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In 2017, China released its building list of First-class Universities and First-class Subjects (Double First classes), which should get great support for development for many years into the future. This paper examines the academic performance of eight universities that are currently listed as having First-class Subjects of economics, in international papers and domestic papers, and compares their academic performance with another eight non-listed universities. The comparison shows that in general only three listed universities have obvious advantages among the 16 sample universities, while four listed universities do not show advantages, with one of them unexpectedly lagging behind. In contrast, several non-listed universities perform obviously better among the sample universities. In addition, several other aspects of this Double First-class list are also found to be less objective, scientific, or rigorous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2021 the Chinese Government unexpectedly released what has become known colloquially as the 'Double-Reduction' policy. The policy decreed the reduction of homework pressure on students and greater control of private tutorial companies. In this paper, we set out to understand why the Chinese central government launched the 'Double-Reduction' policy in mid−2021 by using narratives to analyse the three most circulated explanations for the policy and its timing. We use data from a range of formal and informal policy texts. The three narratives, including one policy narrative dominant in the official discourse and two alternative ones, constructed the causal stories about the policy's rationale from multiple perspectives. The combination of multiple perspectives and a narrative approach helps reveal the policy event's complexity and lays a foundation for researchers interested in tracking the development trajectory of this new policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the influence of Chinese traditional reading culture on contemporary Chinese family education, this paper analyzes the reasons for the formation of the “involution” of Chinese family education. The involution means to have fierce competition but no good feedbacks. This study found that the objective reasons include China's national education policy, and the subjective reasons come from the current family education; there are problems such as incomplete awareness of parents' education, lack of educational ability, education comparison and so on. It is proposed that the correct values and competition views should be cultivated among family members so that parents can take the initiative to break the barriers of education and promote the all around development and healthy growth of children. This article focuses on the role of family education and the educational methods to prevent “involution”, which may provide another way for China's family education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, COVID-19 is attracting people's attention worldwide. The rapid spread of the epidemic has had a very large impact on the education sector. Many countries have organized students to engage in online learning and study at home. As a country was seriously affected in the early stage of the epidemic, after a period of hard work, China has developed nationwide online education. Compared with that in many developed countries, the emergence of information technology in China did not occur early. However, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 forced Chinese schools to carry out large-scale online teaching. Based on the theoretical framework of the interaction between online education policy and public response, this paper combs the change trend of online education policy focus in China in recent 20 years and the change of public response direction in microblog hot search comments after the online education policy was introduced during the epidemic period through a variety of text statistical analysis methods, and discusses the interaction between social public response and online education policy. This paper explains the reasons for China's successful implementation of nationwide online education in primary and secondary schools in early 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of the public good of higher education is closely related to the political, social and educational cultures in which higher education is embedded. It varies across contexts. However, widely used notions of the 'public' aspects of higher education, including the concepts of economic public goods and private goods, conventionally assume Anglo-American state/society/university assemblages. Anglo-American (and more generally, Western) discourses and terms are dominant in scholarship on public policy and higher education. This creates obstacles and lacunae in comparative studies, and employing solely Anglo-American notions can be especially problematic in non-Anglo-American contexts. This paper attempts to move beyond the conventional approach by conducting a lexical-based comparison of the Chinese and Anglo-American approaches to the public aspects of higher education. It identifies and explores key concepts of the public good of higher education in both the Chinese and English languages, establishing similarities and differences. The comparison contributes to a more balanced understanding of the public roles of higher education, illuminates new aspects of 'public', and may facilitate mutual understanding between scholars and between the Chinese and Anglo-American higher education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends that the inclusion of meso- and micro-level perspectives has been under exploration in the study of the internationalization of humanities and social sciences, in particular, in a state-mandated system where policy interventions in higher education and knowledge production have typically been aligned with state construction and national development. It argues that institutional and individual responses to state policies on the internationalization of humanities and social sciences should be investigated due to their respective roles in policymaking and implementation. It has, therefore, retrieved recent and historical policy documents during the post-WTO period and collected empirical data from two Chinese universities. A constructivist-interpretivist qualitative approach and a qualitative case study strategy were adopted for this investigation. Based on an in-depth analysis of the empirical data, this paper reveals the gap between the macro-level ambition of achieving outward-oriented diffusion of innovations and the local-level realities, as well as institutional dilemmas and conflicts in facilitating the internationalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative to strengthen regional connectivity so as to embrace a brighter future together. Since