Little Soldiers

Little Soldiers

Author: Lenora Chu

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2017-09-19

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0062367870

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New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice; Real Simple Best of the Month; Library Journal Editors’ Pick In the spirit of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Bringing up Bébé, and The Smartest Kids in the World, a hard-hitting exploration of China’s widely acclaimed yet insular education system that raises important questions for the future of American parenting and education When students in Shanghai rose to the top of international rankings in 2009, Americans feared that they were being "out-educated" by the rising super power. An American journalist of Chinese descent raising a young family in Shanghai, Lenora Chu noticed how well-behaved Chinese children were compared to her boisterous toddler. How did the Chinese create their academic super-achievers? Would their little boy benefit from Chinese school? Chu and her husband decided to enroll three-year-old Rainer in China’s state-run public school system. The results were positive—her son quickly settled down, became fluent in Mandarin, and enjoyed his friends—but she also began to notice troubling new behaviors. Wondering what was happening behind closed classroom doors, she embarked on an exploratory journey, interviewing Chinese parents, teachers, and education professors, and following students at all stages of their education. What she discovered is a military-like education system driven by high-stakes testing, with teachers posting rankings in public, using bribes to reward students who comply, and shaming to isolate those who do not. At the same time, she uncovered a years-long desire by government to alleviate its students’ crushing academic burden and make education friendlier for all. The more she learns, the more she wonders: Are Chinese children—and her son—paying too high a price for their obedience and the promise of future academic prowess? Is there a way to appropriate the excellence of the system but dispense with the bad? What, if anything, could Westerners learn from China’s education journey? Chu’s eye-opening investigation challenges our assumptions and asks us to consider the true value and purpose of education.


Education Policy in Chinese High Schools

Education Policy in Chinese High Schools

Author: Jian Li

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-05-24

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 9811623589

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This book investigates the education policy in Chinese high schools from both concept and practice perspectives. It offers a specific lens to explore Chinese high school education since the reform and opening up, the teacher policy in Chinese high schools, the curriculum and textbook policy in Chinese high school, the school layout policy of Chinese high school education, the enrollment policy of college entrance examination, and the diversified development of high school education in China. All those dimensions related to exploring the education policy in Chinese high schools offer an understanding of the modernization of high school education in contemporary China since 1949. This book provides multiple perspective to investigate the systematic landscape of high school education, contextually.


Educational Policy Borrowing in China

Educational Policy Borrowing in China

Author: Charlene Tan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-22

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1317802586

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For over a decade, Mainland China has been embarking on an ambitious nation-wide education reform ('New Curriculum Reform') for its basic education. The reform reflects China’s propensity to borrow selected educational policies from elsewhere, particularly North America and Europe. Chinese scholars have used a local proverb "the West wind has overpowered the East wind" to describe this phenomenon of ‘looking West’. But what do we mean by educational policy borrowing from the West? What are the educational policies in China's new curriculum reform that are perceived to be borrowed from the West? To what extent have the borrowed educational policies in China's new curriculum reform been accepted, modified, and rejected by the various educational stakeholders? How does culture influence the various educational stakeholders in China in interpreting and mediating educational policy borrowing from the West? How do the findings of this study on China’s education reform inform and add to the existing theories on and approaches to on cross-cultural educational policy borrowing? This book answers the above questions by critically discussing China’s policy borrowing from the West through its current reform for primary and secondary education. It presents the latest in-depth research findings from a three-year empirical study (2013-2015) with school principals, teachers, students and other educational stakeholders across China. This study offers new insights into China’s educational policy borrowing from the West and international implications on cross-cultural educational transfer for academics, policymakers and educators.


Handbook of Education Policy Studies

Handbook of Education Policy Studies

Author: Guorui Fan

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-06-10

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 981138343X

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This open access handbook brings together the latest research from a wide range of internationally influential scholars to analyze educational policy research from international, historical and interdisciplinary perspectives. By effectively breaking through the boundaries between countries and disciplines, it presents new theories, techniques and methods for contemporary education policy, and illustrates the educational policies and educational reform practices that various countries have introduced to meet the challenges of continuous change. This volume focuses on policies and changes in schools and classrooms. The studies on school changes present the differences in the policies and challenges of K-12 schools and universities in different countries and regions, and in connection with the contradictions and conflicts between tradition and modernization, as well as the changing roles of various stakeholders, especially that of teachers. In terms of curriculum and instruction, many countries have undertaken experiments and introduced changes based on two major themes: “what to teach” and “how to teach”. International education assessments represented by PISA not only promote the improvement and extensive application of educational assessment and testing techniques, but have also had far-reaching impacts on education policies and education reforms in many countries. Focusing on the changes in educational policies at the micro level, this volume comprehensively reveals the complex interactions between school organizations, teachers, curricula, teaching and learning, evaluation and other elements within the education system, as well as the latest related reforms worldwide.


