The nurturing of creative talent is a significant and urgent matter. However, what constitutes creative talent, and how to identify and educate them-these issues still await good theoretical answers and practical guidance. This article is intended to address human creative potential in terms of how it develops and leads to creative accomplishments, and how educational and social interventions can be designed accordingly to identify, nurture, and culturally support the development of creative productivity. For the nature of creative talent, the article identifies five types of innovations and three types of creative talent. For identification, it is proposed that identification should be more dynamic and developmentally responsive. For nurturing creativity, a three-phase developmental and domain-specific approach is proposed. For cultural support, several issues are brought up as to what constitutes a creativity-friendly culture. Finally, the article proposes a set of five strategic considerations for implementing such a practical agenda, and for guiding policy, the article suggests four principles to follow, as well as precaution for conceptual traps that might hinder this line of work.
In order to find out the problems and then provide empirical basis for the reform of pay system of Chinese university staff, the current study analyzes the actual and expected pay level and pay mix of Chinese university staff by using administrative data and large-scale micro survey data, and draws the following conclusions. The pay level of Chinese university staffs is relatively competitive in China, but it is not internationally competitive enough. The annual pay and its components of most staff are lower than the average, and the pay expectation of the vast majority of staffs is higher than the actual pay. The proportion of the base pay of university staff in the monthly pay is low, and it is lower than their expectation. The proportion of faculties in the “Double First-Class” universities and staff in the eastern regions expecting salary increases is significantly higher than that of other staff. Based on the above research findings, the study proposes three suggestions on raising pay level and optimizing pay mix to facilitate the reform of pay system of Chinese university faculty.
Promoting the reform of university faculty’ salary system is an important means to improve the qualifications of university faculties. The base salary system should be brought into theoretical discussion and practical reform because of its dual functions of security and incentive for university faculty. Based on relevant policies, administrative data and universities faculty’ salaries survey data, this study analyzes the implementation of the university faculty’ base salary system in China. We find that the base salary system has some problems, such as centralized management, inconsistency between basic salary level and local economic development level, low starting point, low proportion of base salary, inconsistency between the design of salary grade and the law of salary management, and failure of salary adjustment to achieve policy expectations, which inhibits security and incentive effect of base salary. In view of the above problems, combined with the salary management theory, the following policy implications are proposed. Firstly, the human resources and social security departments of central government should establish a unified national base salary system for university faculty, and the provincial government should formulate an overall base salary scale. Secondly, the minimum of base salary of university faculty and the base salary of faculties in developed provinces should be raised moderately to ensure their actual purchasing power. Thirdly, simplify the elements of university faculty’ salary and gradually increase the proportion of base salary. Fourthly, improve the grade difference of the base salary at each post level, and adjust the floating range of the base salary to enhance the medium and long-term incentive effect on faculties. Finally, the adjustment of base salary scale should take into account its proportion in total salary and its grade, and ensure that the increase of base salary and the proportion of base salary in total salary are reasonable.
Based on the survey data of faculty in Chinese universities, this paper draws the findings that the grade wage, increasing with faculty’s experience, has a limited function of retaining faculty, while the seniority allowance or seniority wage system set up by colleges and universities can effectively reduce the probability of faculty leaving the current position. According to the seniority wage dispersion model, the starting levels of seniority wages are estimated for lecturers, associate professors, and professors, respectively. And this paper further designs the seniority wage growth mechanism of each professional referring to the increase mechanism of the grade wage. In this study, we propose establishing the seniority wage system to serve as a beneficial supplement to the grade wage system to enhance the retention function of faculty’s compensation.
The ChatGPT has both positive and negative effects on education. The field of education should consider not only how to empower students to meet the challenges posed by AI, but also how to develop students’ competency to adapt to AI. In this paper, we refer to this competency as AI competency, i.e., the core competency of students with both domain specificity and domain generality cultivated through AI education. AI competency is a new competency arising from the development of AI technology. Technology ontology, philosophical epistemology and educational psychology are interconnected to understand the essence and composition of AI competency. From the perspective of technology ontology, this paper analyzes the essence of AI competency-the technicalization of human beings. From the perspective of philosophical epistemology and educational psychology, this paper analyzes the composition of AI competency. Key competency development is essentially a dynamic transformation process of “knowledge and thinking”. Affectivity, as a knowledge-derived emotional experience, not only nourishes the process of knowledge construction and thinking development, but also serves as the foundation and source for acquiring moral conceptions. Thus, the interplay of knowledge, affectivity and thinking underpins the logic of students’ AI competency. In this vein, this paper constructs an evaluation system of AI competency based on three dimensions: AI knowledge, AI affectivity, and AI thinking.
Herbart’s aesthetics has not got due attention and elucidation in the field of aesthetics and pedagogy. This study aims to posit that Herbart constructed a vision of aesthetic anthropology, including multiple theories concerning ethics, pedagogy, and art. In this kind of aesthetic anthropology, aesthetic principles with the core feature of aesthetic judgment run through almost each aspect of the human practice, highlighting “interest in ethics” in particular. Building the basic principles of ethics on aesthetics, Herbart proposed the mechanism of incorporating aesthetics and ethics, and oriented it to the human formation (Bildung). Only along the way of aesthetics could the education act aiming at human formation promote forming moral character. Instruction and discipline are educational because of this. From such a view of aesthetic anthropology to identify Herbart’s pedagogy, the contemporary meaning of his educational thought could be fully demonstrated.
This paper reports the iterative development of education quality monitoring in Zhejiang Province from “professional support” to “independent monitoring”, reflecting the value orientation of education quality monitoring in Zhejiang Province from “physical examination” to “practical guidance”. The paper introduces the systematic design of Zhejiang education quality monitoring indicator system from two aspects: the evaluation indicator framework of student development and growth environment, also the design basis of basic indicators and independent observation points. On this basis, this paper introduces the innovative ideas in thematic analysis from four aspects: combination analysis, model construction, thematic analysis and international comparison. Finally, the paper expounds the conclusions, findings and relevant practical guidance from six aspects: revealing students’ growth mechanism, focusing on learning quality and influencing mechanism, penetrating the essence of academic burden, promoting the transformation of school teaching management, and improving the family “soft environment”. All the above reflect the practical perspective ability, grass-roots development position and practical guidance orientation of Zhejiang education quality monitoring.
The brand-new algorithm relying on the advantages of framework, machine and embedding will change from a simple computing tool to a transaction operation rule with the construction of a digital platform, the mining of data resources and the design of human-machine interaction, and then evolve into an unavoidable power issue in the digital transformation of education. Dialectically speaking, the algorithmic power in the digital transformation of education is not only beneficial to managing risks, standardizing behaviors and assisting decision-making; It may also lead to the risk alienation, behavior degradation and decision-making imbalance of education due to its own limitations and the conflict between it and education. In order to regulate algorithm power into a safe and reliable “cage”, in addition to relying on the educational review of algorithm objectives, the educational interpretation of algorithm design, the educational supervision of algorithm operation, the educational identification of algorithm application, the educational filing of algorithm information, and the educational recognition of algorithm responsibility, we should build a normative mechanism from background, process to result. We should also appeal to the disenchantment, balance and sublation of education in algorithm, so as to highlight the balance thought of “inside but out”.
