Julia Andrews & Kuiyi Shen
Ohio State University / University of California, San Diego
The Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching Chinese Art History in the Contemporary Global Discourse
The overall situation for the study and teaching of Asian art, including Chinese art, has steadily improved over the past two decades. In an atmosphere in which cultural pluralism is increasingly valued, researching Asian art, and especially narrating the history of Asian art, is less often limited to a single nation or state, but is now more frequently considered in a global context. Because the historical development of Asian art has never been isolated, as its development in the Chinese Tang and Song dynasties, or in the present day, there have been frequent contacts and exchanges with other civilizations and cultures. Therefore, study of Asian art or teaching Chinese art history should adopt a global perspective and conduct an active dialogue and interaction with other narratives to investigate the roles played by Asian and Chinese art and their historical and cultural significance. In the current circumstances, these educational efforts are becoming more important.
Maialen Apodaca Ibarguren
(Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Round table: Study on how family education influences marriage and family decisions among Spanish women and future comparison with Taiwan
This presentation will explore if education and values learned within the family affect Spanish women’s and men’s decisions about marriage and family life. By conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews, the presentation will examine whether the values and education received from their families could influence their choices regarding marriage, relationships, and their roles at home. This work is part of a doctoral thesis that investigates women’s attitudes towards marriage in Spain and Taiwan in the last decades. The presentation will also outline the research plan for the study to be conducted in Taiwan.
Prof. Mario Carretero
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Present challenges of history education in Europe
In many countries history education is today a highly developed field, which is receiving considerable attention not only from educators, but also from historians, philosophers of history and social scientists in general. Most of the cultural initiatives around history education have generated important debates about the meaning of historical knowledge for society. As a matter of fact, important innovations in history education as the ones related to historical thinking and historical consciousness have produced new types of educational materials. It is also essential to consider that nowadays informal learning (for example through videogames, comics and films) could be even more influential than formal schooling.
Mailing Chen
Doctoral candidate in the Human Sciences: Geography, Anthropology and Asian and African Studies, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Round table: A national level organizational analysis of the internationalization of higher education of China towards Latin America and Caribbean: student mobility
With decades of experience and constant adjustments, China already has the awareness that «international cooperation and exchange in education should serve the needs of national reform and development». In this context, the strategic space of the Asian country’s internationalization development grows towards new poles, such as Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), where more proactivity is found, which is consistent with what is happening in the political and economic arenas in recent years. However, the reality of student mobility is unsatisfactory. To understand well the internationalization of China towards LAC, it is essential to know, from the national level to what extent this fits into the general guidelines on the development of higher education in the country. Based on this, we must take a step forward to investigate, on the rational side, to what extent the Chinese government is encouraging this with its existing mechanisms, and why Chinese universities want to engage in internationalization towards LAC, and on the irrational side, what are the unconscious barriers that are entrenched in the dynamics between governmental and institutional actors in the complex process. In order to take into consideration actors from the three conventional levels – the national, the institutional and the individual – and to study the interactions between different actors, it is necessary to look at the problem from an organizational perspective.
Hence the question of this paper: are the existing mechanisms of internationalization of China towards LAC conducive to this process? What are the organizational barriers in it? The hypothesis is that they are not conducive enough and there is evident organizational irrationality and inertia in the process. To answer this question, a contextualized analysis will be carried out within the framework of the internationalization of China towards LAC, with a special focus on student mobility.
With a new theoretical model conceptualized by the author, this paper tries to obtain a new organizational description of the current situation of student mobility between China and LAC through three dimensions: 1) the Catalog of recommended foreign HEIs of the Ministry of Education of China, 2) the signing of mutual recognition on degrees, and 3) the national scholarship programs provided by the China Scholarship Council.
Juan Luis Conde
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Left-hand bullfighting: Spanish lessons from Classical Chinese rhetorical texts
European rhetorical theory was originally conceived, in ancient Greece and Rome, to address audiences made up primarily of equals or, as it was usually the case, subordinates (in the Agora, the Forum, the Senate). Inversely, the political rhetoric taught in ancient China to aspiring counselors is designed to persuade the one who had the power of life and death over the speaker himself, the king: these are lessons to obtain assent not from the top down, but from the bottom up. It is the rhetoric of the weak against the strong, of the subordinate against the superior, so that its main features could easily be made to match what in colloquial Spanish is known as «mano izquierda» (literally, left hand). This expression, which comes from bullfighting slang, could serve as a cross-cultural meeting ground for Chinese persuasion and manipulation techniques in the Spanish-speaking world. And, at their turn, these techniques could enrich the content of this rather loose and casual, everyday concept.
