Global characteristics of school transformation in China

Abstract

In many ways, China's education system is quite different from systems of education in the West. Rich descriptions of school transformation, however, have revealed that the factors that fuelled transformation in schools in China are also evident in schools in Australia, England, Finland, Wales and the United States. This paper draws on an international project that examined how secondary schools from six countries achieved success by developing and drawing on their resources, referred to as four forms of capital: financial, intellectual, social and spiritual. It describes how five secondary schools in Chongqing, Western China, viewed each form of capital and how the four forms of capital were strengthened and aligned through outstanding governance to support the success of all students. The case is made that, although some aspects of the forms of capital found in schools in China may be viewed differently, the approaches adopted by these schools share a number of common elements with approaches to school transformation identified in Western schools. It is argued that these common elements from a range of international settings constitute a rich evidence base for understanding school transformation and for new insights in governance and leadership.

Keywords:

• alignment
• China
• governance
• leadership
• transformation

Notes

1. The findings of the project as a whole are reported by Caldwell and Harris (2008) with separate reports containing the findings for each country: Douglas & Harris (2008) for Australia; Egan (2008) for Wales; Goodfellow and Walton (2008) for England; Saarivirta (2008) for Finland; Zhao, Ni, Qiu et al. (2008) for China; and Zhao, Ni, Yang, Chen, and Zhang (2008) for the United States.

2. The specialist areas include Arts, Business and Enterprise, Engineering, Humanities, Languages, Mathematics and Computing, Music, Science, Sport, and Technology.