The formation of independent knowledge system marks mature discipline, prosperous scholarship and self-conscious discourse of Chinese pedagogy. Originated from “Western Learning Spreading to the East”, Chinese pedagogy repeatedly suffered from overwhelming destructions for more than 120 years. Whereas, Chinese pedagogy all along pursues nationality and succession as main line of independent knowledge construction, takes timeliness and originality as powerful drive for knowledge development, and persists in systematisms and professionality as basis of social identity. Chinese education has increasingly highlighted its properties as people’s wellbeing, national strategy and political arena with changing times for more than 70 years since the founding of PRC. The independent knowledge system of Chinese pedagogy consists of discipline system, academic system, discourse system, textbook system and governance system. Specifically, it is composed of iconic concepts and terminology, core knowledge and cutting-edge knowledge in terms of content formation. The knowledge production of Chinese pedagogy is achieved by academic discipline, school, association and publication. The knowledge development is propelled by mutual transformation of practice knowledge, policy knowledge and education thoughts. The characteristics of Chinese pedagogy stems from valuable tradition, vivid practice and idiographic issues of China’ education, and is based on disciplinary consciousness, academic autonomy and cultural confidence. It is imperative to properly cope with dialectics of Chinese characteristics and general knowledge, lay a solid foundation of education discipline and ignite originality of academic system, enhance coherence of textbook system, take leading role of governance system with all efforts to promote clear articulation, regular adoption, worldwide spreading and powerful impact of Chinese pedagogy.The end is to provide guidance of thoughts and foundation of theories for building education power.
“The governance of education in China” is a new concept frequently used by the educational field recently but lacks clear explanations. It is very necessary to understand the connotation of this concept to further promote the theoretical research and practical reform of educational governance. The research finds that “the governance of education in China” contains three connotations, including the original meaning of governance, the content of educational governance, and the guiding ideology and policy basis of national governance. The first connotation is rooted in two aspects of governance, namely “management” and “guidance”, from the perspective of the starting point or origin. The second connotation is from the perspective of domain and scope, which includes two aspects of “management” and “guidance” in educational governance. The third is from the perspective of value guidance, which is related to the spirit and policy of strengthening the leadership of the CPC, further improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and other “management”, as well as taking the people as the center, handling relations in all aspects, mobilizing enthusiasm in all aspects, and co-governance and sharing as the “guidance” side, as stated in Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Adhering to and Improving the System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics to Promote the Modernization of the National Governance System and Governance Capacity. The governance of education in China must comprehensively follow these three connotations to do a good job in educational governance.
In order to comprehensively understand and promote the change of teachers, it is necessary to deeply portray the process of the change of teachers. This study used epistemic network analysis and cross-lagged analysis to analyze big data on classroom teaching behaviors and practical knowledge of 41 teachers who had participated in a complete experiential learning circle in the COP program for a total of 4 semesters over 2 years, and obtained the evolutionary patterns of teachers’ change based on the experiential learning circle. It was found that there was a definite causal relationship between the knowledge components of teachers’ practical knowledge, such as educational beliefs, reflective knowledge and self-knowledge, and key teaching behaviors related to innovative changes in teaching, such as teachers encouraging students to ask questions and teachers asking high-order thinking questions. The evolution of practical knowledge as an internal characteristic of the change of teachers went through three stages: competitive coexistence, synergistic complementation, and synergistic transformation, while the teaching behaviors of encouraging students to ask questions and asking higher-order thinking questions as external characteristics of the change of teachers went through a quantitative change process from less to more. Practical knowledge and classroom teaching behaviors together as the internal cause of teachers’ change were the basis of teachers’ change, while the big data evidence-based course research support services provided by university researchers were the external cause of teachers’ change and constituted the conditions for teachers’ change, and the external cause induced the change of teachers through the internal cause.
As the problem of teacher overload is becoming acute day by day, both the Party and the Government have specifically enacted and implemented policies to reduce teachers’ workload so as to highlight the question about the effects of the curriculum development of AI-led instruction for teacher’s teaching load reduction in the context of intelligentied educational development. In this study, we use the integrated methodology to examine two issues of the effectiveness of teachers’ teaching load reduction of the AI-led lesson development and the differences between the teaching load reduction discourses of two groups of teachers: the ones assisting the AI-led instruction and the ones leading instruction. The results show that a new concept of teachers integrated teaching load, including time load, physical load, emotional load, and cognitive load, is constructed by using the dynamic temporal-spatial integration structural model of cultural holism to observe teachers’ teaching load, which provides a new theoretical framework for the research on teachers’ teaching load and load reduction. Using the method of cultural discourse analysis, we clarify the teacher’s load reduction effects of AI teacher-led lesson development on the abstract level, and reveals the cultural differences of experiences and explanations on the load reduction effects on the concrete level between the two groups of teachers, and construct a three-layer ring-shaped overall model of “teacher’s load reduction discourse structure”. Obviously, these suggest many implications for future practice and research on issues about the teacher’s load and load reduction, and the development of teachers’ researcher role as well as the innovation of high-quality classroom teaching.
The new college entrance examination reform gives students the right to choose, which not only broadens the choice space, advances the decision-making time, but also gives high school students expectations for a more sustainable future development. The guidance of subject selection has become an important opportunity and a powerful grasp for students’ current choice and long-term development. Based on the perspective of career education, it is of great significance to construct a “4-harmony” model, which includes coordination-based harmony of guiding objectives, merging-based harmony of contents, smoothness-based harmony of paths, and righteousness-based harmony of evaluation, whose utility and value can be tested through practical application, aiming at responding to the concerns of the times. The results show that this model can significantly reduce the decision-making difficulties of students in the course of subject selection, enhance their maturity in career development, thus forming a deep understanding of learning, and promote the transformation from superficial to deep learning motivation. Through the elaboration of the experimental results, it proves that the perspective of career education has a positive effect on the guidance of subject selection; on the other hand, it tests the reference of the “4-harmony” mode at the operational level.
Through the analysis of the data of 156,050 students in primary schools and 100,039 parents in 24 provinces in China, we found that student’s labor literacy is generally good, but there is still room for improvement,in particular,the “unity of knowledge and practice” of students’ labor, students’ concept of labor honor and disgrace, students’ willingness to housework, students’ labor creativity, students’ labor time, students’ labor initiative, students’ refined labor capacity need to be improved. The labor concept of urban pupils is significantly better than that of rural pupils; the labor capacity of pupils in the west is significantly higher than that of pupils in the central and east China; the labor participation of girls is significantly better than that of boys, and the labor capacity of third graders is significantly lower than that of fourth, fifth and sixth graders. Also,the number and types of labor courses and activities in school, special places and teachers of labor education, parents’ labor education concept, attitudes and participation have a positive impact on students’ labor literacy, among them, the types of school labor education courses and activities, and parents’ attitudes towards labor education have a greater impact. Being only child family, having a nanny care has a negative impact on students’ labor literacy, but the impact is relatively small. Accordingly, we put forward countermeasures and suggestions from the aspects of changing educational ideas, improving course content, optimizing teaching methods, paying attention to characteristic development, perfecting the coordination mechanism, and strengthening the condition guarantee.