Jesús de la Villa
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Teaching the Classics today: why and what for?
The role and importance that “classics” should play in education has been a matter of discussion in the Western world and, in particular, in Europe for decades. A first question is what we consider a “classic”. In the Western World, at least so far, everything that has to do with the world of ancient Greece and Rome is classical. But, even in this field, one can differentiate between cultural aspects – history, religion, art, even literature – and linguistic aspects, Latin and ancient Greek. Literary authors from past eras are also classics, but belonging to the formation of the cultures themselves: Dante for Italy, Shakespeare for the English speaking world, Goethe for the German culture, Cervantes for the Spanish world and so on. In general, there is less problem to preserve, in the educational system, the “classical” elements more attached to each culture; with respect to the elements more distant in time, such as the Greco-Roman world, the cultural aspects are better maintained than the linguistic aspects.
In this presentation, a review will be made of the main arguments that have been discussed in favor of preserving the teaching of classics in the first levels of the educational systems, i.e., primary and secondary schools. I will discuss not only the plausibility of these arguments, but also how they can be sustained and defended in the educational debate in Europe. The conclusions, however, may be of use to all cultures in which a body of “classics” has come to be shaped and can be preserved and transmitted.
Taciana Fisac
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Linguistic Studies Misunderstandings: on Chinese Grammar and Chinese Language Teaching from the Beginning of the XX Century to the Present Day
In all Chinese language teaching textbooks, Chinese grammar is presented as if it were similar to English. Subject-Predicate or Subject-Verb-Object is routinely considered the basic sentence order. In the same manner, it is mentioned that Chinese verbs doesn’t have markers for tense, but it is never explained in depth the importance of verbal aspect. Verbs are presented in a very fragmented and confusing way. Same for word order in Chinese. ,
This paper aims at explaining why several misunderstandings have led to the teaching of an unnatural Chinese grammar. Chinese language has a Topic-Comment construction. Verbal aspect is the most significant feature of Chinese verbs, and word order are fundamental in Chinese grammar. Words adopt a concrete grammatical function according to their positions in the sentence. Understanding Chinese grammar without imposing English grammatical categories and constructions can be useful for Chinese language teaching and for native Chinese themselves when learning foreign languages.
Zhenyu Gao (Lincoln)
Professor, Hangzhou Normal University, China
When Confucius meets Socrates: Challenges and possibilities of teaching philosophy for children in China
Philosophy for Children (P4C), an innovative educational project conceptualized by the American scholar Matthew Lipman, is grounded in a confluence of Western philosophical, psychological, and pedagogical traditions. Since its inception, P4C has garnered extensive global dissemination and acceptance. China, notably, embraced P4C in the late 1980s amidst educational reforms aimed at fostering holistic quality education. The trajectory of P4C in China can be demarcated into four distinct developmental phases, reflecting a progressive deepening of engagement and adaptation.
Initially, the nascent stage involved sporadic recognition and preliminary introduction of P4C principles. This embryonic phase was succeeded by a period of preliminary experimentation, where pioneering educators in regions such as Yunnan, Henan, and Shanghai initiated pilot programs integrating P4C curricula for children aged 10-12. These efforts were significantly bolstered by the involvement of international P4C experts, including Thomas Jackson, Laurance Splitter, David Kennedy, and Walter Kohan, whose visits and workshops provided invaluable insights and validation (Kennedy & Kohan, 2002; Colvin, 2004).
The subsequent phase, marked by a more systematic adoption and theoretical exploration, witnessed an upsurge in scholarly publications and empirical studies on P4C. This era catalyzed a deeper interrogation into the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of P4C, prompting nuanced discussions on the role of educators, the dynamics of the community of inquiry, and the methodological intricacies of philosophical dialogue with children.
The most recent phase signifies the dawn of a golden age for P4C in China. This period is characterized by the establishment of a comprehensive three-tier system for teacher training, the organization of specialized academic journal issues, the publication of translated and original works on P4C, and the hosting of national and international conferences. The propagation of P4C across several hundred primary and secondary schools, as well as kindergartens nationwide, attests to its burgeoning acceptance and institutionalization.
