Baiwen Peng

The literature on education in China has focused on education in its mainstream form - public and private schooling as well higher education - that is shaped by the government in its agenda for national development. However, little is known about education that deviates from the official discourse. It is initiated through grassroots movements that imagine different possibilities for education that demonstrate a “refusal” (Grande, 2004) to mainstream education fraught with entrenched problems (Xu & Spruyt, 2023). The nature of such education is scantly understood, and the forms it takes, and the reason why it exists are largely unknown (Xu & Spruyt, 2022).

The presentation is based on an on-going literature review and will provide an overview of such “alternative education” in China, with focus on its nature, forms, scale, and relationship to mainstream education. By doing so, it will make a significant contribution to understanding a largely overlooked education terrain in China, and to discussions on new education possibilities in a global context.

References: 

Grande, S. (2004). Red pedagogy: Native American social and political thought. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Xu, W., & Spruyt, B. (2022). ‘The road less travelled’: Towards a typology of alternative education in China. Comparative Education, 58(4), 434–450. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2108615

Xu, W., & Spruyt, B. (2023). Negotiating for distance: The Chinese middle-class seeking alternative education in the idyll. Educational Review, 1–19.