Abstract
This study aims to analyze the representation of global competence in English textbooks for higher vocational education in China. A two-dimensional textbook theoretical framework based on global competence was developed, including four indicators of global competence (vertical) and 3 dimensions of textbook content (horizontal). Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative content analysis, we analyzed the representation of global competence in a set of Chinese higher vocational English textbooks (D version textbooks) in terms of content level, rendering location, and representation form. The results showed that the D version textbooks covered all of global competence indicators, among which the indicator of knowledge and understanding of global competence is the most and the attitudes and values is the least. The 16 sub-indicators of global competence presented differently in content levels, implicitly in the rendering location, and with “reading comprehension,”“oral communication” and “integrated application” as the main representation forms. This theoretical framework is an extension of global competence theory in textbook study and is also a useful tool for content analysis on non-linguistic knowledge of English textbooks.
Introduction
Along with the process of globalization, countries are increasingly interconnected in terms of political, economic and social development, and their interdependence is deepening. With the implementation of China’s all-round opening to the outside world and the “Belt and Road” initiative, the integration of China’s economy and the world will be further deepened with urgent requirements for global competence in daily work and life, and the demand for specialized talents with international capabilities will be further expanded, so cultivating talents with international vision and global competence has become an objective need for the internationalization of China’s vocational education, and is a new mission given to Chinese vocational education. In 2019, China’s State Council promulgated the National Implementation Plan for Vocational Education Reform, which for the first time put forward the task of “Three Educational Reforms” (the reforms in teacher training, textbooks, and teaching methods), and clearly pointed out that teachers are the root, textbooks are the basis, and teaching methods are the way, which work together in cultivating innovative high-quality technical and skilled talents who can adapt to the needs of industries and enterprises. In order to better serve the cultivation of talents and standardize teaching, the Chinese government first clarified in 2016 that the textbook work is a national matter. And in 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued the Measures for the Management of Textbooks for Vocational Colleges to strengthen the construction of textbooks from a strategic height, which has never been done in history.
English as an international language has the advantage of disseminating the languages and cultures around the world, so it has received special attention from the countries, and China is no exception. In China, English is the only subject that runs through the basic education to the higher education, which has the longest duration and affects the largest number of students. In 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Education officially released the English Curriculum Standards for Higher Vocational Education (2021 Edition) (hereinafter referred to as the Curriculum Standards), with the aim to cultivate highly qualified technical and skilled talents who have Chinese sentiment and global vision and can communicate effectively in English in daily life and workplace. Foreign language thinking is similar to global mind (Reimers, 2009), and for non-English-speaking countries, learning a foreign language may be one of the most effective ways for students to see the world from multiple perspectives and possibly consider the worldviews that exist different from their own (Mansilla & Jackson, 2012). In an increasingly diverse nation and globalized world, global competence will become a critical skill for 21st century talent. If teachers play a leading role in students’ successful acquisition of global competence, foreign languages play a leading role in the global education process (Anoshkova, 2015). Furthermore, a positive correlation between global competence and second language motivation has been found that the more motivated a student is to learn a second language, the more likely the student is to perceive himself or herself as globally competent, and vice versa (Semaan & Yamazaki, 2015). It has also been argued that English and native language proficiency are significant predictors of global competence, which in turn significantly influences participants’ social connectedness, social and academic adjustment (Meng et al., 2018). According to the above studies, we can say that higher vocational English curriculum are an important way to enhance students’ global competence of higher vocational colleges. Therefore, in the new development stage of China’s vocational education, the research on higher vocational English curriculum and textbooks from the perspective of global competence has important practical significance and will further enrich the theory of global competence at the same time.
Language teaching materials, as core instructional materials for language courses, are all materials used to promote students’ language learning with the characteristics of informative, instructional, experiential, eliciting and exploratory, which can be used as the basic carrier for learners to make language input and output training in the classroom (Tomlinson, 2012). Although the importance of language learning materials has become obvious, according to Tomlinson (2012), it was not until the mid-1990s that materials development began to be considered as a separate field by academics. According to Gray (2015), there are two paths to English (ELT) textbook research: one is to document best practices in textbook development, often echoing the principles of second language acquisition (SLA) and/or ELT; the other is to censor the cultural and ideological content of textbooks. However, the current research is mostly in the area of second language acquisition focusing on how to teach the materials, and there is a general lack of research on the materials themselves (Sue Garton, 2021). Although some studies have focused on cultural representations in English textbooks, they have mainly examined what cultural content is presented in the textbooks in terms of cultural types, cultural levels and cultural themes, and have less to do with presentation locations and representation forms. What’s more, as we all know, foreign language learning in China is mainly based on textbooks. According to the National Education Development Statistics Bulletin 2021 released by the official website of China’s Ministry of Education, there were 2,738 general colleges and universities in China in 2021, of which 1,468 were higher vocational colleges with 15.901 million students. That is, there are still such a large number of students in China who are using English textbooks to learn English. However, scholars have rarely studied English textbooks of higher vocational education in China, especially on the non-linguistic content of higher vocational English textbooks.
In this context, we want to know whether English textbooks for higher vocational colleges in China contain the global competence needed to develop 21st century students? In particular, as Chinese vocational education goes internationally, can higher vocational English textbooks play a proper role in cultivating internationalized and highly skilled talents? This study therefore focuses on the second path, namely the representation of non-linguistic knowledge in English textbooks, and addresses the following research questions: (1) What elements of global competence are presented in higher vocational English textbooks? (2) In what way do higher vocational English textbooks present global competence? Therefore, we developed a two-dimensional theoretical framework based on global competence theory for analyzing textbooks. Through a content analysis method that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, we examined the representational characteristics of global competence in terms of knowledge and understanding, cognition progress, social skills, and attitudes and values. And we also examined the content level, rendering location, and representation form of global competence in the textbooks.
This study analyzed a set of English textbooks (including three volumes) of the 13th Five-Year Plan for Vocational Education in China, which shows that Chinese higher vocational English textbooks covered all of global competence indicators, but the content of attitudes and values in the textbooks was somewhat neglected. The rendering location is mostly implicit and the “reading comprehension,”“oral communication” and “integrated application” are the main representation forms. The textbook theoretical framework based on global competence developed in this study is an extension of global competence theory in textbook analysis research, and it also enriches the theory of cultural representation of textbooks.
