Search

We examine how rapid growth in imports of manufactured goods from China affected employment in Australia from 1991 to 2006. Alternative sources of variation in Chinese import exposure (at industry level and between local labour markets) are used to identify the effect on employment. Growth in imports from China is estimated to have reduced manufacturing employment by around 53,200 to 78,900 workers, representing 5.3 to 7.5 per cent of that workforce in 1991. Largest impacts are found for manufacturing industries most exposed to import competition from China; and from 2001 to 2006 when import growth was strongest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News and information related to publications in Catholic history are presented including a collection of papers based on the colloquium "Les destinées de l'Illyricum méridional pendant le haut Moyen Age," held in Lezha, Albania in March 2008, a collection of 10 papers that examines Christianity in China and the contents of the January 2010 issue of the "Australian Catholic Record."

Purpose: Although international product-harm crises have become more common, the influence of the country image (CI) associated with foreign goods in such crises remains under researched. This study aims to investigate the extent to which the CI of a foreign made product influences consumers' attribution of blame and trust and, ultimately, their future purchase intentions after the product is involved in a crisis. Design/methodology/approach: A 2 (country) × 3 (crisis type) quasi experimental design was used, with data collected from Australia (n = 375) and China (n = 401). Findings: CI can influence attribution of blame, subsequent levels of trust and likely purchase intentions. Australian and Chinese consumers have different views when it comes to trusting a company or placing blame, depending on the country of origin or the type of crisis. The direct and positive effect of CI on consumer purchase intentions following a product-harm crisis is sequentially mediated by attribution of blame and trust. Trust is the most powerful influence on future purchase intentions in both samples. Research limitations/implications: In this research, only one type of crisis response strategy (no comment) was used. Thus, the results of this study must be viewed with caution when considering outcomes relating to other response options. Additionally, the testing was limited to only two samples, focussing on three countries (England, China, Vietnam), and one product context using a hypothetical brand. Further, despite our reasonable sample size (N = 776), the number of respondents represented in each cell would still be considered a limitation overall. Practical implications: When developing crisis response strategies, managers should take into account the influence of a positive/negative source CI in driving attribution and trust. To minimize the impact of crisis on future purchasing decisions, organizations can leverage positive biases and mitigate negative ones, aiming to maintain or restore trust as a priority. Originality/value: The study provides cross-country understanding about the significant role of CI during a product-harm crisis in relation to subsequent consumers' blame attribution, their trust in the focal organization and ultimately their future purchase intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic shows variable dynamics in WHO Regions, with lowest disease burden in the Western-Pacific Region. While China has been able to rapidly eliminate transmission of SARS-CoV-2, Germany – as well as most of Europe and the Americas – is struggling with high numbers of cases and deaths. Objective: We analyse COVID-19 epidemiology and control strategies in China and in Germany, two countries which have chosen profoundly different approaches to deal with the epidemic. Methods: In this narrative review, we searched the literature from 1 December 2019, to 4 December 2020. Results: China and several neighbours (e.g. Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Thailand) have achieved COVID-19 elimination or sustained low case numbers. This can be attributed to: (1) experience with previous coronavirus outbreaks; (2) classification of SARS-CoV-2 in the highest risk category and consequent early employment of aggressive control measures; (3) mandatory isolation of cases and contacts in institutions; (4) broad employment of modern contact tracking technology; (5) travel restrictions to prevent SARS-CoV-2 re-importation; (6) cohesive communities with varying levels of social control. Conclusions: Early implementation of intense and sustained control measures is key to achieving a near normal social and economic life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time, Australian English and culture have not been viewed in China as an equal to its American and British counterpart. This is reflected in teachers' choice of destination when it comes to English teaching and learning resources. This paper examines Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' perceptions of the contents and pedagogical design of Australian-based digital English learning resources through an interactive process. The teachers' beliefs regarding language teaching and learning as well as materials selection were challenged due to the application of current technologies in the language education. A total of 24 EFL teachers from different universities across China participated in focus group interviews. The teachers worked with website designers and content writers to refine the design of the English language learning (ELL) website and digital English resources. Data showed that respondent teachers were highly receptive towards the newly designed ELL website as well as its content that were developed by incorporating the key features of a popular ELL website proposed by previous studies (Kettle, Yuan, Luke, Ewing & Shen, 2012; Shen, Yuan & Ewing, 2015; Yuan & Shen, 2013, 2014). In the interactive process of this study, participating teachers learned to appreciate Australian-based digital English resources, particularly the Australian culture, language and pedagogy embedded. A reflective process was also triggered in which Chinese EFL teachers showed willingness to re-examine their instructional practices and utilize the digital resources by adopting a more learner-centered pedagogy for optimal learning outcomes.

