"Glocalizing" Chinese Higher Education: Groping for Stones to Cross the River, Mo zhe shi tou guo he

Abstract

"Glocalizing" Chinese Higher Education:Groping for Stones to Cross the River, 摸着石头过河 Heidi Ross (bio) and Jingjing Lou (bio) Introduction Over two and one-half decades have passed since Deng Xiaoping proclaimed that Chinese education must face in "three directions"—toward modernization, the world, and the future.1 At that time leaders had yet to articulate the driving purpose of reform as the creation of a robust market integrated with the global economy. Today Chinese educators and policymakers use "globalization" rather than modernization to approximate the pedagogical and social means (including cultivating a citizenship capable of creativity, flexibility, independent thinking, and innovation) they believe will ensure China's engagement in an international knowledge economy.2 In response, Chinese universities grapple with how to shape institutional frameworks that fit the social, political, economic, and intellectual contours of this evolving context. Most Chinese commentators have jumped on the globalization bandwagon, praising globalization for injecting into education a forward-looking "Olympic spirit." Some, however, describe the impact of globalization on education more cautiously, using a Chinese proverb, "groping for stones to cross the river." We [End Page 227] see in this proverb an apt metaphor for the tentative searching on the part of Chinese higher education for a firm foothold in a globalizing world. The proverb also alludes to a number of contemporary metaphors for dislocation and economic change, such as diving into or crossing dangerous waters. Such images may represent the outward-looking, risk-taking, profit-seeking values associated with China's goal of "connecting" with the world. Our paper offers a modest response to challenges set by two comparative educators who have contributed to our understanding of education and globalization processes. First, Nelly Stromquist has asked, "How can we apply the theory and knowledge of unfolding globalization developments to create an understanding of new educational phenomena?"3 We begin with that application in our examination of higher education reforms in China. Second, Philip Altbach has noted that "a balanced perspective [on how globalization trends influence education] requires careful analysis of the downside—viewpoints often not articulated in the rush toward the global future."4 Current scholarship on Chinese higher education suggests three particular downsides that compromise the ability of Chinese leaders to create and sustain effective interaction between purposive public policy and "growing expectations and demands of different stakeholders in society."5 These include the danger to schools' missions and social relationships of managerialism; the danger to educational quality of the massification and marketization of schooling; and the danger to social stability of educational disparity.6 In thinking about these downsides, we have found it helpful to adopt the strategy of thinking "glocally." Universities in China, like their counterparts around the world, are simultaneously national and international institutions.7 We agree with Robert Arnove that the study of higher education necessitates [End Page 228] coming to terms with the "dialectic [that] is at work between the global and the local."8 Recently, theorists have employed this insight to create the neologism "glocalization," sometimes defined as "global localization."9 Glocalization implies a search beyond the contributions and the downsides of globalization in order to conceptualize a world of greater balance between the potentially empowering trends of global communication and the concrete challenges faced by local communities.10 We hope that readers will see in our "glocal" analysis that specific economic, political, and historical contexts of China are crucial determinants of educational reform processes. Policies that look like, and often are, responses to globalization are also "pursued within the context of managing state-building and economic growth in a state-directed (or government-directed) paradigm of governance."11 I. Universities as the Spearhead of Glocalization All levels of Chinese education have undergone profound transformation in the last decade. Public Montessori preschools vie with private international kindergartens for the children of affluent parents; internet connections and international textbooks, particularly for English language instruction, are available to students in urban classrooms. A small number of all-girls' secondary schools, both public and private, are experimenting with gender sensitive curricula.12 These initiatives are a direct result of Chinese policymakers, educators, and parents training their eyes and their minds outward as they attempt to educate their children...