Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

i Running Head: Becoming global: Global citizenship education in Chinese middle schools in a second- tier city

Becoming global:

Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Yi Hong

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Sydney School of Education and Social Work Faculty of Arts and Social Science University of Sydney 2019

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Author’s Declaration

This was to certify that, to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis was my own work, which has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes.

I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis was the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged.

Yi Hong

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Acknowledgments

The output of this present study is a series of theories on the localisation of Global Citizenship Education in China. These theories would not have been synthesised without the support of many people. I am deeply obliged to them and will always remember their kindness.

First, I must thank all my participants, not only for their contribution of high-quality data, but also for their trust in sharing with me their experience of using the curriculum to teach and support students. Their touching stories often made my eyes tear up during transcribing and analysing data.

I also must thank Professor Murray Print. His theory on curriculum development guided me toward a preliminary understanding of the field at the beginning of the degree and provided me with strikingly powerful theoretical support at the later stage of thesis completion when I could not make any progress even after spending considerable time making huge efforts to review many theories. His theory is not only subject to application but also is of great value with regard to researching.

Besides his supervision, which was strategic and thorough, he has influenced me to think and to work like a visionary and independent researcher. Over the past four years, he allowed me to read and study in a broad range of disciplines, heard my strange, and sometimes conceited, ideas, and created a warm and engaging work environment for me to complete the thesis.

I want to thank Associate Professor Nigel Bagnall. I appreciate his honest feedback and constructive advice on the elegance of writing. He is a researcher with a strong cultural empathy.

I would like to thank Associate Professor David Hirsh, who supported my decision to transfer from MPhil to PhD and has been concerned with my performance and progress. I wish to thank Dr Arlene Harvey and Dr Browen Dyson for their help with my academic writing; Dr Nikki Brunker, Dr Zhong zhi Yang, and Associate Professor Lina Markauskaite for their advice on time management; Dr Josephine Fleming for her teaching on proposal writing; Dr Meghan Stacey for her helpful advice on balancing life as a research student; Dr Frank Reichert for demonstrating and teaching research skills; and Dr Yeow-Tong Chia for recommending important academic journals. Many thanks also go to Associate Professor Chen Kin-Chan, who, without reservation, solved many questions I asked with regard to the present study in a conference held in Indonesia.

I would like to thank Ms Emma Wise. She is an amazing editor. She contributed to the thesis completing by proofreading, editing, and critiquing. With her help, I figured out where exactly in iii

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city the expression I should improve. I also would like to thank the editors who are working in Proofed Inc. They proofread the latter half of the thesis speedily.

I thank the administrative staff Ms Suin Jung and Mr Gilbert Cheng for their patient supports.

I wish to thank my family members who lead me so far. It is fortunate to have these sensitive people keep reminding me of the happiness of life. For so many years, we have grasped every opportunity of communication to talk about fine art, politics, and philosophy.

I also want to thank the postgraduates who stay on 2a floor, A36 building, for their genuine friendship. They are Rosa, Neriman, Winnie, Wendy, Racheal, and Shafiza, with whom I spent meaningful time on researching and endless writing. Also, thanks go to Ying, Fangqi, Jessica, Tiefu, Keran, Feifei, Gao Wei, and Pan Yue. In particular, I would like to thank Sherry, Lipei, Kaixin. Peiru, and Chris. They accompanied me during the most perplexed period of my twentieth.

Finally, to one of my favourite bands – Franz Ferdinand, thank you, and “Sometimes I wish you were here; weather permitting.”

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to the people who are living in the Ring of Fire.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Abstract

Global citizenship education (GCE) is an emerging while poorly explored area. Its contested definition, unelucidated theoretical grounding, as well as diversified worldwide practices in schools, has prevented it from making a more progressive influence. Little is known regarding what and how GCE is developing like in China today. This thesis aims to study whether middle schools in China have the potential and willingness to develop a GCE curriculum based on their principals’ and teachers’ own conceptions and judgement of this concept.

This thesis utilises curriculum development theory as a conceptual framework and involved Chinese academics, school principals, and classroom teachers in collecting empirical data. With an overall design of grounded theory, the thesis encouraged principals and teachers across six middle schools in a selected second-tier city to think broadly regarding the possibilities of GCE in their own schools. They participated in interviews that were scheduled before and after a Policy Delphi method, a forecasting and consensus drawing method which engaged academics to spark creative thinking and communication. These sources of data were amplified by analysis of documents of textbooks and school websites that contributed to the interpretations of participants’ responses.

Results indicate that GCE has been interpreted as an approach to developing elites based on Chinese identity. GCE was seen as largely irrelevant to curriculum intent authorized by the Chinese centralised education system, principals and teachers, who with restricted autonomy, were less likely to take the risk of making specific changes to introduce GCE into their current school curriculum. Instead, participants preferred integrating the parts of GCE which were identified as consistent with the education system as a long-term development goal and optimizing current GCE related practices as strategies for promoting GCE.

This thesis identifies what appears to be an unpromising future trend of GCE development in Chinese middle schools. For practical application, this thesis suggested that, instead of introducing GCE as an independent concept, reforming of current program packages via adding GCE contents, pedagogies, and evaluations will be easier for promoting GCE in Chinese schools.

Key words: Chinese middle school, global citizenship education, curriculum innovation

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Table of Contents

Author’s Declaration ...... ii Acknowledgments ...... iii Dedication ...... v Abstract ...... vi Table of Contents...... vii List of Figures & Tables ...... xii Glossary ...... xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Research Background ...... 1 1.2 Research Problem ...... 3 1.3 Context of the Chosen City ...... 4 1.4 Aims ...... 5 1.5 Significance ...... 5 1.6 Research Questions ...... 6 1.7 Methodology ...... 8 1.8 Chapter Structure ...... 9 Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 11 2.1 Devising Curriculum Localisation ...... 11 2.1.1 Localised political and cultural context of Chinese Moral Education ...... 12 2.1.2 Elements related to GCE curriculum localisation in China ...... 14 2.1.3 Theories related to curriculum localisation process ...... 15 2.2 Introducing GCE ...... 20 2.2.1 Rigour of GCE...... 20 2.2.2 Conceptual framework of GCE...... 21 2.2.3 Reconceptualising GCE...... 25 2.2.4 Methods of attaining GCE...... 31 2.3 Developing GCE Curriculum ...... 35 2.3.1 GCE practices throughout history and across the world...... 35 2.3.2 Different focuses of ‘contextualized’ GCE across the world...... 37 2.3.3 Difficulties of developing GCE curriculum in China...... 40 2.3.4 The goal...... 45 2.4 Chapter Summary ...... 47 Chapter 3: Methodology ...... 49 3.1 Research Paradigm ...... 49

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

3.1.1 A brief review of Deleuze’s work...... 49 3.1.2 How this thesis uses Deleuze’s philosophy...... 50 3.2 Methodology ...... 54 3.2.1 General research design: postpositivist grounded theory...... 54 3.2.2 Specific research design: case study...... 58 3.4 Data Collection Methods ...... 60 3.4.1 The Policy Delphi method...... 60 3.4.2 Collective case study...... 66 3.5 Participant Selection ...... 67 3.5.1 Experts...... 67 3.5.2 Selected schools...... 68 3.5.3 School principals and teachers...... 69 3.6 Data Collection ...... 69 3.6.1 Policy Delphi method...... 69 3.6.2 Interviews...... 71 3.7 Data Analysis ...... 72 3.8 Evaluations on Ethics and Rigour ...... 73 3.8.1 Ethical conduct...... 73 3.8.2 Issues related to the policy Delphi method...... 75 3.8.3 Issues related to the case study...... 75 3.9 Chapter Summary ...... 76 Chapter 4: Context of the Study ...... 77 4.1 Policies on the Moral Education System ...... 77 4.1.1 The extent of Moral Education system...... 77 4.1.2 Documentary politics...... 78 4.2 The bureaucratic structure ...... 79 4.2.1 At national level...... 79 4.2.2 At provincial level...... 82 4.2.3 At municipal level...... 87 4.2.4 At school level...... 89 4.3 Chapter Summary: Implications of Schools’ Capacities to make curriculum change91 Chapter 5: Six Schools ...... 93 5.1 HY Middle School ...... 93 5.1.1 School environment and facilities...... 93 5.1.2 School motto...... 93 5.1.3 Profile of educators...... 94 5.1.4 Policy implementation...... 94

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

5.2 QY Middle School ...... 94 5.2.1 School environment and facilities...... 94 5.2.2 School motto...... 95 5.2.3 Profile of educators...... 95 5.2.4 Policy implementation...... 95 5.3 CW Middle School ...... 96 5.3.1 School environment and facilities...... 96 5.3.2 School motto...... 96 5.3.3 Profile of educators...... 96 5.3.4 Policy implementation...... 97 5.4 CZ Middle School ...... 97 5.4.1 School environment and facilities...... 97 5.4.2 School motto...... 97 5.4.3 Profile of educators...... 97 5.4.4 Policy implementation...... 98 5.5 CY Middle School ...... 98 5.5.1 School environment and facilities...... 98 5.5.2 School motto...... 98 5.5.3 Profile of educators...... 99 5.5.4 Policy implementation...... 99 5.6 FL Middle School ...... 99 5.6.1 School environment and facilities...... 99 5.6.2 School motto...... 99 5.6.3 Profile of educators...... 100 5.6.4 Policy implementation...... 100 5.7 A Cross-Case Comparison ...... 100 5.8 Chapter Summary ...... 102 Chapter 6: Situational Analysis ...... 103 6.1 External Factors ...... 104 6.1.1 Cultural and social changes and expectations ...... 104 6.1.2 Educational system requirements and challenges ...... 106 6.1.3 Changing nature of content ...... 108 6.2 Internal Factors ...... 109 6.2.1 Pupils ...... 109 6.2.2 Teachers ...... 110 6.2.3 School ethos ...... 113 6.2.4 Material resources ...... 118

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

6.3 Theorising the trend of fostering of GCE in the Chinese case ...... 118 6.3.1 Fostering GCE in a subtle way ...... 118 6.4 Chapter Summary ...... 125 Chapter 7: The Acknowledged Conceptions of GCE ...... 126 7.1 Results ...... 126 7.1.1 Quantitative feedback: Policy Delphi method among stakeholders...... 126 7.1.2 Qualitative feedback...... 133 7.2 Theorising paths of curriculum change for GCE among participating schools...... 147 7.2.1 Perceived Needs...... 147 7.2.2 Adoption of GCE...... 150 7.2.3 Paths to implementation...... 154 7.4 Chapter Summary ...... 157 Chapter 8: The Prefectural Prototype ...... 158 8.1 Strategic Plan of the GCE Curriculum Development ...... 158 8.1.1 Curriculum intent...... 159 8.1.2 Curriculum content...... 165 8.1.3 Preparation for implementation ...... 173 8.2 Evaluating GCE as Curriculum Innovation ...... 176 8.2.1 On the criterion of relative advantage...... 176 8.2.2 On the criterion of compatibility...... 177 8.2.3 On the criterion of low complexity...... 179 8.2.4 On the criterion of trialability...... 181 8.2.5 On the criterion of effective communication...... 182 8.3 Theorising the Conceptualisation of a GCE Curriculum ...... 182 8.3.1 The GCE curriculum will be conceptualised as a perspective...... 182 8.3.2 The GCE curriculum will be subject to both diversity and unity during localisation...... 183 8.3.3 The localisation process of GCE as a curriculum innovation will be slow...... 184 8.4 Chapter Summary ...... 185 Chapter 9: Conclusion ...... 187 9.1 Overview ...... 187 9.1.1 Summary of research aims, context, and methods...... 187 9.1.2 Summary of main findings...... 188 9.2 Implications ...... 191 9.2.1 Theoretical implications...... 191 9.2.2 Curriculum control and policies in education system...... 192 9.2.3 Civil society in China...... 193

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

9.3 Justification of the Theories Synthesised in the present study ...... 193 9.4 Directions for Future Research ...... 195 References ...... 197 Appendices ...... 209 Appendix A: Instruments for Semi-Structured Interviews ...... 209 Appendix B: Instruments for Policy Delphi method ...... 211 Appendix C: Participant Information Sheet ...... 213 Appendix D: Participant Consent Form ...... 227 Appendix E: Permission Letter ...... 230 Appendix F: Sample Sheets of Data Analysis ...... 232

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

List of Figures & Tables Figure 2.1 Model of Curriculum 18 Table 1.1 Schedule of data collection and 8 Development analysis

Figure 2.2 Situational analysis factors 18 Table 2.1 Categories of global citizenship 24 identified from prevailing literature

Figure 2.3 Educational change process 19 Table 4.1 Division of the categories and 80 corresponding number of the polices on Moral Education retrieved from the website of China’s Ministry of Education

Figure 2.4 Gaudelli’s Paradigm of Global 22 Table 4.2 Categorisation and 83 Citizenship corresponding number of policies retrieved from the website of Provincial Department of Education, Jiangsu, China

Figure 2.5 Integrating Multiple Disciplines 31 Table 4.3 Classification of the entries 85 in GCE Contents collected through searching key words ‘Moral Education’ on the website of Provincial Department of Education, Jiangsu, China

Figure 2.6 Theoretical Framework of the 34 Table 4.4 The Implementation of Moral 90 Political and Civic Learning Education Policies in Participatory Schools

Figure 3.1 The Mixed Method Applied by 59 Table 5.1 Characteristics of Six Schools 100 the Present Study

Figure 4.1 Deciding School 81 Table 6.1 Selective Factors and the 103 Extracurricular Activities through Themes in Data Analysis Collective Leadership.

Figure 4.2 Extent of thematic 85 Table 7.1 Policy Delphi Results (round 127 education activities one & two)

Figure 6.1 Constraints and Capacity 119 Table 7.2 Policy Delphi Results (round 128 Inducted from Situational Analysis one & two)

Figure 8.1 GCE curriculum prototype 158 Table 7.3 Policy Delphi Results (round 130 one & two)

Figure 8.2 Core curriculum practices 165 Table 7.4 Policy Delphi Results (round 132 one & two)

Figure 8.3 Professional development 173 Table 8.1 Interpretations of GCE 159 competencies

Table 9.1 Factors Shaping the Subtlety 189 in Fostering GCE among Participatory Schools

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Glossary

American Field An international youth exchange organization, serving over 80 Service (AFS) countries, which provides students and teachers with exchange intercultural opportunities. The organization consists of more than 55 program independent, not-for-profit organizations. The AFS intercultural programs are not available in China as independent organizations but are administrated by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE) funded by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Education. Since 1997, the long-term student exchange program, and since 2001, an inbound program has been available to Chinese students.

Model Chinese An extracurricular activity aims at familiarising students with the People’s form, process, and rules in the system of multi-party cooperation Political and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Consultative Party of China (CPC). It mainly involves senior high students, but Conference also involves some key middle school students. (CPPCC) The activity is supported by the China Zhi Gong Party, one of the United Front Democratic Parties that consists of returned overseas Chinese. Model CPPCC used to be embedded in a training program by Ameson Education & Cultural Exchange Foundation in 2012. It has been widely practiced across China since it became an independent educational program in 2014.

Moral Within the national curriculum, there is a subject known as the Education Moral Education. Meanwhile, there is also an administrative system for the Moral Education within the education system. In other words, there is a Moral Education system in addition to a Moral Education subject.

MUNited An extracurricular activity which offer chances of learning Nations (UN) diplomacy, international relations, and the United Nations (UN), through speaking, debating, and writing on current world issues in English. Supported by the UN Association of China, it has been applied to the curriculum among Chinese senior high schools (Years 10 – 12) since 2005. The adoption of MUN in high schools also made it known to Chinese middle schools (Years 7 – 9). It has been adapted in a form of school club, which is exclusively for students who are good at English as a second language.

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Migrant A social group who move from the countryside to urban areas in worker China to seek better payment and work conditions. Usually, this group of people are in low socio-economic status. They constitute the working class in the urban areas where they moved to.

Project Citizen A program designed for promoting students (from middle to post- secondary years), youth organizations, and adult groups in the US to participate in local and state government competitively and responsibly. The focus of this program is to help participants study how to monitor and influence public policy. The program was introduced to China since 2005. It has been practiced in several Chinese provinces, including Jiangsu, Yunnan, Shanxi, and Shandong, and the municipality Shanghai. It is the regional educational initiative supported by expertise of Project Citizen from the US

Second-tier Known as the second ranking title for Chinese cities based on an city informal hierarchical classification (Tiers 1 – 5). A second-tier city is usually a place reflects moderate to high development level regarding residents’ consumer behaviour, income level, population size, infrastructure, and business opportunities. There are 30 second-tier cities in China.

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Research Background

Since the greater level different parts of the world has been interconnected, more activities take place beyond the control of agencies, for instance the environmental issues, the classical conception of citizenship has difficulty to prevent some events (or known as the ‘black swan’) less likely to happen and with more disastrous consequences. Under the influence of globalisation, the world is no longer a collection of different countries but an aggregation of many supreme, multi-faceted and evolving open-systems more vulnerable to potential risks, which echoed the updated theories on citizenship from a fixed, homogeneous, and unified membership to a kind of fluid, flexible, and multi-layered subject (Wang, 2016). One of the emerging ideas is global citizenship.

In most of cases, in response to classic citizenship definition (i.e., under the institutional framework inside the countries, associated with ideas of constitutional rights, including civic rights, political rights, and social rights [Marshall, 1992] and responsibilities for ameliorating account-giving relationship [Fukuyama, 2011] in closed-systems, such as inside a country), for populations who are less mobile and dependent on traditional agencies, the identity of global citizenship means a membership to ‘think globally, act locally’ (Dill, 2013) and is suitably defined as a membership tied with “rights and responsibilities at a global level” (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Curriculum Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2014, p. 48) to respond to the global challenges from an agency-based perspective.

There are also more contemporary definitions of global citizenship in conceptualising the relationship between citizenship and world. For instance, global citizenship is defined by UNESCO as a mere virtue for alleviating conflicts (UNESCO, 2015, p. 14):

A sense of belong to a broader community and common humanity which emphasises political, economic, social and cultural interdependency and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global.

This definition frames a utopian outlook of a big, ‘flat’ community but avoids discussions on the conflicts and tensions and vulnerability in some sectors that have been largely hegemonised. The definition offered by Oxfam, which is also widely referenced in the literature and educational settings, however, offers a more pragmatic view from a non-governmental sector. Oxfam’s definition (2015, p. 5) focuses on promoting active youth agency to help with the overall welfare hence advocates a model global citizen as someone who –

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

 is aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world citizen;  respects and values diversity; has an understanding of how the world works economically, politically, socially, culturally, technologically and environmentally;  is outraged by social injustice;  participates in and contributes to the community at a range of levels from the local to the global;  is willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place

Despite an expanding population become global citizens passively as result of the neoliberalised job market, wars, financial crisis, or technology advancement (i.e., netizens), Oxfam’s definition contributes to an important opinion that global citizenship is a status for people to attain rather than for being naturally or passively conferred. More young people are involved in NGOs such as Oxfam, the more evident structural change it will foresee in the global civil society with more active NGOs along with more participatory democracy oriented regional institutions.

In the present study, the researcher uses Oxfam’s definition of global citizenship as what GCE, an emerging form of education, aims to empower and develop. It has been noted, however, internationally, the meanings of GCE are enriched and elaborated extensively in the different contexts, each of which was underpinned by local consensus based on the influences of existing knowledge, past experience and a vision of the future (Banks, 2008; McKinney, 2008; Ruyter & Spiecker, 2008; Niens & Reilly, 2012; Jooste & Heleta, 2017).

China is such a case with a context where previous studies on GCE little covered. China is one of the major countries practising Confucianism in East Asia where Confucian culture, which advocates the Confucian principle of “frugality,” “self-control,” “balance” and “avoidance of excess” (Pinheiro-Machado, 2008, p. 146), has been widely embodied. However, the economic growth since the Economic Reform (Kennedy, 2014, p. 1; Xu, 1998, p. 33) in China has brought about a conversion of values and attitudes, for instance, materialistic values, as well as an increase in the practice of conspicuous consumption, which has become popular among teenagers (Podoshen, Li & Zhang, 2011, p. 17). China is also one of the few existing communist countries, and whose political environment, in the past five years, has undergone a series of changes equipped with its economic strength and hence is becoming to greater power in global arenas (Kharas, 2010, p. 5). Guided by Xi Jinping, foreign policy on the South China Sea, One Belt One Road Initiative, Taiwan, and other regions is setting up unpredictable political futures. Reflected on the education, the socialistic values have been dominating in curriculum (Shi, Chong, & Li, 2019). Finally, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of citizens belonging to the middle-class, and who are devoting more effort to the global education

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city different from the one inside the country (Jiang, 2017; National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, 2016; UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2014).

Despite the complexity of the context in China, the educational policy landscape may demand changes in Chinese schools to have GCE. According to Huang, Wang, and Li (2015), after the phases of the efficiency-oriented educational change (1978–1980s), the quality-oriented education change (1990s–2000s), the third phase of innovation-oriented educational change has been ongoing (early 2000s till present). In this innovation-driven phase, Chinese schools have been becoming a benchmark in global education by making changes synchronised with the increasing cultural exchange programs (Huang et al., 2015). Chinese schools have been implementing activities which might underpin GCE. Since 2001 the government has conferred on schools the autonomy and power to run school-based curriculum after integrating a compulsory unit called Integrated Practical Activity Curriculum (IPAC). Moreover, there are a variety of activities aiming to broaden students’ general competencies, including the nationwide Model Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Model United Nations (MUN), International Understanding Education, American Field Service (AFS) intercultural programs, as well as others. These activities are being implemented parallel to the authorised subject of Moral Education in the existing education system.

Taking all these considerations into account, the present study argues it is necessary to investigate GCE in Chinese schools.

1.2 Research Problem

A considerable part of knowledge has not yet been explored in understanding GCE. Due to the complexity of this concept, it seems that generating localised knowledge will benefit the field by extending the territory of GCE research to broader contexts.

The situation of GCE in China, as will be specified in chapter two, revealed a promising internationalised outlook for innovation meanwhile twisted with many contextual obstacles, which seemed to be deviated from the knowledge on GCE theories and practices in literature sources. Differing from countries where civics and citizenship education has solid background (For instance, models for GCE that link traditional liberal ideas of citizenship and that have been widely accepted in the first world [Tarozzi & Torres, 2016]), many GCE oriented activities in China were scarcely covered in national curriculum but largely fortified by various non- governmental organizations, foreign institutions, or grassroots groups. For example, the Model

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

CPPCC program is promoted by the China Zhi Gong Party, one of the United Front Democratic Parties that consists of returned overseas Chinese students. The MUN program has been supported by the Australian Human Rights Commission as part of the China–Australia Human Rights Technical Cooperation (HRTC) Program since 1999. The British Council initiated a teaching-based conference in University of Nottingham Ningbo China on global citizenship in January 2015. It is difficult to translate knowledge of GCE to the Chinese case immediately. More localised knowledge generated from Chinese educators from various interest groups to understand GCE.

1.3 Context of the Chosen City

While China is acknowledged as playing an increasingly important and at the same time controversial role in international society, China’s context along with educational practices on GCE was poorly revealed. Literature about Chinese GCE was restricted to tertiary education and the non-governmental organizations and enterprises. Little was known in terms of localisation of GCE curriculum in Chinese schools at the level of basic education.

The present study was an attempt to understand the localisation of GCE in China through obtaining Chinese educators’ perceptions by immersing them in the situation of planning a GCE curriculum prototype. Opinions obtained during generating consensus in the data collection would imply the attached value of GCE in Chinese context.

The city utilised in the present study was in the southeast province of Jiangsu in China, hereinafter called city C, and was not far away from the metropolitan city Shanghai. It was categorised as a second-tier city with moderate size and population. Its education has been given specific judgement. In basic education (i.e., Years 1 – 9), there was an arbitrary agreement among school educators and bureaucrats within the education system based on the results in International Science Olympiads and College Entrance Examinations that “to learn about Chinese education, it’s better to start with researching Jiangsu; and to research Jiangsu education, it’s better to take a look at city C.” Compared to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou as well as other mega cities where education is always in a leading role, the second-tier city in Jiangsu represent the average conditions of the majority of Chinese schools.

Being a representative city in terms of the Chinese education system, the education in city C is a typical case of education subject to centralised control. Schools in this city have been teaching the subject of Moral Education as part of the national formal curriculum, as well as teaching the integrated practical activity curriculum as part of the national informal curriculum. Meanwhile 4

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city due to the current policy which sets out a three-level curricula construction, at the school level there are also school-based curriculum for training students’ civic abilities. The overarching idea of curriculum practices was the ‘core competencies and values for Chinese students’ development’, which was released in 2016 after three-year research by scholars from Beijing Normal University and other universities (Core Competencies Research Group, 2016).

1.4 Aims

Investigating the localisation of GCE became the most important aim of the present study. Efforts to understand the development of GCE to be an integrated concept in curriculum were made by creating opportunities (through pre- and post- interviews, and policy Delphi method research) for reflecting, discussing, and coming to a consensus about GCE curriculum among scholars, principals, and teachers in order to understand associated facts and innovations related to localising GCE in the participating schools.

A higher priority is placed on generating knowledge on “what GCE will be applicable” than other concerns, such as “how GCE is understood.” As a result, it is the school educators’ knowledge about the change and innovation, adaptability, feasibility, and applicability at curriculum level that is of interest.

1.5 Significance

The significance of a study in terms of generating new knowledge is closely related to how the research problems have been defined (Marshall & Rossman, 2011). The present study extends the boundaries established by existing scholarly literature on GCE, suggesting solutions to problems related to GCE implementation, as well as encouraging educators in participating schools to think broadly about the idea of GCE and ways of implementing GCE.

Through researching the literature for the present study, it was identified that the ‘Western’ concept of GCE had not been adopted in China (Gu, 2013a; Luo, 2005), where current theoretical assumptions of GCE (Banks, 2008; McKinney, 2008; Ruyter & Spiecker, 2008; Niens & Reilly, 2012; Jooste & Heleta, 2017) could not fit. Specifically, the existing theoretical assumptions suffer some limitations, including being comprised mostly of educational settings in Western democratic developed countries, being focused mainly on theoretical developments and practices, and specifically emphasising what GCE ought to be like and ignoring what GCE might be like. These models could not be applied directly to China because of the difference between 5

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city the Chinese education system and culture and the education systems and cultures in Western democratic countries.

In the present study, by justifying the uniqueness of the Chinese context, it is the knowledge gained through exploring how Chinese educators from different interest groups in such specific education system might enquire and discuss on interpreting GCE based on their own work and experiences that contributes to foundational literature. Notably, the present study advances previous research on GCE, which has been based on presuppositions and evidence drawn from Western democratic societies. As will be elaborated in the literature review, the conceptual framework of interpreting GCE will be relocated to a broader paradigm across various domains, including the teaching content related to economics, political ideology, anthropology, media and communication, cultural studies, and morality and ethics (see section 2.2.3).

1.6 Research Questions

At the beginning of the project, the researcher found the data regarding GCE in China so limited that she was not able to proceed. The major confusion was uncertainty about which stage GCE had been developed to in China. To overcome this problem, the researcher drew heavily on Deleuzian philosophy, especially the concept of ‘becoming’. The concept depicts a fluid status of being beyond temporal-spatial limits. Taking into account this idea, GCE can be perceived as being a move back and forth between virtuality and reality (i.e., becoming-GCE). This approach to understanding GCE opposes the all-or-nothing predisposition in favour of a more holistic view. With the assistance of this philosophical assumption, the researcher clarified that China’s GCE, as the ongoing process of “becoming”, could be further operationalised as curriculum localisation. In this regard, it is possible to allow components of school-based or community- based curriculum to undergo modifications, with knowledge and expertise from local staff, stakeholders and institutions, so that regional issues will be addressed and more meaningful learning experience will be created (UNESCO, 2019).

Enriching the meaning of GCE to the Chinese context was hence the focus. Through extensive literature research on GCE, by looking at either the theory or practice of it, the present study is not confined by mapping GCE through theoretical or empirical evidences. Adopting the concept of becoming in Deleuzianism, the present study investigates how the concept of GCE might be adapted to the six selected Chinese schools. It is the potential meanings of GCE that might be acknowledged and practised in China that the present study sought to obtain.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

The notion of possible meanings of GCE are not only restricted to the question of “what is your understanding of GCE?” listed in the semi-structured interview instrument but also further substantiated via the generation of a curriculum prototype with reference to the curriculum development theory – the development of a plan of putting GCE into effect as a curriculum prototype realised by a series of development activities, including situational analysis, curriculum change, and curriculum innovation (Print, 1993). In addition, the merit of achieving values to educational practices could be realised through the prototype, because: “Curriculum was at the centre of any type of education system based on which the teaching goals were operationalized intensively and in-detail, and the professional training, facilities, schooling standards, and administration codes were tailored and formulated” (Zhong, 1989, p. 1). One of the by-products of using curriculum development theory was a compilation of conceptualisations of a GCE curriculum prototype for the selected schools (see chapter eight), which could be regarded as results of a thought experiment in accordance with the innovation advocacy in the landscape of Chinese educational change (Huang et al., 2015).

To refine the research focus, the study was designed to investigate China’s GCE via school curricula. The research questions are intended to forecast the trend of GCE curriculum development in China and have been explored through interventions that provide a platform for participants to think and discuss GCE. The research questions are:

1. How is GCE fostered at curriculum level in the Chinese middle schools in the study? 2. In what ways, using generated consensual conceptions of GCE, do participants seek changes within current middle school curriculum? 3. What will a GCE curriculum be conceptualised like within these schools? Respectively, corresponding to the first research question, which focused on how various important categories of meanings discover the existence of GCE in Chinese middle schools, is to fulfil the exploratory purpose for the study – to explore the little-understood situation of GCE in participating schools. Regarding the second research question, which focused on how participants’ different conceptions of GCE interact and negotiate the GCE curriculum, is to fulfil the explanatory purpose for the study — to understand and to develop the theory of GCE specific to the Chinese context. Finally, the third research question, which investigated details of a potential GCE curriculum that will be feasible in the future, is to fulfil the evaluative purpose for the study – to assess the acknowledged plan of practicing GCE in Chinese middle schools for the future.

Guided by the research questions, the present study fulfils the major purposes of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of the phenomenon of the emergence of GCE in China through investigating schools as the unit of analysis.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

1.7 Methodology

The methodology of the present study is grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Charmaz, 2011). Within the general design of grounded theory, case studies have been adopted as the specific research design (Yin, 1994; Merriam, 1988), and research methods are mainly the Delphi method and interviews.

The Delphi method used in the present study belongs to a type of modified Delphi method, called policy Delphi method. Distinguished from the conventional procedure of involving same group of experts to generate consensual knowledge in classical Delphi method, the policy Delphi method involves different stakeholders of the same system participating in interpretation of GCE not only for generating consensus but also express opinions to expose details of arguments. Along with the policy Delphi method, interview data was collected simultaneously: Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with principals and teachers were arranged before and after they completed their respective rounds of Delphi questions. Interview questions focused on educators’ past work experience in the Moral Education system and their perspectives regarding inclusion of GCE into current curricular practices. Finally, memos and document analysis were also used to supplement the research.

Table 1.1 illustrates the data collection schedule. Four months were spent on recruiting and gathering participants’ opinions using the policy Delphi method, while one month was spent on direct data collection. Though a mixed method was applied, most of the data was qualitative and was analysed via Nvivo, while quantitative data was processed via Excel.

Table 1.1 Schedule of data collection and analysis Experts Delphi (Round one Delphi (Round one Delphi (Round two Delphi (Round two opening) closing) opening) closing) Anonymous login 10th Jul 2017 17th Jul 2017 10th Aug 2017 8th Sep 2017 School names participants Pre-interview Delphi Post-interview CW Principal C 7th Oct 2017 7th Oct 2017 3rd Nov 2017 Teacher J 10th Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 1st Nov 2017 Teacher Y 10th Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 n. a. CZ Principal W 21st Oct 2017 21st Oct 2017 21st Oct 2017 Teacher L 24th Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 Teacher Z 24th Oct 2017 28th Nov 2017 31st Oct 2017 HY Principal B 29th Sep 2017 29th Sep 2017 31st Oct 2017 Teacher A 11th Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 Teacher T 11th Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 31st Oct 2017 FL Principal Z 25th Oct 2017 25th Oct 2017 25th Nov 2017 Teacher F 25th Oct 2017 1st Nov 2017 1st Nov 2017 Teacher M 25th Oct 2017 1st Nov 2017 1st Nov 2017 QY Principal U 9th Oct 2017 9th Oct 2017 16th Oct 2017 Teacher W 16th Oct 2017 30th Nov 2017 2nd Nov 2017 CY Principal Y 21st Oct 2017 21st Oct 2017 21st Oct 2017 Teacher H 23rd Oct 2017 28th Nov 2017 30th Oct 2017 Teacher C n. a. 6th Nov 2017 n. a. Transcribing Data cleaning Data analysis 7th Oct 2017~8th Jan 2018 10th Jan 2018~22nd Jan 2019 22nd Jan 2018~29th Mar 2018

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

1.8 Chapter Structure

This thesis consists of nine chapters. This first chapter introduces the rational basis for conducting the present study. It starts with the historical background of the emergence of GCE, which, as is interpreted by this thesis, though the promotion of GCE has been acknowledged as a more significant topic over recent years, the meaning of GCE remains highly contested, varying across contexts. The chapter outlines the aim of the study, that is, to formulate a context-based delivery method for GCE. The chapter specifies that in the present study the selected context is middle schools in a second-tier city in China, and that the context contributed to the design of the research questions; the ambiguity of how GCE would be modified to be compatible in this context led to the choice of researching the localisation of GCE in Chinese middle schools through schools’ potential for establishing a curriculum on GCE and what GCE will be like in a Chinese curriculum. After a discussion of the research question, the chapter moves on to the overall structure of the thesis.

Chapter two reviews the literature regarding the definitions and practices of GCE across varied contexts. In the first section, the focus is on selecting an appropriate theoretical framework for devising localisation of GCE in the Chinese context. The second section attempts to re-conceptualise GCE by examining evidence from multiple disciplines, which is an attempt to overcome the drawback in other conceptual frameworks within which political ideology is overly emphasised. In the third section, there is an exploration of current issues related to the development of GCE in China. The section then explicates details of a likely GCE curriculum prototype as the ideal goal against whose features evaluation can take place.

Chapter three contains a review of methodology. In the first section, the focus is on the research paradigm: Deleuzian philosophy was selected to stage the research design that enabled an existentialist perspective to ground the whole study. The second section discusses the research design and rationale: mainly taking into account feasibility, the study was directed by a mixed method methodology, consisting of interviews and the policy Delphi method, which altogether were embedded in a grounded theory design. The remaining sections cover participant selection, data collection, data analysis, ethics, and rigour.

Chapter four provides the general context of the study. The first section narrates details of the scope and the implementation mechanism of the Chinese Moral Education system. The second section, the reviews policies that might affect the implementation of GCE across the education system hierarchy, from the national level, to the provincial level, municipal level, and down to the school level.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Chapter five details contextual information about the participating schools. The chapter discusses the schools one by one school environments and facilities, school motto, profiles of the educators, and policy implementation.

Chapters six, seven, and eight report and discuss the results in relation to the research questions. Chapter six answers the research question of ‘How is GCE fostered at curriculum level in the Chinese middle schools in the study?’, which focuses on the past. Chapter seven targets the question of ‘In what ways, of using generated consensual conceptions of GCE, do participants seek changes within current middle school curriculum?’ which represents the status of the present. Finally, chapter eight looks at the research question of ‘What will a GCE curriculum be conceptualised like within these schools?’ which predicts the future of GCE in the participating schools.

Chapter nine is the conclusion chapter. The first section of chapter nine wraps up the whole thesis by outlining summaries of every chapter. The second section evaluates the generalisability and the broader implications beyond fields of GCE research and extending to the fields of education management, policy, and political science. The third section details the limitations of the research. With a grounded design approach, the present study depicts only a fragmented picture of the whole story. The last section gives a series of suggestions for future research based on the outputs of the present study.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Chapter 2: Literature Review

This literature review foregrounds three areas of knowledge related to the present study, each of which is addressed to separate section. The first section examines theories on approaches to promoting reforms that localise an educational idea. This knowledge includes a group of cross- disciplinary theories, which reflect the complexity of devising localisation. The second section examines what is revealed by current literature to be the constituting elements of the meaning of GCE and how these elements are constructed within different paradigms to shape the diversified and rich nature of GCE. This is essential for understanding Chinese educators’ paradigm for conceptualising GCE. Moreover, a conceptual framework which offers theoretical grounds for generating localised meaning of GCE in the Chinese case is generated by the researcher to support the research design and the logics of later chapters of the thesis. The third section focuses on how GCE has been interpreted and situated in different contextualized paradigms. Via reviewing and summarizing the literature on GCE across the world, it is found that a common research background is shared by and restricted to the available literature. Section three also examines the research about the conditions of GCE in China to do with the national conditions and moral traditions, and how they influence the development of GCE.

2.1 Devising Curriculum Localisation

Curriculum localisation is a process of integrating localised knowledge, which are based on efforts from local staff, stakeholders and institutions, in school-based or community-based curriculum to either solve regional problems or improve the quality of learning experience status quo (UNESCO, 2019). This section will reason the rigour of devising curriculum localisation related to GCE by addressing the political and cultural context of Chinese Moral Education (section 2.1.1), point out the parts of GCE will need to be localised in Chinese schools (section 2.1.2), and suggest theoretical frameworks that may relate to the curriculum localisation (section 2.1.3). Arguments of curriculum localisation in section 2.1.1 will start with some narrations of a cultural identity Junzi in order to explicate the specificity of Chinese Moral Education, but it won’t take long. Instead, emphasis will be on the political and cultural context of Chinese education. Section 2.1.2 will extend the research paradigm beyond what is famed in section 2.1.1 (i.e., political and cultural hegemonies) and will discuss localisation as result of local educators’ appropriation and acknowledged integration of GCE in current system (therefore there will be some discussions on moral stances). To use such paradigm, which may be loosely classified as postmodern, is supported by conclusion in chapter four that some

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city educational policies were implemented but not effective. Finally, section 2.1.3 compare across different theories from different disciplines related to localisation process. In this last subsection, the researcher also borrowed the idea of thought experiment to help clarify that the output of localisation in the present study will be a protype to offer some preliminary ideas regarding GCE implementation in Chinese schools.

2.1.1 Localised political and cultural context of Chinese Moral Education

The Moral Education in China has a long cultural origin, whose history might be dated back to the time when scholastic training initially appeared in China, in a way differs from other contemporary school practices. Moral Education stemmed from the learning opportunity for developing a certain social group known as Junzi, who were usually occupied with bureaucratic professions. There are studies imply that many characteristics Junzi group display similarities with active citizens (Wang, 2015). Such similarity triggers the argument with regard to the possibility of developing active citizens through the traditional approach of growing Junzi, which requires repetitive chanting and considerable time on memorising Confucian classics (though was revived in some schools offering Classical Education [Wang, 2016]), despite the reality that it has been less practiced in formal curriculum as the result of New Culture Movement in early 1900s and Culture Revolution in 1960s.

Yet, this approach still can be traced to the Moral Education in contemporary Chinese schools with respect to a corresponding modernised school subject (see section 2.3.3), school ethos (see chapter five), along with a complete administrative system (see chapter four). To some extents, the highly prioritised belief associated with Junzi as a bureaucrat-philosopher intertwined career choice, which allow them to participate in politics actively, resulting from highly specialised social division still influence contemporary Moral Education. Echoing the social division is the focus on duty, obligation, and virtues found in contemporary Asian schooling (Kennedy, 2014), even though the political rights is not conjugate with the social division in contemporary society. In addition, some ideas which are unique to the Junzi group have been kept as important cultural heritage. One of the most famous idea is the Great Unity, which is from the chapter ‘The Operation of Etiquette’ in the classic Book of Etiquette. The meaning of the original text is:

Appreciate the culture/values of others as do to one's own, and the world will become a harmonious whole. Everybody cherishes his or her own culture/values, and if we respect and treasure other's culture/values, the world will be a harmonious one.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

This concept of Great Unity remains as a type of moral imagination shared by feudal Chinese scholars and was also mentioned by several participants in the present study (See chapter seven). Upon the descriptions of the Great Unity, it is found that this moral imagination tells an ideal living status mixing obligation for serving clanship and social welfare. The underlying rationale is, which is also reflected onto the contemporary school curriculum within the considerable texts on developing students’ virtues, is the relevance of clanship or “blood ties” (Shi, Chong, & Li, 2019). When being extend outside the clanship domain, what is achieved in Great Unity seems to overlap what is proposed as the lower-case politics at the community level (Crick, 2000; Mclaughlin, 1992). As is reflected in modern Chinese schooling, students are also arranged in in-service or community activities, through which the ‘ethical self-transformation’ proposed by Wang can take place (2016). However, letting students to participate in those activities for the sake of shaping virtues is regarded as adding on extra credits outside students’ duties, which differs from the idea of guaranteeing students a civil life in civic education. Proved this argument is the study that comparing school curricula across China, Hong Kong, and Macao, which provided evidences that independent curriculum with national and compulsory courses rather than an immersion approach is adopted in Chinese schools (Shi, Chong, & Li, 2019). An explanation is that Confucian citizenship is functioning under small-scale systems (Qin, 1998).

Along with the Confucian cultural hegemony, the political context also influences GCE in China. Historically, there has been a constant aggressive dispute over the problem of how to introduce Western ideologies into China, which has been seen since the period of the May Fourth Movement in the early 20th century through to the 1930s in mainland China, the 1960s in Taiwan, and again in the 1980s in mainland China (Luo, 2005, pp. 108–109). The underlying cause was that these Western ideologies were initially brought to the country by colonization, and, to date, most Chinese (especially academics) still believe there is unbalanced relationship between Chinese and Western cultures (pp. 108–109). In general, the central government in China acknowledges the notion of experimentalism with guidance from both national conditions and Marxist epistemology and methodology, rather than directly applying Western theories to Chinese contexts (Gu, 2013a, p. 17; Luo, 2005, p. 107). Study also indicates that the school curriculum has strong inclination of advocating political ideology (Zhao, 2013). There has been argued that the emphasis on socialist values will not be altered to be more globalist or rule-of - law oriented, whether reflected on curriculum or social environment, even when the country is becoming more open (Gow, 2017; Law, 2006). It is not known whether Chinese schools will remain the same strategy when being turned to more challenges since more social agenda and policy orientations tend to favour globalisation, including the statements of G20 Hangzhou Summit about global economic coordination, the national strategies of promoting ‘One Belt and 13

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

One Road’, the national propaganda of building ‘a community of shared future for mankind’ and fulfilling ‘Sustainable Development Goals’.

2.1.2 Elements related to GCE curriculum localisation in China

In circumstance where there are no immediate educational policies on GCE, are educators morally responsible for promoting GCE?

When retrieving articles on GCE through one of the largest domestic academic databases CNKI, a very limited number of studies was found (i.e., no more than one hundred pieces). Available articles are on the topic of ‘world citizenship education,’ instead of GCE. Among all retrieved articles, postgraduates’ dissertations constitute the majority. In reviewing the research topics, most studies were found to be reviews of the experiences of implementing GCE in other countries without one ground research. For instance, there is a research series on GCE in Canada, Japan, the US, UK, and South Korea by scholars at the Institute of International and Comparative Education of the Beijing Normal University. Four other four major institutes that have produced similar compilations on GCE are the Northeast Normal University, the East China University, Harbin Institute of Technology, and the Liaoning Normal University. In addition, there are also several outstanding research studies organized by the Institute of Moral Education Nanjing Normal University. Apart from these theoretical contributions, there are also a few empirical evidence-based studies. However, the total number of empirical studies remains in single digits.

In contrast to the little progress achieved in GCE, there has been more for the developing of the International Understanding Education. Jiang (2017) interprets its rapid development within the policy rhetoric of “expanding the opening procedure of educational opportunities” (p. 90) and points out the contradiction encountered by local educators between the requirement for being global competent and being globally inter-dependent.

In addition to the growing trend of International Understanding Education, students have been seeking a type of Global Education elsewhere outside China, which reflects the intense motivation to get in touch with the outside world. For example, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, within one month (i.e., in January 2016), the number of tourists going abroad reached 2,090,000. The country was also home to the largest population of mobile students. According to data on global flow of tertiary-level students provided by UNESCO Institute for Statistics, in 2014 there were 712,157 Chinese students were studying abroad.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

This careful choice of selecting educational opportunities favouring globalised market meanwhile being subject to the authoritative ideologies echo the policy landscape Huang, Wang, & Li (2016) note in the Chinese educational transformation. As is reflected, Chinese education but has been dominated by the government power denoted in the qualification “with the Chinese characteristics” where the governmental control over local education undergo decentralisation of management, making it differs from the localisation of educational ideas in other Asian countries, such as Japan and Singapore (Huang, Wang, & Li, 2016).

In spite of these structural constraints, opportunities of promoting GCE were found from both the top (e.g., the proposed need of cultivating global citizens in National Plan Outline for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development [2010–2020]) and the bottom (e.g., engaging with international education programs). Not mention that experiences support that the success of putting forward effective reform through a bottom-up approach might be more sustaining than control from the top (Riley, 2004). As is reflected in Chinese case, the introduction of the Eighth Curriculum and Teaching Reform in 1999 has enabled the attempt to make innovative bottom-up changes. The reform proposed a three-level curriculum management framework, consisting of a national curriculum, region-based curricula, and school-based curricula. In this case, schools enjoy decentralisation through the flexibility of adjusting the curriculum at school level.

2.1.3 Theories related to curriculum localisation process

In this regard, how will Chinese educators see themselves regarding a position whether be morally blamed for not taking any actions, or be responsible for solving the dilemma of not having GCE?

The postmodern paradigm allows us to understand GCE beyond the authorities tell us. It also matters to learn how educators interact with the education system to appropriate their thinking and imagination which fills the gap between ends of individuals and hegemonies of culture and politics. When reflected onto the daily routine, most of which are tasks centring on implementing the formal curriculum (Shi, Chong, & Li, 2019) (partially also due to lack of resources and relevant professional training, as will be discussed in Section 2.3.3), considerable efforts are devoted into the cognitive work, involving the reflection and imagination of the world. Many perceptual factors, including affection (e.g., structure of feelings), values (e.g., moral imagination), and even psychology (e.g., sense of coherence) will contribute to the overall quality of the education.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Taking the perceptual factors into account, the researcher here attaches importance with practising thought experiment in educational research. As was first suggested by Hans Freudenthal, thought experiment is part of the development research and allows the cyclic process between obtaining knowledge through a prototype and practice (Gravemeijer, 1994). Based on idea of thought experiment, several models are considered by the researcher as the possible approaches to investigate GCE in Chinese schools.

The problem-solving model is an innovation process model applicable to school settings, including sectors of administration and organization, instruction, services and special programs, curriculum, and technology (Havelock, 1974). The model allows the participants to play dominating roles to utilise the available internal sources to the maximal level while being open but not restricted to ideas and suggestions from outsiders (Carl, 2009). It contrasts with other normative models that prioritise prescriptive products ahead of marketing “by starting from the problems and needs which are defined by the client – the school or teacher – or diagnosed by a ‘change agent’ by direct study of the client’s situation,” and is feasible as a more research- oriented approach to investigating solutions (Stenhouse, 1975). the researcher found that the problem-solving model achieves innovation through changes to clients’ attitudes and values, as a result of an application of behavioural psychology (Nordvall, 1982, p. 12). The problem- solving model has the disadvantage of being too abstract, for instance, it does not include the role of principals, which may be mainly considered as the key variable in achieving the innovative structural change of the organizations.

Another alternative model is the organizational learning model. Organizational learning has been defined as “the deliberate use of individual, group, and system learning to embed new thinking and practices that continuously review and transform the organization in ways that support shared aims” (Collinson & Cook, 2007, p. 8). Accordingly, a school is assumed to be a learning organization where there are inquiry making at individual, group, and organizational levels; dissemination and sharing of understandings among members; people’s behavioural and cognitive change; and the final embedding of new knowledge to the organization (pp. 33–35). organizational learning theory stands out for offering a more systematic perspective, which is not restricted to an institution’s organizational environmental change but also bridges the ongoing activities, including curriculum development, within schools, as well as members’ conceptual changes. According to Preskill and Torres (1999), organizations in a knowledge era operate in a non-hierarchical, collective, and innovative way. Consistently, the level of stimulating the inquiry, and accepting and implementing GCE at curricular level, reveals as a school’s capacity for change and ability to overturn school’s passivity with regard to curriculum decisions, which was conventionally perceived as a mere result of curriculum control from 16

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city above. In this regard, schools which are capable of learning GCE will display potential for fostering GCE inquiry, sharing understandings on GCE, and members having conceptual and behavioural changes regarding GCE, which then will lead to an integration of GCE into the curriculum. The study ‘Hit the ground running’: Delineating the problems and potentials in State- led Global Citizenship Education (GCE) through teacher practices in South Korea by Pak and Lee (2018) might be a relevant example where Fullan’s theory on educational change was adopted as theoretical framework. Yet, the researcher found it difficult to use organizational learning theory to achieve an understanding of the GCE curriculum per se in Chinese context, though she would obtain knowledge on whether the organizational learning of GCE would have taken place.

Furthermore, the arguments in democratisation of schools might also be used. Osler and Starkey (2005) refer to a series of official human rights—related documents and Dewey’s work on education to generate principles of democratising schools. Their solution is to practice reciprocal dialogue regarding the theme of ‘responsibility’ through multiple levels. For this to work, a transformative leadership was also a necessity. The authors also point out that there are many challenges “since structure, legal frameworks and popular expectations were derived from authoritarian traditions and the expectation that schools will prepare citizens for democratic life” (p. 153). Yet the Chinese context maybe too complex to be explained only through the democratisation framework. With a moral tradition of emphasising responsibility and strong interpersonal bonds, the approach Chinese use for appropriation differs from the conventional framing but prioritising the ethical self-transformation (Wang, 2016). Here the researcher adopts Deleuzian desiring-machine, where spontaneous responses are valued.

Print’s (1993) model of curriculum change was chosen as the theoretical framework for the present study. The model, which is part of the whole theoretical model of curriculum development, demonstrates the “more fundamental, generic issue of implementation in curricula and the consequential curriculum change that occurs” (p. 216). It also devises a systemic approach of taking stock of past practice and reorientating for improvement, which follows the dynamics of curriculum development (i.e., as is illustrated in the model, curriculum application, and change is situated at the end of the period of curriculum development which is at the same time a starting point of devising curriculum planning, which is from curriculum modification and evaluation in Phase 3 to the curriculum presage in Phase 1).

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Figure 2.1 Model of Curriculum Development (Print, 1993, p. 84)

The transition from Phase 3 back to Phase 1, which is illustrated in Figure 2.1 to understand the general implementation of curricula among participating schools, because GCE is not a mere continuance of some particular curricular practices but was more likely to be an innovative change beyond the existing paradigm.

(1) Situational analysis: The present study has adopted Skilbeck’s situational analysis (see Figure 2.2) suggested in Print’s theory (1993) to frame the evaluation presage.

Figure 2.2 Situational analysis factors (Print, 1993, p. 115)

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

(2) Curriculum change: According to Print (1993), curriculum change involves the basic phases of: need (i.e., the expression of concern about unsolved issues), adoption (i.e., acceptance of an innovation to assist consolidating change), implementation (i.e., a process of developing confidence and expertise by starting with effecting innovation in various schools), and institutionalization (i.e., the integration of an innovation at institutional level after it has been implemented successfully). Meanwhile, activities of dissemination of information as well as evaluation also influence the process of promoting the popularization of the curriculum change.