This paper explores the implications for learning design in HRM education in the 21st century. An open systems perspective is used to argue the importance of establishing productive relationships between academia, professional associations, regulators and industry (resource inputs) to support the creation of optimal learning environments (the transformation process) to generate work-ready HR graduates (the product output). A comparison of Australian and Chinese curricula indicates similarities in terms of approximate programme weightings of general business units, core HRM, and elective units. It is recommended that curriculum design take into account the need to remain research-based academically, yet industry-focused, in the context of an international workplace. A key to this is the collaboration among the resource inputs. The curriculum formulation process is examined, with implications for 21st century HRM education design.

The transition into academic life for Chinese students coming to Australia can be difficult as they navigate different cultural, social, and educational norms. As a group of two academics from Australia and one from China, we were interested in exploring ways students from China could best be supported prior to leaving their country in readiness for academic life in Australia. As an international partnership, we examined transition issues for Chinese students by focussing on building students' peer learning partnerships, prior to their departure from China to Australia. Chinese students in China were paired up with students in Australia for a weekly online session via Skype discussing culture and university-related topics. In order to direct the conversations, weekly questions were developed for each session. Students and staff had access to a learning management platform to share information and exchange ideas. The impact on both Australian and Chinese students was measured qualitatively through thematic analysis of student Skype conversations, reflections, and open-ended survey questions, and quantitatively through multiple choice survey questions. The main finding for this paper, which focuses on the quantitative data, was that this pre-departure interaction alerted Chinese students in China to their English language limitations and motivated them to do further English language learning prior to and once they had arrived in Australia. The quantitative data also pointed to the kinds of information which students wanted to know prior to coming to Australia which in some cases was different from what had been anticipated by the researchers.

This manuscript reports on two studies on the implementation of a technology-rich innovation in public schools. This technology-rich innovation was an online quasi-video game environment that used 'through-the-window' virtual reality and a robust back story to situate learning activities in the virtual world for children. The first study examined the reasons why teachers chose to implement the innovation as well as the core challenges and supports necessary for the successful implementation of the innovation. This study used case study methodology and found that the innovation required a great degree of alignment between project goals and existing teacher needs and concerns. The second study re-examined data from the first study to explore how the innovation was actually implemented. The second study employed classic grounded theory methods for analysis and theory building. Nuancing theory emerged as the core category that arose as a result of the inductive grounded theory analysis procedures. This paper elaborates nuancing theory and addresses its possible applications to the problem of designing, developing, and implementing technology-rich innovations for situating learning activity in schools.

