Introduction

Prof. Ruth Hayhoe and Qiang Zha at the Unnamed Lake on the Peking University campus, while doing interviews there in May, 2008.

       China is seen as a rising global power, with expectations that its GDP will outpace that of Japan in 2020 and Europe in 2050, respectively (Mundell, 2007). A recent report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shows that China’s economy will surpass that of the U.S. by 2035 and its likely continued success will eventually bring an end to American's global economic preeminence (Keidel, 2008). There is a widespread awareness of China's emerging role as a global economic superpower, yet there is little understanding of the likely cultural and educational role China will play in the global community in future. There is also some concern about the pace of democratization of Chinese society, given China's significant economic clout on the world scene.

       This SSHRC project addresses these two issues from the perspective of higher education. It focuses on the transition from an elite to a mass higher education system in China, and seeks to understand the transition in terms of the policy making process and the empirical experience. We hope to answer to the following three main questions:

 

       The Design of the Research

Xi'an International University (1992), with its Western-style campus core, is one of the new private universities that are contributing to expanding access.

      Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used in this study, which has two main parts. Part One involves a study of the process of national policy development for the move to a mass higher education system, and we interviewed influential policymakers at the national level and employed a range of statistical techniques to analyze a large quantity of data collected at the system level. Part Two of the study uses a qualitative case study methodology to look at the two opposite poles of the mass higher education system - the leading public universities and the newly emerging private universities. On the public side, we focus on the 38 top echelon institutions, which are being funded to achieve world-class status. We have selected nine institutions as case studies, giving attention to those that have developed profiles of particular promise in relation to the core questions of this research project. In the private sector, we have selected three institutions, representing different types and modalities of private higher education, as case studies to be studied alongside the public universities. This enables us to anticipate how private institutions may influence the ethos of the Chinese university that is emerging. For both public and private universities, we will examine their development using civil society theory as a kind of lens to explore the creation of "public spheres" and to examine the struggle for autonomy and political participation. We will identify significant changes that may point to an emerging form of civil society rooted in China's cultural traditions. We will also question them about their perspectives on China's cultural role in the global community, and how they intend to contribute to global issues.

      The design of the case study for this project, as detailed by Prof. Ruth Hayhoe at the 51st CIES Annual Conference 2007 in Baltimore, is inspired by Burton Clark's classic work (1998; 2004). His extensive use of case studies has helped us to explore and explain the transformation of China's higher education:

An Ornamental Column, symbolzing a noble status in traditional Chinese culture, stands in front of the Administration Building of Peking University (1898).

       In order to ensure that the case studies which we construct are recognized as authentic by members of the case universities, we are inviting full participation by a scholar within each university who has experience in higher education research. This collaborating scholar will work with us in developing the base data, participate in all of the interviews and focus group meetings, and be one of three co-authors in writing up the chapter about their university for our planned book, Portraits of 21st Century Chinese Universities. There will thus be an internal voice contributing to the development of each case study, alongside of two core members of the project from the North American side.

       In crafting each of the case study chapters, we will give attention to findings that relate to each of the three major questions and then develop a holistic and contoured picture of each institution, that reflects elements of Chinese culture and civilization while also highlighting diverse and unique initiatives or emphases that characterize particular cases. As artists as well as scholars, we want to be able to present the twelve portraits of 21st century universities to the wider scholarly world in such a way as to facilitate deeper understanding and a mutually enriching dialogue between Chinese and global higher education.

       A third element of our project is a survey of student attitudes towards mass higher education and civil society. Each of our case universities gave us permission to survey three classes of students, in sciences and technology, social sciences and humanities. Through the analysis of the 2400 responses to these survey questionnaires, we hope to gain insights into how students view the expansion of China's higher education, their views on the quality of teaching and their experiences of learning, as well as their attitudes towards career development. In addition, we want to explore how they are exposed to civic knowledge and how they are involved in various forms of civic participation within the higher education system and in the wider society. Through this part of the project, we expect to show the international community a vivid picture of changes taking place in civil society in contemporary China.

 

References:

Clark, B. R. (2004). Sustaining Change in Universities: Continuities in Case Studies and Concepts. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Clark, B. R. (1998). Creating Entrepreneurial Universities: Organizational Pathways of Transformation. Oxford: Elsevier Science.

Keidel, A. (2008). China's Econimic Rise - Fact and Fiction. Policy Brief, 61 (7), p. 1.

Mundell, R. (2007, September 14). Interview with Gao Huibin: Ouyuan zhifu laishen pinping zhongguo jingji [The Father of Euro Comments on China's Economy in Shenyang]. Liaoning Daily, p. A3.

 

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