Literature Review
Research on Textbooks for Vocational Education
At present, the textbook research of vocational education in China mainly focuses on the construction, the use and the analysis of the textbooks. For the research on the construction of textbooks, most studies tended to give guidance on the development and compilation of textbooks from the macro level, such as Ma (2015) suggested that computer professional textbooks in vocational colleges and universities should be developed in school-enterprise cooperation, expand the depth and breadth of textbooks according to the project task, and reflect the principle of “sufficient and practical” and technical standards of vocational education. And there is one point to mention that the research on the development of professional textbooks were mostly manifested.
Regarding the use of textbooks, it is mainly on how to use textbooks as means and tools to improve teaching, and to better match professional requirements or student needs. For example, Lee and Chang (2014) collected English textbooks from 13 vocational fields to make a textbook corpus, and used a hierarchical clustering method to create a tree map of English textbooks for vocational education, providing a scientific method for the classification of Korean vocational high school English textbooks in five major occupational fields (agriculture, industry, commerce, marine and fisheries, and industry). Ningbo City College of Vocational Technology of China adopted a new teaching approach “Leveled College English Course Teaching,” providing students at different levels with different textbooks, and found that both students’ interest and confidence in English learning were increased (Sun & Xie, 2019). OHCHUNYOUNG (2004) found that there is no noticeable differences between the construction of the content of typical mathematics textbooks and students’ achievement of vocational high school. And some studies aimed to investigate the main factors that affect the use of textbooks. For example, Ramazani (2013) found that factors related to institutions and classrooms, particularly English test requirements and students’ cognitive and behavioral problems, largely influenced the way Iranian teachers used textbooks. From the above researches, it can be seen that textbooks are studied most from an external perspective.
Since the goal of vocational education is to cultivate high-quality skilled talents, textbook analysis also mainly focuses on professional skills or qualities. As for the economic value in vocational textbooks, Aldoosry et al. (2020) found that in the Saudi Arabian Education Policy Document and the High School Vocational Textbooks, five basic economic values about production, savings, moderate spending, labor and economic development are not well represented. Educational policy documents only cover the value related to production area. Apart from topics related to respect and time value, not all economic values are prominently included in vocational textbooks. Similarly, Han et al. (2020) argued that labor rights education in Korean vocational high school textbooks has been narrowed to legal and economic-centered education, and the core issue of infringement of labor rights such as field training encountered by students of vocational colleges were largely limited. Therefore, although there have been studies on the analysis of the content of textbooks, there is little research on the analysis of the content of English textbooks for higher vocational education. The above studies of vocational textbooks have focused more on specialist course textbooks, while English textbooks for general purpose have received less attention.
Cultural Representation in English Textbooks
Since ancient times, culture has been an integral part of language education (Kumaravadivelu, 2017). Gray (2010) viewed ELT textbooks as “cultural artifacts” that help make English meaningful in specific ways. Regarding the analysis of cultural representations in English textbooks, the theories that have been used more often in current research are: (1) Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) cultural type theory, which classified EFL teaching materials into three types: native/local culture, target culture (usually American or British culture), and international culture (different cultures from all over the world). (2) Moran’s cultural category theory, classifying cultures into products, practices, perspectives, communities, and individuals (Moran & Lu, 2004). (3) Kachru’s (1992) circle model theory, which divided the communication model and domain of English into the inner circle, the outer circle and the expanding circle. Scholars have conducted researches based on a single theory (Gheisari & Akbari, 2022), or a combination of two or three theories (St et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2022). The results of the analysis on cultural representations in English textbooks show the following characteristics.
First of all, Anglo-American culture still dominates foreign language textbooks. Although globalization is gradually transforming English into an international language, target culture (British or American culture) or local culture remains the main cultural content of English (ELT) textbooks. A study has reported that although the cultural content in the seven series of internationally distributed ELT textbooks have shown a variety of proportions, the inner circle culture still dominates most textbooks (Shin et al., 2011). This phenomenon is not only found in global textbooks, but also in local English textbooks. Kang-Young (2009) found that few of the EFL dialog textbooks (1996–2003) in Korean high schools focused on culture, and in the few which involved cultural learning, American culture was primarily introduced. Bose and Gao (2022) reported that British culture are generally dominant in Indian high school English textbooks. In China, through corpus analysis of a large sample (10 sets of Chinese university English textbooks), scholars have also found that American/British culture are the dominant culture in Chinese university English textbooks, and cultures from outer and expanding circle countries almost completely ignored (Liu et al., 2022).
Second, local/native culture is emphasized and highlighted. According to St et al. (2022), native culture is represented more than foreign culture in both English and Arabic textbooks in junior high schools used in the Indonesian territory. Similarly, local culture is represented more than both target and international cultures in Saudi EFL textbooks for elementary, middle, and high schools (Sultan, 2018).
Third, native culture and other cultures are balanced. In Japan, the cultural content of English textbooks clearly reflects the socio-political environment of the times, wandering in the local culture and the target culture, or taking the local culture and the target culture as the main cultural content of the textbooks. For example, Matsuda (2003) found most of the English textbook (grade 7) are set in a Japanese (local) context with Japanese or people from inner circle countries (or so-called NS) being the main characters. Unlike Japan, Korean secondary school English textbooks are more inclusive, which not only cover more local cultures to enhance students’ national pride, but also include cultural content from 49 countries around the world, presenting cultural diversity (Chang, 2022).