The LURR theory is a new approach for earthquake prediction, which achieves a good result within China mainland and some regions in America, Japan, and Australia. However, the expansion of the prediction region leads to the refinement of its longitude and latitude and the increase of the time period. This requires more and more computations and volume of data reaching the order of GB, which will be very difficult for a single CPU. In this paper, adopting the technology of domain decomposition and parallelizing using MPI, we developed a new parallel tempospatial scanning program [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent months, the world has experienced the outbreak and spread of a new infectious disease, COVID-19. The spread of this disease has been so severe, and even many developed countries have struggled to manage this situation. However, some countries, such as China and Australia, have shown success in taking effective steps towards tackling the crisis. So far, some preventive measures to contain the spread of infection have emerged. Numerous studies have been undertaken worldwide in parallel in order to develop strategies to contain the virus, as well as to determine climatic or atmospheric conditions favoring COVID-19 spread. In this research, an artificial intelligence (AI) system has been adopted to assess the effective role of various environmental conditions in the spread of COVID-19. Temperature, relative humidity (RH), and UV index (UVI) of some affected countries were considered as input parameters while the total number of infected people is taken as the output variable. After plotting all available data as linguistic variables, a relationship is established between temperature, RH, UVI, and the number of infected people. From the surface graph, it can be stated that in addition to UVI, temperature and RH have a significant impact on the number of affected people. The maximum and minimum temperatures as well as other parameters are considered on the basis of mean values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine the association between breastfeeding and childhood obesity. A multinational cross‐sectional study of 4,740 children aged 9–11 years was conducted from 12 countries. Infant breastfeeding was recalled by parents or legal guardians. Height, weight, waist circumference, and body fat were obtained using standardized methods. The overall prevalence of obesity, central obesity, and high body fat were 12.3%, 9.9%, and 8.1%, respectively. After adjustment for maternal age at delivery, body mass index (BMI), highest maternal education, history of gestational diabetes, gestational age, and child's age, sex, birth weight, unhealthy diet pattern scores, moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity, sleeping, and sedentary time, exclusive breastfeeding was associated with lower odds of obesity (odds ratio [OR] 0.76, 95% confidence interval, CI [0.57, 1.00]) and high body fat (OR 0.60, 95% CI [0.43, 0.84]) compared with exclusive formula feeding. The multivariable‐adjusted ORs based on different breastfeeding durations (none, 1–6, 6–12, and > 12 months) were 1.00, 0.74, 0.70, and 0.60 for obesity (Ptrend =.020) and 1.00, 0.64, 047, and 0.64 for high body fat (Ptrend =.012), respectively. These associations were no longer significant after adjustment for maternal BMI. Breastfeeding may be a protective factor for obesity and high body fat in 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children from 12 countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulators in Australia and China are increasingly embracing RegTech. 'RegTech' is a contraction of the terms 'regulatory' and 'technology'. The term describes the use of technology to help companies comply with regulation and help regulators perform their regulatory and supervisory functions. This article identifies various ways that regulators in Australia and China are facilitating RegTech initiatives and categorises and compares those initiatives. The analysis suggests a significant degree of overlap between the two countries in relation to initiatives to facilitate reporting requirements and to improve supervision and supervisory processes. There is a greater focus in China on initiatives to support and strengthen the use of data than in Australia at this stage. However, Australia's regulators are more active in facilitating initiatives to consult and engage with other stakeholders, including other regulators, government and industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 is disproportionally affecting the poor, minorities and a broad range of vulnerable populations, due to its inequitable spread in areas of dense population and limited mitigation capacity due to high prevalence of chronic conditions or poor access to high quality public health and medical care. Moreover, the collateral effects of the pandemic due to the global economic downturn, and social isolation and movement restriction measures, are unequally affecting those in the lowest power strata of societies. To address the challenges to health equity and describe some of the approaches taken by governments and local organizations, we have compiled 13 country case studies from various regions around the world: China, Brazil, Thailand, Sub Saharan Africa, Nicaragua, Armenia, India, Guatemala, United States of America (USA), Israel, Australia, Colombia, and Belgium. This compilation is by no-means representative or all inclusive, and we encourage researchers to continue advancing global knowledge on COVID-19 health equity related issues, through rigorous research and generation of a strong evidence base of new empirical studies in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a common task to partition the synergistic impacts of drivers in the environmental sciences. However, there is no mathematically precise solution to this partition task. Here I present a line-integral-based method, which addresses the sensitivity to the drivers throughout the drivers' evolutionary paths so as to ensure a precise