Seminar

The Shadow Education SIG successfully hosted an engaging online talk on December 8th, bringing together 19 participants from across the globe to explore new insights into the growing field of shadow education. The session focused on the underexamined role of elite independent consultants in India and how their moral narratives shape inequalities in global university admissions.

The speaker, Swati Puri, a Ph.D. Candidate from Graduate School of Education, Harvard University,  presented findings based on interviews and analyses of marketing materials from high-end consultancies. The talk highlighted how these consultants craft identities built on claims of serving “diverse” clients, delivering superior guidance, and maintaining ethical standards. At the same time, markers of “premium” status, such as high fees, bespoke services, and international credentials, help legitimize a system that remains largely inaccessible to the majority of Indian students.

Participants engaged actively in the discussion, raising questions about the implications for equity, the possibility of regulating the sector, and the role emerging technologies like AI may play in reducing information asymmetry.

The event concluded with positive feedback, noting the talk’s timely relevance and its contribution to critical conversations about global education, social mobility, and the privatization of admissions support.

This session is part of an ongoing series of talks on shadow education research by Shadow Education SIG at the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) at the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong.

On December 3^rd, CERC was honored to have Prof. Claudia Ruitenberg to deliver a talk titled “Bifocal Ethics in Educational Leadership and Policy”, chaired by Prof. Liz Jackson. The talk was well attended and attracted audience from diverse background.

In this seminar, Prof. Ruitenberg advocated a “bifocal” ethics for educational leaders, which require them to see issues both from distance and up close. When seeing from distance, it requires leaders to be just and consistent with their decisions (operates in an ethical economy of exchange); while up close, it requires leaders to be more caring and even willing to break some rules (operates in an ethical economy of excess). Importantly, the “bifocal” ethics is not to provide leaders clear and certain instructions on how to make ethical decisions, but to ask them to embrace the uncertainty of ethical decision-making.

Prof. Ruitenberg’s talk sparked vibrant discussions among the audience. Questions were raised about whether educational leadership operates differently in different cultural contexts. Acknowledging the cultural differences, Prof. Ruitenberg also explained that the struggle between being fair or being caring is a phenomenon exists across cultures and hence the “bifocal ethics” is also not limited to the North American context. Other questions were also asked from diverse perspectives, including philosophical question about the notion of “pure gift” and practical concern about application of “bifocal ethics” in K-12 education.

Prof. Ruitenberg’s talk, bridging philosophical arguments and educational practices, strengthens CERC’s emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration. CERC will continue to provide a vital platform for leading researchers in diverse fields.

The Shadow Education SIG hosted a hybrid research seminar examining how families from different social classes have interpreted and responded to China’s Double Reduction policy, which limits homework and private tutoring. The session attracted strong interest, bringing together 28 participants in total—15 attendees on site and 13 joining online.

The speaker presented findings from a comparative case study conducted across seven urban, peri-urban, and rural districts in Qingdao. The research uncovered clear class-based differences in how families navigated the policy. Working-class families generally accepted the reforms, while middle-class families showed a mixture of resistance and strategic adaptation. Upper-class families tended to display surface-level compliance while quietly maintaining their preferred educational practices.

The talk concluded with the introduction of Perceived Pathways Theory, a conceptual framework that explains how families’ class-based perceptions of opportunity and constraint influence their educational aspirations and their engagement with state-led reforms.

The seminar generated lively discussion among both in-person and online participants, highlighting the ongoing relevance of the Double Reduction policy in shaping China’s educational landscape.

On Oct. 23^rd, CERC was honored to host Prof. Yoko Mochizuki’s lecture titled “The ethics of AI or techno-solutionism? UNESCO’s policy guidance on AI in education”. The talk attracted a total of 67 participants (including both in-person and online).

