糖心传媒

Uma Pradhan

Welcome to the fifth episode of the Compare and 糖心传媒 podcast series. I’m Uma Pradhan, one of the editors of Compare.Today’s episode is a little different. In this episode, we have with us the guest editors of a recent special issue titled, Transcending Western-Centrism and Nationalism in Education: China and Beyond, along with the authors of two of the papers that were part of this special issue. They’ll talk through the ideas that shaped this special issue, the questions that stayed with them while developing the collection, and what it means to think beyond familiar ways of understanding education.

It’s a thoughtful conversation, and we hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed bringing it together.

Yun You

Hello Everyone! My name is You Yun. You is my surname. I am from East China Normal University. Very excited to be here – not only because I’m an editorial board member for Compare, but also because my colleagues and I are going to share with you our recently published special issue – Transcending western centrism and nationalism in education: China and beyond, and two papers from this special issue. So, first of all, as one of the guest editors I’d like to introduce the theme of this special issue. As you can see from the title, we aim to simultaneously move beyond western-centrism and nationalism by taking Chinese education policy and practise as an illustrative example. And we call it a double negation approach –  which means, on the one hand, we respond to the decolonial call to de-link with the West as the sole site of universal knowledge production and explore how China can function as one of the generative theoretical and conceptual sources for education research and practice. But on the other hand, we are fully aware of the danger of conforming to nationalism or establishing China as the new centre in this progress. So that means we wanted to do it in a reflective way and a critical way. So this is neither an anti western nor a pro-China move. What we aim to reject is the fundamental universalism that underpins the current global knowledge production. And now I would like to introduce my dear colleague guest editor – Min Yu – to speak about how this special issue originated and the factors we considered when inviting authors to contribute to this special issue.

Min Yu

Hello Everyone! Thank you, Yun, for introducing me. I’m an associate professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. And it has been such a wonderful journey working with Yun and Ting, and also other colleagues on this special issue. So how do we get started? Most of us in this special issue – be it guest editors and contributors –  we are either the chairs, vice chairs or members of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES), in the East Asian SIG. And we have worked collaboratively over the years. But more specifically, we have worked as a team since 2022 –  as we draw upon a shared approach to a diverse range of research topics. And especially, several papers in the special issues were presented at the 67th annual meeting of CIES – which is CIES 2023. And as a part of the formal panel entitled – reimagining and redesigning Chinese education in changing context – and we received very positive feedback. And then, we approached more scholarly conversation about how do we not just stop here or really go deeper, and really use this chance to not just present in the conference but also further write out the papers, and then propose a special issue. And we recruited more papers – selected the authors using specific criteria after the 2023 CIES conference – as we believe their work will fit into the main theme of potential proposed special issue. And as I will speak later –  more specifically, what are our criteria for the contributors. One of the key factors is that we wanted all the contributors to have cross-cultural or international education experiences. So through this collection of papers in Chinese schooling and higher education setting, our goal is to – as I mentioned –  to contribute to the international endeavours that challenge the persistent hegemony of the West as the powerhouse of theories and concepts. And our challenge is also about conducting the critical manner that alerts us to the danger of over emphasizing Chinese uniqueness or Chinese unique model for advocating supremacy. So this requires us to really tease out the nuanced layers and sophisticated interplays of Chinese history, culture, society, and education in a broader and dynamic global context. To really expand, what we call – cited by Ball 2016 – the “geographic imagination” – and really draw upon our own knowledges of different perspectives and experiences, with the focus on China and beyond. So that is to say, we recognise the potential bias in assumptions that may underline western China centric approach, and we really try to overcome them by engaging in dialogues and debates with both western and non western scholars who share the same educational concerns with us. 

One of the things we want to really highlight is to mobilise Kuan-Hsing Chen’s concept of Asia as Method, for genuine epistemic plurality. We really need to return to this core theoretical proposition. His work is not to offer “Asian” theory to replace western theory. His method is decentering practice to achieve what he calls the de-imperialisation. So we must really think about his core operational tool inter-referencing, that we build strongly in our special issue. This means using the historical experiences, cultural resources, and social theories from within Asia to understand each other. And this creates – a networked, horizontal understanding. It prevents any single society – be it China, Japan or India –  from becoming the new model. Also when we embrace Chen’s idea of Asia as an imaginary anchoring point – it is not a fixed geographic or civilization entity. It means that we are really actively centering the marginalised voices within our Asian society. And our focus is really about understanding the internal multiplicity – that is not really about building a monolithic Asian centre of authority. And last but not least, it can highlight a foundation for our special issue – is Chen’s project of de-imperialisation. This is a critical self reflexive process for us to really examine any societies own imperialist tendency. We are not really using Asia as a Method to emphasise or promote either Asian values, or any kind of supremacy.  The true power of Asia as Method is really as a tool for internal critique and building solidarity. It is not for geopolitical branding. 

