This article adopts the critical theory approach to reflect and analyse the impacts of globalization on the internationalization process of higher education in the Asia-Pacific region. It argues that globalization forces many of the higher education institutions in the region to follow global practices and ideologies of the Anglo-American paradigm without developing their own unique systems and honouring the rich cultures of their own countries. While higher education institutions are indulging in internationalization in terms of marketization and economic pragmatism, they have to ask themselves, 'What is missing in the process of internationalization?' This article argues that internationalization of higher education contributes to building more than economically competitive and politically powerful states. It represents a commitment to the development of an internationalized curriculum where the pursuit of global citizenship, human harmony and a climate of global peace is of paramount importance.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.652815]

There is a clear need for new research into the work and life outcomes for graduates of Australian international education. Drawing upon divergent post-study transitions, this article aims to present a multi-faceted, qualitative foundation for the consideration of both positional and transformative impacts of international education on graduates' post study lives and careers. We compare three divergent study and life pathways for international students via three case studies of different models of Australian international and transnational education provision. The findings show that positional and transformative outcomes were often intertwined in surprising ways in participants' stories. The pathways that they followed after graduation were strongly influenced by their engagement with international education as a life as well as a learning experience. All three case studies also suggest that concepts of the prestige of the Western degree need further consideration.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.562369]

Higher education has become a key strategy for the economic development of certain city-states that are positioning themselves as higher education hubs, recruiting both students and foreign providers. This article presents the findings of a research study that examined the online messages of foreign branch-campuses in education hubs (Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore). The project adapts and expands on Fairclough's notion of critical discourse analysis to include virtual discursive space in order to understand how foreign providers address context, and what values are central to their programming, as they construct their virtual presence in new locations. The findings identify that the dominant themes on institutional websites reflect key issues facing higher education, including quality, leadership, international connections and technological advancement. The paper concludes with a conceptual framework that assists institutions in moving beyond these themes to re-consider context in their overseas operations..
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2012.728373]

In this article the author discusses some of the approaches that she takes in challenging student teachers to understand education in global context, rather than in a decontextualised or instrumental way. These approaches draw on the author's experience of being an educator from the 'global South' (the Caribbean) now working in the 'global North' (Australia). As the first black teacher that most Australian student teachers have encountered in their entire education, the author finds that she can offer them provocative educational narratives and questions stemming from a lifetime career in education, studying and working in various roles in schools, colleges, universities and ministries of education in Jamaica, Grenada, Hong Kong, the UK, the USA and Australia. The author sets out to disrupt the preconceptions of her students as a starting point in a collective journey of thinking differently about education.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher’s website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.581513]

Beginning in the 1990s, the education departments of Hong Kong and Shanghai began to actively initiate reform with a focus on the quality of education. In reviewing the implementation of educational reform in these two societies, the authors found that Hong Kong teachers tended to only adopt those policies which they felt were beneficial for students' learning, whereas Shanghai teachers tended to conform more to the state's requirements. Teachers in Hong Kong strongly expressed their frustration over the intensification of their work, while teachers in Shanghai seldom expressed disagreement over the state initiatives. Concerning the meaning of teacher professionalism, teachers in Hong Kong were more able than their counterparts in Shanghai to develop their own interpretations. However, at the same time, teachers' work in Hong Kong was still being monitored by the emerging schooling market, while the work of Shanghai teachers was monitored by the state. Teachers' work in both societies can be interpreted as 'confined professionalism'. In addition, in both of the two societies teachers' awareness of their professionalism was comparatively weak. Further empowerment in this area is needed.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057920601061786]