Education governance under the “deficit remediation” has caused many problems in school education, while the principal positive leadership under the “advantage development” paradigm helps to shape the new momentum of school development. However, there are few studies on the effectiveness of principal positive leadership, and have not been systematically studied in the pre-dependent variable of school contexts. Therefore, this study used provincial large-scale survey data to construct a structural equation model and explore the influence of school contexts and principal positive leadership on student achievement. The findings showed that school contexts have significant positive influences on principal positive leadership. Besides, principal positive leadership, as a structural latent variable, has a significant positive impact on student achievement. In addition, the principal positive leadership has significant mediating effects when considering the influence from school contexts to the student achievement. Finally, the influence mechanism of positive leadership varies according to types of school autonomy. Therefore, it is argued that educational administrative departments and principals should recognize and pay attention to the important role of principal positive leadership in school improvement, enhance the principal’s contextual intelligence, build a “home-school collaborative education” support system, and ensure the school’s self-management space.
The early shapes of American children’s views are important conceptual foundation of American early education thought and practice, and the study of early American children’s view is of great significance to the study of American early education. There have been few studies on the early shapes of American children’s views, and they hold a labeled, simple and one-sided understanding like the theory of original sin leads to the concept of children’s guilt, and thus believes that children are treated ruthlessly, indifferently and roughly. By analyzing the contents of diaries, poems, sermons, catechisms and other historical materials in the colonial period, and re-examining the views on children in the United States in this period, it is found that the views on children in the colonial period are mainly attributed to Protestant factors. The colonists not only deduced the sinful nature behind the innocent and lovely image of children based on the theory of original sin, but also recognized the possibility of children becoming visible saints, that is, they believed that children were the synthesis of “innocent vipers” and “potential saints”. The early shapes of American children’s views are not only pessimistic but also optimistic. Correspondingly, the method of educating children is not only indifferent and rude, but also trains children through a combination of positive and negative interventions. This seemingly contradictory view of children stems from the fact that the colonists imposed a strong sense of Puritan mission on children and tried to use all possible means to sanctify them.
As an important part of people’s daily life, diary is not only a way of recording educational life, but also plays a crucial role in historical research and culture shaping. But the educational value of diary in personal growth, family inheritance, historical research and other aspects has not been fully excavated. Through a dialogue with Alan Macfarlane, Professor of Social Anthropology Department of Cambridge University, this paper reiterates the important educational value of diary, which could be used as a way of recording the educational life, as a research method in historical anthropology, and as an action path to promote the growth of teachers and students. It also explains the main reasons for writing diary and the supplementary forms of diary such as weekly diary, monthly diary and letter, and puts forward the new style of diary writing named community writing, combined with the concept of common life of reading and writing in the New Education Initiative.
Based on the valid data of 83,694 questionnaires on the reform of college entrance examination, the study examines the evaluation of the national college entrance examination system by high school students, college students, high school teachers, college teachers, parents, and social stakeholders. Through word frequency analysis, “fairness”, “high competition” and “pressure” are the most extensive and prominent evaluation of the college entrance examination system. Through the analysis of entropy value, the evaluation of the college entrance examination system is different among different stakeholders, showing different interests. Cluster analysis further verifies and deepens the conclusions of word frequency analysis and entropy analysis. In view of this, maintaining the fairness of the college entrance examination is still the most important prerequisite for the reform of the college entrance examination, and we should consider the interests of all stakeholders when promoting the reform of the college entrance examination, the policy evaluation of college entrance examination reform should be extended appropriately.
One of the goals of the new college entrance examination reform is to enable candidates to choose exam subjects independently. However, existing research has not reached a consensus on whether the new college entrance examination has increased students’ autonomy in subject selection. Based on 31,656 college students’ samples obtained from the “College Entrance Examination Reform Questionnaire Survey” in 2022, this paper randomly divided the samples into training group, verification group and test group according to the proportion of 70%, 15% and 15%, and constructed CatBoost regression Tree model with the training group. The model passed the test of the verification group and the test group. Empirical research based on this model has found that the new college entrance examination promotes students’ autonomy in subject selection and enhances their right to choose, but their choice power has decreased, rather than improved. The new college entrance examination has intensified the logical conflicts among candidates, parents, and high school teachers in choosing subjects, increasing the anxiety of candidates in choosing subjects. From the perspective of promoting students’ autonomous subject selection, the “3+1+2” model is a rational return to the reform of the college entrance examination, which is conducive to maintaining the stability and sustainability of the reform.
With the all-round progress of the new college entrance examination reform, senior high school teachers, as the practitioners of the new reform, are facing new problems and challenges in education and teaching, and the adaptive development of high school teachers has become a key factor for the effectiveness of the new reform. Based on the theory of personal-environment fit, this paper constructs an analysis model of teachers’ adaptability. The results show that high school teachers have a high overall evaluation of teachers’ adaptability development under the new college entrance examination. High school teachers of different genders, schools, degrees, professional titles and subjects have significant differences in their cognition of teachers’ adaptive development under the new college entrance examination. Stress adaptation has become the key factor to affect the adaptive development of high school teachers, and there is a positive and weak correlation between stress adaptation→knowledge adaptation, stress adaptation→organizational adaptation. Under the background of the new reform, we should promote the adaptive development of high school teachers, set up the idea of life-long learning, and enhance the knowledge adaptation of high school teachers. Also, it's important to optimize the teacher evaluation mechanism, enhance the pressure adaptability of high school teachers, strengthen digital technology to empower and enhance the organizational adaptability of high school teachers. We should attach importance to college entrance examination reform and enhance the goal adaptability of high school teachers.
Inspired by cognitive science, cultural sociology has increasingly focused on the cognitive attributes of culture in recent years. Culture is not a holistic entity but rather akin to a toolbox. Through self-construction, individuals form unique mental structures which gradually exhibit commonalities known as cultural schemas in social network interactions. The numerous conceptual disagreements and debates in the field of education stem from this spontaneous initiation of mental structures, referred to as collective consciousness and unconsciousness, resulting in cognitive biases that lead to stereotyped prejudices and biases. This article rejects the notion of cultural determinism in education and emphasizes the openness of human minds. It highlights the positive interaction between different social networks, activation of reflective consciousness, and cultivation of critical thinking as fundamental approaches to resolving educational reform dilemmas.