the Initiative was put forward, it has brought many challenges to China's English education policy. By employing Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Word2Vec, this study analyzes the evolution of topics and challenges in China's English education policy under the Belt and Road Initiative. The results indicate that after the initiative, the policy focus has changed. English education has shifted from testing abilities to cultivating students' intercultural communication skills in order to meet the needs with countries alongside the "Belt and Road". Moreover, teaching strategies that were examination-oriented have also changed to emphasizing teaching methods and feedback. The focus and teaching strategies have also undergone great changes. China's English education policy has shifted from focusing on improving students' writing skills, English proficiency, and creativity to conducting in-depth research and addressing specific issues, including challenges in linguistics, media influence, educational institutions and programs, online courses, attitudes and self-efficacy, use of multiple languages and globalization, teaching issues, and curriculum design. These findings shed light on how the Belt and Road Initiative changed China's English education policy and provide further directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is a multiethnic country, and the border areas are the gathering places of ethnic minorities. Strengthening the ethnic unity education in the border areas is an important measure to maintain the social stability and national security in the border areas of China. Colleges and universities in the border areas are the cradle of cultivating outstanding ethnic minority cadres, and colleges and universities in the border areas shoulder an important historical mission. In recent years, many domestic experts and scholars began to try to use the PMC index model for policy evaluation. Chinese scholars also have a deeper understanding of the standards of policy evaluation and put forward policy evaluation standards that are more in line with the actual needs of China's public policy evaluation research. This paper takes the education policy text of the border ethnic minorities as the research object, takes the policy evaluation as the research perspective, constructs the transformation policy text evaluation model according to Ruiz Estrada's PMC index model construction method, defines the calculation method and rating method, draws the PMC surface of each sample, and makes a comparative analysis of the PMC index. According to the comparative analysis results of PMC index and the scanning results of policy text, this paper puts forward three optimization strategies for the education policy of border ethnic minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Based on a systematic review of policy documents in China related to teacher training over the past four decades, this paper identifies and analyzes the main policy shifts and strategies in terms of teacher training in China. Design/Approach/Methods: Using quantitative trend analysis, high-frequency word analysis, and content analysis, this study presents the policy changes in and reform of China's national teacher training system and elucidates the reasons for such changes. Findings: Chinese teacher training and practice reforms resonate with the paradigm shifts of international teacher training and development, particularly those based on real-world scenarios. However, innovations have also been made in response to the problems of Chinese in-service teacher training and development, such as the lack of time for teachers and the separation between learning and practice. Such innovations reflect the government's efforts to narrow the gaps between theory, policy, and practice by improving China's macro policy design. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the longitudinal study of policy shifts in teacher training in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At this stage, there is a big gap between the cognition and practice of smart devices in universities and the theoretical development of universities. Theoretical and practical scientific research on university wisdom factors from the perspective of wisdom culture education can sort out the essential attributes of university wisdom in terms of actual practice and appearance and give references for the development of university theory and within the field of wisdom practice. In the age of the information explosion, modern education is developing toward an intelligent system approach. In this cultural education environment, universities in China are paying close attention to the construction of smart schools. Among them, the national Ministry of Education policy document emphasizes the construction of "intelligent education demonstration parks" and promotes the construction and implementation of smart campuses in all aspects. Given this, the paper takes university culture education as an example and explains how to build smart classroom teaching to promote the development of modernization and intelligence in China's education and improve its quality of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Educational Studies (1673-1298) is the property of Journal of Educational Studies Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study explores a cohort of Burmese students' lived experiences at a border high school in China and demonstrates that their multilingual practices and identity positionings constitute exclusionary effects that limit their interactions with their local Chinese teachers and peers. The paper argues that these Burmese students' in-group interactions reproduce the process of exclusion, further complicating their identity positionings. This paper confirms the established fact that transnational students are marginalized in a variety of national contexts in complex ways, and draws attention to in-group differences among transnational students with diverse backgrounds. These findings have implications for multilingual practices and education policy makers, and for a more inclusive pedagogical approach to reducing marginalization and educating students of diverse linguistic, cultural, and racial backgrounds for global citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government spending on higher education is a perennial research theme, but empirical evidence from China is relatively rare. Based on panel data of local higher education institutions in 31 Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2016, this paper investigates the determinants of general appropriations and quantifies their relative contributions in consideration of socioeconomic, political, and higher education variables. The results of two-way fixed effect modelling reveal that province GDP per capita, government size, percent of education spending, total enrolment, and tuition fees are