Figure 2.3 Educational change process (Print, 1993, p. 228)

Expressed need/problem

Uncertainty with choices Initiation/adoption Diffusion/dissemination activities

Developing confidence & expertise Implementation Evaluation activities

Consolidating position Institutionalisation/continuance

(3) Curriculum innovation: Print (1993) proposes five characteristics of innovation that have been “adopted, implemented, and even adopted by educators” (p. 242). According to Print, these characteristics could function as benchmark indicators for predicting whether a planned educational change would take effect. Print suggests these innovation characteristics be used as criteria for consideration during both the phases of need and implementation (Print, 1993, pp. 228–230).

These characteristics are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and communication. Relative advantage implies that an innovation could provide significant advantages in effectiveness, including advantages of “greater efficiency, cost saving, educational enhancement time saving or greater rewards such as enhanced student learning” (p. 243); compatibility means the innovation could comply with integrated values, past experiences, and present needs; complexity indicates appropriate degrees of complexity allowing participants to accept and adjust for change; trialability means that the innovation can be tested before full- scale adoption; and communication refers to the condition when an innovation can be easily disseminated among educators through effective communication.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

2.2 Introducing GCE

The previous section introduced the theoretical framework of the present study. This section focuses on GCE with respect to its rigour, meaning, and ways it can be implemented.

2.2.1 Rigour of GCE.

A developmental perspective of understanding people’s political behaviour has been adopted in this thesis (Torney-Purta, 2002, p. 203; Youniss, McLellan & Yates, 1997, p. 620). In Bowling Alone (1995) by Robert Putnam, points out that it is the people themselves who determine politics. Her work pushes a paradigm shift in the study of political science, suggesting moving from a macro view to an individualistic level: how to make people become active citizens. It then started the research paradigm of investigating citizenship through the developmental perspective, which was, especially, the developmental perspective in the education discipline. The present study follows developmental paradigm where global citizenship is meaningfully connected with education.

Global citizenship: the subject of GCE.

When analysing the semantics of the term GCE, the confusions associated with the term GCE become apparent. The term comprises of an adjective (i.e., global) and two nouns (i.e., citizenship and education) collocated in no linguistically defined relation. Therefore the ambiguity of the collocation could lead to various explanations for the term, including an education fostering global citizens (global citizenship + education); a reformed Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE) that addresses the global perspective (global + citizenship education); raising public’s awareness by mentioning citizens’ rights and responsibilities (global education + citizenship); or a mere curricular inclusion of both citizenship and international awareness topics (Davies, 2006, pp. 13–14). Alternative to the linguistic fallacies, it is the semantic dilution that might cause understanding GCE improperly. Global is a highly abstract word that has been overly used and the rhetorical appeal of the word citizenship also “seems to have no purpose other than to add normative weight to a policy, institution, or practice that could just as aptly be described without reference to citizenship” (Weinstock, 2002, p. 244). Finally, when a clear conceptual boundary for GCE is unavailable, the term might experience semantic changes under different circumstances: as has been suggested by some scholars, GCE can be used interchangeably with other terms, including global education, development

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city education, peace education, international education, and multicultural education (Hicks & Townley, 1982, p. 7; Reynolds, 2015, p. 27), though the terms do not share identical meanings.

In brief, by analysing GCE linguistically, GCE is vulnerable to ambiguities resulting from linguistic fallacy, semantic dilution, and semantic change. The suggested rich and diversified interpretations of GCE might reflect the multiple dimensions of and controversies over the nature of the concept.

In the present study, the subject of GCE is referred to as education promoting the identity of global citizenship in students. The reason for choosing such an interpretation is due to several factors. Firstly, the general trend of studying the cause of people’s political behaviour has moved from analyzing socioeconomic attributes at the macro level to the micro, developmental view with an emphasis on individuals’ political socialisation, from which originates the stream of focused research on schooling and education (Torney-Purta, 2002). From this perspective, the understanding of “global” as international awareness or knowledge of the world reveals weaker associations with political science and the concept of citizenship, because it fails to demonstrate the various developmental alterations from traditional citizenship education when being treated as an independent proposition.

Secondly, there is an ideological collision when mentioning the global perspective and rights- based citizenship simultaneously. The legal interpretation of global citizenship is only meaningful when the law applies. However, the applicability of a certain law is restricted by a geographic boundary. In many cases, international affairs could only be negotiated but cannot be justified from the perspective of rights and obligations. Taking these two factors into account, the notion of an education that fosters global citizenship gains ground over all other interpretations, and GCE in the present study refers to global citizenship.

Counting such concern, this sub-section avoids the intention of giving a definite interpretation of GCE, but steps back and evaluates GCE as an emerging phenomenon via which it is clear how sources from various disciplines, involving economics, political ideology, anthropology, media and communication, cultural studies, and morality and ethics, influence perceptions of GCE.

2.2.2 Conceptual framework of GCE.

Critiquing existing paradigms of constructing and conceptualising GCE.

The interpretations of GCE began with reflections upon boundaries of past knowledge in educational theories and practice. Some researchers find the term GCE is used interchangeably 21

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city with other terms, including global education, development education, peace education, international education, and multicultural education (Hicks & Townley, 1982, p. 7; Reynolds, 2015, p. 27), though GCE is more likely to include all these forms of education covering a range of topics such as “ecology/environment/sustainability, intercultural/multicultural relations, peace, technology, human rights, democracy/civic education, international organizations, population, health (including AIDS), racism and gender discrimination, and global citizenship” (Tye, 2003, p. 166) with each of which addresses a particular interest of GCE. For instance, the key concepts of development education could be “global interdependence and cultural diversity,” with the function of maintaining the sustainability of environmental, social and economic resources (Davies, 2006, p. 6; UNESCO, 2012, p. 5).

In addition to reflect on GCE through thinking of related topics in education, Gaudelli (2009) reflects with heuristics and associates GCE with education on ideologies of neoliberalism, nationalism, Marxism, world justice and governance, and cosmopolitanism. According to Gaudelli, neoliberal global citizenship means a citizenship with national affiliation yet also participation in a global market; nationalist global citizenship emphasises seeing “national identity as a goal to be worked towards from the well of diverse populations” (pp. 72–73); Marxian global citizenship advocates the solidarity among people oppressed through capitalist globalisation; global citizenship through the perspective of world justice and governance implies the international legitimacy of personhood as the prioritised citizenship identity, which is guaranteed by laws and institutions at the international level; and cosmopolitan global citizenship advocates a transcendent citizenship where human primacy, public interests, and cross-national grassroots coalitions are stressed.

Figure 2.4 Gaudelli’s Paradigm of Global Citizenship

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Reflecting on GCE is not restricted to provide a conclusion mark on what have been put into efforts but also provide a perspective for focusing on. For instance, working further with Gaudelli’s cosmopolitanism oriented GCE, Tarozzi and Torres (2016) distinguish between the multicultural approach from the European tradition and the intercultural approach from the US to understanding transformative and social justice education. They clarify that the multicultural approach is “a relativistic approach that separates cultures and ignores universal values” whereas the intercultural approach maintains solidarity yet weakens the equity (p. 168).

Apart from using the reflection strategy, some researchers interpret GCE for the sake of solving controversies in the globalised world, and they usually explicate GCE to favour a specific political stance. Nussbaum (2002) specified three critical reasoning based abilities to be fostered in students as the components of a liberal education approach: the first is the ability to do critical self-examination; the second is the capacity to extend personal psychological affiliation from the local region and community to the entire humanity; and the third was the ability of narrative imagination so as to cultivate the in-depth understanding of different groups of people. Another example given by Misiaszek (2015), though being specific in science discipline, holistic civic obligations in effective GCE is related to ecopedagogy, a combined critical as well as environmental learning approach to local–global socio-environmental issues which aims at socio-environmental justice and deconstructing the biocentric dominance in conventional economics. Differing from using reflections, problem-solving styled paradigms contain more advocacies emphasising what GCE ought to be like.

A third approach of interpreting GCE is more neutral and focuses on what might be there through systematic review. Oxley and Morris (2013) constructed a typology of global citizenship (GC) listing various conceptions of the term by iterative analysis of English-based academic records of observations and interconnected texts on GC and GCE, which included large edited works, journal articles, and books. They summarized and applied three broad categories, namely “the dichotomous,” “the attributes,” and “the –isms,” to distinguish the conceptual variations along with related ideas of “cosmopolitanism, human rights, development and democracy” (p. 303). According to Oxley and Morris, these three categories are perspectives researchers use when interpreting GC. The category of “the dichotomous” refers to a common pattern in some studies where the concept is described via polarized stands. The authors criticise this category for being unable to provide details beyond these binary views. “The attributes” category indicates that researchers regard the possession of a list of characteristics as the standard for being a qualified global citizen. The authors criticise this category for emphasising pre-set skills and paying less attention to flexibility in practising the roles of global citizenship in reality. The third category is “the –isms,” which is a strategy of identifying GC by 23

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city clarifying a variety of underpinning ideologies. “The –isms” category is commonly found in observations of empirical practices but less found in literature. Under these three broad categories, Oxley and Morries identified a further classification of eight principal conceptions, including Political GC, Moral GC, Economic GC, Cultural GC, Social GC, Critical GC, Environmental GC, and Spiritual GC.

Table 2.1 Categories of global citizenship identified from prevailing literature (Oxley & Morris, p. 306) Key theories Conception (contemporary proponents) Focus, key concepts Cosmopolitan types Political global Kant; Rawls (Held; McGrew; A focus on the relationships of the individual to the state and other citizenship Linklater; Carter; Archibugi; Wendt) polities, particularly in the form of cosmopolitan democracy

Moral global Stoics; Kant; Sen; Nussbaum (Osler A focus on the ethical positioning of individuals and groups to each citizenship and Starkey; Veugelers; Cabrera) other, most often featuring ideas of human rights

Economic global Hayek; Friedmanl Smith; Quesnay; A focus on the interplay between power, forms of capital, labour, citizenship Bowen (Carroll and Shabana; resources and the human condition, often presented as international Waddock and Smith; Logsdon and development Wood) Cultural global J. S. Mill; Nietzsche (Übermensch) A focus on the symbols that unite and divide members of societies, citizenship (He; Brimm; De Ruyter and with particular emphasis on globalisation of arts, media, languages, Spiecker) sciences and technologies

Advocacy types Social global Habermas (communicative A focus on the interconnections between individuals and groups and citizenship rationality) (Falk; Cogan and their advocacy of the ‘people’s’ voice, often referred to as global civil Derricott) society

Critical global Escobar; Said; Gramsci; Marx; A focus on the challenges arising from inequalities and oppression, citizenship critical pedagogy (for example, using critique of social norms to advocate action to improve the lives Freire) (Andreotti; Tully; Shultz) of dispossessed/subaltern populations, particularly through a post- colonial agenda

Environmental global Enviro-scientific research (Dobson; A focus on advocating changes in the actions of humans in relation to citizenship Richardson; Jelin) the natural environment, generally called the sustainable development agenda

Spiritual global Danesh; religious texts (Noddings; A focus on the non-scientific and immeasurable aspects of human citizenship Golmohamad; Lindner) relations, advocating commitment to axioms relating to caring, loving, spiritual and emotional connections

Though the approaches vary, there seemed to be a common pattern of overly emphasising the role of ideologies while neglecting the role of contents of GCE in distinguishing different ideas in GCE. Besides, little of the localised knowledge has been included to offer direct references for planning GCE. For instance, reflection-based interpretations may be more vulnerable to the bias caused by contextual differences; problem-solving styled interpretation cannot fully address the complexities of regional issues. The present study suggests that comprehending GCE through a disciplinary categorisation will be more concise in conceptualising GCE from the perspective of curriculum development, including the curriculum content, goals, and teaching methods, so as to avoid it becomes only a buzzing jargon in a narrow field. 24

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

2.2.3 Reconceptualising GCE.

This section examines literature covering knowledge related to the contents of GCE from a wide range of disciplines, which includes studies from economics, political ideology, anthropology, media and communication, cultural studies, as well as morality and ethics.

Sources of GCE content from economics.

One of the important content sources from which GCE was conceptualised was the economics. Closely compounded with globalisation is the process of neoliberalisation, which has influenced most parts of the world since approximately 25 years ago. The change stemmed from a series of economic policies, stressing an economic state that is released from governmental control. From a political perspective, neoliberalism is an amalgamation of policies and programs committed to the free market, privatization, deregulation, and the reduction of expenditure on the welfare system. Ward and England (2007) also suggest neoliberalism is a hegemonic ideological project, a state form, or a new type of governmentality (p. 11). Respectively, these can be seen as a predominant politics or culture of the elite, the reconfiguration of social order and institutional structures, and governmentality’s transformation from the role of commander to helper (pp. 11–13). The role of formal politics has been marginalized through neoliberalisation, while the public sphere, which counteracts sovereignty, is being enlarged to the maximal level.

The resurgence of globalisation manifested hegemony mainly through neoliberalism, and under the influence of neoliberalism, civil societies across the world have experienced opportunities alongside the challenges unique to this epoch. On the one hand, because of the enlarged public sphere, there has been escalating non-governmental interactions, such as trading, travelling, and study, among people from different countries. Using the phenomenon of studying abroad as an example, in 2000, 1,825,000 students were studying outside their own countries; in 2007, the number climbed to 2,800,000; in 2008, the number was over 2.5 million (Altbach, Reisberg & Rumbley, 2009, pp. viii–ix). On the other hand, neoliberalism has caused global civil society to dwindle. Because there is no superior power to maintain the order of the international sphere or rule for redistribution, the inequalities among various stakeholders have been triggered and intensified in every dimension of life, not only economically but also socially, culturally, politically and environmentally (Ward & England, 2007, p. 2).

Regarding neoliberalism as it is reflected in education, the Knowledge is Power Program operated in the US would be a typical example (Gaudelli, 2009). The aim is to develop students to be competitive in order to enter the top high schools and colleges, as well as to be prepared for the global market.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Sources of GCE content from political ideology.

The resources from political ideology have been largely referenced by GCE research. In political ideology, a series of concepts, including cosmopolitanism, participatory democracy, and communitarianism, have been correlated with the formation of GCE. In the literature of political ideology, global citizenship is likely to be conceived of as psychological recognition and, in real word, active membership in a participatory civil society. For political philosophers, global citizenship extends what used to be spiritual universalism to all human beings (Tong, 2009).

The idea of cosmopolitanism is one of the frequently cited concepts in political ideology. Before directly borrowing this concept, it is necessary to consider whether it will fit the current research, because the polis in the concept of cosmopolitanism belongs to which Fukuyama termed as the political societies happening in natural state in classical political philosophy (Fukuyama, 2011, p. 26). Meanwhile, cosmopolitanism has somehow supported a position which is against nationalism. Yet the nature of nationalism merely means an ideology of attached affiliation, which could be applied to the assumption of being global citizens (Heywood, 2007). There have ever been several research studies proposing that post-colonialism could be classified as part of GCE. Post-colonialism is also among the subcategories of nationalism (Heywood, 2007).

Another contribution from political ideology to the conceptualisation of GCE is participatory democracy. Participatory democracy emphasises taking on citizenship responsibilities actively. In the era of neoliberalism, when the economic realm is maximally controlled by the market, the “juridical equality in the public sphere” cannot maintain an egalitarian private sphere, proving Marx’s notion of inequality prevailing in “material life” (Bosniak, 2012, p. 21).

At a societal level, the perspectives of modernization, public institution, social capital, and the values in being engaged are believed to influence levels of engagement (Amna & Zetterber, 2010). At the individual level, interpersonal and intra-personal issues contribute to the different types of ways of being engaged (Davies, Evans & Peterson, 2014).

Moreover, there are also classifications based on the extent of activeness (Davies, et al., 2014, p. 5). These classifications are based on three characteristics, including discipline, social awareness, and autonomy (Print, 2013, p. 39). Accorinding to Veugelers (2007), Westheimer and Kahne (2004), and Johnson and Morris (2010), a citizen who attaches great importance to social awareness and self-reliance but less importance to discipline is regarded as critical- democratic, or justice-oriented; a citizen who attaches great importance to discipline and autonomy but less importance to social awareness is considered to be individualistic, or

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city participatory; and a citizen who attaches great importance to discipline and social awareness but less importance to autonomy is viewed as adapting, or personally responsible (as cited in Print, 2013, p. 39).

Finally, civic engagement can be practised via different activities. Apart from the traditional activities, such as voting, volunteering, or writing to a local politician, there are new technologies available for use (Davies, et al., 2014, p. 5). The spread of internet usage has caused the younger generation to voice their opinions online but become less involved in traditional political activities (Print, 2007).

GCE might also be related to communitarianism. Communitarianism denotes the importance of a network where global citizens could act, which constitutes the social solidarity across nations that enables citizenship to broaden out to a global scale (Crow, 2002; Davies, et al., 2014). Theoretically, communitarianism could be formalized through rules, as well as activities beyond the familial level, which fit into Crick’s theory of lower case “politics” (as cited in Davies, et al., 2014, p. 4). Crick (2000) draws a line between the upper case “Politics” of constitutional and institutional matters, and the lower case “politics” of power in everyday life (pp. 4–8); similar statements can be found in the work on by Mclaughlin (1992).

With regard to political science as it is reflected in education, the citizenship education or patriotic education would be more popular among the national curricula as well as the extracurricular activities. An example suggested by Gaudelli (2009) is the program provided by the Centre for Civic Education in US. This program has been introduced into some Chinese middle schools, including the participatory schools in the present study, as Project Citizen. The findings of the present study elaborate on the influence of Project Citizen on these participatory schools.

Sources of GCE content from anthropology.

The discipline of anthropology provides GCE with the idea of the Anthropocene. Accordingly, the Anthropocene refers to “Earth’s most recent geological epoch in which human actions have started to provoke biophysical changes on a planetary scale” (UNESCO Courier, 2018). Within anthropology, there were at least two different angles of approach regarding the topic of the Anthropocene. The first angle is through rethinks the possible transformation of beings in an era when technology is highly developed: the idea that human activities shaping the environment can also lead to a transformation of human’s sense and shaping of the unconscious, known as the transhumanism (White, 2018). There are contradictory views – idealist and anti- utopian – on the influence of technology developments on human. The second angle of approach

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city to considering the Anthropocene focuses on environmental issues, and concerns environmental problems including land use, greenhouse-gas emission, and global temperatures (Ruddiman, 2013). For these researchers, the problems of climate change, reduced vegetation cover, biodiversity loss and extinctions, and biogeochemical flows are alarming and causing accelerating irreversible damages of the environment (UNESCO Courier, 2018).

Another theory associated with the Anthropocene is what has been described as the “low-end globalisation” or “globalisation from below,” which centres on “the transnational flow of people and goods involving relatively small amounts of capital and informal, sometimes semi-legal or illegal transactions commonly associated with the developing world” (Mathews & Yang, 2012, p. 97). For example, Wu Ka-ming and Zhang Jieying (2016) describe the communities living with waste in China in the age of Anthropocene.

Reflected in education, there are also relevant practices. For instance, research shows that a short study abroad program can promote pro-environmental behaviour: students completed pre- and post- self-assessing questionnaires which are formulated based on the value-belief- norm model (Wynveen, Kyle & Tarrant, 2012).

Sources of GCE content from media and communication.

The interrelated disciplines of media and communication have influenced the conceptualisation of GCE in different ways. Media used to be a powerful method of promoting civil society, as was commented by Almond (1995):

Surprisingly, despite the vast explosion of the media, the ubiquitous presence of television, the ever-increasing facility in producing and reproducing data, and the expansion of communications, opportunities for genuinely open public debate on these matters are rarer than might be supposed. In radio and television, this is the era of the sound-bite, of carefully staged debates between extremists of known views measured in minutes and, even so, punctuated by the distracting, often inconsequential, interventions of an interviewer. It is a period when major newspapers and journals have their known political and ideological leanings, and publish, on the whole, only columns and correspondence which will please or interest their already committed readers.

Here the transformation from traditional media to social media, notes Almond (1995), is in conjunction with dissemination of power once dominated by major newspapers and journals. Media capital is what citizens need to be critical about. However, the role of media capital has been eroded gradually since the rise of privatisation of media usage: conventional media has continuously been undermined, treated as “a fetishist object, and an object of speculation for demagogues and demiurges,” along with converted original configuration where the public is

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city the audience of leading media, which could result in the weakened social sphere both locally and worldwide (Mattelart, 1996, p. 308). Meanwhile, there is also the emerging phenomenon of citizen media where individuals are empowered to be influencing media agents. The exact influence of the transforming digital world on the development of global citizenship.

In communication, there is the thought proposing equity and equality which advocates the communication among any creatures. In other words, it is the communicative freedom that is related to the content of GCE. Education researchers associate the changing role of media and communications with tasks that develop students’ media literacy with regard to GCE.

Sources of GCE content from cultural studies.

A prominent contribution of cultural studies to the conceptualisation of GCE is the notion of cultural identities. Proposing cultural identity help with promoting cultural diversity and maintain the cultural inheritance. A considerable amount of pioneering research is being undertaken, including on topics in feminist studies, queer theory, and critical theory. As is pointed out by Bernstein (2005) there is also an ongoing transnational social movement towards creating a universal identity, either via the network society developed through globalisation in order to homogenise the identity, for instance the structural requirement for membership of international institutions, or via countries to undergoing spontaneous emulation. The underpinning idea is the advocacy of social justice. In response to this trend, multicultural education has arisen.

There is also a developing idea of global cultural citizenship education, which has been promoted by UNESCO, and which has an approach based on art education with an emphasis on creative capacities and cultural expressions (UNESCO, 1996).

In addition, critical pedagogy is another educational movement in cultural studies. Based on principles of critical theory, critical pedagogy trains students in “the skills to critique, cultivated critical consciousness and increase human knowledge,” empowers students with desire “to go beyond the world they know and feel comfortable in, to expand their understanding of a range of social possibilities in education and achieve a more equal and just future …[and] discover, extend and manifest human nature and human rights … of freedom and equality” (Sanjakdar & Yip, 2018, pp. 2–3).

Sources of GCE content from morality and ethics.

Morality and ethics influence some parts of the content of GCE, including ethical decision making, moral reasoning, and critical thinking. In fact, GCE is recognized as education for a new

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city form of ethics, as Attfield (1995) calls for the need for environmental ethics to enrich GCE. In his study, he points out the actual challenges of proposing environmental ethics, with which it is hard for existing moral principles to reach consistency. Difficulties include the attempt of establishing new ethics may be at the risk of being subject to extensionism in traditional ethics when philosophers omit respect for ecosystem, the problem (capacity) of locating intrinsic value in non-sentient creatures, and the difficulty of achieving sustainability of all creatures.

GCE might also address ethics related to decision making. Ruyter and Spiecker (2008) suggest that the ethical evaluations should be identifying, comparing, and evaluating the most appropriate action from alternatives in order to be culturally competent. For instance, a model of indirect utilitarianism has been suggested that might compensate the conventional utilitarian models (such as act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism) by referring to existing moral values, dispositions, and virtues when making decisions (Eggleston, 2012).

Apart from considering ethics during evaluating the decision-making, moral reasoning has been gradually acknowledged and integrated into GCE. While Deweyan morality was intertwined with virtue ethics, moral reasoning was more likely to link with Kohlberg’s theory of moral development (1975). However, the theory of moral development only covered the normative ethics shown drawbacks in explaining the meta-ethical phenomenon of subjective moral reasoners (Fishkin, 1984).

Along with moral reasoning, there has been a trend of promoting critical thinking in school children. Developing critical thinking can be understood as developing higher order cognitive abilities which is measurable via a framework proposed by Ricard Paul. Yet, Kagan (2009) believe that critical thinking is derived from elitist rationality but is embellished and covered up by ethical neutrality, and critical thinking itself is against egalitarianism.

In practice, Kohlberg's (1975) Just Community high school was developed as a participatory democracy where students solved school issues through moral discussions. To be specific, Kohlberg postulated that, through this democratic decision making and group discussions, higher order thinking would be improved, as well as moral reasoning. Besides, moral reasoning was also suggested by Fasco (1994) as an effective part of a school's curriculum.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Figure 2.5 Integrating Multiple Disciplines in GCE Contents

Anthropology Media & Communication • Anthropocene • Media capital • Transhumanism • Communicative freedom • Low-end globalisation

Political Ideology Cultural studies • Cosmopolitanism • Identity politics • Participatory democracy • Multicultralism • Communitarianism • Critical pedagogy

Economics Contents Morality & Ethics • Neoliberal marketization • Ethical decision making • Neoliberal globalisation of GCE • Moral reasoning • Critical thinking

In summary, various disciplines contribute to the conceptualisation of the GCE. GCE is an umbrella term referenced with different emphasis in different fields of study. The meaning of GCE is highly dependent on the research contexts. When research interests overlap, there is usually the problem of searching a suitable definition among its all related contested meanings. It is suggested that locating a definition which fits properly the context is a solution to the tangled meanings linked to GCE.

2.2.4 Methods of attaining GCE.

The section explicates what will be more effective avenues for conceptualising GCE as a way to achieve effectiveness. As mentioned in the beginning of Section 2.2, people’s political behaviour is influenced by their education received in adolesces and early adulthood. This section is going to provide more details on this topic. It will trace the literature on ways of developing students’ civic competencies in school settings which shed light on changed thinking regarding what exact type of education will influence people’s political behaviour. The section starts with a general discussion of political socialisation, and then moves onto Print’s model of political socialisation (2007).

Schooling.

Socialisation in schools has been recognized as the processes through which individuals’ behaviours in adulthood are shaped by their early interaction experiences with family, peer groups, schools, religious institutions and so on (Maccoby, 2007; Grusec & Davidov, 2010). Political socialisation, being part of the socialisation process, has repeatedly been mentioned as one predictor of a population’s civic behaviours, which has also been suggested as a vital factor for adolescent development (Jennings, 2007). Herbert Hyman (1959) was the first to suggest that (1) parents and family, (2) formal curriculum, and (3) extra-curricular activities, that promote voluntary association, are three primary influencing factors in political socialisation, 31

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city and subsequent researchers have followed this categorisation (Settle, Bond & Levitt, 2011; Jennings, 2007; Torney-Purta, Richardson & Barber, 2004). Notably, though extra-curricular activities usually refer to activities arranged after school hours, such as community service in a church, it was also proposed that such activities are an integral component of the informal curriculum (Print, 2007; Print, 2009). Due to a trend of “curricularising” extra-curricular activities by schools and other educational institutions and finding that students who were engaged in those school-organized activities display higher concentration and better learning outcomes, the boundary between extra-curricular activities and curriculum is becoming less clear now (Ziblatt, 1965; Print, 2009; Larson, 2000).

Print (2008) proposes a model that demonstrates correlations between the socializing factors and their influences on students’ political socialisation: political and civic learning is influenced by non-school factors, which are family, media, peers, and community, as well as school factors, including formal curricular courses on knowledge, skills, and values, and informal curricular activities; all of these factors contribute to the type of citizen a person will be.

In contrast to other processes involved in socialisation, political socialisation exerts the maximum change on people from the age of 14 to the mid-20s (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995, p. 7). This age range has been conventionally regarded as a period when people experience intense psychological and social change, although there has been inadequate amount of strong evidence to prove the linkage between age and political competence changed in the former Socialisation Panel Study and National Election Study Panel in the US (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995, p. 7). Other researchers found consistency between political socialisation and moral internalization in cognitive schema development (Torney-Purta, 2002, p. 204; Haste, 1993). This period in a young person’s life is also when society would like young people to be qualified citizens (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995, p. 7). In particular, the high school years of the US system are of the greatest importance for making “the most explicit and concentrated effort to teach political knowledge and civic values” (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995, p. 7).

Though family might be involved in political socialisation between the ages of 14 and 25, this can only influence the youth via limited paths, such as role modelling, discussion, and in-family decision-making (Print, 2007, p. 330; Niemi & Chapman, 1999, pp. 37, 40). Investigations found that the familial factor was not a reliable and stable intervention to promote the youth’s civic behaviours. Torney-Purta (2002) carried out a comparative study, surveying 90,000 adolescents in 28 countries across America, Europe, and Asia (Hong Kong [SAR]) and discovered that only families with rich educational resources and parents who had high

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city educational expectations for children were positively correlated to students’ high-scaling responses to indicators of democracy, democratic institutions, citizenship, national identity, international relations, social cohesion, and diversity (pp. 205, 211). Therefore, the family does not provide systematic or intended educational experiences (Print, 2007, pp. 326, 334).

Considering all socializing factors, schooling might be a more powerful factor in terms of stimulating civic change in young people, and also the one that could be affected by educational policy and practice. Firstly, schools have already become the major institutions where students are expected to be socialized. Students attend school consistently, resulting in lasting effects; whereas, media, via television and newspapers, could only have sporadic impressions on students’ civic development (Print, 2007, p. 330). Secondly, studies indicate the direct correlation between schooling and students’ improved civic knowledge, skills, and engagement (Print, 2007, p. 330; Niemi & Junn, 1998, pp. 120–123). Thirdly, unlike schooling, the time students spent with peers, watching TV, or other unstructured voluntary activities, did not involve “concerted engagement with challenge and complexity,” hence there was little targeted learning in these activities (Larson, 2000, pp. 170–172).

Schooling could socialize the youth via formal curriculum, informal curriculum, and extracurricular activities. A formal curriculum is the primary source for learning civic knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Print, 2007). Literature of practices in different countries shows the civic topic runs throughout the formal curriculum, either in the form of independent courses or embedded within other social science subjects. For example, according to Patrick (1999), the core of a formal curriculum should build students’ conceptual structure toward civic knowledge, because core concepts are related to cognitive processes (pp. 55–56). However, teaching concepts do train students to be active citizens. As pointed out by Print (2007), the practices are characterized by “textbooks, rote learning, and non-participatory, non-critical strategies as well as inadequate teacher preparation” (p. 338). In response to this, researchers have suggested teaching strategies to improve the impact of this discipline, including organizing class voting, advocating group inquiry, cooperative learning, informed and critical discussion with students, linking between practices in different domains, attention to students’ identities, professional preparation, and conducting issue-based model learning combined with cognitive training (Print, 2007, p. 338; Torney-Purta, 2002, p. 211; Patrick, 1999, p. 58). Also, teachers are suggested to construct and maintain a democratic, collaborative, equal, and civic classroom culture (Torney-Purta, 2002, p. 210).

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Figure 2.6 Theoretical Framework of Political and Civic Learning

The informal curriculum is composed of instrumental activities and expressive activities; the former includes “student governance, newspaper, debating, student elections, fundraising and political clubs,” which are thought to enhance civic engagement, and the latter refers to activities such as sports and bands, as well as other social activities that are less likely to contribute to civic engagement (Print, 2007, p. 339). Students’ participation in the informal curriculum, especially student government, had an impact on their building of social capital later in adulthood (Print, 2007, p. 339; Youniss, et al., 1997, pp. 623–624; Niemi & Chapman, 1999, p. 37).

Key elements in the practice of GCE: informal curriculum.

Among these three types of curricula, the informal curriculum achieves the better effect in Civics and Citizenship Education because it allows the student to be trained for high-level thinking skills that are not available for students in traditional passive didactic pedagogy. Change in personal qualities could be fostered by gaining competency in, for example, planning, critical thinking, negotiation, collaboration, becoming accustomed to different people, monitoring progress, self-evaluation, and self-regulation during a long course (Larson, 2000, p. 178; Youniss, et al., 1997, p. 624; Patrick, 1999, p. 58). As part of the training in high-level thinking skills, the informal curriculum provides students with opportunities for “ideology conviction and moral justification” (Youniss, et al., 1997, p. 629). While involved in such an informal curriculum, students undergo conscious self-assessment, doubt the existing reference to the framework, re-justify and re-address ethical aspects by themselves, and finally “articulate the extent of their agency, their responsibility to others, their part in political processes, and their commitment to moral principles” (pp. 625–626). Moreover, the language agency might 34

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city also undergo changes, imposing lasting effects on their whole life. Changes in language agency are reflected in the increased frequency of, for example, (1) laying out “hypothetical scenarios for discussion and analysis”; (2) “weighing of hypothetical possible actions against realistic likelihood”; (3) using “contingency thinking” with “accurate information about likely outcomes of actions; (4) showing respect for others by adapting others’ perspectives and using “legalese, a caregiving register, or problem solving language” (Larson, 2000, p. 177). Sufficient amounts of evidence indicate that the practices of civic engagement in the informal curriculum could positively result in predictable active citizenship in adulthood (Print, 2007).

2.3 Developing GCE Curriculum

The previous section focused on discussing different avenues for developing global citizens and indicated that the informal curriculum would be an ideal choice for grounding GCE. In this section, the focus will be on researching the substance of GCE curriculum. In particular, it will emphasise the influence of context on the formation of GCE curriculum.

2.3.1 GCE practices throughout history and across the world.

GCE was formed and practised after WWII, though evidence of its philosophical roots can be found in cosmopolitanism, which appeared during the classical period of Ancient Greece (Schattle, 2009). Since the end of WWII, and especially since the Cold War, a series of events have been changing the world order, including the emergence of a wave of new democracies, increasing dominance of marketplace economics, and changes in democratic norms and educational systems (Jennings, 2007). These changes have triggered studies on new forms of education and, since the 1970s, people have been acting to develop various educational interventions in response to emerging global issues, including the introduction of world studies, development education, peace education, and multicultural education (Hicks & Townley, 1982, p. 7). As stated by Robin Richardson, although tensions exist, “[these educational interventions] delineated a general area of concern, and in this sense, they had something in common. There was a family of likeness” (1974, p. 263).

The present study has found in the literature that there have been different educational goals for GCE for the different stages of education. Early childhood education highlights familiarization with the present context as well as the establishment of “global dispositions” (Reynolds, 2015, p. 29). At this stage, the primary task of education is to discipline, before

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city enlightening students with critical thinking on human rights or social justice (Boulton-Lewis, Brownlee, Berthelsen & Dunbar, 2008). Meanwhile, “global dispositions,” traits resembling personality traits of openness to experience new things without prejudice, is promoted mainly via in-group communication (civic skills) and learning about the interdependence of maintaining a sustainable global ecological system (subjective content) (Ferreira & Davis, 2010). Later, after early childhood education and during adolescence, the teaching of global citizenship education in some curricula is concerned with addressing the global perspective, which is commonly classified as an additional topic of citizenship education (Reynolds, 2015). In higher education, GCE is commonly organized in the form of extracurricular activities, such as cultural exchange, volunteering or study abroad programs.

GCE is also “available” in schooling worldwide but might not be taught. In the UK, Richardson, who is one of the most influential theorists and practitioners in the 1970s and 1980s, took charge of The World Studies Project (WSP). The project was initially founded by an educational NGO, namely the One World Trust; between 1920 and 1930, it integrated the progressive education into and strived to educate people on international understanding. After Richardson, the succession to the same position in the WSP fell to Fisher and Hicks. They further developed the project plan and introduced it into school curricula. Also, students in England and Wales were required to take a new unit of civic education related to GCE. In America, Hanvey’s An Attainable Global Perspective (1982) was the earliest and most representative work on the topic. Hanvey (1982) had a profound influence on the later development of GCE. In the 1990s, there was already a widespread movement of GCE; for instance, the establishment of the Centre for Human Interdependence. However, GCE in America has been critiqued for a strong inclination towards nationalism: sensitive issues have been carefully avoided, and teaching still centres on patriotism (Zhou, 2011). In South Korea, the government, together with UNESCO, has been running the organization The Asia-Pacific Centre for Education for International Understanding since 2000. Its primary tasks are to implement research activities, form a network that promotes international communications, understandings, and cooperation, support civic society, offer school curricular materials, and spread information. Apart from this, high schools in South Korea have adopted the course of “Education that fosters international understanding” as an optional unit and there have also been short-term professional training programs for teachers, which have been organized by the Education Department (UNESCO APCEIU, 2019). In Australia, the new national school curriculum proposed by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority also addresses global perspectives as an extended part of the civics and citizenship study topic (Print, 2015).

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

2.3.2 Different focuses of ‘contextualized’ GCE across the world.

Interdisciplinary ideas and approaches to GCE assist in clarifying its meanings but do not necessarily all have an impact in any one specific local area.

There was an experimental period when varied theoretical assumptions were tested to see if they could be fitted into the scheme of GCE. This pioneer research reveals a rather wide spectrum of knowledge that touches the edges of GCE, but, at the same time, indicates GCE as a state that is difficult to reach. For instance, Banks (2008) interpreted GCE as a form of growing transformative citizens based on Marshall’s citizenship typology, whose original categories consist of the civil, political, and social aspects. Banks’s modification included adding the element of cultural rights and group rights and excluding the element of identity groups.

GCE contextualized in other countries.

The focus of research into GCE reflects the North/South imbalance in terms of developing GCE. More research on GCE is available in terms of what is taking place in the global North, and in more developed democratic countries (Banks, 2008; McKinney, 2008; Ruyter & Spiecker, 2008; Niens & Reilly, 2012; Jooste & Heleta, 2017). In contrast, less research is available on investigating the operation of GCE in the global South and less developed areas (Abdi, 2008; Preece, 2008).

Niens and Reilly (2012) note the principles for solving the local and global conflicts that are inconsistent, hence are not appropriate. This criticism echoes the disadvantages of GCE pointed out by some researchers: that the concept fails to achieve context-free meanings and retains a colonial perspective, preserving western interests and leaving unchallenged questions relating to global North/South inequalities (p. 104). Jooste and Heleta (2017) also note that the Western enlightenment’s cosmopolitan values have amplified global North/South imbalance.

Apart from these arguments stated above, the North/South imbalance in developing GCE has also been found through cross-nation comparisons: there have been varying degrees of implementation of GCE in different countries, each of which has a specific focus.

In studies on GCE in Northern Ireland and Scotland, GCE has been suggested as an approach for smoothing sectarian conflicts within Christianity (Niens & Reilly, 2012; McKinney, 2008). In Netherlands, there has been research into bridging social-political and social-cultural divides to develop culturally competent world citizens capable of determining the types of the cultural practices encountered, and then comparing and evaluating ethically before taking action (Ruyter & Spiecker, 2008).

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

In North America, the US and Canada are two countries of international migrants, and this has engendered studies on issues of immigrant integration. It is difficult to have migrants who are from different cultural backgrounds commit to a highly homogenous identity beyond their primordial attachment to their ethnic and cultural communities (Banks, 2008). In the US, ongoing practices focus on helping students seek balance among cultural, national, and global identities, and the approach of achieving such a goal is to teach students to clarify cultural and national identifications, initiate students’ critical thinking on race, culture and ethnicity, and encourage students to challenge the meta narratives that belong to mainstream academic knowledge (Banks, 2008).

Tarozzi and Torres (2016) distinguish between the approaches of practising GCE in areas of North America, the Anglo-Saxon world, and Northern Europe, and areas of continental European countries: in the former areas it is the multicultural education that is being implemented, which is a response to several ethnic revitalization movements in history, whereas in the latter areas it is the intercultural education that is acknowledged, in order to alter the situations of migrated populations and marginalized ethnicities:

Theories of citizenship have been advanced in the tradition of Western political theory, by white, heterosexual males who have identified a homogeneous citizenship through a process of systematic exclusion from, rather than inclusion in, the polity. (Kymlicka & Norman, 1994).

Abdi (2008) analyses the difficult situations of practising GCE in sub-Saharan Africa, which have been deeply influenced by the de-citizenising scheme during the colonial period. Abdi finds that the aim of practising GCE in sub-Saharan Africa is to empower people an anti-oppressive perspective. Preece (2008) also suggests that a social justice approach is required in the global south.

GCE contextualized in China.

GCE has hardly been developed to be an independent course or curriculum in China. There are barriers to GCE in Chinese schools. A major cause of this situation is that Chinese schools do not have the background of operating Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE). Admittedly, though much has been discussed about the differences between GCE and conventional civics and citizenship, GCE still originates and is further derived from the concept of CCE. For instance, as was discussed in section 2.1.1, an analysis of the national curriculum of Moral Education indicates the emphasis has been on developing citizens of the country, rather than citizens of the world, though superficial statements on developing students’ global perspectives were 38

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city mentioned in the national curriculum. The literature also indicates that there is some knowledge of civics and citizenship, but the topic is neither set as objectives nor modified as the key activities in Chinese schools (Chi, 2004; Wan, 2003). Instead, the Moral Education subject runs across the whole basic education and middle school years, with the goal to educate “people” rather than “citizens” (Zhao, 2010, p. 59). Li suggests that the Chinese moral education insists on guiding students’ beliefs towards patriotism and nationalism regardless of the influence of globalisation (Li, 2003, pp. 57–60).

However, there is also the argument that Chinese educational researchers are putting more emphasis on reforming Moral Education than before and are attempting to develop it with input from many, including the internet, environment, science and technology, social responsibilities, and special education (Chi, 2004; Yu, 2014). For instance, since 2017, the Chinese Basic Education has started to use the textbook series “Morality and Law” to replace the old “Ideology and Morality.” Therefore, there has been a tendency to include more civic content in the Moral Education system. Its focus has usually been regarded as opposite to the civic and citizenship education in Western countries (Kim, 2015); though the latter also address overlapping moral or ethical values in the curriculum (a detailed discussion can be found in section of the moral education tradition). Consequently, without a basis in practising Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE), the implementation of GCE in China has been hindered.

Some literature indicates that GCE, being an extended topic in Chinese schools, has a strong inclination towards a global perspective and away from civic content. Social sciences subjects, such as geography, cover knowledge of the world. It has been found that international events (e.g., the Beijing Olympic Games and the World Exposition in Shanghai), though proven to be useful channels for promoting multi-dimensional citizenship education, do not offer opportunities of training active citizenship-related knowledge and skills (Law, 2014; Pan, 2014). For instance, the Beijing Consensus on Citizenship Education, which advocates a multicultural citizenship perspective, does not mention the elements of being critical and democratic. Finally, emphasis on a global perspective is also found in linguistic education, especially in the growing enthusiasm for learning English (Chen, 2014). To master a foreign language is considered as gaining communication competence and an international outlook (p. 155). However, these changes have not touched the core of GCE. The evidence suggests that only world education or multicultural education, but not GCE, can be found in the Chinese context.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

2.3.3 Difficulties of developing GCE curriculum in China.

General difficulties: GCE as competency building.

By reviewing the past practices of GCE, it can be found that two major problems have been hindering the adoption and implementation of GCE in China. Firstly, in most curricula, GCE has been confused with education in national citizenship, and has gained little independence from citizenship education (see discussion in section 2.3.1). Secondly, determining the appropriate teaching contents of GCE in a different context, such as in Chinese middle schools, is of great difficulty. The rest of this section will discuss these two problems, respectively.

Regarding the first issue, a suggested solution is that GCE and citizenship education are different. Their required knowledge bases are different. When the ideologies of the form of government or sociocultural norms were consistent with principles of global citizenship, citizenship education and GCE share compatible values; otherwise, the two are likely to have contradictions in terms of values. With regard to the situation of the compatibility of values in GCE and dominant culture in China, there lays contradiction. As is suggested by Law (2006), the socialist-oriented citizenship education curriculum has been constructed against globalists’ view (p. 598). Despite the differences in knowledge and value, the skills required for being an active national citizen are also needed to be a global citizen. Being a global citizen could be understood as being a member attached to an affiliation beyond national borders; therefore, the change of physical space would not affect the way people apply their civic skills (Davies, et al., 2014, p. 6). But, similar to the proposed value, in some contexts, the educational goal has been to develop passive citizens who receive less training in civic skills (Law, 2006).

In terms of the second problem, the present study noticed the increasing amount of practice applying a competency approach in academic teaching since educational goals have become directed by the employment market (Nikolov, Shoikova & Kovatcheva, 2014, p. 2). The notion of competency has multiple and flexible uses that “can bridge the world of education, training, knowledge management, and informal learning” (p. 4). In a competency-based curriculum, the list of competencies can function as the objectives before teaching-learning, and they can also be the evaluation criterion of the learning outcome after teaching-learning (p. 18).

Contextual difficulties.

Apart from the general difficulties, there have also been some problems particular to Chinese schools in adopting and implementing GCE. These difficulties manifest as the requirement for educational practices to be consistent with the existing Moral Education tradition as well as to be committed to the national conditions (i.e., political ideologies of the country). 40

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Especially in terms of the latter, the demand for commitment to national conditions, there is a customary political distinction between the basic national conditions and the specific national conditions in the scopes of contextual descriptions, which together determine the trend of the development in every aspect in China (Gu, 2013a). This section will discuss the contextual difficulties of ensuring coherence between GCE and China’s Moral Education tradition, basic national conditions and specific national conditions in China, respectively.

The Moral Education tradition.

The immersion of Chinese schools in Confucian morality has been a long tradition. Confucian ideologies have been manifested through the teaching of the ideas in The Analects in the Moral Education subject as well as through general management processes.

The Analects, one of the most representative works of Confucianism, has been long regarded as a teaching material. By learning such typical Confucian literature, as was commented by Li (2012, p. 123), students are believed to build up virtues of “earnestness/sincerity, diligence/self-exertion, the endurance of hardship, perseverance, and concentration”.

In addition, Confucian ideology also permeates the whole school’s daily management. For instance, there are strategies for keeping records of rewards and punishments, applying credit systems for regulating behaviour, designating more talented students as monitors to inspect their classmates, and giving them virtue tasks to help others (Jin, 2001, p. 34). Confucian morality has been the key standard for judging the nature of a student and is linked to various educational opportunities, rewards, and evaluations (p. 34). It is also noteworthy that, along with the practice of putting forward Confucian morality, there is the potential risk of pan- moralistic indoctrination. Pan-moralism refers to a state when some moral principles are used for hegemonic discipline, and become excuses for wrongdoing; and, in the case of schooling, the practice of moral indoctrination and moral control can be at the expense of harming personal interests, values, and rights (Jin, 2001, p. 37). Students who accept such a moral “network” inevitably suffer from anxiety and fear, and low levels of self-discipline of morality (pp. 35, 37).

Furthermore, in juxtaposition with pan-moralism, there is the potential risk of indoctrination through the idea of ‘co-construction of home and country’. By definition, the ‘co-construction of home and country’ refers to the strategy of combining both the rational behaviour of subordinating to the ruling class and the affective behaviour of committing to patriarchal power in order to consolidate authority (Shu, 2003). In other words, this idea disposes people to a simplified amoralist thinking, through which they are then subject to moral realism authoritarianism. 41

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

With regard to China’s Moral Education tradition, it is known that the construction of GCE in the Chinese context, where great emphasis used to be on moral development, has been distinct from, or at least more difficult than, GCE in Western culture. The foundation of Confucian Moral Education is anchored in consistency between the individual and society in terms of interests, experiences, and values (Yang, 1990, p. 156). Therefore, the ultimate goal of education has been realised by external social control, which is a rather mechanical view that uses Confucian experiences to homogenize students to become idealized people of great virtue and morality (Yang, 1990, p. 156; Li, 2012, pp. 21–25, 35–36). On the contrary, contemporary Western philosophers assert that human development is based on the satisfaction of needs, and at the highest level self-actualization and individualism is in accordance with the aim of serving society, which is to utilise their an individual’s experiences to create meaning in life via “active engagement, exploration and inquiry, thinking and critical thinking, and self-expression and communication” (Li, 2012, p. 108).

The basic and specific national conditions.

While following Confucian morality stems from the inherited cultural tradition, complying with national conditions did not only result from subordination of political imperatives but also from a cautious attitude towards foreign concepts. Historically, there have been ongoing aggressive disputes over the problem of how to introduce Western ideologies into China from the period of the might Fourth Movement in the early 20th century through to the 1930s in mainland China, the 1960s in Taiwan, and again in the 1980s in mainland China (Luo, 2005, pp. 108–109). Some Western ideologies were initially brought to the country by colonization and, to date, most Chinese (especially academics) still believe there is a non- equivalent or unbalanced tension between Chinese and Western cultures (pp. 108–109). Despite of applying a tactic of preserving political correctness, the central government in China acknowledges the notion of experimentalism with guidance from both national conditions and Marxist epistemology and methodology, rather than directly applying Western theories to Chinese contexts (Luo, 2005, p. 107; Gu, 2013a, p. 17). In other words, considering the national conditions underpins a more accessible way of making transformation towards civilisation, and considering the national condition also reflects the politically correct dogma in China that the practice is the sole criterion for testing the truth (Gu, 2013b, p. 64).

National conditions are defined as those most determining, essential, and crucial factors that could influence the nation’s politics, economics, and culture, as well as other social factors, involving the national developments of the past, the present, and the future (Gu, 2013a, p. 16). Also regarded as the essential standards of any correct strategy, rule, and policy, the national 42

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city conditions reflected the problems encountered during the nation development and construction, which have benefited the decision maker by cueing the political correctness of the nation (Gu, 2014; Xu, 1998).

The basic national condition refers to the nature and the reality of the nation, which has remained the same for an extended period (Gu, 2013a). Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC, the means of production has been gradually privatized and the socialist transformation has finished, indicating that the basic national condition of China is that the nation has proceeded to the Socialist Primary Stage (Gu, 2013a, p. 18; Gu & Li, 2013, p. 19; Xu, 1998, p. 33). The current conditions stem from China’s semi-colonial and semi– feudal origins where capitalist developments were intentionally skipped before developments were adequate (Gu & Li, 2013, p. 19).

In terms of the issue of GCE, which is to introduce a foreign, new, and theoretical concept into Chinese schools, the basic conditions require the development of GCE in China to be consistent with the needs stated in the new Thirteenth Five-Year Plan, which is a guideline for development at the socialist primary stage produced by the central government during early 2016. According to chapter 59 in the 14th volume of the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan, educational reforms are required to be energized:

To deepen the educational reforms, to strengthen students’ social responsibilities, legal awareness, spirits of innovation, the competence of skills … and promote the evaluation of students’ overall comprehensive qualities … (para. 1).

Therefore, the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan provides solutions to framing the GCE in China from the politicised perspective, i.e., that GCE should contribute to students’ comprehensive qualities of social responsibilities, legal awareness, spirits of innovation, competence of skills to cope with the development goals of the country at its socialist primary stage.

When translating the relevant plan and policy into actual application, there are specific conditions that need to be considered, which are determined by the basic national conditions but include detailed situations as well as characteristics of contemporary politics, economics, culture, society, natural history, and the international environments of particular cases (Gu, 2013a, p. 16). According to Song and Wang (2007), problems may arise from the poor conditions of resource (both the software facilities and infrastructure), the examination and evaluation systems, and professional training. In this regard, the selection of organization of the form of content delivery and evaluation of GCE should correspond to these specific conditions.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

One of the most severe conditions was the difficulty caused by schools’ limited resources. Resource scarcity is the result of poor financial funding, and funding for basic education in China (i.e., 3% of GDP) has been far below the world average (i.e., 5% of GDP) and other developing countries (i.e., 4% of GDP) (Song & Wang, 2007, p. 58). Because of this scarcity in funding school infrastructure is also not keeping up with changes, such as the popularization of information technology. The problems in remote areas are even more severe: the facilities of many schools have not been able to meet national standards (Song & Wang, 2007). It has been reported that conditions have obviously improved in recent decades; but combined with the large population, the actual resources each student can access is still quite limited compared to those in developed countries (Song & Wang, 2007). Moreover, the low funding goes along with the low teacher-student ratio. It has commonly been seen that the size of a Chinese class ranges from 50 to 80 students, which both makes classroom management rather strenuous, and lessens the students’ opportunities to engage in activities, such as discussions, and receive personalized instructions; subsequently students gradually lose learning motivation (Song & Wang, 2007). Such resource scarcity is likely to hinder schools from selecting a suitable delivery format for GCE pertinent to the specific conditions in Chinese schools: instead of using information technology or taking advantage of social resources such as cooperating with local communities, applying more traditional teaching tools is expected among Chinese middle schools.

