Higher Education as a Field of Study in China: Defining Knowledge and Curriculum Structure

Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

Higher Education as a Field of Study in China Defining Knowledge and Curriculum Structure

Xin Wang

Lexington Books A division of ROW M A N & L I T T L E F I E L D P U B L I S H E R S , I N C .

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wang, Xin, Ed. D. Higher education as a field of study in China : defining knowledge and curriculum structure / Xin Wang. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-7391-3428-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-3430-6 (electronic) 1. Education, Higher—China. 2. Education, Higher—Research—China. 3. Universities and colleges—China. I. Title. LA1133.W35 2010 378.0071’2051—dc22 2009048382

 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

To my wife, Ai, and to our soon-to-be-born baby

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

  1  The Changing Landscape of Higher Education: Reforms and Development in China

5

  2  Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

25

  3  Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

41

  4  The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure of Higher Education as a Field of Study

67

  5   Issues and Discussions

109

  6  Toward the New Models: Implications for National Policymaking and Institutional Initiatives

123

Appendix

137

Bibliography

143

Index

151

About the Author

153

vii

Acknowledgments

Initially this was the research project for my dissertation. One of the reasons I wanted to turn it into a book on higher education was to exhibit the knowledge we had in the field, and to trumpet the contributions that scholars had made to the knowledge of higher education. Chinese scholars have produced a large number of articles and essays regarding the development of higher education in the post-Mao era. However, compared to higher education as a mature academic field in the United States, which has over one hundred programs and nationwide professional associations to prepare and train professionals and scholars, higher education is still a young field in China. The original data were collected at the international conference on economics of education at Peking University and the national meeting of the Chinese Association of Higher Education (CAHE) at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan in 2001. Attendees of both meetings were higher education scholars, university administrators, and policymakers and staff members of government agencies. At these meetings, I met many from various universities. I started interviewing doctoral students and scholars both individually and collectively in focus-group conversations about their experience and opinions of their programs. I want to thank them for being open to sharing their experience and their opinions. I also interviewed several program directors at both conferences, including Professor Liu Haifeng at Xiamen University, Professor Bie Dunrong at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Professor Xie Anbang from East China Normal University. They provided important information about their individual programs and their ideas about the nature of this young field. I also want to thank Professor Fan Yihong at Xiamen University, who helped me find a student to collect more updated information about each ix

x

Acknowledgments

individual program when I was revising my book in 2008. I especially want to thank Professor Lan Jinsong at Tsinghua University, who read through the manuscript and wrote many salient comments. I owe most to Dr. Betty Jo Monk, professor and chair of education administration at Tarleton State University in Texas. She is my mentor and helped me in many ways intellectually and professionally. Her teaching, her compassion, and her mentoring have inspired me to be in this profession. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. James L. Williamson, emeritus Fred Hale Professor of Educational Administration at Baylor University, who read through the manuscript and wrote detailed comments about the book. I am very thankful to Mrs. Williamson for her hospitality to me and my family. The Williamsons have given me a second family in the United States. My deepest gratitude is to my wife, Ai Yujuan, who has supported me in many ways in revising this manuscript. I also want to thank Baylor University and the Honors College for awarding me the summer sabbatical to finish revising the final version of the manuscript.

Introduction

What is the most significant issue in higher education in China? Is it the unprecedented expansion of university enrollment? Is it the ambition of the state to build world-class universities? Is it the vigorous growth of private universities? Or is it the enormous investment poured into universities and building new campuses and new university parks? Or is it perhaps the bankruptcy some public universities are facing since they are unable to pay back their debts to state banks? The answer seems to be all of the above. These stories about higher education in China are among those most frequently covered by journalists and most discussed by scholars. However, there are still other stories related to higher education that need to be told. This book concerns higher education as an academic field—the evolving nature of the field in the light of the overall development of higher education in China. As a young academic field, higher education intends to study everything regarding higher education. My account begins with an overview of the higher education reform over the last three decades in China. In chapter 1, I focus on the policy initiatives and reforms in higher education. This chapter provides an introduction to the changing landscape of higher education in China and critical challenges facing Chinese universities and scholars. While it is a daunting task to cover the history of higher education reforms in China, I feel it is important to understand the social and political contexts of higher education in order to understand how the field was formed and how it has evolved in the post– Cultural Revolution and globalization era, as well as what forces have shaped the field into what it is today. Chapter 2 discusses the complexity of higher education and its significance as an academic field. This chapter reviews how higher education as a 1

