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Like many other education systems in the world, Chinese education has undergone various reforms in order to adapt to the challenges that are perceived to emanate from the knowledge economy. Central to this transformation is the concept of 'innovation', which is to guide the country on its path from a production economy to a knowledge economy. Chinese policymakers have been targeting the higher education sector both as a motor for innovation and as a realm to be innovated, and have invested heavily in the sector's internationalization, above all in the form of international collaboration and student mobility, affecting higher education and academia worldwide. However, a number of structural and political constraints delimit the directions that innovation can take, both within Chinese education in general and within Chinese higher education. The article takes stock of these constraints and assesses the potential for innovation in Chinese higher education in terms of the underlying school system, exam and recruitment policies, the (re-)organization of universities, as well as the universities' and science system's performance according to indicators of innovation. The article then identifies four 'Chinese innovation dilemmas', that is, educational policies and developments that are to spur innovation but run counter to existing structures and practices of educational, social, and political governance: ideological control versus creativity; state planning versus grassroots innovation; old-boy networks versus anti-corruption; and exam-based student recruitment versus flexible recruitment.

It is widely known that there is a discrepancy between educational policy on the one side, and teaching and learning practices on the other. Most studies have been focusing on the sociocultural and micropolitical frames that shape teachers' understandings and enactments of teaching, and that cause the vast diversity of classroom practices around the world. This article wants to draw attention to the 'politics of use' in teachers' work: how teachers mobilize larger political narratives when implementing curriculum reform. Arguably, these narratives provide a shortcut between the central government and street-level actors, thus circumventing the logics of these actors' immediate institutional environments.In order to showcase the politics of use, the article uses the case of education for creativity as it is designed for and practiced at Chinese schools. The case reveals how "education for creativity" is compromised by requirements emanating from larger political programs when implemented in Chinese classrooms. The article challenges the view that educational policy necessarily moves through a trickle-down process, from higher to medium to lower-level actors. In cases of strong ideological alignment between street-level actors and central state actors, educational policy may in fact sidestep and hence neutralize important institutional actors.

Both in China and internationally, educators and policy makers claim that vocational education and training (VET) is essential for the sound economic development of a country and the physical and social well-being of its population. However, China looks back upon a century-long history of rejection when it comes to popularising VET, despite attempts, both in the present and in the past, to invest in its implementation. Much of the literature attributes this lack of success to the failed, or distorted, transfer of Western educational models or simply to policy drift. The article approaches this history of rejection by tracing back the original Chinese encounters with Western-style vocational education. After an introductory discussion of different scholarly attempts at explaining failed transfers of VET, I look at how this transfer actually took place when VET was ?rst introduced to China. Therefore, the focus will be on the ?rst decades of the twentieth century and a group of Chinese actors who were pivotal in importing VET models from abroad and building up a nationwide vocational education programme (primarily members of the Chinese Association of Vocational Education). I will argue that vocational education, when introduced to China from abroad, was embedded in an existing framework of systematic and widely practised discrimination and segregation of the population. Therefore, it was less the Westernness of VET that made it undesirable to many Chinese, but its speci?c--and speci?cally Chinese--integration into existing practices of allocating cultural capital. (Contains 16 notes.)

European educational knowledge and practices have been deeply impacted by the colonial experience. While hegemonic knowledge was exported to the colonies, practices of teaching and governing colonial subjects were tested in the periphery and then reimported to the center. This contribution looks at a case of European education outside Europe that did not take place, at least not entirely, in a colonial setting: China. It argues that the (at least potentially) non-colonial encounter with societies that presented possible alternatives to European civilization was as important in refracting and reframing European knowledge, education, and identity as was the colonial encounter. European education outside Europe was enacted not only in settings of hegemony and resistance but also in more subtly nuanced spaces of encounter. (Contains 17 notes.)

Just as the world has increasingly been compressed over recent decades through transnationally engaged actors or "carriers" such as mobile experts, international organisations, and seemingly globalised bodies of knowledge, so have China's politicians and academics increasingly "gone global" in various fields of social action, including education. China's Open Door policy since the late 1970s is, historically, not the country's first opening to the world but is preceded by earlier phases of opening and closing. Each of these "global" phases is witness to two interrelated phenomena: the reconstruction of the local through the global; and the reconceptualisation of the global through the local. The article seeks to illustrate this dialectic process both in theory and in practice. The first part unpacks dimensions and paradoxes of the global-local nexus in comparative education, discussing both fruitfulness and shortcomings of the "world culture theory" and complementary approaches. Based on the insights from this discussion, the second part showcases the local embeddedness of seemingly global paths by revealing how the Chinese educational field dealt with--and appropriated--"world culture". I will exemplify this by looking at two different time periods: firstly, I will show how, in the Republican China of the 1920s, the idea of "vocational education" was taken up, transformed, and meshed with socio-culturally grounded, both traditional and contemporaneous notions of how the individual should be socialised into working life. Secondly, I will trace how the idea of "neo-liberalism" has been taken up by Chinese educationists since the 1990s and how it has been sinicised to justify--or oppose--equality in education. The insights from these two historical snapshots are two-fold: firstly, the development of Chinese education is not as nationally determined as is suggested by various actors and researchers but emerges at the interface of globally migrating ideas and nationally designed strategies; secondly, "world culture"--or an educational ideology spreading worldwide--is not as uniform as is suggested by its apparent global ubiquity but is remade by local, if transnationally active agents and networks. (Contains 7 notes.)

This article presents an overview of teaching subjects and time allocation in the German school system, with a particular focus on Berlin. An analysis of existing documents and guidelines will be combined with interviews conducted in the last part of 2002 with the Berlin school administration and with headmasters and teachers at different schools. This will be followed by a discussion of some on-going developments relating to the organization of school subjects. TIMSS and, even more severely, PISA have revealed that the German students' weakest points are important competencies, such as general logical thinking and producing independent interpretations. The German education system seems to be oriented too little towards problem-solving and the applicability of acquired knowledge. However, in spite of conservative calls for more clearly defined curricular contents, Berlin has decided to follow the example of the Scandinavian countries instead, where guidelines can be used much more flexibly than is the case in any German state today. Thus, it is the narrowness and rigidity of the curriculum guidelines, rather than the excessive freedom, that is deemed responsible for the unfavourable developments in the German school system. (Contains 6 tables and 5 notes.)

Hypothyroidism is a common condition with a prevalence that varies according to local dietary iodine availability, gender and age. The symptoms of hypothyroidism are generally nonspecific, with considerable overlap with other conditions and with the consequences for the health of advancing age. These symptoms are not useful for diagnosing hypothyroidism and a thyroid function test is required for a firm clinical diagnosis. Lack of knowledge and understanding of hypothyroidism, and a tendency for many people to attribute the symptoms of hypothyroidism to other causes have led to substantial unawareness and often late diagnosis of hypothyroidism. Large observational studies and meta-analyses have shown that about 4–7% of community-derived populations in the USA and Europe have undiagnosed hypothyroidism. About four cases in five of these are subclinical hypothyroidism, with the remainder being overt hypothyroidism. The prevalence of undiagnosed hypothyroidism is higher in older subjects, in women, and some ethnic groups, consistent with diagnosed disease. More research is needed to quantify the clinical burden of undiagnosed hypothyroidism around the world, with educational efforts aimed at the public and healthcare professionals aimed at identifying and managing these individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]