In addition to the difficult condition of resource supplies, schools are also under pressure from rigid evaluation systems. Traditional measurement strategies in Chinese schools have been standardized tests, where education output is scored according to predetermined, fixed criteria. The traditional achievement tests, which were formulated by referring to taxonomies (e.g., Bloom’s Taxonomy, Krathwohol’s Taxonomy, and Ragsdale’s Taxonomy), largely rely upon criteria related to the cognitive domain to evaluate students’ mastery of factual knowledge (De Landsheere, 1988, pp. 353–354). Given that GCE competencies include divisions of knowledge, skills, and values covering all cognitive, affective, and psychomotor dimensions, standard measurements of cognition are, then, far from enough.

Teachers’ mindsets, formed in early professional development (e.g., when doing a teaching degree), might also prevent the integration of GCE in Chinese middle schools. It has been pointed out that a considerable number of Chinese do not know how to choose effective strategies flexibly according to the nature of teaching content, the particular teaching situation, and student response, but stick to the rigid teaching model learnt during professional development (Tan & Zhou, 2004, pp. 75–76). Moreover, teaching GCE might require teachers to adopt a constructivist approach. A constructivist approach denotes learning with greater 44

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city emphasis on the interpretation of personal experiences, involving the essential stages of structuring, and organizing the information processed by the mind (Ertmer & Newby, 1993, p. 58). Constructivist teaching fits a “learning-focused” paradigm, which:

…requires a shift from passive to active learning and from teacher-directed to student- directed (or jointly directed) learning … requires a shift from teacher initiative, control, and responsibility to shared initiative, control, and responsibility… requires a shift from decontextualized learning to authentic, meaningful tasks. And most importantly, it requires a shift from holding time constant and allowing achievement to vary, to allowing each learner the time needed to reach the desired attainments. (Reigeluth, 1999, p. 19).

However, many Chinese teachers have reflected that they are not able to teach when switching from the dominant role to the facilitator, and, in some extreme cases, teachers have rejected the new approach because they feel that constructivist teaching is insufficient for the task objectives (Tan & Zhou, 2004, p. 26). Hence, it is also necessary to include the relevant professional training.

To date, there has not been any professional program primarily targeting GCE-related programs, though teachers’ conceptions of GCE are able to immediately affect the quality of teaching activities. A teacher who is not globally minded could find GCE aimless, especially when teaching without curriculum guidance (Cogan & Grossman, 2009). In this regard, professional training, in particular on intercultural awareness, has been suggested as essential for improving teachers’ capabilities of delivering global citizenship education (Reynolds, 2015, pp. 30–31).

2.3.4 The goal.

This section will review a collection of strategies and interventions found in the literature as resolutions to the difficulties of doing GCE. Curriculum development in the Chinese context is the focus of this section. The discussion will cover curriculum intents, content, learning activities, evaluation and assessment, and professional development.

In terms of curriculum intents, the present study has suggested that searching for common ground between the Moral Education tradition and GCE may be beneficial, since the existing Chinese school culture is heavily laden with moral objectives, which could prevent students from assimilating civic values (Yang, 1990). Yu (2014) suggests that, by introducing new virtues focusing on human interactions and relationships, including justice, open-mindedness,

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city tolerance, freedom, equality, it may be possible to convert the Moral Education to GCE-oriented schooling (p. 96). Yet it is argued in the present study that an exchange of virtues through a traditional moral approach will be far from sufficiency. As Tan (2014) points out, in order to make education modernized, democratic, and people-oriented, the primary task ought to be to transform the way Chinese people understand education (pp. 165–166, 170). In the Chinese context where the dominant official discourse remains with Chinese socialistic values (Gow, 2017), balancing between the extremes of social control and student self-development pose more challenges to Chinese educators.

Alternative to the moral approach, the problem-based learning, as a type of informal curriculum, may be more advantageous for localising curriculum because it offers more flexibility regarding the learning contents adapted to students’ “prior knowledge … [and]… cognitive development and readiness” (Jonassen and Hung, 2015, p. 25).

Although project-based learning has not been implemented thoroughly in Chinese context, it can be improved accordingly with extensive guidance from the literature, including strategies of making systematic modifications of both teaching methods and situations at the instructional- design level with (Reigeluth & Carr-Chellman, 2009), maintaining students’ motivation1 when the project tasks become more difficult (e.g., tasks requiring rich background knowledge, high- level cognitive and metacognitive skills, and interpersonal communication skills) (Blumenfeld et al., 1991, pp. 376, 378); using scaffolding (including models, learning aids, and new technologies [Thomas, 2000, p. 7; Reiser, 2004; Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2006]) to facilitate learning to support the pedagogical activities require high-level cognitive and metacognitive skills (Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989; Thomas, 2000; Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976); promoting collaboration by arranging homogeneous group compositions (i.e., students with similar levelled abilities) (Blumenfeld, Marx, Soloway & Krajcik, 1996) or more personalised mixed ability based group composition (Mann, Dymond, Bonati & Neeper, 2015).

The difficulty of resource scarcity means involving social agency seems to be less feasible though it could also help with improving learning effectiveness through applying strategies such as peer review, group interaction, and the introduction of outside audiences (e.g., parents, or other significant adults) (Barron et al., 1998; Deci et al., 1991), along with less popular usage of high-technology. Whereas working on the teacher–student relationship, a key sector

1 Studies have also shown that other teaching factors, including instruction quality, autonomy support, and structure, do influence students’ motivation and performance (O’Connor & McCartney, 2007; Skinner, Kindermann & Furrer, 2009; Jang, 2008). For example, teachers who explain the rationale before pedagogical activities allow students to attach values (i.e., extrinsic utility value, interest value, and attainment value) to their tasks and to continue to be motivated (Jang, 2008, p. 808). 46

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city dominating the affective side of how students perceive engagement and achievement (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt & Oort, 2011), may be more likely to be effective in the Chinese context.

In terms of evaluation and assessment of a curriculum, since formative assessment is not available, which could have positive effects on project-based learning, the curriculum should include both peer review and teachers’ commendations as substitutes (Barron et al., 2011).

Finally, regarding professional development, Davis and Krajcik (2005) suggest putting forward professional development within a curriculum (rather than adding external training courses) was to design educative curriculum materials ready for teacher learning and immediate use. The materials should include educative elements, which are: (1) subject matter knowledge (e.g., materials provide teachers with a glossary of conceptual terms); (2) pedagogical content knowledge for topics (e.g., curriculum could help teachers realise the student sequence of reactions in learning, and identify student thinking processes); (3) pedagogical content knowledge for disciplinary practices (e.g., tell teachers the rationale for the importance of the suggested strategies) (pp. 10–12).

2.4 Chapter Summary

It has been argued in this chapter that GCE, an educational intervention with rather loose meanings, is an umbrella term for a wide range of educational ideals dealing with conflicts in the globalised era.

This review of GCE practices suggests GCE’s rich and diversified meanings can partially contribute to the variable contexts in which it is used. While in some places, the contextual restrictions are a hurdle to the inclusion of GCE as part of curriculum control, in other places, the implementation of GCE has been more successful. Tensions between the perceptions of GCE as a requirement and as a local need are likely to influence the effect of GCE in the future.

In contrast to developed countries in the West (Banks, 2008; McKinney, 2008; Ruyter & Spiecker, 2008; Niens & Reilly, 2012; Jooste & Heleta, 2017), where GCE might only indicate an additional work thread concurrent with ongoing GCE–related educational activities and courses, countries in the global south or still developing, or of non–Western cultures, encounter challenges when introducing GCE without consideration of their regional needs. In China, problems not only resulted from the existence of the tradition of Moral Education, but also from the country’s specific political conditions.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

The present study uses curriculum development theory to understand GCE in Chinese middle schools. This theoretical framework will provide a scaffold for interpreting participants’ understanding of GCE and lead to the innovation of the meaning GCE beyond the existing theoretical paradigms and will drive participants to undertake thinking about and planning GCE as a curriculum change. Details of the research design will be discussed in the following chapter.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Chapter 3: Methodology

First, this chapter is going to review the epistemological foundation of this thesis, or what is known as the philosophy of the research paradigm, looking in particular at three selected philosophical arguments in Deleuze and Guattari’s work, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972/2004). These arguments not only seem to match the situations of the GCE in China, but also help resolve the local issues related to curriculum localisation otherwise unsolvable if using other research paradigms. Then the chapter will demonstrate how these arguments lead to a research design that mixes the policy Delphi method with case study while still remaining a grounded theory design in a general sense. Following this will be a report on the actual operations of participant recruitment, data collection, and analysis. Finally, the researcher will evaluate the whole methodology from the perspectives of rigour and ethics.

3.1 Research Paradigm

Gilles Deleuze was a French philosopher. While his work had great impact in various disciplines, most of his research helped explain cultural phenomena, especially the theatre. This thesis adopts some of his arguments to support the chosen research methodology. The concepts scaffolding the epistemology of this thesis were all borrowed from Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972/2004), which was co-authored by Deleuze and Guattari. This section will start by briefly presenting Deleuze’s several important works so as to provide an overview of this philosopher’s major interests. It will then explicate how Deleuze’s philosophy has been used to guide the present research. The section will end with a critical review of Deleuzian philosophy.

3.1.1 A brief review of Deleuze’s work.

Based on his previous critique across history of philosophy, Deleuze’s first philosophical work was Difference and Repetition (1968). It was a book on ontology, arguing that repetition is the nature of the things and events. The most prominent achievement of this book is the development of the idea of virtuality (Smith & Protevi, 2008). Virtuality, which includes all possibilities and uncertainties, was driven to create existence, or reality, in itself. Deleuze’s subsequent works specify his philosophy of difference in different contexts. The Logic of Sense (1969) discusses the aesthetics in Francis Bacon’s work. Later, Deleuze cooperated with Guattari to produce works such as Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972/2004), 49

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city which was an attempt to explore the previous ontological discussion in Difference and Repetition via the employment of analogies either created by the authors themselves or picked from subjects of medicine, psychology, anthropology, and social science. In A Thousand Plateaus (1980), Deleuze and Guattari continued substantiating the argument about the ontological theme on an even grander scale. As Smith and Protevi (2008) note, the expansion extends the scope of their ontological assumption to almost all disciplines, pertaining the idea of ‘desiring- machine’ in Anti-Oedipus (1972/2004) to the ‘strata’, a lower levelled assembly for creating a higher order organism. In A Thousand Plateaus, the authors propose that it is possible to separate the material world into several mutually independent things, which could be visualized as ‘plateaus’, or as ‘rhizomes’ under the ground. However, these separated parts of the material world or, as they are described in the book, these self-organizing material systems are not static or fixed; rather, they experience consistent reformation. What was philosophy? was the last piece of collaboration between Deleuze and Guattari, after Deleuze’s attention was shifted to science and arts. Deleuze then continued exploring the application of his philosophy in various art forms, including cinema, literature and painting. Representative books include Cinema I (1983) and Cinema II (1985), Essays Critical and Clinical (1993), and Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (1981).

3.1.2 How this thesis uses Deleuze’s philosophy.

This whole study has been scaffolded by Deleuzian philosophy, including its poststructuralist perspective, its models of demonstrating virtuality and reality, its approaches to investigation, as well as vocabularies. One of Gilles Deleuze’s most famous works Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972/2004), collaboratively written with Felix Guattari, is the major reference. This thesis borrows the concepts of ‘becoming’, ‘micropolitics’, and the ‘desiring-machine’ (though other correlated concepts have also been applied, this thesis is not going to explicate them). These concepts are among the famous concepts proposed in Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy. There are some other frequently cited philosophical arguments, such as the concept of nomadism. Considering these arguments are not directly related to education, they have not been adopted in this thesis. The rest of this section will elaborate how these three concepts help to scaffold the whole research.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Becoming.

One of the reasons for choosing Deleuzian philosophy relies on a temporal-spatial perspective. The term becoming has been created to narrate the univocity of being, a borrowed theological concept here to argue cognitive representation is consistent with existence though revealed as complicated processes and is to stimulate real outcomes. It also means that the subject itself is univocal in the nature who is undergoing ceaseless changing whilst having various potential characteristics that will be developed in different contextual settings. In other words, becoming describes the status of things or events that exist virtually in-between the extremes of absolute nothingness and the final form of existence (i.e., reality). The notion of becoming breaks the temporal-spatial restrictions of the conventional developmental patterns of being; the things or events might move towards or away from the end point that is reality. In this regard, there is more flexibility attached to the futures of the things or events. The idea of becoming allows the rejection of static and fixed stereotypical impositions from the preconditioned world order, and the acceptance of a more holistic poststructuralist and postmodern perspectives. There has been, for example, some work done applying Deleuzian methodology within a feminist research paradigm (Sotirin, 2011).

Distinguishing from these attempts of using Deleuzian philosophy, the present study uses becoming to resolve a philosophical paradox. The paradox can be summarized into a simple question, that is, “what to research when the unknown is not known?” When applied to the research, the philosophical paradox was resolved: no matter what stages China’s GCE happens to be at, it is always on its way to becoming. Therefore, the subject of this thesis is becoming- GCE rather than a fixed concept.

Micropolitics.

Micropolitics represents how different forms of ‘desires’ (in Deleuze’s terminology, the desire is not caused by the deficiency a creature or a thing feels but an ‘instinct’ the creature or the thing is displaying as a tendency towards connection with other desires, in which way interests, a general designation of more familiar concepts in sociology such as capitalism, are rendered interact and create unique social beings as well as interests (Colebrook, 2002, pp. 91–92). An explanation rather pertinent to the meaning of micropolitics is offered by Houle (2011):

The micropolitical is a potency, a constitutive force that is neither an opposition nor counterpower. Nor is it utopian. It is a force of precipitation that is experienced as an eruption within the macro-linear order of presence that, in turn, forces the experiencing subject to act, and act along and toward the singular, the heterogeneous, the yet- unimagined.” (p. 110). 51

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

The singular, the heterogeneous, the unimagined… This concept has been mostly used by research to distinguish an individualistic interpretation of politics from a conventional macro perspective, meaning the mass to “speak for ourselves” as opposed to “speak for us,” which is a term full of abuse in macropolitics (Houle, 2011).

The present study uses micropolitics to support the present study which presupposes that education can promote the overall benefit of civil society at a global scale. The concept of micropolitics is consistent with the paradigm shift in civics studies from a macro to a developmental view. That is, the quality of civil society is the result of the accumulated influence of individual civic competencies. Whereas civics research with a developmental tradition has been lacking the exact theoretical supports; micropolitics is a good fit here.

The present study also needs micropolitics to support the regional specificity of GCE. The traditional structuralist approach to educational research accounts for the chaotic situation. For a long time, education has been regarded as an object of execution, assessment, reformation, observation, and so on, and the researcher argues in the present study that many scholars have used the relevant legal policies and theories as tools to understand education, to analyse education as an object, but they have paid less attention to the subjectivity of education itself. Deleuze and Guattari interpret subjectivity as “an organization belonging to the many as such, which had no need whatsoever of unity in order to form a system” (1972/2004, p. 182), while according to Roberts, subjectivity was passively synthesized by time along with co-existing ‘larval subjects’ (Roberts, 2006; Roberts, 2007). The diversified practices of GCE curriculum are a representation of petite generalizations of all unique cases at regional levels. Research on postcivil society with similar perspective helped to validating this argument (Marody, 2004).

Desiring-machine.

The concept of a desiring-machine prompted this researcher to evaluate to what extent GCE appears as a spontaneous grassroots power in a chosen Chinese context. The desiring-machine is a metaphor applied by Deleuze and Guattari to help describe the ceaseless production of connections, though in fact they mean the process to take place spontaneously arising from the subject itself as if it was a machine. In the book, the authors explained:

Desiring-machines [operating by connective synthesis] make us an organism; but at the very heart of production, within the very production of this production [of organ- machine connections], the body suffers from being organized in this way, from not having some other organization, or no organization at all…The [machines] stop dead and set free the unorganized mass [of energy-flows] they once served to articulate. (1972/2004).

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

In other words, desiring-machines are the spontaneous driving force of change.

While Colebrook (2002) mistakenly states that a desiring-machine only possesses the function of connecting, according to Holland (1999) it is actually a mechanism for connective synthesis, disjunctive synthesis, and conjunctive synthesis (p. 25). Linking the different modes of synthesis with the concept of becoming, such ongoing autonomous interactions among conflicted beliefs and values, as well as practices, can determine what things or events become. In this thesis, participants’ perceptions of GCE form the self-driving desiring-machine undertaking ceaseless connective synthesis, disjunctive synthesis, and conjunctive synthesis with regard to various factors related to the curriculum, while GCE is functioning during the process of becoming. In other words, the practices of GCE, which result from participants’ heuristic reactions towards the current social environment, allows participants to reconstruct their identity; and this transformation is so ubiquitous and spontaneous that it is ongoing without any pre-set interventions. It is therefore the beliefs and motivations of developing global citizens that underpins an emerging movement of promoting GCE, which is understood as a contribution to civic society, and a cultural power rather than an accredited regulated social norm.

Critiquing Deleuzian philosophy.

Most ideas in Deleuzian philosophy are expressed in a rather vague way. Deleuze’s writings rely largely on metaphors, self-created terms, and sometimes distorted grammar, which causes ambiguity during reading. This is especially evident in Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti- Oedipus (1972/2004), where Deleuze and Guattari even imitate a schizophrenia patient’s mode of expression. Moreover, it is also hard to identify and distinguish arguments due to such an ambiguous way of writing. Concepts in Deleuzian philosophy are interwoven and tangled. For instance, thinking on virtuality was first discussed in Deleuze’s doctoral thesis Difference and Repetition, where he proposes the concept to describe a status that is real but hasn’t come into being. In Anti-Oedipus (1972/2004), a book Deleuze wrote with Guattari, they apply a metaphor called desiring-machine to illustrate the changing nature of virtuality.

Deleuzian philosophy has shown advantages over conventional poststructuralist and postmodern research by providing explanations in spite of criticism with regard to the drawbacks in modern research. The present study lists the advantages of Deleuzian philosophy as follows: Deleuzian philosophy helps the present study focusing on cases on micro scale, based on descriptions of the phenomena where cases are contextualised; and there is no causal relationship among factors but only weak associations; conclusions were immediate, and to a certain extent, were opposed to induction and highly abstract generalization; cases were 53

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city quantitatively replicable as a result of environmental adaptation. However, the fact that this philosophy has been mostly used in cultural studies and less used in education may result in some difficulties in providing theoretical support for this empirical study.

In summary, Deleuzian philosophy offers a postmodern and poststructuralist approach to understanding GCE in Chinese middle schools. It engendered an assumption of a spontaneous movement happening across the country in formulating the research phenomenon, rather than as an obligatory response following governmental policies.

3.2 Methodology

3.2.1 General research design: postpositivist grounded theory.

Based on characteristics in different disciplines, there are four general principle social research strategies, which are experiments, surveys, field research, and the use of available data (Singleton & Straits, 2010). But, according to the object of the study, there are also different ways of distinguishing research design. As correspond to capturing the patterns of, observing, and assessing the causes of human behaviour, there are the strategies of exploratory and descriptive designs, field studies and field experiments designs, and experimental-causal design (Adams & Schvaneveldt, 1991). Adams and Schvaneveldt’s classifications of research design might be more pertinent to the research in the field of education. Based upon the research problem of the present study, that GCE has not been adopted in China, and the purposes and aims of the study, to reconstruct the theory on GCE specific to the Chinese case through investigating the development momentum of GCE in six Chinese middle schools, it is the exploratory and descriptive research designs that are fit for purpose.

According to Adams and Schvaneveldt (1991), the exploratory and descriptive research designs include the approaches of case study, survey, cross-sectional approach, and longitudinal approach to provide the order of data collection.

The present study applies postpositivist grounded theory as the general research design in methodology, situating the research in terms of its relationship with the data, the analysis, and the theories. The iterative feature of grounded theory is evident in the design of an unusual combination of the research methods of pre- and post- interviews and the policy Delphi method embedded in a case study. The methodology also echoes the philosophical assumptions of the desiring-machine and becoming in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus (1972/2004), and even the basic ideas of initiating a spontaneous curriculum change/innovation.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Principles and rigour of grounded theory.

Grounded theory includes a family of methods (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). Since it was first established by Glaser and Strauss, grounded theory has evolved differently within different epistemological paradigms. Charmaz (2006, 2011) notes the differentiation among Glaserian objectivist, postpositivist, and constructivist grounded theory. Denzin (2007) suggested a more detailed distinctions adding postmodern, situational, and computer-assisted to the major classifications of the grounded theory.

One way of comprehending the variations in grounded theory might be to start with its original version, which is codified in the book Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967) and the project Awareness of Dying (1965) by Glaser and Strauss, and to allow flexibilities for applying other variations in grounded theory. According to Hood (2007, p. 154), Glaser and Strauss’s grounded theory can be summarised as an approach with the goal of theory development to provide analytical explanations through synthesis of theoretical categories inductively from continuous comparative analysis of cases till reaching ‘theoretical saturation’.

The postpositivist paradigm of grounded theory.

Though the various paradigms can be regarded as part of a constructivist - interpretivist continuum (Annells, 1996), most analyses of grounded theory draw distinctions among differences among the positivist, postpositivist, and constructivist grounded theories. Charmaz (2006, 2011) categorises the positivist grounded theory as an approach of producing middle- range theory by establishing generalizations to do with the relationships between variables and phenomena with appropriate number of cases which were sufficient to achieve saturation; constructivist grounded theory as an approach of interpreting understanding through the shared and co-constructed perspectives of the participants and the researcher; and postpositivist grounded theory as an approach which applies to data collection and analysis within boundaries (e.g., pre-existing coding and analytic framework) yet is also open to adapting or changing conditions by expanding these boundaries (Charmaz, 2006).

Among the three variations, this researcher selected postpostivist grounded theory as the methodology. The choice was made because the postpositivist grounded theory is in accordance with the epistemology and ontology of the present study. As has been elaborated previously, a Deleuzian approach to understanding the nature of knowledge and being allows the complementary association between a priori knowledge framework and a posteriori accumulation of experience to contribute to an unfinished, spontaneous, and self-evolving existence or becoming. Postpositivist grounded theory: according to Charmaz, “… postpositivist

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city grounded theory views reality as fluid, evolving, and open to change.” (2011, p. 365). The underlying rigour of the alignment is that postpositivist grounded theory relies on abductive reasoning approach that is underpinned by the same logic in Deleuzian philosophy.

Postpositivist grounded theory is appropriate for the present study also because it fits with regard to the relationship between the researcher and the participants in research on curriculum innovation. As has been suggested by Stenhouse (1975), it is better for the curriculum researcher to avoid the situation of being subservient to school educators, which means that the researcher should not be constrained by the need for “cross-fertilization of theory and practice” but should go for an equal partnership so as to perform a systemic and critical dissection of the problem (pp. 207–208). The researcher’s awareness of the importance of the importance of maintaining partnership between research workers and school educators played a vital role in determining the use of postpositivist grounded theory in the present study. This is because, first, the notion of symbolic interactionism that shared understanding of symbols underpin the foundation of social actions as well as other interactions in present study. This is because the postpositivist grounded theory demonstrates coherence to the idea of formulating a partnership in curriculum research where the researcher’s perspective is guaranteed a voice along with participants’ voices (Probert, 2006); and, second, the acknowledgement of the partnership admits the empirical process of knowledge creation within the framework of curriculum change, which contrasts with an interpretivist approach of “intercepting” knowledge from participants and a positivist approach of conducting testings.

Why not other methodologies.

Phenomenology.

The researcher considered using phenomenology as the methodology for the present study. Being an approach that prioritizes participants’, rather than the researchers’, varied experiences in the situation (Kinnunen & Simon, 2012), phenomenology can offer insights regarding the conceptualisations of GCE among different participants in Chinese context. More exactly, phenomenology has the advantage of exposing participants’ conceptual thinking, that is, the subjective knowledge they have synthesized from the external world (Svensson, 1997). Therefore, if phenomenology is used as the methodology, the focus would be on pushing for the differences and similarities among participants’ experiences of the targeted phenomenon (Marton & Booth, 1997; Kinnunen & Simon, 2012).

However, the drawback of this methodology is that it does not take into account demonstrating the contextual complexities and this contradicts the purposes of the present 56

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city study (Probert, 2006). All three purposes of the present study, which were identified in chapter one, require inspection of the contextual details with regard to the participatory schools. To be specific, purposes are to discover the little-understood situation of GCE in participating schools, to understand and develop the theory of GCE specific to the Chinese context, and to document the plan of practicing GCE acknowledged by participants in Chinese middle schools in the future. In other words, the focus on the conceptualising GCE is not primarily for making up for the theoretical imperfection, but for maximizing the effectiveness of education when applying GCE to Chinese middle schools, though both were attached importance in the study. The knowledge generated in the present study is not about how GCE was understood, but about what GCE will be applicable, which is the first step towards the localisation of GCE in China. For these reasons, phenomenology was regarded as a less competitive choice for the methodology to be used in the present study.

Action research.

Change is an inevitable and continuous process in social situations, locally, nationally, globally … the problem is to understand the extent to which we could have any control over its nature (what kinds of things the change involved) and its direction (where it is taking us). This is particularly important when there is a deliberate attempt to introduce something new in order to bring about improvement. Because of the complexity of human experience and social relationships and institutions, it will probably always be impossible to plan changes and implement them exactly as intended, but action research provides a means of generating knowledge about the implementation of the initiative and using this to keep it on track as far as possible. It is a methodology integrating social science inquiry with participants’ practical action so that all concerned have a sense of agency rather than constructing themselves as powerless. (Somekh, 2006).

The condition reflected in the quote above that generating knowledge through participants’ initiative action was consistent with the assumption that participants’ innovative of interpretations of GCE would contribute to “personal theories” for action (Marshall & Rossman, 2011, p. 64). In Chinese education system, curriculum experimentation has been an approach for testing the feasibility of proposing a nationwide curriculum reform. Curriculum innovation that involves action research deviates from the experimental tradition and also assists the promotion of the integration of new concepts into the education system. The is kind of deviation, as Stenhouse (1975) points out in An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development, although he did not identify it as a methodology separate from experimentation, because there is the integration of considerations of contextual details for achieving “situational verifiability” (p. 136). In the same book, Stenhouse proposes a partnership relationship, that is summarized

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city by Somekh (2006) as the traditional partnership in doing action research, between the researcher, as consultant, and the participants, who as developers.

Although, theoretically, action research represents the research principle of systematic interventions, which are able to bring the research to innovative outputs, a recent mode of action research favours project teachers doing action research “as an extension of their normal job with small-scale academic accreditation (at certificate level) as an optional added incentive” (Somekh, 2006, p. 60). Inevitably, more recent action research projects appear as teacher- centred and classroom based, linking theories on improving teaching performances (Rönnerman & Salo, 2014). In this regard, the deviation from the traditional approach has made action research evolve to be a methodology restricted to evidence collection at sectional level with a high degree of intervention. Contemporary action research has sometimes been treated as an approach similar to auto-ethnography, which is subject to research that involves fewer people. As Elliot (1998) explains, there is a fundamental difference between school improvement research that focuses on “the significance of the school as a social system” and school improvement research that focuses on “the classroom practices of teachers” (p. 178). On account of these reasons, action research was not opted as the methodology in the present study.

3.2.2 Specific research design: case study.

The present study favours the case study approach as the specific research design mainly because it matches the situations of the study. According to Stake (1995), “case study is the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances” (p. xi). The curriculum implementation in the Chinese context seems to be subject to an important meanwhile complex context: it is school-based, managed at provincial level, and with unique regional characteristics. As was mentioned in the literature review, Chinese schools have been undergoing the Eighth Curriculum and Teaching Reform. The new reform has engendered a three-level curriculum management framework (i.e., a system that consists of a national curriculum, region-based curricula, and school-based curricula), which is distinguished from past hierarchical operations of disseminating the same curricular and pedagogic instructions to schools across China. Increasingly, the right of managing curricula has been conferred to decentralised levels. Provincial educational institutions have been becoming the main players in curriculum management and development. These institutions have rights of enforcement, easement, and decision-making regarding the non-national curriculum. District schools not only need to teach the national curriculum, but also develop and 58

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city manage the region-based curriculum and supervise and manage the school-based curriculum at the same time. Taking this condition into account, the implementation of a GCE curriculum in Chinese schools is likely to be well endowed with administrative flexibility, leading to variations in the plans and practices being implemented in different schools. The situation favours a research design that targets the particularity rather than the general. Therefore, it can be seen there is more value in adapting a case study design. In addition, the development of non- national curricula by the schools involves the readjustments of schools themselves, and this process needs a case study design to satisfy the stakeholders’ requirements for details of every aspect of the school.

Moreover, referring to the epistemology, a case study approach also matches the perspective delineated through three main arguments in Deleuzian philosophy which have been reviewed in the research paradigm section.

Most of the data was gathered from interviews with school principals and teachers who were the core of school-based curriculum developers by the researcher. Apart from the interviews, the use of the policy Delphi method was another important component of the approach adopted in the present study for gathering evidence. Scholars’, principals’, and teachers’ perceptions of GCE curriculum were obtained through several rounds of questionnaires, including questions such as ‘Is there GCE in China?’ ‘How to adapt GCE to fit Chinese context?’ ‘To what aspect do you suggest Chinese schools pay attention when implementing GCE?’ and ‘What will be a definition of GCE that fits into China’s national conditions and ready for use in most Chinese middle schools?’ Meanwhile, document analysis also provided supplementary evidence to the study.

The actual stages of data collection using the mixed method were as follows:

Figure 3.1 The Mixed Method Applied by the Present Study

Pre- Post- Delphi Delphi interviews in Delphi Delphi interviews in round one round two six middle round three round four six middle with with schools with with schools researchers researchers • With principals principals teachers • With principals • With teachers • With teachers

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

3.4 Data Collection Methods

The present study chose the policy Delphi method and interviews under the umbrella of a case study design. The Delphi method surveys and interviews complement each other. The interviews of middle school educators from collective case studies were arranged before and after the Delphi method surveys; the qualitative feedback in the surveys supplemented the responses in the pre- and post- interviews. Details of the application of the Delphi method and the interviews conducted in the study will be discussed in the following two sections.

3.4.1 The Policy Delphi method.

Delphi method development.

Considering that in China there have been nationwide practices that can be seen to be related to GCE, GCE is more appropriately understood as a naturally occurring process that results from a prevalent desiring production, and the wide acceptance and practice of GCE (i.e., GCE curriculum) requires connective synthesis, disjunctive synthesis, and conjunctive synthesis of all related factors contributing to the curriculum development. The present study applied the Delphi method as a means where by connective synthesis, disjunctive synthesis, and conjunctive synthesis could take place. While a conventional Delphi method only engages policy makers, the present study arranged for experts in the first round of open-end questions and arranged for participants at the school level to complete the subsequent rounds of questionnaires. During the process of rating all the listed statements, these school-based educators were implementing connective synthesis, disjunctive synthesis, and conjunctive synthesis in the process of conceptualising GCE.

Reviewing the Delphi method.

The fact that the Delphi method has been evolving and has been used more ways than it was originally designed for makes defining it difficult. The Delphi method was a technique that was firstly created for military purpose by the RAND Corporation in the early 20th century as a substitute for the computer models which cost a lot of expense to programme: a panel of experts on Soviet strategic planning were involved to evaluate an US target system as well as estimate the total demanded number of atomic bombs for financial planning, which otherwise costed substantial munitions waste (Linstone & Turoff, 1975, p. 10). Gordon and Helmer (1964) reported the use of this technique in “Report on a Long-Range Forecasting Study,” making Delphi method known to the majority. A series of literatures followed that study that 60

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city contributed to the clarification of Delphi technique (Helmer, 1966). A description of the operation of the Delphi method in the early research shares similarity and generally, a classical Delphi method consists of:

 An open-ended survey to start with, where experts give broad responses  A following survey have experts to vote summarized responses that were generated in previous round  A third survey display the feedback from the poll and invite experts to re-vote. Those who wish to vote for responses that fall with lower quartile should provide with reasons.  And a final survey that keeps a record of the results from the previous three rounds and seek experts’ comments and thoughts

This type of scaffolded expert consultation has been described by later researchers as a classical or conventional Delphi method. A classical Delphi method is used purely for seeking group consensus to achieve forecasting goals. The classical Delphi method has been shown advantage over trend extrapolations, which is a common forecasting tool (Linstone & Turoff, 1975, p. 11). In Technological Forecasting for Decision Making (1973), Martino states that the Delphi method stands out when greater importance is attached to expert opinion, especially under conditions when historical records of estimates issues are unavailable, impacts from external factors other than technical causes are more dominating, and sensitive forecasts might cause moral or ethical controversies (p. 15).

The classical Delphi method has been widely used in the fields of technology forecasting; however, it was far from being a pure forecasting strategy. The diversity of usages makes the applied definitions of the classical Delphi method inconsistent. Some projects described Delphi method as a way of synthesizing experts’ consensus via iterative surveys (Keeney, Hasson & McKenna, 2001; McKenna, 1994). The Delphi method in this regard is conceived of as a technique for producing authoritative discourse that was not restricted to use in forecasting: the involvement of the expert is the prerequisite for conducting the Delphi method, and the goal is only to achieve consensus. This conception of the Delphi method is widely found in applications related to organization management; generation of assessment and evaluation; health, urban, or social planning; as an engagement strategy for educators; policy making, and so on (Delbecq, Van de Ven & Gustafson, 1975, p. viii). In other research, the definitions of the Delphi method discarded the involvement of expertise (Buck, Gross, Hakim & Weiblatt, 1993, p. 275; Preble, 1984, p. 157). For instance, Preble (1984) describes it as “a consensus technique that provides for the systematic solicitation and collation of judgements on a particular topic” (p. 157).

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Although there is no single standard definition, there has been a tendency for researchers to identify common characteristics of the method. The components of expert input, anonymity, rounds of questionnaires, and controlled feedback with statistical analysis are among the typical features of a Delphi technique design (Masser & Foley, 1987, p. 218; Goodman, 1987, p. 729).

Recent decades have seen a variety of modifications made to the classical Delphi method in order to satisfy different purposes. In this regard, the nature of interaction in the Delphi method becomes the key to comprehension of the method. For instance, Linstone and Turoff (1975) judged Delphi as “a method for structuring a group communication process so that the process is effective in allowing a group of individuals, as a whole, to deal with a complex problem” (p. 3). Linstone and Turoff refer to the approach merely as a form of “structured communication,” which circumvents the mandatory requirements in the classical Delphi method regarding participants, formats, and purposes (p. 3). A similar statement can be found in Goodman (1987), that it is “a survey method of research which aims to structure group opinion and discussion” (p. 729). Goodman conceptualised the Delphi method abstractly by releasing of restrictions in the operational procedures and inclines towards categorising it as a structured survey method. The present study favours such an abstract definition of Delphi method, which is seeing it as a structured survey for group communication.

The highly abstract definition of the Delphi method added the convenience of comprehending the multiple applications of the Delphi method. The method has been used for “technological forecasting, management science, and operations research” in the late 1950s and early 1960s for “planning, project evaluation, and cost-benefit analysis” in the 1970s; for policy formulation since the 1970s; for generating diversified reasoned opinions since the 1990s; and for scenario construction and business strategic design in the 2000s (Buck, et al., 1993, pp. 271, 274–275; Tapio, 2002, p. 84; Andersson, 2015, pp. 155–156). Meanwhile, technological advancements have improved the operational process of the Delphi technique, such as utilising the internet and computers to conduct large-scale surveys and provide real-time processing of data on participants’ responses (Gordon, 1994). These applications have been classified into Consensual Delphi, Modified Delphi, Policy Delphi method, and Real Time Delphi (Hasson, Keeney & McKenna, 2000, p. 1008; McKenna, 1994; Crisp, Pelletier, Duffield, Adams & Nagy, 1997; Beretta, 1996).

Consensual Delphi resembles the classical Delphi technique model discussed above and is used primarily for consensus making among a pool of opinions or facts provided by diverse stakeholders (Powell, 2003, p. 381), but its function is not restricted to event forecasting. Consensual Delphi is usually a substitute for other interacting groups when the close proximity

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city of participants is not available due to insufficient travelling funds or time. Rowe and Wright (1999) review a number of journals on comparable techniques, covering the Consensual Delphi method, Nominal Group Technique, ‘Dialectic’ procedure, ‘Dictator’/ ‘Best Member’ strategy, ‘groups that received rules on interaction’, and ‘groups following a Problem Centred Leadership (PCL) approach’, and concluded that Consensual Delphi has an advantage over other techniques by offering participants instructions on fixing dispute.

Policy Delphi method is distinguishable from other Delphi models in that it involves different groups of stakeholders in the first and subsequent rounds of questionnaires. The mechanism is to analyse policy by involving participants from different hierarchical niches in an order that is commonly found during policy implementation (Crisp et al., 1997; Rauch, 1979; Buck, et al., 1993). It usually starts with experts or governmental staff at the top, who have a say in policy making, and continues with the next few rounds of questionnaires filled in by the people at lower levels who conduct the policy, and sometimes the final round is handed over to recipients of the policy, signifying the “bottom” of policy implementation.

Real Time Delphi is a web-based application empowered by the advancement of automated programs. In Real Time Delphi, the operation is dependent on an online system. After data entry, the participants’ responses, together with computerised statistic feedback are updated and accessible to others immediately. There are no fixed rounds of submitting responses: participants are required to log into the online system constantly to check updates and give comments. Real Time Delphi appeals to small group of participants who work either synchronously or asynchronously and want to complete the survey rapidly but is also suitable for larger scale surveys (Gordon, 1994). When running Real Time Delphi, it has been found that the revisit rate of participants is around 25-50%, which is significantly lower than other Delphi application models. In some cases, dunning emails is a compensative strategy for enhancing participation rate (p. 8). Despite the low revisit rate, Real Time Delphi demonstrates superiority in terms of “speed, flexibility, lower costs, and centralisation of a data bank of questions and response” (p. 9). It has been widely used in many global projects, such as the Millennium Project in 2009, and Future of Logistics.

As the technique is being acknowledged by more people, there has been new development. In this thesis, diversified approaches which involve modifying Delphi method have been collectively classified as Modified Delphi. The Modified Delphi methods are adaptations of existing models. For instance, the Consensual Delphi method could also be used for idea- generating and creative decision making. With Such modification, the Consensual Delphi shows advantages than other similar methods. Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gustafson compare the

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city differences among interacting groups, Nominal Group Technique, and Delphi method (1975). They find that NGT and the Delphi method are superior in terms of idea generation in interacting groups regarding the quality or quantity of the ideas; by contrast the ‘group think’ trap in interacting groups prevented participants from thinking creatively (pp. 16–17, 32).

In addition to these major modifications with distinct functions, the Delphi method also undergoes frequent minor adaptations in order to meet specific requirements in various types of research, such as a technological improvement cross impact analysis.

Applications in educational research.

Though Sackman (1975) suggests that a consensual Delphi method might help educators with exploring problems in depth, Delphi is more often used as a way to construct or validate standardized tools for educational measurement, assessment, and principles of good practice because the method allows a high qualified peer-reviewed process (Hatcher & Colton, 2007; Sandrey & Bulger, 2008; Heimlich, Carlson & Storksdieck, 2011; Marshall & Allegrante, 2017). Another major use of Delphi has been to optimize selections, which include pedagogies, curricular intent and content, before any final decision is made (Bulger & Housner, 2007; So & Bonk, 2010; Manizade & Mason, 2011; Kalaian & Kasim, 2012). Less frequently, researchers apply the method to collect or trigger participants’ thoughts during the communicative process (Kurth-Schai, 1988; Franklin& Hart, 2007; Baumfield, Hall & Wall, 2012).

Modification of the Delphi method in the present study.

Regarding this thesis, a policy Delphi method model was chosen. This is because policy Delphi method enables communication to take place in a process resembling the desiring-production in Deleuzian philosophy where opinions of different stakeholders could function like forces to drive the becoming of the comprehension of GCE and the prediction of how GCE could be implemented via school curricula. Via rounds of rating, reviewing, and commenting by diverse stakeholders in the education system, the process of connective synthesis, disjunctive synthesis, and conjunctive synthesis of varied opinions occurs before a consensual understanding of GCE is generated.

In terms of the procedure, scholars who demonstrated expertise in GCE participated in the first two rounds of Delphi: during the first round, they answered four open-ended questions, and their answers became the basis for a series of statements were synthesised from each questions; then, in the second round, scholars rated the statements with a Likert scale and left their comments; in the third round, principals took on the Delphi, rated the same statements

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city using a Likert scale, and left comments and/or commented on the scholars’ comments; and in the fourth round, teachers did the same. The Delphi survey contains contents of both the quantitative and qualitative feedback. The quantitative feedback included the values of the quantiles and mean. The qualitative feedback consisted of summaries of the participants’ anonymous responses. See Appendix B for the instrument used for policy Delphi method.

However, since the policy Delphi method model was not designed for resolving the exact problem in this project, there are factors that meant the process might fail to produce useful answer to the research questions. For instance, policy Delphi method has usually been conducted after targeted policies have been implemented and all stakeholders are aware of details of the policies themselves. By contrast, participants in this project would be participating before an official GCE program has been introduced. It was therefore not known whether the initially proposed open-ended questions would be valuable. Taking this issue into account, a pilot study was carried out. The goal of the pilot study was to evaluate the open-ended questions regarding their precision, appropriateness of difficulty, and readability.

As a result of the pilot study, the researcher chose to embed collective case studies in the research design. The underlying reason for this was that the pilot study indicated that the policy Delphi method alone was far from answering the research questions. Interactions among participants in the format of commenting in the policy Delphi method were associated with issues of GCE per se, while researching the research questions also required in-depth description, evaluation, and explanation of how educators perceived contextual factors, which are a relevant part to desiring production of GCE in these participatory middle schools. A method which could complement policy Delphi method was collective case studies rather than other methods (Yin, 1994; Merriam, 1988). The reason for choosing collective case studies over other methods will be discussed in the following section.

In terms of actual modification of the Delphi method, the researcher adopted an online survey system to disseminate Delphi questionnaires for reasons of convenience and efficiency, whilst a more traditional approach would be to send or attach the questionnaire using mail or email. In the present study, paper-based questionnaires were still used because it was more favoured by some of the participants.

In summary, a series of modifications were made to the original policy Delphi method model so that the methodological design would be best serve the research questions. These modifications included the addition of a pilot study to develop and evaluate the proposed questions in the Delphi method, the addition of collective case studies to supplement the Delphi findings, and the adoption of an online survey system to contact participants. In the end, the 65

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city modified Delphi differed from traditional consensual Delphi in allowing space for comparing different stakeholders’ opinions as well as in-depth analysis of the contextual factors. Meanwhile, such a design encouraged non-academic participants who took the third or the fourth rounds of Delphi to give thoughtful answers because they had the opportunity to review and evaluate others’ responses on GCE. It was believed that the modified Delphi would lead to new findings, especially new perspectives, as well as significantly improving the validity of the results.

3.4.2 Collective case study.

This researcher chose to include collective case studies in the research design to complement the results of the policy Delphi method. The primary reason for choosing collective case studies was the feasibility. During the preparation stage of this thesis, quasi-experimentation was considered. However, this research method was abandoned since schools rejected undertaking an experimental curriculum whose effects were unknown. In Yin’s words, it was constrained by manipulation in the field (1994). In order to explicate how the contextual factors influenced school principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of GCE and GCE curricula as well as the reasons for these influences, only methods that fitted the requirements of exploring, describing, evaluating, and explaining could be considered, indicating case study and history (i.e., a research method) might be among the appropriate choices (Yin, 1994; Merriam, 1988). Taking the specificity of the chosen temporal-spatial ontology in this thesis into account, a case study was evaluated to be a more applicable research method than history because case study befitted investigations of an on-going phenomenon.

Another reason for choosing a case study was because of the intertwined phenomenon and context. The contextual factors, involving policy, societal and cultural norms, school ethos, and various stakeholders in the education system, constitute both the context and phenomenon of a GCE curriculum in a process of becoming. According to Yin (1994), case study was also of pertinence when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clear (p. 13).

The decision to do a collective case study instead of conducting a single case study in the present study was for the sake of gaining a thorough understanding. Stake (1995) states that the primary reason for choosing multiple cases is to achieve “balance and variety,” in order to achieve the comprehension of the particularity of the cases.

It is conventional for education researchers to choose methodologies that involve a small number of descriptive case studies, except for innovative research that largely rely on 66

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city evaluative case studies where thick description provides evidence to interpret complex causal effects of an intervention, entails descriptions of the research context, and provides feedback to constructively optimize the intervention strategy (Merriam, 1988). The present study uses collective case studies to interpret the results of the policy Delphi method as well as to lead the in-depth exploration and evaluation of the idea of GCE curriculum in selected Chinese middle schools.

3.5 Participant Selection

Generally, the present study involved two groups of people from China: one group was interviewees, who were school principals and teachers from six junior high schools in Jiangsu Province, China; the other group was an assembly of their expertise in Delphi method, who were selected based on their previous publications.

3.5.1 Experts.

Experts were chosen via purposive sampling. In the present study, experts were operationally defined as those who had published journal papers on GCE. Via searching the terms ‘global citizenship education’ and ‘world citizenship education’ in the largest local academic database (i.e., Chinese Web of Knowledge), forty-five papers were found. After manual cleansing of the data, fourteen people were confirmed as either primary authors or collaborative contributors to those papers. These experts had published more than one article on GCE, and were from authoritative institutions across the country, including Beijing Normal University, Nanjing Normal University, East China Normal University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Northwest Normal University, West Anhui University, and Shanghai Normal University.

Unfortunately, only five experts finally participated in the first Delphi round. Considering the low response rate, the researcher expanded the contact list for the second round. Researchers whose interests were in China’s Moral Education were invited to participate. Moreover, as well as contacting scholars in mainland China, the researcher also involved universities and institutions in Hong Kong. As a result, a total number of six persons participated in the second round of Delphi.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

3.5.2 Selected schools.

Schools were chosen also via purposive sampling. The researcher initially used the selection criterion of ‘schools that have GCE practices.’ However, this encountered difficulty in defining GCE practices. Since it is the aim of the present study to generate a consensus of discourses of GCE and GCE curriculum in Chinese context, it was decided using a presupposed definition of GCE practices might threaten the validity of the data. Therefore, the selection criterion of ‘schools that have GCE practices’ was abandoned. The researcher then considered the standard of “schools that plan to develop GCE curriculum.” After consultation about the background information of the participatory schools with regard to curriculum implementation, the researcher found that many school-based curricula in Chinese schools are linked with some activities which were provided by the non-governmental organisations. For example, Ameson Education & Cultural Exchange Foundation have constructed the Model CPPCC activity, which has been further promoted by the China Zhi Gong Party to become a nationwide IPAC activity. Schools relied on activity models that have already been well developed. They prefer cooperation with organizations which can provide resources rather than making their own attempts to develop curricula. The result of investigating activities in which schools involved shown that these non-governmental organisations have not been providing activities called GCE; however, many of them have been promoting International Understanding Education. While International Understanding Education might be part of GCE, there still was a lack of consensus about whether the two concepts could be used interchangeably. In order to avoid confusion, the criterion ‘schools that plan to develop GCE curriculum’ was excluded. A similar criterion ‘schools that claim that they are doing GCE’ was also eliminated. In the end, the researcher amended the criterion to ‘schools that have the capability of developing a GCE curriculum’. This criterion was underpinned by an argument raised in the literature review that GCE curriculum was a derivative of the CCE informal curriculum. In this respect, schools with previous experience of both CCE practice and informal curriculum would be judged as “good” case schools. This criterion had a distinctive advantage: in contrast to the ambiguity of GCE, there was clear definition as well as sufficient evidence-based research on CCE.

In the present study, in order to ensure the ‘generalizability’ within the case study, which was the specific design of this present study, the researcher planned to involve two junior high schools that had a high level ‘capability of developing GCE curriculum’ (i.e., with both practice of CCE and informal curriculum), and to label them Group A; chose two schools of medium level ‘capability of developing GCE curriculum’ (i.e., either with practice of CCE, or informal curriculum) as Group B; and chose another two schools which seemed not to have the potential

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city of developing a GCE curriculum (i.e., neither with no practice of CCE, and no informal curriculum), and marked them Group C.

The actual recruiting process was under the supervision of the local bureau of education. Seven schools were recommended by the bureau of education. Among the seven schools, two schools rejected the invitation to participate. Two weeks later, another school suddenly found the researcher and expressed willingness to participate after the school principal heard of this ongoing project.

The final classification of these six schools differed from the planned classification. It was in fact difficult to follow the planned categorisation, because practising CCE and informal curriculum were not all-or-none situations for these middle schools. A more conventional classification was used to divide the schools into one private school and five public schools.

3.5.3 School principals and teachers.

The researcher invited school principals and teachers from six middle schools in an anonymous city, Jiangsu Province, China, to have face-to-face interviews. The school principal was the first interviewee of every school. Then principals were encouraged to nominate at least two teachers to participate in face-to-face interviews.

In the research, most principals preferred to only nominate two teachers. However, in one particular school, one principal and five teachers organized a focus group in the pre- interview without notifying the researcher. Apart from this unexpected occurrence, three teachers rejected the research before the pre-interviews, but two of them later agreed to participate in the Delphi method. Therefore, a total of six school principals and fourteen teachers participated. Since analysis was based on the units of schools, the varied number of participants in each school did not influence the final results.

3.6 Data Collection

3.6.1 Policy Delphi method.

A pilot study of the first round of the Delphi method was conducted in order to evaluate the first-round open-ended questions regarding their precision, appropriate level of difficulty, and readability. Participants in the pilot study were recruited by snowball sampling, most of whom were students from the University of Sydney, while the rest were from various professions. The 69

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city recruitment and data collection process were expeditious. The purpose of the pilot study was to imitate the recruitment and data collection strategies, as well as the quality of the questionnaires. However, it was later shown that the pilot study only contributed to the adjustment of the design and content of the questionnaire.

The actual process of recruiting Chinese experts for the policy Delphi method was extremely difficult when personal connections were unavailable. There were several reasons for this. First, scholars’ affiliated universities or institutions have websites where their contact methods are often absent from staff profiles. In some universities, contact methods are only accessible in intranet. The researcher then tried to get in touch with the non-academic personnel whose contact methods were open to public by calling, emailing and faxing. The majority were unreachable, the remaining non-academic staff were very cautious about offering a stranger a scholars’ working email address. Second, as was reported by participants at a later stage, digital copies of Delphi survey sent from the researcher’s University of Sydney account were filtered by Chinese email systems as junk mail due to the unidentified foreign server. These hurdles prevented the recruitment of scholars from being efficient.

The feedback on the Delphi design and content from the pilot study was of slight use but still largely unconstructive. Participants in the pilot study were inclined to be satisfied with the four open-ended questions in the policy Delphi survey. Their answers also conformed to the researcher’s intent in designing the questions, showing that these questions were clearly understood. But the same set of questions were criticised by the Chinese scholars and school principals for varied reasons, including that the questions were designed with preconditions, were frustrating to answer when a definition of GCE was not provided, overemphasised the exogenous origin of GCE, and that the first three open-ended questions were not directly associated with practical issues in schools. Participants were generally content with the fourth question.

Coincidentally, the fourth question was also the only question which seemed to lead to a consensus regarding all statements among all enrolled stakeholders: the scholars, school principals, and teachers. In fact, the highly diverged opinions on the other questions among different stakeholders was another unexpected situation in conducting the policy Delphi rounds. Most studies in the literature apply a classical Delphi model, and the consensus is synthesised within two to three rounds. The risk of being unable to drive a consensus is low. As a result, in the pilot study, rounds subsequent to the initial open-ended questions were not implemented, and the high divergence that actually occurred during the rounds of the present study was not

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city predicted. However, it is questionable whether a pilot study would ever achieve similarly divergent results.

