Sep 2009, Volume 4 Issue 3
    

  • Select all
  • Research articles
    The construction of the Chinese academic system: Its history and present challenges
    2009, 4(3): 323-342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-009-0018-x
    Download PDF
    The rise and development of China’s academic system is a process that started from “passively accepting Western Learning” to today’s “catching up with Western Learning and even exceeding it”. In the last century, China experienced a turbulent and unstable social environment in which academics and politics have always been intertwined. As a result, the internal logic of China’s academic system shares similar characteristics with its Western models, but is unique in certain ways at the same time. In the complex and inseparable relationship between academics and politics, which involves both love and hate, the logic that academics must serve political needs, on one hand, establishes the co-existence of the academia and the government, which provides a relatively stable environment for academic activities within the system; on the other hand, it also jeopardizes the ecological environment in which the academics can develop according to its own internal logic. For exactly the same reasons, even at present, internalization means something special and complex for Chinese academia because, on one hand, it truly represents academia’s strive to meet international standards; on the other hand, the pushing factor behind this “voluntary” stance is still state and political power.
  • Research articles
    The detrimental effects of social capital on the balanced development of compulsory education and their governance
    2009, 4(3): 390-412. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-009-0021-2
    Download PDF
    The balanced development of compulsory education, with a focus on the goal of educational equality, is both a matter of policy orientation and a practical educational issue. At present, people are mostly concerned with the unbalanced state of development of compulsory education, its causes, and issues regarding its administration. Various modes of production, policy choices, and institutional arrangements during different periods have been the practical, historical causes of differences in regional compulsory education, differences between urban and rural areas, and differences between schools. A direct consequence of the unbalanced development of compulsory education has been the emergence of irregularities in school selection. During the process of school selection, the strength of family and school social capital is increasingly influential, and it has increasingly negative effects: circumventing the policy of going to school near home, aggravating differences between families because of family and school social capital, and therefore damaging the prospect of educational equality. On this account, we present a constructive proposal for government policy to reduce the detrimental effects of social capital by means of reasonable policy choices and institutional arrangements. With prerequisite balanced allocation of school resources for compulsory education, the government reduces the role that family and social capital play in school selection and constructs a benignly competitive environment wherein school social capital works to placate social issues aroused by the intervention of the social capital of families and schools in school selection.
  • Research articles
    Educational inequality and income inequality: An empirical study on China
    2009, 4(3): 413-434. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-009-0022-1
    Download PDF
    Based on the endogenous growth theory, this paper uses the Gini coefficient to measure educational inequality and studies the empirical relationship between educational inequality and income inequality through a simultaneous equation model. The results show that: (1) Income inequality leads to educational inequality while the reduction of educational equality does not contribute to the decrease of income inequality, and there is no simple casual effect between them. However education expansion is beneficial to reduce educational inequality and income inequality. (2) Education relates to income inequality through the human capital transmission mechanism, but this mechanism does not automatically translate into a virtuous cycle of “educational equality←→income equality”. (3) In the long run, the reduction of educational inequality does not reduce income inequality, but income inequality has a negative instant-impact on educational equality. (4) At present, the level of educational investment and urbanization do not effectively promote educational equality. In addition, the robustness of the model used in this paper has been partly proved.
  • Research articles
    The function and significance of newly created ethnic minority writing systems during cultural transition: Taking the Hani, Lisu, and Naxi ethnic minorities as examples
    2009, 4(3): 435-452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-009-0023-0
    Download PDF
    New writing systems for several of China’s minority languages were developed and implemented during a unique period in Chinese history. Throughout the different stages of modern Chinese history, these writing systems have had various societal functions and uses, including the improvement of education and literacy for China’s ethnic minorities. In the new era, the societal functions of these newly created systems have been weakened by the large-scale influence from both outside and within minority environment. Nevertheless, the newly created writing systems have undeniable value and significance, and they continue to serve positive functions that cannot be fulfilled by other writing systems.
  • Research articles
    Reflection on prosperity: Localization of pedagogy in China
    2009, 4(3): 453-465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-009-0024-z
    Download PDF
    In the past 20 years, China has seen an influx of foreign pedagogies that emphasize Western concepts such as dualistic opposition and linear development. As educational studies have become localized to China’s environment, there has been a tendency to substitute transplanted ideas for methods based on local research. As such Chinese educational theory has arbitrarily been replaced by Western theory and practice as the standard. Therefore, there is now a need for restructuring methodology with more theoretical wisdom based on the localization of pedagogy in China.
  • Research articles
    The transformation of College English in China
    W. James Jacob,
    2009, 4(3): 466-487. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-009-0025-y
    Download PDF
    The key factors that pushed College English in China to the stage of transformation are: globalization, student challenges, expansion of enrolment and primary and high school coordination challenge. The theoretical frameworks should cover the concepts of communicative competence, the learning-centered approach and learner autonomy. It then describes the major areas affected by the transformation to a new CE, in which the primary objective is to develop students’ English comprehension and communicative competence: the nature and goal of the curriculum, curriculum requirements, teaching mode, assessment, and administration, In the new CE, focus has shifted from reading to listening and speaking, and special attention is now given to independent learning by capitalizing on advanced information technology; five principles are understood as the underpinnings of the transformation: a shift in orientation towards competence, the dominance of learning, focus on process, emphasis on culture, and increasingly democratic learning.