Fourth, national culture and international culture are divided. According to Aoumeur and Ziani (2022), the native culture in Algerian English textbooks for the first grade of secondary school appears repeatedly in the form of various social symbols as a unifying force, while the foreign (international) culture is presented as a divisive force and the concept of “otherness” is present throughout the book. Interestingly, the two types of English textbooks used in public and private schools in Iran present completely different results: the Prospect series (2014) used in public schools significantly highlighting the local culture but clearly ignoring the target culture, while the Interchange series used in private schools endorses the mainstream American culture and completely ignores Iranian culture (Gheisari & Akbari, 2022). This cannot but be said to be the division of two different ideological cultures in the same field, it is also because of the inevitable cultural and ideological attachments to foreign language textbooks that the use of foreign language textbooks has caused some governments to intervene. For example, in order to be in line with international standards, the Malaysian Ministry of Education has replaced local textbooks with imported textbooks. However, the study found that the neoliberal values in imported textbooks exceed those in local textbooks (Daghigh & Rahim, 2021), and the cross-cultural content and cultural spectrum in locally published textbooks are broader and more in line with the goal of cross-cultural competence (Rahim & Daghigh, 2020). It can be seen that looking at the diversity of cultures in English textbooks from a single or even opposing perspective can no longer meet the value and status of English as a world lingua franca, nor is it conducive to cultivating 21st century talents with both national identity and global awareness.
From the point of view of research methods, the common methods used to analyze the cultural content of textbooks mainly involve three main fields: first, some studies used the critical discourse analysis (Daghigh & Rahim, 2021) and the corpus approach (Brown, 2022; Liu et al., 2022); the second is thematic analysis of textbooks with cultural theory or intercultural communication theory (Baleghizadeh & Amiri Shayesteh, 2020; Daghigh & Rahim, 2021; Rahim & Daghigh, 2020; Shin et al., 2011; third, there are still some studies used sociological approaches such as semiotics and ethnography (Kaliska, 2022; Weninger & Kiss, 2013).
The above research shows that the presentation of culture in English textbooks remains uneven in most countries. The current English textbooks place too much emphasis on the target culture or inner circle culture, ignore multiculturalism/international culture, and lag behind the presentation of the culture of the expanding outer circle countries in the world today. Although recent studies have shown that the three sets of Korean high school English textbooks present cultural diversity better (Chang, 2022), and the three sets of Chinese high school English textbooks also give almost equal attention to global cultures, rather than emphasizing one culture at the expense of another (Zhang et al., 2022), it is also clear to see that the educational stages of English textbooks that the studies have focused on are mostly at the primary and secondary school levels, and few studies took English textbooks for higher vocational education as an object of study. What’s more, most of the studies have focused on the content dimension of culture in textbooks, and the location and representation form of culture in textbooks have rarely been analyzed (Zhang et al., 2022).
Research on Global Competence
The concept of “Global Competence” was first proposed in 1988 in a report Teaching for Global Competence published by the Council on International Education Exchange (W. D. Hunter, 2004). As a core competence, the connotation of global competence is also under continuous development and contains several dimensions of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and actions. Different scholars have given different connotations, such as Richard D. Lambert defined five components of global competence: knowledge, empathy, recognition, foreign language proficiency, and task performance (B. Hunter et al., 2006). W. D. Hunter (2004) defined the concept of global competence as “having an open mind while actively seeking to understand the cultural norms and expectations of others, and leveraging this gained knowledge to interact, communicate and work effectively,” and developed detailed global competence indicators from three dimensions of knowledge, skills and attitudes. Fernando Reimers of the Harvard School of Education stated that global competence has three interdependent dimensions (Reimers, 2009): The first dimension is the need for a positive attitude toward cultural differences and a global value framework to address these differences. The second dimension is the ability to speak, understand, and think in a language different from one’s native language. The third dimension involves an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the global topics such as world history, geography, health, climate, economy, and the globalization process itself, as well as a capacity to make critical and creative reflections on the complexity of current global challenges. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with its longstanding commitment to global education, has the most representative definition of global competence, which defines global competence as “the capacity to examine local, global and intercultural issues, to understand and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others, to engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions with people from different cultures, and to act for collective well-being and sustainable development” (Piacentini et al., 2021).
From the above theories of global competence, it is easy to see that foreign language is an essential dimension to global competence. It can be said that compared with other disciplines, foreign language curriculum is more closely related to global competence and are an important vehicle for global competence education. China is carrying out a curriculum reform based on core competence, and global competence has become one of the important dimensions of the core competence of English subjects. The Curriculum Standard in China clearly states that “the aim of higher vocational English is to enables students to identify and understand the world’s diverse cultures, expand global vision, enhance national identity, and establish a sense of Chinese national community and a community of shared future for mankind.” The aim of the Curriculum Standard is to enhance the internationalization of Chinese vocational education, and to cultivate high-quality technical and technical talents with international vision and Chinese sentiment and good communication skills for China (Wen & Zhang, 2021).
The empirical research on global competence mainly focuses on two aspects: one is the extensive explorations that various international organizations and schools have carried out on how to cultivate and improve global competence; and the other is on global competence assessment, including the assessment on students, teachers and textbooks. Textbooks, as an important carrier of knowledge, have attracted the attention of scholars. Chou and Ting (2016) conducted a content analysis of primary school textbooks in Taiwan based on the developed core concepts and keywords list for the global dimension, and found that textbooks generally emphasize ecological sustainability and world peace, lacking materials on human rights and social justice. It was also found that social studies and integrated activity courses included more global core concepts than mathematics and English. Later, based on PISA 2018 global competence framework, Pei-I et al. (2019) made a content analysis of global issues on Taiwan’s junior high school English textbooks. The results showed that content of global competence accounted for about 40% of the textbooks and content about “Culture and Intercultural Relations” accounted for 30%. There is significantly more content related to Western culture than non-Western culture. It is proposed to include more content such as “socio-economic development and interdependence,”“environmental sustainability,” and “conflict resolution, and protection of institutions and human rights” in Taiwan’s English textbooks. It can be seen that the current assessment of global competence in English textbooks only involves the knowledge level of global competence without considering the indicators of cognitive skills, attitudes, and values.
From the above literature review, we can have the following findings: (1) English teaching materials in higher education are at the edge of textbook research. It can be seen that there are still few studies by researchers on higher vocational English textbooks both in the field of vocational education and in the field of English education. (2) Cultural representation in English textbooks still remains largely at the level of traditional knowledge and does not promote learners to make deep reflection (Shin et al., 2011). (3) The assessment of global competence in English textbooks is currently focused on the knowledge dimension of global competence and does not yet address the dimension of cognitive, attitudes, and values. (4) The Curriculum Standards have been shown a global competence orientation. Therefore, it is necessary to further examine whether English textbooks in higher vocational education includes global competence content and whether they can play a role in cultivating international technical skills talents. In this study, we focuses on global competence in English textbooks and examines the multidimensional representation of knowledge, cognition, skills, attitudes and values of global competence. The results of this study will, to some extent, reflect the internationalization level of English textbooks of Chinese vocational education, which will be of reference to Chinese higher vocational education in cultivating high-quality technical skills talents with global vision, improving internationalization level, and serving the national strategy of “Belt and Road.”
