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This article examines a Confucian conception of competence and its corresponding response to the competencies agenda that underpins international large-scale assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It is argued that standardised transnational assessments are undergirded by a technical rationality that emphasises proficiency in discrete skills for their instrumental worth at the expense of moral cultivation and personal mastery. Challenging the competencies agenda, this paper draws upon a relational model of competence proposed by Jones and Moore (1995) that views competence as essentially communal, situated within social practices, and manifested through tacit achievement. Building on their work, a Confucian notion of competence is advocated wherein skills are predicated on the virtue of "ren" (humanity) and demonstrated through appropriate judgement in everyday settings. A Confucian perspective offers an alternative to the behaviourist and generic notions of performance in global assessments by highlighting the interpersonal, cultural, and ethical dimensions of competence.

Teachers' cultural backgrounds can result in challenges in establishing positive teacher-student relationships in cross-cultural settings. The context for this study is based on the everyday practice of teachers and students in the classrooms of diverse Australian schools, where issues of cross-cultural teacher-student relationships have been raised. This study involved a group of Chinese-background Mandarin teachers who had one year of volunteer teaching experiences in Australian schools. Data were collected from focus group discussions at the point of the completion of their twelve-month teaching practice, in order to access their fresh memories of their experiences. It explores their "culture" in relating to their Australian students during their teaching practice. This research draws on Chinese cultural concepts for theorizing and finds that the cultural concepts of "Guanxi"/relationship, "Dengji"/hierarchy, "Zunzhong"/respect, and "Hexie"/harmony have had a significant impact on these teachers' understanding and management of teacher-student relationships in their Australian classes.

With the rapid development of Internet technologies, higher education institutions have adopted blended learning to engage students in active learning and enhance their learning outcomes. This study investigated 261 preservice student teachers participating in a teacher education programme that was based on a blended learning design. Questionnaires and focus group interviews were administered to obtain data. The purpose of this study was to understand student' perceptions of blended learning and examine how the interaction between traditional and constructivist conceptions influences learning. The result indicated that the participants favoured face-to-face lectures over e-learning, and they exhibited strong preferences for traditional modes of learning. The author suggests that there is still some way to go before students fully engage with online learning but, as they are rooted in the Confucian heritage culture, this can also be used to encourage students to engage with this mode of learning as the process of transformation.

This article is based on a theoretical study about the concept of Bildung in world society. The concept of "Bildung" (in German) refers to a special dimension of education. It focuses on personal development and self-education and is not utilitarian. The study, which investigated different traditions of thinking about education in the sense of "Bildung," begins with German and European educational theories from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Next, older Christian traditions in Europe, pre-Christian concepts in the European ancient world, and educational thinking in Judaism and the Islamic world were analyzed. Confucius was also examined as an educational thinker. Finally, the study investigated educational traditions in Buddhism and Hinduism. Findings clearly show that the ideas connected with this concept of "Bildung" are represented in different cultural traditions within and beyond Europe. The concept of "Bildung" seems to constitute a common cultural heritage of humankind since at least the Axial Age. This concept can therefore contribute to an overlapping consensus in world society as defined by John Rawls: a consensus endorsed by conflicting religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines--each from its own point of view.

The image of country is overall impression and evaluation of the country itself given by countries and people at home and abroad. It is a concrete expression of the country's strategic resources and overall strength. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, its national image has evolved over the past 70 years. It has realized the transformation from a monist image of "political supremacy" to "democracy, livelihood, and civil rights", from a poor and backward country in the East to a rich and advanced socialist country, and from "hard power" to "soft power". In the future, the national image construction needs to improve the theoretical building and strengthen the top-level design, highlight the strategic perspective of the international communication system, expand the communication path, and enhance the time-effectiveness of the dissemination of the Chinese national image.

Teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language and its culture is complex for Kenyan learners. It requires them to consider contrasting intellectual, policy and economic dimensions that instead of aiding its propagation among Kenyan learners, could even facilitate a hindrance to its progression. Potential measures that could be embraced are examined in this study based on the current context in lieu of proper guidelines or policy for foreign language learning, and in the midst of China's reform and opening-up. The study adopts Stern's second language learning theoretical approach, documentary and discourse analysis as complementary to a preliminary exploratory survey. Chinese and Kenyan partnering institutions in higher education and its intersections through Chinese language development and cultural exchange are well-attuned towards attaining a competitive cadre of bilingually educated Kenyans who are appreciative of the cultural diversity between the two nations. This affords Chinese and Kenyan nationals the opportunity to engage with each other in efficient bidirectional exchanges for common intellectual and economic prosperity founded on various exchange agreements. In the quest for greater Chinese language and culture propagation, increased bidirectional participation of stakeholders in curriculum-related policymaking and implementation processes are sought. The mobilization of strategic resources through exchanges between China and Kenya hold the promise to a more certain cooperative future for all. Avenues on resource mobilization with a focus on efficient human resource management, together with an opportunities linkage framework, would benefit both countries, and thereby reinforce a common intellectual and economic prosperity.

Higher education has long established primary importance to the formation of students, manifest in ideas such as Confucian "xiushen" (self-cultivation) and "Bildung." However, despite the shared focus on the idea of humans becoming humans, "xiushen" and "Bildung" are built on divergent philosophical traditions. The divergence has led to varied practice in individual formation. This paper conceptually explores, compares, and searches for potential combination of the ideas of "xiushen" and "Bildung" in higher education. As such, it provides new insights into student formation in higher education. Specifically, it is argued that the best situation for individual formation is when individual agency is harmonised with the external environment. This points to two essential considerations for student formation in higher education: students' agency and the necessary support from society and higher education institutions.

This review examined the relations between grit and academic achievement based on a meta-analysis of 137 studies yielding 156 dependent samples (N = 285,331). Using the robust variance estimation, we found that the correlations of overall grit level with academic achievement were generally weak to moderate (weighted r = 0.19). The correlation of perseverance of effort to achievement (weighted r = 0.21) was stronger than that of consistency of interest (weighted r = 0.08). Adopting a cross-cultural perspective in reviewing these findings, we concluded that the associations between overall grit/2 facets and academic achievement did not differ across individualism-collectivism. We also investigated 7 other moderators, including grit measurement, types of achievement measures, publication type, educational levels, research design, study quality, and the female ratio of sampling in the grit-achievement relationship. After controlling for all proposed moderators, no significant moderators were found in the overall grit-achievement link or the consistency of interest-achievement link. There was a significantly stronger association between perseverance of effort and academic achievement in nonstandardized measures than in standardized measures. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This article provides an account of a group of adult Chinese immigrants learning English at a cultural center serving the local Asian community. The focus of this teacher-research descriptive case study is on learner experiences as they relate to "transition" theory and "Confucian learner" principles and as these materialized through classroom participation. Using transition theory as a lens, the article establishes connections with Confucian learning principles as they emerged in the data collected. Therefore, study findings are presented under four themes: "Self," "Situation," "Strategies," and "Support." In view of the Confucian philosophy of learning, the participants' stories illustrate their understanding of "teacher authority," "collaborative learning," "function of effort," and "pursuit of lifelong learning." Thus, the article examines how the learners were adapting or struggling with different daily life aspects that require the use of the English language. Learning English served as catalyst for the adult learners to achieve their goals in the new community and culture.

This study focuses on determining the classroom management competences of novice Vietnamese teachers and aims to identify the differences in these competences among teachers with one to five years of experience. Questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted with novice teachers from different provinces in Vietnam. The results showed that these novice teachers were not regularly performing the competences of classroom management in their classrooms. Additionally, teachers were more concerned with teacher-oriented activities, which were implemented more regularly than student-oriented activities. There were significant differences in the classroom management competences of teachers with experiences between one and five years. The teachers with five years of experience paid more attention to classroom management than those with one year of experience. They implemented the competences in their classroom practices more frequently, including building a learning environment, managing student learning activities, and managing student behavior. Finally, the study recommended the application of a social constructivist approach considering features of a Confucian heritage culture to develop a classroom management strategy to solve the remaining problems and help novice teachers manage classrooms effectively.

Creativity is the driving force of technological innovation and sustainable economic growth in the knowledge society. A central question, therefore, is how education helps to enhance creativity. As East Asian countries occupy the top of performance tests such as the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), it is most important to understand the type of creativity they stand for. For doing so, we first investigate the revival of Confucianism and its idea of creativity in these countries in comparison with the Western Enlightenment idea of creativity. Secondly, we scrutinize how far these two types of creativity are represented in PISA's understanding of problem solving which is assumed to require creativity from students. Thirdly, we conduct multilevel regression analyses with data from the 2009 PISA test to find out which learning strategies help to achieve in the PISA test and to close achievement gaps based on socioeconomic family background and how they relate to the two types of creativity. Two countries representing the Confucian tradition, the Republic of Korea and Singapore, and two countries representing the Western tradition, the United States and Canada, serve as test cases. As a culturally diverse world needs both types of creativity, the fundamental question is whether PISA helps them to flourish both.

