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    01 December 2022, Volume 40 Issue 12 Previous Issue   
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    Educational Improvement Science: The Art of the Improving Organization
    Li Jun
    2022, 40 (12):  1-13.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.001
    Abstract ( 956 )   HTML ( 492 )   PDF (1176KB) ( 868 )   Save

    Advocating educational improvement science as an emerging transdisciplinary area, I reflect philosophically on the three major pathways through which the education mission has been realized in human history and discern the misuses and pitfalls of reform. I also examine the terms “reform” and “improve” and their synonyms both etymologically and in East-West cultural and political traditions, which are embodied in educational theorizations and practical implications. Based on these reflections, I propose the concept of neo-improvementalism, define educational improvement science, and systemically elaborate on its philosophical assumptions, disciplinary fundamentals, and theoretical frameworks. I identify and elucidate growability, developability, and improvability as the three key properties of education and construct disciplinary knowledge of educational improvement science through two main categories, namely, subject matter knowledge and profound knowledge. I then highlight three foundational characteristics of educational improvement science – namely, discipline-oriented, systems thinking, and evidence-based – and the building of professional improvement communities promoting institutional improvement capabilities. I conclude that educational improvement science is the art of the improving organization for classes, schools, and more broadly defined educational agencies, and that its birth signifies the respect and recognition of the disciplinary status and specialization of educational improvement. Finally, I call for the recognition of the significance of educational improvement science and research thereon, especially with respect to discipline-building and exploration based on local characteristics in a global vision, and the cultivation of new fronters of educational research and practices, which need to be enhanced through disciplinarization and scientificization.

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    Heavy Burden: The Excessive Spillover of Students’ Roles and its Consequence
    Desheng Gao
    2022, 40 (12):  14-25.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.002
    Abstract ( 545 )   HTML ( 449 )   PDF (647KB) ( 579 )   Save

    The academic burden of primary and secondary school students is a “long-standing and difficult” problem, but the thinking on this problem always stays at the level of matter-of-factly. The human-being is a social existence, and the role is the embodiment of man’s sociality. Students are the social roles assigned by the government and society to school-age children, with “thick” normative requirements. Students are institutionalized roles, and school’s spatial context is the boundary of students’ roles. The role of students with boundaries now spills over to families, communities and society. Even if juveniles are separated from school’s spatial context, they are still students. The excessive spillover and solidification of students’ roles make juveniles unable to get a break from students’ roles and their normative requirements, and lose the opportunity to try other social roles. In particular, the significant role of juveniles at home is still students rather than children, and all ethical norms pinned on children’s roles in traditional culture have lost their role support. For juveniles, the most fundamental burden is the role burden, and the academic burden is only a secondary burden derived from the role burden.

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    The Education Space of Disciplinary Body and its Reconstruction
    Ling Song
    2022, 40 (12):  26-37.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.003
    Abstract ( 501 )   HTML ( 416 )   PDF (1734KB) ( 505 )   Save

    The connection between body and space is the basis for interaction between people and the world. Different education spaces influence and shape different people. The concept of traditional education space is the product of the industrialization era. Closed, fixed and static are its main characteristics, and it is attached to the education production and its efficiency through the auxiliary education management and the creation of power relations. The schoolyard built with adult perspective and preferences is far from nature and children; the wall fences create barriers and confinements to the body while resisting injuries; school buildings divide the learning space into separate functional activity areas; windows can only transmit light and surveillance in one direction; platform and Box format seat imply the relationship between authority and obedience, and divides the respective powers. While meeting the established educational needs, it also served and gave birth to those negative educational concepts. To transform the educational space, it is necessary to make the educational space open, interactive and equal, and use its scientific and biophilic nature to meet the real needs of current teaching and learning.

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    Who is More Likely to Succeed: A Comparative Study of Competencies-based Education Reform in China, the United States and Finland
    Li Deng, Senyun Zhan
    2022, 40 (12):  38-49.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.004
    Abstract ( 904 )   HTML ( 92 )   PDF (830KB) ( 1074 )   Save

    The education reform based on key competencies is a global education policy, promoted by most countries in the world to improve the quality of talent training in respond to social changes and economic competition. The success of its implementation is related to the country’s labour quality and economic prosperity, as well as global competitiveness. In order to find the main influencing factors and the model that would most likely lead to success of the reform’s implementation, this study compares the key competencies-based education reforms of China, the United States, and Finland from the perspectives of political commitment and implementation capacities. It then points out that, in terms of education reform, China has strong political commitment but not strong implementation capacities; the United States has strong reform implementation capacities but not strong political commitment; Finland has both strong political commitment and implementation capacities, which is a more ideal reform model. China could learn from the experience of Finland and the United States from the aspects of evaluation methods, teacher education and training, and innovation in teaching and learning environments to enhance the implementation capacities, meanwhile keep up the political commitment, transform it into execution, bring non-governmental actors into the reform and further promote the successful implementation of the reform.

