the special issue's call for educators to examine the epistemological and ontological changes that happen to themselves after long-term working abroad and how this experience helps challenge theoretical and pedagogical norms in education. Employing collaborative autoethnography as our research method, we use our life stories…

The Analects of Confucius has been identified as an important and influential philosophy around the globe. However, in traditional instruction, it is difficult to express the spirit of this philosophy. Therefore, many students consider it as a big challenge to study the Analects of Confucius. To cope with this problem, in this study, an…

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…

This article expounds on a neo-Confucian approach to mindfulness by drawing upon the writings of Zhu Xi. I argue that Zhu Xi's notion of mindfulness is encapsulated in the concept of 'jing' that refers to the single-minded and reverential attention to self-cultivation through 'gewu' (investigation of things). The desired outcome of mindfulness is…