Based on the comprehensive comparison of the principles of communicative language teaching (CLT) and the pedagogic ideas of Confucian heritage culture (CHC), this study discusses the conceptual common ground, where both principles can be reconciled, and considers practical, negotiated pedagogic forms with the suggestion of some cases of contextualization of CLT in CHC. In summary, CLT and CHC can be reconciled in their pursuit of education for the whole person, cooperative learning, teaching language structures and content, and task completion orientation. Thus, by distributing more responsibilities to learners and encouraging their participation, students in CHC can experience more communicative lessons. By balancing teaching language forms and content, they can learn language in a more comprehensive way, and by applying task-based learning with precise procedures and controls, their task-orientation tendency can enable students to participate in more communicative activities. These comprehensions and discussions, as a challenge to pedagogic dichotomization, will help English teachers in CHC or intercultural classrooms to flexibly construct context-sensitive pedagogies.

This study investigated the relationship between formative assessment and reading achievement in Hong Kong, a Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) society. 4,837 Hong Kong students were surveyed in a nine-item questionnaire that was used as indicator variable of formative assessment strategies. The study used multi-group structural equation modelling (MG-SEM) to examine the effects of formative assessment strategies on reading achievement across low-, medium-, and high-achievers controlling for gender and social economic status (SES) effects. The result showed that after controlling for SES and gender effects, there was significant effect of formative assessment strategies with low- and medium-reading achievers but not with high-reading achievers. Implications are drawn to inform formative assessment research and practice relevant to students' reading achievement in CHC societies and other educational contexts.

Effective teaching is an important research topic worldwide. This review aims to analyze effective teaching literature in China with respect to general characteristics and conceptional dimensions. Two types of effective teaching literature, empirical studies written in Chinese and written in English, are selected for this review. Stronge's effective teaching framework is adopted for examining the conceptual dimensions in the selected studies. The results taken from the two types of literature reveal different research orientations regarding effective teaching. The literature written in Chinese demonstrates a number of quantitative research studies that, overall, are ill-written from the standard criteria of empirical study writing, including serious design flaws, missing important information, and weak data interpretations. In contrast, the literature written in English tends to focus more on a qualitative research orientation with sufficient overall quality for methodological design. Regarding the effective teaching dimensions, the dimension of the "Teacher as a Person" is interpreted differently, while the dimension of "Implementing Instruction" is most often commonly adopted in the two types of literature. We suggest that more studies are needed to conceptualize effective teaching frameworks from macro, meso, and micro levels in order to enhance the quality of effective teaching research in China. Additionally, effective teaching studies related to minority students are rare and deserve future investigation.

Through a narrative analysis of 33 interviews with Vietnamese early career academics, we explore whether a Confucianist/collectivist academic context in Vietnam has a key influence on academics' identity work, within the embrace of encroaching managerialist practices. We show how these academics from 11 universities negotiated identity alignment and identity tensions between such cultural orientation and managerialism. On the one hand, a Confucianist ethic underpinning higher education in Vietnam is likely to encourage academics to engage in managerialist practices, as it promotes harmony and loyalty to their respective university and its global, 'excellence' goals. On the other hand, a cultural underpinning of collegiality can create tension with the individualist nature of managerialist practices. Our recommendations for universities in a similar context are to adapt the more individualistic performative approaches borrowed from the West by crafting their own collegiate, soft managerialist hybrid practices.

Traditionally, the genealogy of Edo Confucianism, that is, Confucianism reinterpreted and reconstructed in the Tokugawa period, has been classified into the Chu-Hsi, Wang Yang-ming, Ancient, and Eclectic schools. These classifications are based on the most representative Confucian theories in the Tokugawa period and are useful for understanding their genealogy. However, when we try to capture the substance of Confucian thought from the interest of "education," it is very difficult to understand the differences of each school's educational thought based on this classification. For example, according to the above classification of Confucian theories, the Jinsai and Sorai schools are also included in the Ancient school. However, it is no exaggeration to say that both educational ideas are completely different. In this study, although both Jinsai and Sorai are classified as Ancient schools, I will clarify how their educational theories are structured and how their contents are different. This study examines the content of Confucian thought from the perspective of "education." I hope that the discussion will open up the possibility of a more precise understanding of the "educational thought" of Edo Confucianism.