The scientification of physical learning space leads to the objectification of campus learning space, the partition of space layout and the standardization of space design, which leads to the students lack of the sense of space security, sense of space belonging, and sense of space acquisition. Building high-quality campus learning space based on the life world is an effective way to alleviate the scientific crisis of learning space. The high-quality learning space based on the life world has the characteristics of non-structure and turbulence in ontology. In relation to learners, learners reside in “learning space” and in function, it is to plan and realize the life possibilities of learners. It can provide students with positive emotional experience. To build a high-quality campus learning space, we should give up our infatuation with the scientific space and return to the learning space based on the living world. In addition, it's necessary to break down the boundaries of learning space, enhance flexibility and openness and return the space right to students, create personalized learning space, so as to enhance students’ sense of belonging, security and sense of acquisition.
Teacher professional learning communities is one of the major issues in the field of teacher professional development and teacher learning. With more than thirty years of development, establishing and developing teacher professional learning communities has been commonly recognized as an important strategy for enhancing teacher learning and improving school effectiveness in the educational policies and school reforms across the world. Accordingly, researchers have extensively examined teacher professional learning communities in different contexts. However, existing studies have rarely investigated the underlying values, epistemological interests, and inquiry intentions held by the research and practices of teacher professional learning communities. Drawing on Habermas’s theory of cognitive interests, we summarized the three inquiry paradigms (i.e., technical, practical, and critical paradigms) and six research discourses (i.e., restructuring, effectiveness, community, cultural, critical, and transformative discourses) in the existing research on teacher professional learning communities, and concluded the understandings of the nature of teacher professional learning communities, research emphases, and developments in each paradigm. Based on this paradigmatic analysis, we presented our attitudes towards various research paradigms, and outlined the directions for future research into teacher professional learning communities in each paradigm.
In recent years, the emotional interactions between teachers and students in the classroom have garnered increasing attention. Drawing from the vitality theory, this study posited that the vitality of teachers might enhance students’ vitality and foster positive teacher-student relationship via emotional transmission effect, specifically through students’ perception of teacher enthusiasm. This hypothesis was empirically examined with a sample of 2,386 Chinese middle school students and 76 headteachers. Data on student and teacher vitality, students’ perception of teacher enthusiasm, and positive teacher-student relationship were collected using questionnaires. A chain mediation model was established and evaluated. Results showed that teacher vitality directly predicts positive teacher-student relationship. The relationship is underpinned by the mediators of students’ perception of teacher enthusiasm and student vitality, and by the chain mediating effect of the two. In essence, when teachers demonstrate energy, enthusiasm, and vitality in their teaching, they are more likely to transmit this passion to their students. This, in turn, fosters more positive teacher-student relationships. These findings have significant implications for bolstering educational vitality, enhancing the mental health of teachers and students, and cultivating positive teacher-student relationships.
The promoting of the modernization of educational governance is inseparable from its effective construction. In China, the construction of educational governance mainly benefits from the continuous reform of the government functions and the social construction since the reform and opening-up policy. There appeared two analytical approaches based on the two aspects above: the state logic and the social logic. The former believes that the educational governance relies on state construction and highlights the dominant status of the state, while the latter emphasizes that educational governance is a joint governance involving multiple subjects. Both are trying to build the different conceptual framework and practice paths, but have not paid enough attention to “education” itself. In the new era of China, we need to highlight the position of “education” which means that “education” is the common interest, the action criteria and the association way of “governance”.
Since the reform and opening-up, researchers in China has started the study on the American educational historiography in the 20th century. In the past forty years, the researchers have divided the history of American educational historiography into three stages: traditionalist, conservative revisionist, and radical revisionist. This framework of interpretation was widely recognized by the scholarship community. It is of some value. But it also brings some paradox and misunderstanding. This paper explores and interprets the key documents, and then presents the parts which were exaggerated, misread, ignored and underestimated in the three stages theory. Different schools just generalizes different points of view, but they cannot represent the panorama of the academic research. The stereotyped tagging and simplification are not advisable to have an objective and accurate understanding of academic history. The analysis of academic history and topic study complement each other. Rethinking the history of American educational historiography is of great significance to the development of history of education research.
Futures education has become an international hot topic in recent years. As futures have not yet happened, no one can predict where education will go in the future. Therefore, we need to study futures education through new perspectives. Futurist Riel Miller developed the concept of futures literacy to help people develop an ability to know what the future is and how to use it. In the last decade or so, futures literacy has formed a global network, facilitated by UNESCO, with more than 100 Futures Literacy Laboratories-Novelty in 44 countries, to discuss the topic of futures literacy. In view of this, this dialogue focuses on three aspects: the theoretical background of futures literacy, the possible paths to study futures education and the value of mirroring futures education in China, in order to show the path of futures education research under the perspective of futures literacy.
The topic of “Construction of Skilled Society” is an important event as a historical turning point in the development of vocational education in China. It makes the development of vocational education shift from the internal factors of system construction to the external social conditions of system construction. The core task is to create conditions for the development of vocational education by building a skilled society, solve the deep social problems in the development of vocational education and meet the demand of industrial development for skilled talents. The process of skill formation includes four key links, namely, rational educational choice, rich skill training system, effective skill allocation and reasonable identification of skilled labor achievements, which constitute the basic structure of a skilled society. A reasonable concept of educational choice is the logical starting point for the construction of a skilled society. The factors that have a key impact on people’s concept of educational choice exist in three links: skill training system, skill allocation and the identification of skilled labor achievements. The construction of skilled society should focus on the key points of problem solving according to the interaction of various factors. According to the degree of difficulty in solving the problems of each factor, the construction process is planned; according to the function of each factor, the main body of the task of building a skilled society is planned, and targeted solutions are designed according to the nature of the role of each factor.
This paper focuses on the native and original concept “skilled society” and its construction. In particular, constructing skilled society needs to pay attention to Chinese characteristic issues. It is related to whether we can explain Chinese reality effectively. In this process, the role of “society”, labor market segmentation and urban-rural differentiation are all important Chinese characteristic issues. Noticing these, this paper uses local cases to present how China’s vocational education system supports the construction of skilled society from the interdisciplinary perspective of “grand vocational educationalism”. Through in-depth empirical analysis, the concept of “skilled society” gets theoretical enrichment. Meanwhile, the adaptability and interpretability of this concept have been improved. As can be seen, exploring the supporting role of vocational education system can provide a local path of skilled society construction in China.
The construction of a skilled society represents China’s central strategy in addressing the challenge of skill shortage. The key labor market development goals of such a society include a significant enhancement of skill capacity of general population, a marked decline in skill shortages across industries, sectors, and occupations, and an increasingly suitable spatial allocation of skills. Effective skill provision is pivotal for achieving these goals, and its realization hinges on the synergistic development of the national vocational education system and the labor market. Empirical analyses indicate that the expansion of China’s higher vocational education has augmented the overall stock of skill capital. The initial employment mobility of vocational college graduates has optimized the allocation of skilled talents across industries, sectors, and occupations. However, the allocation is influenced by the development of the digital/platform economy, gig economy, and emerging work modalities. A relatively high in-province employment rate and asymmetrical inter-city mobility of graduates might pose challenges for optimal spatial distribution of skills. The expansion of vocational education in China is a prerequisite for effective skill provision, yet its efficacy is contingent upon the evolution of labor market structures. To better leverage vocational education development in support of constructing a skilled society, it is imperative to rigorously study the recent shifts in labor market structures and their implications for vocational education and skilled talent allocation. Based on this, a well-informed strategy for the development of a skilled society should be formulated.
