From knowledge transfer to knowledge interaction: the development of comparative education in China through the lens of comparative journals

Abstract

The last three decades has witnessed a burgeoning comparative education as a field of study in Asia. In China comparative education has taken a phenomenal course from a small and relatively low‐key field in search of an identity in the late 1970s to a vibrant one today with a sizable group of scholars across the country, seeking to integrate Western knowledge to the Chinese knowledge system for advancement and enhancement of Chinese education. In this paper we analyze the features of foreign knowledge adaptation in China and the strategies adopted to turn it from submissive transfer to integrated knowledge, which would then be presented as autonomous Chinese knowledge to the world for interaction on an equal footing with the countries of origin of the knowledge in a diverse, global world. The process involves socio‐cultural adaptation and a change in ownership of knowledge. We conducted a two‐tier investigation. First, we studied the development and nature of comparative education in China. Second, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of the entries in the last nine years (2001–2009) of Comparative Education Review (Bijiao jiaoyu yanjiu), which is the most prominent journal in the field in China, to chart the evolving nature of the field. We then discuss the discourse on the issues and directions in the field, which signifies an attempt to move away from knowledge transfer to knowledge interaction in the development of comparative education in China. In this study, we have found that comparative education is China‐centric in the way that it is regarded a a means of knowing what happens in ‘foreign countries’. However, the process has become almost exclusively a ‘look West’ approach, especially looking towards the United States in its comparisons. Yet this approach is far from uncontested and there are strenuous efforts made by Chinese scholars to reconstruct comparative education with Chinese characteristics, at least moving comparative studies from knowledge transfer to knowledge interaction for the benefit of the development of education in China. The review of this development is therefore itself a case study of the process of adaptation of foreign knowledge to a particular cultural context interplayed with transplantation, indigenization and integration.