The purpose of this paper is to historicize the traveling idea of teacher professionalism in the context of South Korea and to investigate how the idea is culturally translated and negotiated together with the traditional notion of a teacher. In doing so, this paper problematizes the modern idea of 'teachers as professionals' and its translation through the idea of territorialization. The investigation on the modern episteme of teachers revealed the colonialization of modernization as scientization. In doing so, multiple classifications and ordering practices occurred in the making of professional teachers as a particular kind of people were discussed. Simultaneously, the study also made clear that the traditional episteme has not disappeared nor simply westernized. Rather, the result showed that the modern understanding of a teacher was re-territorialized with traditional episteme and it created new subjectivities of Korean teachers as professional Confucian teachers.

This paper makes the case for including "critical harmony" as a complement to justice within civic education. The concept of harmony is significant for civic education because it acknowledges the crucial role that relationships play in society--an important moral, ethical, and social ideal in many cultures around the world. Harmony must also incorporate a critical dimension, however, by embracing conflict and tension, valuing difference and diversity, and striving for balance among divergent voices. By using examples of public issues such as housing and gender identity to illustrate the relational dimension of public policy, this paper argues that the concept of critical harmony can contribute to a more comprehensive foundation for students' deliberation of civic issues.

Breaking with discriminatory views and segregated education for children with disabilities, regions often referred to as Confucian Heritage Regions (CHRs) have been moving towards inclusive education. Although some of these regions have been at the centre of attention in global education recently, there is a lack of research and information about how they 'do' inclusive education. Considering that reinforcing legislative foundations is of foremost importance for its fulfillment, this study examines legislation on the education of children with disabilities in four neighbouring CHRs: the Chinese Mainland , Japan, South Korea and China's Taiwan. The core principles that frame such legislation were analyzed and cross-compared. The findings show that despite the common Confucian heritage that is attributed to them systematically in studies of inclusive education -- which is often said to influence the way disability is perceived and dealt with -- the four Regions treat inclusion differently in terms of legislation. While some CHRs are clearly influenced by e.g. the USA, others are trying to design a specific perspective on inclusive education. The authors argue that the complex example of these CHRs can serve as an important template for studies on both inclusive and comparative education. The article also calls for the careful treatment of inclusive education beyond an essentialist and somewhat simplistic perspective that could reduce certain regions to a monolith.

This paper examines the utility of Campbell's narrative construction of 'the hero's journey' as a conceptual apparatus to understand how international students from Confucian heritage cultures navigate their experiences in Western schooling systems like Australia. The hero's journey framework was used to investigate the commonalities and differences in international students' beliefs and behaviours, which led to the development of three different students 'hero' models: the self-determined hero, the hesitant hero, and the wounded hero. These models were used to represent the students' beliefs, behaviours and perceptions of support and to describe the experiences and motivations of students in different contexts during their secondary schooling in Australia. The hero's journey provides a potentially useful framework from which to engage schools, systems, and policymakers in productive dialogue regarding the support and engagement of international students.

In a recent volume of the "Journal of College and Character," Matt Mayhew and Alyssa Rockenbach presented their frameworks by which they have designed and utilized their IDEALS study over the past several years. In this present article, the authors contend that despite their rigorous research, the researchers and measurements oftentimes have lacked recognition and acknowledgement of Christian biases and hegemony and thus have limited their results. We propose several remediations for how the data can be helpful and effective and suggest future scholarship which evaluates more critical approaches to the subject of religious, secular, and spiritual identities (RSSIs).

The changing context and increasing professionalization in higher education have ushered in challenges for liberal arts education worldwide. Situated this discourse in the context of Chinese universities, this paper explores (1) Why do we need a liberal arts education that has been accused of being elitist in the twenty first century? (2) Should an effective or ideal liberal arts education evolve with time and context? If yes, what needs to be taken into account to conceptualize a twenty first century model of liberal arts education? (3) How is a twenty first century liberal arts education defined and featured at Chinese universities and elsewhere? Drawing on an analytical framework constructed with the German concept of "Bildung" and the Confucian perspective on knowledge, this paper contends that a twenty first century liberal arts education for universities in China and elsewhere needs to absorb meta changes and movements in society at home and around the world, while ideally rooted in a knowledge tradition respectively. Specifically, it should comprise three essential pillars: humanism education, cognitive education, and global education.