Research Methodology
Content analysis is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze educational materials, and the “content” refers to all kinds of verbal, pictorial, symbolic, and communication data (Krippendorff, 2019). We will first create a two-dimensional theoretical framework based on global competence: the vertical indicators of the framework refers to global competence indicators including four primary indicators and 16 sub-indicators, and the horizontal dimensions of the framework are set in terms of the content and structure of the English textbooks including three primary dimensions and 16 sub-dimensions. Qualitative content analysis is used to describe the representation of global competence in textbooks, while quantitative content analysis aims to calculate the extent of global competence in the content level, rendering location, and representation forms of textbooks.
Research Context and Sample
In 2019, China’s Ministry of Education organized the construction of national planning textbooks for vocational education for the 13th Five-Year Plan, allowing textbooks published and reprinted since 2017 to be declared. The review of textbooks insists on the separation of editorial and review, and entrusts a third-party professional organization or team of experts familiar with the needs of vocational education and industrial talent training to conduct a comprehensive review of the ideology, science and appropriateness of textbooks based on the national teaching standards for vocational education. After more than one year of review, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced in December 2020 the list of national planning textbooks for vocational education selected for the 13th Five-Year Plan, including2,828 sets of higher vocational textbooks with 21 sets of public English textbooks.
Since there are no official statistics on which textbooks are most frequently used in each higher vocational college, the sample textbooks were selected mainly based on the publication date of the textbook, the expected level of education, and the personal experience of the researchers with the textbooks. The textbooks selected for this study is the textbook “English for Application and Communication” (referred to as the D version textbooks), which was published in 2021 by Publishing House of Electronics Industry (3rd edition) in three volumes (referred to as D1, D2, and D3), with eight units in volumes 1 and 2 and six units in volume 3. This set of textbooks belongs to the latest published textbooks in the period of reform and development of higher vocational education. Regarding personal experience with the textbook, it should be noted that one of the researchers in this study was and is an English teacher in a higher vocational college, and the selection of the textbook was based on observations in teaching and conversations with teachers who reported the novelty of the textbook and how it helped in teaching. Moreover, we are further stimulated by the preface of the textbook, which highlights the idea that English language teaching should be internationally relevant and emphasizes the development of language knowledge, communicative ability, intercultural awareness, and professional skills.
Theoretical Framework
Global competence, belonging to the category of general competence, has become an important part of core competence in the 21st century, which is in line with the two-way demands of individual and social development. In 2018, the OECD conducted a global competence assessment for youth based on the Global Competence Framework of International Student Assessment Project (PISA), which marked a substantial progress that global competence education has moved from the theoretical stage to the practical exploration stage.
Based on the OECD global competence theory and PISA global competence assessment framework, Our research comprehensively considers the connotation of multiple global competence concepts, and formulates a textbook theoretical framework. The theoretical framework in this study adopts a two-dimension framework, including the global competence analysis framework (vertical) and the textbook content analysis framework (horizontal). According to the OECD definition of global competence, global competence is a multidimensional learning domain that includes knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values dimensions. Therefore, the vertical analytical framework include four primary indicators: knowledge and understanding, cognitive process, social skills, attitudes, and values. The 16 sub-indicators were determined as follows: According to the definition of global competence, knowledge and understanding is what individuals need to know to cope with the challenges and opportunities brought about by globalization and intercultural conflicts (Piacentini et al., 2021). Therefore, the first indicator [knowledge and understanding] of the global competence is set, including “knowledge and understanding of global issues” and “knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations.” What’s more, B. Hunter et al. (2006) argued that the most critical step in global competence is to give a person a keen understanding of one’s own cultural norms and expectations. Since China is a multi-ethnic country, ethnic identity is the foundation for finding a clear self-positioning and irreplaceable advantages in a pluralistic and complex cultural environment, and is the basis for confidently and actively communicating with others and cooperating to carry out work. At the same time, considering that “local culture” is an indispensable part in the representation of cultural types, it is necessary to take ethnic identity and national identity into account. Therefore, we add two sub-indicators: “knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity” and “knowledge and understanding of national identity.”
Skills referred to the capacity to implement a complex and orderly pattern of thinking (in terms of cognitive skills) or behavior (in terms of social-emotional skills) in order to reach a specific goal (Piacentini et al., 2021). The PISA Global Competence Cognitive Test includes four interrelated topics (Piacentini et al., 2021): the capacity to evaluate information, explain complex situation, identify biases and address conflicting arguments; the capacity to identify and analyze different perspectives and worldviews, position and connect one’s own to the worldviews of others; the capacity to understand the differences in communication, recognize the importance of appropriate communication, and adapt to the demands of different cultural contexts; the capacity to assess actions and impacts by identifying and comparing different modes of action and weighing these opposing actions on the basis of short- and long-term consequences. Based on this, we define the second indicator as [cognitive process], which contains four sub-indicators: “evaluate and explain complex situations,”“identify and analyse multiple perspectives,”“understand differences in communication” and “evaluate actions and consequences.”
Global competence is also built on communication and socio-emotional skills. As reported by OECD, Global competence requires a variety of skills, including critical thinking, communication skills in a cross-cultural context, problem-solving skills, and adaptability (Piacentini et al., 2021). From this, we derived the third indicator [social skills] as three sub-indicators: “analytical and critical thinking,”“effective communication with others,” and “cooperation and problem solving.” The sub-indicator “responsibility and undertaking” is derived from the action orientation of taking appropriate individual or collective actions to improve the current situation and contribute to the collective well-being, as emphasized in different definitions of global competence (Mansilla & Jackson, 2012; Piacentini et al., 2021).