five major determinants. Further, the results of Shapley decomposition show that these five determinants jointly contribute to 56.793% of total R2. Drawing on Chinese practices of higher education expansion in the last two decades, this paper concludes with policy implications for sustaining higher education funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online learning is currently adopted by educational institutions worldwide to provide students with ongoing education during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Even though online learning research has been advancing in uncovering student experiences in various settings (i.e., tertiary, adult, and professional education), very little progress has been achieved in understanding the experience of the K‐12 student population, especially when narrowed down to different school‐year segments (i.e., primary and secondary school students). This study explores how students at different stages of their K‐12 education reacted to the mandatory full‐time online learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic. For this purpose, we conducted a province‐wide survey study in which the online learning experience of 1,170,769 Chinese students was collected from the Guangdong Province of China. We performed cross‐tabulation and Chi‐square analysis to compare students' online learning conditions, experiences, and expectations. Results from this survey study provide evidence that students' online learning experiences are significantly different across school years. Foremost, policy implications were made to advise government authorises and schools on improving the delivery of online learning, and potential directions were identified for future research into K‐12 online learning. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Online learning has been widely adopted during the COVID‐19 pandemic to ensure the continuation of K‐12 education.Student success in K‐12 online education is substantially lower than in conventional schools.Students experienced various difficulties related to the delivery of online learning.What this paper adds Provide empirical evidence for the online learning experience of students in different school years.Identify the different needs of students in primary, middle, and high school.Identify the challenges of delivering online learning to students of different age.Implications for practice and/or policy Authority and schools need to provide sufficient technical support to students in online learning.The delivery of online learning needs to be customised for students in different school years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the student-supervisor relationship (SSR) and postgraduate students' subjective well-being. Based on a longitudinal survey of Beijing college students, the present study suggests that in China, the SSR is a supervisor-centred, top-down hierarchical relationship. The reciprocity level of the SSR is positively related to the students' subjective well-being. The trust level of the SSR also has a positive relationship with students' subjective well-being; improving the trust level may also mitigate the possible negative implications of the low level of reciprocity in the relationship. The present study further reveals that it is more difficult for first-generation students to establish sound SSR than non-first-generation students. Additionally, a good SSR is more important for first-generation students' positive well-being. The findings provide implications for educational practices on how to improve postgraduate students' subjective well-being by improving the SSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Global policy transfer has become increasingly popular in recent years, and one recent example of such policy transfer is the England–China Teacher Exchange, which was initiated in 2014 with the explicit aim of raising attainment in maths in English primary schools by trialling concepts used in Shanghai schools, Shanghai rising to the top of the PISA rankings in 2009. However, as this paper will argue this is an overly simplistic attempt to transfer a policy between two wholly different contexts, the lack of success of the policy seen in the very limited impact on student attainment in the participating schools. Whilst such policy transfer has increasingly taken place in the context of isomorphism and global pressures to adopt policy from high performing education systems, it is argued that policy needs to be explicitly reconsidered in terms of the local context it is being imported into if it is to be embedded in an effective manner, as well as rooted firmly in research. It is also argued that the England–China Teacher Exchange reflects a broader ideological focus in coalition government policy on the marketisation of education alongside the PISA rankings, rather any wider consideration of how this particular policy would drive up standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, the propagation of Mandarin has been carried out across the People's Republic of China as de facto language assimilation. It has achieved great success in that over 80 percent of the population can speak Mandarin, but it has also had devastating effects on minority language learning, maintenance, and use. Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues to strongly promote Mandarin nationwide. This paper applies summative content analysis to examine the reasons the government provides for promoting Mandarin in its official policies, government reports, and news. Our findings show that in official documents, the value of promoting Mandarin typically prevails over the importance of protecting minority languages. Additionally, the government tends to equate minority assimilation with progress and advancement. In this context, we argue that to enhance conditions of minorities in society, the government should work to ensure that mastering Mandarin is a free choice of minorities, and regard Mandarin and minority languages and their speakers as of equal status and value in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new evidence on how enrollment expansion affects higher education access and production with a focus on social inequality and institutional stratification. From 1999 to 2012, the world's largest higher education expansion happened in China that annual college enrollment dramatically increased from 1,083,600 to 6,888,300. We evaluate this exogenous, unprecedented policy using nationally representative student-level survey data and newly available confidential institution-level data. Enrollment expansion, which reduced per-student resources, negatively impacted college quality as measured by value-added on graduates' employment and earnings. The inequality in access between high- and low-SES students and the stratified production between college institutional tiers persisted during expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical ideas about globalization and internationalization of higher education emphasize the tension among different ideologies of higher education. According to literature, a competition among states, economy, knowledge, and status generates this tension to drive higher education development. This theoretical understanding not only shapes our global imaginations but also permeates the organizational behavior of universities. In this paper, we focus on the institutional logics that motivate universities in Kazakhstan to engage with China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We investigate the ways that Kazakhstani higher education interprets and responds to China's vision of a global order. Based on interviews conducted at 10 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Kazakhstan, we argue that Kazakhstan's engagement with the BRI circumvents the cultural connectivity and global cooperation that are embraced by Chinese policy discourse and perpetuated by academic literature. Rather, institutional leaders in Kazakhstan operate with a utilitarian logic that seeks revenue generation, links with industry, and opportunities for students in employment and further education. The pursuit of these strategic outcomes demonstrates a bilateral engagement with China rather than the multilateral cooperation envisioned by policymakers. In a higher education system dominated by the state, the institutions in our study exhibit partial agency to accrue pragmatic benefits rather than concede to isomorphic pressures or mimic internationalization from neoliberal contexts. The discrepancy between policy discourse from China and policy reception in Kazakhstan raises questions about the rhetoric of a multipolar global order and the realities of international cooperation in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has reaffirmed international education as an important dimension of its Belt and Road initiatives, while countries in the West have sought to develop policies that seek to limit China's international influence. At the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping emphasised how education, science and technology, and human resources are the main strategic elements for building a modern socialist country. In their paper, LI Jian & XUE Eryong provide an analysis of internationalization policy of higher education in China, naming its historical stages, challenges, and strategies. [Extracted from the article]

To date, no empirical study has focused on understanding the evolution process of China's college admission policies and clarifying its hidden evolution logic. Based on the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), this study determines different advocacy coalitions and their belief systems during the evolution process of independent enrollment policy, as well as various driving forces that affect the process. The social network analysis methods are adopted to delineate alliance structures formed by actors with different policy beliefs in the policy subsystems which change over time. This study chooses news reports included in the China National knowledge infrastructure (CNKI) database as the data source, and identifies 328 related news reports to be coded in the analysis. This article not only provides the evolution logic of independent enrollment policy, but also bridges the research gap and therefore enriches the broad literature on the application of Advocacy Coalition Framework in Eastern countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to deepen our understanding of the impact of an oscillating policy environment on non-traditional schools in China since 2010. It does this through analysing policy documents and an analytic case study of one newly founded school in Shenzhen, China. The wavering policy environment framing the paper reflects a long-running internal government tussle between educational centralization and decentralization. The article first maps the trajectory of policy change associated with the "walking on two legs" tradition. It then examines how national policies are locally interpreted and enacted by depicting one school's historical episode and re-examines the case from a macro social change perspective to understand why the policy environment changed. The paper explores the issue by asking what significant policies describe China's "running schools on two legs" policy approach, how the oscillating policy environment influenced practices in one school and why the government changed its stance to re-centralize control of education. The paper discusses a number of implications arising from the case and shows the power of central policy ideology on the shape and purpose of schools. • 'Walking on two legs', or decentralization -recentralization tension, is a recurring theme in modern China. • The implementation of PPPs in education is contextually mediated and institutionally rendered. • It is a single school case that can reflect the oscillation of decentralization and privatization policies in China. • At the heart of the policy oscillation and the subsequent crackdown on PPPs was an intention to strengthen ideological control and teach the market a lesson about who is ultimately in charge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fierce competition in China's basic education system results in students spending too much time on homework. However, few studies have explored the mental health effects of homework time. Using data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), this paper empirically examines the impact of homework time on adolescent mental health through the fixed-effects model and instrumental variables regression. Additionally, this study explores the moderating effects of teacher support and parent involvement. The results indicate that homework time has a negative effect on adolescent mental health, but only when the amount of time spent on homework exceeds about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Overall, there is a non-linear relationship between homework time and adolescent mental health. Teacher support, particularly emotional support, can mitigate the adverse mental health effects of excessive homework time, whereas parental involvement does not show the same positive effect. The analysis of heterogeneity reveals that adolescents from rural schools or medium family economic backgrounds experience a more pronounced negative impact from excessive homework time compared to those from urban schools, poorer or richer family backgrounds. Furthermore, students with outstanding academic performance are affected more significantly than their peers with poor academic performance. The empirical results echo the targets of the Chinese "double reduction policy" which requires strict control of homework time. Education policymakers should reasonably regulate homework time and systematically explore education concepts and