The proliferation of P4C in China can be attributed not only to its intrinsic appeal in fostering critical, creative, caring, and collaborative thinking among children but also to the relentless efforts of Chinese theorists and practitioners in localizing and contextualizing the framework. This indigenization process has been pivotal in forging a unique theoretical and practical model of P4C that resonates with Chinese educational and cultural paradigms.
In particular, the evolution of the Chinese model of P4C has involved a critical reflection on the value and limitations of the Socratic dialogue, a cornerstone of the original P4C methodology. This introspection has led to an appreciation of the Chinese dialogical tradition, especially the Confucian dialogical approach, which emphasizes moral cultivation, reciprocal respect, and the harmonious exchange of ideas. This synthesis of Western and Eastern philosophical traditions has endowed the Chinese iteration of P4C with a distinctive character and depth, facilitating its integration into the broader educational and philosophical discourse in China.
In conclusion, P4C, though rooted in Western intellectual traditions, has undergone a significant metamorphosis in China, engendering a unique and contextually relevant pedagogical and philosophical model. This model not only enriches the global P4C movement but also exemplifies the dynamic interplay between global educational innovations and local cultural traditions.
Desmond Hui
Hang Seng University, Hong Kong, China
Comparing the role of education of the visual arts and architecture between the Chinese and Western tradition
Visual arts and architecture are now very important sectors in the development of new knowledge and technology – the fore-front breakthroughs in new technology such as AI, MR (mixed reality), robotics and drones would not have been conceivable without their investigative affiliation with visual phenomena and perceptions. However, this elevation of the disciplines which are more manually oriented to the same intellectual level as the classics in education was only a rather recent phenomenon: in western culture, after the Renaissance; and in the Chinese tradition, probably after modernization since the Qing Dynasty. The dilemma and debate were quite obviously stated in the first written record on the teaching of architecture, by Vitruvius, around 20 BC, when he stated that an architect needed to be educated in many subjects and disciplines, yet not necessarily excelled in any in particular (De Architectura, Book 1). What Vitruvius tried to establish – architecture as a discipline equivalent to the status of other arts and sciences – had not been successful until the Renaissance, with Alberti, who achieved this with his own embodiment as both humanist scholar as well as artist. In China, crafts and the arts, from carpentry to building works, had a similar track of development – theory and teaching in these disciplines were absent in the traditional classic education of the scholar-official – and the closet appearance of the Chinese version of Alberti did not arrive until the 20th century, perhaps in the first generation of western educated architects who were also writers and poets, such as Liang Sicheng (son of the prominent scholar Liang Qichao) and Lin Huiying (wife of Liang Sicheng and first female architect in modern China who was recently awarded her posthumous Bachelor of Architecture degree by University of Pennsylvania in May 2024). My presentation will compare these two traditions and attempt to draw some conclusions of lessons for education today.
Andreas Janousch
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Religious Education and Teaching the History of Religion in the 20th-Century Sinophone World
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, modernity – following certain enlightenment traditions – was expected to coincide with the disappearance of religion. In China, after the introduction and institutionalization of the concept of “religion” via Japan (zongjiao) and since Kang Youwei’s Reforms in 1898, projects of modernization have been accompanied by often violent intents to suppress religious institutions and knowledge traditions. Other strategies have involved the secularization of religious knowledge in the form of historicizing religion, the institutionalization of moral and spiritual education, the conversion of religious institutions in heritage sites, and the reinterpretation of religious traditions as “traditional culture”. The proposed paper proposes to delineate these different strategies in the contexts of the different educational systems prevalent in the Sinophone world.
Cheng Jiankun
Jinghengyi School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, China
Improvisation Teaching in China: The Reconstruction of Meaning and Practical Strategies
Improvisational teaching means that in class, teacher conceive and implement certain creative teaching behaviors at unexpected teaching opportunities with aroused emotions. So as to expand and realize student potential, it has three forms: explanatory, decorative and variable. Focusing on improvisational teaching is the need to return to the original characteristics of teaching, realize the educational significance of generative resources and construct creative classroom. Improvisational teaching can be divided into three stages: activation of improvisational brain neural network by teaching, creation of improvisational teaching ideas that turn into action, and correction of improvisational teaching by closed-loop communication.to implement improvisational teaching, teachers should foster awareness, carry out training, implement practice, and strengthen competency.
