This book explores the ideas and background of teacher education policy development in China and implications for the contemporary Chinese education system. In addition, it examines the key themes of teacher education policies since 1949, including investigating Teacher Exchange and Rotation Policy, Teacher Policy in the Perspective of China’s Alleviation of Education Poverty, Balanced Allocation Policy of Teachers in Chinese Urban and Rural areas, and the implementation effect evaluation of the free/public normal university student policy in China. All these policies contribute to explore the dramatic development of teacher education policy development in contemporary China.
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.
How teachers may be better educated for a changing global world is a challenge that faces many systems of education worldwide. This book addresses key issues of quality and change in teacher education in the context of the new public management achievement agendas which are permeating teacher education structures, cultures and programmes and the work of teacher educators internationally. Graduate schools of education in the United States and the UK, for example, are making fundamental changes in the structures, courses, programs and faculties that prepare beginning teachers each year. Drawing upon examples from the United States, United Kingdom, China, Hong Kong, Australia and elsewhere, its authors provide a unique critical overview of emerging themes and challenges of raising the quality of teaching and the quality of student learning outcomes. They suggest possible ways forward for teachers, teacher educators, researchers and policy-makers as they seek to raise the quality of teaching and student outcomes whilst sustaining their moral purposes and values of equity, inclusion and social justice. Taken together, the chapters contain informed, critical discussions of “normal education” and “teacher education” of “professional standards”, “4+2/+1” post-degree training, “PGDE versus BEd”, integration of subject specializations and professional education. Each one provides new visions of the teacher as a professional and to cultivate high quality teachers in the West and the Greater China region. For all those interested in issues of quality, change and forward movement in teacher education in contexts of policy led reform, this is a must read.
This open access book provides anthropological insights into the arduous yet rewarding journeys involved in selected TESOL teachers’ pedagogical transition to teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at universities in Shanghai, the largest metropolitan area in China. Applying a unique combination of ethnography and phenomenology, the book offers innovative new perspectives on teacher education research. Drawing on the latest language education theory, it outlines a practitioner-friendly approach to EAP literacy. Teacher readers will especially benefit from the case studies presented here, which provide role models for teacher change in educational reform, as well as advice on their academic careers. In addition to addressing a timely and important research gap on EAP teachers in non-Western countries, the book is the ideal choice for readers interested in an update on English education in China.
Research surrounding teacher quality and teacher effectiveness has continued to grow and become even more prominent as teaching has become more professionalized globally and countries have invested more comprehensively in teacher education, certification, and professional development. To better understand teacher effectiveness, it is important to have a global viewpoint to truly understand how beliefs and practices vary in each country and can lead to different characterizations of what makes an effective teacher. This includes both cross-cultural commonalities and unique differences in conceptualization of teacher effectiveness and practices. With this comprehensive, international understanding of teacher effectiveness, a better understanding of best practices, teacher models, philosophies, and more will be developed. International Beliefs and Practices That Characterize Teacher Effectiveness identifies, shares, and explores the predominant conceptual understandings of beliefs and practices that characterize effective teachers in different countries. This book provides international and cross-cultural perspectives on teacher effectiveness and examines the prominent philosophies of teaching and pedagogical practices that characterize teachers in selected countries. Each chapter includes a background, such as history and undergirding philosophy within each country, effective teacher models, prominent applications of teacher effectiveness practices, and special or unique features of teaching in the specific countries mentioned. This book is essential for practicing educators in various countries, teacher educators, faculty, and students within schools and colleges, researchers in international comparative studies, organizations engaged in international education, and administrators, practitioners, and academicians interested in how teacher effectiveness is characterized in different countries and regions across the world.
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.
This edited collection brings together papers written by a number of experienced international academics who share a passion for promoting research-informed, high-quality pre-service and in-service teacher education that makes a positive difference to the lives of teachers and their students. Taken together, the contributions to this book represent a call to arms for all who lead education policy at local, regional, and national levels, teacher educators, and schools themselves, to engage in sustained and productive collaboration. Topics include: the centrality of empathy to the classroom, 'practical theorising' that is a central part of all good teachers' armoury; the possibilities for collaborative professionalism which enables them to extend and enrich their thinking, commitment, and capacity for resilience; the pedagogical reasoning, habits of mind, critical reflection, knowledge, and skills that lead to the best classroom practices. Only when the voices of stakeholders at all these levels are brought together, heard, and enacted, are students in all schools in all contexts and in all jurisdictions likely to receive the quality of education to which all are entitled. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Teachers and Teaching.
This book explores how to shape a high-quality education system in contemporary China’s education policy system. The high-quality education system includes several dimensions, such as teacher ethics, school–family cooperative system, teacher promotion, the balanced compulsory education system, the integrated rural and urban education, pre-schoolings, special education system, diversified high school system, vocational education, world-class universities, minority group education, private education, off-campus training, and online education system.
This book examines the ways education reform has been shaped in China. Focusing on the past education policy development, it offers unique perspectives to illustrate China’s education reform and provides an overview of policies and their implications. In addition, the book discusses educational development, educational value, educational efforts and educational tasks and explores physical, aesthetic and labor education, as well as the management of off-campus training institutions and the policies on abolishing the “Five Only” in contemporary China. Conceptualizing the education reform model in China since 1949 for the first time, the book maps Chinese education policy development.
China’s rise, an increasing emphasis on international education benchmarking, and a global recognition of East Asian countries’ success in this regard have brought the issue of Chinese education to the forefront of public consciousness. In particular, the concept of a “Chinese education model” is one that has sparked debate and quickly become a major focus of education research around the world, especially in light of regional achievements vis-à-vis university rankings, bibliometric indices, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and other such benchmarks. Chinese Education Models in a Global Age tackles this controversial issue head on by synthesizing a diversity of analyses from a world-class team of twenty-seven authors. It reveals that Chinese education models, which are present in many different geographic and institutional contexts, have an important influence on social and institutional norms as well as individual belief systems and behaviors in China and beyond. The first of its kind, this edited volume establishes a foundation for future research while providing a nuanced and tightly integrated compilation of differing perspectives on the role and impact of Chinese education models worldwide. It is essential reading for all scholars, policymakers, students, parents, and educators interested in the rising demographic and economic influence of people of Chinese descent on education around the world.
