Seminar

CERC will host a seminar on May 19th, featuring Professor Kenneth King, Emeritus Professor of International and Comparative Education at the University of Edinburgh. In this thought-provoking session, Professor King will challenge dominant approaches to research in ‘international’ and comparative education by proposing alternative perspectives that highlight the value of documentary studies, everyday experiences, counter-intuitive and decolonising approaches, and the role of serendipity in shaping research practice. The seminar will also raise critical questions about the influence of consultancy-driven agendas, the imbalance in North–South research collaborations, and the structural challenges posed by academic publishing and research locations.

The seminar marks a link to themes developed in Professor King’s book Education, Skills and International Cooperation: Comparative and Historical Perspectives, published by CERC in 2019 following his appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Copies of the book will be available at a significantly discounted price during the event.

Please refer to the information in the poster to participate. All are welcome!

CERC is pleased to announce an upcoming seminar on May 8th, 2025, featuring Professor Michele Schweisfurth, a leading scholar in the field of international and comparative education. In this session, Professor Schweisfurth will explore the complex relationships between pedagogy and its local, national, and global contexts, raising fundamental questions about the role of pedagogy in shaping education’s broader purposes.

Drawing on over 25 years of research—particularly, though not exclusively, in Global South contexts—she will examine different ways of conceptualising teaching practice. These range from the nuanced concept of the “pedagogical nexus” (Hufton & Elliott, 2010; Schweisfurth & Elliott, 2019) to the growing reliance on evidence-based “best practice” prescriptions. The presentation will also share insights from her forthcoming book, Schweisfurth 2025, offering fresh perspectives on current pedagogical debates.

This seminar will be of particular interest to educators, researchers, and policymakers seeking to better understand the cultural, ethical, and political dimensions of pedagogy in today’s interconnected world. Please refer to the detailed information in the poster to join. All are welcome!

On April 17, 2025, a thought-provoking CERC seminar titled “Confucian and Buddhist Philosophies of Education in Watsuji Tetsurō（和辻哲郎）” was held online, drawing a total of 23 participants from both virtual and in-person platforms. The event featured Professor Anton Sevilla-Liu, who delivered an insightful lecture exploring lesser-known aspects of the Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō’s thought.

Best known for his work on relational ethics and the influence of milieu on culture, Watsuji is often peripherally associated with the Kyoto School. However, as Professor Sevilla-Liu highlighted, Watsuji also developed a nuanced—though scattered—philosophy of education, especially in his three-volume work Ethics (1937, 1946, 1949). While these works touch upon ideas of socialization and social change, they stop short of elaborating a full educational theory.

To delve deeper, Professor Sevilla-Liu turned to two of Watsuji’s under-researched texts: Confucius (1938) and Purifying Zen (1926). In Confucius, Watsuji presents education as a process of finding one’s place within a learning community and entering into cultural life. This model emphasizes a relational virtue grounded in a “call-and-response” dynamic but tends to lack space for critical agency and individual self-reflection.

In contrast, Purifying Zen reveals a strikingly different view, centered on the Zen monk Dōgen and the transformative experiences between master and disciple. Here, education emerges as an awakening of the self—one that questions established orders and fosters individuality through direct, personal encounters.

Professor Sevilla-Liu invited the audience to reflect on how these philosophical insights speak to contemporary global educational challenges: Is education more than skill acquisition? Can it facilitate genuine encounters with others? How can we balance the goals of social integration with the nurturing of unique and creative selves?

The seminar offered a rich dialogue on these questions, inspiring educators, scholars, and students alike to rethink the deeper purposes of education in today’s interconnected world.

CERC will have its Annual Meeting Seminar session on May 13th, please stay tuned for this event!

On 21st February 2025, CERC hosted a seminar titled A Critique of Critical Thinking, featuring a dialogue between Mr. Kong (played by Professor Daniel A. Bell) and Mr. Hu (played by Professor Jeremy Rappleye, the director of CERC).

In this engaging session, Professor Bell, Chair of Political Theory at the Faculty of Law, HKU, took on the role of Mr. Kong to critique the modern educational emphasis on critical thinking, drawing on passages from the Analects of Confucius. Responding in the role of Mr. Hu, Professor Rappleye raised objections inspired by liberal thought, sparking a lively and thought-provoking exchange between Confucian and liberal perspectives. This session was joined by participants from online and onsite.