School Choice in China

School Choice in China

Author: Wu Xiaoxin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1134675941

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School Choice in China explores the major characteristics of schooling options in China, highlighting how largely middle-class parents exploit their cultural, economic and social capital for their children's admission into choice schools. It highlights how payments such as choice fees, donations, prize-winning certificates and awards, as well as the use of guanxi, result in Chinese school choice as a parent-driven, bottom-up movement. The author also explores how schools and local governments cash in on the school choice fever in order to obtain significant economic returns, leading to policies that accommodate the needs of mostly middle-class families. He argues that although this system seems to create winners among the parties involved, it exacerbates the educational inequality that already exists in Chinese society. Chapters include: Positional competition for cultural capital Exploitation of social capital Economics of school choice Class reproduction through parental choice This book is not simply a detailed analysis of Chinese school choice practices, but also a study of the competitive middle class search for advantage for their children. As such it will be beneficial to undergraduates, postgraduates, education professionals, policy makers, and anyone with an interest in education, sociology, social policy, and the rise and future of China.


Adult Education in China

Adult Education in China

Author: Carman St John Hunter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-08-06

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1351005014

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Originally published in 1985. China is currently making a massive effort to educate its workforce in a formal and structured system. A good deal has been written about China’s attempts, since 1949, to eradicate illiteracy and to universalise primary and secondary school education but the subject of this book is an educational system established to meet the needs of those already employed whether in government, industry or agriculture. Two study teams, sponsored by the lnternational Council for Adult Education, visited China in 1981 to explore this educational phenomenon. Their findings, updated by subsequent ICAE visits and enriched by further reading, form the basis of this book. This is the story of the Chinese experience of developing adult education. It will be valuable to those involved in extending education in the industrialised world who are pursuing modernisation goals for people long excluded from the formal education system.


Handbook of Education Policy Studies

Handbook of Education Policy Studies

Author: Guorui Fan

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-06-02

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 9811383472

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This open access handbook brings together the latest research from a wide range of internationally influential scholars to analyze educational policy research from international, historical and interdisciplinary perspectives. By effectively breaking through the boundaries between countries and disciplines, it presents new theories, techniques and methods for contemporary education policy, and illustrates the educational policies and educational reform practices that various countries have introduced to meet the challenges of continuous change. Based on an analysis of the nature of education policy and education reform, this volume focuses on education reform and the concept of education quality. Adopting a historical and comparative perspective, it examines the dialectical relationship between education policy and education reform in various countries, assesses theoretical and practical issues in the process of moving from regulation to multiple governance in contemporary education administration, and explores the impact of globalization on national education reform and the interdependence between countries. In addition, it presents studies addressing educational policy research methodology from multiple perspectives. Highlighting the changes in national education macro policies, this volume comprehensively reveals the complex relationship between contemporary education reform and social change, and explores the links between contemporary social, political and economic systems and educational policy research and practice, offering a holistic portrait of macro trends in contemporary education reform.


Neoliberalism, Globalization, and Elite Education in China

Neoliberalism, Globalization, and Elite Education in China

Author: Shuning Liu

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-03-31

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780367784010

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This book examines the practices and effects of emerging international curriculum programs established by Chinese elite public high schools and supported by China's New Curriculum Reform and the Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (CFCRS) policy. Drawing on critical theory, the book applies sociological and anthropological approaches to the study of the educational practices of such curriculum programs and the rising Chinese elite class, as well as educational policy globally. Through analyzing a wide variety of data sources, this book focuses on examining how changing local and global contexts have influenced and shaped the educational opportunities, experiences, and aspirations of privileged urban Chinese students who are able to attend these programs and who hope to study at U.S. universities. In doing so, the book is intended to define the problematics of the internationalization of Chinese education and an emergent form of elite education in China, which are complex and embedded in the process of modernization in China. Neoliberalism, Globalization, and "Elite" Education in China: Becoming International will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates, and academics in the fields of curriculum studies, educational policy studies, sociology of education, and anthropology of education, as well as policymakers with an interest in globalization and education, education policy, and education and international development.


Education and Reform in China

Education and Reform in China

Author: Emily Hannum

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1135984700

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Transformative market reforms in China since the late 1970s have improved living standards dramatically, but have also led to unprecedented economic inequality. During this period, China’s educational system was restructured to support economic development, with educational reforms occurring at a startling pace. Today, the educational system has diversified in structure, finance, and content; it has become more market-oriented; and it is serving an increasingly diverse student population. These changes carry significant consequences for China’s social mobility and inequality, and future economic prospects. In Education and Reform in China, leading scholars in the fields of education, sociology, demography, and economics investigate the evolution of educational access and attainment, educational quality, and the economic consequences of being educated. Education and Reform in China shows that economic advancement is increasingly tied to education in China, even as educational services are increasingly marketized. The volume investigates the varying impact of change for different social, ethnic, economic and geographic groups. Offering interdisciplinary views on the changing role of education in Chinese society, and on China’s educational achievements and policy challenges, this book will be an important resource for those interested in education, public policy, and development issues in China.