partition. The method reveals that the partition depends on both the change magnitude and pathway (timing of the change) but not on the magnitude alone unless used for a linear system. To illustrate this method, I applied the Budyko framework to partition the effects of climatic and catchment conditions on the temporal change in the runoff for 19 catchments from Australia and China. The proposed method reduces to the decomposition method when assuming a path in which climate change occurs first, followed by an abrupt change in catchment properties. The proposed method re-defines the widely used sensitivity at a point as the path-averaged sensitivity. The total-differential and the complementary methods simply concern the sensitivity at the initial and/or the terminal state, so they cannot give precise results. Although the path-averaged sensitivities varied greatly among the catchments, they can be readily predicted within the Budyko framework. As a mathematically accurate solution, the proposed method provides a generic tool for conducting quantitative attribution analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health service provision in China, the National Health Commission has emphasised that training of all health service managers is essential. However, the implementation of that policy has proven challenging for various reasons, one of which is the lack of understanding of the competency requirements and gaps. The aims of the study were to develop an understanding of the characteristics and training experience of hospital managers in one major Chinese city, explore the difficulties they experience and relate them to their perceived importance of management competencies and the perceived level of their management competency.Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive study with a three-component survey including the use of a validated management competency assessment tool was conducted with three senior executive groups (n = 498) from three categories of hospital in Jinan, Shandong Province, China.Results: The survey confirmed that formal and informal management training amongst participants before commencing their management positions was inadequate. The core competencies identified in the Australia context were applicable to the management roles in Chinese hospitals. In addition, the senior executives had low levels of confidence in their management competence. Furthermore, the data showed significant differences between hospital categories and management levels in terms of their commitment to formal and informal training and self-perceived management competence.Conclusions: The study suggests that management training and support should be provided using a systematic approach with specific consideration to hospital types and management levels and positions. Such an approach should include clear competency requirements to guide management position recruitment and performance management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and the Australian winter monsoon (AWM) are two important components of the Asian-Australian monsoon system during boreal summer. The simultaneous variations of these two monsoons would have remarkable impacts on climate in the Asian-Australian region. Using the reanalysis datasets, we investigated the mechanisms of variation and impacts of East Asian-Australian monsoons (EAAMs). The singular value decomposition (SVD) is performed of the June-July-August (JJA) mean anomalous zonal wind for AWM as the left field and JJA mean anomalous meridional wind for EASM as the right field after both El Niño-Southern Oscillation and India Ocean Dipole signals are filtered out. Our results demonstrate that AWM and EASM are closely related to each other as revealed by the first leading SVD mode. The anomalously strong (weak) EAAMs correspond to anomalously strong (weak) AWM and EASM to the south of 30°N. When EAAMs are anomalously strong, cold sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) appears in regions near northern and northeastern coasts of Australia, whereas the warmer SSTA appears in the northwestern tropical Pacific and South China Sea. The colder SSTA is associated with the upwelling of cold water from below, induced by equatorial easterly anomalies, reinforcing the anticyclonic circulation over Australia through the Matsuno/Gill-type response, whereas warm SSTA appears in the northwestern tropical Pacific and South China Sea as a result of oceanic response to the intensified northwest Pacific subtropical anticyclonic circulation. The EASM couples with AWM via the anomalous easterlies near the equator in the Maritime Continent (MC) region and the slanted vertical anomalous circulations. In the years with strong EAAMs, precipitation decreases in northern Australia and over areas from the western Pacific to Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea of China. Meanwhile, the western MC and the southeastern China experience more-than-normal precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of the experiences and reflections of four fourth year pre-service teachers from Federation University Australia who completed their three-week teaching placement in Anshan, Liaoning Province, China, in April 2014. The study also explores the perspectives and opinions of both the Chinese mentor teachers and Chinese students towards the Australian preservice teachers. The research confirms the mutual benefits of cross-cultural teacher education professional experiences for pre-service teachers, Chinese mentor teachers and Chinese students. The teaching experiences revealed major differences in educational concepts and teaching strategies and approaches between the two systems because of the different social and cultural contexts. The evidence from the voices of the participants indicates that the professional experience in these two Chinese schools fostered the Australian pre-service teachers' cross-cultural communication skills, developed their confidence and skills as teachers and generally enriched their personal and professional lives.