Globally, scientific and technological progress has triggered industrial change, which has intensified the demand for highly skilled talents in the labor market. At the same time, with the popularization of higher education, the privilege of diplomas in the labor market has gradually faded, and countries have begun to explore the talent training model of “education+skills”. Skilled society, as a new social form, has attracted widespread attention. However, as a new force in the labor market, many young people face challenges in skills mastery, skills adaptation and skills use, and youth unemployment at home and abroad is a serious problem, which reflects the dislocation and imbalance between the supply of skills in the education system and the demand for skills in the job market. Under the trend of globalization, technological change and educational transformation, the optimization of the skills system has become an international affair, which needs to be strategically laid out from a global perspective, following a dual logic orientation, focusing on lifelong skills formation, but also considering the cooperation of countries in skills certification, skills governance and skills monitoring, and formulating an action framework for global skills development under both vertical and horizontal logics.
The formation of skills, especially specific skills, requires individuals to take root in a certain position for a long time of cultivation and exploration, which requires providing workers with a relatively stable work environment and employment security. In the planned economy period, state-owned enterprises in China implemented a planned employment system of unified contracting and allocation. Enterprises adopted methods such as labor competition, in-factory apprenticeship, and technical cooperation to promote individual skill formation. In the socialist market economy period, public-owned enterprises provided institutional guarantees for employment stability for some technical and skilled talents through Bianzhi system. At the same time, they further continued and innovated skills competitions, apprenticeship systems based on expert studios, and professional title evaluation systems to promote the formation of employees’ skills. Non-public owned enterprises, on the other hand, provided employees with reliable promises of stable employment through signing long-term contracts, prohibition of competition, and other measures, and by strengthening employee loyalty education, establishing internal channels for talent growth and mobility, establishing internal talent training systems and labor markets, and other measures to improve the efficiency of employee specific skills formation. Essentially, this is a re-balancing between the commodification and de-commodification of labor within enterprises in the socialist market economy environment. Enterprises respect and protect the characteristics and needs of workers as individuals with stable employment commitments, and leverage the value of labor as a factor of production through four mechanisms: apprenticeship inheritance, career development, championships, and internal recruitment. This mechanism is also influenced by the macro level of the national economic system and the standardized and orderly internal labor market within the industry. In the future, China’s employment policies, education policies, and social security policies should focus on promoting stable employment for social groups. It helps to build healthy, stable and predictable labor capital cooperation relationships by actively creating a stable employment system environment, enhancing the human resource development and skill formation capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises, and enhancing the structural and compliance of talent cultivation for vocational school-enterprise cooperation
The willingness of young people to invest in skills has a direct impact on the attractiveness of vocational education and on the human resource base for building a skills-based society. Compared with the reality of high youth unemployment caused by the low willingness of Chinese youth to invest in skills, Germany has made globally recognised achievements through vocational education to cultivate a qualified team of professional and skilled workers to support enterprise production and development. In answering the question “why German youth are willing to engage in skilled work” on the basis of institutional theory, the study found that the regulatory factors affecting German youth’s willingness to invest in skills include the degree of equality in labour relations, the degree of job protection, the degree of employment protection, the degree of unemployment protection and the degree of wage protection. Normative factors include occupational values, the value of skills qualifications and the degree of pay rewards. Cognitive factors include the level of professionalisation of skills work, the quality of the skills learning process and the diversity of development paths. The regulatory aspects of the system ensure German youth’s willingness to invest in skills, while normative factors inspire this willingness through values and practices. Cognitive elements turn into an inherent willingness for skills investment through the individual’s understanding of skilled work.
Skill formation, especially the formation of specialized skills, determines the competitive comparative advantage of countries and firms, and the formation of specialized skills is a lengthy process that is constrained not only by availability constraints but also by the ability to safeguard their availability. “Patience capital” plays an important role in guaranteeing the formation of specialized skills, which is reflected in Germany and other high-skilled economies by shaping a stable environment for the formation of specialized skills through the coordination of relations; recognizing the market employment attributes of apprenticeships and providing them with labor safety; and shaping comparative advantages by coupling with the complementary system of skill formation. China’s industrial development calls for more specialized skill formation. The protection of youth skill acquisition has evolved from “state-unit protection” embedded in the national economic system to “state-social security” emphasizing the market orientation. The existing problems are that the incentives for young people to engage in skills learning are more compensatory than developmental, and that there is no stable relationship between the relevant stakeholders for the formation of specialized skills. It is recommended that governments strengthen the investment of “patient capital” to support youth skills acquisition.
The construction of a skilled society is a strategic initiative to improve the overall skill quality level of society in the context of industrial structural transformation. The matching relationship between the supply and demand of skills in society determines the overall effect of the construction of a skilled society. The vocational qualification certificate system plays an important role in the process of coordinating the relationship between supply and demand of skills. Looking at the history of the development of the vocational qualification certificate system, it is found that the vocational qualification certificate system has experienced three major stages, namely, the high matching of skills supply and demand, the biased mismatch and the move towards matching, which correspond to the three major forms of the workers’ technical grade assessment system, the “dual certificate” system and the 1+X certificate system. The vocational qualification certificate system serves the construction of a skill-based society through the logical paths of enhancing the employment quality of VET graduates, evaluating the skill level of skill possessors, safeguarding the career of VET graduates, and bringing benefits to skill stakeholders. We should start by appropriately designing the idea of building a vocational qualification system and integrating the vocational qualification system with the construction of a skilled society, so as to further promote the practice of the vocational qualification system in serving the construction of a skilled society.
The efficient and reasonable flow of talents is an important index of construction of skilled society. Drawing on the Annual Report on the Quality of Higher Vocational Education, data collection and management platform for personnel training in higher vocational colleges and the website of the National Bureau of Statistics, this study conducted an in-depth analysis of the regional characteristics, enterprise characteristics and industrial characteristics of the employment flow of graduates of national vocational colleges in 2022. The results show that the overall employment retention rate of vocational college graduates in 2022 is not high, and the employment flow of graduates is consistent with the overall development of the national economy, but the proportion of the primary and secondary industries is low, while the proportion of the tertiary industry is high, and there is still a large gap in the level of talent training requirements for regions and large enterprises. Therefore, in the process of training skilled talents, higher vocational colleges should highlight the characteristics of adaptation, enhance cross-border thinking, pay attention to system structure, deepen the integration of production and education, and strive to improve the adaptability, flexibility, coordination and subjectivity of talent training.
