Wing-Wah Law

Globalization and Citizenship Education in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In recent decades, educational and curricular reforms worldwide have been designed with the goal of preparing citizens for the challenges of globalization. Globalization has been thought to require the broadening of children’s occupational perspectives beyond conventional geopolitical borders and cultures. And this requirement has led to doubts about the importance of borders and nation-states and to calls for a multileveled citizenship polity. Notwithstanding the demands to create global citizens, in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, as will be shown in this essay, school curricula have responded to contemporary sociopolitical changes primarily in relation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Recent reforms in both Hong Kong and Taiwan have emphasized generic and transnational skills, such as English proficiency and information technology, and developed tripartite frameworks for citizenship education at local, national, and global levels. At the same time, the schools of both polities have included local languages, histories, and identities into their curricula, in each case expressing a different relation with the PRC when refocusing their national identities. In sum, the schools of both societies have paid more attention to local and national than to global concerns. In this sense, the reconfiguration of citizenship and citizenship education in Hong Kong and Taiwan are useful counterexamples to the predictions of transnational convergence offered by some globalization theorists.

Education Reform in Taiwan: A Search for a "National" Identity through Democratisation and Taiwanisation.

Recent studies on globalisation and the literature of democratisation of society and education cannot explain the complicated interplay between democratisation, localisation and the pursuit of national identity in both education and the broader society of Taiwan between the late 1980s and 2000. The paper argues that these three processes are indivisible in Taiwan. They involve not only the reallocation of power between the state, society and education, but also the redefinition of the territorial and social components of Taiwanese national identity in relation to the Chinese mainland. In particular, social pressure groups, teachers and parents are empowered in policymaking processes at various levels, whilst the power of school principals and education officials to respond to these pressure groups is limited. The role of the school curriculum is now reversed from suppressing to promoting ethnic cultures and identities as points of a new collective identity: Taiwan people with Taiwan as their ultimate homeland.

The Role of the State in Higher Education Reform: Mainland China and Taiwan.

The higher education systems of mainland China and Taiwan, dominated by single ruling parties for more than 4 decades, are decentralizing concurrently with larger societal changes that began in the 1980s. Market forces now are incorporated into the socialist economy of mainland China, whereas opposition is institutionalized in Taiwans national political structure. Despite disparate social transformations, formerly state-exclusive institutional powers are devolving to individual universities and colleges on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Citizenship, citizenship education, and the state in China in a global age

Citizenship and citizenship education change during periods of social transition, such as globalization. As globalists have argued, while globalization undermines the state, local institutions, values, cultures, and identities, it also facilitates liberal democracy and a common consumer culture. Citizenship education is urged to respond to globalization and its impact on both global and local communities. In reality, virtually no nation state adopts merely global citizenship; rather, they adopt frameworks of multileveled/multidimensional citizenship. With particular reference to citizenship education in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), this paper challenges globalists views for over‐exaggerating the domination of global forces over domestic ones. In particular, the paper examines the complicated struggles associated with the reconfiguration of the PRCs socialist citizenship and citizenship education that have occurred in response to social changes, including globalization. The paper explains the role of the PRCs state in such reconfiguration and offers a new framework that regards citizenship education as being based on different players sociopolitical selections from a multileveled polity.

Legislation, education reform and social transformation: The People's Republic of China's experience

Abstract With special reference to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), this paper examines relationships between law, education reform and social transformation that have been under-researched. The argument is that, despite national leaders high expectations, the use of law to effect or consolidate educational reform in the PRC is affected by both legal and extra-legal factors such as politics, economics, and social norms and cultures. The paper first establishes a framework within which the PRC is analyzed. Secondly, the paper looks into the policy context in which the PRC adopts the strategy of using law to govern the nation and education, and examines the contrasting scenarios between promotion of governance of education with the law, and public defiance of education laws in the PRC. Thirdly, the paper analyzes the deep-seated problems behind the scenario in the wider social and political contexts that shape education and law, and examines the role of law in governance and social change.