Internationalisation facilitated through 'sister' relationships establishes transnational, cooperative partnerships and cultural exchanges between institutions within and between geographic locations. This case study describes the long-term sister city internationalisation partnership between two sister universities, one Chinese and one American, that is facilitated through the Confucius Institute project. Ten years of joint activities and events between the years 2009 and 2019 were examined. Benefits to each partnering entity as well as ongoing challenges are presented. Results also uncovered how internationalisation within sister city Confucius Institutes are promoted and implemented. Limitations and implications are discussed.

The study of the body remains dominated by Western scholars examining Western bodies and using Western conceptualisations of the body. Though mainstream sociology of the body research is founded within dualisms, often privileging one side of a binary opposition at the expense of another, a thread within Chinese philosophies cut across such dualistic categories. This paper aims to reinvigorate this thread by the 'turn to' a postmonolingual approach, using New Confucianism to consider the challenges and implications for bodily education and research in three ways. First, this paper draws on a postmonolingual lens to extend current debates and limitations of embodiment literatures. Specifically, it provides examples of how thinking with New Confucianism in educating the body could help shift the academic landscape. Second, it offers an account of navigating through the 'turns' in order to reach for the ground of New Confucianism thinking in bodily education. Thinking through a postmonolingual lens with a focus on New Confucianism indicates a departure from Western approaches that have informed a Euro-American centric tradition of research. Such a shift reorientates thinking around postpositivist research that continues to perpetuate dualism and fails to capture the complexity, ambivalence and entangled relations of our embodied lives. Last, it highlights the revelations in how Chinese philosophical concepts can bring to challenge dominant Western notions of performance culture predicated upon binary oppositions and more broadly the privilege of the body over mind and emotions. Thinking about bodily education with New Confucianism this paper points to the potential to decenter normative assumptions and reshape the usual contours of the binary bodily praxis. It concludes by considering the potential and future directions when drawing on New Confucianism as a theoretical framework to rethink bodily education and research in the West.

As Paulo Freire's education theory for social change and emancipation is being continually studied and disseminated in East Asia, it has faced skepticism as some educators are unfamiliar with its critical pedagogy or education for freedom concepts. In light of this, scholars have attempted to compare Freirean philosophies with concepts in Chinese philosophy of education as a way of bridging East and West. Diverging from previous studies that use popular Chinese philosophies (such as Confucianism) to connect with Freirean theory, this paper introduces an understudied but compatible Chinese philosophical thought, Mohism, for comparison with Freirean theory. Mohism is a political philosophy for the working class that expanded into grassroots movements for people's welfare in ancient China. The Mohist bottom-up approach echoes the grassroots emancipatory pedagogy that underlies Freirean philosophy. A comparative analysis of education concepts in both philosophies reveals that despite differences in the educational content of Freirean theory and Mohism, there are similarities in their conceptualization of education for anti-oppression and praxis for social change. Implications for utilizing Mohist philosophy to contemplate Freirean philosophy within the East Asian educational context are also explored. Ultimately this paper revives educational concepts of Mohism that aligns with Freirean philosophy to a broader audience of scholars and educators.

In this study, to facilitate the integration of environmental education in science curricula and achieve a more sustainable future, the relationships among scientific epistemic views, decision-making style, and recycling intention based on the theory of planned behavior were investigated. Three instruments (i.e. SEVs, DMS, and RI) were implemented on a sample of 515 Taiwanese high school students and revealed sufficient validity and reliability by employing exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Structural equation modeling analysis showed that students' scientific epistemic views do not directly link to recycling intention, whereas SEVs predict decision-making styles and decision-making styles predict recycling intention. The research findings suggest that teachers might consider encouraging students to develop the ability to think deeply and holistically by adopting the scientific approach in environmental education. This research also provided important information for educators to deliver environmental education effectively under the environment of Confucian culture. Limitations of the study and future research recommendations are discussed.

