Seminar

By Simon Ceder

Chair: Liz Jackson

Over the last 15 years, there has been increasing interest in using posthuman approaches in edu-cational research, particularly in early childhood education, but also in research methodology and curriculum studies. This seminar presents an overview of this development. It also proposes ways to introduce post-human perspectives into two areas that so far have been fairly untouched by this approach, namely philosophy of education and education for sustainable development. This introduction will be performed using the example of human evolution.

Simon Ceder received his PhD in Education from Lund Uni-versity Sweden 2016 with the thesis “Cutting Through Water: Towards a Posthuman Theory of Educational Relationality”. Before becoming a researcher, he was working as a high school teacher and teacher educator in questions regarding gender and equal treatment. Currently, Dr. Ceder is a senior lecturer at University of Skövde teaching educational courses and starting up a new research project with a focus on human evolution.

Date: Friday 16 December 2016
Time: 14.00 – 15.15
Venue: Room 204 Runme Shaw Building

All are welcome!

By Noah W. Sobe

Chair: Mark Bray

This seminar examines Marc-Antoine Jullien’s 1816/17 Esquisse et Vues Préliminaries d’un ouvrage sur L’Éducation Comparée in relation to European traditions of travel and global colonial expansion.  It argues that principles of colonial difference saturate Jullien’s proposal — notably in the ways that it enables and disables subjectivities and subject positions as well as in how it reifies social and contextual categories of analysis.  Jullien’s proposal did not found a discipline nor did it spark a continuous conversation, yet it is an instance in the establishment of the field that shows the stubbornly durable entanglement of educational comparison with colonialism.

Noah W. Sobe is Professor of Cultural and Educational Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago, where he also directs the Center for Comparative Education.  Professor Sobe is President-Elect of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), and co-editor of the journal European Education which is affiliated with the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE).

Date: Wednesday 7 December 2016
Time: 10:00 – 11:15 am
Venue: Room 203 Runme Shaw Building

By Mantak Yuen & Raymond Chan 

Chair: Mark Bray

This seminar will provide an overview of the existing policy landscape in Hong Kong and Japan. Key issues in school counselling will be identified in each region, and the rationale underpinning policies for school-based counseling will be discussed. The impact of policy on school practices is to be considered, and issues arising will be identified. Relevant research findings will be highlighted, and implications for future policy research considered. The seminar consists of three parts.

Part 1: School-based counseling in Hong Kong (Mantak Yuen, 25 mins)

Part 2: School-based counseling in Japan (Raymond MC Chan, 25mins)

Part 3: Open discussion (25 mins)

Mantak Yuen Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Advancement in Inclusive and Special Education, Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong. His academic and professional interests focus on guidance and counselling, life career and talent development, gifted education, positive psychology, and special needs education.

Raymond Chan is an Associate Head and Associate Professor in the Department of Education Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University. From 2005 to 2009 he served as the president of the Hong Kong Professional Counselling Association.

Please refer to the poster for detailed introduction of the speakers.

Date: Friday 7 October 2016

Time: 12:45-14:00

Venue: Room 202 Runme Shaw Building

All are welcome!

CERC was delighted to play a prominent role in the triennial Congress of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) held in Beijing Normal University (BNU) 22-26 August 2016. The BNU campus looked magnificent as scholars gathered from around the world for an event with a distinctive Chinese flavour. Nearly 20 CERC members were registered for the Congress, including MEd and PhD students.

CERC has a long history of collaboration with the WCCES, having been the Secretariat from 2000 to 2005, and having been the home of two WCCES Presidents. Mark Bray was WCCES President from 2004 to 2007, and Lee Wing-On, CERC’s founding Director, was WCCES President from 2010 to 2013. Both participated in a highlighted panel of Past-Presidents on the opening day of the Beijing Congress. That panel mentioned the book of histories of the WCCES and its members published by CERC.

The Congress closed with announcement of N’Dri Assié-Lumumba (past-president of the US-based Comparative & International Education Society) as the new WCCES President, and of the 2019 Congress to be held in Mexico. The group photograph shows the WCCES leadership with the BNU volunteers in blue T-shirts who had throughout the event provided practical advice and a warm welcome.

Each year, HKU welcomes a new and dynamic cohort of students for the MEd programme in Comparative and Global Studies in Education and Development (CGSED). The 19 students in the 2016/17 are as dynamic as their predecessors. They come from 11 countries/jurisdictions, namely:

Cambodia

Canada

China Mainland

Hong Kong

India

Japan

Lao PDR

Malaysia

Mexico

South Sudan

USA

Seven are studying part-time (two years) and 12 are studying full-time (one year). CERC is delighted to welcome the group, and much looks forward to working with them.