Professor Bell, a distinguished scholar whose works include The Dean of Shandong (2023) and The China Model (2015), among others, brought deep insights into the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of education debates in this event.

The seminar offered a unique opportunity to reconsider the foundations of educational values in an era that increasingly prizes critical thinking.

On March 7, 2025, the Shadow Education Special Interest Group (SIG) hosted an insightful online talk titled “Different Contexts, Similar Mindsets? Comparing Parental Decision-Making in Private Tutoring in Hong Kong and the Czech Republic.” The session featured Dr. Nutsa Kobakhidze (The University of Hong Kong) and Dr. Vít Šťastný (Charles University), who shared findings from their comparative study on parental perspectives in shadow education.

Drawing from interviews with 145 parents across both regions, the speakers examined key influences shaping parental choices, including emotions, cognitive biases, and “bounded rationality.” Despite geographical and cultural differences, the study highlighted striking similarities, particularly in the role of child agency—parents in both contexts actively involved their children in tutoring decisions.

Beyond cultural factors, the discussion explored how social class, global parenting norms, and social media contribute to shaping parental mindsets. The speakers emphasized the need for further research on these global influences and their evolving impact in an increasingly interconnected world.

In addition to the seminar, Dr. Kobakhidze and Dr. Šťastný introduced the Shadow Education Resource Center, a newly developed database and bibliography dedicated to research on shadow education.

The Shadow Education SIG continues to provide a platform for scholars to engage in critical discussions on private tutoring and its implications worldwide. Stay tuned for our upcoming events!

On 13th February 2025, the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) at the University of Hong Kong hosted a seminar titled Diasporic Identities, Multiculturalism and Pedagogic Challenges, delivered by Professor Fazal Rizvi from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

In his presentation, Professor Rizvi discussed how transnational mobility has reshaped communities and schools worldwide, leading to new complexities in understanding migration, cultural identities, and the politics of cultural difference. He highlighted how migration today often maintains strong ties to home countries, fostering the development of dynamic diasporic identities.

Using a vignette, Professor Rizvi examined the challenges diaspora students face as they navigate the expectations of their local lives alongside the demands of their transnational communities. He argued that traditional models of multicultural education are no longer sufficient to address these emerging issues, calling for new approaches to support students in dealing with the ethical dilemmas brought about by global mobility.

The seminar offered timely insights into the evolving nature of education in increasingly diverse and interconnected societies, adding great value to the field of comparative education.

On 23rd January 2025, the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) at the University of Hong Kong hosted a seminar titled Democratic Value Resistance: Deweyan Future of Measurement in Education, delivered by Professor Ka Ya Lee.

In this talk, Professor Lee presented her latest book chapter from an upcoming volume on John Dewey and Amartya Sen. She explored the idea of “value resistance,” highlighting how Sen’s Capability Approach challenges the value systems underlying traditional measurement practices, a problem described as “value capture” by C. Thi Nguyen.

Professor Lee argued that education today faces similar challenges and requires a form of value resistance to rethink existing assessment practices. Drawing on the philosophies of Sen and Dewey, she called for alternatives to standardized testing through democratic, iterative, and educative forms of inquiry.

The seminar offered fresh insights into how normative frameworks can reshape the way success is measured in education, emphasizing the importance of democratic values in building more meaningful and inclusive assessments.

On 21st and 25th November, the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) and the Consortium for Research on Early Childhood Development and Education (CORE) at the University of Hong Kong jointly hosted two seminars featuring Professor Akiko Hayashi from Keio University.

In the first seminar on 21st November, titled Preschool in Three Eras in Japan: 1984, 2002, and 2022, Professor Hayashi shared findings from her new ethnographic study at Komatsudani Hoikuen in Kyoto. By comparing video data across 40 years, she found that while daily teaching practices have remained largely stable, the social environment surrounding preschools has changed significantly, marked by low birthrates and system reforms.

The second seminar, Teaching Expertise in Three Countries: Japan, China, and the United States, held on 25th November, introduced insights from her recent book. Drawing on interviews with 112 experienced teachers, Professor Hayashi highlighted common patterns in how teachers grow with experience, alongside key cultural differences across the three countries. Her work underlines the powerful role of mentorship, peer learning, and practical experience in teacher development.

Through both seminars, Professor Hayashi offered valuable perspectives on the continuity, change, and cultural contexts shaping early childhood education through comparative perspectives.