Educational Policy Borrowing in China ─ Looking West or Looking East?

For over a decade, Mainland China has been embarking on an ambitious nation-wide education reform for its primary and secondary education. The reform reflects China’s propensity to borrow selected educational ideas and practices from elsewhere, particularly ‘Western’ countries such as the United States and the European countries. Chinese scholars have used a local proverb "the West wind has overpowered the East wind" to describe this phenomenon of ‘looking West’.

But what do we mean by ‘looking West’?

• What are the perceived educational ideas and practices that have been borrowed from the West in the current education reform in China?

• To what extent have the borrowed educational ideas and practices for the current education reform in China been accepted, modified, and rejected by the various educational stakeholders?

• How does culture influence the various educational stakeholders in China in interpreting and mediating educational borrowing from the West?

• How do the findings of this study on China’s education reform inform and add to the existing theories on and approaches to on cross-cultural educational borrowing?

This book answers the above question by critically discussing China’s borrowing from the West through its current educational reform. It presents the latest research findings from a three-year empirical study (2013-2015) with school principals, teachers, students and other educational stakeholders across China. This study offers new insights into China’s educational borrowing from the West and international implications on cross-cultural educational transfer for academics, policymakers and educators.

Charlene Tan is an associate professor at the Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. A visiting scholar at the Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University in 2013, she has been teaching school leaders, teachers and administrators from various parts of China since 2008.