Attitudes are built around values. An attitude is the mindset that an individual adopts about a person, a group, an institution, a problem, an action, or a symbol. This mindset integrates beliefs, evaluations, feelings, and behavioral tendencies into specific ways. Values are standards and norms that people use consciously and unconsciously in their judgments, and motivate certain behaviors and attitudes. Global competence requires an attitude of openness to people with other cultural backgrounds, an attitude of respect for cultural differences, and a global mindedness (Piacentini et al., 2021). From this, the fourth indicator [attitudes and values] is summarized, including four sub-indicators: “attitudes of openness,”“global mindedness,”“valuing human dignity and diversity” and “empathy.” Therefore, the improved global competence analysis framework was built including four primary indicators and 16 sub-indicators (Table 1).
Vertical Indicators of the Theoretical Framework.
The textbook content analysis framework (horizontal) include three primary dimensions and 16 sub-dimensions. The first dimension [content level] refers to the overall level of representation of global competence in the textbook, including: length of text, frequency of occurrence, associated lessons, and description level. In particular, the “length of text” is quantitatively evaluated according to the words count for level I-IV, where 1 to 50 words are level I, 51 to 100 words are level II, 101 to 150 words are level III, and 151 words and above are level VI. The “associated lessons” and “frequency of occurrence” are quantified by the number. The description level is quantitatively evaluated according to the level of I-IV, which is divided into four levels according to the number of words and the level of content expression from shallow to deep: level I generally has only a few words of expression; level II will have a simple expression of one or two sentences, which is not comprehensive and in-depth; level III will have several sentence or one or two paragraphs, and more in-depth discussion in terms of content; level IV has several or more paragraphs, and is comprehensive and systematic in its content, with the form of text, diagrams etc.. Others are counted according to the number of frequencies. The [rendering location] and [representation form] will be coded as “yes or no” according to the actual content, with 1 for yes and 0 for no. The frequency, percentage and weight of each indicators and dimensions will be counted. The global competence theoretical framework of the textbook is as follows (see Table 2).
Horizontal Dimensions of the Theoretical Framework.
Coding Methods
This study uses a content analysis method, taking each discourse text in the textbook as the analysis unit, including all textual content of listening, speaking, reading comprehension, writing, exercises, introductions and so on. The authors worked together to code the article. In order to improve the accuracy of the analysis, the authors conducted an examination and discussion on the theoretical framework and coding rules before the analysis. Then, the two authors practiced the coding process and shared with each other to discuss issues that arose during coding. If there is no different opinions, the encoding will be determined. If the opinions are not unanimous, it will be communicated in time, and a third person will be invited to discuss when necessary. The third person is an English teacher who engaged in global competence education reform of higher vocational English curriculum. Finally, the two authors coded independently and checked the coding results when completed. We expressed our gratitude to the third participant in our acknowledgment.
After the coding is completed, the total value of global competence in [content level], [rendering location] and [representation form] is counted separately. It should be noted that some of the materials in the textbook will present more than two indicators of global competence at the same time. For example, in Section 5 Volunteer in Wuhan Continues to Serve after COVID-19 of Unit 5 in D1 textbook, it mentions global issue “COVID-19,” and meanwhile there is a description of China’s fight against the epidemic, which expresses a high degree of national identity and also describes the responsibility and undertaking of Chinese volunteers in the fight against the epidemic. All these indicators presented in the text will be calculated separately. The specific coding method and analysis process are as follows (Figure 1).
Section 5 of Unit 5 in D1 textbook.
Adapted from English for Application and Communication 1 (p. 76), by Sen et al. (2021), Publishing House of Electronics Industry. Copyright 2021 by Publishing House of Electronics Industry. Adapted with permission.
Step1, Code according to the vertical indicators of theoretical framework (Table 1). By reading through the text to get a sense of the whole, we can summarize and refine the global competence indicators of the whole text as follows:
(1) This article is based on the theme of volunteerism after the outbreak of COVID-19, so the “volunteers” and “COVID-19” embody the sub-indicators of “knowledge and understanding of global issues.”
(2) The article is based on the context of Wuhan in China, describing China’s battle against the epidemic, which reflects the “knowledge and understanding of national identity.”
(3) The article focuses on the deeds of volunteer Xiang Yafei, described in detail in each paragraph with a large number of words, which shows the “responsibility and undertaking” of volunteers.
(4) It is also written that Xiang participated in the clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine, which reflects Xiang’s “global mindedness.”
To sum up, the sub-indicators of global competence reflected in Section 5 of this passage are: “knowledge and understanding of global issues,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity,”“responsibility and undertaking,” and “global mindedness.”
Step2, Code each sub-indicator of global competence based on the horizontal dimensions of the theoretical framework (Table 2). Each sub-indicator was read in detail and coded in terms of [content level], [rendering location] and [representation form].
(1) Knowledge and understanding of global issues: “volunteer” appears as a noun and verb in the title, paragraph 4 and paragraph 6, occupying a total of 53 words, namely level II; it appears 4 times; it is associated with Section 1, Section 2, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6, so the number of associated lesson is 5; it is described with three sentences, so the description level is “III.” The rendering location is in the “body part.” Representation form is recorded as “reading comprehension.”
“COVID-19” or novel corona-virus appears repeatedly in the article, occupying 81 words, which coded as level II; the frequency of occurrence is 5, and the associated lesson is only this lesson, recorded as 1; it just mentioned the name of COVID-19 and is not described in depth, so the description level is “I.” The rendering location is in the “body part.” Representation form is recorded as “reading comprehension.”
(2) Knowledge and understanding of national identity: “Wuhan” appears as the name of a city in China, occupying 50 words (level I); it appears 3 times; the number of the associated lesson is 1; it appears only as a place name, without in-depth description, so the level of description is “I.” The rendering location is in “body Part.” The form of representation is “reading comprehension.”
Similarly, “Hubei” appears with a length of 18 words (level I); the frequency of occurrence is 1; the number of the associated lesson is I; the level of description is “I.” The rendering location is “body part,” and the form of representation is “reading comprehension.”“Zigui” occupies 29 words in length ( level I); frequency of occurrence is 2; the number of the associated lesson is 1; the description level is “I.” The rendering location is in the “body part.” The form of representation is “reading comprehension.”
