Are Confucian educational values a barrier to engaging students as partners in Chinese universities?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Learner-teacher relationships have a profound impact on teaching and learning quality with many universities focusing on relationship-rich educational experiences. Engaging students as partners (SaP) has emerged as a way of enhancing learner-teacher relationships with research reporting numerous benefits and challenges. In this article, we address a worrisome challenge identified in a recent scoping review that Confucianism is an obstacle to pedagogical partnership in Asian countries, specifically, in China. Acknowledging the many global influences shaping Chinese higher education and the long history documenting the contested interpretations and application of Confucian philosophy, we speak back to the findings of the scoping review by challenging the narrow view expressed about Confucianism. Our aim is to demonstrate that Confucian educational values are not the purported barrier some have suggested through illuminating axiological overlaps between historical Confucian educational values and modern SaP values commonly evoked in the literature. In doing so, we critically reflect on the influence of Confucian educational values in contemporary Chinese education and posit that cultural scripts offer a generative lens to examine culture in partnership practices. Importantly, moving beyond essentialising enables new opportunities for research and practice to arise as partnership praxis translates, evolves, and adapts across and within dynamic cultures.