The internationalization of United States higher education has been described as a "two-way street" where students arrive at knowledge transfer. That transfer occurs through a curriculum deemed "unidirectional" with no relevance to local issues or needs and results in limited application and educational colonialism perceptions. Specific to leadership education, the extant literature presents implications of neglect to cultural contexts traditionally reflected in the curriculum within a host nation. We used an explanatory mixed methods design for this study to investigate the degree to which undergraduate Western-based leadership studies courses taught in China reflect the notion of "neocolonialism" by prioritizing Western interests and values. While the study's quantitative results reveal cultural differences in leadership education concepts, the qualitative follow-up phase finds students' appreciation in the utility of leadership concepts and knowledge gained from the leadership curriculum. Students could cite specific situations in which they employed leadership concepts acquired from their respective leadership courses.

Research Findings: Since 2011, China has started to loosen its tight on the One-child Policy (OCP), which has impacted parent's child-rearing beliefs and the provision of home learning environment that constitutes family environment. Utilizing parent-reported data on 4,364 zero- to eight-year-olds from the China Family Panel Study (CFPS, wave 2014) nationwide survey, we examined the relations among family structure, family environment, and child social competence. Analysis indicated that there were significant differences between only- and non-only-child families in terms of their age, urbanicity, family income, and family environment. The three-step latent profile approach revealed two family environment profiles: "Modern Family Environment" (12.4%) and "Traditional Family Environment" (86.6%), and that child singleton status was a significant predictor of profile membership. Bootstrap mediation analysis revealed that family environment profile fully mediated the relation between family structure and child social competence. Practice or Policy: The results highlighted the importance of providing a stimulating and supportive family environment, especially in families with multiple children. It also informed policymakers and practitioners of possible pathways to support young children's development by enhancing the quality of the family environment.

The Analects of Confucius has been identified as an important and influential philosophy around the globe. However, in traditional instruction, it is difficult to express the spirit of this philosophy. Therefore, many students consider it as a big challenge to study the Analects of Confucius. To cope with this problem, in this study, an interactive e-book system has been developed based on the contextual learning model to interpret the Analects of Confucius in an interactive way. A quasi-experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. The participants were 38 fifth graders from 2 classes in an elementary school located in northern Taiwan, who were divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group used an interactive e-book learning mode to learn the Analects of Confucius course while the control group used a conventional technology enhanced teaching mode. The results showed that adopting the interactive e-book teaching mode to study the Analects of Confucius in the elementary school course can promote students' learning achievement and motive. It was also found that the interactive e-book learning mode can trigger learners' deep motive, and hence promote their learning achievement.

In order to advance Chinese culturally-appropriate art therapy practice, a qualitative study identified key indigenous factors. The investigation documented contextual adaptations made by 7 Taiwanese "sojourner" art therapists. Inductive thematic analysis yielded six themes, which identified from the participants' descriptions of art therapy practice with native Taiwanese/Chinese clients relate to the key processes of (a) responding to clients' initial art therapy expectations, (b) orienting client to purposes of art making, (c) addressing client-art therapist roles, (d) understanding how cultural conceptions of art influences art therapy, (e) uncovering the client's culture as a strength, and (f) reducing personal and relational tension. The study's findings revealed ways to develop art therapy that are congruent with traditional Chinese clients' cultural backgrounds.

To achieve a successful policy transfer from one country to another, knowledge is required about the framework conditions of the country to which the policy is transferred. An important framework condition to consider is cultural context. Therefore, this paper uses a combination of cultural definitions which consider culture as a driver for both the interpretation of its members and for the communicative and interactive behaviour within a community. This contribution presents a cultural concept to inform policy transfer from a European context to China. Chinese philosophical approaches such as Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, as well as the political history of China, are used to identify individual perspectives within a community that depends, among others. A pilot study for testing the peer review process in vocational education and training will also help build a better understanding of how adjustments, transfer errors and side effects can be culturally explained.

This research shows the development and influencing factors of high school English teachers' evaluation of professional learning community in Changchun, China. Followed Olivier and Hipp & Huffma's research, the teacher professional learning community evaluation questionnaire was developed by the researchers. 422 English teachers in Changchun were invited to participate in the online survey. This study found that the organization characteristics of professional learning communities in this city shared similar characteristics with Western countries at some degree. English perceptions of including the "shared personal practice" and "collective learning and application" achieves the average level in this research. Compared to the western professional learning communities, the Chinese professional learning communities in this study lack of the democratic leadership and shared value and vision attributions. According to the analysis, we find that the Confucian cultural context, teacher' career development stages, the pressures of national college entrance examination and the systematic teaching training have a significant impact on the evaluation of teacher professional learning communities. Aiming at to build a learning organisation rather than a bureaucratic administration, we suggest that the "shared value and vison" and "shared and supportive leadership" needs more reform in the current professional learning communities. Namely, traditional Soviet model of school-based professional learning communities need to reform toward a learning organisation emphasizing the teaching and learning.

