Neoliberal global assemblages: The emergence of “public” international high-school curriculum programs in China

ABSTRACT

Since 2010, the number of urban Chinese high-school students applying to US universities has rapidly grown. Many of these students have chosen emerging international curriculum programs established by elite public high schools in China. These programs prepare wealthy Chinese students for the US college application process by exposing them to an internationalized curriculum. These emerging curriculum programs are public, but their expensive tuition excludes disadvantaged students and creates unequal access to internationalized education. Given China's history of merit-based student enrollment measured by test scores, this is a new phenomenon that promotes the marketization of education.

This paper examines one of these “public” international high-school curriculum programs through ethnographic data, policy documents, webpages, and news sources. Drawing upon Ong's critiques of neoliberalism and Collier and Ong's notion of global assemblage, this paper straddles the fields of critical curriculum studies and critical policy studies to ask: who designs what kinds of curriculum, for whom, for what purposes, in what ways, under what circumstances, and with what effects? This paper validates the mapping of network connections as a way to reveal the social actor networks, interactions, and power relations connected to the development of a particular international curriculum program. Such mapping serves as a new starting point for tracing the movement of neoliberal education policy practices and techniques. By examining certain global forms such as international curriculum, partnerships, and educational experiments, the paper reveals the complicity of various agents involved, the privatization of state education, and the Chinese state's sovereign power.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• globalization
• global assemblage
• curriculum reform
• educational policy

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Michael W. Apple and Leonel Lim for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. She also likes to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. China's key school system exists at all levels of Chinese public educational institutions, from preschool to tertiary education. For details on this system, see Liu and Apple (2016).

2. This reform was initially issued in 1985 by the Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party of China on the Reform of the Educational System and restated in 1993 through the Outline for Reform and Development of Education in China in 1993 (Mok, Wong, & Zhang, 2009; Ngok, 2007).

3. According to NetEase Education (2015), there are only 90 high school international programs approved by the Chinese government. However, as of 2013, the number of Chinese schools with international high-school programs increased from 22 to 338 within 12 years. These statistics show the rapid growth of this education market.

4. Collier and Ong did not identify developments in education in their discussion of global forms. Koh (2011) examines educational policy making in his analysis of Singapore's global assemblage.

5. Figure 1 is adapted from p. 99 of Liu (2015).

6. There are eight content areas in the current Chinese national high school curriculum: Language and Literature, Math, Humanities and Society, Science, Technology, Art, Sports and Health, and Integrated Practice Activity. Specific subjects within these areas include: Chinese Language Arts, Foreign Language (English), Math, Ideology & Politics, History, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Information Technology, General Technology, Music, Fine Arts, Physical Education, Research-oriented Study, Community Service, and Social Practice.

7. I use the real names of the educational agencies involved in the development of the GAC curriculum program.

8. Annual Lianghui often make national political decisions in China.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shuning Liu

Shuning Liu is an assistant professor in Curriculum Studies at Ball State University. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her primary research interests are in the areas of critical theory, curriculum theory, critical curriculum studies, curriculum reform, educational policy, globalization and education, comparative and international education, and qualitative inquiry. Her current research projects involve the role of international education in the formation of social elites.