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    Rural Revitalization Calls for Rural Pedagogy
    Huaiyin Hou, Zuoye Yuan
    2022, 40 (12):  50-62.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.005
    Abstract ( 447 )   HTML ( 45 )   PDF (672KB) ( 731 )   Save

    The discipline construction of rural pedagogy is a necessary requirement for building the supporting system of rural revitalization in the new era, enriching the connotation of rural pedagogy in the new era, promoting the development of theoretical research and practice of rural education, and perfecting the discipline system of Chinese pedagogy. The discipline construction of rural pedagogy urgently needs to solve the problems of concept definition, research object, research category, discipline positioning and nature, construction of “three systems” and research methods. The construction of rural pedagogy in the context of rural revitalization needs to address four aspects: clarifying the basic concept of rural pedagogy discipline construction; clarifying the basic idea of rural pedagogy discipline construction; dealing with the relationship between the research of rural pedagogy and rural education, the rural pedagogy and rural education practice, the rural pedagogy and related disciplines and Chinese rural pedagogy research and the western, and strengthening the external guarantee of discipline construction of rural pedagogy.

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    Return and Response: The Future Trend of China’s Rural Education Construction from the Perspective of Rural Revitalization Strategy
    Xiaojie Quan, Qiyong Cai, Jiyue Xie
    2022, 40 (12):  63-72.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.006
    Abstract ( 577 )   HTML ( 36 )   PDF (766KB) ( 446 )   Save

    Rural education has its own unique value attribution, spiritual connotation, discourse system and practice methods. To realize the characteristic development of rural education, it is necessary to preserve its unique cultural connotation. However, the development of rural education has lost its culture essence, which is mainly manifested in the value decline of local culture, the division of nature and social attributes, and the dependent development mechanisms. In response to this, it is necessary to consider providing rural teenagers with education that are compatible with their cultural model of “Cultural Responsive Education”. This educational concept highlights the unique connotation of rural culture, and emphasizes “locality” of education concept, curriculum, teaching methods, teacher training and evaluation mode. It promotes the characteristic development of rural education at three levels, including reconstructing confidence of rural education’s cultural identity, unifying rural education’s cultural crack, cultivating rural education’s open cultural mind. Implementing cultural responsive education includes the purpose of education responding to the characteristics of regional culture, the contents of education emphasizing the integration of urban and rural culture, the teaching methods taking advantages of rural areas’ characteristics.Besides, experts conceive the concept of adaptive evaluation system, and teachers strengthen their cultural understanding and reflection consciousness.

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    The Construction of Kindergarten Teacher’s Quality Monitoring System: Based on the Structural Equation Model Analysis for 1,768 Kindergarten Teachers in Shanghai
    Yong Jiang, Huijuan Di, Jin Huang
    2022, 40 (12):  73-90.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.007
    Abstract ( 498 )   HTML ( 52 )   PDF (1000KB) ( 879 )   Save

    In 2015, OECD officially promulgated Start Strong IV: Monitoring in Childhood Education and Care, which clearly proposed kindergarten teacher’s quality monitoring as a part of education quality system. However, there is still a lack of scientific and effective quality monitoring tools for kindergarten teachers in China. Therefore, it is of great significance to develop an effective monitoring tool for kindergarten teachers to provide reference and basis for educational supervision and decision-making. As the theory of cultural existentialism pedagogy (CEP) has its unique vision in the analysis of teacher’s professional development, and pays special attention to the edification of teacher’s humanistic spirit and empowerment, this study takes CEP as the main theoretical framework, regards teachers as “the whole” educators, and develops the “Kindergarten Teacher’s Quality Monitoring Scale”, including five dimensions of healthy condition, practical wisdom, cultural competence, empowerment and autonomy, and commitment and loyalty. In this study, 1,768 teachers from 80 kindergartens in 7 municipal districts of Shanghai with randomly stratified sampling took part in filling the scale. The results are as follows. First, according to the small group analysis, item-total correlation analysis, reliability analysis, and favor loading analysis of classical test theory, the scale has excellent discrimination and reliability. Second, the results of exploratory factor analysis show that kindergarten teacher’s quality consists of 5 dimensions, which are healthy condition, practical wisdom, cultural competence, empowerment and autonomy, and commitment and loyalty. The secondary indicators are composed of 14 items, including physical and mental health, good society, teachers’ moral cultivation, professional knowledge, professional ability, cultural consciousness, cultural cultivation ability, cultural comparative vision, teaching autonomy, professional growth right, participation in decision-making right, educational belief, professional identity and professional mission. Third, the fitness index with confirmatory factor analysis shows that the RMSEA is 0.057, far less than 0.5; X2/df is 3.83, less than 5; CFI, IFI, TLI are all 0.9, GFI, AGFI, NFI are all above 0.85, so the scale has good structure validity.