Fortress State, Cultural Continuities and Economic Change: Higher education in mainland China and Taiwan

Since 1949, the higher education systems in mainland China and Taiwan have been developed in disparate geopolitical and social contexts, but have faced similar dilemmas between economic and cultural tasks. The dilemma has lasted in China for more than two centuries and nowadays can also be located in many developing industrializing countries. The article offers the concept of fortress state to explain how between 1949 and 1995 these two were affected by both domestic and international factors. In particular, the role of higher education as an agent of both political socialization and economic modernization is analyzed in the context of the transformations in the two contemporary Chinese societies. The article also examines how cultural traditions, the upholding of a national belief system, nation building and the foreign relations of mainland China and Taiwan help maintain the two-century old tension between economic modernization and the preservation of a cultural and national identity.

Globalization as Both Threat and Opportunity for the Hong Kong Teaching Profession

The paper examines the roles of theHong Kong government, schools and teachers inthe translation of global economic imperativesinto demands on education, and how suchtranslation affects the teaching profession.Two global imperatives are selected forillustration because of their peculiarforegrounding by the Hong Kong government:international (English) language proficiencyand competence in information technology. Thepaper argues that preparation for economicglobalization not only poses a threat, but alsocreates an opportunity for the development ofthe teaching profession, and that this dependsto a large extent on how the governmenttranslates these global imperatives intodemands on teachers. The government is theprincipal actor in the selection andtranslation of global imperatives. Schools arenot just brokers and enforcers of governmentpolicy, but can be an important buffer betweenthe government and teachers by helping themcope with the imposed imperatives at the schoollevel. Teachers can be key players in acceptingor rejecting such imperatives. Governmentstrategies that are insensitive to teachersneeds and practical concerns create moreproblems than solutions.

The Accommodation and Resistance to the Decolonisation, Neocolonisation and Recolonisation of Higher Education in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT On 1 July 1997, sovereignty over Hong Kong was returned from the UK to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). This article identifies the impact of such a political transition on the Hong Kong higher education system during the transitional period between 1982 and 1997. The struggles among the departing and incoming sovereign powers and local groups are also examined. The article argues that, during this period, three related colonial transition processes-decolonisation, neocolonisation and recolonisation-co-existed in Hong Kong higher education within the framework of one country, two systems. These processes can be seen as resistance to each other: for example, neocolonisation as resistance to decolonisation and recolonisation as resistance to neocolonisation. They are further complicated by the spectra of their accommodation and resistance by the three major actors. On different occasions, the local government and groups played different or even contradictory roles as decolonising, neocolonis...

Understanding China’s curriculum reform for the 21st century

This article uses curriculum-making frameworks to analyse and reconstruct the Chinese curriculum-making model and unpack the dynamics, complexity and constraints of China’s curriculum reform since the early 1990s. It argues that curriculum reform is China’s main human capital development strategy for coping with the challenges of the 21st century, and that the state plays an important role in the reform of curriculum-making mechanisms and in the social distribution of knowledge, skills and dispositions through curriculum making. Data are drawn from a discourse analysis of public texts, such as official documents and curriculum standards. This study has four major findings. First, China uses curriculum reform as a key strategy to counter manpower-related global challenges and to empower the country in the 21st century. Second, to this end, China has re-oriented its curriculum making from a state-dominated model to one that is state-led, expert-assisted and evidence-based. Third, China’s new curriculum reflects the increasing tension between globalization and nationalism; while preparing its students to compete globally, China also urges them to identify with and take pride in the nation’s achievements and culture. Fourth, Chinese curriculum reform for the 21st century may not unfold as the state expects, as it is constrained by curricular and extra-curricular factors.

Culture and school leadership in China: Exploring school leaders' views of relationship- and rule-based governance

Numerous Chinese management studies have demonstrated significant differences between Chinese and Western management. This exploratory paper investigates the impact of Chinese culture and Western traditions on Chinas contemporary school leaders views of leadership and management, particularly in the areas of relationship building, delegation, and promotion. Data were drawn from questionnaires completed by school leaders and individual interviews with principals from different parts of China. The findings indicate that the differences between Chinese and Western management practices in Chinese schools are not static and should not be over-stressed. To different extents, the respondent school leaders of China were affected by both Chinese and Western values and practices in school leadership and management. Specifically, they were more influenced by Chinese culture in the areas of school management and organization and by Western values and practices in the areas of relationship building, staff performance, and promotion. Their leadership and management preferences were also influenced by other factors, including gender, domestic politics, and development.