The current educational trend strongly encourages students' active participation in learning. However, EFL writing instructions in Korea are so far detached from this approach. That is, most English writing classes in Korea are still teacher-centered and most learners remain passive throughout the classroom period. In order to bring about change in the classroom atmosphere and to foster active student engagements in the EFL writing class, the current study developed a learner-centered instruction model for EFL writing based on the relevant literatures. Specifically, the model incorporated four activities which inevitably triggered the learners' participations in the writing process: modified LDF (Learner-Driven Feedback), portfolio, peer feedback, and group writing. Then, its effect on students' anxiety and perception was solicited via surveys and in-depth interviews. The participants of the study were 29 Korean university students enrolled in Practical English Writing course in the spring semester, 2018. The paired t-test on pre- and post-writing anxiety showed that the model was effective in significantly decreasing students' writing anxiety, particularly, somatic anxiety. Moreover, the students' perception on the learner-centered writing instruction model turned out to be quite positive in the order of LDF (4.69), portfolio (3.93), peer feedback (3.62), and group writing (3.34). The contribution of the study is discussed in relation to cultural issues (e.g. Confucianism) and its pedagogical implications.

Writing as one of essential skills in English learning is attached more and more importance. English writing involves not only the application of lexicon and grammar, but also the construction of the text and the expression of the thought. For Chinese EFL learners, the common problem in English writing is that they tend to apply the Chinese thinking pattern and organizational pattern to wording, phrasing and even the text construction. In other words, Chinese EFL learners lack English thought pattern. Based on that, the researcher puts forward the "tree analysis diagram" to help Chinese EFL learners acquire the English thinking pattern. The current research compares the differences between the Chinese thinking pattern and the English thinking pattern; analyzes the effect of these differences on English writing and verifies the effectiveness of the "tree analysis diagram" in helping Chinese EFL learners developing the English thinking pattern and improving the quality of English writing by an experiment. The results of the research showed that the Chinese thinking pattern influences students' English writing and the main problem is that the organizational pattern and the logic of the writing are not clear. After the application of the "tree analysis diagram", the results showed that "tree analysis diagram" to some extent can help Chinese EFL learners avoid the influence of the Chinese thinking pattern; improve the ability of composing English writings with the English thinking pattern; develop the habit of conceiving and writing in English; arouse the interest for English writing and eventually improve the quality of English writing.

This conceptual article presents an application of the integrative developmental model (IDM) as a framework for supervising Asian international counseling students in the United States. Asian international supervisees' characteristics and needs on four developmental levels and corresponding supervision interventions are discussed. Implications for clinical supervision, counselor education, and research are provided.

Italy, a country with a great cultural tradition and a founding member of the European Union (EU), since 2004 very actively contributes to the cultural cooperation activities of EU with non European countries. This paper is a detailed review of the status of those activities, which can be subdivided into joint "Master Mundus" Actions and bilateral teaching and research cooperation agreements established between Italian and Chinese higher education institutions. The University of Padova (UP) has been adopted as a relevant a case study, with teaching and research cooperations spanning from the "S&T" to "Medicine," "Law" and "Humanities." The results obtained so far are promising.

Brazil tertiary education has evolved substantially in the last 20 years. The policies set up by the Brazilian government aimed at different targets. There were actions to expand the enrollments in the country's public universities, mainly through a program called Reestruturação e Expansão das Universidades Federais (REUNI). The government also invested in increasing the enrollments in private universities and colleges through the government students' loans program, called Programa de Financiamento Estudantil (FIES), and through a grant program, called Programa Universidade para Todos (PROUNI). And finally, the policymakers also encouraged the development of online distance learning programs as a way to compensate for the lack of higher education opportunities in the areas located far away from Brazil's most developed cities. The FIES and PROUNI were implemented as social justice policies to create opportunities for students from lower-income families to pursue a higher education degree. However, There are claims that the social justice subsidy model adopted by the Brazilian government isn't sustainable. On the other side of the world, countries from Asia-Pacific are exploring different strategies to increase both enrollments and quality in tertiary education based on Confucian principles. This Confucian Model led scholars to believe that the Asia-Pacific countries were ready to compete against the tertiary education offered in the western hemisphere. Therefore, firstly, the author's analysis focuses on the pivotal decisions that shaped Brazil's higher education system. In sequence, the author examines some key learning points from the Asia-Pacific countries that adopted a tertiary education strategy based on the Confucian Model. The author proposes that to ensure the Brazilian social justice policies efficacy the country's policymakers should consider developing a more comprehensive rationality involving a long-term thinking strategy for its primary, secondary and tertiary education, mixing government funds and social engagement, in a course of action that can boost academic quality and enrollments. In summary, the author presents recommendations to policymakers, scholars, and HEI administrators regarding the development of Brazilian social justice policies for tertiary education.

