Recently, Professor Zhongjing Huang, Professor Shuguang Huang, Professor Xiaowei Yang, Professor Yucui Ju of the Department of Education have published several SSCI papers to analyze the "Shanghai model" of education reform. This series consists of five articles on different elements of Education in Shanghai, which are briefly described below.
01
Zhongjing Huang：
Introduction to ‘the Shanghai Model’
Since 2009, Shanghai students and teachers have attended the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) and TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) surveys and achieved outstanding performance, and then Shanghai basic education became famous all over the world. The western world has set off a wave of exploration of “Shanghai experience”, “Shanghai secret” or “Shanghai model”. Thomas Loren Friedman, the most influential journalist, columnist and book writer in the United States, published his article “The Shanghai Secret” in the New York Times in which he summarized the secret of the success of Shanghai’s elementary school after he visited Qiangwei Primary School. Meanwhile, the mathematics education in Shanghai has also been successfully “exported” to the United Kingdom, and the British scholars summarized the classroom instructional method of Shanghai’s mathematics teachers as “Mastery Model for Teaching and Learning”. The “Shanghai model” has been interpreted so by western scholars, but how do we Chinese think about the reasons behind the great achievements of Shanghai education?
Full Article:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2020.1794150
02
Zhongjing Huang：
Knowledge and power: curricular policy’s evolution and paradoxical relationship with practice in Shanghai
Curriculum, as an expression of legitimate knowledge, should be seen as something political rather than technical, that is, as the result of complex power relations and struggles among identifiable stakeholder groups. In Shanghai, curricular reform, which traditionally assumes the crucial task of cultivating responsible citizens, has sought to situate education as an instrument of ideological indoctrination, at least to some extent. However, due to economic and social changes, such as those related to globalisation and modern ideals of educational development, curricular reform has undergone remarkable ideological changes that have given rise to paradoxes between policy and practice. This article explores the evolution of curricular policy and the ways in which it emerges in a paradoxical relationship to practice by analysing the relationship between curricular knowledge and power in Shanghai.
Full Article:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2020.1794157
03
Shuguang Huang：
The historical experience of educators running schools: A case study of Chen Heqin’s exploration of ‘living education’
Chen Heqin (1892–1982), who studied at Columbia University’s Teachers College, is an important Chinese descendant of Dewey’s pragmatic education. Chen Heqin proposed his own ‘living education’ theory through inheriting, transforming, and surpassing Dewey’s ‘life education’ theory. This theory was based on Chinese experiments and multi-dimensional school-running practices, particularly drawing from his long-term practice in Shanghai. ‘Living education’ theory reflects the successful mystery of schooling development in Shanghai and the historical experience of educators. This research has important academic value and practical significance for promoting deep reforms in schools and contemporary teachers’ development.
Full Article:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2020.1796056
04
Mechanisms of the tailoring workshops for teacher sustainable development: A case study of a middle school in Shanghai
Tailoring workshop (TW), a school-based teacher training program, has been developed in China on the basis of the Teaching Research Groups (TRGs) to better focus on teacher’s genuine needs, improve their problem-solving ability, and inter-subject collaboration. Literature on teacher workshops predominately roots in western settings whereas scant attention has been paid to those in Asian contexts, especially China. Therefore, a qualitative method was performed with teachers from a middle school in Shanghai to unveil how the TWs were formed, conducted, and how they functioned effectively. Drawing on Dewey’s pragmatic theory as the analysis framework, the findings yielded a formation process with four stages and examined the mechanisms in four dimensions, namely, dynamics mechanism, organizational structure, role of teachers, and learning mechanism. The study argues that, the TWs prioritize teacher’s genuine needs and problems encountered in practice, encourage teachers to identify problems, seek resources and conduct research with collective wisdom for resolutions. These features make it significantly different from the traditional TRGs with ‘top-down’ approach and other training programs in reliance upon short-lived, external lectures. The TW mode, in this sense, can be deemed a promising endeavor to facilitate teacher’s sustainable development in echoing the ever-changing education domain.
Full Article:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2020.1794275
05
Xiaowei Yang, Hua Ran & Meng Zhang：
The Shanghai model: An innovative approach to promote teacher professional development through teaching-research system
Chinese students’ outstanding performance in several rounds of PISA tests has attracted extensive attention on Chinese teacher professional development practices and system. The school-based teaching research system has evolved for many years in China and became a mature and systematical model for improving teaching quality. However, this system and its functions has not been fully recognized and understood. This case study, mainly focusing on Shanghai, explores how the teaching research system formed and developed and how it influenced teachers’ learning and professional development. We summarized three different versions of Shanghai’ teaching-research models and deeply described their processes, characteristics, and influence. Future research directions and implication for creating an effective and sustained approach for improving teacher quality were also discussed.
Full Article:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IPKGJ3DIPUQUBN5R3IXN/full?target=10.1080/00131857.2020.1794155
Educational Philosophy and Theory
ISSN:0013-1857
Impact Factor 2018：1.267
Educational Philosophy and Theory publishes articles concerned with all aspects of educational philosophy. It will also consider manuscripts from other areas of pure or applied educational research. In this latter category the journal has published manuscripts concerned with curriculum theory, educational administration, the politics of education, educational history, educational policy, and higher education.