By Ruth Hayhoe

Chair: Li Jun

This will be a preview of my keynote for the World Congress of Comparative Education Societies in Beijing (August 2016). I will share the ideas I am working with on what it means for China to move into a central position in global educational affairs. The presentation looks at three themes: China’s obligations, given its experience of receiving educational aid in the two decades after the Cultural Revolution, the emerging literature on key dimensions of China’s educational civilization, and the shape of China’s current educational aid to Africa and SE Asia.

Ruth Hayhoe is a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.  Her professional engagements in Asia included foreign expert at Fudan University (1980-1982), Head of the Cultural Section of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing (1989-1991) and Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (1997-2002).  Recent books include Canadian Universities in China’s Transformation: An Untold Story (2016),  China Through the Lens of Comparative Education (2015), Portraits of 21^st Century Chinese Universities: In the Move to Mass Higher Education (2011) and Portraits of Influential Chinese Educators (2006). She is a longstanding Associate Member of CERC.

Time: 16.00 – 17.15

Date: Wednesday 4 May

Venue: Runme Shaw 202

ALL ARE WELCOME!

You’re cordially invited to the next CERC seminar scheduled for Thursday 14 April 2016 in room 202 of Runme Shaw Building. The seminar is entitled “Cultural Challenges Facing East Asian Higher Education” presented by Prof. Yang Rui.

Please also be informed that CERC Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held before the seminar from 12.30-13:00 to report on the activities of the Centre, and solicit ideas for its future development. Participants in the AGM will get a CIES bag for free.

Cultural Challenges Facing East Asian Higher Education

Speaker: Yang Rui

Chair: Mark Bray

Over recent decades, East Asia has made impressive progress in the scale and content of higher education. The achievement is especially remarkable when compared with other non-Western regions. A Western-style modern higher education system has been well established throughout the region. With a third of the global total investment in Research and Development, research in East Asia has also been growing rapidly.

While the achievement has been widely acknowledged, assessment of its future development is open to question. Some analysts suggest that East Asian universities are leaping ahead to challenge Western supremacy. Others feel that they will soon reach a ‘glass ceiling’. Questions remain about the true potential of East Asia’s universities and whether they can truly break the Western hegemony.

Based on the author’s intimate knowledge of East Asian societies and his longstanding professional observations, this presentation will assess the future development of East Asian higher education with recognition of the implications of its cultural roots.

YANG Rui is Professor and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. With over two and a half decades of academic career in China, Australia and Hong Kong, he has established his reputation among scholars in English and Chinese languages in the fields of comparative and international education and Chinese higher education. Bridging the theoretical thrust of comparative education and the applied nature of international education, his research interests include education policy, sociology, comparative and cross-cultural studies in education, international higher education, educational development in Chinese societies, and international politics in educational research.

Time: 13:00-14:15

Date: Thursday 14 April 2016

Venue: Runme Shaw 202

By Joyce Kahembe

Chair: Mark Bray

This presentation focuses on education in Tanzania since Independence in 1961. The contemporary education system has roots in colonial education. Few Tanzanians received education in that system, which was designed to serve the colonial regime. After Independence, the government introduced major reforms to serve Tanzania’s social, economic and political needs. The reforms aimed to increase access to education, remove colonial authority, and link education with social and economic development to address the needs of the society.

This seminar will review the achievements and challenges over the decades. Despite reforms, Tanzania still has many characteristics of the colonial education system. Thus the presentation will discuss these historical influences, identify the obstacles to change, and consider future-oriented goals.

Joyce Kahembe is a PhD student in the HKU Faculty of Education. She attained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the University of Dar es Salaam, and has also studied at the University of Twente, Netherlands. Before coming to HKU, she worked at the National Examination Board of Tanzania, the institution under the Ministry of Education..

Date: Tuesday 29 March 2016

Time: 14.45 – 16.00

Venue: Room 202 Runme Shaw Building

All are welcome!

By Chura Bahadur Thapa

Chair: Mark Bray

This seminar will report on a qualitative study of the identities of 28 secondary school Nepalese students in Hong Kong schools. All participants were in English-medium classes and fluent in English, and some were also fluent in Cantonese. During the unstructured interviews and informal interactions as a form of ethnographic enquiry, participants were asked to talk about their English and Cantonese learning beliefs, their career prospects, and their English and Cantonese use inside and outside school. The participants displayed different orientations with regard to the learning of English and Cantonese, and constructed different types of identities. The seminar will include comments on government policies for minority students.

Chura Bahadur Thapa has been living in Hong Kong since 1996, and is an active member of the Nepalese community. He holds a Master’s Degree from Hong Kong Baptist University and a PGDE from the HKIEd. Before joining HKU as a research student, he was a teacher in a Chinese-medium DSS school which recruited ethnic minority students for English-medium classes.

Time: 12.45 – 14.00
Date: Friday 26 February
Venue: Runme Shaw 203

All are welcome!