The pursuit of diversified development remains pivotal in fostering the connotation construction of higher education. In the context of construction of skilled society, achieving this diversification necessitates adjustments across three key facets: addressing multi-tiered skill demands, adopting versatile educational approaches, and ensuring sustainability within such a societal framework. Since the expansion of higher education in the late 1990s, China has achieved diversification of higher education in form, but the constraints within the evaluation and management mechanism of higher education, the rigidity of educational goals and systems, and the overemphasis on higher-tier education have led to a serious trend of institutional homogenization, resulting in unitary education provision, which makes it difficult to support the construction of a skilled society. To further support the construction of a skilled society, Chinese higher education institutions are suggested to direct their attention towards the cognitive requisites of diverse skilled individuals. This entails tailored classification and development strategies, a deep understanding of skill acquisition patterns, and a concerted effort to enrich horizontal diversity. Concurrently, the state and the government need to actively facilitate reforms in the evaluation and management of higher education institutions to create an institutional environment for the diversified development of higher education.
This report analyzes data from the Survey on Social and Emotional Skills for the 10- and 15-year-old groups of students in Jinan City, China, and finds that students in the 10-year-old group scored higher than students in the 15-year-old group in all 16 social and emotional skills. In the 10-year-old group, boys scored higher than girls in all social and emotional skills except responsibility and achievement motivation, where the top three skills with the greatest differences were curiosity, creativity, and emotional control. In the 15-year-old group, girls scored higher than boys on responsibility, empathy, and tolerance, with empathy being the top one with the largest difference. Boys scored higher than girls in all other social and emotional skills, with the top three skills with the greatest differences being stress resistance, emotional control, and curiosity. The social and emotional skills of the advantaged students were higher than those of the disadvantaged group. There is no significant difference in social and emotional skills between general secondary school students and vocational secondary school students. In the 15-year-old group, private school students were slightly higher than public school students in engaging with the others and open-mindedness, while the results were reversed in other skills. Optimism was by far the skill most closely related to health behaviors, body image, life satisfaction, satisfaction with relationships, and current psychological well-being. Emotional control and stress resistance were most closely related to students’ test and class anxiety. Task performance, especially achievement motivation and perseverance, as well as curiosity were strongly associated with better student performance in Chinese, Math, and Arts. Notably, 15-year-old girls benefited more than boys from social and emotional skills, while 10-year-old boys benefited more than girls from social and emotional skills. The relationships between body image, health behaviors, satisfaction with relationships, current psychological well-being, and most of the skills were stronger for advantaged than that for disadvantaged students. Advantaged students tended to participate in more career development activities than disadvantaged students. Students with higher social and emotional skills, especially those with higher levels of creativity and curiosity, engaged in more career development activities. Girls and advantaged pupils tend to be more ambitious about their future education and careers than boys and disadvantaged pupils. Students with high levels of open-mindedness and task performance have higher future educational aspirations and career ambitions.
The OECD recently released the results of its second round of global assessments of social and emotional competence, and Jinan's performance is noteworthy. Based on the student data of SSES2023, this paper analyzes China's performance in social and emotional competence and its international status from the perspective of international comparison. The main findings of the study based on the mean competency analysis of global cities are as follows: (1) Asian students excel in social and emotional abilities. (2) The 10-year-olds in Jinan ranked first in the world in the dimension of task performance ability, and the 15-year-olds ranked first, but the score of achievement motivation was slightly lower. (3) The 10-year-olds in Jinan ranked first in the world in the dimension of emotion regulation, while the 15-year-olds’ abilities were lower than the international average; (4) The 10-year-old group of Jinan students ranked first in the world in terms of cooperation ability, and the 15-year-old group ranked first. (5) The task performance of students aged 10 in Jinan ranks the top in the world in the dimension of openness ability, while that of students aged 15 is lower than the international average. (6) Students aged 10 in Jinan ranked first in the world in terms of social communication ability, while some abilities of students aged 15 were lower than the international average. Based on the analysis of influencing factors of social and emotional ability, the main findings are as follows: (1) Jinan students are better than the international average in most influencing factors, especially in the classmate relationship. (2) The key positive factors affecting the dimensions of task ability of Jinan students are growth mindset, teacher-student relationship, school belonging and community activities, among which the influence of school belonging ranks first in the world. (3) The key factors affecting the emotional regulation ability of Jinan students are growth mindset, school belonging and community activities, among which the influence of school belonging ranks first in the world. (4) The key factors affecting the cooperation ability of Jinan students are growth mindset, classmate relationship, school belonging and community activities, among which the impact of growth thinking ranks first in the world. (5) The key factors affecting Jinan students’ openness ability are growth mindset, school belonging, community activities and teacher feedback. The effect of school belonging of the 10-year-old group on some openness ability ranks first in the world, while the effect of growth mindset on some openness ability of the 15-year-old group is relatively low. (6) The key factors affecting students’ communication ability in Jinan are growth mindset, school belonging and community activities, among which the influence of school belonging is at the forefront in all cities. The main findings based on the analysis of students’ development based on social and emotional ability are as follows: (1) The life satisfaction of students in Jinan ranks first in the world, and their psychological happiness is low. (2) Optimism, trust, achievement motivation and stress resistance are the important social and emotional abilities that affect the life satisfaction of Jinan students. (3) Optimism, trust and emotional control are the important social and emotional abilities that affect the psychological well-being of Jinan students. (4) Optimism and energy are the important social and emotional abilities that affect the health behavior of Jinan students. (5) Emotional control, stress resistance and energy are the important social and emotional abilities that affect academic anxiety of Jinan students. (6) Optimism, trust and achievement motivation are the important social and emotional abilities that affect the relationship satisfaction of Jinan students. (7) Optimism, stress resistance and assertiveness are important social and emotional abilities that affect the body image of Jinan students.
Based on data from the 2023 Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) in Jinan, China, this technical report analyzes the psychometric characteristics of the second round of assessment tools under Chinese culture. The report presents a brief introduction of the development and implementation process of the student questionnaire, the subscales of the social and emotional skills, the main components of the questionnaire, the main content of the data set, and the analysis of data quality. The results showed that the students in Jinan had a positive attitude towards the Survey, with high participation rate and valid response rate. However, the frequency distributions of younger cohort showed a tall right tail. The coefficients ω’s and α’s represented that most of the subscales had good reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed the validity (fitness) of each subscale of social and emotional skills were satisfactory. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis showed that the cross-gender measure invariance of these subscales was better than that of cross-cohorts, so the data of these subscales should be used with caution when examining the age-differences among adolescence.
This study focuses on five key school influencing factors perceived by students: student-classmate relationship, student-teacher relationship, teacher feedback, extra-curricular activities, and sense of belonging at school, and investigates how they collectively impact the social and emotional skills development of students. Utilizing data from the OECD's SSES2023 China survey, which includes a total of 7,648 students aged 10 and 15, we conducted a cluster analysis with the aforementioned five influencing factors as variables. By employing variance analysis and post-hoc tests, we uncovered differences in social and emotional competencies among student groups categorized by these factors. The study identifies five student clusters based on the perceived five school variables: School Satisfaction Group (students scoring high on all five school influencing factors), Social Advantage Group (students scoring high on student-classmate relationship, student-teacher relationship, and student-classmate relationship, student-teacher relationship), Diverse Interest Group (students scoring highest on extra-curricular activities), Feedback Proficient Group (students scoring high on teacher feedback), and School Support Group (students scoring lowest on all five school influencing factors). Among these, students in the School Satisfaction Group demonstrate the most outstanding performance in social and emotional skills, while the School Support Group exhibits the weakest performance. Furthermore, the Social Advantage Group, Diverse Interest Group, and Feedback Proficient Group show variations across different age groups and skill levels. This study not only provides robust data support for schools to conduct social and emotional skills but also offers empirical evidence for understanding the comprehensive influence of school factors on students' social and emotional skills development. It is of significant importance for guiding schools to formulate targeted teaching strategies and intervention measures, thus promoting students’ comprehensive and healthy development.