There might be several causes for the divergence between different stakeholders. These causes were supported by the patterns in both the quantitative and qualitative results: if the quantitative value, which is the distribution between the first quartile and the third quartile, of a statement is large across all stakeholders, then the statement is controversial; if it is large for one group of stakeholder but not for the other, then this is mainly due to varied opinions towards the situation that is described in the statement.

Though consensus was not achieved for each of the statements associated with the first three questions, there were still some statements that were agreed to by all. Therefore, some consensual statements were removed before the fourth round, leaving the controversial statements for teachers to rate and comment on.

3.6.2 Interviews.

In the interview part of the case study, the principals (n=6) and teachers (n=10) from six participatory schools were invited to face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Except for Teacher Y, who quitted from the post-interview, the rest 15 participants participated in both the pre- and post- interviews, which were arranged before and after they completed the Delphi questions respectively.

Interview questions were inspired by the instruments created by Wing On Lee and Sai Wing Leung in a study researching GCE in Hong Kong and Shanghai secondary schools (Lee & Leung, 2006). A detailed instrument of interview questions can be found in Appendix A. The same questions listed in this instrument was used for the pre- and post- interviews. For each time, interviews were planned to take 30-40 minutes. However, the actual time spent varied, which was from as short as 20 minutes to as long as 90 minutes, depending on participants’ different knowledge and experience of GCE. The interviews were mostly situated in an empty meeting room or participants’ offices within the investigated middle schools. But there were also other locations, including an empty laboratory and a corridor outside the participant’s office. During each interview, two audio recorders were used at the same time to ensure the quality and integrity of the recordings.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

The contents of the audio recordings were used for qualitative analysis. Audio recordings were key sources of qualitative data. These data were later transcribed manually and analysed through a software known as NVivo. Details of data analysis will be presented in Section 3.7.

3.7 Data Analysis

Participants’ qualitative feedback in the policy Delphi survey as well as their responses in semi- structured interviews were audio-recorded by the recorder. The researcher transcribed all the data. The data analysis followed the stages of conceptualisation, coding, memo writing, and outcropping (Neuman, 2014, pp. 480–487). All qualitative information was imported and analysed using NVivo 11, and quantitative data was analysed by Excel.

Analysis strictly followed Miles and Huberman’s approach of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing (1994). Data reduction was carried out after data cleaning when condensed transcripts had already been produced. Through NVivo, data reduction was achieved in three ways. First, data with similar meanings were arranged into the same group, which was created as the node, or what is known as the code in qualitative research. Second, data were sorted by headings. The headings were manually modified by the researcher during data cleaning according to the themes in the semi-structured interviews. NVivo is equipped with such an “auto-code” function. Third, the key nodes were edited to be the descriptive codes based on conceptual framework, which matched with the data. Both the second and the third methods of data reduction used the structured codes. The analysis involved all three ways of data reduction, via which data were examined iteratively, and both inductively and deductively. Though there was overlapping content among these three sets of descriptive codes, which was eliminated by merging nodes manually, they complemented each other because the codes based on the conceptual framework were relational, which meant they were not able to present in- depth differences within the same categories, while the inductive descriptive codes provided a broader range of information tailored to the contexts. The immediate outcomes of data the reduction were a group of extensive “messy” descriptive and interpretive codes drawn from induction, a group of over-general codes that were sorted by the themes of the interview questions, and a group of descriptive codes for deduction that were only partially used that some codes were of more information, but others were less informative, or even not useful at all. All codes were then analysed with the assistance of the “maps” functions in NVivo for establishing logic, and for generating the interpretive codes, themes, and patterns.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

In the stage of data display, the function of “framework matrices” in NVivo was heavily used. In “framework matrices,” there was “auto summarize” for displaying data. However, using NVivo had the disadvantage of calibrating the size of data within matrices which made the matrices too enormous to be read and analysed. Therefore, the researcher did not generate more abstract themes directly through the matrices but relied on memos with the references from printed matrices, which started with single-case analysis, and then proposed to cross-case analysis.

The process of drawing conclusions was along the way of data reduction and data display, during which different focuses were paid attention at different stages. At the stage of data reduction, initial conclusions were made and compiled within explanation building, pattern matching, and program logic models, through techniques of the annotations of the codes, degree of consistency between data and the structured codes, and the process of constructing maps, respectively (Yin, 1994). Then, at the stage of single case analysis, conclusions were revealed in the form of case report, where multiple sources of data were displayed for answering research questions (Stake, 2006; Merriam, 2009). Finally, at the stage of cross-case analysis, which itself was identified by Yin as an analysis technique (1994), conclusions were drawn by comparing cases for resemblances and divergences at a highly abstract level.

3.8 Evaluations on Ethics and Rigour

3.8.1 Ethical conduct.

The Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), University of Sydney, requires research students to apply for ethical approval for studies involving human participants, which includes surveys, interviews, and focus group, based on the requirements from the National Health and Medical Research Council. Participants should be informed by a printed ‘Participant Information Statement’ and asked for permission by signing a printed ‘Participant Consent Form’.

Apart from applying for ethical approval, the researcher provided participants with a “Participant Information Statement” and obtained their signatures on the “Participant Consent Form,” according to the HREC’s guidelines. Participants’ physical and mental well-being were looked after. The researcher informed participants of their rights to reject providing responses or to quit at any time, and that the researcher would answer any questions they had about the research.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

The confidentiality of participants and the privacy of their data were protected after data was collected. Protection of the confidentiality of participants: individually identifiable data were removed; re-identifiable data were stored in secured places. Protection of the privacy of their data: details of participants’ reflections on their personal experiences were removed from the results, while the conclusions of general patterns were kept.

Yet, the researcher encountered situations that she did not expect during data collection, as which were noted in her field note, and related issues were discussed in the following two seb- sections.

Field note: the researcher’s reflections

Briefly, the researcher was a quasi-outsider. This was because of her nationality and educational background. She is a Chinese who has received education both in China and abroad. During data collection, she experienced no difficulties getting in touch with participants in middle schools due to the advantage of being a native speaker of Chinese. However, the communication was influenced by principals’ and teachers’ resistance to answering questions that they regarded as sensitive. These issues included political opinions, ideas regarding their own teaching, and the education system. They saw themselves as gatekeepers.

Moreover, difficulties resulted from school educators’ awareness of the fact that the study underwent permission from the local education bureau before being allowed to be carried out. During the data collection, participants regarded the proposed questions as tools to inspect their schooling quality. A common rhetorical question from them was ‘What was your idea regarding the question you just asked me?’. Participants sought to extract the ‘correct’ answers from the researcher. Other questions were attempts at learning information about their ‘rivals’, such as ‘What were the names of the other schools participating in your study?’. It was against the ethics code of the researcher to provide answers to those questions. Inevitably, rejections led to discontent among some participants.

Meanwhile, due to the consideration of potential judgements of performance (even though their rights as well as the security of the data were clearly stated before they signed the consent forms), participants were afraid of not being able to provide what they thought would be satisfying answers, especially, teachers who were used to executing orders in the bureaucratic hierarchical system. These teachers were less visionary than the principals and did not dare to give their opinions.

Another communication difficulty was the inefficiency brought on by the researcher’s lack of knowledge of the operation of the Chinese education system. Though she had studied in the system, her role then was that of a student rather than a teaching or administrative staff member inside the system.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Finally, the communication was influenced by the researcher’s identity as a postgraduate from a Western country. During the interviews, which coincided with the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, some participants expressed ideas about their political stance to differentiate themselves from the researcher.

In terms of the communication between the researcher and scholars at universities, there, however, were no obvious difficulties, despite highly diversified answers to the policy Delphi method questions.

Although the overall process of data collection went smoothly, there were still power tensions between the researcher and the participants in the middle schools. The tensions were interpreted and dealt with differently depending on each individual’s attitude towards the researcher, as well as how familiar each individual was with the normative procedure of conducting the research (even though they were already informed through the Participant Information Statement). Unfortunately, these tensions were just inevitable.

3.8.2 Issues related to the policy Delphi method.

A major rigour issue associated with the Delphi method, as was reflected by the researcher, was to do with the selection the person in charge of running the research. Scheibe, Skutsch, and Schofer (1975) find that participants are susceptible to persuasion towards conformity, their experiment showing that changes in statistical feedback influence weight distribution in the following rounds of surveys. Nelson’s (1978) experiments to see whether malicious manipulation of statistical feedback in Delphi method would result in alteration in subsequent responses, and finally generate a desired value, find that the manipulation and deviation were correlated positively, and statistical manipulation influences both convergence and stability in either fact-probing or value-probing Delphi method based research significantly (pp. 53, 55). In this regard, he recommends not to engage persons who have a vested interest in the research outcome as administrators of manipulation so as to avoid deception and corruption (p. 55). Regarding the administration of this thesis, the researcher has no vested interest in the research outcome. The researcher has some knowledge of the system due to her Chinese citizenship but does not know as much as those who work within the system.

3.8.3 Issues related to the case study.

Apart from issues related to Delphi method, there also were issues linked with the case study. Assuming that the informal curriculum provides a good vehicle for developing students’ civic

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city competencies, practising this assumption in realistic school situation is another thing. A variety of factors hindering implementation. An essential issue lay with the political context. The first issue was the influence of Delphi method in the Chinese context. Some principals and teachers gave optimistic responses in pre-interviews; however, after they reviewed statements in policy Delphi method which contained scholars’ comments about the possible contradiction between GCE and the country’s proposed ideology, they changed their attitudes. Finally, during data collection, the 19th National Congress of Communist Party of China was ongoing which lead participants to be very cautious about what they said in the interviews when they were informed that all interviews would be recorded. It was also hard to replicate experience of implementing successful informal curricula in a different context. For example, in Chinese schools, although an informal curriculum exists, it has been implemented via activity models that are different from those stated in the literature. Another issue was that during operation of formal curricula, principals and teachers could not cater completely to the expectations. During curriculum development, school principals and teachers might take a series of actions, including seeking expertise, inquiring into other schools that already had developed the curriculum, retrieving a school’s past history as the substance for school-based curriculum development, consulting stakeholders for their feedback so as to make adjustments, and so on. These actions were likely to take place after curriculum developers initiated the project and would re-shape developers’ conceptions. However, the study was conducted before those actions were taken. Therefore, the selected interviewees in the sample might not represent the composition of the actual syllabus committee; and their spontaneous answers during interviews might not be consistent with their conceptions in the future.

3.9 Chapter Summary

This chapter detailed the case study design adopted in the present study for researching GCE in Chinese middle schools. Inspired by Deleuzian philosophical arguments of becoming, micropolitics, and desiring-machine in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972/2004), the researcher has combined a policy Delphi method with interviews in such a way that both diverse opinions and considerations of contextual factors resemble the desiring-production process of ongoing connective synthesis, disjunctive synthesis, and conjunctive synthesis that constitute a becoming thing or event. The mixed methods used fall under a general design of grounded theory so that a micro and grassroots perspective is ensured. The next chapter will explicate details of the micro contexts of the participating Chinese middle schools.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Chapter 4: Context of the Study

To explain why GCE is less accepted in China, the present study aims to investigate the associated contextual factors, especially the curriculum changes and innovations revealed in six selected schools during the localisation of GCE. Before deliberating upon the interplay between diverse factors and the situation of GCE curriculum development, this chapter describes and evaluates the overall context, especially the knowledge required to understand how the participating schools are situated in the whole Chinese education system. This will enable the nature of the research problem and research approach to be dissected.

This chapter therefore provides fundamental information on the nature of the contextual factors. By retrieving and reviewing policies and official documents in the Chinese education system, the researcher found that a Moral Education bureaucratic structure is in use and that this controls the content of Moral Education and shapes middle-school students’ identities. This chapter will explain what the Moral Education bureaucratic structure is, and how it maintains a consistency of intention in the policies designed to build students’ identities.

4.1 Policies on the Moral Education System

4.1.1 The extent of Moral Education system.

The concept of citizenship, as well as the derived term ‘global citizenship’, is rarely seen as an independent topic in Chinese schooling. It has long been integrated into the system of Moral Education (Tan, 2015). This Moral Education does not refer only to the independent subject of ‘Politics and Morality’, which exists as an academic unit in the whole educational system. Rather, Moral Education in the present study refers to the more general cultural context of Chinese pedagogy. It was inherited and transformed from the classic Confucian school.

Nowadays, the influence of Confucian morality is not only found in disciplines in secular life but also in formal educational legislation. In 1979 and 1981, the Chinese Ministry of Education released the ‘Regulations for Middle School Students’, which signalled the revival of Moral Education after the Cultural Revolution (Qin, 2008, p. 25). The 1979 and 1981 versions had a more ubiquitous focus, which emphasised the virtues of caring for people, being sympathetic, respecting others, and so on; whereas the previous versions of the Regulations had a strong political tendency with statements such as ‘loving leaders’ and ‘being absolutely obedient to teachers’ (Qin, 2008, p. 25). In 1994, based on the trial versions in 1981 and 1991, the Education Committee of China legitimated the ‘Middle School Student Daily Behaviour Standards’, and, in 77

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2004, the Ministry of Education also updated the ‘Regulations for Middle School Students’. These regulations focused more on humanistic aspects and followed the pattern of young people’s physical and psychological development (pp. 26–27). Moreover, the new form of Moral Education was also in concert with socioeconomic development by addressing topics such as worldism theory, individualistic development, legal education, and knowledge of common sense (p. 27). For example, the second rule within the 2004 ‘Regulations for Middle School Students’ speaks of ‘Obeying laws and rules; enhancing legal awareness. Obeying schools’ rules; and obeying social morals.’

Apart from these statutory regulations, other laws associated with the education system were established for standardising the ethics and management of administrative issues. These statutory laws, which are not directly linked to Moral Education, include Education Law, Compulsory Education Law, and Teachers Law.

Conventionally, however, it is not the statutory laws or regulations but the documentary politics that control the actual planning and implementation of Moral Education. The following section will explain what is meant by documentary politics and how it affects Moral Education.

4.1.2 Documentary politics.

According to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the powers of the legislature are disseminated across all legislative levels. These legislative levels make regulations and rules according to regional circumstances while also following the general principles required by superior legislative levels. The routine correspondence between all legislative levels is contained in these documents. Documents deliver the top-down orders. In other words, the Chinese approach to governance is via documentary politics. Wu, who used to draft formal documents for the Secretary General of the State Council, distinguishes documentary politics from democratic governance and dictatorship governance (1984). He clarified that Chinese documentary politics is an outcome of collective leadership, which is not only restricted to normative documents endorsed by an authoritative body but also includes other formats, such as a top leader’s speech which binds all nationals.

However, it is unclear how intense and influential the binding force of documentary politics is. Prior to 2015, the Administrative Licensing Law was the only statutory law that judged the legal effect of the documents. However, according to Administrative Licensing Law, it was not applicable to the internal management of public institutions. Therefore, ambiguity remained regarding the legitimacy of documentary politics. This issue was discussed by some scholars, 78

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city who concluded that top documents released from the State Council were subject to the Constitution, while other documents made by subsidiary legislative levels were only binding on the internal agencies of the administrative system. Then in 2015, the Legislative Law was enacted. The law specified the legislative process for making provisions. In terms of documentary politics, there was a clear statement in the Legislative Law indicating a governing relation from top to grassroots-level documents and a prohibition on contradictions across legislative levels. Meanwhile, it was permitted to make local normative documents independent of requirements from the State Council on unprecedented incidents. However, the exact legal effect of documentary politics in the Legislative Law was still unstated. In response to such ambiguity, the researcher measured and evaluated the influence of Chinese documentary politics by analysing the frequency a regional authority released documents on local issues and the time span before completing prescribed tasks in documents sent from the central authority.

4.2 The bureaucratic structure

There has been much discussion regarding the overall policy environment of Moral Education in China, but less discussion of how these policies influence schools when executed in a highly centralised and cumbersome manner. In response to such concern, the present study conducted a content analysis of policies. The focus was on tracing the impacts of policies at the national, provincial, and municipal levels upon participating schools’ Moral Education curriculum practices. It was found that documentary politics at different levels influenced school practices, albeit to differing degrees, owing to the varied efficacy and power vested in the policies across the bureaucratic structure. This section will elaborate how, and to what degree, differently levelled policies influence participating schools. The elaboration will occur along with examining the process of policy formulation and execution from the national, provincial, and municipal levels to the school level.

4.2.1 At national level.

Central policies on Moral Education.

This thesis collected and analysed documents on Chinese Moral Education via governmental websites because, due to the obligation of transparent governance, official websites should contain records of all normative documents.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

After searching on the key term ‘Moral Education’ on the website of the Ministry of Education, 153 entries were obtained, 127 of which were linked to middle-school education. These 127 entries were classified into 29 categories based on their content, summarised in the table below. Summaries of the content of categories and the corresponding number of entries in each category are listed. These 29 categories were further classified into categories that were directly related to Moral Education and those that were indirectly related to Moral Education. Meanwhile, coinciding with what Wu (1984) said, there were also non-normative documents among the entries, which were of general legal force, such as a document issued by the Party Committee about learning Xi’s speech.

Table 4.1 Division of the categories and corresponding number of polices on Moral Education retrieved from the website of China’s Ministry of Education Directly related to Moral Education # Indirectly related to Moral Education # 1. National Security Education 3 19. Laws on Education 2 2. Curriculum Reform 12 20. Work Routine 6 3. Five-Year Plan 3 21. Special Education 2 4. National Spirit Month 7 22. Education to Help Rural Areas 4 5. Art Education 2 23. School-Run Industries 1 6. Community Education 1 24. Annual Notices on Issuing Key 7. Teachers’ Professional Training 9 Points in Work 10 8. School Ethos Development 2 25. News Reports of Meetings 3 9. Studying Cadre Leaders’ Speeches 9 26. Education in Western Areas 1 10. Legal Education 3 27. Protection of Minors 3 11. Recommended List of Media 6 28. Ministry of Education Personnel 2 Information for Students to Watch 29. Literacy Education 3 12. Patriotic Education 4 13. Party Education 16 14. Civilized Manners Education 1 15. Family Education 3 16. Mental Health Education 3 17. Thrift Education 3 18. Anti-Drug Education 3

It was found that documents with similar themes had the same origin. The Propaganda Department of the Central Committee was responsible for producing documents on National Spirit Month; the Department of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Education, sometimes along with the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the National Operation Committee of Young Pioneers of China, was responsible for arranging activities of Patriotic Education, Party Education, and studying cadre leaders’ speeches; the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Justice make decisions for Legal Education; teachers’ professional development was charged by the Ministry of Education and Office of Inspections; and the rest of the documents were issued by the General Office of the Ministry of Education or via collective decision from the Ministry of Education.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Figure 4.1 Deciding School Extracurricular Activities through Collective Leadership. Generated from records of normative documents in China’s Ministry of Education website.

Such an approach to issuing documents indicates that the management of the Moral Education system has multiple stakeholders. Interventions are usually a result of coordination among various departments, though the decisions are all disseminated via the Ministry of Education as normative documents inside the education system. This phenomenon concurs with China’s unique collective leadership system with Chinese characteristics.

As well, the nomenclature for documents revealed various legal effects associated with different levels of power. There were decisions, notices, and suggestions found in the collected entries. Documents titled ‘decisions’ were made on behalf of the leadership group. They informed the lower groups or departments, and sometimes empowered them to implement the policies. Notices were normative instructions produced for transmission after approval had been obtained, while suggestions were documents used for giving advice and solving problems. Suggestions targeted populations across all levels of the administrative system.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

When analysing these entries chronologically, it was found that work priorities changed every five years, which corresponded with the five-year term of the key cadre leaders. This pattern shows that new elements have been added to the existing policies, including Mental Health Education, Family Education, and Community Education. Apart from the new elements, there were also re-emerging elements: national defence education re-appeared in 2017 after being deleted in 1997, and the requirement to organise students to participate in labour work re-emerged in two Party Education documents issued in 2013 and 2015. The last time such a document was released was in the 1980s. Community Education has also been gradually integrated by the Moral Education system, initiated through documents on safety instructions for outside-school activities. Along with Community Education came Anti-Drug Education. These various forms of education have resulted in diverse learning experiences through modifications in class, activities, and the school environment. Especially since 2008, multimedia (e.g., watching recommended propaganda videos) has been a suggested compulsory tool in the Moral Education system. All documents under the category of ‘Recommended list of media information for students to watch’ have been generated since 2008.

Apart from these changing work priorities revealed in documentary politics, there were also patterns of work routines that changed rarely. For instance, the school ethos development, education reform, and National Spirit Month have always been major focuses of work routines. But the making of documentary politics on Special Education, Education in Western Areas, and Education to Help Rural Areas was only occasional.

4.2.2 At provincial level.

Policy makers at provincial level.

Inside the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, the Basic Education Division was in charge of Moral Education, which, in a broad sense, involved curriculum materials, National Spirit Education, Moral Education and off-campus activities, thematic education, and cultural exchange programs. Most cadres at the provincial department were members of the party.

Policies found via ‘transparent governance’.

Via the ‘documentary politics’ section under the ‘transparent governance’ category displayed on the official website of Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, normative documents dating back to 2001 are open to the public. Most of the documentary politics have been enacted since 82

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2016, within the period of validity of the normative documents at provincial level. According to the website, ‘documentary politics’ contains 14 entries on ‘General Information in Education System’, 28 entries on ‘Basic Education’, 26 entries on ‘Vocational Education’, 42 entries on ‘Higher Education’, 9 entries on ‘Teachers’ Professional Development’, and 17 entries on ‘Party Building within Education System’. There is no specific category on Moral Education.

The rest of this section reviews the key findings for searching the subcategories of ‘General Information in the Education System’, ‘Basic Education’, ‘Teachers’ Professional Development’, and ‘Party Development within the Education System’.

Table 4.2 Categorisation and corresponding number of policies retrieved from the website of the Provincial Department of Education, Jiangsu, China Transparent governance # Documentary General information in education system 14 politics Basic education 28 Vocational education 26 Higher education 42 Teachers’ professional development 9 Party development within education system 17

The key documents found in ‘General Information in the Education System’ were all on work routines, such as the middle and long-term reform and development plans from 2010 till 2020. The only document that might be related to the Moral Education system was the ‘Notice on Printing and Distributing the Seventh Five-Year Plan for the Promotion of Legal System Education in the Whole Education System (2016–2020)’, a document directly transmitted from the Ministry of Education. Its content concurred with the topics of Legal Education, National Defence Education, Anti-Drug Education, and Community Education, addressed in the central normative documents.

In ‘Basic Education’, however, more provincial documents were discovered. In 2016, there were documents on developing Mental Health Education and Party Education. These documents were the ‘The Provincial Education Office Announces the Second Batch of Mental Health Education Model Schools in Primary and Secondary Schools in Jiangsu Province’ (2016) and ‘Notice of the Office of the Provincial Department of Education on Announcement of the Outstanding Results of the Education of Socialist Core Values in Primary and Secondary Schools’ (2016). One year later, however, documentary politics shifted its focus. Documents of ‘Notice on Printing and Distributing the Connotation Development and Comprehensive Improvement Plan of Middle School Education in Jiangsu Province’, and the following ‘Notice of the Provincial Department of Education on Announcement of the 2017 Character Improvement Project in Primary and Secondary Schools in Jiangsu Province’ were found. These two documents 83

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city recorded a major provincial policy on endorsing and starting a program called Character Improvement Project among primary and middle schools.

In ‘Professional Development’, target populations were university teachers and township schoolteachers. Training of university teachers was realised by offering opportunities to participate in research programs abroad which aimed at developing talents who had knowledge of international order and global competencies. Professional development of township schoolteachers was realised by rewarding outperforming senior teachers. However, there was no specific documents on training middle-school teachers.

Finally, several documents related to Moral Education were found in the ‘Party Building within Education System’, which were the ‘Notice of the provincial education system to conscientiously study and implement the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China’, ‘Provincial Party Committee of the Education Department’s advices on strengthening the construction of the “one school, one character” party building culture in the province's primary and secondary schools’, and ‘Notice of Seriously Studying and Implementing the Spirit of the Important Speech of General Secretary Xi Jinping at the Celebration of the 95th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China’. There were also four documents on intra-party training and rewarding strategy for the party membership teachers, which were not very relevant.

By analysing the document contents, consistency was found among the documents on Character Improvement Project listed in ‘Basic Education’, the seventh five-year plan for the promotion of Legal Education in ‘General Information in the Education System’, as well as the three documents in ‘Party Building within the Education System’. The policy of Character Improvement Project integrated the requirements from all normative documents given by the Ministry of Education, as well as the requirement of establishing a culture of advocating the Party. It was therefore identified that the Character Improvement Project was the key policy underpinning the provincial documentary politics.

The following section, which discusses the entries on Moral Education found on the Provincial Department of Education’s website, proves the argument that the Character Improvement Project is the dominant policy of Moral Education.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Policies found via searching key words.

The researcher then searched the key words ‘Moral Education’ on the intranet of the Provincial Department of Education’s website, and 254 entries were found with the earliest entry dating back to 2007. These entries were a mixture of Moral Education activity records, including normative documents, reports, editorial comments, and news, across all years and types of schooling. The researcher cleaned the data by deleting 72 entries that were either duplicates or not linked to middle-school education.

Table 4.3 Classification of the entries collected through searching key words ‘Moral Education’ on the website of the Provincial Department of Education, Jiangsu, China Topics # Thematic education activities 25 Systematic Moral Education platform construction, school ethos 72 development, and school character improvement Mental Health Education 6 Family Education 10 Teachers’ professional development 21 (total)  Teacher ethics 5  Teachers’ ability to teach Moral Education 7  Head teacher development 9 Other reports, newsletters, and briefings 47

Most of these entries were fragmented reports or news-like articles submitted by municipal education bureaus. Though available, systematic reviews of the implementation of the Character Improvement Project were found less frequently. However, when analysing these documents’ contents, it was found that they reported the intermediate results of the project, covering all the topics displayed in the table. Notably, when comparing the categories listed in Table 4.1 and the topics in Table 4.3, it was discovered that the Thematic Education Activities covered most categories. This discovery is displayed in the Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2 Extent of thematic education activities National Security Education National Spirit Month Art Education Community Education Studying cadre leaders’ speeches Legal Education Recommended list of media information for students to watch Thematic Education Activities Patriotic Education Party Education Civilized Manners Education Thrift Education Anti-drug Education

Key policy: Character Improvement Project.

By reviewing the policy of the Character Improvement Project, it was found that it was a policy based on Xi Jinpin’s requirement that a school be ‘a guide that leads students to temper 85

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city character’ and to cultivate the ‘essential characters’ in the students’ core competencies. The policy underwent a series of modifications of the original central documentary politics with the consideration of aspects regarding educational science, feasibility, and replicability, as was pointed out in the document ‘Notice of the Provincial Department of Education and the Provincial Department of Finance on Launching the Implementation of the Character Enhancement Project for Primary and Secondary School Students in Jiangsu Province, Su Jiaoji [2017] No. 4’:

The Character Improvement Projects in all province’s primary and secondary schools emphasises the basic tasks of developing moral talents. It aims at tempering students’ characters and developing students’ core competencies. It applies a constructivist approach to create a vivid ecology for basic education, which is centred on reality-based, problem-oriented, and value-guided teaching covering the perspectives of morality, humanity, and scientific spirits. The paradigm of the project design was consistent with the developmental psychology and educational science, within which students’ responsibility, practical abilities, and innovation capacities were to be improved. Students will have more autonomy and motivation in aiming high, learning hard, and living in a healthy way.

According to the policy, implementation of the Character Improvement Project started with the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020) with an annual financial investment of 10 million yuan from the provincial Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance. Since March 2017, there has each year been approximately 50 primary and secondary schools evaluated as character improved schools, and the number allocated to each city was around 2–5 middle schools. As a result, schools in the whole province would all gradually have character improvement. Along with the one-year project implementation, there was also an expert team monitoring, supporting, and optimising the project schools’ character improvement plans. By the end of the projects, the expert team would evaluate the projects; meanwhile, there would be seminars, surveys, independent research, and exhibitions on project outcomes. In the end, the Character Improvement Project policy achieved the goal of ‘gathering moral talents, nurturing core competencies, innovating practice paradigms, and leading social civilization’.

The focuses of Character Improvement were consistent with the requirements in central normative documents, as follows:

1. Mental health education, including the upgrade of equipment and teacher professions, in order to improve students' mental health, ability to career plan, and persistent interests and motivation in learning.

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2. Reforming curriculum subjects, which required schools to strengthen their constructivist teaching and improve the teaching quality, especially teaching with enthusiasm and making a good impression, so as to achieve an interdisciplinary learning environment and a comprehensive enhancement of students’ core competencies in both the humanities and science. 3. Improving access to resources (including using information technology in Moral Education, and constructing a humanistic campus environment), to achieve the sharing of Moral Education resources both inside and outside the school. 4. Empowering student societies as avenues for practising self-governance, decision- making, and coordination, and operating multiple tasks. 5. Developing high-performing teams consisting of head teachers, heads of Moral Education, Moral Education teachers, youth league counsellors, young pioneer counsellors, and off-campus counsellors. Developing strategies included providing professional development centres, studios of famous teachers, and so on. Evaluation of teaching should be evidence based, i.e., supported by data. 6. Strengthening family education, community education, and online education, via which students learned civilized manners, ways of getting along with others, awareness of obeying rules; use of community resources to undertake social practice and community services; and getting access to systematic online learning resources.

Regarding implementation, the Character Improvement Policy was an integration of the unstructured multidimensional central documentary politics. During implementation, only 2–5 middle schools from each city were required every year. In the context of hundreds of thousands of schools in China, 2–5 schools at the municipal level was a small number. The policy was to be put forward for a rather long period of time.

4.2.3 At municipal level.

Policy makers at municipal level.

There was a specific Moral Education leader group at municipal level, which included the Heads of the Education Bureau, Party Committee, Discipline Inspection Committee, Basic Education Division, and Department of Human Resources.

Policy found via “transparent governance.”

In the investigated city, the government affairs had been selectively disclosed by the Municipal People's Government. The researcher searched the key term ‘Moral Education’ and found 25 entries, 24 of which were related to the middle schools. The releasing years of these documents were in 2008, 2010–2013, and 2014–2018. The 2008 documents were all on accrediting Moral 87

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Education Advanced School; documents given in 2010–2013 focused on accrediting Moral Education Model Schools; and the documents released after 2014 years to date were on accrediting Moral Education Advanced Workers and Excellent Head Teacher.

The nature of these documents indicated that municipal governance put an emphasis on promoting implementation and evaluation, since these documents were the working guidelines for the selection of excellent schools and individuals. The approach of selecting excellent schools and individuals functioned as a form of evaluation and assessment.

Key policy: Moral Education Model schools.

Since the focus of this thesis is on analysis at the school level, documents related to whole- school development and evaluation were researched. As a result, a notice called ‘The Selection of Moral Education Model Schools in [city C‘s] Primary and Secondary Schools in 2010’ was targeted. Accordingly, to apply to be a Moral Education Model school (ME model school), a 2000-word summary was required, as well as a self-evaluation declaration form and evidence of relevant results submitted by the school. The materials prepared for submission should match the requirements in a normative document: ‘the evaluation index system for Moral Education in [city C‘s] primary and secondary schools (Trial)’. Unfortunately, though a hyperlink of the document was provided, the evaluation index document was not accessible.

It is, however, known that, after materials were submitted to the local Education Bureau, there would have been a selection based on documents from the central and departmental levels. In particular, the accreditation of ME model schools was valid for three years. To achieve this accreditation, applicant schools needed to have been implementing programs with distinguishing features that concurred with at least 2–3 criteria of the total 10 criteria for 2–3 years. The 10 criteria were as follows.

1. Building a school ethos that matched the science and humanities spirits. 2. Improving the quality of educational resources for realising a more influential hidden curriculum, including teacher image and charisma. 3. Developing an efficient and healthy head teacher team. 4. Achieving the self-governance of the school via a fully developed class culture and whole-school support team. 5. Providing venues for social practice, of good formats and effects. 6. Helping parents establish a correct vision of education. 7. Helping students with academic and character difficulties. 8. Developing a quality facility and environment for Mental Health Education, accessible to all students. 9. Providing a student evaluation system consistent with quality education.

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10. Thematic education, including the National Spirit Education, Life Education, Civics and Moral Education, Legal Education, Environmental Education, and National Defence Education, implemented scientifically, systematically, effectively, and subject to the principles of the normative documents.

In addition, applicant schools should meet the prerequisites of obeying the curriculum teaching plan, executing the ‘burden reduction’ regulation, having no illegal accident records, and participating in municipal patriotism education during the last two years.

By comparing the policy requirements between the municipal ME model school accreditation and provincial Character Improvement Project, analysis of results shows that there are connections between the two. The municipal policy was a pioneer attempt implemented ahead of the provincial policy. Moreover, the municipal policy had lower requirements with the implementation timeframe eased. As a result, schools that had been accredited ME models merely met the minimum requirements of the Character Improvement Project. Consequently, the policy of ME model school enlarged the number of preparatory schools that were to be upgraded to the Character Improvement Project schools.

Lastly, it was also found that the ME model school policy included a regional characteristic program of Civics and Moral Education, Environmental Education, and Life Education, which were not found in provincial or central normative documents.

4.2.4 At school level.

The previous sections focused on the making of policies at central, provincial, and municipal levels. This section will focus on the details of the context of participating schools and how policies have been implemented within them. Data used in this section were collected from school websites, purposefully targeting curriculum development. The extent of consistency between the curriculum-development emphasis in schools and policy requirements might reflect more details of the general external environments of the participating schools. This section will centre on reporting the retrieved data on curriculum development in each participating school, while the section following this will analyse the degree of consistency in central, provincial, and municipal policies across schools.

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Policies reflected among schools.

When searching for evidence of policy implementation through schools’ websites, it was found that schools did not pay additional attention to developing programs specifically tailored to Moral Education development. Rather, a common strategy of emphasising one or a few particular programs was used as a way of enhancing students’ morality.

Table 4.4 The Implementation of Moral Education Policies in Participatory Schools

QY middle school and CY middle school put more effort into organising the thematic activities, including activities of flag-raising ceremonies, class meetings, and theme-based education; HY middle school and CZ middle school were also occupied with Project Citizen apart from the thematic activities; CW middle school performed extremely well in providing a wide range of learning opportunities abroad, as constituted in Education for International Understanding; while little record was found in the website of FL middle school.

Comparing the implementation of central, provincial, and municipal policies across schools.

At the grassroots level, most policies were implemented as one-off, fragmented, and sporadic activities. Moreover, these activities were usually called by many names, including community service, IPAC, thematic activities, class meetings. There were no clear distinctions between these so-called different forms of learning experience. For instance, in one school, IPAC was part 90

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city of thematic education, while it was vice versa (i.e., thematic education was part of IPAC) in another school.

This thesis argues that many policy requirements overlapped. The IPAC, which had been proposed since 2001, the school-based curriculum, and ME model schools shared many similarities in both content and format. Also, since most of the policies were assessed by choosing excellent cases throughout self-declarations, the actual formal program evaluation was not available. The absence of formal evaluations led to a lack of feedback regarding the quality of the policies, which also contributed to the unnecessarily overlapping policies.

Therefore, it was more important for policy makers to ensure schools were stable, rather than smarter, through a fast-changing policy environment. However most documentary politics were valid for as short as 2–3 years (only central policies could remain in effect for as long as five years), plus these policies were mandatory for the sake of efficiency. It could take years for schools to respond to a particular policy, for it took a long time for educators to familiarise themselves with the new policies. A feasible resolution to the current disadvantaged situation was to make policies that only targeted optimising and adjusting the previous policies, and with clear explications of the particular changes. Meanwhile, an exemplar of best practices should be provided along with policy requirements.

Finally, it was found that there was a similar staffing structure across the education system that substantiated general legislative and regulative requirements at grassroots level. There were involvements from Basic Education, Party Committee, and the Discipline Inspection Committee at each level, controlling the policy content and personnel training. The pattern of this bureaucratic structure revealed the characteristics of the Matryoshka principle, which ensured consistency of execution. However, such a staffing structure prevented the possibility of external interventions, such as from parents, community, and even the market. Hence, the running of Moral Education largely depended on the people inside the system.

4.3 Chapter Summary: Implications of Schools’ Capacities to make curriculum change

This chapter reviewed the documentary politics across all levels of the education system related to Moral Education. The findings indicated that most of the policies from the Central Ministry of Education were substantiated and classified into themes by the Provincial Education Department. Then, when policies were passed onto the municipal level, they were further modified into intermediate project plans with lower difficulty and a more flexible timeframe; 91

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city while schools were responsible for execution. Due to the short valid period of documentary politics, policies changed frequently, resulting in unsteady local execution plans. However, when reviewing school websites, it was found that there were not significant changes regarding what schools were doing. Similar Moral Education activities have been given different policy names. Even worse, these activities remained sporadic and occasional, without constituting a systematic learning experience. Such a situation was rarely reported to the upper levels of the education system, because of the absence of an evaluative feedback mechanism.

In summary, it was the commanding top-down policy environment that constituted the general context where participating schools were situated. The next chapter will continue to explore the context of the study by searching for more descriptive details of the participating schools, including their environments and facilities, school ethos, and the profiles of educators.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Chapter 5: Six Schools

The present study aims to explore how the GCE (Global Citizenship Education) curriculum is localised in Chinese middle schools. As clarified in the methodology section, the study applied grounded theory and the policy Delphi method whereby interviews and policy were interwoven in order to investigate the issue. The focus of analysis lies in six school units, with data collection involving experts, school principals, and teachers. Using a specific case study design, the researcher used the six participatory schools as the six cases.

The task of this chapter is to profile the six participating schools to further contextualise the study. In contrast to chapter four, where the emphasis was on the macro policy-related general contexts of the cases, this chapter will stick with the school environment and facilities, school ethos, profiles of educators, and policy implementation. These four aspects will reflect these schools’ micro-environment, resources, as well as their actions in implementing policies, which will ground the later analysis about these schools’ situations. In addition, it will contribute to the evaluation of the generalisability of the present study: what indeed the sampled schools represent across the country. Descriptions of these cases were sourced from schools’ websites as well as the researcher’s field notes.

5.1 HY Middle School

5.1.1 School environment and facilities.

HY middle school was formed in 1981. It is located within an urban village in a western suburb of the city, less than twenty minutes’ drive from the downtown. The school size is around 5.7 acres. Classrooms are well equipped with audio-visual facilities. Other facilities, including laboratories, library, sports stadium, computer laboratories, auditorium rooms, dance training classrooms, labour skills training classrooms, and home economics classrooms, are available.

5.1.2 School motto.

HY middle school is a community-based school, recruiting students from homes in the urban village where it is situated. According to the statistical report of the school’s survey, it has a student population of nearly 1700, 70% of whom are the children of migrant workers. In this regard, the school foresees school graduates being those who will stay in the city and constitute the majority of the city builders. The motto of the school is ‘Depth and Reality’. 93

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5.1.3 Profile of educators.

Including school principals and teachers, there are around 120 staffs working in HY middle school. School leaders and teachers wish to develop students’ sense of ownership of the city as well as their competency to participate in the life of the city. As a result, there has been research conducted by Moral Education subject teachers regarding the research questions of how to develop students’ civic awareness and how to enhance the venues and efficiencies of learning resources to help with the teaching of civic awareness.

5.1.4 Policy implementation.

According to the school’s website, where there is a specific column called ‘Sunshine Moral Education’, Moral Education has been developed via thematic activities and the competition and ranking of students. The competition and ranking system seem to be a way of evaluating those thematic activities. As well, there are announcements that the school has won awards in a program called Project Citizen.

5.2 QY Middle School

5.2.1 School environment and facilities.

Most noticeably, cultural emphasis is found everywhere on the campus of QY middle school. Chinese characters, especially the character ‘Qin’, as well as classical idioms which carry meanings of traditional virtues, are found in propaganda posters, foam display boards, decorations, as well as the grand LED screen installed on the front wall of the main teaching building. For example, on a poster introducing some highly accomplished teachers, people are described as ‘stars of Qin’. In addition to those characters, the campus is full of other symbols of culture. Paper-cut art of plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum, which symbolise the nobility, are used to decorate classrooms; pots of real flowers and plants are found inside classrooms. Moreover, there is a small garden, which has been constructed based on Chinese philosophy, located behind the main teaching building. Near the garden, the school principal has reserved spacious area for students to grow various vegetables by themselves as part of their tasks in the informal curriculum.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

QY middle school is not an elite school, but a well-funded governmental school. There are laboratories, e-Learning classrooms, library, stadium, and other classrooms for specific teaching needs. It recruits students from highly diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Its website says it has a total of 1371 students, but this number is not up to date. The actual number this year is around 1440, according to the principal in the pre-interview.

5.2.2 School motto.

After being reconstituted in 2002, QY middle school came into public view with a school ethos that is strongly orientated towards traditional culture. The school’s name, ‘Qin Ye’, consists of the first characters from the Classical Chinese idioms ‘God rewards those who work hard’ and ‘Efficiency comes from diligence’. The school motto is ‘Self-discipline and diligence’, and the school culture also centres on ‘Qin’, which means diligence, assiduousness, and perseverance.

5.2.3 Profile of educators.

QY middle school has 105 teaching staff, among whom are one provincial lead teacher, one subject lead teacher, and four highly accomplished teachers. According to the website, teachers focus on the formal and school-based curricula.

5.2.4 Policy implementation.

Initiated by the school principal, QY middle school is practising curricula permeated with the philosophy of ‘Qin’. The school principal interpreted the philosophy of ‘Qin’ to be three avenues to education: the first is the avenue of heaven, following which people work hard to achieve basic skills and knowledge for living; the second is the avenue of earth, through which people pay attention to the substance and have inner power; and the third is the avenue of people, where people learn to be moral and maintain healthy social relationships.

However, such philosophy is rarely reflected in the Moral Education development. When researching the school website, most of the entries related to Moral Education are classified into flag-raising ceremonies, thematic activities, class meetings, and resource development. Apart from resource development, the activities share similarities in their formats and procedures, differing only in locations and range of activities. Still, the school has been awarded the ‘Feature

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

Moral Education School’, ‘Jiangsu Provincial Advanced Group of Basic Education Reform’, and ‘Excellent Teaching and Researching Team in Yangtze River Delta Region’.

5.3 CW Middle School

5.3.1 School environment and facilities.

CW middle school was founded in August 2001. It is a non-profit private school supported by self-raised funds and autonomously managed. It provides both middle-school and high-school education. The school has 58 classes holding about 2,800 teachers and students.

In 2015 the school moved to a new 25-acre campus in a northern suburb of the city. With buildings holding an administration centre, teaching centres, a technology centre, an art centre, a sports centre, and a life education centre, the enormous campus separates school leaders from classroom teachers and students.

5.3.2 School motto.

The school values a people-centred approach, in order to allow full development of students’ personalities now and in the future; it takes on the mission of ensuring students’ right to personal development and aims to develop active and responsible future citizens. The school motto is ‘Aiming high, seeking the truth, and being innovative’.

5.3.3 Profile of educators.

Due to its affiliation with the City C Senior High School, one of the best senior high schools in the province, CW middle school attracts the best students of the city. Its students are usually from good socioeconomic backgrounds. It also employs teachers who are first-rate professionals. There are 52 highly accomplished teachers, 8 subject lead teachers, and 11 municipal lead teachers. Nearly 100 teachers have won awards in various evaluation classes and basic skills competition, including two national first prizes and ten provincial first prizes.

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city

5.3.4 Policy implementation.

Via the section ‘student development’, there are modules of ‘foreign language festivals’, ‘community service’, ‘class meetings’, ‘flag-raising ceremonies’, and ‘project-based learning’ that may be related to Moral Education. However, activities of the ‘foreign language festivals’, ‘community service’, and ‘project-based learning’ might be held no more than twice a year, since there have been, on average, less than ten records in each module since 2013. Besides, this school has a strong advantage in Education for International Understanding, which has a high number of relevant entries listed on the school’s website.

5.4 CZ Middle School

5.4.1 School environment and facilities.

CZ middle school was established in 1997. The school now has 1300 students and 115 working staff. It is a large-sized township middle school.

In 2017, when the researcher visited the school, there was ongoing renovation work in the original school, so all school members were staying in a temporary campus that belonged to another middle school. Therefore, the facilities and the campus environment of the school after renovation is not known.

5.4.2 School motto.

CZ middle school aims to achieve distinctiveness in Moral Education as well as classroom practice reform, so as to develop students to become ‘Virtuous, studious, and responsible modern citizens’. Being virtuous means a devotion to loyalty and filial piety, being well spoken, and behaving with trustfulness and justice; being studious indicates students’ love of learning and confidence in learning, and the ability to find learning methods suited to their needs — hence, they have fun in learning; and being responsible means students can take responsibility for caring for themselves, their families, and the community where they reside.

5.4.3 Profile of educators.

Teachers in CZ middle school have been occupied with training and researching the IPAC. There is evidence of research-based provincial projects on developing students’ traditional and 97

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city modern virtues throughout the IPAC. It seems that the IPAC is an umbrella term for a series of thematic activities, based on which teachers conduct systematic teaching and research.

5.4.4 Policy implementation.

The 2012–2014 development plan found on the school’s website specified curriculum development, Moral Education, classroom practice reform and teachers’ professional development. In particular, the plan on Moral Education targeted the ‘integration of traditional moralities and the modern characters,’ which includes strengthening three core elements in Moral Education, designing a series of thematic activities on Moral Education, improving teachers’ awareness and skills in subject teaching of Moral Education, working on enhancing the level of mental health education, and integrating the resources of Moral Education.

These modules in the development plan have been realised via seminars on personalised learning management, organising IPAC activities (including project-based learning, Project Citizenship, and so on), developing Chinese culture-centred school-based curriculum materials, and supporting the student music society. When browsing the school website, there were very few articles on each of these practices and no information after 2014 was available.

5.5 CY Middle School

5.5.1 School environment and facilities.

CY middle school was founded in 1950. It has a 6.6-acre campus located inside the old town of the city. There are 20 classes and 68 teachers.

5.5.2 School motto.

CY middle school aims to construct a warm and welcoming campus where there are vibrant students and responsible and moral teachers. Students especially are developed as modern citizens who are healthy, optimistic, civic-mannered, honest, sincere, independent, responsible, and capable of efficient learning and communication, as well as mastering their own particular hobbies and interests.

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5.5.3 Profile of educators.

Most of the 58 teachers are senior, professional teachers, and there are 20 lead teachers. No further information regarding teachers’ professional development in teaching Moral Education was found.

5.5.4 Policy implementation.

The school has been engaging in a Rainbow Moral Education Project, according to the displayed propaganda. The project included reading activities, career planning, as well as thematic activities of Hobbies Training Education, Legal Education, ‘Learn to be Grateful’ Education, and Environmental Education.

However, very little systematic descriptions on Moral Education were available on this school’s website. All valuable information was recorded in the school news, where there were sporadic articles on relevant practices. These articles on various one-off thematic activities were displayed disorderedly on the website, including the reading activities, IPAC, community service, studying the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, flag-raising ceremonies, and so on.

5.6 FL Middle School

5.6.1 School environment and facilities.

FL middle school is a branch school affiliated to an extremely large community middle school. It was built in 2014 and has a campus of 13.7 acres. The school has eight classes for each grade and contains four teaching blocks, one office and laboratory block, a stadium and an exercise yard.

5.6.2 School motto.

There is an overarching school motto for all branch schools affiliated to the main community middle school, including FL middle school. The school motto is ‘Social commitment and diligence in study’. However, when touring around the campus, the school did not have distinctive features from other middle schools in China. The campus is new and large and so there is not yet a discernible ethos specific to the school members. 99

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5.6.3 Profile of educators.

Exact information on teaching staff in FL middle school is unclear. A search found only that the school was still advertising for teachers. In fact, the participants involved in the study were all recently employed by the school. Most of them were early-career teachers. The working atmosphere was enthusiastic, curious, and idealistic. Participants were interested in interacting with the researcher regarding the study and their own teaching experiences, and they were willing to express their opinions and wanted acknowledgement.

5.6.4 Policy implementation.

FL middle school, along with the other two affiliated schools, shared the same website. A search of articles specifically released by FL Middle School found extremely few records, and none of the available records matched the four criteria the thesis intends to investigate.

5.7 A Cross-Case Comparison

Table 5.1 Characteristics of the Six Schools School HY QY CW CZ CY FL Educational Government Government Independent Government Government Government sector Location Mid-distant Inner-city Suburban fringe Mid-distant Inner-city Suburban fringe suburb suburb suburb suburb Established 1981 Reconstituted 2001 1997 1950 2014 in 2002 School size Small Moderate Huge Moderate Small large Student gender Coeducational Coeducational Coeducational Coeducational Coeducational Coeducational Principal Autocratic Transformative Autocratic Facilitative Transformative Facilitative Student Low-SES Moderate SES High SES Moderate SES Low-SES Low-SES background School ability Comprehensive Comprehensive Selective Comprehensive Comprehensive Comprehensive type Modal student Moderate Moderate-high High-academic Moderate-high Moderate Low-moderate performance School Moral Moral Moral Moral Moral Moral environment Education Education Education and Education Education Education English School ethos* Efficiency Marxism Efficiency Democracy Marxism Democracy oriented oriented oriented oriented oriented oriented School motto Depth and Qin – Aiming high, Virtuous, Qualified Social Reality diligence, seeking truth studious, and modern citizens commitment assiduousness, and being responsible and diligent in and innovative modern citizens study perseverance *: The judgements of school ethos were included based on the preceding information without clarification. Please refer to chapter six for more details.

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This chapter provided overall contextual information about the schools, covering the environment and facilities, school ethos, and educators. There was only one private school, which was CW middle school. The other schools were all public schools. In the Chinese education system, the classification of private and public school is not as simple as different types of ownership. Both of them belong to the government but differ from each other in terms of how they recruit students. There is an historical cause to such division of schools in the Chinese context.

In 1986, the rule that governments at different levels should ensure children and teenagers enter nearby primary schools and middle schools was included in the ‘Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China’ (for short, this policy is also referred to as ‘nearby entry’). Though this rule intended to promote equality in education, it was interpreted as a typical policy guided by a stratified model of education where resources were still not distributed equitably due to imbalanced regional development (Chen & Fang, 2007). This rule was criticised for being utopian, inefficient, and lacking humanity (Feng, 2003). In the 1990s, families, usually those from middle or upper classes who sought better education sources, turned to schools that offered more advanced education and were willing to consider enrolling high-performing students not living nearby (Jiang, 2008). Accordingly, this ‘school selecting’ phenomenon caused intensified social stratification and weakened class mobility (Jiang, 2008). Later, since May 2005, various rules and regulations restricting school selecting have been enacted and implemented by the education administration system but have not proved successful. In the most recent version of ‘Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China’ the emphasis was on reducing the distribution gap of education resources among schools, and both ‘school selecting’ and ‘nearby entry’ were permitted.

In the present study, CW middle school is a typical private school that students from high socioeconomic backgrounds attend. It was established in the year when ‘school selecting’ was most popular. It is hard to judge its actual autonomy compared to the other five schools, and it does not clearly state its position on its website. But it is among the few middle schools in the city at present that accept students regardless of district restrictions.

The other middle schools are all public schools subject to the ‘nearby entry’ policy. Since the ‘nearby entry’ policy requires schools to enrol students living in the same district where the school is located, these five middle schools can also be categorised as community-based schools. The ranking and qualities of these schools are also highly dependent on their locations: unless relocation takes place, the closer a school is to the downtown the better the education resources

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city it holds. Amongst these five schools, CZ middle school and QY middle school are better resourced than the other three schools.