teaching methods that are compatible with the reduction of homework time. • Chinese adolescents are burdened with an excessive amount of homework time. • There is a non-linear relationship between homework time and adolescent mental health. • Homework negatively impacts adolescent mental health, but only when exceeding about 1 h and 15 min. • Teacher support, particularly emotional support, can mitigate the adverse mental health effects of excessive homework time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the special educational needs of children with disabilities have garnered widespread attention across the globe. There has been a growing trend towards inclusive education. China, among many other nations, has endeavored to promote inclusive education through legislation, policy, and financial support. This article is a review of inclusive education development in China, with a view to summarizing Chinese experiences in this regard to contribute to the construction of a more inclusive, equitable, and higher-quality education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study introduces a policy with great strategic significance and far-reaching impact by analyzing the background, measures, and future development trends of teacher evaluation reform in China. Design/Approach/Methods: This study primarily conducts a policy text analysis of the section on teacher evaluation of the Overall Plan for Deepening the Reform of Educational Evaluation in the New Era. Findings: The Overall Plan for Deepening the Reform of Educational Evaluation in the New Era was drafted to enhance the quality of Chinese teachers and address many problems in teacher evaluation. It comprised four sections: teachers' professional ethics, teaching effectiveness, evaluation models and methods, and honorary titles. The policy has distinctive features such as the high status and authority of the issuing body, a holistic and systematic nature, and an orientation toward practical issues. This article proposes three major policy foresights: promoting implementation through the force of political trends, giving schools autonomy in teacher evaluations, and implementing progressive reforms. Originality/Value: This study conducted a specialist analysis of the policy in combination with the real scenario and institutional environment of Chinese teacher evaluation, which could encourage international peers to better understand Chinese teacher evaluation policies and promote policy learning and dissemination internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the impact of climate risks, what responses do local governments make, particularly in the domain of social public policy? This study uses provincial panel data from China from 2009 to 2020 to investigate how climate risks affect local government education expenditure and its mechanisms. Analysis using spatial econometric models reveals the following. First, local climate risks significantly increase government education expenditure. This conclusion remains consistent across different proxy variables, model specifications, and estimation methods. Additionally, there is a spatial dependency on local government education expenditure, meaning that educational spending in neighboring areas positively influences the education expenditure of a specific location. Second, further mechanism analysis shows that climate risks lead to credit easing and drive the digital economic transformation of a location, thereby increasing its education expenditure. Third, considering the heterogeneity in the spatial dimension, it is found that this positive impetus exists only in the economically more developed eastern region. This study provides insights into understanding how the Chinese government responds to the impact of climate risks and its fiscal policy choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a transnational policy convergence in introducing professional standards for school leaders, and it constitutes a dominant discourse on school leadership. Focusing on the adoption of external references in policy transfer, this article presents a case in which the global leadership discourse was transferred to China, and the Chinese leadership policy was in turn used by the World Bank to promote the dissemination of its agenda. Proposing three types of external references (the dominant, comparison, and excellence), I conclude that policy actors strategically select the types of references depending on their self-positionalities and relationships with others. Driven by discourses that are embedded in specific contexts, comparative rankings are interpreted differently to justify respective policy agendas. This article also highlights the way in which a leadership policy from China was referenced by the World Bank to produce legitimacy as an unexpected consequence of policy transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The development of locally developed English language teaching (ELT) materials is believed to be conducive to meeting the requirements of local language education policies and practices, and to enhance learners' agency. In China, in order to implement national educational policy of curriculum-based value education, many locally developed ELT materials have been recently developed. However, there is a paucity of empirical research concerning the actual effects of such materials in practice. This study presents an empirical study of a recently developed set of teaching materials in the context of curriculum-based value education by adopting an approach consisting of questionnaires and interviews to examine the attitudes and experiences of users of these materials. The findings revealed a range of challenges in the use of these materials, including issues related to language and content of the materials, the integration of ideological and value elements, and the development of multi-dimensional teaching materials. The article then proposes possible solutions from the perspectives of optimizing the writing community, carefully selecting teaching materials, innovating the integration of ideological and political elements, and improving the development of multi-dimensional teaching materials. A framework for the evaluation of locally developed ELT materials is also proposed, with the intention of offering a useful benchmark for enhancing the development of such materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, universities in the People's Republic of China have notably progressed in international rankings. Most of the existing literature interested in this development describes the adoption of university rankings in China as a recent import of a global institution, and as being driven by a governmental agenda that seeks to bolster the country's competitiveness and overall status on the world stage, including in the academic realm. The wider domestic environment that determines Chinese universities' participation