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    Development of Competency Assessment Tool for “Studying and Supporting Early Childhood Learning ” for Kindergarten Teachers
    Qiangqiang Sun
    2022, 40 (12):  91-102.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.008
    Abstract ( 432 )   HTML ( 46 )   PDF (908KB) ( 1238 )   Save

    Studying and supporting early childhood learning is the core competence that kindergarten teachers should possess. The development of an assessment tool will help scientifically diagnose and promote teacher professional development. Based on the COMET work analysis method and behavior integration taxonomy, the study constructs an assessment tool composed of competence dimensions, indicators, and four levels. The surveying attribute test results show that the difficulty, discrimination, and grade division of the evaluation tools are reasonable and have good internal consistency. The confirmatory factor analysis shows that the theoretical model fits well with the observation data and has a high structural effect. It can be seen that the evaluation tools are of high quality and good performance, which can be used as a tool for teacher self-evaluation, and has high application value for kindergarten teachers, kindergarten managers and education administration departments.

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    Transforming Educational Thought into Educational Theory: A Historical Investigation Centered on the Study of XueJi
    Jie Sun
    2022, 40 (12):  103-109.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.009
    Abstract ( 439 )   HTML ( 36 )   PDF (632KB) ( 516 )   Save

    The view that educational ideology is educational theory is inspired by Feng Qi’s thought of “two aspects”. There is an internal connection between educational thought and educational theory, which is a systematic educational thought. XueJibecame a “transit station” for modern Chinese scholars to understand and accept western educational theories, because it has the theoretical potential to be transformed. The process of transforming XueJi into a necessary book of normal education and even a monograph of education is the process in which the educational thoughts of XueJi are brought into the domain of pedagogy. Our reflection on transforming the educational thought of XueJi into educational theory is a double academic consciousness based on the construction of Chinese educational discourse system. It not only requires the educational historian to sincerely review the “Chinese language expressed in the West” to study the educational thought of XueJi with the pedagogical framework, but also requires the educational historian to form the self-consciousness leading the educational discourse system of China. The academic work of the educational thought of XueJi is to realize the docking between ancient educational texts and contemporary contexts, to communicate the ancient and modern educational traditions of China, and to explore an academic path based on the traditional lifeline for Chinese pedagogy.

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    Collaborative Innovation between Schools and Society: Global Trends and Chinese Practices
    Wei Ha, Aiai Fan, Mengze Li, Ye Xiao, Yao Wang, Lu Lin, Siyuan Chen, Yunwei Li, Yulian Cao, Dementyeva Yuliana
    2022, 40 (12):  110-126.  doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.12.010
    Abstract ( 509 )   HTML ( 49 )   PDF (1210KB) ( 1214 )   Save

    In the past fifty years, the outcries of education crisis have never ended. Many pundits attribute the causes of the crisis to the mismatch between what society needs and what schools can offer. This paper draws on the theory of ecology of education and the pedagogy core concept of OECD to analyze ten influential cases of collaborative innovation between schools and society at large both from China and abroad. It puts forward suggestions on building a dynamic, vibrant and sustainable education ecosystem. The major conclusions are as follows. First, there is the interaction between internal and external systems in the education system, which determines that schools and society are not antagonistic, but need to cooperate with each other. Second, schools around the world have developed various forms of cooperation mechanisms with other education institutions in order to expand learning space for learners, promote educational equity and improve educational quality. Third, “human capital investment balance sheet” should be applied to practice, and the beneficiaries of education and their employers have the responsibility to participate more in school education, so as to offset the public education resources they occupy, and realize the “shareholders’ equity” of education investment.

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