Apart from the division between public and private schools, Chinese middle schools are also distinguished by the stakeholders who are in charge of them. Some schools are directly run by education authorities, including authorities at county level, lower-tier municipal level, higher- tier municipal level, provincial level, and central ministry level. These schools are known as directly affiliated schools. They get access to the best resources, such as teaching sources. Other schools are funded by state-owned enterprises, such as the State Grid Corporation of China. In this type of school, sub-district offices usually manage the appointment and dismissal of school principals, daily expenses, and investments in facilities. Though most are partitioned to the education authorities now, these schools are of lower ranking compared to the directly affiliated schools. All the participating schools belong to the directly affiliated schools. CW middle school, though not categorised as a public school, does not belong to a state-owned enterprise, and is run by a local education bureau.

Regarding the size of the participating schools, the older a school is, the smaller it is. Among all six middle schools, CY middle school, QY middle school, HY middle school, and CZ middle school have relatively small campuses and smaller student and staff populations. In contrast, CW middle school and FL middle school have large campuses, especially CW middle school which is almost equivalent in size to a university. Reflecting upon organisational learning theory, the fewer hierarchies between staff and executives, the flatter an organisation is, which leads to decentralised decision-making and increased productivity (Ghisell & Siegel, 1972). In this regard, it was assumed at this stage of the thesis that those older schools with small or moderate sizes had advantages over those newer and larger schools in achieving a flat organisation.

5.8 Chapter Summary

This chapter has described the schools that are the focus of the present study, depicting details of the microenvironments of each school. The purpose of this chapter was to extend descriptions of the material environments to the social environments where the schools are situated. This will support readers’ understanding of participants’ perceptions in the following three chapters by offering details about the immediate context participants were working in.

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Chapter 6: Situational Analysis

In chapter five, schools’ profiles were explained to give a more detailed description, conditioned by the general bureaucratic context of the Chinese education system. As one avenue of research inquiry, the researcher has conducted situational analysis to collect evidence about schools’ potential for fostering GCE as a curriculum change.

The situational analysis takes a systemic approach to understanding the curriculum context, including collecting sources on the devised categories of factors both external (i.e., cultural and social changes and expectations, educational system requirements and challenges, changing nature of content, resources) and internal to the schools (i.e., pupils, teachers, school ethos, material resources, and perceived problems) (Print, 1993, pp. 114–115). It is applied in the present study as a list of factors to select from to obtain insights (as themes, see Table six) into how GCE is fostered in participating schools.

It is argued in this chapter that the emergence of GCE in participating schools is dependent on schools’ responses to internal tensions and to the bureaucratic educational system. The outcomes reveal a varied pattern of the potential for schools to integrate GCE as a new concept, and that schools generally follow a consistently slow trend of introducing GCE. At the epistemological level, the findings of this chapter will contribute to an understanding of the functionalities of GCE as a desiring-machine.

This chapter reports evidences framed by the external and internal factors to the schools as a systematic evaluation of the conditions of schools’ preparedness for curricular changes. Based on these evidences, the researcher generated a total of thirteen themes, which will be explicated throughout the reporting. Finally, in the Section 6.3, these themes will be further inducted into four broad themes (i.e., compliance and commitment, social mobility, competency-based education, and administrative constraints) to describe how Chinese middle schools were conditioned for introducing GCE (see Figure six).

Table 6.1 Selective Factors and the Themes in Data Analysis Selective factors from the list of factors Themes in situational analysis Cultural and social changes and Theme 1: lack of capital resources expectations Theme 2: need more supports from parents Theme 3: lack support from communities Educational system requirements and Theme 4: criticisms of drawbacks of the traditional score-based education system challenges

Changing nature of content Theme 5: quality of education Pupils Theme 6: purpose of schooling

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Teachers Theme 7: highly consistent professional skills and mindsets School ethos Theme 8: the overcrowded curriculum Theme 9: less democratic work environment Theme 10: unified workloads Theme 11: self-sufficient educational system Theme 12: influence of leadership Material resources Theme 13: limited material resources

6.1 External Factors

6.1.1 Cultural and social changes and expectations

A common pattern revealed in the interviews – principals and teachers confirmed the necessity of implementing GCE and suggested it was the appropriate time to do so. For instance, as most obviously seen in CZ middle school, the participants mentioned that developing students’ global awareness is among the higher educational requirements for being able to connect with the world in the modern era. They stated that GCE should be integrated as part of schools’ teaching and learning resources platform. According to Wu, the principal of CZ middle school:

Whether it is the internet, or it is education, there must be openness, sharing, and inclusion. If the outside world is not known, critical and accurate judgements will be difficult to make. Therefore, there must be resources which offer students broader horizons and help them in their future lives. Education is future-oriented, so we must be sure to give students such a platform.

However, such a belief that GCE is important and vital, which was widely shared and committed to by the participants, was not accepted as an achievable teaching opportunity that schools can provide. Regardless of the schools the participants came from, they regarded being global as a status based on enough capital resources. Making contact with foreigners, studying or travelling abroad, hosting educators from other countries, or even purchasing foreign products were examples identified as evidence of being global. The participants stated that these experiences are not ordinary for a large proportion of their students, many of whom are from migrant worker families. For example, teacher W reflected that 60% of her students are from families that had just moved to the city, and that they are restricted to their own social circles due to economic pressure. She then revealed that, although more than 1,000 students attend QY middle school, the number of students who register with the AFS program each year remains in single digits.

Participants’ comprehension of globalisation was confined to the neoliberal-oriented conception, which prevented them from noticing some subtle changes. During the interviews, 104

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city participants talked about many examples of daily changes resulting from the imposed influence of globalisation without cognitive awareness; for example, the demographic change in student bodies due to the influx of migrant workers, or the observation by some teachers that students are copying Korean pop singers’ hairstyles. Other details, including the new teaching goals set by the Ministry of Education, changes in educators’ working environment due to urbanisation, and even worsening air quality may also all indicate the ongoing trivial impacts of globalisation.

The neoliberalism-oriented conception of globalisation led to many participants feeling that GCE is not closely related to their everyday teaching. Except for CW middle school, which was the only private middle school in the sample, and so can provide different opportunities and has students who display capabilities of foreign language mastery, all the other community schools proposed that GCE has requirements beyond their schools’ current actual ability. This includes concerns such as students’ learning ability, teachers’ teaching ability, and the quality of the schools’ curriculum resources.

In addition, society's expectations remain at the stage where schools should take on all the responsibilities of education. Among all the factors, parents were identified as an important resource: the benefits of parental involvement were made obvious. In the interviews, teachers expressed the need for parental involvement in project-based learning programs. Teacher J said that, in her mock United Nations community activities, parents initiate their children’s interests and provide them with rich learning resources, such as teaching them how to collect data from appropriate informative websites, “so even if there was no such teaching content in the current formal curriculum, most students are able to cope with the activities in the society through self- learning during after-school hours”. In addition, Teacher L stated that parents provide convenient transportation, ensuring the safety of students when they are working on projects:

[When I supervised student projects] I took them out during self-study classes. I had to invite parents to go with me, because my car couldn’t seat 16 students. I could only have the students take turns, letting eight of them go out of school with me and a parent for investigation one day, and the other eight another day. I wanted to make sure they had sufficient experience of investigation, including finding the research problem, collecting evidence, and making conclusions.

Further, a considerable number of teachers also mentioned the need for parents to provide social connections for students to complete their data collection for project-based learning programs.

Although many benefits of parental involvement were addressed, support from parents does not always go smoothly. There was a general concern from participants regarding the

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city difficulties of collaborating with parents, but teacher H pointed out that this might be because they lack the necessary knowledge and skills. In her school, an informal salon for parents to gather is taking place. From talking to parents in this salon, she has found that they are just not aware of the appropriate way of working with schools.

In addition to parents, the participants also mentioned the importance of community resources. According to Principal B, resources such as the emerging ‘Guidance and Mastery’ provides extra free tutoring services for students from low-income families. Although communities have been gradually participating in education more during recent years, such changes are still led by the local education bureau. The participants are still waiting to see stronger collaboration between schools and communities.

6.1.2 Educational system requirements and challenges

During the interviews, the participants emphasised the dominant goal of improving students’ examination scores in their work. Teacher W from QY middle school admitted that most teachers are occupied with teaching from textbooks, fully comprehending the knowledge points, and improving students’ scores. Teacher F used the term “school’s life-and-death benchmark” to describe the important role played by scores in the education system. In some cases, the significance of scores is even strengthened by stakeholders outside the education system. Principal B pointed out that, because parents are too practical and utilitarian, they only take students’ scores into account. This has imposed the trend of evaluating students based on scores alone on the Chinese education system. This is in accordance with the stereotypical descriptions of how parents pressurise schools regarding examination scores. The social niche requires schools to depend heavily on improving scores as a pathway to proving their education quality. Principal U shared a similar attitude towards this social convention. He admitted that his school relies on examination scores to survive; however, he expressed disapproval of the examination- oriented education system. He stated:

I wrote an article called ‘Education, please wait for the soul’. Why would I give the article this name? [Because I believe] Education is farming. It is a slow art. Please do not play capricious tricks [as paths of reform]. [Education reformers are] On their high horse and say the key to successful reform is the teachers. I think teachers have already been troubled too much. You do not trouble teachers. Just let teachers slow down and think about what the nature of education is. I don’t oppose examinations, I oppose examination-oriented education. China without examinations would mean that nothing would be possible. But if China only has examinations, it is doomed. In terms of my school, which supports the underside of society, if I do not have the [required high] 106

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scores, [the school] dies immediately. If I only have scores, [the school] will die slowly. That’s how I understand it. I accept all the kids in my school, without excluding anyone. [When they] Come to my school, I want to build on every kid’s competencies to their full potential.

His standpoint was echoed by all the other interviewees in the research. Although principals and teachers spend most of their efforts on improving students’ scores, they dislike the idea of evaluating students based on scores alone. In response to the interview question “What is your educational philosophy?” none of the participants mentioned that achieving high scores was their core belief about teaching. Rather, many of them spontaneously expressed antipathy towards the examination-oriented education system. There was a heart-breaking story from Principal Y, from CY middle school:

When this class was initially formed, I knew that there were 7 or 8 weak students. They were extremely weak in schoolwork. Some of them were from famous primary schools where strategies such as appreciation had already been tried on them. You couldn’t carry out physical punishment. These kids were invulnerable to any persuasions. They smiled at you when you praised them and waited to see how many more ‘tricks’ you could play. Therefore, it was a great challenge for the teachers… there was only one way to conquer the challenge, and that was to believe in them and regard them as talented students. That was how I treated them. Once I started to do so, amazing things happened: those students really were getting better and better. As a result, there were no weak students in my class. Actually, nobody had ever taken this approach in the school, because nobody would have thought and acted the way I did… Before, teachers scolded students and called their parents to come [when students did examinations or performed poorly]. Gradually, teachers were not doing that any longer. Education exists to discover and emancipate, and then you will find what the true education is. What is the nature of students? They are not adults. They are those with limitless potential. But they are never underprivileged. They should not be labelled as weak. There are no weak students, there are just different people.

As well as improving students’ performance in examinations, schools also attach importance to maintaining consistency of policies. In the interviews, participants from each school all mentioned the links between GCE and the national standards of student development. The standard referred to most commonly was the ‘Core Competencies and Values for Chinese Students’ Development’. As stated by Principal B:

The Ministry of Education recognises it, and has discussed it for a long time... it was an agreed policy in China, with different emphases for students of different age groups… Therefore, citizen literacy could be regarded as the main component of the core competencies and values for Chinese students’ development, and it does not conflict

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with global citizenship education. Moreover, it has expanded more than civic competencies, such as the ability of life-long learning, and the spirit of humanities.

The findings showed that frontline educators are more concerned about the balance between their educational ideals and responsibilities. Regarding GCE, although principals and teachers see it as worthwhile, they seem to pay more attention to whether it could overlap with current education policies. These schools are attempting to achieve the eventual goal under the existing conditions.

6.1.3 Changing nature of content

The present study has also found that the participating schools are facing the situation of using a new version of Moral Education textbooks, which are supposed to be used across the country. For a decade, there was an old regional version of the textbook (used across several provinces) for this subject, but in 2016 a new provincial version of the textbook (only for use in Jiangsu province) was introduced, which was compiled by local educators and researchers. One year later, a mandatory national version of the textbook was introduced across the country. During the interviews, the participants, and especially the senior teachers, showed more familiarity with the teaching content of the previous versions. For instance, teacher H summarised that the oldest regional version had different focuses for each year: Year 7 focused on the psychological aspect, Year 8 focused on people and others, and Year 9 was mainly about improving students' sense of responsibility; whereas the provincial version has reoccurring themes across Years 7, 8, and 9.

Regarding the new textbook, the structure, contents, and learning objects of the subject have changed. Principal B reflected that switching to a national textbook happened because the intertwined themes frequently caused overlapping in teaching, and confusion about exact teaching goals for each stage. Principal Z also addressed the highlights of the new textbook:

Compared with the old textbooks, based on the student learning experience, the national textbooks include more contents on laws, and have changed from a spiral sequence to a componential sequence. Being based on the students’ learning experience is the biggest feature of the new version of textbooks. Secondly, the new textbooks substantiate students’ learning of generative knowledge, which is brought into the overall knowledge framework by arranging scenario learning activities as part of teaching tasks. Thirdly, in order to meet the principles of Moral Education, there are more requirements around cultivating civic awareness, from the perspectives of individuals, the individual and her classmates, and the individual and society: my classmates, me, and the social system. It is still unclear how to evaluate teaching from the new textbooks: we need to wait for the 108

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unified standards from the provincial education department and the provincial education research institute.

For the teachers, it is more challenging to teach the new textbook because higher requirements have been set. As described by the teachers in FL Middle School, the textbooks have dispensed with indoctrinating texts, such as paragraphs of conclusions and definitions, and now require teachers to have students actively listen and practise in class before they come to their own conclusions. Therefore, the new textbooks enhance students’ learning experience and cultivate their awareness of democratic participation. Moreover, the new books require two classes of practical activities as the last teaching task of each unit. These changes have brought about more difficulties in preparing for teaching plans, such as considering of students’ roles when designing scenarios, as well as additional thinking on how to embed sections for students to think, discuss, and collaborate. Besides, although not reflected through the pre-interviews, teachers’ choices of creating pedagogies were triangulated with the changing official pedagogy in the Character Improvement Project, as was described in chapter four, “a constructivist approach to create a vivid ecology for basic education, which is centred on reality-based, problem-oriented, and value-guided teaching covering the perspectives of morality, humanity, and scientific spirits” (from ‘Notice of the Provincial Department of Education and the Provincial Department of Finance on Launching the Implementation of the Character Enhancement Project for Primary and Secondary School Students in Jiangsu Province, Su Jiaoji [2017] No. 4’). These improving pedagogies also underpin the problem-based learning which has been found as a hypothetical rather than an existing option in chapter two (Blumenfeld, et al., 1991, pp. 373– 375; Deci, Vallerand, Polletier & Ryan, 1991), and forecast a possibility of implementing GCE in the future.

In conclusion, as mentioned in the previous section, in practice educators are having to balance the requirements of the education system with their educational ideals. It is highly likely that the teaching quality of the new textbooks could still be dependent on examination results. It will take time before the long-term outcomes of the new textbooks become apparent.

6.2 Internal Factors

6.2.1 Pupils

Schools’ social responsibilities are closely related to the conditions of students. The household system in China used to immobilise residents; however, the situation changed since the opening-up policy that was introduced at the end of 1970s. Migrant workers from less 109

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city developed regions started to seek opportunities in cities. Regarding middle schools that participated in the current project, all the public schools (i.e., all except CW middle school) have a large number of students from migrant workers’ families. In CZ middle school, half of the new students are from migrant workers’ families; in QY middle school, they make up 60% of the total student population; and in HY and FL middle schools, the percentage reaches as high as 70%. According to the participants, these students’ parents and guardians originate from various parts of the country. They have brought with them different lifestyles, languages, and values from their cultural regions. Consequently, the class populations are diverse. Compared to local students, students from migrant workers’ families need more support to integrate into their classes, as well as into the local community after graduation. In the participants’ words, they are developing the new citizens for city C. They also stated that the task of developing new citizens for the city is an urgent and vital matter. Most students from migrant worker families enter the job market immediately after three years in middle school due to the fairly low enrolment rate into high school. These students have generally not built up a solid foundation during their primary school education before entering middle schools, nor do they receive extra educational investment from their families during their later lives. They rely on schools to prepare them for making a living in a foreign city. Conversely, public schools bear the social responsibilities of fostering these students to become law-abiding, culturally assimilated, and responsible citizens. Here is a quote from Principal Y:

We all know that China is going through a social transformation. At this stage, dozens of millions of migrant workers were travelling across the country, just like migratory birds. Their offspring follow them to this city and come to my school, becoming 70% of the student population. These migrant workers are, in Dostoevsky’s words, the Humiliated and Insulted. They are living at the foot of the social ladder. Their kids are growing up in an environment where their family education, primary school education, their peers and the ideas they learn [are poor and limited]. Therefore, you do not have the right to complain in this school.

6.2.2 Teachers

The teachers who participated in the present study were nominated by their school principals. Most of them were teaching Moral Education, as well as taking on the role of class head teachers. Regarding teaching of the formal curricula, these teachers share similar characteristics in terms of their values, which seem to be shaped by their educational backgrounds and the training they have received.

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In their responses, these teachers also showed a strong sense of commitment to the subject they are teaching. This pattern seemed to be consistent with their teaching profession education during their undergraduate years, regardless of which schools they were working in. They frequently used phrases and sentences from the textbooks to answer the interview questions. It was found that the two teachers who did not display such strong commitment were not graduates of political education. In the interviews, these two teachers gave different answers, while the other teachers’ answers were all highly consistent with each other. Aside from the education for undergraduate degrees, there are also professional training opportunities provided by the local educational bureau, through which teachers can improve their professional skills at a fairly consistent pace and manner. As a result, a series of unique teaching pedagogies, some of which invented by educators themselves, are widely used across all the participating schools, including: project outcome exposition, model court, classroom sitcoms, and whole-school debate, in addition to the traditional group discussions, voting, project-based learning, studying and emulating, role playing, and so on.

Moreover, the teachers’ value systems have been influenced by their work experience, including the experiences of being class head teachers and teaching Moral Education as a subject. Based on their similar educational backgrounds and work experience, the teachers shared some similar characteristics in their ways of thinking. Their commitment to Maoist dialectic materialism as their acknowledged method of ethical reasoning was particularly clear.

However, the impacts of such consistent characteristics are only restricted to the teaching of the formal curriculum. The teachers’ own educational philosophies, personal experiences, and their own perceptions of work experience regarding the informal curricula seem to be separate from the standards of Moral Education.

Because the principals and teachers are those who interact with students directly in daily life, their educational philosophies are closely related to students’ development. They denied that scores were important to students. In particular, teachers from CZ middle school claimed that they did not consider having students achieving good marks to be part of their educational philosophy. Teacher L stated that:

The current examination scores cannot determine students’ future. However, if they have strong and happy hearts, and can adjust themselves to deal with setbacks, they will have promising future whatever jobs they choose to do. That’s what is required for being a citizen.

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Similarly, Teacher Z said: “I hope my kids will be lovers of life. That is just all I want to see from them. I am not a teacher who pays attention to scores.” Teachers from the other schools offered similar opinions; however, they were expressed in a more subtle way.

Moreover, the education and training teachers have received are less relevant to teaching GCE-related contents, such as civic skills. Teacher Z told the researcher that there is no unified training on how to supervise students regarding the Project Citizen program. Furthermore, except for the apprenticeship-like mentoring for junior teachers in her school, there are rarely exchanges of opinion about supervisory techniques among colleagues, which leads to teaching becoming fully dependent on each teacher’s own techniques, knowledge, experience, and even personality. This is what she believes causes obvious differences between schools in the implementation of informal curricula.

Teacher Z’s remarks concur with the different actual states of implementation of informal curricula across schools. The varied levels of intervention from teachers was noticeable. For instance, in HY middle school, teachers clarified tasks, provided exemplars, and informed students about what the correct and realistic project outputs were. In QY middle school, teachers had to work out the theoretical framework, step-by-step instructions, data management, and data analysis for students, because they thought the students were incapable of conducting the projects. This was despite the students contributing to new ideas when making reflections from their own life experiences:

… but when it was the task of conducting an interview, in terms of writing the outline of the interview; for example, if they decide to use semi-structured interviews, they would need assistance on designing the instruments. Another example is that, when they are designing the survey questions, they don’t even know what the components of a survey are. They don’t know that options should be exclusive of each other, or how to ask open- ended questions, or how many questions are appropriate for a survey; nor do they know anything about the logic of designing a survey, or if any specific terms are needed to give explanations. They just do not know these things at all.

These types of knowledge are not included in the national formal curriculum, nor is there a fixed time arranged in the formal curriculum to teach them. Even after considerable effort, the teachers were still unable to extend the learning opportunities to every student in their classes. Therefore, as systemic standards of learning objectives for the different stages of mastery are not available, the gap between the expectations of the informal curricula and the requirements of the national formal curriculum is unknown. Teachers attempt to fill this ignored gap using their own knowledge, energies, and spare time. When working with less guided programs, they have cultivated their own civic awareness, to be more active, and extend visions beyond the

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city areas restricted by teaching a subject. The pattern is more obvious in schools where more attention is devoted to informal curricula.

Teachers’ own educational philosophies and their perceptions of informal curricula that require lower compliance seemed to be related to their educational background and experiences of teaching formal curriculum.

6.2.3 School ethos

Operational procedure.

The responses also showed that schools do not plan to leave space for doing additional tasks. The additional tasks were less appealed to participants than those preoccupied duties. Principal Z from FL middle school admitted that the main work of the Moral Education course is not GCE.

Management rigidity and formalisation.

It is difficult for schools to ease the tensions caused by assessment and evaluation. Most teachers mentioned in the interviews that the best way to implement GCE would be to include it within the examination system. Otherwise, it will be challenging for schools to develop GCE by themselves. As Teacher W stated:

Basically, all the activities were organised by the school. The decisions about organising activities and courses are determined by hierarchies of the education system, level by level. And there have been really, really too many such activities. Therefore, we seldom plan activities or courses by ourselves. What we have been occupied with is completing tasks.

Alongside the pressures of examination, there are also other factors. As several participants reflected, the arts subjects in China were designed as patriotic education. It is therefore assumed that the learning objectives of many activities are not to improve the learning experience. One teacher made the following criticism:

Nowadays, in the Politics class, we are teaching content on international cooperation, but I don’t think students really possess a global awareness only because of the presence of this part of the content.

That the excessive accumulation of activities could hardly become systematic was shown to already be a consensus among the principals and teachers. The drawbacks of Moral Education in China were further explicated by Principal Y:

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We have a narrow view towards civic education… as well as the tokenism and stereotype of execution… the learning of foreign cultures (e.g., celebrating foreign festivals) remains superficial… Our students might lack the opportunities and conditions to have a deeper understanding.

The persistent tradition of carrying out these burdensome activities is also due to the potential competitive relationship among schools. Good performance in various activities could result in higher teaching evaluations and richer resources. Therefore, schools keep getting involved in such activities, but not fully investing by, for example, setting plans for systematising these learning opportunities into their curriculum teaching to initiate a real reform. It is possible that this contributes to the participants’ impression that GCE would be merely icing on the cake but is too expensive and difficult to achieve.

Time for learning and sharing.

Fulfilling tasks assigned by higher officials is also labour-intensive. This was a common concern across all the participating schools. Especially for graduate teachers, as they were taking on multiple roles, including as subject teachers, class head teachers, elective unit teachers, and supervisors for project-based learning. Teacher M from FL middle school highlighted that he has a rather heavy workload. He took out a piece of his timetable from a drawer under his office desk to demonstrate his weekly tasks:

That’s exactly how the timetable looks. [Within one week,] as well as my Moral Education classes, there are practice classes. I also have another four classes of Civics and Citizenship Education and one class meeting with students. There are also fifteen classes in the formal curriculum, as well as PE classes and other sundry duties. I am also in charge of a whole grade of students. To keep an eye on those kids, not allowing them to go out play by themselves, is what I need to do as the director of the grade.

Teacher W from QY middle school concurred, stating:

The situation of Chinese classroom teachers, especially junior teachers, is worrying. For example, in my case, my workload is huge. I need to do a good job of class management and cooperate with the school’s various activities. The class head teacher is a role to whom all departments in the school can assign tasks. And I also need to do my teaching work well when am occupied with other jobs arranged by the school. My time and energy are very, very limited. Most of the time, the will is there, but not the strength [regarding any other worthwhile preparation for teaching].

As a result, the principals and teachers interpreted GCE as a challenge outside their job descriptions.

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School norms.

Centralisation is not only caused by hierarchical management, but also by the intentional isolation of schools from other societal sectors. On the one hand, stakeholders outside schools disregard their impacts upon education. Both the principals and teachers interviewed criticised parents and the community for not being responsible for education. For instance, Principal U from QY middle school commented that:

… the society should not only demand contributions from education for its own sake but should also give back to education.

Principal B from HY middle school, along with teachers who held similar views, also emphasised the irresponsibility and non-cooperation of some parents. Principal Y from CY middle school organises a “parent salon” to encourage better communication with parents regarding school decisions. CZ and CY middle schools, where more parents are from a higher social class, still encounter intense pressure from parents and society due to the expectation of taking full responsibility for students’ development.

On the other hand, the principals and teachers only mentioned wanting the community to be a provider of resources: they did not expect outsiders to intervene in their decision making regarding the school curriculum. It seems plausible that communities and other societal sectors do not regard supporting education as part of their responsibilities. Thanks to efforts by local educational bureaux, some schools are running volunteering programs with charities and NGOs.

Other contexts see different models, such as the Australian education system, where school curriculum development involves a much wider range of stakeholders, including the community, religious groups, parents, and even business enterprises (Print, 1993).

Finally, although the schools have different mottos, a prevalent “face” culture was revealed across the participating schools. As shown in Table 5.1, the displayed school mottos are not in accordance with the actual school ethos in these six schools. The contradictory educational ideals and practices might reflect some hidden problems in the school evaluation system.

Power distribution.

Teachers might still share powers with principals, indicating that power distribution does not necessarily follow the structure of the management system. Although power over planning the curriculum in the Chinese education system should be in accordance with the hierarchical administrative arrangement, in a descending order from principals to teachers, the present study has found that educators other than principals could participate in developing the school

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city curriculum in schools of a small or moderate size, and that the principals are confident with this progressive leadership style.

In terms of school size, the findings indicated that schools of a larger size tend to adhere more to the descending hierarchical power order when making decisions on curriculum development, while those of small or moderate size have more chance of achieving democratic decisions. Among all the participating schools, CW middle school has the largest campus, almost matching the size of a university, with an increasing number of teachers and students. In CW middle school, different departments are remote from each other, and collaborations among departments and levels occur mainly through immediate execution of instructions from the principal. In comparing the interview transcripts from principal C and teacher J, a high degree of convergence and overlapping usage of words and sentences is seen, with the teacher nearly exactly repeating everything the principal had said in their interview. Moreover, the teacher was unaware of other ongoing curriculum development in the school except for her own work, although she gave smart and intellectual responses to the interview questions. By contrast, in community-based schools of a small size, including CZ, CY, and HY middle schools, along with moderate-sized schools such as QY and FL middle schools, the decision-making processes for curriculum development involve the participation of teachers in varied administrative roles. In their interviews, teachers from community schools were more willing to share their own opinions and past experiences of constructing school curriculum activities, whereas the principals regarded their roles as being organisers or coordinators. That teachers’ voices being heard in community-based schools implied the blurred boundaries of the hierarchical power distributions.

Principal involvement.

The findings showed that principals who have experiences and resources appeared to be more confident about making their own decisions rather than being heavily intervened by the standardised commands. Although principals are supposed to have the greatest power, their job functions are subject to supervision by the local education bureau. Every educational procedure in these schools is predetermined by the local Ministry of Education, including teaching contents, examinations, school timetables, and school activities. Evidence is available from the participants’ reflections during interviews that it is hard for principals to work outside the ways in which higher officials frame education, despite making mild adjustments.

Inside a school, the principal might be the person who accumulates the opinions of all their subordinates. However, individuals might not be the primary sources influencing principals’ decisions: subordinates might also present as interest groups. Evidence to support this 116

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city argument is widespread among the participants’ responses. Principal U from QY middle school claimed his disapproval of policies of frequent educational reforms, because he knows that teachers need sufficient time to reflect and improve on their teaching practices. Principal Y from CY middle school criticised the current Moral Education system, as his teaching and administrative experiences of his school’s ecological environment confirm his proposition that Moral Education achieves better effects with students from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, as it helps to ensure their human rights. Principal C from CW middle school considers the overall high performance of students; therefore, she provides first-class resources to students to develop “elites and leaders of every career and field.” In contrast, principal B, who is in charge of a community school, put more emphasis on working on students’ life skills in order to develop children from migrant workers families into new citizens of the city. Finally, the principals from FL and CZ middle schools, both of whom are relatively young, tended to show more respect for the senior teachers in their schools and mentioned that they rely on their opinions.

However, the principals mentioned that they follow a standardised approach when they want to commit to policies, or they are unaware of the consequences of their decisions. As was reflected through the interview process and Delphi surveys, the commitment to standardised commands is significantly influenced by the long-term compliance-oriented socialist model of the country. Some principals favour and appreciate decisions from the central system. For instance, during the interviews, which coincided with the period of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, principal C from CW middle school and principal B from HY middle school emphasised the benefits of being governed by a socialist government. Alongside important social events, principals focused on talking through the highlights of what they do to follow the educational policies, although each has had different outcomes.

This commitment to standardised management might also result from principals’ neglect of the negative effects produced by the execution of some decisions. In a highly centralised system, where even principals’ leadership power is suppressed or deprived, principals might only act as a vector of passing on top-down orders and instructions. Meanwhile, no feedback loop seems to be present in the researched middle schools; hence, the more a school principal relies on hierarchical management, the less the teachers’ voices are heard. It was argued that there is a lack of a formal venue across the administrative hierarchy for different stakeholders to communicate feedback and opinions.

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6.2.4 Material resources

Teachers mainly rely on the national textbooks. In the study, the teachers’ responses reflect that the textbooks are the main first-hand materials they have access to, and dictate the teaching contents they must follow in their classrooms. Teacher Z from CZ middle school also reflected that teachers have little power in determining what to teach. She was once invited to write textbooks for the regional-level curriculum, but she experienced a setback after her and her colleagues’ efforts were turned down by the central Ministry of Education after their own textbooks were introduced. At present, all middle schools across the country are required to use the universal textbook for the national standard curriculum.

The conditions that the principals and teachers expected for supporting curricula or activities similar to GCE are not yet ready in the current situation. Therefore, educators are inclined to use program packages that have been well-developed. Teachers are less likely to develop curriculum packages by themselves, although in some participating schools there have been attempts to design optional units for the school-based curriculum. Such curriculum packages have been offered by NGOs, enterprises, educational charities or foundations, and all introduced and managed by the local educational bureau: otherwise, the educational resource would not be recognised as official by the schools.

6.3 Theorising the trend of fostering of GCE in the Chinese case

The rigour of situational analysis in the present study includes examining the degree of validity of participants’ intuitive responses towards the curriculum and obtaining participants’ support in envisioning a systemic curriculum context for decisions in curriculum development (Print, 1993). This chapter identifies the subtle trend of fostering GCE through a systemic contextual review of factors both external and internal to the participating schools in the situational analysis.

6.3.1 Fostering GCE in a subtle way

In general, the present study’s findings support the literature on the dynamics of curriculum change, as outlined by Print (1993). As was commented here in Print’s book, a particular curriculum change could be emerging in accordance with societal change. In the present study, GCE emerged spontaneously. Although it has not been formalised as an individual course, the

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city concept of GCE has been integrated into school education through learning resources that have been available to the six Chinese middle schools.

The findings also confirmed the contextual specificities of the bottom-up reforming approach, as discussed by Riley (2004). On the one hand, reforming from the bottom up largely relies on the degree of compatibility with the context, in terms of both external factors (e.g., social and cultural ideologies) and internal factors (e.g., convincing different interest groups within schools), to allow spontaneous change to take place in schools (Riley, 2004). The complex nature of how GCE has been fostered among the participating schools echoes this point of view, showing that driving a bottom-up approach is closely dependent on a variety of contextual factors at the same time. Interrelated efforts from principals, teachers, community workers, and parents have contributed to the momentum of popularising GCE. On the other hand, the process of bottom-up reform, in contrast with other approaches to reform, has been shown to require phasing strategies (Riley, 2004). The subtle yet smooth patterns of the popularisation of GCE among the participating schools seem to support this. GCE has been fostered in these Chinese middle schools in a way that is different from other contexts. The focus of existing curriculum practices in these six Chinese middle schools did not correspond to potent issues in GCE, whereas practices in countries where GCE has been well developed echoed some elements in GCE. (e.g., multicultural education and intercultural education in North America, the Anglo- Saxon region, and Northern Europe [Tarozzi & Torres, 2016]).

The pattern of GCE being fostered in a subtle way was reflected through constraints schools encountered, as well as the schools’ limited capacity to overcome these constraints.

Figure 6.1 Constraints and Capacity Inducted from Situational Analysis.

Theme 7

Compliance & Theme 8 commitment

Theme 9

Theme 1

Theme 2 Theme 4 Competency- Capacity based Theme 3 education Constraints Theme 5 Social mobility Theme 6

Theme 11

Theme 13

Theme 10 Administrative constraints Theme 12

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Constraints.

The constraints that prevent from fostering GCE has been caused by the schools themselves. This finding seems to be unique to the present study. Although being the bottoms of the tremendous centralised education system, the social systems that schools represent, which are vulnerable to challenges from both inside and outside the systems themselves, have taken precedence over deciding whether or not to foster GCE. This situation has not been fully addressed in previous literature, where the theoretical necessity of GCE is overrated while the operational necessity is neglected. GCE has previously been overstated as a mitigation strategy for local and global conflicts (Banks, 2008; McKinney, 2008; Niens & Reilly, 2012; Reynolds, 2015; Ruyter & Spiecker, 2008), but considered less in terms of schools’ own strategies for adjusting to the changing internal and external conditions.

In the present study, the challenges that have driven schools to foster GCE have been mapped, through both the external and internal factors, in the situational analysis of the curriculum development theory. From participants’ intuitive understanding of the situations within their schools, three major concerns were put forward: the schooling purpose of social mobility; the culture of compliance and commitment; and the administrative constraints.

Social mobility.

The participants also stated their concern with maintaining social mobility as schooling purpose when considering the general and greater context. By reflecting on the external factor of cultural and social changes and expectations, it was found that, even though the necessity of coping with globalisation is acknowledged by schools, the deviance from the social capital, which is a key resource for school effectiveness (MacBeath & Moos, 2004, p. 28), puts these schools in a difficult position in terms of implementing GCE. The lack of support from communities, parents, and society that could ground an effective curriculum has prevented schools from fostering GCE further, even though they value its significance for connecting with the changes brought by globalisation. The fact that these schools have upheld all their responsibilities so as to fulfil conventional cultural and social expectations coincides with the description of social mix in the effectiveness research.

Alongside cultural and social changes and expectations, the role school effectiveness plays is also associated with the internal factor of the pupils. Participants addressed multiple purposes of the education that schools ought to provide, reflecting all the education purposes summarised by Brouilette (1996), including humanist, social efficiency, developmentalist, and 120

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city social meliorist perspectives. At the school level, students constitute the grounds for adjusting teaching and learning. In addition, in terms of the student factor for the participating schools, a traditional role of schooling was revealed, in accordance with what Labaree (1999) identifies as the social mobility purpose of schooling. Social mobility as a schooling purpose advocates a schooling model characterised by the goal of training students to be prepared and competitive for getting jobs after graduation, and by the normative strategy of measuring knowledge via grades and credentials (MacBeath & Moos, 2004, p. 25). As shown in the present study, the participating schools, especially the public schools, are endowed with the traditional educational role of ensuring enrolment, survival, and transition rates, the social responsibility role of preparing students from households with a low socioeconomic status for local job markets, and the related ethical role of the teaching profession to empower students to be responsible, dignified, and righteous citizens.

Considering that most Chinese middle schools are public schools, the features identified in the present study may also be common across the country.

Compliance and commitment.

The participants’ responses re-confirmed the conclusion of chapter five that the schools are located within a highly bureaucratic system where compliance is prioritised. Evidence for this was drawn from the internal factors of teachers and school ethos.

Despite existing literature by Chinese scholars criticising how teachers’ mindsets in early professional development hurdle the past reforms in the country, the present study’s findings provide a deeper insight regarding how the teacher factor influences the specific process of fostering GCE. According to Tan and Zhou (2004), possible inconsistencies between the rigid teaching models that are promoted to teachers in their early professional training and the more complicated and ever-changing demands in real practice can lead to difficulties. The findings regarding the teacher factor in the present study support this argument, yet also offer a deeper view: not only the teaching methods of these participants, but also their mindsets, are restricted by the highly consistent training of teaching degree education and professional training.

The section regarding operational procedure in school ethos in the participating schools reflects the condition of an overcrowded curriculum (Print, 1993, pp. 151–152). An overcrowded curriculum is characterised by overwhelming amounts of content additions. Although the exact load of the existing curriculum content was not revealed, the findings in the situational analysis about rigid management forcing unsystematic accumulative curricular

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city activities, as well as lack of time for the labour-intensive teaching tasks, indirectly indicate an overcrowded curriculum.

Administrative constraints.

In general, the pieces of evidence categorised as school ethos indicate a less democratic environment that hinders dissemination of knowledge across the schools. Patterns emerged regarding the rigid management environment that also indicate a less democratic working environment.

As noted in rigid management and formalisation, a master plan with detailed regulations regarding workloads and time schedule is disseminated by the local educational bureau as a strategy for achieving unification; hence, participants generally reflected similar barriers to the fostering of GCE. This universal arrangement might result from the equity-oriented educational change from the 1990s to the early 2000s, which emphasised “an equitable distribution of resources [to] improve the quality education of in schools and address the needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups” (Huang et al., 2015, p. 25).

A similar pattern of centralisation was also reflected in school norms, substantiating a self- sufficient educational system largely isolated from civil society: little support and intervention from families, community, and other sectors of the society are available to participating schools due to the integrated communist management. In addition, the materials can contribute to the isolated status quo of schools, which rely heavily on outsourcing teaching content for planning the non-national curriculum.

Furthermore, the observed “face” culture in participating schools, where ignoring critical evaluative feedback has become normalised, implies a compromise over power control.

Limited capacity to overcome constraints.

The previous section discussed the common pattern of the constraints participating schools had for causing subtle changes in making GCE. In this section, it was found that the subtlety was also manifested in schools’ limited capacities to overcome these constraints.

Competency-based education.

One of the adjustments sought by participating schools in relation to the fostering of GCE has been competency-based education. This particular issue was put forward when participants were mentioning elements that have been classified by the researcher as educational system requirements and challenges and changing nature of content, which are both external factors. 122

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As demonstrated in these two sections, the reasons for promoting competency-based education include quality of education, personal educational ideals, and criticisms of drawbacks of the traditional score-based education system. The competencies required among participating schools include civic awareness and democratic participation.

In the interviews, participants noted the importance and necessity of integrating competency-based education with the current score-based teaching and evaluation systems. They drew upon state-of-the-art policies and teaching content to indicate that such concerns are appropriate. The participants also attached importance to the informal curriculum.

Despite the common characteristics, there is also variation in how GCE has been fostered among the participating schools. The fact that a macro-control strategy applies to the schools blurs the features of the school type: school principals’ leadership styles, underpinned by their moral beliefs and epistemology of using power, might thus be more important than the school type. These labels were used in Table 5.1 as prescriptive descriptions to describe previous analysis, but not in broad contexts.

 Marxism-oriented schools

The principals from CY and QY middle schools demonstrated transformative leadership in preventing their schools from being overly influenced by the unstable educational policy environment and the oppressive indoctrination of political ideologies. Under such transformative leadership, CY and QY middle schools reflect a Marxism-oriented ethos.

 Democracy-oriented schools

Being young and less experienced, the principals of FL and CZ middle schools give authority to teachers regarding any decision about the curriculum. Their leadership style is more facilitative or laissez-faire. With this kind of leadership in place, FL and CZ middle schools are more democracy-oriented.

 Efficiency-oriented schools

The principals of both CW and HY middle schools emphasised complying with and maintaining the existing working routine. They follow an autocratic leadership style: they lead their schools to achieve the efficiency required by the bureaucratic system.

These varied leadership styles could be associated with a diverse range of factors, including the principals’ majors, work experience, personal experiences, age, and gender. The present study, however, has only targeted school leaders’ attitudes towards standardised management 123

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city and experience management, a division first proposed by Taylor (1911). In the current study, a continuum between standardised and experience management has been operationalised as a scale of extent of committing to and obeying the principles demanded by the central Ministry of Education. Principals’ leadership styles have been assessed based on whether they maintain highly unified standardised values and operational processes, or allow more flexibility based on context. In this regard, Marxism-oriented schools and efficiency-oriented schools are placed at the ends of being critical and authoritative, respectively.

Moreover, efficiency-oriented schools were shown to be more likely to conduct GCE as a result of adaptation, while in contrast, Marxism-oriented schools are more inclined to have the capacity to foster GCE spontaneously. According to Fiol and Lyles, organisational adaptation is “the ability to make incremental adjustments as a result of environmental, goal, policy, or other changes” (1985, p. 811). Organisational adaptation only involves behavioural change, which is counted as a type of single-loop learning (Collinson & Cook, 2007).

As well as the divisions due to different leadership styles, variation among schools is also dependent on the school size. As was pointed out in power distribution, in the huge private school, the administration operates in a more bureaucratic manner than in small or moderately sized community schools. Considering this finding in terms of the literature, the involvement of more first-line teachers enables community schools to show characteristics of what is known as the flat organisation in organisational learning theory, which refers to a decentralised staffing pattern. Accordingly, flat organisations have the advantages of being resistant to external risks and having the capability to adapt to reforms and changes. In the case of developing the GCE curriculum, the private school has displayed efficiency of execution, while the other five (community) schools have been more likely to represent input from teachers.

Finally, the two features of the constraints and limited capacity for overcoming constraints match what Deleuze and Guattari (1972/2004) identify as density and tension, respectively. However, the speed of change is not known in the present study. This knowledge might be achieved by planning a longitudinal study to trace changes in participants’ reactions in the situational analysis, which otherwise will be hard to predict. On the one hand, the popularisation of GCE might be accelerated by globalisation; on the other hand, education reform in a large, complex, and bureaucratic system could be fairly slow. The reasonably smooth process of putting forward policies in a top-down fashion, as demonstrated in chapter five, already indicates the costs of the slow progression in the educational change led by curriculum control. However, in fact, the integration of GCE might involve systemic alterations,

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city such as changing the orientation of training and degrees for the teaching profession to develop more competitive teachers.

6.4 Chapter Summary

Chapter six has evaluated how GCE as a non-routine learning opportunity has been fostered in the six selected Chinese schools, through participants’ own reflections, in a curriculum planning activity called situational analysis. The findings revealed a general growth momentum in terms of the emergence of GCE. However, the difficult situation of the schools, which are social systems subject to bureaucratic control, yet isolated from other sections of society, have contributed to a less productive environment for fostering GCE. The varied leadership styles in each participating school have led to schools with a Marxist orientation being more proactive in making curriculum change, those with an efficiency orientation being resistant to curriculum change, and those with a democratic orientation being flexible, with consideration of teachers’ work experiences. This chapter has concluded that the emergence of GCE is subtle: the subtlety is reflected in the constraints participating schools have in this area, as well as the schools’ limited capacity to overcome these constraints.

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Chapter 7: The Acknowledged Conceptions of GCE

The preceding chapter explored how GCE could be fostered in participating schools. The findings indicated that the schools’ choices regarding fostering GCE weighed generally in favour of easing tensions both within the schools and between the schools and the bureaucratic system.

The design of this chapter continues the quest of investigating the localisation of GCE in Chinese schools by investigating schools’ strategies of accepting GCE. This chapter aims to answer the research question concerning how, by generating consensual conceptions towards GCE, do participants seek changes regarding the current curricula. The investigation was split between the policy Delphi method, an avenue of exchanging opinions in which certain level of consensus along with conflicted arguments on GCE (i.e., shared understanding on GCE) would be revealed after rounds of rating statements and revising comments, and researching schools’ reactions to integrating GCE via the model of educational change process (i.e., expressed need/problem, initiation/adoption, implementation, and institutionalisation/continuance) in the pre- and post-interviews (Print, 1993, p. 228).

Results of this chapter have shown that the agreed meanings of GCE at the school level were constrained. Rather, this chapter argues that variance among schools has caused divergent attitudes and strategies of accepting GCE, as will be demonstrated. The theoretical paths of curriculum change for GCE among schools will be explained, right after the results of the policy Delphi method and the schools’ responses to the educational change process in the previous two sections are reported.

7.1 Results

7.1.1 Quantitative feedback: Policy Delphi method among stakeholders.

The aim of using the policy Delphi method was to reflect opinions related to GCE along with building of some consensual knowledge regarding the definition and feasibility of GCE in China, including the following key questions: ‘Is there GCE in China,’ ‘How to adapt GCE to fit the Chinese context,’ ‘What aspect do you suggest Chinese schools pay attention to when implementing GCE,’ and ‘What will be a definition of GCE that fits into China’s national conditions and is ready for use in most Chinese middle schools.’ Though the conventional Delphi method is only used for consensus generation, the present study used the modified Delphi method, based on conventional policy Delphi, to dig into the different perspectives held by various stakeholders in the Chinese education system. In the research, academics took part in 126

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city an open-ended survey to answer the four key questions above; this was counted as the first round of the policy Delphi method. Then, a series of statements was synthesised from the academics’ answers and became the substance for the method’s subsequent rounds. During the second, third, and fourth rounds, the academics, school principals, and teachers, respectively, rated statements and left comments. Compared to the conventional Delphi method, this policy Delphi method was able to distinguish how different perspectives contribute to the discussion of developing consensual knowledge on GCE. The results from the Delphi method indicated that opinions diverged regarding predictions of GCE curriculum development among the experts, school principals, and teachers as a result of varied degrees of familiarity with students’ behaviour in curricula and activities in the Moral Education system. This section suggested that the principals’ and teachers’ acknowledged ideas regarding the principle issues of GCE were shaped by their work experiences, and some of them were consistent with neither the academics’ opinions nor the intents proposed by the educational system. In other words, the educators had their own unique ideas on GCE.

The first Delphi question.

Table 7.1/1 Policy Delphi Results (round one) Open-ended question Is there Global Citizenship Education in China? Why? Please judge upon your own reflection one Panel type scholars Statement number Q1N01 In most of cases, GCE was not available in governmental discourses, including policies, official documentations, school curricula, and censored teaching materials Q1N02 GCE was not a widely known concept, even to most classroom teachers Q1N03 GCE was found in schools' formal curricular subjects (e.g., environment protection, intercultural learning, and so on) Q1N04 GCE was found in special educational activities held by Ministry of Education Q1N05 In metropolitan cities, bilingual schools, international schools, and well-funded schools that have more opportunities of participating international programs were more likely to be influenced by GCE Q1N06 GCE was less likely to be found in underdeveloped regions

Table 7.1/2 Policy Delphi Results (round two – four) Round Panel type Statement number Mean score (%) Quartiles (%) First Quartile Third Quartile 2 scholars Q1N01 75 68.75 81.25 Q1N02 62.5 37.5 100 Q1N03 54.17 43.75 100 Q1N04 81.25 25 81.25 Q1N05 87.5 75 100 Q1N06 75 68.75 81.25 3 principals Q1N01 85 75 100 Q1N02 66.67 37.5 93.75 Q1N03 95.83 100 100 Q1N04 85 75 100 Q1N05 100 100 100 Q1N06 95.83 100 100 Overview* Q1N01 72.75 75 75 Q1N02 56.25 25 75 127

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Q1N03 79.25 75 100 Q1N04 70.5 75 75 Q1N05 89.5 75 100 Q1N06 81.25 75 100

4 teachers Q1N01 72.73 75 75 Q1N02 77.78 75 100 Q1N04 69.44 75 75

*: After the third round, responses from both the scholars and principals groups were available. By combining these two groups as one, the researcher calculated the overall mean scores and quartiles of those participants in order to filter consensual statements and leave some more controversial statements in the fourth round.

The academics expressed radical views. They did not come to an agreement after the second round of the questionnaire.

The main confusion among the principals and teachers concerned whether Project Citizen equated to GCE. Since the first question was already related to the definition of GCE, the middle school educators’ answers were generally consistent with their responses in the pre- and post- interviews. The only obvious difference resulting from the policy Delphi method was that they were unaware that the aim of GCE might be distinguished from the proposed ideologies in the Moral Education system.

The second Delphi question.

Table 7.2/1 Policy Delphi Results (round one) Open-ended question How to adapt Global Citizenship Education to fit Chinese context? In other words, what kind of Global two Citizenship Education could be assimilated into Chinese educational system? Please also provide evidence to support your answer. Panel type scholars Statement number Q2N01 GCE will need to be part of national curriculum where its scope and contents will be clearly written Q2N02 Developing Chinese citizens should always be prior to developing global citizens Q2N03 Values advocated in GCE were to be consistent with those in Moral Education Q2N04 Chinese GCE should differ from the rights-based citizenship in Western liberal society so as to avoid egoism and emphasise obligation. In other words, it promotes active citizenship Q2N05 The teaching content must show relevance with the real reality in China to initiate action; Meanwhile, it should also trigger students' imagination about the future

Table 7.2/2 Policy Delphi Results (round two – four) Round Panel type Statement number Mean score (%) Quartiles (%) First Quartile Third Quartile 2 scholars Q2N01 62.5 25 100 Q2N02 87.5 75 100 Q2N03 75 50 100 Q2N04 66.67 25 100 Q2N05 75 37.5 100

3 principals Q2N01 91.67 100 100 Q2N02 75 62.5 100 Q2N03 95.83 100 100 Q2N04 75 50 100 Q2N05 95.83 100 100 Overview* Q2N01 73 50 100 Q2N02 77 75 100 Q2N03 81.25 75 100 128

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Q2N04 68.25 37.5 100 Q2N05 83.25 75 100

4 teachers Q2N01 77.78 75 75 Q2N04 58.33 50 75

In the open-ended questionnaire, the academics mentioned that the adaptation of GCE to the Chinese context should concern aspects of ideology, culture, social context, policy, and the operation process. During the second round, with the expansion of the participating academics, controversies were related to the operation process as well as ideology of GCE. The mean of the rating of the first statement – i.e., ‘GCE will need to be part of national curriculum where its scope and contents will be clearly written’ – was 62.5%, and the first and third quartiles were 25% and 100%, respectively. Although there were no direct comments regarding this statement, it was revealed from the academics’ other comments that some of them were envisaging GCE being more easily practised outside of the education system, so whether its scope and contents would be written in the national curriculum was not essential to its implementation in China.

In the subsequent third and fourth rounds, the school principals and teachers agreed on the importance of clarifying GCE in the national curriculum. The teachers explained that clarifying GCE in the national curriculum would help with the promotion of GCE. That is, as the national curriculum is the authority in the Chinese education system, clarifying GCE in it would help prioritise the teaching of GCE. At the same time, the national curriculum would allow teachers to gain a thorough understanding of GCE and to organise and plan, via working with principals, the curriculum and teaching of it.

The other controversy concerned the statement, ‘A Chinese GCE should differ from the right- based citizenship in Western liberal society so as to avoid egoism and emphasise obligation. In other words, it promotes active citizenship’. This statement was actually a quotation from one academic’s original response in the first round. It was rated on average 66.67% in the second round, with the first and the third quartiles at 25% and 100%, respectively. However, the academic did not give a reason for this statement. Thus, it was not known whether some disapproved of this statement due to contradicting opinions or because of the inaccurate statement itself.