in the global ranking competition is usually left out of the picture. As this article demonstrates, university rankings and other performance indicators have been an organic part of Chinese science and higher education policy and a prominent element in state-directed national reform and development planning processes since at least the 1980s. In addition to the crucial role of the state and a lack of university autonomy, what further distinguishes the case of China from other countries in the rankings is a strong and accepted tradition of utilizing quantification, competition, and rating as political tools. Another reason, we argue, why Chinese universities were able to insert themselves into the ranking race relatively seamlessly and with some quick successes. Yet, after decades of following so-called "Western" standards and indicators for academic performance and reputation evaluation, domestic policy is changing again and taking a seemingly nationalist turn which may bring about some changes in the practice and significance of university rankings in China—and potentially beyond, as we discuss in conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of scientific research system is a key element in the assessment of higher education institutions (HEIs). The scientific research system mainly be constructed by two sub-systems: scientific research achievements production and the transformation of these achievements. Different from prior literature, this paper attempts to evaluate the performance of scientific research system of HEIs from a view of goal congruence. Specifically, it examines how and to what extent such two sub-systems are consistent with the goal of overall scientific research system. To this end, this study employs data envelopment analysis (DEA), a non-parametric frontier analysis approach, to present a goal congruence model which is used to measure the degree of both the overall goal congruence and the internal goal congruence. Then, the proposed model is applied to evaluate the performance of scientific research systems of 40 "first-class" universities and 62 "first-class disciplines" universities in China. Results show that only the scientific research systems of Tsinghua University and Central China Normal University achieve the goal congruence. Finally, both higher education policy recommendations and implications are discussed. • This study examines how to evaluate the performance of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)based on goal congruence theory. • A two-stage network framework for HEIs is built in the context of high education transformation of research achievements. • A new DEA-based model is proposed to measure the degree of goal congruence between sub-systems and overall system for HEIs. • The real data from 40 "first-class" universities and 62 "first-class disciplines" universities in China are used to empirically validate the proposed model. • Both theoretical implications for performance evaluation and practical implications for HEIs development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents some of the current methodological issues regarding the analysis and comprehension of educational policy transfer, with particular emphasis on the issue of structure and agency. It suggests some shortcomings of current educational policy transfer research in dealing with the complex interaction between structure and agency. To fill those voids, drawing from Archer's morphogenetic approach in educational policy transfer, an alternative framework of educational policy transfer is presented. A case from the author's current research on China's interest in Japanese vocational education during the late Qing Dynasty is given to explain the usage of this new interpretive framework. It is hoped that this new conceptual framework will aid in analysing educational policy transfer and open up a new methodological and theoretical space for future educational policy transfer research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon notions of a global higher education policy field and recently theorised conceptions of 'global-local' imbrications in social space, this article explores the complex tensions that characterise the enactment of internationalisation policies in Chinese higher education (HE) and their contrasting effects upon domestic and international students. Ten domestic Chinese and ten international students attending an elite university in China were interviewed. The article reveals that although the Chinese government and universities ostensibly sought to introduce internationalisation policies that 'managed' domestic and international students 'similarly', comparisons of domestic and international students' experiences revealed different ways of recruiting, educating, and hosting domestic and international students; these left the former feeling the system was inequitable and encouraged lower standards, and the latter feeling the system was opaque and difficult to navigate. The study cautions that the political imperative to increase the number of international students as a measure of internationalisation adversely influences efforts to develop sustainable international HE in China, even as the limitations of this approach are increasingly recognised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study conducted a review of policy reforms of school–enterprise cooperation in China's vocational education and its characteristics at different stages. Design/Approach/Methods: This study systematically reviewed vocational educational policies on school–enterprise cooperation adopted by the Chinese government since 1978 using textual analysis. Findings: The development of school–enterprise cooperation in China's vocational education can be divided into four stages: spontaneous development (Stage 1), central position establishment (Stage 2), systematic design (Stage 3), and institutional construction (Stage 4). After years of practice and exploration, China's school–enterprise cooperation has made impressive achievements, but also has several problems that require further improvement. Originality/Value: This study examined over 40 years of history of the development of vocational school–enterprise cooperation in China, providing a useful reference for learning and understanding Chinese vocational education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology in Mainland China have stressed facilitating knowledge transfer of research output in recent years. By facilitating this transfer, the government aims to enhance authentic productivity and boost economic development. Due to this facilitation, universities have encouraged academics to conduct applied projects. To examine this process, this study employed a qualitative research method, carrying out in-depth interviews with 20 academics in a third-tier university in Mainland China. The study observed that first, academics were torn between academic