Comparative Study of Educational Research in China and the U.S (link)

This article examines one major research journal from China and one from the United States. The study compares two journals with regard to three questions: 1) Who is doing research published in journals? 2) What are the major issues and concerns represented in the journals? 3) What research methodologies are favored in the journals? THe authors believe that understanding another country's educational research practices, thought addressing these questions, can better enable domestic researchers, educators, and policymakers to acknowledge the major educational concerns and issues that exist across countries. As boundaries between national borders continues to blur, this understanding can help educational researchers better interpret and present their findings with greater international relevance.
Asian Pacific Journal of Education 1(2008): 1-17

WHEN CULTURE DISAPPEARS:
US Perceptions on Educational Leadership in other Countries (download)

David E. Kirkland, Research Assistant
US-China Center for Educational Research
Michigan State University College of Education

This review examines US perceptions of educational leadership in non-US contexts. Specifically, the review seeks to address three related questions: 1) What does the research literature tell us about how the US perceives educational leadership in other countries? 2) How are leaders (principals, school superintendents, etc.) inducted into their roles? 3) Finally, how do leaders use/do not use their “social arrangements” (or connections) for professionalism and improvement? By looking at a broad range of recent research literature on educational leadership authored by “American” researchers, this review explores how US researchers talk about educational leaders outside the US. Based on their perceptions, I argue that social processes and “cultural scripts” that govern leadership in such settings become important artifacts for understanding educational leadership in more globally progressive ways. Hence leadership is a cultural practice tied to moral responsibility and other culturally acquired practices, which are suddenly disappearing under the consuming glare of western society. I offer this review to raise questions about global leadership trends that displace indigenous cultures and traditions for market-driven western ones.

US Perspectives on Student Assessment in Other Countries (download)

Report Issued by the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence
Prepared by David E. Kirkland

In the US, student assessment has become the engine driving education, from classroom reform to classroom practice, from education research to federal policy. According to proponents, student assessment is the means to educational improvement, to tell whether or not our system of education is working and/or what parts are not working so that they may be fixed or abolished, ensuring all children a fair, decent, and quality education (see the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 [NCLB]). However, given our increased reliance on assessment, specifically student assessment, in the wake of NCLB and the growing paranoia surrounding our nations “crippled” education system, their has been a movement to emulate foreign assessment-based models of education in our own national education system (again, see NCLB; Hirsch, 1996). While we stand to learn much from how other countries do education, basing our education system on student assessment alone might cost us far more than it might give us. Further, US researchers who study student assessment in countries other than the US paint a rather cautioning picture, which deserves our attention. In this report, I review significant literature which together document how US researchers perceive student assessment beyond US borders. I use the term "assessment" to identify measurements of student learning and performance, begging together different types of assessment instruments, including achievement tests, minimum competency tests, developmental screening tests, aptitude tests, observation instruments, performance tasks, and authentic assessments. As such, the review defines assessment primarily in relation to tests used to interpret students learning as it reflects the overall quality of schooling in a given country. First, I briefly describe the history of student assessment and talk about how student assessment is used in other developed countries. Lastly, I pull together the sentiments of US researchers interested in student assessment in other countries and tell what their thoughts might mean for us.

Perspectives on Support and Development: Teacher Induction Practices in Selected Foreign Countries as Seen through North American Lenses (download)

By

Steven K. Wojcikiewicz
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan, U.S.A.

As part of the ongoing work of the U.S./China Center for Educational Excellence at Michigan State University, a review was begun of literature relating to Chinese and other Asian nations’ teacher induction practices as viewed through the lenses of North American research. Focusing on induction meant an examination of the various processes by which new teachers, often straight from university training programs, are enculturated into the world of full-time, and full- responsibility, teaching. In the process of looking through the existing research, the original focus was expanded to include some of the other nations that were included in various treatments of Asian nations’ practices. These nations were also included, in the end, in the interest of taking a wider view of induction as a phenomenon. This paper is the result of that effort, and it focuses on the practices of China and Japan, as well as New Zealand, which is held up with Japan as a model induction program, and France, which has a particularly unique induction system that provides some useful alternative ideas.