So now I can go into a more specific way, what kind of factors – Yun, Ting and I –  used  to consider while inviting authors to contribute to our special issue. So as guest editors, we really committed to understanding how this special issue is building – again as I mentioned – the solidarity among scholars, who share the similar approach.  And our criterias – guided by a combination of scholarly rigour, thematic relevance, and also everyone’s commitment to a diverse theoretical and methodological frameworks. So we sought the contributors who directly engage with our special issue focus on double negation –  ensuring that all the submissions address these core questions or address any gaps with debates outlining our call. We prioritised authors with a demonstrated record of research. We also really highlight and emphasise their methodological rigour and also innovative approach to comparative international education – about and beyond China. We also value contributors that bridge disciplines such as sociology of education, policy studies and so on. And last but not least, an important point is that our particular attention was paid to research ethics or positionalities and our reflectivity, especially, in this cross cultural dialogue. So now, without further ado, lets delve into our papers. The first one that we are highlighting today is titled, education as capital: discourse analysis of the investment discourse in international research on Chinese education. And we have three of our authors here,  myself included. And our colleague and project leader, Dr Xin Xiang and Dr Jing Jing Lou. And this article really examines the rise of human capital theory and investment discourse in education. We focus on Chinese rural education in English literature.  Let me introduce Xin Xiang as one of the authors of this project, and invite her to discuss the rise of human capital theory and investment discourse in education.

Xin Xiang

Thank you so much, Min. Hello everyone! I am Xiang Xin. Xiang is my surname and I’m associate professor at Beijing Normal university. Like Min said, this paper is part of an ongoing project that aims to unpack the dominant discourses underlying a growing body of English language academic literature on Chinese education. We identified 40 English language international journals with highest impact factors, in the fields and disciplines related to education. We downloaded all the articles they published on Chinese education since 1978 – the year that China initiated market oriented reforms. Among 171 articles that focused on Chinese rural education, nearly a third conceptualised education as a form of investment in human capital and examined returns to or cost effectiveness of this investment. We called the set of metaphors the “investment discourse”. It is the fastest growing discourse that we identified in the entire data set. Therefore, we decided to take a good look at how it came about. Human capital theory emerged in the US in the early 1960s, when American economists were preoccupied with identifying the causes and levers to propel economic growth in heightened competition of the Cold War era. Initially, American economists, politicians and lobbyists embraced this idea in the campaign to expand the federal government’s role in education in the US. However, this discourse is quickly disseminated around the world thanks to the leading role of the US in international organisations and global politics. By the 1980s and 1990s the investment discourse had become an important tool to legitimise neoliberal reform agendas –  like introducing tuition fees or cost sharing schemes around the globe. It is in this context that economists began to gain access to Chinese data and Chinese scholars began publishing internationally. The investment discourse has become so taken for granted that, in our sample, many articles don’t even need to provide any references when evoking concepts like human capital and returns to education. In the 1990s, scholars measured private returns to education to advocate for the legitimacy of growing income inequality. And in the 2000s a cluster of articles debated whether parental migration had a negative or positive impact on the human capital accumulation of their children. These articles use Chinese data to answer theoretical questions in migrational studies, with hardly any attention to the real needs of the rural migrant communities they study or the structural inequality that deprive children of parental presence or any opportunities in the first place. I also personally feel the consequences of the dominance of the investment discourse. 

Apart from my academic role, I’ve been the leader of a grassroots educational nonprofit organisation for 16 years.  And the past five years or so, I witnessed several important Chinese philanthropic foundations moving their money to early childhood interventions – sometimes leaving gaping holes in the fields that they had previously invested in, and perhaps now left. Their rationale sounds familiar: scientists have shown that investing in the first three years of life is much more cost effective than in later stages of life. This scientific research base that they reference, when they do, are exactly the kind of articles that we encounter in this data set. While this is a Chinese experience, I suspect it has wide residences in other developing countries as well. And with that I turn to our co-authored Jing Jing Lou to tell us more about the methodological approach we used in this paper as well as its connection to the double negation. 