Li Li
Jinghengyi School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, China
Rethinking ‘the Elites’with Poor and Humble Families in England: A Study Centered on Richard Hoggart’s ‘Scholarship Boys’
How to establish a connection between the promotion of an individual with a poor family and the social mobility of the class groups? Richard Hoggart’s “Scholarship Boys” study provides us with a comparison of exotic experiences. In the process of class travel, scholarship boys lost their cultural balance, suffered double exile in class belonging, and became a generation uprooted by education. Hoggart would like to promote the democratization of education by changing the existing education models and standards, and cultivate scholarship boys into “earnest minority” with class missions, and enlighten and educate the public, thereby promoting social democracy and equality. Hoggart’s “Scholarship Boys” study has its own characteristics in terms of theoretical perspective, research methods and value orientation. It has echoes and differences with the domestic “underclass cultural capital” theory, which could provide a certain enlightenment for the study.
Hsien-hao Sebastian Liao
National Taiwan University
Posthumanism and Southern Thought: The Contemporary Significance of Taoism
The reason the classics still have a major role to play in contemporary education is because more than ever they are relevant. It is relevant in two contradictory senses. First, delving into the classics, we may be able to see how elements in it have negatively impacted on the modern world without our knowing it. A better knowledge of the classics can help us clarify where things went awry, especially with the advent of modernity, which engendered among other things the Anthropocene and uncontrollable desire for war. Second, and more importantly, other elements in the classics may also provide antidotes to these two-in-one downward spiraling death drive. And the antidotes I believe can be detected in posthumanism and the Southern Thought initiative. But in this presentation I will only focus on how the Chinese Taoist thought is able to positively contribute to posthumanism and the Southern Thought initiative. In other words, I will explore how, by connecting Taoism with Posthumanism and the Southern Thought initiative, we can on the one hand re-align the currently anthropocentric human-nonhuman relationship to alleviate the Anthropocene and on the other ameliorate the centripetal and therefore inevitably authoritarian-prone tendency in the Northern mode(s) of thinking, which in fact has dominated both Western and Chinese political thinking for a long time.
Regina Llamas
IE University, Madrid, Spain.
The dissemination and critique of traditional social values in early popular Chinese theater
After retiring from office, the seventeenth-century literatus Mao Shengshan (1632) dedicated
himself to composing a commentary on Gao Ming’s (1305?-1359) classic play The Lute. In the introduction to his commentary, Mao first advanced the idea that Gao Ming composed the play to admonish a contemporary scholar for abandoning his former wife. This initial claim established authorial intention within an earlier remonstrative tradition that insisted upon the moral duties of the men of letters–when the moral behavior of a scholar was reprehensible and direct disapproval was impossible, indirect criticism was called for.
This paper argues that Mao’s remonstrative framework was designed to accomplish three objectives: first the remonstrative design added moral weight to his commentary, showing that theater was both entertainment and could effect belief; second, he used indirect remonstrance to add a layer of meaning to the text and vindicate the irregularities in the plot of the play; and finally, he conflated remonstrance and resentment in the figure of the scholar and utilized the scholar’s bitterness to make manifest the tension between public and private duties. Ultimately, the framework was designed as a remonstrative tool where Mao could interpolate his own critique of the tensions between power and morality, and to make plain the existent chasm between societies’ desire for moral men of letters and the unprincipled actions of officials in power.
Ziqiao Meng
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Bridging Words Apart: Translation Problems and Solutions in the Memcii Liber, François Noël’s First European Translation of the Book of Mencius (1711)
The Jesuit project to translate the Confucian classic Four Books began shortly after they entered China in the early 16th century. This ambitious endeavor represented a particularly complex process, during which the Jesuits had to face the challenge of translating from an isolating language into an inflected one and adapting secular philosophical texts into a deeply religious ideological framework with a careful respect for both the author’s intentions and the expectations of the contemporary European audience.
In his goal to present European readers with the first version of the Book of Mencius at the beginning of the 18th century, the Belgian Jesuit François Noël provided noteworthy solutions to the challenges mentioned above, such as the translation of cultural and ideological concepts, the approach to phonetic transcriptions of ideograms, the use of particular rhetorical devices, and editorial decisions regarding contextual and implicit information.
My contribution highlights the educational relevance of such an analysis, as it can enhance our understanding of cross-cultural communication and translation pedagogy. Furthermore, these translation problems and solutions offer valuable lessons for modern educators, emphasizing the importance of cultural sensitivity and linguistic adaptability.
Luiz Oosterbeek
Polytechnic Institute of Tomar – CIPSH.
