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China's 2017 'classroom revolution' call intends to transform current teacher-centered pedagogies with brand-new philosophies and technologies. As a new entry point for classroom research, I problematize a naturalized (mis)belief—teacher-centered (Confucian) didactic pedagogies are not conducive to critical thinking cultivation—that has enthralled Chinese teachers in an epistemological-moral-pedagogical dilemma. My problematization, philosophically informed and practice-research grounded, unfolds in four steps. First, I explicate the presumed clash between the claimed Confucian pedagogies and critical thinking. Second, I historicize the Confucian pedagogical philosophy to implode the naturalized (mis)belief and some stereotypical (mis)understandings of Confucian teaching and learning, demonstrating instead an epistemological compatibility therebetween. Third, I unpack how my phenomenological case study discerns an unrecognized yet educative 'repair moment' in a Chinese math classroom, generating a possible re-conjoining between teachers' self-despised yet habitually implemented 'Confucian do-after-me pedagogy' and critical mathematical reasoning. Through observations and interviews, I illustrate how this 'repair moment' can become pedagogically significant, overturning teachers' naturalized (mis)belief, redeeming them from the moral-practical dilemma, and cultivating their critical pedagogical consciousness. Finally, I argue that this paper not only provides a philosophical-plus-empirical paradigm for teaching invention in China and beyond but also sheds new light on cross-cultural learning in transnational curriculum studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presented in the paper has the following goals. The first is to review and compare teacher competence frameworks developed in Eastern (Chinese) and Western (German) contexts, exemplified for the domain of mathematics. Major similarities of the two contexts could be reconstructed in the conceptualization of teacher competence as a multidimensional construct comprising knowledge, teaching-related skills and beliefs. Distinct differences could be identified as well, with the Chinese frameworks including a wider range of teacher-competence facets and emphasizing more teaching-related competencies than the Western (German) frameworks. The second purpose is to adapt and validate a German framework of the measurement of mathematics teacher competence in a Chinese context. This adaptation and validation uses exemplarily mathematics teacher, in detail follow-up-studies of the international Teacher Education and Development Study: Learning to Teach Mathematics (TEDS-M). With the integration of a qualitative approach (e.g. elemental validity) and a quantitative approach (e.g. construct validity) to validate the framework, the results of both approaches suggest a satisfactory validity for the adaptation. Overall, the results point out that the examined teacher competence framework and its instruments can be used for comparative analyses in Germany and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world, increasing numbers of students receive after-school private supplementary tutoring. Such tutoring may be provided through informal channels or by companies, and it may be received one-to-one, in small groups or in large classes. The tutoring is commonly called shadow education since its content mimics that of regular schooling. The spread of shadow education is part of a global shift of balance with increased roles for the private sector. Hong Kong is among the societies in which shadow education enrolment rates are particularly high. Much of the shadow education focuses on techniques for performance in external examinations, and is not consistent with the emphases stressed by teachers and the government. This paper focuses on a newly introduced subject called Liberal Studies in which the tensions are especially visible. Although the official curriculum emphasizes creativity and critical thinking, many students have sought large-class tutoring focused on formulae for passing examinations. Interviews exposed the needs that the students felt were not being met in their schooling. The findings illustrate some of the complexities in relationships between the public and private sectors. Viewed in a wider context, the paper illuminates some of the mechanisms and effects of marketization, which are increasingly evident globally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the lived curriculum from the vantage of the students in a case study of a Sino-Canada transnational education programme in China. The programme consisted of subject area curricula transplanted from Ontario, Canada, and taught in English, as well as subject area curricula from Mainland China that was taught in Mandarin. The study’s methodology capitalized on nine student participants’ creation of multimodal texts that were designed to articulate their identities and experiences within the programme. The paper reflects on the affordances and constraints of multimodal data collection and analysis with the goal of illuminating the participating students’ literacy learning opportunities and identity options as they experienced them in the programme. Key findings include that students experienced the curriculum and the programme in sometimes contradictory ways. The programme seemed to allow students to interact with imagined global others and the curricular learning opportunities seemed to expand students’ literacy and identity options. SCS’s Canadian/Chinese literacy curriculum, however, seemed to be bifurcated along linguistic and cultural lines and did not seem to promote syncretic literacy practices where students were encouraged to create new forms of meaning making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the relevance and significance of the Practical in Schwab’s the ‘Practical 1’ paper in relation to the reconstruction of pedagogics as an educational discipline in China. It begins with employing Schwab’smedicalframework–in terms ofsymptoms,diagnosisandprescription–to analyse the crisis in Chinese pedagogics, and then articulates what is entailed in reconstructing pedagogics in terms of the Practical as a solution to the crisis. The paper next examines the construction of ‘life-practice’ pedagogics by Professor Ye Lan and associates–a remarkable undertaking which in many respects instantiates the Practical, while not influenced by the thinking of Schwab. It concludes by linking the Practical to the EuropeanPädagogiktradition and Chinese educational wisdom concerning theory development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is one of X commentaries on Wu’s ‘Interpretation, autonomy, and transformation: Chinese pedagogic discourse in a cross-cultural perspective’ (JCS, 43(5), 569-590). It highlights the paper’s demystification of Western pedagogic discourse and recovery of the meaning of Chinese traditional pedagogic discourse as a response to the long-lasting debates on the Chinese–Western/traditional–modern dichotomies seen in China’s modernization. However, the paper overlooks the complexity of Chinese pedagogic discourse: it over-emphasizes the formal or linguistic dimension of pedagogic discourse, and presumes the dichotomy of Chinese–Western discourses and the discontinuity of traditional–modern cultures. After elaborating the ends, substances, methods, and teacher roles found in Chinese pedagogic discourses, this study argues that contemporary pedagogic discourses are essentially inhabited in indigenous traditions, and actively entangled with Western discourse. The meaning of Confucian traditional pedagogy should not (and cannot) be ‘recovered’ from the past, but be ‘found’ in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of three papers, I examine the identity development of three Chinese women teachers as they moved back and forth between Eastern and Western cultures and languages amid the rapidly changing events of the last four decades. I use a river metaphor to explore three phases in the cross-cultural lives of these women: in the first paper, their lives in China amid multiple cultural movements; in the second, their lives in Canada; and in the third their lives in the North American academy. This lifebased narrative inquiry, situated between non-fiction, fiction and academic discourses, opens up possibilities for establishing a link between cross-cultural lives and identities, cross-cultural teacher education and curriculum studies in multicultural contexts. In this first paper, I explore the three teachers' lives in China before, during and after the Cultural Revolution. I tell stories of changes for each participant as cultural upheavals were experienced in their homes and schooling. I pay special attention to the relationship between living such disruptive lives, telling such lives, and developing an inquiry-oriented way of thinking about and writing about such lives related to identity development and its impact upon cross-cultural curriculum making and multicultural education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature and socio-political functions of Hong Kong's 'Chinese history curriculum' during colonialism and since decolonization and argues that these functions have resulted in a curriculum characterized by rote-learning and geared towards social control. Students are initiated into the traditional, orthodox view of Chinese history and prescribed moral judgements. Consequently, there is little chance for independent thinking on the part of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines music education's legitimation of values as a means of preparing students for entry into the new 'knowledge society' of the People's Republic of China in a global age. It explores the ways in which values education relates to the teaching of both musical and non-musical meanings in the dual context of nationalism and globalization, and discusses some problems that values education faces in school music classrooms. It examines the ways in which globalization has pressured values education into resolving the apparent contradiction between national identity and national unity in the ever-changing play of Chinese history and politics. It concludes with a discussion of how music education might juggle three pairs of apparently contradictory relationships in the curriculum: between contemporary cultural and social values on the one hand, and traditional Chinese and Communist ideologies on the other; between collectivism and individualism; and between national and global cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School-based curriculum development has been a highlight of China's new curriculum reform since 1999. This reform introduces a curriculum policy change towards devolving partial power in curriculum decision-making to teachers, and invites their active involvement in transforming their role from being book-knowledge transmitters to curriculum developers. This paper describes an action-research project based on a school-university collaborative effort to build teacher's practical, personal reflective experience, and understanding of both the new concept of school-based curriculum development and the wider curriculum reform. How such Western concepts as school-based curriculum development and reflective practice can be adapted and transformed in the Chinese context is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum developers and scholars in China are facing a set of inter-related issues around the goals and the strategies of curriculum reform. This paper argues that there are, as in every process of curriculum development, seven goals to be addressed within China's curriculum reform: (1) the establishment of a new curriculum philosophy or ideal; (2) the development of educational objectives; (3) the renewal of educational content and experience; (4) the reconstruction of a model of curriculum organization; (5) innovation in curriculum materials; (6) the establishment of an active mode of teaching and instruction; and (7) the establishment of a new system of curriculum evaluation. Six strategies are needed for China to reach these goals: (1) improving the system of curriculum management; (2) redeveloping the mechanisms of curriculum reform; (3) promoting school-based curriculum development; (4) integrating information technology with curriculum; (5) emphasizing teachers' professional development; and (6) encouraging the whole nation's participation in the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and analyzes the school reading and language arts curriculum and significant features of classroom instruction in Chinese primary schools. Reading instruction across China tends to be uniform, because of the national curriculum guide, national textbook series, and common traditions of schooling. Curriculum goals for the primary school include learning approximately 3000 Chinese characters. The load of new characters is greatest in the lower grades. Drill-and-practice predominates in the teaching of characters. Chinese reading instruction emphasizes intensive reading, but neglects extensive reading. According to this analysis, there are at least three promising directions for improving reading instruction in China: (1) explaining the internal structure of Chinese characters and words; (2) increasing the volume of reading; and (3) teaching reading in a manner that leads more children to understand that problem solving is essential in reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the differential status and validity accorded to subjects in Hong Kong secondary schools and analyses the structures and processes which maintain the nature of school knowledge. It initially focuses on the central role played by the state and subsequently by the market in which schools compete for pupils. It is argued that the curriculum continues to manifest those characteristics which emerged in the early postwar period, which was characterized by direct state control. The outcome is a curriculum which contains those features associated with: a collection code; closed systems; disciplinary modes of conceptualizing knowledge; and a focus on public knowledge, despite the government`s attempts, over the last two decades, to promote a curriculum which displays the opposite features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout much of their history the Chinese have made a clear distinction between the role in society to be fulfilled by those with formal education and those without. During this century this distinction has become blurred, particularly during the Mao years. Since the Revolution, a heavy emphasis has been placed on the importance of labour; its introduction into the schools as part of the curriculum was an attempt to bring an end to the privileged role held by the educated in Chinese society. The inclusion of labour into the school curriculum was based on an ideological position held by the Communists, and that ideology ran contrary to traditional Chinese educational thought and practice. During the past 40 years the work-study programmes in Chinese schools have evolved into a variety of school enterprises which now serve not only an ideological purpose but also the vocational needs of the students, while at the same time providing much needed financing for Chinese schools. This paper explores this historical development and looks at several examples of how it has effected school curricula in Guangdong Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]