Jing Jing Lou

Thank you for laying the context of our study, and for your introduction. Hello all, my name is Jing Jing Lou, a faculty at Beloit College here in Wisconsin. Now I’m going to speak about the methodology we used in this study. As Xin already mentioned, we did a critical discourse analysis of 38 highly cited English language articles published between 1978 and 2022, across 4 decades. This paper has really shaped how the world thinks about rural China. So we wanted to see how they construct that story. We used Ruth Wodak’s critical discourse analysis. And for coding ideas, we looked at the texts on three levels: 1st at the textual level –  we asked what words and concepts keep appearing, how are rural children described: for example girls’ lower enrollment was often explained as low demand for schooling. This turns a complex social reality into a simple cost benefit calculation and that alone tells you a lot about the mindset. Then we put back a look at discursive practice.  Basically, the academic ecosystem this article is living in –  who gets cited, and what theories are assumed. Many authors were trained in the US or other Western countries, so they naturally choose all those frameworks. The rise of randomised controlled trials in the 2010s – is another example. Western scholars often directly apply western economic frames to the context of Chinese rural and migrant communities. And this is even the case when they work closely with local partners. So the tools that scholars use aren’t really neutral, as you can see. They are shaped by training and networks. But finally we looked at the larger social context. For example, China’s push to internationalise its research incentives to publish social science citation index journals and the global spread of neoliberal thinking – this all pushed scholars toward investment oriented language. When you put all this together, it becomes clear why human capital discourse feels so “natural” in this field. Altogether, this three-step analysis helped us to show not just the dominance of investment discourse but how it gets reproduced even by scholars who genuinely wanted to address rural inequality.

So next, I’m also going to address the second question about double negation rejecting both coloniality and nationalism – which is the theme of our special issue. Our case really shows why both sides matter. On one hand, coloniality is still very alive and present. Western economic frameworks dominate so strongly that they end up defining what counts as a real problem in Chinese education. Take the left behind children as an example  – instead of talking about structural issues like China’s hukou system, many articles described the situation as a problem of human capital accumulation. So the framework actually narrows what we’re allowed to see. But at the same time, we’re very cautious about the other side – as our guest editors have already specified – pushing back against western dominance doesn’t mean we want to replace it with a single state-centred Chinese narrative. Because that can create new exclusions. China’s emphasis on building global discourse power can sometimes shift in that direction and there can shut down plural voices just as quickly. So in our article, we try to open up space for more plural forms of knowledge. One example we mentioned is Professor Wang’s work which we discussed at the end of the article. Wang challenges conventional human capital theory and develops an alternative framework which takes into consideration both western and Chinese historical educational tradition – its creative, grounded, and deeply dialogic We also draw inspiration from postcolonial scholarships that remind us that knowledge shouldn’t have a single centre. For us, double negation means saying no to both western universalism and nationalist universalism. Instead, we keep the space open for multiple ways of knowing – grounded in local histories and communities but still in dialogue with the wider world. Now I’m going to turn it over to the next speaker.

Yun You

That’s really amazing! Thanks to Min, Xing, and Jing Jing – authors of our first paper . Now let’s move to the second one – Policy mobilities, networks, and minjian as a method for reimagining decoloniality: following the policy learning experiment with international curricula in Shanghai, by my dear colleague Jin Jin. Jin Jin, could you please share with us the main findings of your work and particularly I’m super interested in what is the minjian perspective and how does this help to (re) imagine the potential for global pluriversality?

Jin Jin

OK thank you, Yun, for your introduction. I am Jin Jin. I am an Associate professor from East China Normal University. And my paper focuses on a policy mobility case in Shanghai. We know that the Shanghai government once used international curriculums as sources of reference to inform local education reform and respond to new globalisation demands. And I demonstrate in this paper how normal teachers and school teachers, interpret the value of international curriculum, and also modify and adapt international curriculum according to the local policy demands and conditions and situations. So I demonstrate four approaches of these teachers receiving and translating the international curriculum in Shanghai, which I call:  Policy weaving, Policy segregating, Policy fabricating, and the fourth approach is Policy dialoguing. And I demonstrate in this paper how the four approaches are situated and shaped by different kinds of structures of power, which are either West central or China centric – or the intersections between the two sides of dominations and structures. 