Technology education as a Humanities discipline (on possible convergence accross Eurasia)
Classical education emerges from traditional societies education, focusing on consolidating acquired knowledge and offering limited flexibility in order to accommodate unforeseen needs without entering major risks. In such a context, all layers of knowledge, including the education of the body, are part of a totalizing strategy, what one would call holistic, today, but that stems from such initial syncretism. The integration of learning and research, in this axial age (as jaspers portraited it), either valuing primarily argumentation or experimentation, expresses this initial stage, which encompasses the dialectics of Plato, the order of Aristotle, or the Li in neo-Confucian philosophy, as they all share such double dimension, which may then be read not so much as a philosophical reflection on education, but as a follow-up of traditional societies praxis of oral education. Skepticism over the conditions of technology-based knowledge and learning would lead, in a second stage, to privileging the process to achieve knowledge (the method, as in Medieval scholastics, or the Dao), rather than the knowledge contents and, even more, their practical use (the divide between the praxis of farming by the Cluny and Cister orders and the praxis of reason by the Academia, in European middle ages, results from such skepticism, as does the non-willing approach of daoism).
It is primarily from modernity, with the notion of progress, that the wider convergence of pedagogic trends across Eurasia would trigger the incorporation into the core of education of the applied techniques, gradually isolating and enhancing the social status of the so-called STEM disciplines.
This paper reasons on the possibility that the initial convergence of pedagogies in China and Europe may become solid-ground for a new education convergent framework, adapted to the age of uncertainty, namely when addressing method and reason, sports and intellect education, discipline and creativity, laicity and religion or object and landscape approaches.
Dongshu Ou
Department of Educational Administration and Policy at the Faculty of Education, CUHK
Evaluating Secondary School Curriculum Reform: Effects on Higher Education and Labor Market Outcomes
A highly skilled workforce is a vital asset for industrialized nations, with mathematics and science proficiency driving technological advancements and scientific discoveries. In 2009, Hong Kong implemented the New Senior Secondary (NSS) curriculum reform to offer students a more flexible, broader-based education by eliminating arts and science streaming. However, concerns exist about whether this reform provided adequate resources to enrich students’ learning experiences. It’s also possible that it may have reduced students’ math and science skills, impacting their readiness for science-related college majors. Yet, there is limited systematic examination of the NSS reform’s impact on higher education outcomes, including college enrollment and major choices. Moreover, quality education in mathematics and science is linked to economic growth, and the NSS reform’s effects on students’ participation in STEM fields after graduation remain unexplored.
Despite the shift in male superiority following the 1989 university expansion, Hong Kong still experiences gender disparities in STEM fields. Female students continue to lag behind their male counterparts in sciences, engineering, and technology. It is imperative for policymakers to understand whether the NSS curriculum reform influenced these disparities. Additionally, the increasing number of Mainlander immigrants with proficiency in subjects free from language barriers raises questions about their role in tertiary STEM admissions and STEM employment in the labor market. Using Census and By-Census data from 2016 and 2021, and employing a regression discontinuity (RD) design based on the 2009 curriculum reform, this research seeks to provide a causal estimate of the link between curriculum reform and student outcomes beyond secondary school.
Our study makes several notable contributions. It is the first to investigate the causal impact and consequences of the 2009 NSS reform on students’ educational outcomes. Furthermore, it offers a comprehensive overview of higher education participation in Hong Kong following the 1989 higher education expansion policy. The utilization of various data sources, including Census and UGC data, allows us to document gender and nativity differences in college enrollment, major selection, and career choices, addressing the gender imbalance in STEM fields. Additionally, the study highlights the significance of Mainlander immigration in Hong Kong’s STEM employment. Lastly, while existing research on wage effects of a narrower versus a broader curriculum is inconclusive, our study provides empirical evidence from an Asian perspective.
Mario Santander Oliván
Centro de Estudios de Asia Oriental, UAM
Teaching Spanish as a foreign language in Taiwan: current situation and future challenges
Spanish is, currently, a foreign language that enjoys a great reputation at the university and high school level and more and more young people are encouraged to study it as second language in Taiwan. Academic, cultural and other events related to Spanish continue to increase in the last decade. Although it is difficult for Spanish to overtake English or Japanese as the first foreign language in Taiwan, the collective work and dedication of numerous Spanish teachers and the passion and effort of many students of this language have contributed, contribute and will contribute to the expansion of the Spanish language in Taiwan. However, a curricular design updated to the needs of the 21st century, greater collaboration between Taiwanese and Spanish teachers, the development of a greater number of specific Spanish teaching materials for Chinese speakers, greater academic training of young local teachers and the recruitment of a greater number of Taiwanese students who want to make the Spanish language their way of life are some of the challenges that Spanish teachers in Formosa will have to face in the not too distant future.