The principals and teachers also had different opinions towards this statement. It was intriguing to see that it initiated fierce reactions amongst the participants. Surprisingly, most of them grasped the academic’s meaning in the statement. According to the teachers’ comments, half of them agreed that the current political system sacrificed the personal rights of the public 129

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city and only advocated responsibility. Three teachers proposed that middle school education could combine the teachings of both rights and responsibilities, while the rest of the teachers could not figure out the exact meaning of the statement.

The third Delphi question.

Table 7.3/1 Policy Delphi Results (round one) Open-ended question To what aspects do you suggest Chinese schools to pay attention when implementing Global three Citizenship Education? Aspects might include the focus of curriculum development, the difficulties encountered by schools, the advantages that schools could make use of, and so on. Panel type scholars Statement number Q3N01 Current policies (e.g., B&R) would appear to support GCE, because they support global awareness Q3N02 It was uncertain whether GCE should be a separated course or integrated one Q3N03 Since government has already raised education of “international awareness,” it was unnecessary to inaugurate a new course on GCE; instead, it was possible to merge GCE with relevant subjects Q3N04 Schools were at risks of insulting some ideologies admitted by the country Q3N05 Teaching materials should be written by a large group of experts, which however was not practical in current presses Q3N06 Contents should be related to global news and issues Q3N07 Contents should be related to intercultural understanding, especially in TESOL Q3N08 Lack relevant English teachers Q3N09 Lack GCE teachers, in terms of qualification and stable working condition Q3N10 Teaching should be critical, justified, and from a historical perspective, and avoid extremist views Q3N11 Teaching should acknowledge civic skills, including critical thinking, perspective taking, critical reading, negotiation, etc. Q3N12 Teaching should dissolve ethnocentrism Q3N13 Administration issues, such as time, expense, security issues etc.

Table 7.3/2 Policy Delphi Results (round two – four) Round Panel type Statement number Mean score (%) Quartiles (%) First Quartile Third Quartile 2 scholars Q3N01 87.5 75 100 Q3N02 50 12.5 50 Q3N03 66.67 62.5 75 Q3N04 70.83 50 81.25 Q3N05 79.17 68.75 100 Q3N06 91.67 75 100 Q3N07 91.67 75 100 Q3N08 75 68.75 81.25 Q3N09 83.33 68.75 100 Q3N10 91.67 75 100 Q3N11 95.83 81.25 100 Q3N12 62.5 37.5 100 Q3N13 75 68.75 81.25 3 principals Q3N01 91.67 81.25 100 Q3N02 70.83 56.25 75 Q3N03 75 75 75 Q3N04 58.33 37.5 75 Q3N05 75 75 93.75 Q3N06 87.5 75 100 Q3N07 91.67 81.25 100 Q3N08 66.67 75 75 Q3N09 90 75 100 Q3N10 100 100 100 Q3N11 100 100 100 Q3N12 79.17 75 100 Q3N13 87.5 75 100 Overview* Q3N01 85.5 75 100 Q3N02 54.5 37.5 75 Q3N03 56.75 25 75 Q3N04 50 25 75

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Q3N05 72.75 75 75 Q3N06 81.25 75 100 Q3N07 87.5 75 100 Q3N08 61.25 50 75 Q3N09 77.25 75 100 Q3N10 93 87.5 100 Q3N11 93.75 93.75 100 Q3N12 66 50 81.25 Q3N13 79.25 75 81.25

4 teachers Q3N02 65.63 50 75 Q3N03 59.38 43.75 75 Q3N04 53.13 43.75 75 Q3N05 68.75 68.75 75 Q3N08 71.88 75 75 Q3N12 68.75 50 81.25

Following the statistical feedback after the second round, the academics only had conflicts regarding statements 2, 4, and 12. These statements were closely related to the definition of GCE. The fourth statement, i.e., ‘Schools were at risk of insulting some ideologies admitted by the country’, presupposed that GCE was a concept opposing national ideologies. The 12th statement, ‘Teaching should dissolve ethnocentrism’, advocated for an attenuation of patriotic education. The second statement, ‘It was uncertain whether GCE should be a separated course or integrated one’, was also largely dependent on the consistency between the nature of GCE and the national curriculum.

After the principals rated in the third round, another three statements received rating percentages that deviated from the academics’ responses, including statements three, five, and eight. Upon closer inspection, it was found the three new controversies were caused by varied familiarity with school management and teaching experiences. It was plausibly true that the academics were unaware of the nature and content of International Understanding Education, an ongoing cultural exchange program package (the third statement), and TESOL (the eighth statement) at the middle school level. The fifth statement, which remained mildly debated, said that a wide range of academics should participate in writing the teaching materials. Responding to this statement, one principal further commented that:

These teaching materials were less likely to be written by teachers. Firstly, it was because there was no such need. There were sufficient teaching materials on the market. Secondly, teachers were trained on teaching but less on researching and writing teaching materials. Thirdly, teachers were busy with their work. They didn’t have time and energy to develop teaching materials.

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To understand the teachers’ perceptions on determining teaching materials, this statement was kept until the fourth round.

In the final round, the teachers rated the six controversial statements mentioned above. Their feedback reflected a goal-oriented perception. In other words, they were thinking of ways to achieve GCE as teaching outcomes.

The fourth Delphi question.

Table 7.4/1 Policy Delphi Results (round one) Open-ended question Taking all those discussed previously into account, please provide a definition of Global Citizenship four Education that fits into China’s national conditions and ready for use in most Chinese high schools. Global Citizenship Education was to develop students’______Panel type Scholars Statement number Q4N01 Global awareness Q4N02 Sense of active participation Q4N03 Competency of active participation in local communities Q4N04 Competency of active participation in global governance Q4N05 Responsibility for international issues Q4N06 Ability of solving problems in a peaceful way, such as by negotiation Q4N07 Characters of respecting and understanding others Q4N08 Aspiration of and commitment to global citizenship right, human right, and universal values, which were based on the archetypal of Western societies

Table 7.4/2 Policy Delphi Results (round two – four) Round Panel type Statement number Mean score (%) Quartiles (%) First Quartile Third Quartile 2 scholars Q4N01 91.67 75 100 Q4N02 92.5 75 100 Q4N03 85 62.5 100 Q4N04 58.33 68.75 100 Q4N05 80 75 87.5 Q4N06 95.83 81.25 100 Q4N07 95.83 81.25 100 Q4N08 41.67 18.75 62.5

3 principals Q4N01 95.83 100 100 Q4N02 100 100 100 Q4N03 100 100 100 Q4N04 79.17 81.25 100 Q4N05 83.33 75 93.75 Q4N06 91.67 100 100 Q4N07 100 100 100 Q4N08 50 50 50 Overview* Q4N01 89.5 75 100 Q4N02 91 75 100 Q4N03 86.25 75 100 Q4N04 75 75 100 Q4N05 79.5 75 75 Q4N06 89.5 75 100 Q4N07 93.75 93.75 100 Q4N08 32.5 6.25 50

4 teachers Q4N01~07 87.5 75 100 *: After the third round, responses from both the scholars and principals groups were available. By combining these two groups as one, the researcher calculated the overall mean scores and quartiles of those participants in order to filter consensual statements and leave some more controversial statements in the fourth round.

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Except for the eighth statement, other qualities synthesised from the academics’ responses in the first round were agreed upon by most participants during the subsequent questionnaires. The eighth statement, i.e., ‘Aspiration of and commitment to global citizenship right, human right, and universal values, which were based on the archetypal of western societies’, was screened out after the third round because of its low rating score of only 41.67%. The low rating was in accordance with strong claims of anti-Eurocentrism from other academics and principals. One of the academics added:

Admittedly, current GCE was originally from western society on the basis of western culture and civilization, even though some of it were shared by all humans. But, our country’s participation will must influence its implementation model and ideology, and also will change some of its contents.

Apart from the consensual definition, Principal U wrote his version of GCE. He suggested GCE should develop students’ global awareness, inclusiveness, equality and mutual respect, justice and responsibility, benefit seeking and risk avoidance, and intercultural perspectives. His comprehension was regarded as similar to the consensual definition by the teachers in the fourth round. Some teachers thought that GCE has a richer meaning than the consensus made in this Delphi method. This might imply that the participants could not identify the exact definition of GCE.

7.1.2 Qualitative feedback.

CW middle school.

The previous chapter discussed how the staff in this school displayed high alignment and efficiency in delivering instructions and orders. During interviews, the answers from the nominated teacher overlapped most of what the principal said in an interview conducted earlier.

Correspondingly, when analysing the acknowledged GCE conceptions in CW middle school, the principal’s opinion was weighed more than the teacher’s.

Perceived needs.

Principal C believed that “GCE should encompass two levels of training. The first was about training students to be qualified citizens of the country. Then, students shall be trained to have global horizon, global perspectives to understand the issues around the world.”

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Teacher J indicated the competencies of influencing others and society in a positive way meant that developing global citizens gives way to developing the citizens of the country.

Teacher J talked about the awareness of taking responsibility and the competencies of fulfilling this responsibility. Moreover, she also mentioned the abilities of communication, getting along with others, and adapting to society because she believed that developing students’ self-awareness to generate a more complete and clear judgement about self ‘must be placed onto the relationship with others and the society…and through making contributions to others’ happiness’. However, she was concerned that the students might be too young to comprehend complex world issues because the middle school students’ psychology was too immature to be interested in content beyond their daily life and they still had not mastered enough knowledge. Although her experiences of supervising the MUN Society indicated that her students were capable of learning GCE, she attributed the achievements to the students’ family education during after-school hours. She suggested that high school would be a better stage for the implementation of GCE.

Adoption of GCE.

The findings show that the principal of CW middle school was a nationalist. Her responses in the research displayed clear characteristics of a sense of pride and commitment to her country. Here is a quote from Principle C’s answer to the prompted question of what other specific competencies the Chinese, as international students, should develop in addition to learning foreign languages:

Competitiveness? Surely it was our strong country behind us. English was the world’s official language. Although English was the most popular language in the world, there was increasing number of people who choose to learn Chinese. Chinese has been the second most important language for communication around the world. I believe that it was the powerful country behind us that supports this. Moreover, there were history and culture of the 5000-year civilisation supporting us. It was in fact our 5000-year long history, civilisation, and traditional culture that have been supporting us all the time. They should be the never-ending power motion for developing our modernised country. Actually, the spiritual wealth inherited from our ancestors, including the Confucian culture, was a repository of useful ideas for guiding our work, study, and life. Meanwhile, our country was experiencing rapid economic development. If you learn about our plan made in the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, you will find that the following five years will be the intersection of the two Centenary Goals. The first Centenary Goal will have to be realised in 2020, and the second Centenary Goal will begin. We will also have two 15-year plans from 2020 till the time point thirty years after. The first 15-year plan was to realise socialist modernization from 2020 to 2035; 134

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then from 2035 to 2050, to build China into a great modern socialist country with the vision of being prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful. It was a brilliant strategic deployment and future outlook. Then I think, all of these were all supports that our strong country gives us Chinese who were living abroad.

As reflected above, the principal mixed cultural civilisation with governing advocates, both of which were regarded as strategies of improving Chinese influence and power. She also believed that national power was the key to making the Chinese more globally competent.

Teacher J in the study contributed to the psychological aspect of GCE. She pointed out that the middle school years are an important stage for students to establish habits and civilised norms based on contexts familiar to them, including themselves, campus life, family life, and the communities in which they live. However, if GCE was to heavily tilt towards international issues and deviate from these familiar contexts, the teaching would not be very effective.

Path to implementation.

According to Principal C, the students in CW middle school learnt GCE through all national curriculum subjects in which the school motto of ‘developing active and responsible citizens in the world’ echoed. She said that during subject teaching, the basic citizenship values of honesty, friendliness, self-motivation, a serious attitude, diligence, and a willingness to be dedicated were being transmitted to younger generations. In addition to values related to work ethics, the principal also emphasised the importance of obeying rules and laws in developing global citizens. In her words, freedom was feasible through self-discipline:

…there is no absolute freedom, only when each of us perform self-discipline our freedom will be better guaranteed.

The school was a member of the Volunteers Federation, through which some of the student population was able to participate in volunteer work in community service and charity programs. Examples of this work included visiting orphans and empty nesters, spreading water protection propaganda, and fundraising.

Additionally, CW middle school performed well in the International Understanding Education. There were school-based units in MUN in which students used English to discuss global issues. Past topics included issues concerning Syria, Diaoyu Island, and the South China Sea. In the fall term of 2017, the topic chosen was the resettlement of refugees. Teacher J, who is in charge of this club, told the researcher that although MUN debates required knowledge of 135

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city international politics, economics, and cultures, the students were able to learn by themselves after class with guidance from their parents. The school is also a sister school to three other schools in the US, Australia, and Germany. Since 2012, the school has been organising the World Expo in Year 8; each class is responsible for one country’s pavilion, and students visit pavilions and collect stamps in their passports.

From the teacher’s perspective, students who were in their seventh year might learn topics such as civilised manners, and those in their eighth year might get involved in Model CPPCC, MUN, and campus-based activities (e.g., ‘The Youth Oath’ or by participating in International Understand Education). However, Teacher J also admitted that these extracurricular activities were more likely to contribute to students’ perceptual knowledge and awareness.

The participants in CW middle school suggested that some work was needed only in interconnecting the fragmented attempts into a body of GCE practices.

FL middle school.

In FL middle school, the principal allowed the teachers greater autonomy in curriculum development than the other school principals did. The principal simultaneously mediated the policy and facilitated the teachers’ work. Therefore, when judging organisational knowledge of GCE, the teachers’ opinions were supposed to reflect the actual executive body’s ideas. The results were in accordance with this judgement.

Perceived needs.

Principal Z pointed out the necessities of conducting CCE. The first was that students could not gain access to first-hand resources during data collection. The second was that students’ activities were restricted by their community areas because they were usually not received by institutional departments. As a result, students were more likely to research via the internet for theoretical knowledge and collect information through people they know, including teachers, friends’ parents, and peers, without obtaining a more straightforward understanding and experience. He concluded that CCE set higher requirements than project-based learning and IPAC.

Teacher F suggested the basic necessities of complying with local laws and obeying moral principles.

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Teacher M stated that it would be too early for middle school students to study GCE. He noted that his students were not very interested in news and that, from Year 8, students started to have increased amounts of homework and usually had to study past 9 p.m. Such a lifestyle might prevent students from broadening their horizons.

The teachers also mentioned that the formal curriculum only elaborated on the responsibilities of being a student or being a kid in a family but did not emphasise the responsibilities of being a citizen in a society. They agreed on the importance of developing students’ competencies of participating in public life.

Adoption of GCE.

The principal mentioned that cultural specificity was important alongside the interconnection with other countries when defining GCE but did not provide interpretations. As far as he was concerned, GCE equalled the goal of neoliberal globalised CCE, which was ‘to develop citizens of the world who could cope with economic globalisation and get accommodated to the present world’.

In contrast, the teachers held an unyielding commitment to the ‘co-construction of home and country’ as part of traditional culture in defining GCE. For instance, Teacher F believed that middle school students were vulnerable to influences from foreign cultures – such as worshipping at foreign festivals and the Korean Wave – because children have poor self-control and judgement abilities and are good at imitating new things. She said:

We need to guide students to think logically: to absorb the good things from the foreign culture – we should learn without arrogant attitude, and to discard those bad things, which do not fit into our country’s conditions appropriately, because every country has its specific conditions.

However, similar to those in CW middle school, the FL teachers were unaware of their political orientation and that the sense of responsibility and honour in tying individual interests with their country’s greatness was assimilated into their ethical values. Their responses came out naturally without hesitation, and their words were delivered at a normal or high-speed during interviews. Moreover, their tones were self-evident and affirming. In the following schools, there were more participants akin to Principal C and the FL teachers who were faithful to nationalism without self-awareness. These educators were high-performing workers and usually female. This thesis will leave the discussion of this finding until the end of this section.

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Path to implementation.

Principal Z considered some GCE-oriented attempts that had not yet been systemised. The first was the International Understanding Education program. He said:

To be honest, the best way of having students integrated into one ethnic or one country is to let them go abroad and experience the homestay in foreign countries.

However, he criticised that International Understanding Education was too expensive to involve most students.

He also mentioned that thematic activities and some of the teaching content of formal education covered GCE. These contents were not designed to teach in a CCE model, so they were not recommended by the principal as an ideal approach to delivering GCE.

Alternatively, using the CCE model to investigate GCE topics might be feasible. However, the principal’s concern was that the final output of generating proposals would be hard to achieve and would then show no difference from project-based learning or IPAC.

QY middle school.

QY middle school was a school in which the principal and teachers appeared to have poor alignment. Thought it was identified as a Marxism-oriented school with transformative leadership, communication between the principal and teachers did not run smoothly. Very divergent opinions were reflected by the principal and teachers in the present study.

Perceived needs.

Principal U interpreted that basic education was meant to lay the foundation for students’ future development; therefore, its role was to lead students on personalised paths that would tailor to different needs for their growth. He called for holistic support from the school, families, and society to create diversified opportunities.

Meanwhile, Teacher W focused on the needs associated with the goals of subject teaching. She suggested the need to teach students to be good people who are not only consistent with law and morality but also socialised regarding accepting themselves, tolerating others, and empowered with knowledge and skills to adapt to the world. In addition, the teacher also criticised that the overemphasis of responsibility in the current education system might not

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city satiate the need to develop students’ awareness of citizens’ rights; however, this could be indivisible knowledge in GCE.

Adoption of GCE.

Principal U interpreted the Great Unity in a conservative way. He advocated for harmoniousness in the traditional social structure. Transmitting good traditional culture could help with the realisation of GCE. According to him, only those cultural elements that were humanity- and future-oriented and could survive in contemporary society were good. When asked what exactly good cultural characteristics were, he gave the example of filial piety:

In Chinese traditional culture, there is a significant concept called filial piety, which is the foundation of all other virtues. . . It is not filial piety but how to practice filial piety matters. There should have modern values in doing it, and that’s [the appropriate] traditional culture. When you have a faith in filial piety, you will have humanity, and you will know how to get along with others……How to promote filial piety? Isn’t it in the forms of clanship or family? If you know? Agricultural civilisation actually has its unique advantages……What lies amongst people is the relationship. The human being is a relational being and the country was also a relational being. Therefore, our attention should be drawn on the relations among countries, ethnicities, and people…… [In traditional culture] ‘Care for my own aged parents and extend the same care to the aged parents of others; love my own young children and extend the same love to the children of others’. By extending the love for own parents to other elderly, and extending the love for own children to other children, isn’t a way of intensifying the relationships? The essence of traditional culture is such smart drive of doing as one will be done by others. In this regard, when we have the awareness of law and reciprocal respect, and the idea of not fighting for their own interests, the world will embrace peace.

GCE was included in Chinese traditional culture. The participants agreed that GCE did not conflict with Chinese traditional culture. Some tried to use traditional culture to interpret GCE because they believed that cultures share common values.

Path to implementation.

Teacher W recommended teaching with detailed cases that reflect world issues. She recalled that even though there was content on international collaboration in the formal curriculum, this did not mean that students would be equipped with global awareness. She found that indoctrinating them with news and documents did not achieve good effects. Instead, giving examples that were close to their daily lives was a more effective approach. However, without 139

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city guidance from the teachers, the students were also prone to focusing on regional issues without thinking over their global impacts.

HY middle school.

HY middle school was a typical example of flat management. There was constant communication between the principal and the teachers. There was evidence of knowledge sharing in this school through collective interests of the same school affairs reflected in separate interviews. However, the principal’s opinion was still the guiding role for the teachers.

Perceived needs.

Principal B proposed that effective implementation of GCE should be based on the success of CCE education, in which students were taught not to disrupt the social order. In the separate interviews with the teachers, Teacher Tan concurred what Principal B proposed and interpreted that CCE was a foundational part of GCE. Teacher A held the slightly different opinion that CCE was already an acceptable adapted form of GCE that could be popularised in Chinese middle schools.

Adoption of GCE.

Regarding interpreting the meaning of GCE, HY middle school also referred to the traditional culture. The most emphasised virtue of the traditional culture was responsibility. Being responsible was understood as not impeding others’ lives.

The world is a global village, having everybody to be its member. I think, in addition to making contributions to the country within your capability, which is the most basic requirements, you can pay some efforts to the global development when you have the abilities. If it is higher than a student’s actual ability, he will not be able to accomplish that. It will be impossible for him, won’t it? Therefore, as I told you just now, we have been doing Civics and Citizenship Education for the sake of ensuring students not to impede the society. That is our primary goal. When this goal is reached, we expect the student to do something that is not only responsible to him, but also responsible to others. Later, he then learns to be responsible to the society, and with this logic to move forward.

Self-management, a term that originated from utopian socialism and anarchism, means a power differing from governmental force. However, in the interview, what the principal understood of responsibility was different from such an advocacy. Her interpretation of

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city responsibility adhered to self-discipline subject to regulation. Again, this was a by-product of Confucian morality.

Path to implementation.

Principal B suggested to keep focusing on CCE while developing the International Understanding Education program further.

The teachers also suggested Project Citizen as a way to practice GCE. However, they opposed doing projects with topics beyond the local focus. For instance, Teacher A expressed her opinion:

If the student still has the required ability, resources, and interests, he can compare results across the world, such as comparing the issue of air pollution in China with those in the histories in the US and UK.

In HY middle school, the teachers’ experiences with CCE had driven them to the conclusion that highly complex and abstract concepts would be too challenging for middle school students. They preferred choosing topics that were close to the students’ familiar surroundings.

Additionally, travelling abroad was regarded by the teachers as a potentially effective approach for students to learn GCE. The reason was that collecting data in foreign countries would give students a more straightforward experience than gathering evidence through the internet.

CY middle school.

CY middle school was labelled as a Marxism-oriented school. The principal in this school appeared to be the most progressive and liberal amongst all the participants. With his transformative, and even charismatic, leadership, the teachers in this school seemed to trust his educational interventions.

Perceived needs.

The principal, who was previously responsible for the local Education Bureau for two years, expressed his objection to the current practices in the Moral Education system and finally chose to be redeployed from the authority to the school, which was, accordingly, ‘based on his innate moral sense’. From his descriptions during interviews, his efforts were actually put into developing a hidden curriculum centred on human rights.

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By providing drinking fountains, organic lunches, toilet paper, and an appropriate amount of homework to students, the principal wanted to have his students understand ‘what the real life was like; what real humanity was about; and how exactly it feels to live in a happy society’. He also encouraged students to change their behaviours (i.e., walking with heads held high, greeting with smiling faces, and answering questions actively and speaking aloud their opinions in class) in order to become more confident and self-respecting people.

Apart from providing facilities, there was also the organisation of class communities, which functioned as the Civics and Citizenship Education. The class community was an approach intended to encourage students to practice autonomy and self-governance by setting their own governing goals, class management rules, and support services.

With such a belief in rules, the principal held an open mind when some teachers complained about sabotage caused by the students. Considering that the students were at the age of challenging rules and authorities, he initiated a school-wide debate called ‘loose regulation: beneficial or harmful?’ The response was impressive.

The intention of this series of actions was his goal of constructing a healthy and warm environment in which lower-class children could grow up to be confident, talented, active, and, most importantly, dignified humans. In his words, he wanted to create a ‘local spring’ for them. This educational philosophy was also confirmed in the teachers’ reflections on past curriculum- related practices. Undoubtedly, this series of actions constructed a human rights’ hidden curriculum in GCE.

Teacher H, based on her teaching experience, suggested that students would resonate more with local and domestic issues and less with international issues.

Adoption of GCE.

Principal Y, with a more liberal mindset, comprehended the Great Unity as a democratic world society in which things were governed by rule of law:

Because a society ruled by elites is a rigidly stratified society subject to absolute authority. It is a patriarchal system which admits pecking order tacitly and opposes the vision of equality; whereas the present society has been pluralistic with accumulating social conflicts from diverse stakeholders. Responding to this, what educators could do is to build and look for the possibility of realising an ideal society.

He then said:

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Human are born with some natural rights. They are not only born equally but shall have equal opportunity to participate in civil society. The top of the hierarchy should be political life, and it determines the building blocks below. In this regard, we need to integrate human right into our innermost thought…as far as I am concerned; we also shall not lose the local traditional culture. However, our ways of dealing with affairs, cultural horizon as well as mode of thinking should reach towards the Great Unity of the world.

The principal did so because he wanted to empower the children to break from socially imposed constraints. He said:

Sometimes, we confuse rules with fates. Those rules we take for granted are made by a few people, which I don’t believe it is fair to regard as rules. Aren’t they? Those are determined by one or two people. I believe that the true rules shall be the consensus made by a community that is made based on common interests with adequate safeguard. The rules should be binding instruments applied to everyone.

Teacher H from CY middle school said that CCE was covered in Moral Education but was not attached importance just five or six years ago. She said:

It seems that recent years we are trying to authorize Civics and Citizenship Education, hence there comes a specific term with people’s great attention. But it is not just come out of thin air. It is synthesised from the original Moral Education, which we might neglect before: it has been included and is along with other contents known as Moral Education.

It seemed plausible that she was familiar with the CCE activities in the city. However, her knowledge of CCE only involved the basics. Without being aware of CCE’s impacts on students’ and even teachers’ civic skills, she concluded that CCE would only benefit novice teachers. She scarcely admitted the necessity of reforms.

Path to implementation.

The principal systemised most of his propositions of implementing GCE within the existing hidden curriculum. His strategies included a self-governing body and organising school-wide debates on GCE issues.

Apart from the above strategies, he also listed approaches similar to those of other middle schools: continuing the International Understanding Education program, modifying the formal curriculum to emphasise competency development, and organising school-based curricula to provide GCE-related units.

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Meanwhile, Teacher H preferred GCE to be supplementary knowledge when teaching about social relationships in family, community, and the country. Moreover, she believed that the International Understanding Education program would be the most effective way of conducting GCE. However, she insisted that the immaturity of middle school students’ physical, psychological, and social development would hinder the actual effectiveness.

CZ middle school.

Among all the principals in this project, Principal W was the only member of the post-80s generation. He was new to CZ middle school. In contrast, the teachers there had been working for more years in this school than he had. These experienced teachers adopted a more robust posture. Generally, the principal and the teachers had quite consistent opinions.

Perceived needs.

Principal Wu was a strong supporter of introducing GCE. He argued:

Because this society is a society of communication, which is at the same time getting smaller, and becoming more convenient for communication. Whether it is the future of internet or education, it must be about the openness, sharing, and interoperability. If students don’t know about the outside world, they will not have a complete and accurate judgement. Therefore, if we can provide more platforms and shown them more varied perspectives, it will benefit students’ future lives.

In the interviews, Teacher L told the researcher that training should start with solving local issues before expanding to a global scale. She also emphasised the competencies developed through CCE, including the competencies of researching regional topical issues, observing, and analysing and the self-efficacy of being proactive in solving problems. She perceived teaching CCE as an important necessity for reaching the current teaching goal:

We have been advising the teaching researchers of the Moral Education subject. What is the point of continuing the old way of teaching politics class? It will be more valuable to adopt the approach of doing the Project Citizen.

However, Teacher L doubted whether current middle school students would be able to accept the knowledge covered in GCE. She told the researcher that even for students in Year 9, the teaching content was still on the topic of domestic politics, including the opening-up reforms, national conditions, national policies, and how China is associated with the world. Therefore, she thought middle school students’ understanding of humanity and history was not thorough enough and suggested that high school students would be more suited to studying GCE. 144

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Adoption of GCE.

Scarce cultural belongingness was found in the educators of this school. The term ‘Chinese culture’ was rarely found in interview transcripts. The principal said that students should develop their own ethical values rather than be limited to a Chinese mindset.

[Students] should stand up to the side of justice and should have their own values while they obey the rules. Then they will know how to understand the society, including the people around and himself…There are various conditions that might differ from the condition in China. Some are found in eastern countries, some in western countries, and even it is the western countries, there are also diverse situations. So it is better to know all these knowledge around the world. The more the better…Because it is a society of communication, which is also getting smaller and hence easier for more communications. In terms of the future, whether it is the internet or education, it must be open, sharing, and inclusive. If you don’t know the outside world, you will find it difficult to have a comprehensive and accurate judgement.

The teachers suggested many virtues and skills that do not belong to Chinese traditional culture when interpreting GCE.

Some of the teachers had already realised that participatory democracy beyond the national level in GCE would cause them to counterpose the mainstream ideology in the country. For instance, here is some dialogue between the researcher and Teacher Z from CZ middle school:

Teacher Z: ‘…many theories are very advanced, including Marx's Das Kapital. So, some things, only after countries demise, and the world will be truly integrated to be a community, some things can really be realised.’

The researcher: ‘Don’t you think Marxism may also reflect GCE?’

Teacher Z: ‘Right, that’s the thing! GCE sounds so ideal and is to be realised. However, at the current stage.’

The researcher: ‘The primary stage [of socialism]?’

Teacher Z: ‘We are at the primary stage, but it does not mean other people in the world are all like us. Still there are some nationalist concepts in it. In fact, something (laughs) shall not be dug any further. Indeed, indeed it’s like this. So, sometimes our education will be like this. Some things have to be avoided. This is also true because when things contradict or conflict, you always have to make choices, because otherwise you won’t know how to deal with either [if students bring them up]. Since it is the case [in China], we must prioritise patriotism. At least, our middle school students can start from doing small things and start from regulating our own behaviours. By doing so, students will 145

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develop the awareness and then the behaviours. I feel that it has been contributing to global civic education. Even if it is a small move, such as when travelling abroad, students can be very civilised and respect [the local culture]. This is also the success of global civic education...Regarding global citizenship education, since we have been doing Civics and Citizenship Education, global citizenship education only proposes the identity of global citizenship. In this way, it is not just the concept of being Chinese that is in my heart. I am also part of all humankind. There must be many things in common. Some can be used directly. However, when you have conflicts, as we just talked, we need to place our own country’s interests as [priorities]. Teachers always try to avoid young people to come cross these, because some things can't be explained clearly and not allowed to be explained.’

Although she also mentioned that teaching GCE meant teaching students about a sense of respect – ‘when you enter a village, follow the local customs’ – responsibility, devotion, and so on, the unspoken rule of complying with the governing party drove her, along with other educators in the school, to maintain an ambiguous attitude towards teaching controversial issues.

Path to implementation.

In CZ middle school, educators’ strategy was firstly to screen out the political attributes in either Moral Education, together with Project Citizen, or the newly-introduced GCE during investigation. Their position was that all the practices were for the purpose of holistic teaching. From such a position, they then shirked the moral duty of offering students GCE by referring to teenagers’ psychological development patterns.

Principal W suggested ideas for extracurricular activities, such as MUN and Model CCPCC. However, the teachers in CZ middle school were in favour of continuing the tradition of Project Citizen.

Teacher Z reasoned that doing Project Citizen was a choice tailored to middle school students’ abilities as well as the current social conditions. It could help develop students’ competencies, while GCE would not be able to do that. She said:

Some issues of GCE, in fact, are too complex for middle school students to solve. We can lead them to think through these international issues, but we usually will not lead them to investigate further. Because [if you know] to what extent we wish to achieve through the Project Citizen? We require students not only think through the problems but also give solutions as the final output. Regarding the topics in GCE, it will be more practical for students to undertake some thinking and reflection, but tough to generate some mature ideas.

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Teacher L suggested that current on-going projects had already required students to compare cases in both China and in other countries. For example, she once supervised a student project on first-aid facilities in schools, in which the students compared practices among different countries. She also suggested that it would be possible to see future education allow children in middle schools to keep abreast with the development of modern times. However, Teacher L did not support the idea of having students travel to other countries due to lack of time, channels, and capability to process information critically. Rather, she was more positive that future students would be immersed within a more open environment to develop a global perspective.

7.2 Theorising paths of curriculum change for GCE among participating schools.

7.2.1 Perceived Needs.

Different schools displayed different needs. There were three approaches to perceiving GCE, each of which reflected specific angles of GCE. In general, only one school displayed attitudes favouring changes, while the other five schools held attitudes against changes.

School for quality.

CY middle school was categorised as the school for quality. In the present study, the categorisation of school for quality was judged through a series of initiatives related to human rights education.

As a cross-disciplinary topic, human rights education was classified as a part of global education (Tye, 2003), a component of the GCE (Oxley & Morris, 2013), and a strategy of promoting democratisation (Osler & Starkey, 2005). It was also recognised as a more advanced teaching component of GCE for enhancing students’ global dispositions (Boulton-Lewis et al., 2008). However, the human rights education advocated for in the literature did not apply to the situation in CY middle school. Implementation in CY middle school was conducted in a more implicit manner, e.g., helping improve the quality of school facilities, developing equal and democratic teacher-student relationships, guaranteeing students’ rights of voicing their opinions, self-governance, and school decision-making. These initiatives echoed what was described as the hidden curriculum. Referring to Print (1993), a hidden curriculum is a curriculum with outcomes not explicitly intended by educators nor documented in the planned curriculum.

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Moreover, the human rights education in CY middle school did not extend its scope to the global dimension to meet the standard comprehended for GCE (Oxley & Morris, 2013). On the one hand, Principal Y’s efforts to construct a human-rights-oriented hidden curriculum were not in immediate conjunction with the teachers’ proficiency in teaching human rights topics in the classroom. On the other hand, the concerns of the human rights education were restricted to the students’ human rights rather than extended to a broader scale.

Among all six participating schools, CY middle school was the only exception that displayed an attitude favouring changes related to GCE. However, the school preferred to continue its non- routine human rights education on campus in an implicit manner.

School for elitism.

CW middle school was categorised as the school for elitism. In the present study, the categorisation of school for elitism was determined by the school’s capability to develop its students to become as the principal idealised: ‘the leaders of the fields’.

It was the best-facilitated and funded middle school in the study and the only private school in this research. It exhibited outstanding performances in curricula and activities that might relate to GCE. Meanwhile, its students also enjoyed sufficient support from their families, which showed the potential to develop features related to global citizenship, including democracy, democratic institutions, international relations, social cohesion, and diversity (Torney-Purta, 2002).

However, However, CW middle school wished to use nationalism and elitism to develop global citizens. Consistent with the findings in chapter six, the principal in CW middle school emphasised a nationalist, neoliberal perspective of GCE wherein successful students would become competitive Chinese employees in the global market.

Schools for stability.

The rest of the schools were categorised as schools for stability. Such a categorisation was decided by the schools’ vision of GCE as an educational goal beyond the achievable outcomes.

The underlying rigour for such a vision was the participants’ realistic expectations. These schools were struggling regarding school achievements. Similar criticisms were centred on the quality of teaching they offered. For instance, according to Teacher L from CZ middle school, CCE develops students’ competencies in researching trending social issues, including observation and analysis skills. If students were not competent in local projects, they would be incapable of extending the topics to a global level. Principal B also said that her school would

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city focus on developing self-disciplinary citizens via the Project Citizen program; only when its goal was achieved would the school consider other more advanced learning outcomes. Meanwhile, Principal U viewed adolescence only as a stage of character shaping; hence, he did not expect to see any immediate outcomes from Moral Education. Some educators also thought that CCE partially overlapped with GCE. For Teacher F (FL middle school), Teacher T (HY middle school) and Teacher H (CY middle school), training students to obey laws also guaranteed their law- abiding behaviour in any societal context, and obeying the law was fundamental to higher-level moralities.

Schools that sought stability valued intensifying the current subjects and programs embedded in the Moral Education system, which were believed to be approaches equated to those promoting GCE. First, these schools emphasised empowering the grassroots’ force in participatory democracy but were restricted to dealing with civic issues at local levels. Referring to the literature, participatory democracy with a focus on civic activism and engagement is essential to GCE (Bosniak, 2008; Davies et al., 2014; Johnson & Morris, 2010; Tong, 2009; Veugelers, 2007; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). As reflected in the study, although participants from these schools were unable to express this notion in specific terms, throughout the implementation of Project Citizen, they were convinced that such a learning opportunity was able to promote participatory activism. Second, these schools also regarded the compulsory curriculum practices in Moral Education as agents to bridge the requisites of Chinese citizens and global citizens: a belief similar to the Stoic model, proposing an expansion of the committed identity from a narrower to broader scale, in which good Chinese citizens are fundamental to the citizens the world. Third, the participants listed the reason that middle school students were too young to learn international issues due to their immaturity. Additionally, a related suggestion from the participants was to delay GCE until later adolescence, such as during high school or vocational education, in spite of the evidence available in the literature that age groups within which the maximum change of political socialisation takes place are those from age 14 until the mid-20s (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995, p. 7), which overlaps with the ages (i.e., from the ages 13–16) that students are in Chinese middle school.

As schools for stability, these schools did not perceive GCE as essential and rejected GCE for risk avoidance reasons. Their perceived need in the present study associated with the schooling purpose of improving the effectiveness of current practices, since enough evidences supported their unsatisfactory attitudes towards work progression along with their disposed need for GCE-related changes, by which the researcher interpreted as a more likely compromise solution to cope with the curriculum change.

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7.2.2 Adoption of GCE.

The adopted conceptions of GCE were fragmented. The paradigms of GCE proposed by previous research showed limitations in depicting how Chinese educators comprehended the term in the present study, as their interpretations remained overly abstract and lacked specification regarding each definitional category of GCE. The themes reflected throughout the Chinese case had deep roots in the country’s socio-cultural context. In this section, the analysis drew upon the conceptual framework.

Morality and ethics and cultural sources: The ‘co-construction of home and country’ and the Great Unity.

The present study uncovered that the ‘co-construction of home and country’, a cultural concept particular to the Chinese context, was attached to the participants’ conceptions of cultural characteristics when drawing on cultural sources to interpret GCE. Among the participating schools, CW middle school, FL middle school, QY middle school, and HY middle school could be classified into the variation of supporting the ‘co-construction of home and country’, although some of the educators might not have realised it. However, CY middle school and CZ middle school were the two schools less influenced by such ideas. The ‘co-construction of home and country’ could be a benchmarking indicator of committing to the patriarchal authority (Shu, 2003); meanwhile, in the present study, it was found that this also distinguished belief in the rule of man from the rule of law. The participants from CW middle school, FL middle school, QY middle school, and HY middle school displayed high levels of loyalty to the country’s traditional culture. In CW middle school especially, loyalty to the traditional culture was intensely addressed by the principal as associated with loyalty to the country. In contrast, the participants in CY middle school and CZ middle school were more inclusive towards multiculturalism.

Meanwhile, it was also intriguing to see that the principals from QY middle school and CY middle school used the same Chinese idioms to express their support for different ideologies. Both Principal Y and Principal U referred to the classics, the Great Unity, and ‘appreciate the culture/values of others as do to one's own, and the world will become a harmonious whole’ to describe the consistency between the ideology of global citizenship and Chinese philosophy. However, this Chinese version of a utopian world was interpreted differently by the two principals.

In general, the cultural sources the participating schools used for interpreting GCE were different from those identified by the mainstream literature. GCE, from the aspect of cultural 150

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city studies, was associated with the idea of social justice in cultural identity based on a number of egalitarianistic scholarly works, which indicated GCE to be a concept threading cultural diversity and cultural inheritance (Bernstern, 2005). However, in the present study, cultural inheritance was overweighed cultural diversity in the participating schools: throughout the dataset, there was a common pattern of insisting that the integrity of traditional culture be revealed, regardless of which school the participants were working for.

Political sources: Cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, and participatory democracy.

Reflecting on the literature, a series of interrelated thoughts were suggested as the political sources for GCE (Bosniak, 2008; Crow, 2002; Crick, 1964; Davies, et al., 2014). These thoughts agreed with key political ideologies, including participatory democracy, cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, and activism. Though not all relevant political advocacies were identified from the participants’ conceptions or ideals of GCE, it was still found that an integrated early form of GCE was bubbling up. There were two emerging patterns among participating schools: the acceptance of cosmopolitanism and participatory democracy.

There was sufficient evidence that cosmopolitanism emerged in the study, since schools adopted GCE as an affiliation with the group, not only at the personal, community, and country levels but also at the international level. GCE was identified as a natural and reasonable stage of education that should be arranged after students learn how to love themselves, their families, and their countries, which coincided with the logic of Stoicism. Reflecting on the literature, cosmopolitanism was identified as a broad spectrum with which nationalism did not necessarily conflict (Heywood, 2007).

A perceived problem among the participating schools was the tension existing due to the requirement of over-emphasising nationalism through patriotic education, a teaching theme within the Moral Education system. The overly-addressed patriotic education had always obstructed opportunities to broaden the scope of teaching beyond the national level, though educators were already able to extend from teaching patriotic education to GCE. The restrictions from the dominance of patriotic education were multi-fold. First, it appeared to be a job obligation. Among the participating schools, there was a common pattern of teachers being obligated to develop students to become passive and conservative citizens, even in the content on international relations in the Moral Education subject. However, the underlying reasons for such behaviour were not subject to the commitment to nationalism. Second, it stemmed from the consistent professional training. As reflected in the results, there were attempts to avoid teaching sensitive or controversial topics, but when teaching controversial issues became unavoidable, the teachers in these participating schools followed the instructions in 151

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city professional training and teaching guides. This influence from the compulsory and highly consistent professional training was also reflected from an angle in the study: there were two teachers who had not graduated from the professional degree of teaching Moral Education subject. These two teachers’ answers differed from the other teachers, who had degrees in Moral Education teaching.

Although the emphasis on patriotic education diminished cosmopolitanism among the participating schools, it contributed to the popularisation of communitarianism within them. It was widely accepted that the teaching of GCE should obey the collectivism and be in accordance with the principles of the socialist society.

In addition to cosmopolitanism and communitarianism, participatory democracy was a prevalent element associated with the interpretation of GCE among some particular schools, including HY middle school, FL middle school, CZ middle school, and QY middle school. These schools stood out because they were aware of the importance of participatory democracy through engaging in CCE, such as the Project Citizen activity. The interviewees from these four schools valued students’ competencies of utilising social responsibilities and exercising citizenship rights; they saw GCE as education about not only the outside world but also about participating in change for a better world. The educators from these four schools could distinguish between CCE and GCE, as well as distinguish both from International Understanding Education. In contrast, where Project Citizen was not conducted or ill-conducted, awareness of participatory democracy had not been raised. Furthermore, in schools where there was no background of doing CCE, GCE was only regarded as gaining a global perspective in addition to becoming civically-disciplined citizens. In this regard, combining the literature, the global citizens proposed by participatory schools belongs to the adaptive or personally responsible citizen, who attaches importance to discipline and social awareness but less importance to autonomy, which are proposed by Johnson and Morris (2010), Veugelers (2007), and Westheimer and Kahne (2004) (as cited in Print, 2013).

Economic sources: Elitism and neoliberal globalisation.

It was discovered through analysis that sources from anthropology and economics contributed to the different angles of understanding the roles of global citizens.

The schools made an associative connection with the economic source. As was reflected, tolerating GCE as a venue of involving students in neoliberal globalisation, rather than assimilating them in foreign cultures, was the dominating view in the participating schools (they proposed that Chinese culture should not be deserted but could not relate cultural

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city interdependence). However, culture interdependence was mentioned less. This view, meanwhile, went along with the common pessimistic attitude in public schools towards the low- SES students, who were deprived of opportunities and capabilities to be involved in economic globalisation. The participants’ perspective of economic globalisation seemed to echo a few ideas of neoliberalism in the literature that were featured in elitism-oriented politics and culture as well as the reconfiguration of institutional structures (Ward & England, 2007).

GCE was adopted as elite education, which served as a path to becoming competitive at the global scale. This manner of comprehension was against the original aspiration tied to GCE that concerned the population influenced by ‘low-end globalisation’ or ‘globalisation from below’ (Mathews & Yang, 2012): an authentic picture of the living conditions of low-SES students in the participating schools whose families composed parts of the labour-intensive manufacturing plant in globalisation.

Consensus at different levels.

The difficulties in reaching a consensus – reflection from the policy Delphi method.

One of the patterns in the present study was that GCE was far too controversial to spark an instant agreement between experts and educators at the middle school level. The middle school educators were more concerned with teaching students the skills and values of seeking a living rather than those of being competitive in a changing world. The difficulties in reaching a consensus concurred with the research gap in the literature that GCE has yet to be fully adopted in China. As a concept that has not been popularised, GCE caused confusion in the participants. Despite the assertive answers given by scholars who were working on GCE-related theories in the higher education sector, the school principals and teachers seemed to be stymied by the confusion regarding the meanings of GCE.

In addition to addressing the gap in the literature, this finding also provides theoretical support for the research of mapping the variance in the adoption of GCE between scholars in higher education and principals and teachers in middle schools. The present study was provided with an opportunity for educational exploration of GCE. The diversification and differentiation of the perspectives related to GCE were due to different professional stances the principals and teachers were likely to connect their previous work routines and relevant expected improvements and shaped their comprehensions of GCE by viewing it as one of the factors for adjusting the long-term planning strategies of their school; and the scholars focused on distinguishing GCE from different schools of theories.

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Acknowledged meaning of GCE at the school level.

The findings reverse the argument generated through reviewing the literature on contextualising GCE in China. According to the literature, it was suggested that Chinese schools do not have a background of operating CCE because there are no relevant learning objectives and centric activities (Chi, 2004; Wan, 2003) and the focus of teaching is centred on ‘people’ rather than ‘citizens’ (Zhao, 2010). The present study overthrew this argument by revealing that civic content was acknowledged among the participating schools, though largely relied on at the community level.

The findings also oppose the point of view revealed in the literature that GCE in Chinese schools is only associated with a strong inclination to a global perspective rather than civic content (Chen, 2014; Law, 2014; Pan, 2014).

Acknowledged meanings of GCE at other levels.

When comparing the acknowledged understandings of GCE at the school level with the accepted meanings at other levels, it was found that conflicts of interest among different sub-groups within the school system caused obstacles to reach a consensus on GCE. This phenomenon was a manifestation of the process of how organisations learn new knowledge: knowledge was learnt from the periphery to the centre/core.

It seemed to be easier to reach an agreement regarding decisions on GCE at the individual and collective levels rather than at the school level. Moral Education teachers shared similarities. However, when comparing interview responses among the teachers from CY middle school and the teachers from other participating schools, little variation in the conceptions of GCE, CCE, and Moral Education was revealed.

7.2.3 Paths to implementation.

Based on the different situations perceived by the schools, a pattern of differentiated curricula choice was revealed.

The orientation of formulating the paths seemed to be more dependent on past acts that schools had practised and believed to be effective than on the future goals school leaders drafted. This pattern coincided with what Levitt and March (1988) illustrated as routines that were up to the ‘interpretations of the past more than anticipations of the future…[and]…adapt to experience incrementally in response to feedback about outcomes’ (p. 320). 154

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This reflected the subjectivity of the school curriculum developers. Specifically, it was an immediate impact of the leadership style.

Formal curriculum: The Moral Education subject.

It was found that the Moral Education subject in the formal curriculum was suggested as a strategy of delivering GCE. In the study, these schools regarded some parts of the Moral Education subject to overlap with the contents of GCE, and they perpetuated substantive or de facto teaching as the primary avenue to realising GCE.

Upon the participants’ reflection, it was discovered that the GCE covered in the formal curriculum was more oriented towards national citizenship. The identity shaped through the formal curriculum, with GCE covered, would hardly reach the essential standards of global citizens suggested in the literature, i.e., to be civically active and engaged and more committed to a critical-democratic identity (Johnson & Morris, 2010; Veugelers, 2007; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). The situation in which only the parts compatible with the values and sociocultural norms of national citizenship of GCE were to be tolerated concurred with the argument proposed by Law (2006) that a socialist-oriented citizenship curriculum would hurdle some of the ideologies in GCE.

Informal curriculum: Project Citizen.

Represented by the advocacy of Project Citizen, strategies in the informal curriculum were preferred by the participating schools as another major pathway with which to implement GCE.

The informal curriculum integrated in the participating schools was mainly constructed through the thematic activities and school-based curriculum and did not resemble the informal curriculum in the literature. In the literature, the informal curriculum (in this context, it referred to the instrumental activities) was characterised by initiatives of student governance, newspapers, debating, elections, fundraising, and political clubs (Print, 2007). However, in the participating schools, the informal curriculum included activities of project-based learning in Project Citizen, community service in IPAC, and GCE-related units in the school-based curriculum, which altogether contributed to the Character Improvement Project.

The findings indicate that the schools devoted to implementing an informal curriculum, such as Project Citizen, acknowledged the values of the informal curriculum, which echoed the descriptions in the literature. Accordingly, the informal curriculum was suggested to have advantages of providing training in civic engagement, building of social capital, and promoting language agency (Niemi & Chapman, 1999; Print, 2007; Youniss, et al., 1997), which foster

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city qualitative changes related to global citizenship in students regarding the competencies of planning, critical thinking, negotiation, collaboration, inclusiveness, self-evaluation (Larson, 2000, p. 178; Patrick, 1999, p. 58; Youniss, et al., 1997, p. 624), and moral development (Youniss, et al., 1997). In the study, schools with a specialty in utilising an informal curriculum (i.e., HY middle school, CZ middle school, and FL middle school) also reflected the perceived benefits from the informal curriculum in developing students’ civic competencies.

Extracurricular activities: International Understanding Education.

Extracurricular activities were also identified as a way of implementing GCE. Among all mentioned extracurricular activities, the International Understanding Education program received support from all the participants as an effective strategy of implementing GCE. Apart from the International Understanding Education system, there were also activities such as MUN and Model CPPCC.

The findings on the extracurricular activities in the participating schools reflected a fairly different pattern from the literature. In the literature, extracurricular activities, such as membership in a civic organisation and fulfilling civic roles (e.g., donating, protesting, and contacting local politicians), took place after school and could improve students’ engagement (Hanks & Eckland, 1978; Ladewig & Thomas, 1987; Print, 2007; Youniss, et al., 1997). However, in the Chinese context, wherein the functional components of civil society are heavily suppressed (Chan, 2017), the extracurricular activities were mostly underpinned through educational programs for students to register in after school.

The extracurricular activities allowed the schools more flexibility regarding the formats of GCE-related competencies, though these extracurricular activities were exclusive involvement of high-performing students. Unlike the formal and informal curricula, which were accessible to most students, the extracurricular activities were conventionally designed to tailor to developing students’ personal skills. For instance, in CW middle school, only students with an advanced level of English were selected by the MUN club; and in all six schools, the school-based curricula did not involve Year 9 students due to their busy schedule for preparing for the High School Entrance Examination. The exclusive nature of the school-based curricula opposed the original intention of GCE as a common ethics in a globalised society.

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Hidden curriculum: Human-rights-based curriculum.

Insisted upon by CY middle school, a human-rights-oriented hidden curriculum was an alternative pathway with which to implement GCE. In fact, many initiatives of the hidden curriculum in CY middle school, including the school-wide debate and class communities, shared similarities with the activities’ informal curriculum. However, these initiatives were more an implicit than informal curriculum and were largely dependent on the principal’s leadership.

7.4 Chapter Summary

Chapter seven has continued the curriculum development procedure by mapping evidence of consensual understanding of GCE with the policy Delphi method as well as the educational change process, including schools’ expressed needs, adoption of GCE, and preferred paths of implementing GCE. It has been found that a consensus on the meaning of GCE was hard to achieve at the school level. There were different choices in different schools – which were identified as a school for elitism, schools for stability, and a school for quality – underpinned by various attitudes and school conditions. It was revealed that the school for quality had taken a path of hidden curriculum to GCE, i.e., a human-rights-based hidden curriculum; the school for elitism that equated GCE with the International Understanding Education system was opting for the path of extra-curricular activities by providing global education; and the schools for stability rejected for avoidance reasons were formulating a path to an informal curriculum within the tolerance range of the Moral Education system, such as Civics and Citizenship Education.