On the one hand, I actually demonstrate and discuss how teachers are situated and shaped by structures. But also in this paper, I demonstrate how normal teachers demonstrate creativity and agency to resist the pressure from both sides and to achieve some kind of equal international dialogue in their everyday teaching practice. So these are the main findings of my paper. But I particularly want to say why I use the minjian perspective,  and actually the perspective of minjian is from Chen Kuan-Hsing’s book Asia as Method, just as mentioned by Min before. Chen Kuan-Hsing  discusses the differences between minjian and civil society, the notion that is normally used to indicate non-state actors. We imagine non state actors, like civil society, can resist the agenda of the state or the pressures of the state. But Chen Kuan-Hsing  remind us that civil society, in Asian societies, is often constituted by middle class or upper class social elites. And the civil society often unite with the state, rather than against the state to suppress the power of minjian, or the voices of minjian. So we need to use the more localised version to indicate how non-state actors help people to form public space and to resist the agenda of the state, and also resist from the power from the civil society. So I used the perspective minjian, here in this paper, to show how the normal people should, on the one hand, resist from civil society and also from the state – the power of the state – and to achieve some kind of more equal dialogue with national and external experiences. And  the second difference, between minjian and civil society –  I want to emphasise here is the ways of civil society to resist the state are often highly politically visible and organising ways. But the ways of minjian resistance are flexible and unofficial. So, I demonstrate in this paper that maybe in the future analysis, we should pay more attention to more particular ways like resistance in Asian society or like the non-western societies to highlight and to show more particular forms, and different forms of resistance, in these societies. And use that evidence to reflect on the more popular ways and westernise ways of resistance and to re-imagine governance and democracy. So this is what I discussed in my paper. And Yu Min, could you please add your thoughts about how Chinese scholars can negotiate the tension between global educational conventions and the pursuit of alternative conceptual pathways, because I know you are also doing some research about minjian.

Min Yu

Thank you, Jin Jin. These two papers are excellent examples of Chinese scholars’ excellent reflexive engagement for our themes of double negation – to avoid reproducing the western centrism or nationalism that works in Chinese contexts. And I would like to expand how our collective understanding and conversation throughout this process of the special issue –  to really see how Chinese scholars in China negotiated tensions between global education convergence in the pursuit of our alternative conceptual pathway. So scholars in China navigate the tension between global educational convergence and alternative pathways – not as a binary choice rather through a complex process, as we call it – the strategic hybridisation, and also discursively framing and pragmatic negotiation. The context of global educational convergence really includes the pressures from the dominance of western centric theories such as the human capital theories, that we have talked about this special issue, as well as neoliberalism. And also include methodology such as the quantitative methodology primacy; the specific forms of peer review; publication norms in such as English language journals; and also including the global university ranking system. And in that context, the pursuit of alternative pathways is driven by –  kind of parallel with the official discourse of socialism with Chinese characters. But the call of this alternative pathway is not quite the political move – that it is really a call to construct a different way of understanding Chinese education and its desire to learn from, but not replicate western model. So this includes providing traditional concepts, developing indigenous theories, and promoting policy models with global relevance but local significance. And one of the things that we would like to highlight, hopefully our special issue, is one of those efforts. Chinese scholars do not simply resist or submit to global convergence. A lot of the scholars mediate, translate. and hybridise – they are really agents of in a way the global convergence, and using these tools and forms, but really I call that they are conservators of local distinctiveness. Their negotiation is continual dynamic practice of finding a third space: it’s contributing to global knowledge while also defining and redefining and validating the Chinese educational experiences as a meaningful alternative pathway. One of the efforts is to really make the Chinese case as a critical lens in understanding the global politics of knowledge production in comparative education, specifically. For the interest of time, I would like to briefly mention several key strategies deployed by the scholars – such as actively translating, adapting global concepts such as critical thinking, student centred learning, quality education – to align with the Chinese philosophical and political contexts. This often means, we see articles really using this concept but inflicted with local values. Another strategy of Chinese scholars is truly combining elements of global theory with indigenous concepts – for example we see articles not necessary, in our special issue, but in other comparative journals analysing classroom culture – through both western constructivism and Confucius’ notion of teacher authority and social harmony. And we also see scholars engage with global literature to demonstrate awareness, and also spontaneous movement to create space to critique its limitations, and then introduce Chinese literature and theories or counterpoints. Scholars also study global convergent topics such as stem education, globalisation of higher education, etc. but through distinct Chinese cases, thereby, contributing to alternative empirical and theoretical perspective to the global conversation. In addition to academic publications and professional organisation involvement, scholars in China have also participated in global initiatives such as engaging in forums like the world education forum of UNESCO project, where they can really present the Chinese model as a legitimate alternative within our global arena. Additional things, last but not least, is really collaborating more with scholars from Asia, Africa, and the global South –  creating discursive spaces that are less dominated by western paradigms –  where the Chinese experiences may resonate more strongly as an alternative. These are the observations and conversations that we have had about the process of  making the special issue. And now I will invite Xiang Xin to talk about – What kinds of intellectual labour are needed to situate Chinese experiences within a genuinely diverse knowledge ecology?