Research on engineering practice is scarce and sharing of qualitative research data can reduce the effort required for an aspiring researcher to obtain enough data from engineering workplaces to draw generalizable conclusions, both qualitative and quantitative. This paper describes how a large shareable qualitative data set on engineering practices was accumulated from 350 interviews and 12 field studies performed by the principal investigator and by students conducting PhD and capstone research projects. Ethical research practice required that sharing and reuse of qualitative data be considered from the start. The researchers' interests and methods were aligned to maintain sufficient consistency to support subsequent analysis and re-analysis of data. Analysis helped to answer questions of fundamental significance for engineering educators: what do engineers do, and why are the performances of engineering enterprises so different in South Asia compared with similar enterprises in Australia? Analysis also demonstrated the overwhelming significance of technical collaboration in engineering practice. Conceiving engineering practice as a series of technical collaboration performances requires a more elaborate understanding of social interactions than is currently the case in engineering schools. Another finding is that global engineering competency could be better described in terms of "working with people who collaborate differently". Research helped to demonstrate that formal treatment of technical collaboration in an engineering curriculum could help avoid student misconceptions about engineering practice that hinder their subsequent engineering performances.

In this paper, a series of vignettes is used to explore important current challenges in TESOL. These vignettes are drawn from many different settings, including Bengali-, Pahari- and Chinese-speaking children in UK primary schools, speakers of Aboriginal English in Australia and Chinese teachers of English on courses in Higher Education. A number of themes run through these different contexts: What counts as literacy and learning? What are the expectations of the students and, in the case of school children, their parents? How do these differ from those of their teachers? What power issues shape these expectations? In answering these questions, emphasis will be placed on the dangers of "othering" and the importance of syncretic approaches that recognize and build on student experience.

Cross-border higher education institutions are considered a main way to fulfill the educational internalization in Mainland China; to some extent they represent the attitude of entering the international market. In this paper, the history, status quo, and future of Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run schools are analyzed and discussed. Cross-border higher education institutions in Mainland China have experienced the process from accidental and disorder to a systematic and quality orientation.

Understanding the ways that international students seek information and help in the host country is essential for improving academic, social, cultural, and welfare support for this student cohort. However, there is a dearth of literature that documents how international students in the vocational education and training (VET) sector do so. This paper aims to fill this gap. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 Chinese international students undertaking diploma and associate degree programs in Australia, this research shows that the ways in which Chinese international students seek help prior to their departure and after their arrival at the host country, largely depends on the nature of the issues they confront. The data also reveals that students' use of education agents is not limited to the pre-departure stage, as is indicated in the existing literature, but throughout their journey in the host country. Notably, the role of agents has become increasingly important in Chinese international students' decision-making processes during their transition from diploma to associate degree and higher education programs.

This paper reflects on a team translation project on Aboriginal culture designed to enhance university students' intercultural communication competence and understanding through engaging in an interactive team translation project funded by the Australia-China Council. A selected group of Chinese speaking translation students participated in the project and two English books on Australian Aboriginal history and culture were translated to Chinese from August 2011 to May 2012. The two bilingual books were published by Aboriginal Studies Press in May 2013. After the one-year translation project was completed, the author conducted a survey and audio-taped interviews about the participants' translation experience. Using social constructivist theory (SCT), the author coded the data, conducted critical analysis of the contents, and categorised the themes. It was found that the participants not only improved their translation skills through combining theories with practices, but also got better knowledge of Australian Aboriginal cultural tradition and history than before. Having understood cross-linguistic differences, they combined translation theory with practice and raised their intercultural awareness after going through various organized learning activities centering on the translation project. Such an interaction-based student engagement learning approach helped student translators achieve meaningful communication and learner autonomy through individual reflections, group discussions, and seminars. Finally the pedagogical implications of the team translation project were discussed.

This paper scrutinizes decentralization of education with reference to some countries around the world. We consider discussion on decentralization to be complex, critical and broad question in the contemporary education planning, administration and politics of education reforms. Even though the debate on and implementation of decentralization education can result from differences in ideological and philosophical backgrounds (McGinn & Welsh, 1999), in this scrutiny we begin by theorizing the concept, provides dimensions and goals of decentralization and demonstrate how decentralization has been implemented in some countries. Finally, conclusion is assumed in this debate as a summary and a conduit to further discussion and investigation of educational decentralization.