This paper views seeking the optimal balance between state strengths and the scope of state functions for 'good governance' as the formation of a homogenization-heterogenization matrix of policy initiatives in different social settings. Homogenization refers to a global tendency for institutional changes and governance framework to change state capacity, while heterogenization refers to the local adaptation of these global transformations. The paper attempts to take educational decentralization as an example of policy initiatives to assess and analyse the significance of the two opposite poses in four East Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs) (Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan). The paper's position is that it may be useful to see these four NIEs as making up two clusters. It sees political democratic transitions in Korea and Taiwan as important local factors affecting the developments of educational decentralization in the two societies, while reforms in Hong Kong and Singapore seem to be more consequences of managerial and market values. However, the NIEs face the question of how to maintain sufficient 'stateness' in the decentralization process. To conclude, the paper considers that achieving the balance of 'stateness' is the key to success in state-building.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057920903156888]

This study represents an initial attempt to determine and compare the levels of the intercultural sensitivity of three samples of student teachers in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). A total of 317 student teachers participated in the study. Across the three samples, the majority of participants tended to see the world from an ethnocentric perspective and tended to simplify or polarize cultural differences. They also had a tendency to emphasize commonality and universal norms, and showed difficulties in comprehending and accommodating complex cultural differences. Based on the results, the study offers recommendations for the development of a suitable intercultural training programme to achieve greater intercultural sensitivity for future teachers in each of the three cities.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057920802281571]

The present paper attempts to assess the link between economic factors and the private demand for higher education through an investigation of the findings of relevant studies. After an examination of the various methodologies adopted by different authors in the estimation of the perceived rate of return to higher education, the main findings of available studies conducted in several countries (UK, the Philippines, Egypt, Hong Kong, and Cyprus) are discussed and compared. The main conclusions drawn from this comparison are the following: First, the perceived rates of return to higher education are, for the most part, very realistic, indicating an accurate perception of the economic benefits of higher education on the part of students. Second, non-economic factors, such as gender, ability and socio-economic background, appear to constitute strong influences on the private demand for higher education, which educational policy makers should take into account, along with the economic variables. Finally, it is suggested that the methodology discussed in the present paper can be used in the future to estimate the perceived profitability of higher studies at different institutions and countries offering higher education.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305792980280306]

After the resumption of sovereignty in 1997 mother tongue education in Hong Kong, though it began with the good intention of national reintegration, politi-cally, socially, culturally and educationally, has escalated the tensions and contradic-tions of the politics of bilingualism in its implementation. The government policy of bi-literacy and trilingualism addresses, rather than resolves, the problems of hegemonic struggle among different social groups in the society, and between the indigenous elite class and national ruling elites at both the local and national level. A reproduction analysis is conducted to examine the events pertinent to the language shift of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) to Chinese as a medium of instruction (CMI), with particular emphasis on controversial issues such as parental choice, antagonism of elite classes, and group politics in the face of the internationalisation of English under globalised developments of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). English, a colonising language in the past and now a world language for changes in ICT, remains problematic for Hong Kong's language policy undergoing decolonisation and internationalisation in its early post-transitional years. Putonghua, the national lan-guage of China, challenging Cantonese, the regional dialect, as the formal and high Chinese language of the society, has added complexities to the discourse of polemical mother tongue education under the 'one country, two systems' framework practised in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305792032000107786]

Private supplementary tutoring has long been a major phenomenon in parts of East Asia, including Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. In recent times it has grown dramatically in other parts of Asia and in Africa, Europe and North America. The factors underlying the growth of private tutoring vary, but in all settings it has major implications for learning and livelihood. Families with the necessary resources are able to secure not only greater quantities but also better qualities of private tutoring. Children receiving such tutoring are then able to perform better in school, and in the long run to improve their lifetime earnings. By contrast, children of low‐income families who do not receive such benefits may not be able to keep up with their peers and may drop out of school at an earlier age. Tutoring also of course has a direct impact on the livelihoods of the tutors, providing employment and incomes for a range of professionals and amateurs of different age groups. The dynamics of inter‐relationships are complex, and vary from one setting to another. This paper argues that private supplementary tutoring deserves much more attention from policy makers and researchers.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057920601024974]