Viewing education as the central battleground over the status of language, this book investigates the language policies of various social agents in early 20th century China and offers a comprehensive and fascinating analysis of the emergence of China's national language.

Chinese education in Malaysia has come a long way since the nineteenth century. The Chinese had brought their traditional mode of education to Malaya, which was modernised following new political developments in China. The postcolonial period saw the restructuring of education, which resulted in the acceptance of Chinese primary schools into the national educational system and the conversion of Chinese secondary schools to national-medium schools. Despite this, the development of these schools, especially the Chinese primary schools, has not been fully supported by the government and there are also measures that could lead to a change in their character. Meanwhile, the development of Independent Chinese Secondary Schools has been lacklustre and it was only in the early 2000s that they began to show impressive growth. But the strong emergence of international schools beginning in the mid-1990s might pose a threat to this impressive growth. As for the aspirations of the Chinese educationists to establish a Chinese institution of higher learning since the second half of the 1960s, their efforts were blocked by the government until the 1990s when they managed to establish a private college to create a complete system of Chinese education in Malaysia. This book is essential reading for anyone hoping to study the development of the Malaysian Chinese education system in greater detail.

Over the past four decades, learning Chinese as a second language has transformed from individual small-scale endeavors to organized mass studies worldwide. In a fast-changing world, the field of L2 Chinese language education is confronted by unprecedented challenges and opportunities. This book presents recent pedagogical practices, innovations and research in L2 Chinese language education across five continents. Bringing together a diverse range of leading researchers and educators, it showcases the latest knowledge, teaching-led research, innovative curriculum design and pedagogical practice in a variety of instructional contexts. Through a mix of overview chapters, empirical studies and critical discussions, the book addresses four key themes – formal instruction; language education technology; curriculum development; and critical overviews– and reflects the latest challenges and coping strategies for teaching and learning Chinese in an increasingly digital world. It will be essential reading for researchers, teachers and students of Chinese as a second language, as well as curriculum developers and textbook writers.

This book explores the ways and means by which English threatens the vitality and diversity of other languages and cultures in the modern world. Using the metaphor of the Hydra monster from ancient Greek mythology, it explores the use and misuse of English in a wide range of contexts, revealing how the dominance of English is being confronted and counteracted around the globe. The authors explore the language policy challenges for governments and education systems at all levels, and show how changing the role of English can lead to greater success in education for a larger proportion of children. Through personal accounts, poems, essays and case studies, the book calls for greater efforts to ensure the maintenance of the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity.

This book uses Bourdieu’s sociological approach for research as a jumping-off point for framing our understandings and analyses of China and Chinese education. Three major themes—inequality, competition, and change—are explored across several theoretical and contextual bases. Bringing together top scholars in the field, the volume examines empirical studies that analyse social (im)mobility through education for students affected by the social divides of class, culture and rural/urban locations; teacher identity and the field of schooling in the current Chinese environment and going forward; and the university as an institution for the production of knowledge about education in the globalising academy. Offering insights into the historical and cultural context for China’s educational landscape, the contributions of this book revisit Bourdieusian concepts from a new empirical vantage point and bring together key studies that illuminate new pathways for the study of Chinese sociology of education.

Few challenges to the modern dream of democratic citizenship appear greater than the presence of severe ethnic, religious, and linguistic divisions in society. With their diverse religions and ethnic communities, the Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia have grappled with this problem since achieving independence after World War II. Each country has on occasion been torn by violence over the proper terms for accommodating pluralism. Until the Asian economic crisis of 1997, however, these nations also enjoyed one of the most sustained economic expansions the non-Western world has ever seen. This timely volume brings together fifteen leading specialists of the region to consider the impact of two generations of nation-building and market-making on pluralism and citizenship in these deeply divided Asian societies. Examining the new face of pluralism from the perspective of markets, politics, gender, and religion, the studies show that each country has developed a strikingly different response to the challenges of citizenship and diversity. The contributors, most of whom come Southeast Asia, pay particular attention to the tension between state and societal approaches to citizenship. They suggest that the achievement of an effectively participatory public sphere in these countries will depend not only on the presence of an independent "civil society," but on a synergy of state and society that nurtures a public culture capable of mediating ethnic, religious, and gender divides. The Politics of Multiculturalism will be of special interest to students of Southeast Asian history and society, anthropologists grappling with questions of citizenship and culture, political scientists studying democracy across cultures, and all readers concerned with the prospects for civility and tolerance in a multicultural world.

This book examines Transnational Chinese Language Education (TCLE) in the Australian context. Taking a post-monolingual perspective, the authors examine Chinese teachers’ monolingual and multilingual practices and mindsets in their educational practices. They find that a Chinese-centric monolingual mindset dominates the Chinese teachers, while a multilingual mindset permeates in their classroom teaching, creating an unconscious tension between the two perspectives. The book proposes that it is the responsibility of teacher educators to train future Chinese teachers with an awareness of this issue, as well as suitable strategies to overcome it and be efficient language teachers. This book will be of interest to applied linguists, pre-service and in-service language teachers, as well as students and scholars of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL).

This title was first published in 1972: This bibliography is the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference work available on developments in Chinese education since 1966. In addition to primary materials from the people's Republic of China, the entries are drawn from other Asian sources, as well as from American and European studies. All levels and major fields of education are covered, and the pervasive impact of idealogy and politics on education is carefully documented. Most entries are fully annotated , and many are cross listed. Professors Fraser and Hsu have prepared a lengthy introduction which provides valuable information on the research centers, journals and publishing/translating agencies active in the field.

This book will be the first account of the development of Chinese as a foreign language in the U.S., as it interacts with the relevant entities in China and beyond. There are virtually no systematic retrospective reflections on the field outside of the greater China region; and yet over the past decades the field has grown by leaps and bounds, and it is critical now that we pause to reflect on what has happened and what we can learn from the past. The contributors are among some of the most influential pioneers in the field whose entire academic lives have been dedicated to its development. The Field of Chinese Language Education in the U.S.: A Retrospective of the 20th Century is aimed at those who are currently engaged in Chinese language education, as teachers or as students.

Education is seen by the Chinese as a key element in the modernisation of their country and in maintaining socialism. This book, first published in 1984, examines the nature of modern education in China since 1976, and looks at different parts of the system, the content of teaching and teaching styles. It considers how far the Chinese educational system has been affected by foreign powers and changing political ideology and is unique in that, using empirical data, it places the Chinese system in a world perspective.