Background: Zung's Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) is an established norm-referenced screening measure used to identify the presence of depressive disorders in adults. Despite widespread usage, issues exist concerning the recommended cut-off score for a positive diagnosis. First, confusion arising from the conversion of raw scores to index scores had resulted in a considerably higher cut-off score than that recommended being used by many researchers. Second, research in China [Chin J Nervous Mental Dis. 12:267-268; 2009] and Australia [BMC Psychiatry. 17:329; 2017] had suggested that the current recommended cut-off is lower than ideal, at least in those countries. Method: To explore these matters further, sensitivity and specificity figures for alternative cut-off points were examined in positive clinical and negative community samples respectively. The positive clinical sample (n = 57) consisted of adults receiving treatment from a medical professional for some kind of depressive disorder, whose diagnosis was positively confirmed using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). The negative community sample (n = 172) was derived from a representative sample of adults whose absence of any depressive disorder was similarly confirmed by the PHQ. Results: Mathematical models, including Youden's Index and the Receiver Operating Characteristics Curve, suggest that the recommended cut-off (a raw score of 40) is indeed too low. More detailed comparisons, including consideration of the likely numbers of false positives and negatives given prevalence rates, confirm that, ironically, the incorrect SDS cut-off score mistakenly applied by many researchers (a raw score of 50) would appear to provide far greater accuracy. Conclusions: Research in China [Chin J Nervous Mental Dis. 12:267-268; 2009] has resulted in an elevated SDS cut-off score of 42 being used in many Chinese studies. Research by Dunstan and Scott [BMC Psychiatry. 17:329; 2017] in an Australian context, suggested that a greater increase, to a raw score of 44 might be required. Based on this study, an even larger adjustment is required. Specifically, we recommend the use of an SDS raw score of 50 as the cut-off point for clinical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A combined ecological, morphological, and molecular approach was used to examine 26 herbarium specimens and eight strains of Moesziomyces. The phylogenetic analysis resolved eight well-supported clades, of which three contained type specimens of known species of Moesziomyces. One clade contained two specimens that produced a teleomorph in the flowers of Echinochloa kimberleyensis in Australia. The name Moesziomyces kimberleyensis is proposed for this smut fungus. Another clade contained specimens that produced sori in the flowers of Leersia hexandra. The name Thecaphora globuligera (now Moesziomyces globuligerus) is available for this species, which is lectotypified. The teleomorph of Moesziomyces antarcticus, previously known only from Japan, is found for the first time in China, on Echinochloa crus-galli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slack OECD economic performance and weaker macroeconomic policy support Summers's reuse of the phrase 'secular stagnation'. Globalisation has redirected growth towards emerging economies, and anticipated rates of return on investment are impaired by perceived risk, institutionalised risk aversion, ageing and dependency, declining commitments to public investment and research and development with rising shares directed to health, retained trade distortions, industrial concentration and slower human capital accumulation, not to mention unexpected global abundance of fossil fuels and a slower Chinese economy. The information and literature supporting these concerns is reviewed and implications for global and Australian policy are inferred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Changing Academic Profession (CAP) international survey was designed in part to consider the effects of globalization on the work context and activities of academics in 19 countries or regions around the world. This paper draws from a subset of these data to explore the extent to which academics are globally connected in their research and teaching, and the ways this connectedness relates to global migration. Across multiple measures, immigrant academics (i.e., academics working in countries where they were not born and did not receive their first degree) were more globally connected than national academics (i.e., those working in the countries of their birth and first degree). Global migration by academic staff is clearly a major contributor to the internationalization of higher education institutions, yet there was no evidence these contributions led to enhanced career progress or job satisfaction for immigrant academics relative to national academics. The international expertise and experience of immigrant academics may not be sufficiently recognized and valued by their institutions.

The paper examines if there has been an increase in the attention paid to social and environmental issues (SEI) in accounting curricula. Using schools participating in the Aspen Institute's Beyond Grey Pinstripes (BGP) program, we measure the increase in the number of accounting courses incorporating SEI across the biennial application years of 2005, 2007 and 2009. We also examine the percentage of SEI coverage in accounting courses between 2007 and 2009. Our findings suggest that there was not an appreciable increase in the number of accounting courses dealing with SEI between 2005 and 2007, but that the increase was significant during the period from 2007 to 2009. Further, the increase over the four-year period from 2005 to 2009 was also significant. In addition, there is a significant increase in the percentage of SEI coverage in accounting courses between 2007 and 2009. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Higher Education is experiencing an increasingly diverse student population. Students bring a range of skills and experiences to their courses; they have different backgrounds and different needs. This fluidity requires an approach to teaching that encompasses the social aspects of learning. It has been suggested that authentic approaches to teaching and learning can assist in offering a perspective on learning which views learning as "enabling participation in knowing". We propose that the authentic learning practices developed in The Gift design project, discussed in this paper, constituted approaches which acknowledged that students' interests and experience are intrinsically bound up with motivation and engagement and, as such, have a major influence on the ways in which learning is constituted and developed. The Gift project has developed a range of innovative formative strategies which have provided both students and tutors with opportunities to become involved in peer assessment and review, peer feedback and reflection on learning outcomes. This re-conceptualisation of the assessment process has provided valuable insights into the development of learning skills such as problem solving, critical analysis, and the development of creativity and learner autonomy.