In this lecture, Prof. Mochizuki discussed the way UNESCO presented the issue of AI in education in guidance documents for researchers, practitioners and policy makers. Based on her analysis of the documents, she argued that although UNESCO took critical stance towards unethical use of AI and exercised caution over unregulated applications, it still depicted the technological innovation as favorable and inevitable for education and thus foreclosed possibilities of imagining alternative futures in education and society. Moreover, the UNESCO documents relied heavily on works produced by Anglo-American affiliated scholars and researchers in private sectors, which invited decolonial critiques. Towards the end of the lecture, Prof. Mochizuki introduced the works of Vanessa Andreotti and Shoko Suzuki to illustrate the possible alternative approaches of co-existing with AI from posthumanistic perspectives.

Prof. Mochizuki’s talk sparked vibrant discussions in the lecture room and online. Prof. Ka Ya Lee articulated the cases where the dominance of advanced technology can be ethically good. Prof. Mark Bray urged us to pay more attention to the role China plays in the rapidly evolving discourse of AI in education. This comment was seconded by Prof. Edward Victors, who criticized the decolonial discourse, as the financial and geopolitical situation behind the AI discussion is more complicated. Other participants also exchanged ideas with each other and with the speaker.

This talk is the first CERC seminar on AI-related topics and the wide attention it attracted shows both the importance of this issue and the need to cope with it, no matter favorably or critically. On related topic, CERC will be honored to co-host a joint symposium of Hong Kong University and Tsinghua University on November 7^th, titled “Educational Traditions in the Age of AI: What and How?”, where scholars from the two institutions will discuss AI and education from various different angles.

The Shadow Education Special Interest Group (SIG) successfully hosted an engaging seminar on October 15, 2025, featuring three graduates from the Master of Education in Comparative and Global Studies in Education and Development (CGSED) program at the University of Hong Kong. The event attracted around 30 participants from both local and international contexts.

The session began with a book release by Dr. Li Jun, a member of the Shadow Education SIG, who introduced his newly published monograph and shared insights from his recent work. Following the book release, three CGSED graduates presented their capstone research projects, each exploring a distinct dimension of shadow education:

Jingwen Li (Jeen) examined China’s Gaokao reform through the lens of ethical theory in her presentation “Beyond Scores: Unpacking Utilitarian-Kantian Conflicts in China’s Gaokao Reform and Shadow Education.”

Xintong Lu (Hazel) delivered a comparative study titled “Comparison of After-school Programs in Canada and Japan: Development and Practice,” identifying both commonalities and contrasts in curriculum, staffing, and funding models.

Wendanyue Xing (Moon) shared her prerecorded presentation “Shadow Education under China’s Double Reduction: Practices and Motivations in Enshi Middle Schools,” offering valuable insights into how students and parents have adapted to policy changes in mainland China.

Each presentation was followed by a lively discussion, where participants exchanged ideas and reflected on the broader implications of these studies for policy and practice.

At the conclusion of the seminar, the SIG announced its upcoming sessions scheduled for November and December:

November 18 (Tuesday)

Acceptance, Resistance, or Indifference: The Role of Social Class in Families’ Responses to China’s Double Reduction Policy

Speaker: Anna Baerman

December 8 (Monday)

Elite and Ethical: The Moral Discourses of “Premium” College Counselors in India

Speaker: Swati Puri

The Shadow Education SIG extends its gratitude to all speakers and participants for their contributions to today’s session and looks forward to continuing the dialogue in the upcoming events.

On 11th September, CERC was honoured to have Prof. Keita Takayama to deliver a talk titled “An Invitation to Theorise East Asian Pedagogy: Bodymind, Dark Consciousness, and Self-cultivation” with commentary from Prof. Chung-yi Cheng. The talk attracted a total of 115 participants (both in-person and online), attending from China, Korea, Japan, Australia, etc.

In this seminar, Prof. Takayama discussed the necessity of theorising East Asian pedagogy in its own terms. Integrating approaches of “reverse deficit methodology” (Sonoda, 1991) and “Asia as method” (Chen, 2010), Prof. Takayama attempted to test emic concepts and theories developed mainly from Japanese Philosophy in East Asian educational settings. Building on the philosophical discussions of Yuasa, Kasulis, Nishihira and others on “bodymind”, Prof. Takayama argued that in eastern traditions and philosophies, knowledge is often depicted as obtained through repetitive bodily exercises or “dark consciousness”, in contrast to rational cognitive procedure or “bright consciousness”. Prof. Takayama then deployed this theory in analyzing the results of qualitative research by Weili Zhao on Chinese mathmatics education. Prof. Takayama contended that the “bodymind” theory is useful in taking account of the pedagogy adopted by the Chinese teachers in mathmatics classroom and argued that in adopting this theoretical framework, researches like that of Zhao’s can be taken one step further towards theoresation of East Asian pedagogy.