Xin Xiang

Thank you, Min. I have to say that the experience of writing this paper is a personally liberating and mind opening one for me. Trained in the US, many of the articles that we analysed in this project – are the ones that I grew up reading as a doctoral student. I’ve always felt discomfort with them but I didn’t have the language to unpack them at the time. And in the process of carrying out discourse analysis on this sample, my co-authors and I had a series of reflexive and revelatory conversations about our experiences of engaging with this dominant framework. I feel like I’m finally able to articulate those discomforts that once puzzled me. And also in the process of revising the paper and peer review, we received questions about what we want to apply in place of human capital theory and the investment discourse. This question helped us sharpen our arguments. Our aim is not to trash the human capital theory or the investment discourse. As we mentioned  in the article, we believe it’s actually a useful and sometimes necessary consideration in many arenas. What we want to move away from is the taken for granted application of dominant frameworks – like human capital theory – without critical examination of its underlying assumptions and discursive consequences in light of concrete contexts. For me, writing this article feels like a start of articulating the problem and then moving beyond critique to imagine pluriversal alternatives that are more responsive to local ecologies and real problems in practice. And also invite Jing Jing to respond to the same question. 

Jing Jing

I would like to echo what Xiang has already shared. Writing this paper was actually a very personal experience for me. As I was reading the 38 articles, I kept recognising pieces of my own training and my own scholarly journey. Many of the authors we critique were Chinese scholars educated in the US or UK – just like myself. So, when we started pointing out how western economic frameworks dominate the field – I had this mix of discomfort and recognition because I’ve used those same frameworks without critical examination as well. I was not just critiquing others. I was also grappling with my own intellectual habits, and that created a kind of emotional complexity throughout the writing process. Another challenge with that – when we try to look for more plural or locally grounded approaches,  they are almost impossible to find in the high impact English language literature. That was not unexpected but still shockingly eye opening. The knowledge that offered real alternatives, knowledge grounded in Chinese history, rural culture, community perspectives – that kind of knowledge was largely absent. A perfect example is one article which I mentioned earlier Professor Wang received her PhD at University of California at Berkeley. She returned to China afterwards, and is now education professor at Peking university. In her article, she brings western economics into dialogue with Chinese history and cultural traditions and local understandings of the concept of human capital. This is the kind of relational dialogic, that is deeply contextual work we need more of.  But because it was published in Chinese and in a Chinese journal and doesn’t fit western citation norms, it has no visibility in global citation networks. That really drove home for me how the structures of global publishing filter out the very ideas that could make knowledge production more diverse and more honest. And layered on top of that is a geopolitical tension we’re all living through. As the Chinese born scholar currently working in North America, it’s a constant balancing act. On the one hand, my co-authors and I want to challenge western dominance in knowledge production. On the other hand, we were also cautious about not reinforcing state nationalism. Supporting Chinese knowledge doesn’t mean supporting a nationalist project. But sometimes those things get collapsed together. So a lot of writing continues to sit with that tension – wanting to open space for Chinese perspectives without turning them into another universal or another centre or power. In the end, when I think about the intellectual labour required for pluriversal knowledge ecology, it’s really about doing all of that – all at once. Being reflexive of our own positions – actually seeking out marginalised or overlooked knowledge, and building a way of thinking that invites multiple voices in. Rather than replacing one dominant voice with another. In many ways, writing this paper was practising that kind of work in real time. And I’m genuinely grateful to have shared that intellectually illuminating journey with my amazing co-authors. And now I am going to turn over to Yun.

Yun You

Jing Jing, I would like to ask you an extra question. Jing Jing Lou, How does your paper offer a decolonial perspective to inform non-Western education and practice?