The past decade has seen a rapid increase in the number of international students undertaking doctorates in Anglophone universities such as Australia and the UK. In 2009, 11,500 international students were undertaking postgraduate research in Australia, with a 20 per cent increase in doctoral enrolments over the previous year (AEI, 2011). In the UK, international students comprise 50 per cent of full-time research degree students (UKCISA, 2011). The postgraduate research student cohort in these countries has thus radically changed as these students have brought with them different academic cultures and intellectual traditions. Although distinct phases can be identified in the responses of Australian and British universities to increases in international students, with the current phase aligned to internationalisation agendas, there still appears to be a lack of recognition of the potential to take advantage of these global flows of people, ideas and perspectives by engaging with the knowledge and academic values that international doctoral students bring. Are we taking advantage of these opportunities for the generation of new knowledge and skills or do we risk being complacent about the superiority of "Western" academic ways? Using theories of cross-cultural pedagogy, this paper reports on a qualitative study of views of scholarship and learning in Western and Confucian-heritage higher education, using Australia and the UK, and China and Hong Kong as case studies. Interviews with expert scholars in these contexts demonstrate that although there are differences and similarities towards knowledge and scholarship between these higher education systems, these are changing as contemporary teaching and learning conditions and imperatives become more closely tied to discourses of internationalisation and globalisation. This demonstrates recognition of the changes occurring in higher education and an understanding of the need for genuine intercultural dialog so that international education is not just based on the legitimisation of Western knowledge but becomes an enterprise of mutual learning. (Contains 1 table.)

The world is marked by the twin processes of economic and cultural globalization in an era of information technology. The identities of all societies are evolving as social and political boundaries are shrinking day-by-day. As a result of significant economic and political changes, cross-cultural contact is at an all-time high in human history. Over the past three decades, however, significant social, political and technological changes appear to have seriously revamped policies, set new paradigms, and shifted philosophies that contribute to the dramatic alteration of the educational landscape. This globalized world is controlled by a triple deity--money, markets, and media--that have seamlessly entrenched themselves in how "education is imparted" around the globe. This infiltration has affected practices, practitioners, and programs. This paper presents the changing landscape of higher education in the global market, in terms of opportunities and threats to higher education institutes and universities around the world.

This paper describes a method intended to advance students along the path to independent learning. The method is consistent with the principles of enquiry-based learning. It involves restructuring student contact class time into a single three-hour block, and dedicating the majority of this time to working in small research project groups. Non-punitive, formative feedback is provided continuously on student work through the semester. In order to gain insight into the student experience of the design, a qualitative study using focus groups was conducted across two consecutive semesters. Reflection on the teaching experience in light of the student responses provides insight into aspects that have worked well, particularly the nature and channels of support provided to students. Despite the students' unfamiliarity with the unit design, the contact structure and the group work has been popular and has been perceived as contributing to the students' learning experience. The levels of support and feedback made possible through the unit design have also been very positively viewed. However, interesting questions are also raised. The first is regarding the balance between encouraging independent learning and the provision of structure and support by staff. The second is related to going beyond student perceptions and reliably measuring changes in independent learning abilities. (Contains 2 tables.)

Background: Media education is the study of the media with the aim of cultivating people's media literacy. In the past four decades, media education has rapidly developed in school systems and communities all over the world. Each country has its own developmental trajectory. With the rise of the interactive new media, media education is going to have a paradigm shift, bringing media education study into a new era. Goals: This paper discusses the rationales, definitions and approaches of media education. It also provides an overview about the global development of media literacy training. Results: Although different countries define media education in different ways, they share the common goal of training media literate people to deal with the media in an intelligent and responsible way. Media education has been well developed in the West but in recent years Asia regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China and Japan are gaining their momentum. With the emergence of various new media devices, media education is regarded as playing a more important role in cultivating wise prosumers in the 21st century.

In this paper, we attempt to gain a greater understanding of the adjustment experiences of international students from Mainland China in their first year at university. Three themes emerge from our data: lack of confidence in speaking English; the preference for using family, partners and close friends as their support networks to deal with problems; and the lack of knowledge of university counselling services. The participants did not view the university counselling services as a support service they would use to assist them with their personal difficulties.

The discussion in this paper is based on the assumption that international education is equated to recruiting and educating international students, even though its true concept goes far beyond this narrow understanding. The purpose of this research is to look at the key factors that influence recruiting young Chinese students, and make sure all who work in this field understand how their business will achieve success. This is done through an analysis of the Chinese education system, the history of young Chinese students studying abroad, China's economic outlook, the Australian and Chinese governments' attitudes and international education policies, and the expectations of the students and their families. The article concludes with some constructive recommendations and suggestions. (Contains 1 table and 8 footnotes.)