Based on the data from the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills conducted in Jinan in 2023, this study focuses on the impact of family socioeconomic status on students’ social and emotional skills. It explores the mediating mechanisms through which growth mindset and test and class anxiety influence this relationship. The findings indicate that: (1) both family socioeconomic status and growth mindset have a significant positive effect on students’ social and emotional skills, while test and class anxiety has a significant negative effect; (2) growth mindset plays a significant positive mediating role, meaning that family socioeconomic status positively promotes students’ social and emotional skills through the mediation of growth mindset; (3) test and class anxiety, as a mediator, shows a significant negative mediating effect, suggesting that family socioeconomic status can adversely affect students’ social and emotional skills through the mediation of test and class anxiety; (4) the study further reveals a significant positive serial mediation effect between growth mindset and test and class anxiety, indicating that family socioeconomic status affects students’ growth mindset, which in turn regulates their level of test and class anxiety, ultimately exerting a comprehensive impact on their social and emotional skills. Based on empirical discussions, this study proposes three suggestions for enhancing the development of student’s social and emotional skills. Firstly, schools should provide more resources and platforms to support students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Secondly, establish a path mechanism for cultivating growth mindset with schools as the main battlefield system. Thirdly, promote collaboration between home and school to address the issue of test and class anxiety among adolescents jointly.
Active and effective public engagement is crucial in cultivating students to become “New Era Individuals”. This study leverages data from the Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES 2023) conducted in Jinan, China, examining the current status of public engagement among students aged 10 and 15, and exploring the impact and mechanisms of social and emotional competencies on public engagement. The findings reveal that: (1) more than half of the surveyed students have never participated in public activities related to environmental protection or voluntary services, with the number of participants decreasing as the frequency of participation increases, and the public engagement frequency of 10-year-old students being significantly higher than that of 15-year-olds. (2) Assertiveness, creativity, and achievement motivation are key skills influencing students’ public engagement, with their importance surpassing other social and emotional skills. (3) Social and emotional skills not only directly influence students’ public engagement but also indirectly affect it through mediating pathways such as student-classmate relationship, sense of belonging at school, and the chained mediation of both. The study highlights the significant role of social and emotional skills in civic education, suggesting that leveraging these skills can enhance students’ level of public engagement through various measures.
The systematization pursued by the Educational Code should be composed of an external system that reflects the normative order and an internal system that practices the value concept. The existing subject system of educational law adopts a list structure, which has the defects of lack of logical coherence, difficulty in covering the whole, difficulty in highlighting the principles and values of the code, and easy to make the subject positioning unclear, failing to meet the requirements of the Educational Code systematization. The subject system of educational law should adopt a hierarchical structure instead of a list structure, and typological and conceptual thinking can be used as the methodology for establishing a hierarchical structure system. The preliminary concept of the hierarchical subject system of educational law is: with educatees, participants in educational work, organizations that carry out educational activities, and educational administrative organs as the abstract subject hierarchy, respectively commanding the specific subject hierarchy including students, other educatees, parents or other guardians of minor educatees, teachers, other educators, schools, extracurricular educational training institutions, educational intermediary organizations, and public cultural service institutions.
The supply capacity of high-quality human resources is the key to supporting the construction of Powerful Nation of Education. China has obvious weaknesses in terms of the average number of years of schooling of the population, the number of students in higher education in one million people, the proportion of graduate students and the cultivation model. Facing the new task of supporting the construction of Chinese path to modernization, the construction of Powerful Nation of Education urgently needs to adapt to the characteristics and trends of population and economic development, and it's important to expand high-quality higher education and vocational education resources through multiple paths.Taking the reform and evaluation system as a breakthrough, we can establish a full chain training mechanism for cultivating top-notch innovative talents. Based on the cultivation of science and engineering talents, we will build a new mechanism of organized industry-university-research alliance that integrates science and education, industry education, and school enterprise collaboration, leading a new paradigm of self cultivation of urgently-needed talents in China. Besides, we will increase investment in human capital and enhance the average funding allocation level for education students at all levels that is compatible with the construction of an educational powerhouse; and effectively utilize world-class educational resources and innovative elements to enhance the level of educational cooperation and international influence.
The present time is in a situation of great change unprecedented in a century. From a macro perspective, the world is entering a period of political and economic reshaping. Education is crucial to raising the level of productivity and pushing human civilization out of the productivity stagnation period. The current process of reverse globalization has triggered the outbreak of deep-rooted global conflicts. At the same time, disruptive technologies and industrial changes are deconstructing and reshaping the global industrial chain and value chain while accelerating the reshaping of the new global political and economic landscape. Under the background of entangled and superimposed influences of political intervention and technological power, China will mainly face the influences and challenges of “graded decoupling” of education from the U.S. and the West, subversive technological barriers, and reshaping of the AI ecosystem in the process of constructing a strong educational power. Only with the inherent requirements of Chinese-style modernization and the goal of building a community of human destiny can China build and realize a strong education power in the revolution of education paradigm and education “self-creation”.
With regard to the study of cultural capital and educational attainment in China’s context, scholars have not only verified Bourdieu’s theory, but also expanded it due to the inadequacy of the theory being too “French” and “static”. Scholars have explored concepts such as “underclass cultural capital”, and added new indicators to the specific measurement of the concept of cultural capital. They have verified the effect of cultural capital, especially explored the context factors that regulate the influence of cultural capital on education attainment, such as social context, exam-oriented education system, cultural traditions, and changes of times. As for the mechanism of cultural capital affecting education attainment, they have found the mechanism of cultural identification in addition to the exclusion of highbrow culture. The problems in the existing research are mainly reflected in the confusion in the measurement of the concept of cultural capital, the rigid application of cultural capital theory and the lack of innovative research based on the local situation in China. In the future, we need to further define the boundary of the concept of cultural capital and find out the characteristics and mechanisms of cultural capital in China’s context and in the changing times.
For a long time, the educational community in China has studied labor and labor education mainly based on education, thus forming two general concepts on labor and labor education. Both of these general concepts on labor and labor education have methodological flaws: firstly, it reverses the relationship between labor and education. Secondly, it overlooks the comprehensive regulation of labor and labor education on Socialist Education. Thirdly, there is a one-sided understanding of the “comprehensive development education theory”. Fourthly, it overlooks the organic connection between labor and excellent Chinese cultural traditions. “Labor” is a category that embodies the distinct Marxist ideology and the spirit of excellent traditional Chinese culture. We must be guided by Marxist labor concept, to achieve a fundamental transformation in the research methodology of labor education, and should not only study labor and labor education based on education, but also based on labor to study education and labor education.
