Higher Education, State and Society: A Comparison of the Chinese and Anglo-American approaches

Group Submission Type: Book Launch

Description of Session

Education is essential to the renewal and continuation of societies – ‘education, and education alone, spans the gap’ between generations (Dewey [1916] 2011: 6). With more than 235 million students enrolled in tertiary education across the world in 2020 (UNESCO 2020), higher education has become a powerful sector with the potential to shape societies.

Higher education plays numerous social and public functions. This is realized through the interactions between higher education and various spheres of social action including the individual, society, state and the world. For example, higher education produces research-based new knowledge and advances technologies, provides channels for upward social mobility and contributes to social equity, and transforms students and prepares them to become desirable members of societies. Higher education is also shaped by those spheres of social action. The state/society/higher education assemblage to a large extent determines higher education’s missions, organizations and activities. The existence and development of higher education largely rely on the pattern of financial investment from the individual, government and society. Higher education organization and governance need to align with the political structure of the society it is embedded in. The responsibilities and functions of higher education are relevant to the social expectations of higher education. The ways of higher education being shaped reflect how diverse approaches to the public (good) across contexts can mould higher education variously.

However, it remains ambiguous about what the public (good) means in higher education, especially in the context of higher education undergoing multiple transformations amid globalization and the changing role of the state. The idea of public (good) derives historically from the formation of nation-states and political theories about the state’s responsibilities and obligations (Neubauer 2008). Nevertheless, the public (good) idea still points to an interesting and important approach to understanding higher education – that is primarily concerned to (re-)imagine higher education through its interaction with the wider society by exploring political and educational cultures of the society in which higher education is embedded. This is what this book attempts to achieve.

In this monograph, Lili Yang compares core ideas about the state, society, and higher education in two major world traditions. She explores the broad cultural and philosophical ideas underlying the public good of higher education in the two traditions, reveals their different social imaginaries, and works through five areas where higher education intersects with the individual, society, the state, and the world, intersections understood in contrasting ways in each tradition. The five key themes are: individual student development in higher education, equity in higher education, academic freedom and university autonomy, the resources and outcomes of higher education, and cross-border higher education activities and higher education's global outcomes. In exploring the similarities, Yang highlights important meeting points between the two world views, with the potential to contribute to the mutual understanding and cooperation across cultures.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Book Launch

Chair

• Gerard A Postiglione, Gerard A Postiglione

Discussant

• Ruth Emilie Scott Hayhoe, O.I.S.E. University of Toronto

Book Launch Presenter

• Lili Yang, The University of Hong Kong