Regarding the role of chapter seven among the three results chapters, in a less obvious manner, the paths to fostering GCE in this chapter verified the subtlety proposed in chapter six: it elaborated how different types of schools circumvented confronting the education system when formulating the paths. The focus of this chapter has been on the schools’ curriculum decisions. The details of the possible GCE-oriented curriculum change will be discussed in chapter eight.

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Chapter 8: The Prefectural Prototype

The present study aims to solve the problem of localisation of GCE in Chinese middle schools. With this aim in mind, this thesis was grounded in curriculum development theory.

This chapter focuses on uncovering a likely plan of curriculum prototype that will be designed by schools in order to implement GCE in the future, centring on the following research question: ‘what will a GCE curriculum be conceptualised like within these schools?’ This research question was underpinned by reference to the knowledge obtained during innovation activities in developing curriculum prototype (i.e., as the thought experiment in educational research [Gravemeijer, 1994]). This chapter aims to devise and review the elements of a GCE curriculum prototype, including curriculum intent, content, learning activities, and instructional evaluation (Print, 1993, p. 84). Subsequently, the present chapter evaluates the strategic plan for implementing GCE by addressing the criteria of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and communication, which are characteristics of curriculum innovation (Print, 1993, pp. 242–246). Finally, this analysis focuses on how this GCE curriculum prototype will be specifically tailored to the Chinese context.

Results are presented with respect to the future of GCE in Chinese middle schools. These results argue that mild changes to the current curriculum will take place for the sake of introducing GCE into participating middle schools, if GCE is to be integrated as part of the long- term goal of school development, as a result of suppression from the centralised education system. Light will also be shed on the extent to which schools are willing to take initiative in the form of using grassroots reform power to promote GCE.

8.1 Strategic Plan of the GCE Curriculum Development Figure 8.1 GCE curriculum prototype. Summarised through data in interviews, policy Delphi method, and document analysis. Intents:

- Aims Complementary to Core Competencies and Values for Chinese students’ Development Comprehensive youth development: 1) Self-development: learn to study; lead a healthy life 2) Civic participation: being responsible; practicing innovation 3) Cultural infrastructure: cultural heritage; scientific mindset

- Goals Complementary to the national curriculum of Moral Education subject  Knowledge Understand the basic national conditions, fundamental ideologies, basic national policies, and overview of the world

 Skills Develop the skills of observing, feeling, experiencing, and participating in civic life; form preliminary skills of engaging and communicating with others

Get preliminary views and understandings of the complexity of the social life; obtain basic moral standards to 158

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distinguish right and wrong, and make responsible choices

 Virtues or dispositions Love socialist motherland, love peace, and also have global awareness and global perspectives

Adaptation principles:

- Developing Chinese citizens should always be prior to developing global citizens

- Values advocated in GCE were to be consistent with those in Moral Education

- The teaching content must show relevance with the real reality in China to initiate action; Meanwhile, it should also trigger students' imagination about the future

Focused competencies specific to GCE:

Knowledge of

- Global awareness - Participation awareness

Skills of

- Solving problems in a peaceful way (e.g., coordination) - Actively participating in local and global communities

Virtues or dispositions of

- Respecting and understanding others - Responsibility of international issues

8.1.1 Curriculum intent.

Curriculum intent develops a hierarchical logic as regards the aims, goals, and objectives of a curriculum (Print, 1993). Respectively, aims indicate the desired orientations of the curriculum; goals substantiate the meanings of the aims, while also elaborating interpretations of the medium or long-term milestones; moreover, objectives are technical statements composed of grammatical agents that direct the working details of teaching tasks (Print, 1993).

Table 8.1: Interpretations of GCE competencies. Summarised through data in interviews, policy Delphi method, and document analysis. Competencies Interpretations The knowledge domain Global awareness Be informed of the global news and issues.

Know the different forms of cultures and civilisations across the world.

Learn the culture, history, and customs in a foreign country through perceptual learning, such as through intercultural exchange programs.

Participation awareness Know that the active citizenship in China does not equal the rights-based citizenship, which emphasises obligation and is away from egoism.

Know the importance of rule of law.

Know that participating in solving issues of people’s welfare in local communities (e.g., participate in Project Citizen) contributes to democratic changes.

The skill domain Solving problems in a peaceful way Master the civic skills, including critical thinking, perspective taking, critical reading, and (e.g., coordination) negotiation, so be able to avoid ethnocentrism and extremist views. 159

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Advocate nationalism with a historical perspective and in a rational way, such as being aware of negative consequences of sentimental reactions.

Be capable of valuing that win-win or multi-win benefits the situation when international conflicts occur.

Actively participating in local and Reflect on learning to propose personal action in obeying the basic social regulations and global communities moralities in both China and other countries.

Reflect on learning of the social reality in China to initiate active and responsible actions in China.

The affective domain Respecting and understanding Respect other cultures by doing as local customs required. others Adapt in the society based on the social sense of practicing responsibility to maintain harmonious social relations.

Avoid being assimilated by other cultures.

Responsibility of international Insist on the rule of law regarding personal actions. issues Maintain the attitude of prioritising national interests.

Preserve the common imagination of the Great Unity

Planning intents of GCE in Chinese middle schools.

The reinforcement of high consistency with the standards of the national curriculum persisted among participating schools in China. As reflected in the study, two key factors have shaped the approach taken by participating schools in planning the intents of the GCE curriculum.

The first was that the orientation of the GCE curriculum had to be complementary to the aims outlined in the Core Competencies and Values for Chinese Students’ Development, which included aims of self-development (i.e., learning to study, leading a healthy life), civic participation (i.e., being responsible, practicing innovation), and cultural infrastructure (i.e., cultural heritage, scientific mind-set).

The second was that the scope of the GCE curriculum should be informed and not extend beyond the standards set out in the national curriculum of Moral Education. The goals of the GCE curriculum should be in line with the restrictions in terms of knowledge (i.e., understanding the basic national conditions, fundamental ideologies, basic national policies, and overview of the world), skills (i.e., developing the skills of observing, feeling, experiencing, and participating in civic life, forming preliminary skills of engaging and communicating with others), and virtues and dispositions (i.e., loving the socialist motherland, loving peace, and also having global perspectives). Notably, although GCE-related knowledge and virtues were addressed in the national curriculum, it seemed that participating schools retained the primary responsibility for implementing them. Moreover, due to the rest of the statements in the

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city national curriculum, no specific guidance was provided on how to develop students’ overview of the world, nor their global perspectives; however, emphasis was placed on developing students’ affiliation with the nation-state.

Participants formulated the intent of the GCE curriculum through reinforcing the cross- points between GCE and the Moral Education programs administered by the central government, rather than allowing GCE to incorporate the Chinese national curriculum. According to Print (1993), the formulation of curriculum intent is a decision influenced by a range of considerations; one of these considerations is the educational force, which is presented as politicised both within schools and systemically. The major consideration for participating schools when positioning a GCE curriculum was confronting the tensions associated with attempting innovative changes to displaying local characteristics while also fulfilling the centralised standards for outcomes. This pattern echoed the notion of decentralism-centralism in Chinese political dynamics.

Huang et al. (2016) identify the decentralism-centralism paradox in Chinese educational change as a situation in which “each form of decentralisation is often motivated by a centralisation of strategic powers and transfer of tactical powers, and decentralisation is countered by a significant amount of regulatory re-centralisation” (p. 27).

In the study, through both the interviews and the Policy Delphi method, three principles of adapting GCE in Chinese schools were also suggested as a compromise that could ease the tension of the decentralism-centralism paradox (Huang et al., 2016). These principles were as follows: (1) developing Chinese citizens should always be prior to developing global citizens; (2) values advocated in GCE are to be consistent with those of Moral Education; (3) the teaching content must show relevance to the reality in China to initiate action, while also fostering students’ imagination about the future (details of these adaptation principles will be elaborated in the following section).

Finally, the aims and goals in the strategic plan of the GCE curriculum responded to the conclusion, generated in chapter four, that a bureaucratic system exerted control over what types of learning opportunities could be offered to students by participating schools. Meanwhile, the aims and goals also reflected the discussion in chapter six regarding participants’ reserved opinions on conceptualising GCE, along with the discussion in chapter seven that GCE would be an elite training mechanism for fostering advanced qualities superior to those needed for simply being good Chinese citizens.

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Adaptation principles.

This section focuses on providing evidence regarding the three suggested principles of adapting GCE to the contexts in the participating schools. These principles include (1) developing Chinese citizens should always take priority over developing global citizens; (2) values advocated in GCE are to be consistent with those of Moral Education; (3) the teaching content must show relevance to the reality in China to initiate action, while also fostering students’ imagination about the future.

Developing Chinese citizens should always take priority over developing global citizens.

This principle was a strongly agreed-upon statement in the second question of the Policy Delphi method. It received a high level of consensus among scholars, school principals, and teachers. Moreover, this principle was also supported by participants’ consistent opinions towards culture and their perplexity regarding defining GCE.

First, this principle would be amplified by the high acceptance of cultural inheritance in the process of globalisation. The opinion that emphasised preserving one’s own Chinese cultural identity was popular among participants regardless of which schools they were from. Teacher J, at CW middle school, believed that cultural unity was necessary. Principal Y thought that students should not desert traditional culture, although their horizons should be broadened to commit to universal values. Teacher H from CY middle school mentioned that students should learn only the good and advanced aspects of culture and mind-set from western societies, think about them critically, and should maintain an equal attitude towards Chinese culture and foreign cultures. Principal W said it would be sufficient for middle school students to know about diverse cultures and civilisations. Teacher L from the same school also agreed that students needed foundational knowledge about international society before further GCE training. In FL middle school, Principal Z suggested that global awareness should not entail sacrificing the domestic culture, while the two teachers from this school also shared a similar view. Furthermore, Principal U pointed out that teaching GCE would only be feasible through education that started from the motherland and moved to comparative studies across other countries.

Both principals and teachers regarded the reservation of cultural identity as important to gaining an international perspective. Their conceptions were in conjuncture with the idea of defending Chinese culture from being assimilated by other cultures in globalisation, which might reflect the post-colonial value rather than nationalism. 162

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Second, the principle was also verified by evidence showing participants’ familiarity with the traditional approach of teaching students to become Chinese citizens rather than global citizens. Participants seemed to rarely think about GCE because their thinking was occupied by the teaching of cultural identities.

During interviews, most participants were not able to give immediate responses regarding GCE. There was limited thinking regarding the requirements of being a good global citizen; the suggested specific qualities for global citizenship included the ability to form relationships with life and nature, a global perspective, the preservation of cultural identity, respect and inclusiveness, and problem-solving skills.

By contrast, several qualities were recommended by participants as being requirements of a good Chinese citizen. These suggested qualities included selflessness, tolerance, getting along with others, adaptability, being responsible, being considerate, problem-solving skills, social consciousness, communication skills, self-regulation, learning capacity, being self-motivated, teamwork ability, obeying the law, and developing self-cognition. In particular, obeying the law, being responsible, social consciousness and adaptability were the top four qualities suggested by most participants.

Values advocated in GCE were to be consistent with those in Moral Education.

The principle that “values advocated in GCE were to be consistent with those of Moral Education” was also a widely agreed-upon statement in the Policy Delphi method. It was listed as the third statement responding to the second Delphi question. While scholars had more conflicted views towards this statement, as several of them argued that GCE should be distinguished from Moral Education, principals and teachers shared highly consistent views in favour of this principle.

In the study, evidence was available demonstrating participants’ commitment to Confucianism. For instance, the last section elaborated on participants’ defence of and familiarity with traditional Chinese cultures. Moreover, and especially, the sense of responsibility among social relations (i.e., a characteristic virtue of Confucianism) was addressed at length by nearly all participants.

However, in fact, participants’ educational philosophy was not restricted to conventional Confucian advocacies. Educators from schools that were implementing Project Citizen were aware of, although could not always identify, the modern political science concepts of the rule of

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city law, participatory democracy, and civil society via the training and teaching of Project Citizen. These participants endeavoured to advocate for these concepts in the context of Confucianism.

This principle explicated the reference participants drew from to adapt GCE to the scaffold of Moral Education, rather than developing GCE from the standards of Moral Education. In the subsequent curriculum content section, there will be discussion on findings pertaining to participants treating the transmission of Chinese culture as the pathway to developing global citizens, although traditional Chinese culture and conceptions of global citizenship might not be consistent under all circumstances.

The teaching content must show relevance to the real reality in China to initiate action; meanwhile, it should also foster students' imagination about the future.

This principle was drawn from the one of the scholars’ responses in Policy Delphi method. Although participants generally agreed on this statement, they did not provide further comments nor elaborations on it.

Focused competencies specific to GCE.

Throughout the iterative conversation among various stakeholders in the Policy Delphi method, the agreed generated definition of GCE implies the acknowledged curriculum intent. Accordingly, GCE is intended to develop students’ global awareness, participation awareness, abilities to actively participate in local and global communities, ability to solve problems in a peaceful way (e.g., coordination), responsibility regarding international issues, as well as the virtues of respecting and understanding others. However, the actual curriculum intent should contain sources from empirical studies of the society and learners, subject matter, curriculum conceptions, philosophy, situational analysis, and educational forces (Print, 1993); the definition of GCE cannot be referenced directly as the only curriculum intent, although it was what participants generally agreed on.

Generally, under strict restrictions, a more conservative approach to planning GCE curriculum intent was preferred. The major reason for deciding such curriculum intent was because participants had commitment to and familiarity with qualities that a Chinese person should have and that should be transmitted to the younger generations but were vague regarding what global citizen qualities shall be passed on to students. However, there was still a substantial distinction drawn between participants’ curriculum conceptions of the Moral Education subject in the formal curriculum and the GCE curriculum. In contrast with the subject 164

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city of Moral Education, which participants interpreted as one particular academic discipline, the GCE curriculum signified a more holistic and humanistic curriculum to middle school educators. Their position on the aspirational intents of GCE was closely associated with their educational philosophy and personal experiences (personal development was sporadic and differed from one participant to another, involving e.g., ability to express oneself, awareness of individual rights, and ability to pursue personal values, as well as enjoying the enthusiasm and love for themselves, the people around them and the cultural landscape).

8.1.2 Curriculum content. Figure 8.2 Core curriculum practices. Summarised through data in interviews, policy Delphi method, and document analysis. Priorities (instrumental activities & formal curriculum):

- Years 7 – 8 Process based learning International Understanding Education Project Citizen Community Service in Integrated Practical Activity Curriculum

- Year 9 Subject based learning Inclusion of global news, issues, and intercultural contents in teaching plan when delivering Moral Education subject

Recommended (expressive activities):

- Strengthening areas of inquiry (compulsory activities) Coinciding implementation of thematic activities Legal Education Civilized Mannered Education Patriotic Education Community Education

- Curriculum differentiation (school-based extra-curricular activities) Struggling students Involvement of foreign teachers A collection of lectures given by experts featuring GCE

High-achieving students Societies & Clubs, e.g., MUN & Model CPPCC School-based curriculum: optional units, e.g., the unit of International Relations

- Hidden curriculum development School ethos Endowing students with governing power, e.g., establishing Student Self-governing committee, allowing students to vote for decision making

It was hard for GCE to be distinguished from the current Moral Education. The GCE curriculum content emphasised developing qualified competent Chinese citizens (where the subject-matter sources were used), while also offering a limited number but a wide range of learning opportunities on GCE, including varied informal curriculum activities.

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Priorities.

Through the post-interviews, it was found that the structured content of GCE was planned to be minimised for students in the early stage of their middle school years (Years 7 – 8). Later, a subject approach was preferred when students proceeded to the more advanced year (Year 9).

When working in a highly bureaucratic system and with an overcrowded curriculum, participating schools had to make choices on which aspects of GCE their schools could afford to take on. Generally, GCE-related content was designed to give way to content that centred on developing idealised national citizens. In contrast to the mitigated intrinsic values of content, the competencies formulated through experiences and practices were capitalised on, which coincided with the described characteristics of the process approach (Print, 1993). In practice, the desire to strengthen the training of abilities and virtues in students could only be fulfilled during the previous two years of middle school, although participants generally agreed that it was better not to interrupt the learning course of GCE.

Furthermore, the focus of training abilities and virtues differed among participating schools. While all participating schools regarded the International Understanding Education as the most appropriate model of delivering GCE, this program only achieved effect in the CW middle school, which was categorised as the school for elitism in chapter seven. Whereas, most other schools turned to Project Citizen, a program emphasising competencies affiliated with national citizenship, and sacrificed the learning opportunity to develop students’ global perspective in order to devote more efforts to developing students’ civic skills. The schools opting for such a strategy were those categorised as schools for stability in chapter seven.

Years 7 – 8: varied training through school-oriented informal curriculum.

Schools enjoyed the freedom to teach GCE though the requirement that the duty to teach disciplined and patriotic citizens should be prioritised in the formal curriculum. However, this conferred freedom was not used to the best effect. Disapproval of teaching international issues surged among participating schools, as participants believed that teaching international issues was difficult. However, the response would imply that this difficulty mainly resulted from participants’ unawareness of international disputes. For instance, when asked the question “How will you teach international disputes, such as China’s Mekong Plans, which might threaten a series of disasters for countries downstream?” participants pointed out that such international issues were not suitable for curriculum content, even though they also suggested that they would guide students to think about creating ‘win-win’ or ‘multi-win’ situations so that the sustainable development of shared resources could be maintained.

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Participating schools accepted the adoption of GCE as part of their long-term development goals for the external and internal compromise of school effectiveness in relation to practical implementation. In this regard, the external tension with centralised bureaucratic system and the internal tension of coping with delivering an overcrowded curriculum to low-SES students (except for CW middle school) drove schools to prefer a common process approach at the beginning years (Years 7 – 8), followed by a subject approach at a later stage when students were approaching middle school graduation (Year 9).

However, with regard to the actions to be opted for in Years 7 and 8, there were variations in the pattern of selecting GCE avenues among the schools. Several constraints, coinciding with the descriptions by Print (1993), of finances, staff availability, school policy and central organisational policy led to this situation. In the present study, outsourcing programs were the resources for GCE; some programs that were once effective in promoting GCE in one school might be abandoned by the other schools.

The ideal model: International Understanding Education.

Through feedback from the study, it was found that International Understanding Education was considered the ideal model by all participants in the selected middle schools. The International Understanding Education program was grounded by intercultural exchange programs, such as the AFS program. In these programs, students were required to cover all expenses when they were abroad. Out of all the six schools, only the CW middle school saw a reasonably high number of students participating in International Understanding Education, while the rest of the five community schools saw only a few students registered with relevant programs each year.

Although principals and teachers alike believed in the impacts of the International Understanding Education program on shaping students to be global citizens, the study researching global identity formation among mobile students indicated a less smooth psychological development (Bagnall, 2015).

The safe approach: Project Citizen.

Project Citizen was chosen by schools for stability as a safe model that substituted for GCE. Project Citizen was characterised by project-based learning, poster presentation, and public hearing. Its model was also consistent with the strategy of models of reality (Print, 1993). It was considered a safe approach favoured by schools for stability for training civic skills in GCE.

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In the FL middle school, where Project Citizen had been well developed, both teachers and principals suggested that GCE would be realised by expanding the research interests from local community-related issues to international affairs. Teacher F also reflected that FL middle schools had already carried out projects on GCE: for instance, the project on excessive packaging they had once conducted addressed a global issue relating to environmental protection and resource utilisation. The idea of integrating GCE into Project Citizen was also acknowledged by other schools who appreciated the effect of this program. In HY middle school, teacher A noted the example of conducting comparative research on smog issues in America, Britain, and China; in QY middle school, teacher W cited a student project on expired drug recycling; in CZ middle school, there were also projects that touched on GCE-related areas, such as a project on studying etiquette in different countries.

However, many teachers pointed out one drawback of practicing GCE by following the design of Project Citizen: namely, the inaccessibility of collecting primary data. Most research into Project Citizen involved reviews of practices in other countries, but all were based on online resources. Another drawback of utilising Project Citizen was its method of evaluation. According to teacher Z in CZ middle school, sufficient reviews of and feedback regarding Project Citizen were absent during implementation. In a typical Project Citizen competition, there was only an overview of all projects through students’ poster presentations without details of specific projects. In this matter, practices among schools remained sporadic, which became a problem that prevented schools from making full use of Project Citizen.

Compulsory yet overlooked: Integrated Practical Activity Curriculum (IPAC).

IPAC was characterised by project-based learning, community education, IT education, and labour education. However, in practice, IPAC was often only a name used interchangeably with project-based learning. Being a compulsory unit of the national curriculum, IPAC was paid little attention by participants.

Participating schools conducted project-based learning to enhance students’ awareness and capacities. These informal curricular activities were driven by two factors. On the one hand, recommendations to conduct similar activities appeared at the end of each module in textbooks as elective learning activities. On the other hand, students sometimes came up with specific research topics for their projects.

A suggestion was put forward to develop project-based learning in IPAC with cooperating middle schools from other countries. Teachers favoured the idea of taking students to other countries to collect data for their own projects. However, when consulted about the idea of 168

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city conducting the same project and sharing data with schools in other countries instead of going abroad, teachers proposed several concerns. The first of these was whether students would obtain global citizenship competencies if they were conducting projects in local areas. The second concern pertained to the difficulty of selecting a common research topic for schools in different countries. The third concern was about the potential inequality among cooperating schools, which might lead to one dominating school controlling the progress of others.

Year 9: drifting towards unification through formal curriculum.

It was possible for educators to deliver GCE through optimising the teaching of the formal curriculum. In the study, it was generally agreed by participants, especially teachers, to use the Moral Education national curriculum to deliver GCE in Year 9. This resulted in the teaching drifting towards unification.

The reasons for adopting the national curriculum of Moral Education as an avenue of teaching GCE in Year 9 were twofold. On the one hand, students in Year 9 were too busy and preoccupied with heavy schoolwork to participate in additional training, except for focusing on subjects in the formal curriculum.

On the other hand, the teaching content of Year 9 Moral Education subjects involved knowledge of the world. Participants’ answers in interviews confirmed that clear instructions regarding these topics were available in the Moral Education textbooks, as well as training for the Moral Education major, which formed part of a teaching degree. Generally, textbook design and teacher training were aimed at developing students to become disciplined, civic-mannered, and patriotic citizens.

Cultivating civic manners - “To take the essence and discard the dregs.”

A coincident same quote of “to take the essence and to discard the dregs” was widely used by these participants as the rationale explaining their attitudes towards foreign cultures. It was also the unified principle advocated in the Moral Education subject textbooks for educating students in the appropriate manner of dealing with different cultures.

For some participants, cultivating civic manners seemed not only to involve the actions of maintaining a highly disciplined hairstyle (e.g., not dyeing one’s hair), dress code (e.g., wearing school uniforms), and polite behaviour in public (e.g., ethically based tourism), but also extended to underpin the resolution students could get adopt once and for all to cope with the globalised society: a belief that students who behaved in disciplined and civic-mannered fashion within Chinese culture would surely be welcomed in other cultural contexts. Meanwhile, there

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city were also participants who held open-minded opinions towards foreign cultures. To them, it was the inclusion of different types of civilisations in the curriculum that mattered to students. However, without any further intended guidance, students were left with more flexibility and were believed to have the ability to distinguish between the ‘essence’ and ‘dregs’ by themselves.

When the researcher asked what might be standard for participants themselves to distinguish between ‘essence’ and ‘dregs’, the answers were rather vague. Although there was a common response that teaching should focus on having students respect other cultures and doing as local customs required, participants’ understanding of cultural competence was questionable. For instance, when the researcher used the teaching case regarding the news of extremist youth boycotting and damaging products made in other countries as an interview question to clarify how participants would teach about intercultural conflicts, participants suggested an approach constrained by nationalism. To be specific, their way of preventing teenagers’ reckless actions focused on psychological instructions regarding emotional management through demonstrating the negative social influences of boycotting and damaging, such as the strategy applied by Teacher W from QY middle school, who related to students the real case of a youth’s life story between 2012 and 2017 after he smashed Japanese cars in response to the Diaoyu island issue. As all participants suggested, it was necessary to teach students to love their country rationally, which might be the basis of the desired civic manners.

Prioritising national interests.

The nationalist orientation in Moral Education subject was also reflected as a means of advocating the prioritisation of national interests beyond any other concern.

For instance, there was fairly unified support for the national interest in developing the economy, regardless of whether this resulted in air pollution in China or even worldwide. One general explanation was that air pollution has long been a price paid by other developed countries, and that therefore China should not be the exception. Apart from a few younger participants, who mentioned the association between human rights abuses and the fast-growing economy, the majority of participants did not focus on their personal right to have clean air, but rather prioritised national interest. According to their interpretations, other neighbouring countries blaming China for air pollution was an unsympathetic act. Moreover, the air pollution problem was classified by participants as an area in which education cannot make a difference; this was because its cause, i.e., economic development, was understood by participants as being a factor that could not be controlled through interventions at the individual level. Furthermore,

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It seemed obvious that using teaching content that was the same as that provided in the formal curriculum might result in a reduced likelihood of meeting the standards set by the GCE curriculum intent, which was planned beyond the boundaries of the standards stated in the national curriculum.

Recommended.

Strengthening areas of inquiry.

The present findings have shown that, except for participants in the CY middle school, other participants proposed that GCE not be considered as part of the formal curriculum, indicating that it was preferable to leave most of the daily routine unchanged in the current education system. However, some participants’ attentions had turned to the thematic activities in the informal curriculum.

Among all thematic activities, some were preferred by middle school educators, including Legal Education, Civilised Manners Education, Patriotic Education, and Community Education. However, it was noteworthy that these thematic activities were implemented through a variety of avenues, including Project Citizen, IPAC, and school-based elective units.

Curriculum differentiation.

Curriculum differentiation was adopted by participating schools in order to meet varied needs of students.

First, there was differentiation between Year 9 students and other students. In all six schools, the non-formal curriculum did not involve Year 9 students, due to their busy schedule when preparing for the High School Entrance Examination. Unlike the formal curriculum, which was compulsory, the non-formal curriculum activities were conventionally designed to be tailored to developing students’ personal skills.

Moreover, some participants’ responses carried the implication that it went against the educational goals for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to teach international issues; this was discussed in chapter six regarding how educators perceived GCE as an educational need. One quote from Teacher H in the CY middle school encapsulated the participants’ opinions on this subject: 171

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Because they were trapped by their social niches, they were not able to get in touch with things beyond their environment. Their friends were also in similar situations. They always behave indifferently when you teach them about the dreams, the country, or the associated responsibilities. Therefore, I teach them more realistic things to start with, which are the most basic social regulations and moralities.

Finally, it could be generally concluded from the interview data and qualitative feedback in the policy Delphi that, for struggling students, the GCE curriculum should involve activities of passive-cognitive learning (e.g., according to the participants, through “involvement of a foreign teacher”, or “a collection of GCE lectures delivered by experts”); for high-achieving students, the GCE curriculum could be more challenging (e.g., as were suggested by participants as “developing school-based elective units based on teachers’ and students’ interests”, or “establishing societies and clubs”).

Curriculum differentiation seemed to be a vital and necessary element for participating schools. For instance, although the MUN was a society known to all schools, it only achieved success in the CW middle school, where students had more advanced English abilities. There were also more than forty school-based elective units being organised in the CW middle school.

There was also a case in which one struggling school failed to organise an activity that was too difficult for its students. As was recalled by Principal Z, the school used to offer an elective unit called International Relations, which was organised through expository teaching of international issues in the FL middle school; however, this unit was cancelled soon after its teacher retired.

The exclusive nature of the school-based curriculum stands in opposition to the original aim of GCE of teaching public ethics in a globalised society.

Hidden curriculum development.

In the study, only CY middle school constructed a well-developed hidden curriculum that could resonate with the ideas of GCE. The strategies for developing a GCE hidden curriculum involved endowing students with governing power (e.g., establishing a student self-governing committee) and allowing students to vote for decision-making. Concurring with the conclusion in chapter six, leadership style might play an important role in hidden curriculum development.

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8.1.3 Preparation for implementation Figure 8.3 Professional development. Summarised through data in interviews, policy Delphi method, and document analysis.

Professional development:

- Raise awareness of GCE Endorsing the importance of GCE Understanding the authorized definition Knowing linkage with middle school students’ cognitive and psychological development Be critical, justified, and from a historical perspective, and avoid extremist views Acknowledge civic skills, including critical thinking, perspective taking, critical reading, negotiation, etc.

- Systematic training on enhancing teachers’ capacity of teaching Learning knowledge and skills on teaching complex topics in GCE Knowing how to obtain appropriate materials to make teaching plans Identifying the effective pedagogies in teaching GCE Learning information about making decisions on evaluation and assessments

Raise awareness of GCE.

Raising awareness of GCE was a common theme revealed through comments in the Policy Delphi method. This theme was reflected in the following components: endorsing the importance of GCE; understanding the authorised definition; content that is critical, justified, from a historical perspective, and that avoids extremist views; acknowledging civic skills, including critical thinking, perspective-taking, critical reading, negotiation, etc.

Moreover, it was also reflected through interviews that understanding connections with middle school students’ cognitive and psychological development was also an important component for raising awareness of GCE. According to teachers’ teaching experiences, middle school students were insensitive to topics that were not directly related to their personal daily life; teenage students were more engaged in content that was based on particular examples.

Systematic training on enhancing teachers’ capacity of teaching.

Teachers in the participatory schools found that it was difficult to teach topics related to international issues and called for systemic training on the knowledge and skills required to teach complex topics in GCE. According to principal Z, teaching GCE demanded higher requirements for teachers, and the FL middle school might only invite GCE experts to give speeches to students to substitute the elective unit, as the school did not have GCE teachers. On a related note, most interviewed teachers admitted that they were not capable of teaching GCE, as they neither paid attention to international issues nor understood what exactly GCE was.

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Moreover, knowing how to obtain appropriate materials to create teaching plans was also important. From participants’ reflections, insufficiently accessible teaching resources increased the difficulties associated with teaching. When supervising projects, teachers noticed that students could not collect data by themselves, but at most only searched the internet for data. Teachers observed the power of having students learning through getting in touch with first- hand, intuitive facts. As Teacher L said, “…the best politics class should be an open environment”; teachers desired that students could gain direct experiences to integrate knowledge about their social roles in both the country and the world.

The study also identified effective pedagogies in teaching. Participants believed that the teaching-learning strategies they were applying would continue to be used in the GCE curriculum when there was be no specific professional training on GCE. Teachers reflected in the interviews that they had prepared teaching materials tailor for students’ daily lives, and had used various pedagogies including group discussion, voting, observation, role-playing, and debating. However, it was difficult to identify what exact teaching-learning strategies were being used by participants without classroom observation.

From participants’ descriptions, it was discovered that subject teaching focused on the curriculum content. To be more specific, there was a list of examination points drawn from the Moral Education curriculum; based on this list, examination papers were composed, and learning activities were designed.

When systematic training to improve teachers’ knowledge and skills on teaching complex topics was not available, difficulties of understanding arose, along with difficulties of assessing curriculum content. The learning outcomes of the rest of the educational experiences in addition to the testing parts in the examinations were unknown. When analysed at the level of the education system, participating schools were occupied with completing tasks assigned by the local educational bureau, the provincial educational department, as well as the central ministry of education. Apart from assessment activities regulated by the education system, examination grades were the most significant indicator of school performance.

Finally, it was deemed necessary to include learning information about making decisions on evaluation and assessments as part of professional training.

There were no specific functioning evaluation mechanisms established for the informal curriculum, including the thematic activities, school-based elective units, and IPAC, as well as other cultural exchange programs. Although there were practices involving using a bulletin board as part of Project Citizen in HY and CZ middle schools, this attracted little attention from

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city other teachers and students, as was reflected by participants from these schools. In the study, Teacher J said she felt it was a waste of opportunities when some of the programs she was in charge of were not designed to have follow-up feedback sessions for students; moreover, Teacher A from HY middle school doubted whether teachers had the capacity to teach GCE, or even whether examiners had the ability to assess GCE teaching and learning outcomes.

The present study interpreted the weakened effects of evaluative attempts as stemming from neglected evaluative culture among participating schools. Since the majority placed great importance on teaching the burdensome formal curriculum when it came to improving students’ examination scores, people generally disregarded their roles in schools’ autonomous governance. The neglected evaluative culture was replaced by a complimentary ‘flattering’ culture. There were constant nominations of peer models and teachers in all participating schools, including ‘sunshine boys/girls’, ‘excellent teachers’, and so on. By examining the textual contents of these activities, it was found that comments centred on themes of gratefulness, appreciation, and praise. It was these forms of feedback that were identified by principals as evaluations, although they had nothing to do with the consolidation of evaluating learning programs.

However, there was one exception. In an interview, the principal of the CY middle school reflected that a whole-school debate regarding students’ preferred approach to school governance had once taken place. However, this debate was only a one-time event that was intensively led by the principal himself. When a new principal is instated, similar events will no longer exist; in other words, this exception could not mitigate the impact of lasting evaluation culture.

It seemed to remain difficult for participants to determine the appropriate resolutions of evaluation and assessments. Opinions diverged. The minority, who proposed systematising evaluations, also concurred with the assertion that the key to developing moral competencies was repetitive training. These people emphasised the importance of planning a GCE curriculum that lasted throughout all years of middle school. Teacher A from HY middle school and teacher Z from CZ middle school suggested that the GCE curriculum should be run over many years of a student’s life. Teacher F from FL middle school and teacher H from CY middle school also stated that cultivating virtue required long-term efforts.

Moreover, the majority—who did not attach necessity to organising evaluations and assessments—believed that GCE provided at the middle school stage only constituted a very small part of students’ encountered learning experiences. These participants were also the group who included experiences of going abroad, life education, getting in touch with nature, 175

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city improving students’ learning environment, and catering qualities as more effective strategies than having only GCE-specific activities.

Findings indicate that learning information about making decisions on evaluation and assessments should be considered a necessary part of professional development.

8.2 Evaluating GCE as Curriculum Innovation

Tangible steps were suggested regarding the GCE curriculum prototype. In the study, the question regarding the manifestation of a potential GCE curriculum in the future was proposed to principals and teachers in the participating schools. As was revealed in chapter seven, participants’ answers to these predictions were scattered and unorganised, generating gaps and overlaps. Accordingly, this section re-organises participants’ responses and ‘defrags’ the agreed solutions into a curriculum format.

This section will thus apply the curriculum innovation evaluation criteria as the framework. In short, “Innovations that were more readily adopted and implemented were characterised by a high degree of relative advantage, compatibility, effective communication, trialability, and low complexity” (Print, 1993, p. 247). The rest of this section will discuss the GCE curriculum prototype according to the criteria of relative advantage, compatibility, effective communication, trialability, and low complexity.

8.2.1 On the criterion of relative advantage.

The present study was able to validate that the planned GCE curriculum prototype would assure relative advantage in providing at least two functions: optimising and systematising current practices and improving the quality of teaching through enhanced motivation among students. Both functions promote long-term development of the school’s effectiveness; however, they were less likely to meet the urgent needs of surviving schools, such as increasing the transition rate to senior high schools in public schools.

To be more specific, in the present study, the GCE curriculum was justified as useful for providing a venue to extend and optimise subject teaching in the formal curriculum and thematic activities in the general Moral Education system. Findings from the post-interviews concurred that participants regarded the GCE curriculum as a measure of fulfilling schools’ potential development goals: it was treated as an approach to fulfilling elite education in CW

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city middle school, an approach to offering human rights education in CY middle school, and an approach to fulfilling schools’ social responsibilities among the rest of the public schools. Moreover, the GCE curriculum was able to systematise the existing fragmented education practices: it drew together the IPAC, CCE, International Understanding Education, Community service, school-based curricula, and society and clubs in order to serve a common purpose.

The affirmation of high-level motivation in students through participants’ teaching and supervision of informal curriculum and extracurricular activities assured their belief in the relative advantage of the GCE curriculum in the present study. Based on their teaching experiences, participants noted that students displayed great interest in participating in informal curriculum and extra-curricular activities. The positive feedback in terms of students’ reactions in previously practised educational attempts, including their liveliness, engagement, spontaneity, and interest, were sources from which principals and teachers alike drew as evidence to justify continuing and intensifying these attempts. In this regard, the function of enhancing teaching quality also met with participants’ prediction of the curriculum development.

However, it was still doubted whether the GCE would demonstrate the advantages noted by participants in implementation. An uneven and uncertain situation is expected according to some evidence from the present study. First, the GCE curriculum was not accorded the same importance among all the participating schools. Principals such as principal Y and principal C, who held more transformative views regarding the schools’ future, spoke more on the relative advantages of the GCE curriculum. Therefore, the extent to which the GCE curriculum was believed to play a significant role seemed to be largely dependent on leadership style. Furthermore, in terms of enhanced motivation, the descriptions of students’ interest in activities matched the condition of motivation stimulated by autonomy of selecting and planning the project at the beginning stage but did not mirror the situation of decreasing motivation as the project proceeded (Barron et al., 2011).

8.2.2 On the criterion of compatibility.

To meet the criterion of compatibility, an innovation needs to comply with existing values, past experiences, and present needs (Print, 1993, p. 243). The following will investigate this issue from these three aspects.

In terms of compatibility with the existing values, there were not many expected changes in the planned GCE curriculum. Compatibility was reflected through coherence in the advocated 177

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city virtues as part of the teaching content, as well as the associated and concurring social relevance of the curriculum.

With respect to the virtues of the curriculum content, the two qualities of being disciplined and civic-mannered were regarded as the core. These two qualities bridged the virtues proposed in the existing Moral Education system and the essential parts of the GCE curriculum prototype. For instance, in spite of the last proposed interview question, it was revealed by participants that there were clear teaching instructions regarding topics in the previous three interview questions, which were available in the Moral Education subject textbooks, as well as training provided in the teaching degree for developing subject teachers: the requirements of being disciplined and civic-mannered in the local area emphasised in the national curriculum were suggested to be applied when visiting foreign countries. In other words, compatibility was fulfilled via coherence in extending the teaching of passive citizenship from the national level to the international level.

With regard to social relevance, it was found that the Chinese GCE curriculum was in accordance with the country’s context of a ‘shrunk’ civil society. The scope of the curriculum was restricted to engaging students in issues at the community level, but away from institutional politics. The coherence in social relevance could also be comprehended through comparison with curriculum development in other countries. In Print’s curriculum development theory (1993), which was originally written based on the Australian context, the suggested features of content that displayed social relevance included democratic principles and values, understanding of cultural groups, social awareness and criticism, and the facilitation of societal change; these features could be adopted as good indicators for constructing an inclusive, multicultural, democratic, and progressive curriculum that would be suitable for both national and global citizenship. However, in the present study, participant consensus regarding the goals of the GCE curriculum was largely determined by the dominated ideologies in China. The existing Chinese school culture is heavily laden with moral objectives, which could prevent students from assimilating civic values (Yang, 1990).

In terms of compatibility with past experiences, the planned GCE curriculum also tolerated variance in past experiences among participating schools. This compatibility was mainly manifested regarding GCE-related skills. More specifically, due to differences in the contextual situation among participating schools, different potential pathways to the GCE curriculum were practised, which constituted varied past experiences in the six schools in addition to the compulsory national curriculum.

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In the training of GCE-related skills, which was grounded through a process approach, the relevant content depended largely on curriculum differentiation. First, there was the differentiation at the school level, where different combinations of paths of GCE were selected by decision-makers based on individual schools’ situations. Second, there was differentiation during curriculum implementation. The majority of the learning opportunities in GCE curriculum was planned to be flexible and optional; as a result, students could choose and arrange their GCE study based on their own interests and needs. For instance, according to participants’ reflection on supervising Project Citizen, based on students’ spontaneous choices of the learning project topics, teachers were to design a scope and difficulty level that would be suitable for students to complete within 6 or 12 months.

Regarding compatibility with present needs, apart from the findings in chapter seven stating that needs from six participating schools were contested when judging the need for GCE, it was also found that formulating a tangible curriculum would be not feasible at this stage. Despite being consistent with the requirements organised in the national formal curriculum and the thematic activities, the strategies adopted by individual schools were inimitable. The presented GCE curriculum plan only outlined a general trend regarding the potential practices of GCE in these middle schools.

Last but not least, it was also noticeable that, during interviews, principals and teachers were reserved about expressing their opinions. Although they put forward some personal ideas relating to the intention of the GCE curriculum, they also shifted the course of the conversation by claiming that they preferred to act upon decisions from the superordinate. Moreover, compared to teachers, school principals tended to hold more open-minded albeit vaguer views, which could be due to the unfamiliarity of the restrictions imposed by the professional training and curriculum content of the Moral Education subject.

8.2.3 On the criterion of low complexity.

The criterion of low complexity describes a condition in which educators feel that adopting a curriculum innovation involves a straightforward and easy change (Print, 1993).

Regarding the content, it was evaluated that the learnability of the GCE curriculum was less likely to meet the criterion of low complexity. Learnability was the major concern for most participants from the public schools struggling for stability. In the previous section, in which discussion on the scope of the GCE curriculum content was presented through four questions, it was found that there were divergent opinions among different types of schools, while the 179

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city previous three questions were identified as learnable by all participants. The commonest reason was that their schools did not provide good conditions of implementing GCE. It was agreed by these participants that a successful GCE depended on contributions from a variety of stakeholders, including the school, family, society, and policies. Referring to the literature, this situation was consistent with the importance of social agency in the informal curriculum (Deci et al., 1991; Barron et al., 1998). Participants preferred to focus on performing priority duties, which were associated with compliance and commitment, though a constructivist view, which was widely accepted as a cause for planning a GCE curriculum. In contrast to the public schools, the private school was able to create satisfactory conditions for implementing the GCE. In the CW middle schools, all learning areas brought up in the interviews were perceived as learnable for students. Considering the uneven ratio of public schools to private schools, it was predictable that the planned GCE curriculum would be perceived as a relatively challenging task to most middle schools in the cities which are in the similar socioeconomic condition as city C in China.

Moreover, the finding that guiding students in learning to debate international issues would be more difficult for struggling schools was in accordance with the literature on constructing a student-led authentic learning context. A student-centred approach is one in which the emphasis is placed on students’ feelings, thought, personal ethos, and private experience, and that hence creates an authentic learning environment (Robin, 1974; Reigeluth & Keller, 2009). In this case, teaching international issues would be highly dependent on teachers’ supervisory abilities. An experienced teacher would be able to help with selecting and modifying project topics to provide real-world relevance in schools as well as meet students’ present needs.

The ‘dictionary’ aimed at managing the complexity of research problems developed by Jonassen and Hung (2015) might be useful for establishing a student-led authentic learning context. However, the high flexibility of this curriculum, including the vagueness of sequence and scope of content, inevitably aggravates the uncertainty associated with understanding complexity.

On the one hand, the sequence of content was uncertain. The increasing abstraction was implied by participants as being the major approach to sequencing the curriculum context. By definition, the increasing abstraction approach involved the idea of offering the learners familiar content before introducing more remote and abstract concepts (Print, 1993, p. 159). In the present study, there was no explicit evidence from the post-interviews that an increasing abstraction approach should be applied.

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On the other hand, the scope of content was also difficult to make manageable. From the participants’ reflection, schools were more likely to encounter an overcrowded curriculum where the compulsory thematic activities and Moral Education projects occupied most of the time and space. As a result, add-on learning opportunities were more likely to manifest as activities exclusive to high-achieving students (see e.g., the way the MUN and Model CCPCC societies and clubs were operated). In addition, because the suggested GCE curriculum is characterised by the breadth instead of depth, much remained unknown in terms of the exact level of integration.

Regarding the learning activities, ambiguity also remained, as it was incumbent on the teachers to decide the objectives, learner appropriateness, resources, and constraints, which were criteria for selecting the learning activities (Print, 1993). Since, in the present study, the GCE curriculum was accepted as an integrated, systemic rearrangement of resources of the formal and informal curricula, deciding fixed practices for the learning activities appeared to be unrealistic. However, participants conveyed that a mixture of standards-based and student- centred pedagogies was adopted in participating schools. Based on the literature, the sporadic nature of learning activities in the current GCE curriculum constituted a departure from the instructional design principles of keeping systemic and using scaffolding to guarantee that challenges were within the learner’s zone of proximal development (Barron et al., 2011; Collins et al., 1989; Reigeluth & Carr-Chellman, 2009; Wood et al., 1976).

8.2.4 On the criterion of trialability.

Accordingly, the trialability criterion provides with “some evidence to suggest [whether] if an innovation could be partially implemented before full-scale adoption was attempted” (Print, 1993, p. 245).

The criterion of trialability was met by the planned GCE curriculum. The foundation for implementing the GCE curriculum had already been established. For instance, schools that participated in Project Citizen demonstrated that they had gained rich experiences in providing a GCE-oriented informal curriculum: Project Citizen converted teachers into active citizens, as well as influencing their conceptions of the goal of teaching, as supervising adolescents’ projects on public policy required teachers to be aware of and to investigate social problems and to prepare public proposal debriefs.

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8.2.5 On the criterion of effective communication.

Reaching effective communication remained a hurdle for participating schools. A lack of professional development prevented participants from understanding the basics of GCE and of teaching GCE. As participants noted, teachers lacked additional experience apart from the training in their teaching degree and the subsequent professional training, unless they had the experience of working with projects in order to gain enhanced professional commitment, confidence, and civic competencies. Moreover, the bureaucratic system also forbids effective communication; for instance, chapter six discussed schools’ limited capacity to make changes.

8.3 Theorising the Conceptualisation of a GCE Curriculum

8.3.1 The GCE curriculum will be conceptualised as a perspective.

The present study argues that a GCE curriculum will be conceptualised as an innovative perspective. This argument is a conclusion through the deduction of several key findings in chapter eight. First, it is found in section 8.1.1 that participatory schools balanced between the attempt of innovative changes for displaying local characteristics and the fulfilment of the centralised standards for outcomes to cope with the decentralism-centralism paradox of educational change (Huang, et al., 2016). Through the findings in the subsection on adaptation principles, it is found that participatory schools conceptualised a GCE curriculum to be an educational intervention supplementary to the national curriculum. Then, through the findings section 8.1.2, which were on the details of curriculum practices, it is found that participatory schools intended to continue their previous curriculum contents via the original activities but with a global outlook which will differ slightly from the Moral Education tradition. The principals and teachers in participatory schools conceptualised a GCE curriculum to be a systematic adjustment in achieving a vision of schools’ long-term development. Finally, findings of different school choices with regard to the avenues of implementing GCE (i.e., choosing among the informal, formal, and hidden curriculum), the schools’ preference of strengthening some particular areas of inquiry, as well as curriculum differentiation indicated that participatory schools conceptualised GCE differently, for example, a school for elitism regarded a GCE curriculum for raising the bar to higher standards of the current elitist education, while a school for quality regarded a GCE curriculum for softening the pressure of examination-oriented education.

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The conclusion that a GCE curriculum was conceptualised as a perspective resembles the practices of GCE contextualised in democratic countries which have been available in extensive disciplines but not taught specifically (see section 2.3.1 and section 2.3.2). Viewing GCE as a perspective, as is argued by the present study, allows the items of knowledge in both Moral Education and the GCE curriculum prototype to be connected and cohesive.

It is however doubtable, since GCE was acknowledged as a perspective rather than an independent subject, whether the absence of items of knowledge on liberalism as the democratic countries do due to the national conditions in China will lead to the substantiative differences in developing Chinese students to become global. The doubt of determining an effective strategy of localising of GCE may concur and at the same time conflict with some opinions borrowed from the research on localisation of citizenship education in China: Zhao (2013) reviewed a number of scholars’ contentions with regard to this topic and concluded that citizenship education should not be turned into another version of political-ideological and moral education.

Comparing across countries around the world, the Chinese case in this present study shares similarity with the situation in Singapore, where globally oriented outlook parallels a curriculum promoting national cohesiveness. While Singapore has the problem of maintaining historical issues of racial riots (Ho, 2009), Chinese approach circumvents the pluralist multiculturalism (though some superficial knowledge on cultural diversity is acknowledged) but favours a mere homogeny in patriotic education. In the interviews, the overly emphasis patriotic education required in national curriculum was often criticized by participants.

8.3.2 The GCE curriculum will be subject to both diversity and unity during localisation.

The present study has summarised the characteristics of a GCE curriculum conceptualised by participatory schools, which were displayed in the tables in the beginning of each section of chapter eight. These characteristics, however, would not be common among these middle schools. As is found in the present study, GCE was accepted as a perspective to rearrange the limited educational resources. For most participatory schools, which were the public schools receiving students of low-SES, investing more time and expense to continue the Project Citizen to substitute GCE would be a safe strategy, whereas considering conducting a more expensive program, such as International Understanding Education, or an activity too tough for their

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city students to participate, such as the MUN, will not be feasible. In contrast, in the present study, there is also a private school (i.e., CW Middle School), which aims to develop students to be competitive Chinese in global market, decides to continue paying more attention to the International Understanding Education while less attention to students’ civic skills. There is also a school (i.e., CY Middle School), because its principle was of transformative leadership and focused on human right, is likely to practice the human right education through the hidden curriculum.

The diversity of preferred curriculum focuses among these six participatory schools indicates the infeasibility of obtaining generalizable information of what GCE will be like in other Chinese middle schools as a result of localisation of the GCE curriculum in the future. The diversity of curriculum is likely to resemble a wide range of varied GCE in the world.

Yet, this present study argues that the GCE curricula in China will not differ hugely, because, as have been repetitively pointed out in the previous four chapters (i.e., from chapter four to chapter seven), the distribution of most educational resources and professional training, both of which were of high consistency across schools, have been subject to control from the centralised bureaucratic education system in China. Besides, the little difference may be due to Chinese educators’ similar ways of perceiving GCE. Evidence is available within the same education system where a GCE conceived in Chinese tertiary education resembles the GCE accepted by participatory schools in the present study: Teachers’ conceptions on GCE at tertiary levels also mentioned the prominent usage of GCE is to equip students to compete in a global age (Law, 2013).

8.3.3 The localisation process of GCE as a curriculum innovation will be slow.

Findings of the evaluating curriculum innovation reflect that the strategic plan of GCE curriculum summarised in the present study is subject to several drawbacks in terms of difficulties of achieving the compatibility with the present needs, forming tangible curriculum actions, ensuring the learnability of the curriculum for struggling students,

On the one hand, the sequence of content is uncertain. The increasing abstraction is implied by participants as the major approach to sequencing the curriculum context. On the other hand, the scope of content is also hard to be manageable. The criterion of trialability is met by the planned GCE curriculum. Reaching effective communication remains as a hurdle to participating

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city schools. The situation that developing professional development is lacking also prevents participants from knowing the basics of GCE as well as of teaching GCE.

Besides, the researcher also argues that this strategic plan did not reach the standard of a high-quality curriculum. As was pointed out in section 8.2.3, the sequence and scope of the curriculum content is not confirmed in the strategic plan in the present study. As a result, the plan can not specify how the knowledge, skills, and virtues and/or dispositions will be increasingly complex. Moreover, it is also unknown in terms of the details of the increasing abstraction approach of the curriculum, hence it is not known regarding how the learning progression can be identified and how teachers can support students’ personal learning.

Although it is expected that schools might provide more diversified views on practicing GCE, the actual responses remained reserved and cautious. Many participants reflected the constrictions from the centralised education system. The compliance of completing the tasks along with the pressure of being consistent with policies are the two major hurdles to schools to be innovative at teaching GCE. The situation was consistent with Asian countries also subject to centralised education system (Cogan, Morris & Print, 2002). When referring to the differences with western system, the literature on Hong Kong education, a system preserves most of the Confucian traditions, at transition period2 which identify the change of the magnitude of curriculum control was a good source of knowledge (i.e., the structural and cultural changes brought by the decolonisation of the British colonisation in education and the neo-colonisation of the mainland Chinese model of education) (Leung, 1991).

