63.068 - Asia as Method: Interreferencing Discourses of Culture, Politics, and Hegemony in Asia

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Bringing together international scholars in the politics of education to focus on educational reform in Asia, this session critically examines the ways in which postcolonial, nationalist, cultural and geopolitical histories complicate developments in education in Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and China. Of particular importance in this dialogue is a method of “inter-referencing” Asia, where Western discourses revolving around such themes as culture, politics and hegemony are de-centered in lieu of a focus on understanding how these phenomena are played out in specific, non-Western contexts. At a time when much of the educational politics in Asia remains in a state of transition, such a platform seeks to offer insights into the limits and possibilities of educational change in the region.

Sub Unit

• SIG-International Studies

Chair

• Min Yu, Wayne State University

Papers

• Rightist State Politics of the National History Curriculum and Possibilities for Change in South Korea - Mi Ok Kang, Utah Valley University

• Critical Thinking and State Ideologies: The Politics of Pedagogic Recontextualization in Singapore - Leonel Tze-Wei Lim, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Unintended Hegemonic Consequences of State Action: The Case of Incomplete Institutional Absorption of Chinese Schools in Colonial Hong Kong - Ting-Hong Wong, Academia Sinica

• Social Movements and Educational Change in China - Min Yu, Wayne State University

Discussant

• Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin - Madison