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ERIC Number: EJ1418615
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1476-7724
EISSN: EISSN-1476-7732
'Thinking through the World': A "Tianxia" Heuristic for Higher Education
Lili Yang; Simon Marginson; Xin Xu
Globalisation, Societies and Education, v22 n2 p139-155 2024
Ancient Chinese civilisation developed two ideas about the ordering of large human spaces. The first was tianxia or 'all under heaven', the inclusive and cosmopolitan world as a whole, with no exterior, and governance on the basis of shared values and benefits, which first shaped statecraft in the Western Zhou dynasty (1047-1771 BCE). Second, the centralised nation-state which emerged in the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE). Both strands have been influential through Chinese history. In the last twenty years discussion of tianxia has revived, especially through Zhao Tingyang, stimulated by globalisation and the need for practical relations beyond the nation state. This paper proposes one version of tianxia as a heuristic for understanding, rethinking and remaking ethical relations in worldwide higher education. It reviews different understandings of tianxia in China, identifies a world-centred (rather than China-centred) tianxia, and discusses the potentials of tianxia in higher education. Tianxia is appropriate to world higher education because of its spatiality and its ethical commitment to universal benefit in diverse settings on the basis of mutual respect. The article suggests four clusters of relational values that could constitute a tianxia order in higher education, and compares tianxia to existing practices of globalisation.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A