International Journal of Chinese Education

This issue collects six papers which investigate ongoing challenges and developments in Chinese higher education. It publishes papers from emerging researchers who chart contemporary directions in research and practice relating to institutional governance and philanthropy, the changing identity of university leaders and teachers, the formation of liberal arts and business studies curriculum. The papers focus on education in China and abroad, and offer cross-national and intercultural perspectives of high relevance in a changing world.

Although women are considered to be dominant contributors in the field of education, underrepresentation of women in educational leadership is still a pervasive issue. The situation may be more critical in the Asian Chinese context, wherein the male-dominated tradition of the feudal system has been prevalent for thousands of years. This article examines the barriers faced by women in educational leadership roles in a Chinese university, and the facilitators of female educational leadership. The case study was conducted using qualitative methods, involving interviews with both male and female leaders. The findings present a range of barriers that women in the research university are now facing, facilitating factors, and ways to solve the issue. Addressing the importance of recognising the underrepresentation of women in Chinese universities also has the aim of promoting gender equity in educational leadership.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Christian universities in China founded by North American missionaries made a great contribution to China’s higher education development and set models for other universities. These universities adapted the American liberal arts education into Chinese contexts with a completely different social and cultural tradition. The paper explores the concept and essence of liberal arts education as reflected in the curriculum of the Christian universities through a qualitative methodology employing archival document analysis. The study brings insights for today’s trend towards reviving liberal arts education in China’s elite universities as a way of countering the influence of utilitarianism and neo-liberalism in an era of economic globalization.

This study overviews policies and practice of philanthropic fundraising in Chinese universities with a focus on university foundations. It briefly reviews the theoretical dimensions of philanthropic fundraising in higher education from a global perspective and university philanthropic fundraising models as well as their applications in Chinese universities. It shows the important role of university foundations in generating philanthropic revenue in Chinese universities. By identifying challenges and the general trends, it explores strategies for sustainable philanthropic fundraising for Chinese universities, which may provide stakeholders with a helpful and relevant reference to promote philanthropic fundraising of Chinese universities. It also gives a general guidance of philanthropic fundraising strategies for Chinese universities.

Malaysia is a multi-racial country where about a quarter of the population are ethnic Chinese. Arguably, Malaysia is also the only country outside of Greater China to have a ‘complete’ Chinese education track from primary to higher education. The Malaysia higher education system, consisting of both public and private higher education institutions, has five private higher education institutions that can be considered as ‘Chinese community-based’. These institutions were established by various interest groups in the Chinese community with seemingly different purposes. Hence, based on interviews with 23 participants, ranging from institutional leaders, administrators, mid-level academic managers and academic staff across three ‘Chinese community-based’ institutions, this paper explores the identities of these ‘Chinese community-based’ institutions. Using the concept of ‘roots’ (根) as an analytical lens, this paper illustrates three distinctive identities of these institutions which can be described as the ethnically proud (寻根问祖), the accommodator (落地生根) and the uprooted (失根群族). The understanding of these different identities illuminated the fact that there are subtle but crucial differences even across the three selected ‘Chinese community-based’ higher education institutions in Malaysia. More importantly, this diversity has crucial implications for policymaking in the governance of higher education institutions, positioning and branding of these institutions, as well as understanding of educational development of the Chinese diaspora outside of Greater China.

In the last two decades, questions have been raised against the relevance of business education all around the globe including the famous MBA program. Despite few shortcomings of western MBA programs, they are considered to be the global benchmark owing to their reputation, quality, research focus etc., whereas most of their Chinese counterparts are criticized heavily for their different weaknesses ranging from obsolescence and incorporating unique Chinese characteristics to blindly following the US model, without devising the right mix. This study compares the Chinese MBA with the Western MBA programs, highlighting the crucial weaknesses prevailing in Chinese MBA programs and then identifying the necessary improvements to bring them at par with their western counterparts. The study also contributes by bringing-forth ‘must have’ and ‘can have’ courses as a part of the MBA curriculum by going through both Western and Chinese MBA curriculums in depth.

This paper documents what culturally responsive teaching means for a teacher who is a member of a minority community of ethnic Chinese in Glodok (Chinatown), Jakarta, Indonesia. Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) in Indonesia has traditionally meant implementing an indigenous, Javanese-centered curriculum where ethic Chinese identity was disparaged. The data collected in this study illustrates how an educator must negotiate identity and instruction of CRT to students of her own ethnic group with whom she does not share a cultural identity. The broader significance of this study is understanding how educators from marginalized or minority communities are vital to the creation of dialogue within the constructs of culturally responsive teaching. This study illustrates the necessity to not make assumptions that educators from culturally and linguistically diverse communities are naturally predisposed to engage in CRT; this reinforces the urgency that all teachers need proper training in order to effectively employ culturally responsive teaching regardless of ethnicity, race, or culture.