Twenty Years of General Education in China: Progress, Problems, and Solutions

General education is a subject with rich contents and that is highly contested in the field of higher education studies. It has been highly praised for its core concepts such as broad educational targets, liberating educational objectives, and balanced educational content. Looking back at the course...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inChinese education and society Vol. 51; no. 1; pp. 9 - 20
Main Authors Wang, Hongcai, Xie, Debo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 02.01.2018
Subjects
Barriers
cultural quality education
Educational Change
Educational History
Educational Practices
Foreign Countries
General Education
Global Approach
Government Role
Higher Education
China
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:General education is a subject with rich contents and that is highly contested in the field of higher education studies. It has been highly praised for its core concepts such as broad educational targets, liberating educational objectives, and balanced educational content. Looking back at the course of general education in China over the past 20 years we can find "top-down" cultural quality education (文化素质教育) and "bottom-up" general education (通识教育) have formed two stages with clear "characteristics," with the first decade being mainly cultural quality education, and the most recent decade having had general education gradually enter the mainstream and reveal native qualityistics. This change has led the practice of general education to turn from being government led to university autonomy, and also reflects the increasing depth of Chinese exploration into general education. China's practice of general education still faces problems with integrating major-based professional education and general education, and must adopt suitable solutions.
ISSN:1061-1932
1944-7116
DOI:10.1080/10611932.2017.1411134