This is the first comprehensive study in English on the social, institutional and intellectual aspects of traditional Chinese education. The book introduces the Confucian ideal of 'studying for one's own sake', but argues that various intellectual traditions combined to create China's educational legacy. The book studies the development of schools and the examination system, the interaction between state, society and education, and the vicissitudes of the private academies. It examines family education, life of intellectuals, and the conventions of intellectual discourse. It also discusses the formation of the tradition of classical learning, and presents the first detailed account of student movements in traditional China, with an extensive bibliography. While a general survey, this book includes various new ideas and inquiries. It concludes with a critical evaluation of China's rich educational experiences.

China has the largest education system in the world. The total enrollment of students in regular and adult schools at all levels exceeds 320 million, accounting for more than a quarter of the nation's population. Western educators, foreign companies, and individual entrepreneurs have invested in Chinese education but, perhaps because of the complexity of the Chinese education system and the rapid development of educational reforms, have had little success. This work examines the education system in post-Mao China from 1976 to the present. It explores how the Chinese government sees the development of its educational practices within the nation's broader social, economic, political, and cultural contexts; how it identifies new issues that emerge in the process of what might be called educational globalization; how it translates these issues into specific educational policies, activities, and goals; how the education reforms fit China's social and political realities and objectives; how the new policies affect foreign student affairs and Chinese students studying abroad; the ways in which the government promotes international educational cooperation and exchange; the opportunities for Western institutions to introduce programs in China; and current trends and their effect on the internationalization of education.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1 Knowledge and Modernity: The Emergence of a Contradiction -- 2 Higher Education Reforms in the Eighties -- 3 A New Ethos for the Chinese University -- 4 China's Universities in the World Community: Conformity or Transformation? -- 5 Contrasting Policies of Knowledge Transfer to China -- 6 The Practice of Knowledge Transfer through Educational Cooperation -- 7 China's Universities and the World Bank -- Postscript -- Notes -- Glossary of Chinese Terms