Prof. Chung-yi Cheng, responded to Prof. Takayama’s talk in a detailed and intensive fashion. Besides echoing the talk with his own examples and teaching experiences, Prof. Cheng also proposed several critical questions towards the “bodymind/dark consciousness” theory. One major point is his concern for the “one-sidedness” of this theory, because from his expertise in Confucian (and Chinese) philsophy, Prof. Cheng contended that in those philosophical traditions, the cultivaiton of bodymind (outside-in) and the cultivation of heart-mind (inside-out) are, despite emphasized in different learning stages, equally important. Hence, Prof. Cheng offered a constructive suggestion on how to make the theorisation of East Asian pedagogy more philosophically well-grounded, that is, to depict “bright consciousness” and “dark consciousness” as mutually transforming yin and yang so that the dynamic of the two in learning process can be taken account of.

The talk and the commentary from Prof. Takayama and Prof. Cheng sparked warm and enthusiastic responses in audience. Prof. Ka Ya Lee and Prof. Anton Sevilla-Liu (both former speakers of CERC seminars) elaborated on the points Prof. Cheng raised and exchanged ideas with the speaker. Prof. Jeremy Rappleye sought opinions from Prof. Cheng on the interdisciplinary collaboration between philosophy and education departments. Prof. Cheng responded with honest concern for institutional difficulties but also with insightful and concrete suggestions on how genuine “interdisciplinarity” can be established. Prof. Rappleye envisioned that CERC seminars will continue to serve as bridges for insights and knowledge from different regions and disciplines.

This seminar offers deep theoretical foundation and practical suggestions especially for educational researchers and practitioners in East Asia who have long struggled with the situation that East Asian education and pedagogy are depicted as “deficit”. CERC hopes that this seminar will inspire and encourage East Asian researchers and educators to theorise their practices using their own “emic” concepts and exchange insights with each other on those concepts so that more fruitful intra-Asia conversations will be established.

On June 26, 2025, the Shadow Education SIG under the Comparative Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong held an online talk by Gabriella Hegedűs, PhD candidate at the University of Debrecen.

Gabriella presented findings from her study on English language shadow education in Northeastern Hungary, showing that while private tutoring had little effect on students’ self-efficacy, mothers’ educational attainment strongly influenced access to tutoring and exam success.

The session, chaired by Alex Tsaloukidis, a PhD candidate at the faculty, attracted participants from different regions. After the presentation, attendees engaged in a lively discussion with the speaker, exchanging views on family background, social capital, and educational inequality.

Thank you to everyone who joined and contributed to this thoughtful exchange! We look forward to having more insightful talks on Shadow Education next semester.

On May 19, CERC hosted a seminar titled “Methodological Challenges in Researching the ‘International’ in Education and Area Studies.” The session was led by Professor Kenneth King, Emeritus Professor of International and Comparative Education at the University of Edinburgh, and attracted 47 participants both online and in person.

In this engaging and thought-provoking talk, Professor King critically examined dominant approaches to research in international and comparative education. He proposed alternative perspectives that highlight the value of documentary studies, everyday experiences, counter-intuitive thinking, decolonising methodologies, and the role of serendipity in shaping research practices.

The seminar also addressed key structural challenges in the field, such as the influence of consultancy-driven agendas, the persistent imbalance in North–South research collaborations, and the constraints posed by academic publishing and research locations.

This event built on themes from Professor King’s 2019 book, Education, Skills and International Cooperation: Comparative and Historical Perspectives, published by CERC following his appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Copies of the book were made available at a special discounted price during the event.

 CERC continues to provide a vital platform for critical dialogue and reflection on pressing issues in the field of comparative education.