Finally, that principals and teachers always sought consensual job responsibilities with education system while remained detached from thinking outside the box trapped schools into machinery like institutions, in Deleuze’s metaphor. In the end, the present study argues that grassroots, bottom-up movement of emancipation of becoming global citizens was likely to take place at a slow pace.

8.4 Chapter Summary

This chapter has been an attempt of forecasting the future of GCE in China. It has argued that mild changes to the current practices will be adopted for integrating GCE if without interventions from higher levels of the administration hierarchy of Chinese education system.

2 The transition period of Hong Kong started in March 1990, after the promulgation of the Basic Law at the National People’s Congress. 185

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To note, during interviews, principals and teachers were reserved about expressing their opinions. Although they mentioned some personal ideas on the intention of the GCE curriculum, they turned the conversation course by claiming they preferred acting upon decisions from the superordinates. Besides, compared to teachers, school principals tend to hold more open- minded though more vague views, which might be due to the unfamiliarity of the restrictions in the professional training and curriculum contents of the Moral Education subject. It might be due to pressure and suppression from the centralised education system. The future of GCE in Chinese middle school was not promising.

The analysis of predictions generated in the chapter has shed a light on implications in various fields, including policy making, curriculum development, and professional training. These aspects will be addressed in the conclusion chapter.

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Chapter 9: Conclusion

9.1 Overview

This thesis centres on the localisation of GCE (Global Citizenship Education) in six Chinese middle schools. GCE is an emerging curriculum through which the public can integrate new mindsets into their perspectives, decisions about specific knowledge learning, and judgements of behaviour when dealing with issues that influence beyond localities. Since less attention has been given to how contextual factors shape the curriculum development of GCE in Chinese schools, an exploratory study was needed. By being guided through curriculum development theory, situational analysis, the curriculum change process, and the evaluation of curriculum innovation, it was found that within the six participating schools, principals and teachers held conservative and passive views towards the GCE curriculum regardless of their varied conceptions; and this situation was closely related to suppression from the highly centralised and hierarchical education system. This situation might be intensified in schools in second-tier cities because most student populations were from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (though comparative studies across regions in China will be required to prove this argument).

9.1.1 Summary of research aims, context, and methods.

As for this thesis per se, three research questions scaffold its overall framework:

1. ‘How is GCE fostered at curriculum level in the Chinese middle schools in the study?’ 2. ‘In what ways, of using generated consensual conceptions of GCE, do participants seek changes within current middle school curriculum?’. This question was split into GCE conceptions and the policy Delphi method which follow the suggested curriculum development steps described in theory. 3. ‘What will a GCE curriculum be conceptualised like within these schools?’. This macro question was divided into aspects of participants’ assumptions and predictions of actions to implement a GCE curriculum.

To answer these questions, grounded theory was chosen as the general research design where interviews, the Delphi method and document analysis were embedded in a specific case- study design. This unusual combination of research methods was based upon the central philosophical assumption of becoming in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus (1972/2004), while the theoretical framework of this thesis was curriculum development theory. 187

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9.1.2 Summary of main findings.

In the present study, three research questions were proposed. Findings and discussions were presented in chapters six, seven, and eight. The outputs of each of these three chapters were the reconstructed theories, which echoed the core categories in grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1968). It was concluded that the strong Chinese moral-value-oriented GCE was — and would be likely to sustain — an emerging yet subtle trend in the selected participating schools through approaches that were highly diversified — i.e., school-driven, class-based, culturally specific.

These three theories will be presented below. The first sub-theory elaborates how GCE was revealed as developing in a growing but subtle momentum among the six selected participating schools. The second sub-theory explains the varied paths the participating schools chose for implementing the ideal GCE. The third sub-theory focuses on justifying the rigour of the GCE curriculum prototype, which was envisioned by participants in the study, with reference to the existing curriculum and activity standards extracted from the national formal curriculum and the Moral Education system.

Research question one:

How is GCE fostered at curriculum level in the Chinese middle schools in the study?

The study started with the analysis of the situation of GCE curriculum through evaluating the external factors (i.e., ‘cultural and social changes and expectations’, ‘educational system requirements and challenges’, ‘changing nature of content’, ‘teacher support systems’, and ‘resources’) and internal factors (i.e., ‘pupils’, ‘teachers’, ‘school ethos’, ‘material resources’, and ‘perceived problems’) to the school. These factors supported systematic way of reporting on the necessity as well as feasibility of modifying curricular practices within a school. These factors were used by the researcher as preliminary themes from which the details regarding how schools were conditioned for GCE curriculum were mapped. Rich evidence from the pre- interviews, including pieces of information related to policy, pedagogy, and administration, also echoed and hence triangulated findings in chapter four, which was drawn from document analysis. Some additional interpretivist elements were synthesised to distinguish paths that different schools were taking as part of the emerging trend of GCE in China. These inductive themes covered either debatable topics (i.e., quality of education, purpose of schooling, influence of leadership) or more consensual patterns (i.e., lack of capital resources, need more supports from parents, lack support from communities, unsatisfactory attitudes towards score- based education system, professional skills and mindsets, overcrowded curriculum, unified and 188

Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city undemocratic workloads in self-sufficient education system, and limited material resources) reflected from participants. Further generated from these inductive themes were even more general findings (i.e., implied in the thesis as ‘compliance and commitment’, ‘social mobility’, ‘competency-based education’, and ‘administrative constraints’) which indicated that GCE in the participatory middle schools was not fostered in the same way or as explicitly as in democratic countries: it has been fostered in a subtle manner.

The subtlety was reflected in the constraints which prevented participatory schools to make changes, as well as the limited capacities of those schools to overcome constraints through innovative actions. The constraints were concluded through three emerging and more general themes from those inductive themes, and they were categorized as ‘administrative constraints’, ‘social mobility, and ‘compliance and commitment’. Whereas there was indication of capacity to overcome these constraints through ‘competency-based education’. The growth momentum of GCE was also characterised by curriculum differentiation among participating schools. The curriculum differentiation resulted from the varied leadership styles. Schools were either Marxism-oriented, democracy-oriented, or efficiency-oriented in response to the style of the school principal: transformative, facilitative, or autocratic, respectively.

Table 9.1 Factors shaping the subtlety in fostering GCE among participatory schools

Causes of cons Cons ↓ Participatory Pros ↑ Causes of pros schools

Centralism & bureaucracy School effectiveness Constraints Competency-based Educators’ personal education experience Autocratic leadership Compliance & Commitment Transformative leadership Facilitative leadership Democracy-oriented schools Capacity to Marxism-oriented schools overcome Smaller school size Larger school size Efficiency-oriented schools constraints

The subtle yet emerging trend of GCE implied a possible bottom-up approach to localising GCE.

Research question two:

In what ways, of using generated consensual conceptions of GCE, do participants seek changes within current middle school curriculum?

The second research question was designed to track the outputs after prompting the participants to consider GCE as a potential orientation for making curriculum change. To answer the research question, evidence was collected from the results in the policy Delphi method as well as from the compared outcomes between the before and after interviews, then

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city were reported within the frame of the curriculum change process of curriculum development theory (Print, 1993).

Results from the policy Delphi method showed that a consensus regarding the definition, adaptation, and implementation of GCE was largely unreached though some superficial knowledge on GCE was agreed among participants. On the one hand, there were highly diversified opinions among scholars, and disagreements both within scholars and between the scholars and the educators working in the schools; on the other hand, opinions among educators did not concur at the school level.

The participating schools demonstrated how they chose and combined various avenues, including the formal curriculum, informal curriculum, and extracurricular activities. In other words, the findings contribute to a multiplicity of paths to implementing GCE. It was also predictable through the study that schools that could afford the costs of choosing to implement an informal curriculum would be more likely to implement GCE.

Research question three: What would a GCE curriculum look like within these schools?

This last research question aimed to evaluate a likely GCE curriculum prototype, based on participants’ responses in the interviews and policy Delphi as well as evidence from documents which participants mentioned but not specified, such as the national formal curriculum. By applying curriculum development theory (Print, 1993), the evaluation mainly targeted the selection and arrangement of the curriculum elements. The summarised participants’ knowledge on how to implement GCE in the present study was evaluated as an early form of a potential GCE curriculum (i.e., a curriculum prototype) that might be ready for use among the six participating schools in the near future. Accordingly, the prototype consisted of elements of curriculum intents, curriculum practices, and preparation for implementation. The examination of the curriculum intent indicated that the curriculum was justified and adapted by participants as an approach to extend, systematise, and supplement the formal curriculum and thematic activities, both of which were integral parts of compulsory education. In contrast to the thorough elaborations on the curriculum intents, divergent views counted for the most part in deciding the curriculum contents, learning activities, and evaluation and assessment. The shortages in tangible details merely generated a plan of the curriculum practices, rather than a series of structured and precise statements. Finally, some responses from participants would be considered as suggestions for preparing to implement the GCE curriculum. Professional development was a much-emphasised and agreed factor in the preparation for implementation.

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9.2 Implications

9.2.1 Theoretical implications.

Global imbalance.

One of the implications was that Chinese schools are on the disadvantageous side of the global imbalance. Participants’ reactions in the study were similar to research from the south — namely, that the education they wanted was to enable students to survive and adapt in a complex world (Jooste & Heleta, 2017).

The finding is that China displayed disadvantage pertaining to relevant practice experiences when doing GCE. This situation might be related to some root causes. One of the causes was the thinking trap when implementing Moral Education. There were different opinions about the relationship between Moral Education and GCE.

There was also the cause of the nature of the conflicts associated with China. It is one of the countries where mobile populations come from, rather than a country that accepts mobile populations from other countries. The dominant culture remains, or is controlled to be, conservative and unified; hence, it experiences little instability caused by foreign cultures. Moreover, the decision-making power regarding persistent issues in China is away from the civil society, which leads to the absence of global issues in the public discourse and diminishes public attention in the country.

The contribution of micro-narratives to knowledge on GCE.

Regarding methodology, chapter three specified that the overarching epistemology of the thesis was Deleuzianism. Deleuze’s philosophy offered a fluid model for describing the formation of beings where ongoing included and dismantled fragmental parts. In Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972/2004), Deleuze and the co-author Guattari named this model as the desiring-machine, and they proposed from an existentialist perspective that the desiring- machine was transforming, according to its own natural intention, into the driving motive.

Counting the concept of desiring-machine, the extent of how participating schools fostered changes to accommodate the inclusion of GCE was based on their spontaneity in accepting GCE. Investigating the innovation of GCE at curricular level among participating schools uncovered the functionality of the desiring-machine. The evidence selected for understanding the GCE- associated desiring-machine was collected, considering all sets of available empirical data, from

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city participants’ qualitative feedback in the interviews before and after the policy Delphi method, and the comments below each statement in the policy Delphi method.

9.2.2 Curriculum control and policies in education system.

The levels of acceptance and resistance of the new curriculum polices in schools affected whether curriculum control was successful. Every policy was subject to a certain degree of effectiveness.

The conclusions from the present study — that different types of schools reflect differences, but all are complementary and indispensable parts of GCE — implied that the inconsistent educational goals of developing students, which resulted from class stratification, could hamper implementing GCE in China. Therefore, the key to successful implementation of GCE is to reduce the resource gap among schools, so that schools’ educational goals can merge and reach consensus.

Moreover, it is important to avoid using examinations as the only intervention for curriculum control. This suggestion originated from the finding that examination grades in the current rather bureaucratic system cannot function as an inclusive indicator of school performance but its overly emphasised compliance suppresses individual as well as group ideas, such as those that contribute to the GCE, from being integrated into organisational memory. Avoiding making examinations the only measurement would also prevent schools from competing by regarding their performance in GCE as credentials for more resources. There should be transformation of the stereotype of GCE, which should shift from the more advanced elitist educational goal to the shortcoming of educational resources of teaching content, professional training, learning opportunities, as well as time allocation.

In terms of the overall design of the curricular framework, there should be closer linkage between GCE and the subjects of the national formal curricula. In this regard, GCE could be a theme fully integrated and implemented by schools.

Apart from those changes made to curriculum control, it is also necessary and vital to protect the rights of school principals’ and teachers’ to have their voices heard. Evidence drawn from principals’ and teachers’ interviews that a general reserved and negative view towards feasible ways of conducting GCE due to limited authority to make curriculum decisions was consistent with the findings of educators experiencing overwhelming stress from a highly hierarchical administration system. The present study therefore suggests that a strong informal discourse

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city among schools should be cultivated and heard. There should be more interactions among educators to initiate more discussions on how to teach GCE.

The present study also indicates a need for researchers to be involved in making polices on Moral Education. In the policy Delphi method, which involved experts, principals and teachers, the latter two had rather divergent opinions from experts regarding the implementation of GCE, indicating that experts’ influence over principals and teachers has been weak. The policies shall be evidence-based, or evidence-informed. The policy makers need to have access to a wider audience, constituting a public hearing. However, currently in China, public hearings are not part of policy-making. The absence of researchers who possess considerable information and theories on GCE was also found, along with an absence of frontline educators to invest in more empirical research. There should be more communication among policy makers, researchers, and the school principals and teachers — maybe a formal regime or platform that allows periodic exchange of opinions among stakeholders should become a necessity.

9.2.3 Civil society in China.

Civil society remains an important source of support for promoting GCE. The study found that available resources related to GCE were mainly provided by sectors of the civil society, including NGOs (non-government organisations), educational enterprises, charities, and foundations, which, however, were limited and scarce for students. However, findings in the literature show that civil societies in other countries offer opportunities for GCE, such as service learning, international courses, exchange programs (Palmer, 2018; Bates, 2012; Larsen & Searle, 2016). In this regard, although practices such as Project Citizen and Education for International Understanding have proved to be effective in delivering GCE, the scale of doing such thematic activities might only remain regional. These opportunities are, however, not widely accessible in China. Accordingly, most Chinese foundations operate through an ‘administrative network of related authorities’ where NGOs can rarely intervene (Chan, 2017). Recent years have also seen increasingly strict control of curriculum materials (Ministry of Education, 2018).

9.3 Justification of the Theories Synthesised in the present study

Being the immediate output of the present study, a series of theories on becoming-GCE at the curriculum level of the six selected participating schools has been synthesised. These theories were justified as theoretical statements to bridge the gap in knowledge about GCE in China,

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city echoing what Glaser and Strauss identified as ‘a well-codified set of propositions’ (1968, p. 31). Precisely, in terms of function, this theory could lay the groundwork for future theoretical discussion in the field.

The theory of becoming-GCE in the six Chinese middle schools also underwent verification in the present study. Along with the theorising process, iterative verification was taking place involving activities of comparing the differences and similarities among the cases, meta- evaluation of the use of excerpts extracted from the transcript, and justifying how authentic, reasonable, and unique the categories were when placed in the mainstream literature. Such verification coincided with what Glaser and Strauss (1968) identified as one of the appropriate strategies, which was termed ‘comparative analysis’. Though Glaser and Strauss did not specify the precise stage of completing the comparative analysis for the sake of theory verification, it was believed in the present study that this verification strategy was spontaneous and autonomous along with the research.

However, verifying theories only through comparative analysis might not be enough for validation. Glaser and Strauss (1968) also pointed out that the original intention of theorising should not be covered up by quibbles over the excellence regarding demonstrating accurate evidence (i.e., in this case, the descriptions to support the theory) and verified hypotheses (if the research was designed to validate an existing logico-deductive theory by offering grounded propositions), as was clarified by them, ‘… generation of theory through comparative analysis both subsumes and assumes verifications and accurate description, but only to the extent that the latter were in the service of generation’ (p. 28). Instead, priority should be given to the integrity and density of the theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1968). After all, a more accommodating standpoint should be acknowledged — i.e., that theory, which does not stand for facts or solutions, is where different perspectives are included (Glaser & Strauss, 1968).

More discussions made by Glaser and Strauss related to the synthesis of rounded and dense theory. By exploring the nature of the theory, they distinguished between substantive theory and formal theory: the latter differs from the former by focusing on the core categories. Accordingly, there was possibility for a single piece of research to involve both substantive theory and formal theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1968). The conditions also pertained to the present study, where core categories were drawn from across cases and sub-themes, concurring with the requirement for being based on ‘at least two dimensions and each should be indicated by at least one item’ (p. 191). In this case, the present study was able to generate a formal grounded theory, rather than remaining at the substantive level as accorded with what is suggested in the literature (Glaser, 2007).

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Regarding justifying the grounded theory research in the present study per se, the above had an intense focus on clues drawn from Glaser and Strauss’s scholarly contributions, although it was known that different approaches validate grounded theory research in other schools of this methodology, such as the criteria of credibility, originality, resonance, and usefulness in constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Deciding to stick with Glaser and Strauss was to accord with the postpositivist paradigm of grounded theory chosen for the research design.

Taking a step back, regardless of alternative (or even flexible) approaches, the validity of the present study might still be evaluated according to a more general rubrics of assessing the qualitative research. Available strategies might include ‘member checking, triangulation, thick description, peer reviews, and external audits’ (Creswell & Miller, 2000, p. 124). The present study satiated some of these strategies, such as consistent findings being triangulated through different research methods across chapters four to eight.

Actions of generating arguments from multi-source evidence, and having participants review the original transcripts were executed, though specific attention was not paid. These actions would count for triangulation and member checking, respectively.

Besides, as the epistemological paradigm of the present study also touched on postmodernism, a critical research paradigm would also be relevant where efforts to attempt reflections ought to be appropriate to the research (Creswell & Miller, 2000).

9.4 Directions for Future Research

Several future research opportunities can be derived from the present study. One of the opportunities indicated by the present study is to validate the GCE curriculum prototype, which was a by-product developed by participating schools. The validation could focus on evaluating whether the suggested teaching practices could contribute to participants’ expected qualities of GCE teaching. The major goal of conducting validation would be to optimise the curriculum prototype. Validation might be conducted in a longitudinal manner across varied stages of the implementation. Outputs of conducting validation might be multi-fold, including a more mature and feasible GCE curriculum, a professional development program, and democracy-oriented structural reforms in schools.

Besides, collecting ethnographic evidence on classroom teaching and school operation would be constructive for clarifying the efficacy of the suggested pathways of doing GCE, including practices in formal curriculum, informal curriculum, and extracurricular activities. In the

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Becoming global: Global Citizenship Education in Chinese middle schools in a second-tier city present study, participants recalled and described their practices in the interviews. It would be meaningful to justify the coherence between the approaches to GCE based on participants’ conceptual understanding in the present study and the approaches reflected through their actual daily practices. The effectiveness of delivering GCE-related teaching and activities would be assessed by disseminating surveys to students or organising interviews or quizzes with students to assess the corresponding competencies of being global citizens.

It would also be worthwhile to investigate whether the emerging yet complicated characteristics of GCE are comparable with the middle schools located in other moderately developed regions. It would be especially valuable to address to what extent key internal factors, including pupils, school ethos, and material resources, can lead to variations in the schools’ capacity to change, and the external factors that would cause differences in the space for tolerating change. Meanwhile, by profiling a broader range of school cases and working on possible approaches to coalesce accessible resources to develop GCE, it may be possible to synthesise the index criteria for developing GCE schools.

Furthermore, conducting comparative studies across countries in the same cultural sphere will shed more insight into enriching the theories of GCE. In the process of theoretical construction of GCE, global imbalance has been a persistent issue. One of the causes of the imbalance is neglect of the cultural differences between different contexts. As part of subsequent research, it would be crucial to continue investigating the theoretical development of GCE in the Sinosphere. One possible strategy would be to search for similarities and differences in GCE theories among countries in East and South Asia.

Another revealing yet less direct topic related to the present study is the education equity issue in the development of GCE. In the present study, there was an interesting phenomenon that there were leaders in struggling schools who believed that their students had potential and should receive GCE; but more leaders believed GCE to be unrealistic because their students achieved poor marks and little supports were available from family, society, and so on. This phenomenon indicated a potent hidden education inequity that hindered the promotion of GCE. It might be reflected not only through educators’ attitudes towards whether students of low socioeconomic status deserved equal opportunities to study GCE, but also through the unequal structural factors imposed onto struggling schools, which caused less favourable attitudes toward doing GCE. The education equity problem might predict how rapidly GCE will be accepted among Chinese schools when curriculum control is not available.

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Appendices Appendix A: Instruments for Semi-Structured Interviews

School principal Interview questions used before Delphi What non-national curricular courses & activities the school were having?  Moral Education/International Understanding Education/Civics and Citizenship Education?  Other school-based courses or activities? What qualities the school wish graduates achieve through those courses & activities?  Knowledges, skills, and qualities/characteristics?  What other aspects do you think that current students need to improve? To what extent were those courses & activities related to GCE in terms of preparing students for the globalised society?  What was your conception towards GCE? If there was an opportunity of doing a specific course or activity on GCE, how will you plan, develop, and implement?  How will you develop by considering the school’s advantages and disadvantages?  What teachers will you invite to participate as well? Interview questions used after Delphi What is your understanding of GCE now? How will you develop GCE related courses or activities? How will you communicate with teachers and students?

Teachers Interview questions used before Delphi What was your educational background, work experience, and current role in school? What knowledges, skills, and qualities you wish to see in your school’s graduates?  What of those do you think were more important?  Through what standards will you judge your students? Now, let us discuss about GCE, how will you understand this GCE when you hear about it? What content and format will you cover in GCE?  Examples of (1) etiquette when travelling abroad, (2) angry youth, (3) smog, (4) Mekong River.  How will you teach these things to students? Interview questions used after Delphi 209

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What did GCE mean to you? How will you teach GCE?  What topics will you choose so that students could understand and master?  How will you supervise your students?  Will you practice making teaching materials by yourself?  How will you assess? How much was it likely to have GCE implemented based on current school curriculum? How will you communicate with school principals?  What was you and school principal’s usual way of interacting in school?

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Appendix B: Instruments for Policy Delphi method

Open-ended questions for scholars in the first round 1. Is there GCE in China? 2. How to adapt GCE to fit Chinese context? 3. To what aspect do you suggest Chinese schools pay attention when implementing GCE? 4. What will be a definition of GCE that fits into China’s national conditions and ready for use in most Chinese middle schools?

Questionnaire statements developed by scholars

Open-ended question Is there Global Citizenship Education in China? Why? Please judge upon your own reflection one

Panel type scholars

Statement number

Q1N01 In most of cases, GCE was not available in governmental discourses, including policies, official documentations, school curricula, and censored teaching materials

Q1N02 GCE was not a widely known concept, even to most classroom teachers

Q1N03 GCE was found in schools' formal curricular subjects (e.g., environment protection, intercultural learning, and so on)

Q1N04 GCE was found in special educational activities held by Ministry of Education

Q1N05 In metropolitan cities, bilingual schools, international schools, and well-funded schools that have more opportunities of participating international programs were more likely to be influenced by GCE

Q1N06 GCE was less likely to be found in underdeveloped regions

Open-ended question How to adapt Global Citizenship Education to fit Chinese context? In other words, what kind of Global two Citizenship Education could be assimilated into Chinese educational system? Please also provide evidence to support your answer.

Panel type scholars

Statement number

Q2N01 GCE will need to be part of national curriculum where its scope and contents will be clearly written

Q2N02 Developing Chinese citizens should always be prior to developing global citizens

Q2N03 Values advocated in GCE were to be consistent with those in Moral Education

Q2N04 Chinese GCE should differ from the rights-based citizenship in Western liberal society so as to avoid egoism and emphasise obligation. In other words, it promotes active citizenship

Q2N05 The teaching content must show relevance with the real reality in China to initiate action; Meanwhile, it should also trigger students' imagination about the future

Open-ended question To what aspects do you suggest Chinese schools to pay attention when implementing Global three Citizenship Education? Aspects might include the focus of curriculum development, the difficulties encountered by schools, the advantages that schools could make use of, and so on.

Panel type scholars

Statement number

Q3N01 Current policies (e.g., B&R) would appear to support GCE, because they support global awareness

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Q3N02 It was uncertain whether GCE should be a separated course or integrated one

Q3N03 Since government has already raised education of “international awareness,” it was unnecessary to inaugurate a new course on GCE; instead, it was possible to merge GCE with relevant subjects

Q3N04 Schools were at risks of insulting some ideologies admitted by the country

Q3N05 Teaching materials should be written by a large group of experts, which however was not practical in current presses

Q3N06 Contents should be related to global news and issues

Q3N07 Contents should be related to intercultural understanding, especially in TESOL

Q3N08 Lack relevant English teachers

Q3N09 Lack GCE teachers, in terms of qualification and stable working condition

Q3N10 Teaching should be critical, justified, and from a historical perspective, and avoid extremist views

Q3N11 Teaching should acknowledge civic skills, including critical thinking, perspective taking, critical reading, negotiation, etc.

Q3N12 Teaching should dissolve ethnocentrism

Q3N13 Administration issues, such as time, expense, security issues etc.

Open-ended question Taking all those discussed previously into account, please provide a definition of Global Citizenship four Education that fits into China’s national conditions and ready for use in most Chinese high schools.

Global Citizenship Education was to develop students’______

Panel type scholars

Statement number

Q4N01 Global awareness

Q4N02 Sense of active participation

Q4N03 Competency of active participation in local communities

Q4N04 Responsibility for international issues

Q4N05 ability of solving problems in a peaceful way, such as by negotiation

Q4N06 characters of respecting and understanding others

Q4N07 Aspiration of and commitment to global citizenship right, human right, and universal values, which were based on the archetypal of Western societies

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Appendix C: Participant Information Sheet

Curriculum presage of global citizenship education: a qualitative explanation of junior high school educators’ conceptions of school-based global citizenship education informal curriculum in Jiangsu Province, China 全球公民教育课程预估：教育者对中国江苏省初中全球公民教育校本非正式课程的定性研究 PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT 参与者信息说明

(1) What is the present study about? 这是关于什么的研究？ You are invited to take part in a research study about learning Chinese educators’ conceptions of Global Citizenship Education from an aspect of curriculum development. It aims to research the possibility of introducing global citizenship education oriented informal curriculum in China. The results from the present study may be useful for schools which want to develop students become global citizens via school-based curricula, as well as researchers who wish to know the operationalized definition of global citizenship education that is suitable for use in Chinese discourse. 我们诚挚地邀请您以教育工作者的身份参加本次关于全球公民教育如何实现中国化的研究。这次调研侧重了解教育者对于全球公民教育能否在课程层次实现的看法。研究的成果主要将会在两方面体现学术价值：一方面是为那些想实行全球公民教育的学校提供理论指导；另一方面则是能构建出适用于中国的，关于全球公民教育这一个概念的可用语义，以便于解决后续研究中概念界定的困难。 You have been invited to participate in the present study because you demonstrate expertise on the area related to global citizenship education. This Participant Information Statement tells you about the research study. Knowing what is involved will help you decide if you want to take part in the research. Please read this sheet carefully and ask questions about anything that you don’t understand or want to know more about.

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您被邀请的原因是您是国内研究全球公民教育的专家。“参与者信息说明”解释了调研中的各个细节。通过提前了解这些信息可以帮助您更好决定是否参加本次调研。请仔细阅读，如有疑问或想进一步了解信息，您可以随时询问。 Participation in this research study is voluntary. 参与本次调研是自愿性质的。 By giving your consent to take part in the present study you are telling us that you:

Understand what you have read.

Agree to take part in the research study as outlined below.

Agree to the use of your personal information as described. 如果您许可了该调查，意味着您

明白您所读内容

同意参加刚刚介绍的研究

同意研究者使用您提供的回答 You will be given a copy of this Participant Information Statement to keep. 您可以保留“参与者信息说明”的备份。

(2) Who is running the study? 谁来进行调研？ The study is being carried out by the following researchers: Yi Hong, PhD candidate, Sydney School of Education and Social Work, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, The University of Sydney. 本次调研由以下研究者执行： 洪颐，博士生，悉尼大学文科和社会科学学院教育和社会工作系 STUDENT DECLARATION: Yi Hong is conducting the present study as the basis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Sydney. This will take place under the supervision of Professor Murray Print. 学生申明：洪颐以完成悉尼大学博士学位的基础上进行此调研。调研会在莫瑞·普林特教授的监督下开展。

(3) What will the study involve for me? 这个研究会需要我做哪些事情？ You will be invited to participate as one of experts in Delphi method. You will be asked to complete three to four rounds of online questionnaires at the interval of approximate two weeks. The first questionnaire will be open-ended questions asking about your understanding of global citizenship education from a perspective of curriculum development. In the subsequent questionnaires, you will evaluate all experts’ responses from the previous round using Likert-scales (i.e., ticking from 1 strongly disagree, 2 disagree, 3 neither agree nor disagree, 4 agree, 5 strongly agree), and also answer some prompted questions. You will need approximate one hour for each questionnaire. Your answers will be the only data for analysis and publication. 我们邀请您以专家身份参加德尔菲法研究。您会参与三至四轮的问卷调查。每次问卷大致间隔两个礼拜。第一轮问卷由开放性问题组成，围绕全球公民教育的课程发展角度展开。在接下来的问卷中您会对前一轮参与者的回答进行投票和打分（使用李克特量表，在 1 至 5 范围打分）并给出一些评论。您大概需要花一个小时回答每份问卷。您的回答仅会被用于分析和学术发表。 214

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(4) How much of my time will the study take? 我需要花多长时间参与这个研究？ You will need approximately half an hour for each round of evaluation. In total, it will be around 3 or 4 hours, depend on how many rounds required before consensus is made. 您大概需要半小时完成每次的问卷。依据实际情况，会有三至四轮问卷直到结论达成共识。

(5) Who can take part in the study? 谁可以参加这个研究？ Only experts who are representative of authorities, have rich working experience related to global citizenship education, and will be likely to engage in policy making of informal curriculum can take part in the study. 只有那些有关于全球公民教育丰富经验并可能会参与相关课程政策制定的权威专家会被邀请参加本研究。

(6) Do I have to be in the study? Can I withdraw from the study once I've started? 我必须全程参加研究吗？在研究开始后，我可以中途退出吗？ Being in the present study is completely voluntary and you do not have to take part. Your decision whether to participate will not affect your current or future relationship with the researchers or anyone else at the University of Sydney. 参加调研是完全自愿性的。无论您决定是否参加都不会影响您目前或将来与研究者或悉尼大学任何人的关系。 If you decide to take part in the study and then change your mind later, you are free to withdraw at any time. You can do this by emailing or telephoning Yi Hong (Email: [email protected]; Office landline (Australia): +61 2 93515378). 如果您决定参加研究但后来又改变主意了，您可以通过联系洪颐（邮箱： [email protected]; 电话：+61 2 93515378）随时提出退出调研。 If you decide to withdraw from the study, we will not collect any more information from you. Any information that we have already collected, however, will be kept in our study records and may be included in the study results. 当您决定退出此次调研，我们不会再继续向您搜集更多信息。然而，您之前在调研中留下的信息会被保留，并作为研究结果的一部分。

(7) Are there any risks or costs associated with being in the study? 这个研究会造成什么危险或者花费吗？ Aside from giving up your time, we do not expect that there will be any risks or costs associated with taking part in the present study. 除却会占用您的时间，该研究并不会给您带来任何危险或花费。

(8) Are there any benefits associated with being in the study? 参与研究会得到什么报酬吗？ We cannot guarantee that you will receive any direct benefits from being in the study. 我们无法保证您在参与中得到任何直接的报酬。

(9) What will happen to information about me that is collected during the study? 我在调研中的回答会被怎么使用？ Your perspectives regarding global citizenship education and its curriculum development is the information the present study intends to collect. Your answer 215

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to the questionnaire questions in emails will be wanted. The data is for both analysis and publication. No any third parties will have access to your information during or after the study. Your personal information, including your name, working position, email address will be kept confidential. You can access your personal information from the study by requesting one page lay summary after study. Study results will be published as student theses, journal publications, conference presentations, posters in Australia and China. Hardcopy data will be stored in Rm 519, A35, The University of Sydney, Australia during and after the study. Digital data will be stored via Yi Hong’s memory stick and Cloudstor which is linked to Yi Hong’s university account. Only Yi Hong will have access to those hardcopy data and digital data. The data will be retained for five years after the study. At the end of the storage period, data will be destroyed. All the data collected in this project is intended to be used for future research projects. 本研究目的是搜集对于全球公民教育以及相对应的课程的观点。您会通过邮件收到问卷的网址，并填写问卷。搜集到的数据会用于分析和学术发表。无论在研究进行过程或是结束后，这些信息都不会透露给第三方。您的个人信息，包括您的姓名，职位，邮箱地址，都是保密的。您可以在研究结束后向研究者索要一页的简化的研究总结。研究结果可能还会出现在学生的毕业论文，以及在澳洲和中国发表的期刊论文，学术会议，和海报中。研究结果的材料会在研究中以及结束后被存放在悉尼大学 A35 教育楼 519 室中。电子版信息则会存储在洪颐的移动硬盘以及与洪颐大学账号相关联的 Cloudstor 云空间里。只有洪颐有权限接触这些材料和电子版信息。所有信息将会在研究结束后保存 5 年。5 年后这些信息将会被全部销毁。所有在本次调研中搜集的信息会可能会用于后续研究。 By providing your consent, you are agreeing to us collecting personal information about you for the purposes of this research study. Your information will only be used for the purposes outlined in this Participant Information Statement, unless you consent otherwise. 当您给出许可，意味着您同意我们向您搜集关于研究的信息。除非您另外许可，搜集的信息将仅限于“参与者信息说明”中涉及到的研究目标。 We will keep the information we collect for the present study, and we may use it in future projects. By providing your consent you are allowing us to use your information in future projects. We don’t know at this stage what these other projects will involve. We will seek ethical approval before using the information in these future projects. 我们会保留您的回答，如果有可能会被用于后续研究。在“许可表”中征得您的允许后，我们才能在后续研究中继续使用这些信息。目前，我们还不能确认会有哪些具体的后续研究。在进行后续研究前，我们仍会申请伦理审查的批准。 (10)Can I tell other people about the study? 我可以把这个研究告诉别人吗？ Yes, you are welcome to tell other people about the study. 当然，欢迎您向他人谈论本研究。 (11)What if I would like further information about the study? 如果我想知道关于研究的更多信息怎么办？ When you have read this information, Yi Hong will be available to discuss it with you further and answer any questions you may have. If you would like to know more at any stage during the study, please feel free to contact Yi Hong, PhD candidate, Sydney School of Education and Social Science 216

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(Email: [email protected]; Office landline (Australia): +61 2 93515378), or Professor Murray Print, Sydney School of Education and Social Science (Email: [email protected]; Tel: +61 2 93513202). 当您阅读这份材料的时候，洪颐将会和您讨论并回答您的问题。如果在研究进程任何环节中您产生了新的问题，请联系洪颐（邮箱： [email protected]; 电话：+61 2 93515378）或者莫瑞·普林特教授（邮箱：[email protected]; 电话: +61 2 93513202） (12)Will I be told the results of the study? 我会被告知研究的结果吗？ You have a right to receive feedback about the overall results of the present study. You can tell us that you wish to receive feedback by ticking the relevant box on the consent form. This feedback will be in the form of a one page lay summary. You will receive this feedback after the study is finished. 您有权利收到关于研究结果的反馈。您可以选择在“许可表”中相应的栏目里打钩。您得到的反馈将会是研究结束后一页简化的总结。 (13)What if I have a complaint or any concerns about the study? 如果我想对调研投诉或反映其他问题怎么办？ Research involving humans in Australia is reviewed by an independent group of people called a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). The ethical aspects of the present study have been approved by the HREC of the University of Sydney As part of this process, we have agreed to carry out the study according to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007). This statement has been developed to protect people who agree to take part in research studies. 研究由独立于研究机构的澳洲人类研究伦理委员会严格审核。此研究已得到委员会按照《人类研究伦理实施国家级要求说明（2007）》批准执行。这份说明是为保护研究参与者而设立的。 If you are concerned about the way the present study is being conducted or you wish to make a complaint to someone independent from the study, please contact the university using the details outlined below. Please quote the study title and protocol number (2017/370). 如果您对本次研究实施过程中某些环节抱有质疑或者向对非研究相关的负责任人进行投诉，请联系悉尼大学，或者其在中国的联系人，并记得告知研究题目和项目编号(2017/370)。具体联系方式如下： The Manager, Ethics Administration, University of Sydney: Telephone: +61 2 8627 8176 Email: [email protected] Fax: +61 2 8627 8177 (Facsimile) 悉尼大学伦理行政处经理： 电话：+61 2 8627 8176 邮箱：[email protected] 传真：+61 2 8627 8177 (Facsimile) Xiang Jianhua, Professor, College of Arts and Design, Textile Garment Institue (independent local complaints contact in China):

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Telephone: 0086 519 86339425

Fax: 0086 519 96336008

项建华，纺织服装技术学院艺术设计系教授：

电话: 0086 519 86339425

传真: 0086 519 96336008

This information sheet is for you to keep

您可以保留这份说明

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全球公民教育课程预估：教育者对中国江苏省初中全球公民教育校本非正式课程的定性研究 PARTICIPANT INFORMATION STATEMENT

参与者信息说明

(1) What is the present study about? 这是关于什么的研究？

You are invited to take part in a research study about learning Chinese educators’ conceptions of Global Citizenship Education from an aspect of curriculum development. It aims to research the possibility of introducing global citizenship education oriented informal curriculum in China. The results from the present study may be useful for schools which want to develop students become global citizens via school-based curricula, as well as researchers who wish to know the operationalized definition of global citizenship education that is suitable for use in Chinese discourse. 我们诚挚地邀请您以教育工作者的身份参加本次关于全球公民教育如何实现中国化的研究。这次调研侧重了解教育者对于全球公民教育能否在课程层次实现的看法。研究的成果主要将会在两方面体现学术价值：一方面是为那些想实行全球公民教育的学校提供理论指导；另一方面则是能构建出适用于中国的，关于全球公民教育这一个概念的可用语义，以便于解决后续研究中概念界定的困难。

You have been invited to participate in the present study because you have relevant working experience related to global citizenship education in your school. This Participant Information Statement tells you about the research study. Knowing what is 219

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involved will help you decide if you want to take part in the study. Please read this sheet carefully and ask questions about anything that you don’t understand or want to know more about. 您被邀请的原因是您有相关的工作经验。“参与者信息说明”解释了调研中的各个细节。通过提前了解这些信息可以帮助您更好决定是否参加本次调研。请仔细阅读，如有疑问或想进一步了解信息，您可以随时询问。

Participation in this research study is voluntary. 参与本次调研是自愿性质的。

By giving consent to take part in the present study you are telling us that you:  Understand what you have read.  Agree to take part in the research study as outlined below.  Agree to the use of your personal information as described.

如果您许可了该调查，意味着您

 明白您所读内容

 同意参加刚刚介绍的研究

 同意研究者使用您提供的回答

You will be given a copy of this Participant Information Statement to keep.

您可以保留“参与者信息说明”的备份。

(2) Who is running the study? 谁来进行调研？

The study is being carried out by the following researchers:

 Yi Hong, PhD candidate, Sydney School of Education and Social Work, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, The University of Sydney. 本次调研由以下研究者执行：

 洪颐，博士生，悉尼大学文科和社会科学学院教育和社会工作系

STUDENT DECLARATION: Yi Hong is conducting the present study as the basis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Sydney. This will take place under the supervision of Professor Murray Print.

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学生申明：

洪颐以完成悉尼大学博士学位的基础上进行此调研。调研会在莫瑞·普林特教授的监督下开展。

(3) What will the study involve for me? 这个研究会需要我做哪些事情？

How will you be involved as You will be invited to have face-to-face interview part of our research? with the researcher to share your perception of and any relevant practice on global citizenship education. 我会怎么参与？您将接受研究者面对面采访关于全球公民教育的看法和经历

Where will the interview Any quite place in your school. It can be your office, take place? an empty classroom, or anywhere you find it comfortable and will not be disturbed. 在哪里进行采访？任何您觉得舒适且不会被打扰的地方。可以是您学校的办公室，空教室，或是其他您觉得合适的地方

How long will it be? 50 min in total. 30-40 min for interview, and 10 min for preparation. 会多长时间？共50分钟。30-40分钟用于采访。10分钟用于准备

What the interview will be The researcher will ask your understanding of global like? citizenship education, and your opinion about how to develop a school-based curriculum on global 采访会是什么样子？ citizenship education. The questions will be partially structured so that the researcher will help guide the whole talk. If necessary, prompts will be given. 研究者会问您对于全球公民教育的理解，已经如何设计相关课程。问题是半开放式的，所以研究者会引导整个采访。如有必要，会给出一些提示

Will the interview be Yes. Interview will be recorded by an audio recorder. recorded? 是的，会被语音记录采访会被记录吗？

Do I need to provide any No. Our research does not require any specific personal information? personal information about participants.

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我需要提供个人信息吗？不需要，我们研究不涉及任何个人信息

Can I check what I said after Yes. You can request this by ticking relevant box in interview? consent form. The researcher will provide you a copy of interview transcript. 采访后我能看我说了什么吗？可以。请在许可表中相关选项中打钩。研究者会提供给您一份备份。

May I learn the result of this Yes. You can request this by ticking relevant box in piece of study? consent form. The researcher will provide you a one page lay summary of the result. 我可以知道研究结果吗？当然。您可以在许可表中通过打钩要求研究结果的反馈总结

(4) How much of my time will the study take? 我需要花多长时间参与这个研究？

The whole study will cost you around 50 min. You will be invited to have 30-40 min interview. There will be additional 5 min before interview for you to read the information statement, sign the consent form, and ask questions regarding the nature of study; and another 5 min after interview for you to ask any other questions about the research. 整个过程会占用50分钟。其中有30-40分钟的采访。采访前，您将有5分钟时间阅读参与者信息说明，填写许可表，和问问题。采访结束后，我们也留有5分钟时间给您询问关于研究的任何问题。

(5) Do I have to be in the study? Can I withdraw from the study once I've started? 我必须全程参加研究吗？在研究开始后，我可以中途退出吗？

Being in the present study is completely voluntary and you do not have to take part. Your decision whether to participate will not affect your current or future relationship with the researchers or anyone else at the University of Sydney. 参加调研是完全自愿性的。无论您决定是否参加都不会影响您目前或将来与研究者或悉尼大学任何人的关系。

If you decide to take part in the study and then change your mind later, you are free to withdraw at any time. You can do this by emailing, telephoning, or messaging Yi Hong (Email: [email protected]; Office landline (Australia): 0293515378). 如果您决定参加研究但后来又改变主意了，您可以通过联系洪颐（邮箱： [email protected]; 电话：+61 2 93515378）随时提出退出调研。

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During interview: You are free to stop the interview at any time. Unless you say that you want us to keep them, any recordings will be erased and the information you have provided will not be included in the study results. You may also refuse to answer any questions that you do not wish to answer during the interview.

采访过程中：您可以随时结束接受采访。除非您希望我们留下记录，否则所有记录都会被消除，且不会作为研究结果。您也有权利拒绝回答采访中任何问题。

(6) Are there any risks or costs associated with being in the study? 这个研究会造成什么危险或者花费吗？

Aside from giving up your time, we do not expect that there will be any risks or costs associated with taking part in the present study. 除却会占用您的时间，该研究并不会给您带来任何危险或花费。

(7) Are there any benefits associated with being in the study? 参与研究会得到什么报酬吗？

We cannot guarantee that you will receive any direct benefits from being in the study.

我们无法保证您在参与中得到任何直接的报酬。

(8) What will happen to information about me that is collected during the study? 我在调研中的回答会被怎么使用？

Your perspectives regarding global citizenship education and its curriculum development is the information the present study intends to collect. Your answer to the interview questions will be recorded (audio), transcribed, and analysed. The data is for both analysis and publication. No any third parties will have access to your information during or after the study. Your personal information, including your name, working position, name of school, will be kept confidential. You can access your personal information from the study by requesting a copy of interview transcript during study, or one page lay summary after study. Study results will be published as student theses, journal publications, conference presentations, posters in Australia and China. Hardcopy data will be stored in Rm 519, A35, The University of Sydney, Australia during and after the study. Digital data will be stored via Yi Hong’s memory stick and Cloudstar which is linked to Yi Hong’s university account. Only Yi Hong will have access to those hardcopy data and digital data. The data will be retained for five years after the study.

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At the end of the storage period, data will be destroyed. All the data collected in this project is intended to be used for future research projects. By providing your consent you are allowing us to use your information in future projects. We don’t know at this stage what these other projects will involve. We will seek ethical approval before using the information in these future projects. 本研究目的是搜集对于全球公民教育以及相对应的课程的观点。您会通过邮件收到问卷的网址，并填写问卷。搜集到的数据会用于分析和学术发表。无论在研究进行过程或是结束后，这些信息都不会透露给第三方。您的个人信息，包括您的姓名，职位，邮箱地址，都是保密的。您可以在研究结束后向研究者索要一页的简化的研究总结。研究结果可能还会出现在学生的毕业论文，以及在澳洲和中国发表的期刊论文，学术会议，和海报中。研究结果的材料会在研究中以及结束后被存放在悉尼大学A35教育楼519室中。电子版信息则会存储在洪颐的移动硬盘以及与洪颐大学账号相关联的Cloudstor云空间里。只有洪颐有权限接触这些材料和电子版信息。所有信息将会在研究结束后保存5年。5年后这些信息将会被全部销毁。所有在本次调研中搜集的信息会可能会用于后续研究。

By providing your consent, you are agreeing to us collecting personal information about you for the purposes of this research study. Your information will only be used for the purposes outlined in this Participant Information Statement, unless you consent otherwise. 当您给出许可，意味着您同意我们向您搜集关于研究的信息。除非您另外许可，搜集的信息将仅限于“参与者信息说明”中涉及到的研究目标。

Your information will be stored securely and your identity/information will only be disclosed with your permission, except as required by law. Study findings may be published, but you will not be identified in these publications. 我们会保留您的回答，如果有可能会被用于后续研究。在“许可表”中征得您的允许后，我们才能在后续研究中继续使用这些信息。目前，我们还不能确认会有哪些具体的后续研究。在进行后续研究前，我们仍会申请伦理审查的批准。

(9) Can I tell other people about the study? 我可以把这个研究告诉别人吗？

Yes, you are welcome to tell other people about the study.

当然，欢迎您向他人谈论本研究。

(10) What if I would like further information about the study? 如果我想知道关于研究的更多信息怎么办？

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stage during the study, please feel free to contact Yi Hong, PhD candidate, Sydney School of Education and Social Science (Email: [email protected]; Office landline (Australia): 0293515378), or Professor Murray Print, Sydney School of Education and Social Science (Email: [email protected]; Tel: +61 2 93513202). 当您阅读这份材料的时候，洪颐将会和您讨论并回答您的问题。如果在研究进程任何环节中您产生了新的问题，请联系洪颐（邮箱：[email protected]; 电话： +61 2 93515378 ）或者莫瑞· 普林特教授（邮箱： [email protected]; 电话: +61 2 93513202）

(11) Will I be told the results of the study? 我会被告知研究的结果吗？

You have a right to receive feedback about the overall results of the present study. You can tell us that you wish to receive feedback by ticking the relevant box on the consent form. This feedback will be in the form of a one page lay summary. You will receive this feedback after the study is finished. 您有权利收到关于研究结果的反馈。您可以选择在“许可表”中相应的栏目里打钩。您得到的反馈将会是研究结束后一页简化的总结。

(12) What if I have a complaint or any concerns about the study? 如果我想对调研投诉或反映其他问题怎么办？

Research involving humans in Australia is reviewed by an independent group of people called a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). The ethical aspects of the present study have been approved by the HREC of the University of Sydney. As part of this process, we have agreed to carry out the study according to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007). This statement has been developed to protect people who agree to take part in research studies. 研究由独立于研究机构的澳洲人类研究伦理委员会严格审核。此研究已得到委员会按照《人类研究伦理实施国家级要求说明（2007）》批准执行。这份说明是为保护研究参与者而设立的。

If you are concerned about the way the present study is being conducted or you wish to make a complaint to someone independent from the study, please contact the university using the details outlined below. Please quote the study title and protocol number. 如果您对本次研究实施过程中某些环节抱有质疑或者向对非研究相关的负责任人进行投诉，请联系悉尼大学，或者其在中国的联系人，并记得告知研究题目和项目编号(2017/370)。具体联系方式如下：

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The Manager, Ethics Administration, University of Sydney:

 Telephone: +61 2 8627 8176  Email: [email protected]

 Fax: +61 2 8627 8177 (Facsimile) 悉尼大学伦理行政处经理：

 电话：+61 2 8627 8176  邮箱：[email protected]  传真：+61 2 8627 8177 (Facsimile)

Xiang Jianhua, Professor, College of Arts and Design, Textile Garment Institue (independent local complaints contact in China):  Telephone: 0086 519 86339425

 Fax: 0086 519 96336008 项建华，纺织服装技术学院艺术设计系教授：

电话: 0086 519 86339425

传真: 0086 519 96336008

This information sheet is for you to keep

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Appendix D: Participant Consent Form

Curriculum presage of global citizenship education: a qualitative explanation of junior high school educators’ conception of school- based global citizenship education informal curriculum in Jiangsu Province, China 全球公民教育课程预估：教育者对中国江苏省初中全球公民教育校本非正式课程的定性研究

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM 参与者许可表

I agree to take part in this research study. In giving my consent I state that: 本人同意参加此次调研。给出许可时，我表示：

 I understand the purpose of the study, what I will be asked to do, and any risks/benefits involved.

 我已明白此研究的目的，我会被研究者要求做什么，并了解其中是否会有危险和利益。

 I have read the Participant Information Statement and have been able to discuss my involvement in the study with the researchers if I wished to do so.

 我已阅读“参与者信息说明”，并且如果我需要的话也能与研究者讨论相关事宜。

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 The researchers have answered any questions that I had about the study and I am happy with the answers.

 研究者已回答了我提出的任何问题。我对这些回答也很满意。

 I understand that being in the present study is completely voluntary and I do not have to take part. My decision whether to be in the study will not affect my relationship with the researchers or anyone else at the University of Sydney now or in the future.

 我明白此研究是完全自愿性的，不需要强迫自己去完成。无论您决定是否参加都不会影响您目前或将来与研究者或悉尼大学任何人的关系。

 I understand that I can withdraw from the study at any time.  我明白我可以随时退出调研。

 I understand that my Delphi responses cannot be withdrawn once they are submitted, as they are anonymous and therefore the researchers will not be able to tell which one is mine.  我明白我一旦在德尔菲法研究中作出回答就不能被撤销，这是因为调研是匿名参加的，研究者将无法从中区分出每一位参与者的回答。

 I understand that personal information about me that is collected over the course of this project will be stored securely and will only be used for purposes that I have agreed to. I understand that information about me will only be told to others with my permission, except as required by law.

 我明白从我方搜集的信息将会安全存放，且只会被用于我所同意的研究用途。除非法律要求，只有通过我允许后才能将涉及到泄露我身份的信息透露给他人。

 I understand that the results of the present study may be published, and that publications will not contain my name or any identifiable information about me.

 我明白研究结果可能会发表，但是其中我姓名或任何可能会确认我身份的信息都会被抹去。

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I consent to: 我允许： Reviewing transcripts 省查备份信息

Yes/No

Being contacted about future studies 在后续研究中接受联系

Yes/No

Using data collected during the present study in future research projects 我们在后续研究中使用本

次调研搜集到的数据

Yes/No

Would you like to receive feedback about the overall results of the present study?

您愿意收到关于本次研究的总体性反馈吗？

Yes/No

请在这里留下您的联系方式

Postal 平邮地址：

Email 电子邮箱：

Signature 您的姓名：

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Appendix E: Permission Letter

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Appendix F: Sample Sheets of Data Analysis

(Samples of theme-based cognitive maps developed inductively from interviews by using NVivo)

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