Jing Jing

So what we hope our paper contributes is a very practical decolonial perspective for people who study education outside the West, especially in places like China. A lot of the international research on Chinese rural school –  education has been shaped by western economic theories, particularly human capital, as we already laid out in our paper.These frameworks are powerful but they are also limiting. The tension that frames educational problems as issues of efficiency or returns on investment, rather than looking at social, cultural or political histories. And when one framework becomes dominant as such, it narrows what researchers and policy makers can even imagine as a solution. Therefore, one decolonial move we make is simply to show how this dominance works –  how coloniality gets reproduced though citation networks; in changing pathways; in what gets counted as “rigorous” research. By making those structures visible, we create openings for non western scholars to question them rather than inherit them. The second decolonial contribution is an invitation to look for and value knowledge rooted in local histories, cultural practices, and educational tradition. Just like the scholar we talk briefly about Professor Wang’s work who interprets human capital theory through Chinese historical understandings of education, but also having a dialogue with western history tradition and theories. Work like hers demonstrates that alternative frameworks already exist – they’re just not recognised because they sit outside English language high impact publishing circuits. And finally, we emphasise that decolonial research doesn’t mean replacing western frameworks with a nationalist or centre Chinese framework –  that would simply reproduce another hierarchy. What we are suggesting is a more plural, dialogic approach –  where western research can draw on multiple traditions, and at the same time, feel confident that these perspectives are legitimate forms of theorising – not just local colour. That’s exactly what our special issue is trying to do the work right here. So to conclude, our paper offers a kind of road map that shows where coloniality operates in the field. It brings attention to non western contributions that have been overlooked. And it encourages scholars to build educational research that grows out of their own histories and contexts, rather than defaulting to imported categories. And this isn’t only important for research on China – it speaks to the challenges faced by many postcolonial societies navigating similar tensions, in how knowledge is produced and valued. Thank you for the opportunity to answer this question. 

Yun You

That really speaks to my mind.Thank you so much. Now, Min, as guest editor –  could you please tell us one key message that you want the readers to grasp from our special issue.

Min Yu

Thank you, Yun. I think there is many that we want our readers to grasp. But from my own perspective, I think if I can only say one. I hope that our goal is really to develop a kind of interpretive frame of multiple references –  that tends to some confusions, some struggles, and negotiation and mediation and resistance –  deeply and constantly experienced by Chinese and other non western scholars. And I hope that this special issue is just an invitation, not an end point, to really invite scholars, practitioners, and students, committee members to really join this conversation – and to go through the interpretation and negotiation together – to really understanding, what we highlight through our papers – and really understanding the inter-referencing, and how do we really achieve that multiple understanding of whose knowledge counts and what kind of knowledge is shared. And really understanding the educational concerns throughout different contexts. Thank you.

What about you, Yun? What’s your key message that you want the readers to take away?

Yun You

Actually, something very similar to what you just said. I feel like I don’t need to repeat. Probably provide the shortened version. So for me, our special issue is just an initial attempt, and definitely there are limitations, but I just like what Min emphasised, we do hope it can serve as an invite for further dialogue – advancing our thinking and practise on decoloniality.

And lastly, we would like to invite all of you to explore more about this special issue –  including four papers that we didn’t get chance to introduce to you in this episode: Chen Licui’s paper on teaching research officer and, Wang Xi and Wang Ting’s  paper about philosophy for children – how the school curriculum is implemented in China. And also my own paper challenging the cross-cultural comparability of the OECD’s studies on social and emotional skills. And also Wang Ting’s paper about the under-representation of women leaders in higher education in China.

Yun You

That’s all for today. Thank you to everyone listening. We hope this episode has given you plenty to think about – it definitely has to us and for Compare. Stay tuned for more episodes in the Compare and 糖心传媒 podcast series!

Papers being discussed in the podcast

Ting Wang, Yun You and Min Yu. Transcending Western-Centrism and Nationalism in Education: China and Beyond

Jin Jin (20 Nov 2024): Policy mobilities, networks, and minjian as method for reimagining decoloniality: following the policy learning experiment with international curricula in Shanghai, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2024.2429830

Xin Xiang, Jingjing Lou, Min Yu & Jun Teng (20 Nov 2024): Education as capital? A critical discourse analysis of the investment discourse in international research on

Chinese rural education, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2024.2429836

Papers in the special issue

Yun You (22 Jan 2025): Measuring social and emotional development with a ‘Western ruler’: problematising the ‘cross-cultural comparability’ of the Study on Social and Emotional Skills, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2025.2452460

Ting Wang (22 May 2025): Demystifying underrepresentation of women leaders in higher education: comparative perspectives on gender-based leadership barriers and gender equality, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2025.2500300

Licui Chen (13 Jan 2025): Leading teacher professional learning for system-wide change: the leadership practices of teaching research officers (jiaoyanyuan) in China, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2025.2452466

Xi Wang & Ting Wang (16 May 2025): Teachers’ perspectives on Chinese philosophy and philosophy for children: navigating practical tensions in Chinese school settings, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI:10.1080/03057925.2025.2500304