What’s more, it describes China’s battle against COVID-19 with 11 words in length (level I); the frequency of occurrence is 1; the number of the associated lesson is I; the level of description is “I.” The rendering location is in the “body part.” The form of representation is “reading comprehension.”
(3) Responsibility and undertaking: The whole passage mainly reflects responsibility and undertaking through Xiang’s behavior, occupying 220 words (level IV); it describes 8 specific behaviors during the epidemic to show the responsibility and undertaking, such as giving up the Spring Festival to go home, providing vehicle services for front-line medical staff, participating in the construction of the Fangcang Makeshift Hospital, acting as an ambulance driver, accepting a clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine and helping farmers of Zigui in Hubei to sell oranges, so the frequency of occurrence is 8; the number of associated lesson is 1; the description is detailed and comprehensive, so the description level is “IV.” The rendering location is in the “body part.” The form of representation is “reading comprehension.”
(4) Global mindedness: It is mainly reflected in Xiang’s initiative to participate in the clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine, which is a manifestation of his concern for the fate of mankind and the next generation. The length of text is 34 words (level I); the frequency of occurrence is 1; the number of associated lesson is 1; and the level of description is “II”. The rendering location is in the “body part.” The form of representation is “reading comprehension.”
Based on the above analysis, the values were filled in the statistical table (see Table 3). By analogy, the other text were coded and counted separately in the same way, and finally summarized and made into a chart. KUGI, KUIS, KUEI, KUNI are the abbreviation for knowledge and understanding of global issues, knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations, knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity, and knowledge and understanding of national identity. EPCI, IAMP, UDC, EAC are the abbreviation for evaluate and explain complex situations, identify and analyse multiple perspectives, understand differences in communication, and evaluate actions and consequences. ACT, ECO, RAU, CPS are the abbreviation for analytical and critical thinking, effective communication with others, responsibilities and undertaking, and cooperation and problem solving. AO, GM, VHD, EMP are the abbreviation for attitudes of openness, global mindedness, valuing human dignity and diversity, and empathy.
Coding Example (D1-Unit5-Section5) Content level.
Results
What Indicators of Global Competence Are Presented in D Version Textbooks?
The D version textbooks better represent the knowledge and understanding, cognitive processes and social skills of global competence, but the content of attitudes and values in the textbooks are somewhat neglected. In this study, global competence consists of 4 indicators and 16 sub-indicators. Through the statistics of the total number of 4 indicators as shown in Figure 2, we can see that the [knowledge and understanding] appears most, followed by [social skills] and [cognitive process], and the least is [attitudes and values]. In terms of sub-indicators of global competence (Figure 3), the top five sub-indicators are: “knowledge and understanding of global issues,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity,”“cooperation and problem solving,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “effective communication with others.” The sub-indicators less represented are “valuing human dignity and diversity,”“Empathy,”“identify and analyse multiple perspectives” and “analytical and critical thinking.”
Vertical coding chart of indicators in D version textbooks.
Vertical coding chart of sub-indicators in D version textbooks.
As can be seen from the above data, first of all, it shows that the D version textbooks contain a wealth of knowledge and understanding about global issues, nations and countries, and cross-cultures, which well balances the international culture and local culture in the textbook. Second, the textbooks focus on developing students’ cooperation and problem-solving skills and effective communication skills with others, highlighting sociolinguistic competence in foreign language proficiency (OECD, 2021). Third, the two cognitive process sub-indicators of “identify and analyse multiple perspectives” and “analytical and critical thinking” performed poorly, indicating that the textbooks did not pay enough attention to students’ foreign language thinking and cognition. Fourth, attitudes and values of empathy and valuing human dignity and diversity are ignored.
In What Ways Do the D Version Textbooks Present These Global Competence?
In addition to examining which indicators of global competence are presented in textbooks, we also analyzed the content level, rendering location, and representation form of these indicators in D version textbooks, and conducted statistics and analysis separately.
Content Level Analysis of Global Competence in the Textbooks
The dimension [content level] in the textbook includes four sub-dimensions: “length of text,”“frequency of occurrence,”“associated lessons,” and “description level.” As can be seen from Figure 4, the knowledge and understanding of global competence are generally the highest in the content level, followed by social skills and cognitive processes, and attitudes and values are the lowest in content level. The 16 sub-indicators of global competence vary widely in terms of “length of text,”“frequency of occurrence,”“associated lessons” and “description level.” The “knowledge and understanding of global issues” and “knowledge and understanding of national identity” are higher in terms of “length of text,”“frequency of occurrence,”“associated lessons” and “description level .” Whereas the “identify and analyse multiple perspectives,”“valuing human dignity and diversity” and “empathy” are relatively at low content level.
Statistical chart of content level analysis of D version textbooks.
Specifically, the indicators of global competence that occupy the most space in D version textbooks are “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “effective communication with others” and “knowledge and understanding of national identity.” The “knowledge and understanding of global issues” is at the most “frequency of occurrence,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity.” The sub-indicators with the most “associated lessons” are “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “cooperation and problem solving.” The sub-indicators with the higher “description level” are “knowledge and understanding of global issues,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “cooperation and problem solving.”
Horizontally, although the three sub-indicators of “knowledge and understanding of global issues,”“evaluate and explain complex situations” and “effective communication with others” occupy the largest “length of text,” the “description level” is not consistent with it. On the contrary, the “description level” of other sub-indicators is higher than that of “length of text.” The description level is related to students’ understanding and mastery of knowledge. Whether it can help students improve their understanding with a limited length of text and inspire students to think deeply need to examine further.
Rendering Location Analysis of Global Competence in the Textbooks
The dimension [rendering location] includes five sub-dimensions: the “body part,”“introduction and background,”“sidebar notes,”“exercises,” and “after-class expansion.” As shown in Figure 5, the rendering locations that global competence is presented in the textbook, in order are: exercises, body parts, sidebar notes, introduction and background, and after-class expansion. Specifically, in D version textbooks, the sub-indicator which is presented most in the “body part” is “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “effective communication with others.” The sub-indicator that appears most in the “introduction and background” is “cooperation and problem solving,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of global issues” and “knowledge and understanding of national identity.” Whereas the indicators of [cognitive processes] and [attitudes and values] do not appear in the “introduction and background.” The indicators presented most in the “sidebar notes” are the four sub-indicators of [knowledge and understanding], followed by “attitudes of openness.” The sub-indicators most presented in “exercises” is “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “cooperation and problem solving,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “evaluate and explain complex situations.” The sub-indicators most presented in the “after-class expansion” are “knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity” and “attitudes of openness,” whereas “knowledge and understanding of global issues,”“analytical and critical thinking” and “global mindedness” do not appear.