Zoltán Somhegyi
Károli Gáspár University, Hungary
Landscape knowledge. Classical environmental aesthetics and current challenges in an intercultural perspective
What can we learn from the comparative history of landscape perception and appreciation? How, and what sort of knowledge can be developed from examining both the history of and the current standpoints in engaging with our natural environment? In this paper my main point of departure will be the difference of how the concept of “landscape” was born in the Eastern and Western artistic and cultural traditions and how it became an autonomous genre in art. Acknowledging these exciting differences, we can benefit from the various perspectives of how we can look at Nature and at the world around us. In this way, the analyses of landscape appreciation, documentation and representation will become a source of “landscape knowledge”. It is not only a knowledge of the landscape itself (e.g. its history, aesthetic qualities, or its threatened state), but also knowledge that we can gain from and through the landscape on a broader level concerning our own existence. I would in part rely on the sinologist François Jullien’s research in this subject, but then further analyse these questions with the help of other contemporary scholars of environmental aesthetics, including Wangheng Chen. Besides surveying the classical theoretical and artistic approaches to landscapes and to their potential epistemic value, I will also investigate the recent threats to our natural environment, and how contemporary artistic elaboration of the issues around climate change can be helpful to disseminate knowledge of the looming catastrophe, and thus to attempt to prevent further degradation.
Margaret Tillman
Purdue University, USA
Postwar Universal Rights and Childhood
After World War II, the United Nations struggled to encourage member states beyond national histories and to teach children about universal stories, problems, and rights. UNESCO commissioned faculty, who found it difficult to write a narrative that transcended a British political history about the expansion of rights from the Magna Carta to include, as an example, the history of disease that crossed borders. Furthermore, some nations and individuals rejected this movement out of a concern for teaching children about patriotism and citizenship.
This paper will examine UNESCO’s postwar efforts and cooperation with China in a larger temporal context. Even though China in the immediate postwar era embraced cooperation with UNESCO, closer attention to its participation in international programs reveals important underlying tensions within UN definitions of human rights. For example, although Chinese educators alluded to its meritocratic past as a form of democracy, those systems of testing served the elite; in UNESCO’s human rights exhibit, the examples involving China pointed to social or communal rights rather than individual ones. The Chinese example was important because, as Samual Moyn has pointed out in his critique of the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, it helped to establish the universality of these ideas beyond the West. Similar tensions continue today, especially as UNESCO helps to communicate the Rights of the Child even as countries like the United States have not ratified the declaration. Ultimately, universal rights were only one way to assert collective responsibility and mutual respect.
Yan Conggen
Dean and Professor, Jinghengyi School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University
Promoting the Integration of Education, Science and Technology, and Human Resources by Taking China as a Method
China places considerable emphasis on the regional promotion of school-based curriculum development. The primary objective of government-led regional advancement in school-based curricula is to cultivate distinctive school characteristics and foster students’ comprehensive and individualized development. However, in practice, certain regions’ promotion of school-based curriculum construction has become detached from the ideological culture of schools and the unique local resources, neglecting students’ needs and interests. Consequently, it has neither highlighted the distinctive features of the schools nor facilitated students’ holistic and personalized development. To ameliorate this situation, Zhejiang Province in eastern China has committed to helping schools overcome the practical difficulties in school-based curriculum development. This involves assisting schools in designing curriculum frameworks grounded in their educational philosophies, focusing on distinctive resources to excavate curriculum elements, constructing a curriculum system based on the «Five Educations,» and establishing student-centered curriculum implementation pathways. Additionally, it involves building a curriculum evaluation system centered around educational goals, ultimately realizing the value restoration of school curriculum development.
Qian Yang
Associate Professor, Jinghengyi School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University
The Unrivaled Path to Becoming a Good Teacher: Emotional Labor Strategies of Chinese Teachers
The emotional labor of teachers has attracted increasing attention in academic circles. Grounded in Yin Hongbiao’s three-category framework for emotional labor, this study explores the narratives written by teacher education students at a normal university regarding their perceptions of a “good teacher.” By integrating emotional labor and emotional regulation, the research investigates the application and characteristics of emotional labor strategies employed by teacher-training students in defining a “good teacher.” Finally, key factors supporting teachers’ emotional labor are revealed.