The social desirability response in school values surveys is a fundamental issue that has long troubled both the surveys themselves and values education in schools. The generation of this social desirability response is primarily due to students’ understanding and cognition of social values and cultural norms, which lead them to present themselves in a way that conforms to societal expectations on the surface, but their actual behavior is inconsistent with their internal identity. In terms of its manifestation, the social desirability response is positively correlated with values that conform to societal norms, but further research is needed to confirm whether students’ responses are based on genuine values preferences or simply compliance with norms. Furthermore, when it comes to controversial and conflicting ethical and moral issues, students tend to make responses that align with norms in order to maintain their self-esteem and reputation, which seriously affects the validity and reliability of research. In order to effectively control social desirability response in school values surveys, we can draw on modern scale development and statistical measurement techniques, and develop measurement tools that reflect the unique cultural characteristics of China.
The coordinated development of megalopolis will reshape the allocation pattern of higher education resources, drive regional development from agglomeration to equilibrium, and realize the transformation of high-quality development of China’s economy. Based on the panel data of 193 cities in the urban agglomeration from 2006 to 2020, from the perspective of spatial agglomeration, this paper used the spatial Dubin model with economic distance and population density weight matrix to characterize and measure the spatial spillover effect of higher education agglomeration on regional scientific and technological innovation level and economic development. The research found that, megalopolis with similar economy and population in urban agglomeration have the same demand for higher education development, it will make those cities form spatial agglomeration, and the resulting spatial spillover effect will drive the improvement of the level of regional scientific and technological innovation and the degree of economic transformation and upgrading, so as to achieve balanced regional development. In the future, we should break the original pattern of regional development based on administrative allocation of resources, and explore the institutional innovation and path selection of regional higher education development in the process of spatial pattern evolution of urban agglomeration.
Family fertility willingness is related to the long-term balanced development of the population. Our country faces a risk of low fertility, and the phenomenon of low fertility has become the norm. Most studies focus on the impact of fertility policies on the population and ignore the influence of education policies. Based on a survey of 10,341 primary and secondary school parents in 29 provinces (cities, districts) across the country, the research used the propensity score matching method empirically to test the impact of the “Double Reduction” policy influence on parents’ willingness to have more children and its influencing mechanism. The results found that increasing parents’ recognition of the “Double Reduction” policy in primary and secondary schools can significantly increase parents willingness to have more children. Parents who endorse the “Double Reduction” policy have a higher effect on their willingness to have more children, with an average of 14.6% higher. This result shows that the positive externalities of the “Double Reduction” policy have spilled over to the field of population, and the policy has a positive impact on family reproduction plans. Family education expenditure and educational anxiety mediate the role between parents’ recognition of the policy and parents’ willingness to have more children. Therefore, parents in primary and secondary schools should further improve their awareness of the policy, continue to increase the implementation of the policy, strengthen policy supporting governance, implement multi-level policies in the fields of education and population and fertility, and comprehensively and effectively improve the national rejuvenation fertility desire.
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the national government has issued 78 education policies related to the training of principals. From the perspective of policy tools and using the bibliometrics analysis, this paper found that the transformation process of China’s principals training policy over the seventy years can be divided into five stages: the "torturous exploration" stage from 1949 to 1976; the "establishment of rules and regulations" stage from 1977 to 1989; "ensuring being qualified" stage from 1990 to 1999; the "fair development" stage from 2000-2012; and "leading education to excellence stage" since 2013. The logic of the evolution of the principals’ training policy can be described as follows: in terms of policy supply, from administrative authority guidance to professional capacity building; in terms of policy value orientation, from reforming education to cultivating excellent principals to improve education; in terms of policy goal orientation, from post needs to national standards and norms guidance; in terms of policy implementation, from focusing on the summary of training models to pursuing the generation of educational ideas. The development of the future principal training presents the four trend characteristics: innovating the training mode system; promoting digital training through technology-enabled means; updating professional standards and optimizing curriculum programs; constructing the training assessment and evaluation for cultivating educationist-oriented principals.
In the past decades, the macro governance of the non-government education in China has focused on promoting the reform of classified management of non-profit and for-profit non-government schools, breaking policy bottlenecks, and supporting and regulating the healthy development of the non-government education. Since 2018, many regularization documents on non-government education at the national level have been introduced, and the non-government education development environment has changed structurally. The non-government education governance has entered a standardized development period with a focus on public welfare education. In the new context, guidance and regulation of the development of the non-government education should be subject to the strategic needs of promoting the modernization of Chinese-style education and building a powerful country of education. So we should adopt overall framework for classification management, adhere to the general idea of “source governance, comprehensive governance, diversified governance, and governance by law”, clarify the governance logic, improve the governance system, and innovate the governance methods so as to make non-government education regularized in development and achieve high-quality development in regularization.
The Communist Party of China led the curriculum reform in Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, and creatively constructed the revolutionary curriculum discourse with the characteristic of the Red Culture. The formation of revolutionary curriculum discourse went through four historical stages: the national defense curriculum of the national war of resistance, the formal curriculum for improving quality, the localized curriculum integrated with practice, and the new formal curriculum which turned to cultural knowledge. The genealogy of knowledge and connotation of revolutionary curriculum discourse were mainly reflected in Politics, Chinese and History, showing the orientation of implementing materialism, promoting the popularization of language and regarding the people as the creator of social history. The cultural practice and value of revolutionary curriculum discourse were embodied in giving full play to the value of nurturing people and promoting people's subjective self-consciousness; promoting national liberation and independence, and forming national identity; creating a nation-state community and providing spiritual impetus for it; carrying the red culture and forming the fine tradition of revolution, which explored a localized path of curriculum in China.
Since the 1980s and 1990s, Professor Kieran Egan of Simon Fraser University in Canada has led a team to conduct research on Imaginative Education and Learning in Depth Program, systematically exploring the nature of curriculum knowledge, learning, understanding and imagination, as well as the nature and type of knowledge understanding and the relationship between knowledge and imagination. He has developed cognitive tools for cultivating imagination and teaching strategies for cultivating students’ imagination in disciplinary teaching. In the research of Learning in Depth, knowledge standards and basic teaching principles of Learning in Depth have been established. Since 2006, we have established a research team of Instruction in Depth to address the problems in the implementation of curriculum in primary and secondary schools in China. Focusing on the transformation of teaching values, concept of curriculum knowledge, concept of teaching process and concept of learning activities, we have adopted the 3K research approach to explore the concepts and strategies of teaching and learning oriented to key competency and conduct international cooperative research. This paper makes a dialogue and interview with Professor Gillian Judson of Simon Fraser University, focusing on Professor Kieran Egan’s innovative contributions to research on knowledge, imagination and Learning in Depth, in order to provide references for deepening curriculum and instruction reform in China and meeting the challenges of the development of key competence.
中国人文社会科学核心期刊