Statistical chart of rendering location analysis of D version textbooks.
The rendering location is divided into explicit rendering and implicit rendering. Input texts such as audio & visual text and reading text belong to explicit rendering; while after-class exercises including fill-in-the-blanks, translation, discussion and writing are implicit rendering (Zhang & Li, 2022). Through Figure 5, it can be found that “exercises” involve more indicators, followed by “body part,” which shows that the indicators of global competence in the textbooks are presented both explicitly and implicitly, and the implicit rendering is the main way. In addition, “knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity,”“effective communication with others” and “cooperation and problem solving” are widely distributed and presented in various locations in the textbooks; the “understand differences in communication,”“valuing human dignity and diversity” and “empathy” only appear explicitly in the “body part.” The indicators of [knowledge and understanding] and [social skills] appear more implicit in the “exercises.”
Representation Form Analysis of Global Competence in the Textbooks
The dimension [representation form] includes seven sub-dimensions: “watching and listening,”“oral communication,”“reading comprehension,”“translation training,”“simulated writing,”“grammar details,” and “comprehensive application.” As shown in Figure 6, the indicators of global competence in D version textbooks are mostly represented in the form of “reading comprehension,”“oral communication” and “comprehensive application,” and at least in the form of “grammar details.” Six sub-indicators of global competence use more than five representation forms, for example, the sub-indicators of “knowledge and understanding of global issues” and “attitudes of openness” involve more than 7 representation forms, and the sub-indicators of “knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity,”“knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity” and “global mindedness” involve more than 5 representation forms.
Statistical chart of representation form analysis of D version textbooks.
Specifically, the sub-indicator most represented by “watching and listening” is “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations.” The sub-indicator which takes “oral communication” as the main representation form is “effective communication with others,” followed by “cooperation and problem solving” and “understanding communication differences.” The “evaluate and explain complex situations” and “empathy” do not appear in “oral communication.” The sub-indicator most represented by “reading comprehension” is “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of national identity,”“cooperation and problem solving,”“knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations.” The “understand differences in communication” does not appear in the reading comprehension. The sub-indicator of “knowledge and understanding of global issues” is mostly represented in the form of “translation training,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of national identity.” The sun-indicator which takes “simulated writing” as common representation form is “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “attitudes of openness” and “knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations.”“Grammar details” is the most common form to represent “knowledge and understanding of global issues,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity,”“attitudes of openness” and “global mindedness.” The sub-indicator with “comprehensive application” as the most common form is “evaluate and explain complex situations,” followed by “knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “knowledge and understanding of global issues.” The sub-indicator of “analytical and critical thinking” does not appear in the “comprehensive application.”
The diverse representation forms can help students develop global competence through a variety of training. But the sub-indicator of “empathy” does not appear in “oral communication” and “analytical and critical thinking” does not appear in “comprehensive application,” which could be a point for the authors of D version textbooks to make a reflection on the applicability of the material selection and the goal of the textbook design. It is also worth mentioning that the four sub-indicators of [cognitive process] are more represented in the form of “comprehensive application,” which is in line with the need for the means of cultivating cognitive processes.
Discussion
Discussion on the Results
First of all, the content of international culture and local culture are well paid attention to and balanced in the higher vocational English textbooks. This is in contrast to the imbalance of cultural representation in English textbooks presented in previous studies which have shown that most English textbooks rarely include international culture (Zhang et al., 2022). It seems that most EFL textbooks either focus primarily on language (grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc.) or contain cultural content limited to local and/or British-American culture (Shin et al., 2011). On the other hand, the results of this study are consistent in some aspects with previous studies on Chinese English textbooks (Xu, 2013), which reported that Chinese high school English textbooks and show a clear focus on EIL and the local functions of English, helping Chinese learners become an indispensable player in the global EIL community. It is noteworthy that the “knowledge and understanding of intercultural situations” of higher vocational English textbooks in this study is still underrepresented compared to the other three sub-indicators, which may lead Chinese English learners to focus too much on knowledge of national and ethnic identity and neglect intercultural knowledge and understanding, thus further leading to stereotypes and limiting learners’ deeper understanding of different cultures. In this regard, the internationalization of higher vocational education in China needs to be strengthened in terms of foreign language education and intercultural education to ensure that students can adapt to cross-cultural professional life.
Second, the textbooks in this study has the widest coverage of the content related to [knowledge and understanding], but the relatively less content related to [attitudes and values]. This suggests that the representation of global competence in the textbooks is still more at the level of surface knowledge and not enough for deeper content such as values, which lacks guidance for students’ deeper learning. This is similar to the study of (Zhang et al., 2022), in which cultural products, as the visible dimension of culture, accounted for the largest proportion of all culture categories in three sets of Chinese high school English textbooks, while cultural communities and cultural perspectives were rarely presented as a deeper level of culture. There is also difference that Korean English textbooks not only present cultural diversity (including inner circle culture, European culture, Asian cultures, and Korea’s own culture), but the types of culture presented in the Korean English textbooks include superficial knowledge such as geographical knowledge and also the deeper knowledge about social activities, festivals and customs, and values (Chang, 2022). Specifically, it is also worth considering that the sub-indicators of “valuing human dignity and diversity” and “empathy” in the higher vocational English textbooks of this study show the lowest overall performance among the 16 sub-indicators, indicating that they are the most lacking content of these textbooks. Some Chinese scholars have pointed out that in the past, the internationalization of vocational education in China took “national interests” as the ultimate value, but in the future, vocational education with Chinese characteristics should take the concept of “a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” as the leading concept, which is a transcendence of the tradition and is in line with UNESCO’s “education is the global common good” (Gao, 2018). From this, we can see that the textbook authors did not incorporate the two concepts into the higher vocational English textbooks. Textbooks not only convey knowledge, but also serve as a medium for communicating values. Although attitudes and values are abstract and ambitious, they are the most important educational values of the textbook and the purpose of global competence education, which cannot be neglected in the textbooks.
