Drawing from the discourse of practice-oriented teacher education, this book investigates the state of pre-service teachers’ practical knowledge in mainland China, providing insights into the reform of initial teacher education programmes for teacher educators. Conducting empirical studies at a university in Beijing, involving 400 pre-service teachers, the author investigates factors influencing pre-service teachers’ practical knowledge. Five innovative methodologies, namely concept mapping, visual metaphors, video analysis, epistemic network analysis, and formative interventions are employed to make pre-service teachers’ practical knowledge visible, helping to increase our theoretical understanding of practical knowledge and proposing practical guidelines for the reorganisation of initial teacher education. While the study is grounded in mainland China, the methodological thinking and theoretical discussions can inspire international scholars and teacher educators, and therefore contribute to the global reform of teacher education.

Drawing from the discourse of practice-oriented teacher education, this book investigates the state of pre-service teachers' practical knowledge in mainland China, providing insights into the reform of initial teacher education programmes for teacher educators. Conducting empirical studies at a university in Beijing, involving 400 pre-service teachers, the author investigates factors influencing pre-service teachers' practical knowledge. Five innovative methodologies: concept mapping, visual metaphors, video analysis, epistemic network analysis, and formative interventions are employed to make pre-service teachers' practical knowledge visible, helping to increase our theoretical understanding of practical knowledge and proposing practical guidelines for the reorganisation of initial teacher education. While the study is grounded in mainland China, the methodological thinking and theoretical discussions can inspire international scholars and teacher educators, and therefore contribute to the global reform of teacher education.

This book investigates the ways in which pre-service teachers develop and articulate their professional knowledge by presenting their reflections on contemporary issues and topics they have explored during their own teaching practicums. It uses reflective practice to connect pre-service teachers’ personal backgrounds with their placement experience concerning a self-selected topic, including teacher educators’ reflections on the pre-service teachers’ reports on these placement topics. By illustrating the broad range of issues encountered by pre-service teachers, sharing multiple perspectives on the complexity of classroom practice, and demonstrating the importance of reflective practice, it also provides a valuable mentoring framework. Moreover, the book studies how examining pre-service teachers’ life experience can facilitate in-depth understanding, specifically in the context of pre-service teachers’ reflections on their own practices in different educational settings. In short, the book helps current and prospective pre-service teachers and teacher educators get to know their students and themselves better using reflective practice.

This book utilises expectancy–value theory and undermining effect of extrinsic reward theory to examine the impact of the Central Government-Funded Teacher Education (CGFTE) policy on Chinese pre-service teachers' motivations for choosing the teaching profession. Quantitative data analysis revealed six distinct categories of motivations to teach: teacher influence, job advantages (extrinsic), social value (altruistic), personal interest (intrinsic), others' suggestions, and fallback career. These categories were further exemplified in ten narrative stories. The findings indicate that the CGFTE policy attracts high-school graduates with higher intrinsic motivation to enrol in teacher-training programs, but it seems ineffective in increasing their intrinsic career-choice motivation. It is argued that the CGFTE policy, which emphasises extrinsic benefits but limits professional development, does not have a significant negative impact on pre-service teachers' motivation to choose teaching. This conclusion is supported by the offsetting effects of the policy's restrictive and encouraging aspects, as explained by expectancy–value theory and the qualitative data. Nevertheless, the intrinsic motivation of policy-funded pre-service teachers did not improve as much as that of their self-supported counterparts, indicating potential undermining effects of the policy. The study concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for enhancing the CGFTE policy, teacher training, and career education in China. The book will be an essential read for students and scholars of higher education, Chinese studies, and educational studies in general.

Within a Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning context, this book investigates how teachers and learners interacted and articulated their understanding of English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP)-related knowledge in a synchronous EFL classroom. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way people receive education, causing an almost overnight switch from on-campus instruction to distance learning. Under the use of three different learning analytics approaches, this book has moved beyond the usual descriptive understanding of the online learning process to an in-depth exploratory and inferential analysis of the entities, structures, relations, and processes of learning. The findings enrich current understandings of the complexity of ERPP teaching and learning in synchronous learning contexts. These findings also drive us to rethink and reshape the way ERPP instruction is delivered post-pandemic. An essential read for students and scholars of education and academic English. This book will also be a vital source for researchers in the field of learning analytics, data analysis, and data interpretation in language teaching and learning.

For pre-service teachers at three levels of education - early childhood, primary and secondary. Learning to teach is a difficult and complex activity. It is a process that requires pre-service teachers to chart uniquely personal pathways to becoming effective teachers, pathways that are littered with complex and demanding challenges that vary across time, place and person. This book offers pre-service teachers a novel way of addressing those challenges. It reveals what pre-service teachers need to do to transform their preconceived notions about teaching, acquired during twelve years as students in schools, into the practical theories that guide the classroom teaching of highly effective practitioners. It presents examples of the knowledge and theories of actual teachers, both pre-service and in-service; activities for explicating, reviewing and re-building knowledge and theories; and research-based guidelines to effect change while learning to teach. This book will contribute to making the task of learning to teach much more comprehensible to prospective teachers, while empowering students to take a more significant role in their own professional development.

The widening of income and wealth inequality has become one of the most important obstacles on the road to China’s common prosperity. In the context of inequality reduction and anti-poverty strategy in China, this book investigates the complex relationship between education and intergenerational mobility in terms of occupation and income. Based on large-scale social survey data, cutting-edge econometric models and statistical methods, the book examines the role of education in breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty and promoting intergenerational mobility. It analyzes the characteristics of birth cohorts in intergenerational mobility, the long-term trends of educational, occupational, and income mobility among rural and urban residents across generations, and also the different regional patterns of intergenerational mobility against the background of social changes in China. Based on empirical findings, the author advances suggestions on an education policy conducive to poverty alleviation. The book will appeal to scholars and students studying the sociology of education, the economics of education and Chinese education, as well as policy makers interested in the topics of education policy systems and poverty alleviation, as well as education equity and social mobility.