and applied projects. Second, the status of being in a third-tier university affected academics' participation in applied research. Third, project leaders had to perform specific roles (including the work of managerial professionals) as academic entrepreneurs. Social connections (guanxi) played a prominent role in academic entrepreneurship in the authors' case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, drawing on recent research on Language Other than English (LOTE) programs in China's universities, examines the impact of multilingual education policy on the professional development of LOTE teachers. We argue for the mediating roles of LOTE programs as they carry the influence of education policy on teacher development. In other words, LOTE programs may influence the way in which education policy impacts teacher development. Specifically, LOTE programs seem to play three mediating roles: (1) How education policy is perceived and understood by the program designer or/and coordinator impacts how LOTE teachers who engage in the program are influenced, (2) how educational resources are allocated to teachers teaching in the LOTE program impacts teachers' professional development, (3) how teachers actually position themselves in the LOTE program as opposed to their identities positioned by education policy and the university administration impacts their professional development. In a word, the influence of multilingual education policy on the professional development of LOTE teachers may be mediated by such meso- and micro-level factors as administration, resource, and identity work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are some researches conducted about students' conceptions of technology, little research has been conducted to reveal the primary school students' conceptions concerning technology in China. This research investigated Chinese primary school students' (aged 9–12) conceptions of technology as regards their understanding of (a) the concept of technology, (b) the impact of technology on human life and nature, and (c) the relationship between technology and science. Phenomenography as the methodological framework was adopted for this study. A total of 63 primary school students were chosen as participants in the study to probe their conceptions about technology through picture/photo eliciting activities, and semi-structured, personal interviews in a website video format. It is found that the primary school students defined technology from diverse perspectives, including the dimensions of its attributes, production, operation and use, function, with most of them regarding technology as a double-edged sword. It is also found that they lack a comprehensive and rational understanding of the concept of technology and cannot understand the relationship between science and technology properly. This study contributes better to understanding primary school students' conceptions about technology in mainland China and beyond, thus providing an empirical basis for improving technology education policy, curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the future for China and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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After eight years of piloting, China's National Assessment of Education Quality (NAEQ) was administered for the first time in 2015. The NAEQ was introduced during the country's transition from exam‐oriented to quality‐oriented education. The public, in particular parents and students, were required to subscribe to this reorientation. To ensure public support, the government introduced a range of strategies to communicate the objective of the NAEQ and how the public was expected to engage with it and trust the assessment. This study reviewed policy documents, press releases, government administrative documents, and media coverage from the Chinese Ministry of Education to explore strategies used by the government to raise the public's trust in the NAEQ. A total of 169 documents, spanning from the assessment's initial development in 2007 to 2020, were included. Findings identify three main areas of effort to increase public trust in the national assessment: (1) highlighting similarities between the NAEQ and PISA—an assessment that holds high public trust, (2) demonstrating that the NAEQ is an internationally respected assessment, and (3) specifying how the NAEQ aligns with broader aims of quality‐oriented education in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer effects are at the center of educational policy debates regarding school choice, ability grouping, and instructional design. Though emerging empirical evidence suggests that positive peer effects exist, less is known about how it affects students with varying cognitive abilities. Using a nationally representative sample from China, we generated a student‐level measure of classroom composition of peers based on cognitive ability to understand the benefits or pitfalls of placing low‐ability students with heterogeneous or homogenous classmates. We conducted this analysis separately for grades seven and nine students after controlling for student background, family characteristics, and school endogeneity. We reaffirmed the overall positive—but small—peer effects on the performance rankings. Low‐ability children scored much lower than their counterparts when they studied in cognitively diverse classrooms. However, this effect negates the overall positive impact of studying with high‐ability peers and the pattern is consistent across rural and urban schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the key historical stages of the sustainable rural education policy development, including the stage of Rural Education Restoration and Adjustment Period (1979–1985); the stage of Comprehensive Reform Period of Rural Education (1985–2003); the stage of Rural Education Coordinated Development Period (2003–2018); and the stage of Rural Education Revitalization and Development Period (2018 to present). Along with the analysis, the policy characteristics of sustainable development of rural education policy in China concentrates on adhering to the unified leadership of the Party as the fundamental, adhering to the principle of comprehensive reform, adhering to the goal of serving rural development; adhere to promoting equity in education as the main task; and adhering to the construction of teachers as the key. In addition, policy problems on the sustainable development of rural education in China are also highlighted in this study. The conclusion and remarks are finally offered in the last. