Research on the Relationship Between Informal Learning and the Regeneration of Public Spaces on Chinese University Campuses: Taking Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University as an Example

Abstract

AbstractAs a significant part of urban areas, university campuses take the responsibility for providing students with spaces for being educated, improving the city’s aesthetics, and sometimes even serving as a symbol of a curtain place. This research takes China’s university campuses as study subjects in order to explore the possible developments of informal learning and public spaces on university campuses. Because of the lack of engagement with informal learning spaces and university campuses since the beginning of tertiary education in China, students’ on-campus livelyhoods are often limited to three areas, which are the classroom, the canteen and the dormitory. Therefore, their necessary creative thinking skills for both study and work are insufficient generally. This study focuses on the current condition of informal learning in China’s practice of higher education and the relationship between informal learning and the public spaces on university campuses, in order to summarise the strategies for the regeneration of public spaces on university campuses around China. In the final part of this article, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), located in Suzhou, China, is taken as an example to assess the strategies this research adopts and to determine the proper relationship between informal learning and the public spaces on university campuses, concluding references to other university campus regeneration in China and elsewhere.KeywordsHigher educationCampus public spacesInformal learningXJTLU