The purpose of this study is to solicit the perceptions of United States teachers to examine the extent of their agreement with the Confucian teaching philosophies and methodologies. A mixed research methodology was used in this study. Sixty elementary, middle, and high school teachers from 24 schools of five urban school districts of Georgia were randomly selected and invited to participate in the study. Thirty-two teachers (53.3%) representing 17 different teaching areas responded by returning an author designed survey. Quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and qualitative data were analyzed by examining emerged themes and patterns. The findings of this study indicate that teachers strongly support the application of Confucius teaching philosophies and methodologies in the classrooms of the United States.

This article examines the development of Taiwan's Environmental Education Act and how Education for Sustainable Development was mainstreamed into the national policy framework within the country. The goal is to understand the policy tools and governing strategies that were used by the Taiwan government to develop and implement a nationwide environmental education policy for integrating environmental sustainability into all areas and levels of teaching and learning. Official documents related to national plans for ESD and environmental education policies were analyzed and examined. In particular, Chinese Legalism was used as a lens to interpret the government's philosophy, assumptions, unspoken norms, legislative practices, and deliberate strategies. Several principles and techniques proposed by Chinese Legalists were used to examine the negotiation and formulation of Taiwan's Environmental Education Act. This analysis contributes to our understanding of the ways in which UNESCO's framework of ESD can be transferred into a national policy. A discussion of the Chinese Legalist philosophy also offers a cultural frame of reference to think about ESD politics and governance in other East Asian contexts.

Despite the widely acknowledged pro-learning function of formative assessment and its wide adoption around the globe, the gaps between policy intention, interpretation and implementation remain a problem to be solved. While this problem is noted universally, it could be particularly serious in China, where Confucian Heritage Culture is deeply ingrained and education development is not quite balanced. This study, via interview data with English teachers and deans from eight universities in an undeveloped region of the Mid-western China, explores the overall environment for a formative assessment initiative that is currently in place. Data analysis reveals multiple issues, such as insufficient support, improper dissemination and ineffective training at the meso-level and the instructors' limited assessment ability, large class sizes and student's resistance at the micro-level. A conclusion is thus drawn that the overall environment in this region is by no means favourable for the effective implementation of formative assessment, and implications are derived for better realisation of assessment innovations in this and other undeveloped regions of China.

This cross-cultural study examines national variations in the association of youths' attitudinal characteristics and socio-psychological resources at school with their mathematics achievements between South Korea and the US. Using the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2015 data, it finds comparative results between two countries. By employing multilevel modeling, we discover that youths' attitudinal factors such as educational aspirations, interest, and values are closely associated with mathematics achievement, but the association is stronger in South Korea. Also, teacher effect is more prominent in the US while peer effect is more noticeable in South Korea. These results imply that socio-psychological resources are accumulated differently in the two countries, and shared educational aspirations would be an important factor for Korean youths in collectivism and Confucianism society.

Over the past twenty-five years, homeschooling has been growing in popularity. Conventionally, the actions of homeschoolers are understood as a rejection of the public school -- and, by extension, a rejection of participation in the public sphere writ large. Yet such interpretations are made without due attention to the meaning of both "home" and "school" in larger social discourses. This article explores the wisdom of such analyses through an examination of the place and function of home and school in pragmatist views of democracy. Using the thought of John Dewey and Jane Addams, Kyle Greenwalt shows how the relationship between household and school was reconfigured at a key moment in the history of American public education. After demonstrating how this is so, Greenwalt extends his outlook by considering pragmatic thought as it interacts with the Chinese tradition -- through the lens of Confucian role ethics. In particular, he argues that Confucian role ethics provides a way of thinking about the family household that emphasizes its civic potential through the promotion of relationships that are fluid, sustainable, and educative. In short, Greenwalt argues for a new way to think about the educative potential of family-centered, community-based living.