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the evolving relationship between China and CARICOM countries. It discusses how China has been using regional soft power to influence educational mobility. It speaks to the tensions inherent in debt diplomacy and educational mobility as economic and political regional integration (Caribbean exceptionalism) is engendered. As China pursues bilateral relations under South-South Cooperation rather than multilateral relations through CARICOM, we argue that China uses soft power through infrastructural loans and scholarships to influence regional educational policy. It concludes by suggesting that a common bilateral China-CARICOM policy of economic and political engagement is preferable for all CARICOM states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, China implemented a series of unprecedented educational policies that sent devastating shockwaves across the industry. Following the changes, some foreign teachers felt that the general atmosphere and attitude towards English learning had noticeably deteriorated compared to previous years. The capricious political climate exacerbated by the COVID pandemic only added to the insecurities experienced by foreigners in China. To address if there was indeed a downward shift in attitudes, this study compared perceptions towards the English language before and after the reforms for a single cohort of students in a Chinese public high school. The participants completed a questionnaire that captured their perceptions towards English when they were in their first year, and again in their final year. Paired sample t-Tests results revealed that while there were no changes to how the students viewed the language learning process, they now viewed the language itself less favourably, and find it less useful and relevant as compared to two years ago. Though these findings provide some rudimentary evidence that suggest that the reforms could have contributed to the erosion of the attitudes toward English among Chinese students, more studies would have to be conducted to substantiate this hypothesis, and if the phenomenon extend to other foreign languages as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aim of further exploring students' engagement with language education policy processes and their decision-making practices that shape their language learning experience, this study carried out a nine-month ethnographic fieldwork to examine the English language learning trajectories of three rural high school students in China. On top of showcasing the nuances involved in the local interpretation and implementation of national English language education curriculum amid on-going reform, this study demonstrates how students creatively navigated interwoven individual expectations and institutional agendas in situated practices. It further highlights the need to give voices to students in exploring the multilayered and highly contextualized policy process, to better understand and serve their various language learning needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bureaucracies representative of the public can affect programme outcomes either through active representation by bureaucrats or symbolic representation via changes in client behaviour. Separating out these different aspects of representation requires understanding the interaction of bureaucrats and clients which is difficult using only quantitative data. Using individual-level quantitative analysis of Chinese education data, we find gender representation exists. Qualitative interviews of teachers, students and school principals, however, indicate that the effects are most likely not from active representation but rather via the symbolic representation through role-model effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To eectively reduce the homework burden and o-campus training burden of students in the compulsory education stage in China, China adopts the double reduction policy to carry out corresponding governance in the field of education. This study aims to explore the public’s psychological cognition of the current education system under the implementation of the double reduction policy. The public’s opinion data on education concepts under the implementation of the double reduction policy are collected, then the SPSS software and Amos software to quantitatively analyze the public’s educational concept data are used, and a corresponding structural model equation to analyze the public’s opinion on the implementation of the double reduction policy is established. The psychological concepts of all aspects of education are observed, the public’s psychological views on education under the implementation of the double reduction policy are finally obtained, the ideological connotation of popularizing the double reduction policy for the general public is provided, and the balanced development of the domestic education system for the implementation of the double reduction policy is ensured. Two suggestions are made in order to provide a corresponding reference for the public’s psychological cognition research on the current education system under the implementation of the double reduction policy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1994, the education policy goal for the Chinese government was that the education expenditure as a share of GDP should be at least 4% of GDP. However, this educational policy goal has not been achieved until 2010. Another relevant social issue was related to teachers' pay: there were 168 strike and protests occurred in almost every part of China from 2014 to 2015. In this article, we examine the impact of fiscal centralisation policies have on China's educational spending and teachers' salary. We use a county-level panel data for period of 2001 to 2005 and apply a quasi-experiment. This study finds evidence that fiscally-centralising policies, exemplified by the Corporate Income Tax Reform passed in 2002, are one of the determinants that lead to less education expenditures and subsequently affect teachers' merit salary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how to cultivate high-level innovative relents by the integration of science and education in China from a strategic policy perspective. Specifically, why should scientifically research and education be integrated to cultivate innovative talents has been explored in this study. Theoretical analysis of the integration of scientific research and education to cultivate innovative talents has been offered, systematically. New challenges of the integration of scientific research and education to cultivate innovative talents include the historical issues of the dual-track development of scientific research and education system; institutional issues of the separation of research and education systems; resource problem of lacking complement between scientific research and educational resources and positioning problem of insufficient coordination between scientific research and educational input. In addition, suggestions on the strategic pathway of integrating scientific research and education to cultivate innovative talents have been examined in the last part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]