Third, several sub-indicators of global competence in the textbooks fit with the English core competence of the Curriculum Standards in some aspects. The Curriculum Standards has clearly stipulated that the English curriculum of higher vocational colleges need to cultivate students’ four English core competencies, that is “making intercultural communication in the workplace,”“conducting multicultural exchange,”“cultivating the pattern of language thinking” and “learning independently.” The sub-indicators such as “knowledge and understanding if intercultural situations,”“effective communication with others,”“global mindedness” and “attitudes of openness” in the textbook are well presented in terms of [content level], [presentation location] and [representation method], which are also in line with the Curriculum Standards to cultivate students to “be able to identify, understand, and respect the world’s diverse cultures, broaden the global vision, and enhance national identity…; to be able to listen and negotiate in communication…; to master the necessary intercultural knowledge, have intercultural skills, uphold an equal, inclusive and open attitude, and effectively complete intercultural communication tasks…” and so on. While on the other hand, the indicators of “identify and analyse multiple perspectives” and “analytical and critical thinking” in D version textbooks performed poorly, and in this regard, the D version textbooks do not take full advantage of that foreign languages are similar to global thinking (Reimers, 2009), and one of the great advantages of learning a foreign language is that it can improve cognitive and social skills such as problem-solving and creative thinking through language learning. Overall, to a large extent, it shows that China’s Curriculum Standards have become global competence oriented.
Finally, according to Zhang and Li’s (2022) definition of cultural representation form of the textbook, text input (including audio, visual, & reading text) is explicit; exercises and activities are implicit. In this way, the sub-indicators of global competence in this study appear most in implicit forms of exercises. The text is also the most representative explicit form in the textbook, and the exercises are the most representative implicit form, which are consistent with the results of the analysis of Chinese high school English textbooks (Zhang et al., 2022).
Discussion on the Framework
Firstly, there are mainly three theoretical frameworks for current research on cultural representations of textbooks, namely Cortazzi and Jin’s three types of culture (native culture, target culture, and international culture), Kachru’s culture circle model (the inner circle, the outer circle, and the expanding circle), and Moran’s framework of cultural categories (practices, products, perspectives, and person). These theoretical frameworks place more emphasis on the congruence of factual knowledge of culture with the social context of the target language country (Risager, 2021), and are concerned with the construction of knowledge, which belongs to the modernist representation of culture. The theoretical framework in this study focuses on multiple aspects of non-linguistic knowledge, including not only the content of knowledge and understanding, but also cognitive processes, social skills, and attitudes and values. From this point of view, the framework of this study stands for a postmodernist perspective that considers the importance of knowledge while insists that human attitudes and emotions cannot be ignored (Risager, 2021).
Secondly, according to Risager (2021), there are two views of culture, one is essentialism and the other is non-essentialism. The essentialist view of culture sees culture as norms and values, products and practices, while the non-essentialist cultural views see culture as constructed in discourse, and believe “culture is not something that can be used to explain people’s norms and values, culture is what should be explained.” According to the study of Zhang et al. (2022), their FARCET framework for analyzing culture in textbooks is based on an essentialist understanding of culture, as the textbooks currently used in China is mainly represented based on an essentialist perspective. From this point of view, the theoretical framework in this study has a transnational perspective and therefore leans more toward a non-essentialist view of culture. Because the national paradigm is limited to (homogeneous) national cultures and literatures, as well as the norms and values of the national framework, transnational awareness in this field means that the issue of sociocultural content becomes more open than within the national paradigm (Risager, 2021) and implies a break and a challenge to the national paradigm, which will give ELT a more open horizon and room for development.
Conclusions and Implications
According to the global competence theoretical framework, on the basis of text analysis of D version textbooks, it can be found that the whole set of textbooks better reflects the four indicators of global competence, but the distribution of each indicator in textbooks is uneven. Overall, the textbook has the widest coverage of the content related to [knowledge and understanding], but the relatively less content related to [attitudes and values]. The five most highly represented sub-indicators in the textbook are, in order, “knowledge and understanding of global issues,”“knowledge and understanding of national identity,”“cooperation and problem solving,”“knowledge and understanding of ethic identity,” and “effective communication with others.” The “valuing human dignity and diversity” and “empathy” are the two least represented sub-indicators which are neglected.
The 16 sub-indicators of global competence in D version textbooks are quite different in terms of content level, are mainly presented implicitly with the rendering location, and take “reading comprehension,”“oral communication” and “comprehensive application” as the main representation forms. It is worth noting that the sub-indicator “knowledge and understanding of global issues” performs best in 4 dimensions, and “knowledge and understanding of national identity” and “knowledge and understanding of ethnic identity” also show a high level of content in the textbooks, with relatively wide distribution and more diversified representation forms.
Global competence is a high-level competency. In OECD’s concept, global competence is viewed as the capacity to mobilize knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, along with reflection on the learning process, connecting with the world and taking action. The global competence theoretical framework includes knowledge and understanding of both national and target cultures, as well as knowledge and understanding of international cultures and global issues. The attitudes and values in the framework can also examine the “subjective culture” such as worldviews and values (Bennett et al., 2003). Therefore, the global competence theoretical framework for textbook content analysis can be a new method for English textbooks content research.
The limitation of this study is that firstly we only took one set of higher vocational English textbooks as a sample, and the analysis results can not fully reflect the overall situation of English textbooks of higher vocational education in China. Secondly, this study only analyzes the texts in the textbooks, excluding audios, videos and pictures. Large sample analysis and textbook multi-modal analysis can be conducted in the future.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We would like to express our gratitude to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72074031) and Major Project of the “Fourteenth Five-Year Plan” of the Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China (22JJD880007). We also appreciate Lirong Wan’s support for her participating in the discussion and giving advice during the coding process, and meanwhile express our sincere gratitude to the editors and reviewers who gave us suggestions for revisions.
Statement
It does not involve animal and human studies.