The primary purpose of this exploratory study is to identify variations in the ways in which individual teachers in different educational contexts interpret their curriculum and plan their lessons and in particular to explore the possibility that cultural differences as identified by Hofstede (1991) may be a contributing factor to understanding how teachers understand their work. "Educational reform" has become a catchphrase in the Anglo-American world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and England and Wales, as well as in the Confucian Heritage Areas such as Mainland China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Across the world, the educational reform measures being implemented are surprisingly similar. This paper describes a study of how geography teachers in Queensland, Australia, Hong Kong, and Changchun, China, plan their lessons and curriculum. From classroom observations and interviews with the teachers involved, we confirmed marked differences in each location regarding their cultural traits of power distance, individualist and collectivist preference and uncertainty tolerance, and that these traits appear to be highly influential in their curriculum planning. Despite the small scale of this study, we contend that there are good reasons for caution before national education systems import policies and curriculum reform initiatives from other countries for unthinking adoption. (Contains 1 table and 7 notes.) [An Appendix containing a summary of points in the textbook, suggested teaching method in teachers' reference and points that Mr. Au, a junior secondary geography teacher in Changchun, covered in his lessons on railways in China, is appended to this document.]

Background: The Project Yi Jin (PYJ), an alternative pathway for secondary school leavers and adults to further their education, has been receiving full support from the government, the Federation for Continuing Education in Tertiary Institutions (FCE) in Hong Kong and the public. Graduates of PYJ have the equivalent academic status of their counterparts in the main stream education. It was first implemented in 2000/01 by the FCE and has been offered to more than 35,000 students by 2006/07. With the success of the programme as a safety-net for a mass education system, it should continue to function more vigorously as new reforms are being implemented in the Hong Kong education scene in the future. The Chief Executive in his 2004 Policy Address has set out the direction to develop a new secondary and university system, i.e., (3+3) for secondary + 4 (tertiary) [the old one is (3+2+2)+3], to be launched in 2010/11, that will effectively prepare the next generation to cope with the challenges of the 21st century and the demands of the rapidly developing knowledge-based society. The new system, together with substantial modified curricula including the newly developed applied learning courses (ApL), is supposed to be able to look after all secondary students. Aims and focus of discussion: This paper aims to argue the necessity of launching a new version of Project Yi Jin (nPYJ) concurrently together with the new 3+3+4 academic system. In light of the contemporary global educational systems as compared to that of Hong Kong, it is postulated that the launching of nPYJ as a continuation of the successful PYJ is both legitimate and indispensable with regard to the carefully observed current global fashion of lifelong learning and continuing education in which diversity, equity, and flexibility are highly valued. Method: A comprehensive comparative review was carried out on eleven selected oriental and occidental countries and regions, namely, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Macao, focusing on the worldwide trend of constant high school drop-out rate as well as the mentioned countries' respective senior secondary schooling articulation policy leading to higher education, in particular shedding light on the establishment of alternative pathways towards tertiary education alongside the conventional educational track. Conclusion: With the literature backdrop and empirical support, it is shown that high school drop-outs are inevitable no matter how well-defined an education system may be. Thus this is where the "safety-net" contingency plan is found essential. A new version of Project Yi Jin (nPYJ), to be offered in parallel with the Hong Kong's new 3+3+4 secondary academic curricula, is indispensable to the new educational structure in the territory which fundamentally helps transform the conventionally somewhat segregated and elite educational system into a mass one. Regarding the curricular design, both PYJ and nPYJ will focus on generic skills and a wide range of electives will be offered as well to arouse students' interest of study. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 5 footnotes.)

The implementation of a language policy is crucially associated with questions of methodology. This paper explores approaches to language policy, approaches to methodology and the impact that these have on language teaching practice. Language policies can influence decisions about teaching methodologies either directly, by making explicit recommendations about the methods to be used in classroom practice, or indirectly, through the conceptualisation of language learning which underlies the policy. It can be argued that all language policies have the potential to influence teaching methodologies indirectly and that those policies which have explicit recommendations about methodology are actually functioning of two levels. This allows for the possibility of conflict between the direct and indirect dimensions of the policy which results from an inconsistency between the explicitly recommended methodology and the underlying conceptualisation of language teaching and learning which informs the policy.