2

Introduction

field of study has evolved in China since 1978, and how the field has been shaped by political and social forces, as well as institutional culture. This chapter also examines national policies regarding program objectives and the characteristics of this field. Chapter 3 continues the discussion of the evolving nature of higher education, specifically its development in the United States. The U.S. model of higher education as a field of study provides an example of how the field was formed and developed, how it has evolved from a generalized area of inquiry into a professional specialization, and what concerns and issues have been raised regarding this academic field. This chapter continues with discussions about the direction of the field and the tension between application and research, and ends with an examination of a theoretical foundation of knowledge content in this field. This chapter also provides a comparative perspective when analyzing China’s model. The chapter is included because many Chinese scholars and students are interested in how this field has evolved in the United States, how programs of higher education in the United States are structured: how they prepare doctoral students to become scholars, what classes they offer, what subjects they study, and what challenges they face. Chapter 4 looks into the history and the size of the program, areas of specialization and concentration, and organizational location of the doctoral programs, and also examines the curricula of six higher education programs in China. The chapter concludes with an examination of the common body of knowledge and unfolds the curricular patterns in Chinese higher education doctoral studies. Chapter 5 discusses some pervading themes characterizing the field and knowledge structure from the research, including the inconsistency of program missions with course offerings, the descriptive nature of the knowledge content, a shared core of knowledge, an interdisciplinary nature of the knowledge base, and the uneven distribution and unbalanced representation of knowledge areas. These themes reveal wide-ranging issues related to the nature of higher education as a field of study in China. By discussing these themes, we will have a better understanding of the nature of this field—is it a discipline? A field of study? Or an interdisciplinary field? The concluding chapter presents some recommendations and new models for higher education programs. I argue that higher education is becoming an interdisciplinary field rather than a subfield under the discipline of education in China, especially when higher education in China has become an enterprise with such a broad scope. At the same time, I strongly believe that higher education as a field is being professionalized with its own knowledge base and a set of skills in applying this knowledge to practical areas. Higher education in China is being challenged by the professional need for preparing and training competent professionals for various admin-



Introduction

3

istrative posts. Therefore, a new degree option—such as the Ed.D., as a professional and practitioner-oriented degree—one that aims at preparing education professionals for administration, is highly needed and recommended in this field. An Ed.D. program in higher education is similar in nature to a graduate degree in business, in law, or in medicine as well as in teaching or teacher training. As we are moving into a knowledge-based society, the discussion about the nature of the field needs to be shifted from whether it is a discipline or a field to whether it is an interdisciplinary field or not, and how to build an interdisciplinary field and its cross-interdisciplinary knowledge base. In this regard, this book is primarily for scholars and students in higher education as well as program directors and administrators at Chinese universities. Universities and higher education programs are urgently learning how to improve the quality of doctoral education in this field in many aspects as they continue to become the world-class research universities. Good enough is no longer good enough to universities, students, and scholars. This book is intended to help them understand the changing nature of this field and improve the quality of doctoral education. For Chinese scholars and students who are keen on learning how this field has evolved and developed in the United States, chapter 3 and chapter 6 provide the history, curricular structure, knowledge base, and degree options of this field in the United States. I also think this book will be helpful for foreign scholars who are learning about Chinese higher education. I hope this book provides insights into higher education as a field of study in China. Although the study focuses on only one academic field, it has a number of implications for other fields and disciplines in terms of curricular development and restructuring. As Chinese universities intend to become worldclass academic institutions, very often investment and administrative priorities initially go to the infrastructure building prior to personnel and curriculum development. Curriculum often has a secondary importance to departments on their agenda of reform. Since the old knowledge structure of every discipline no longer fits the current demand of economic and social development in China, I hope this study will help Chinese scholars, university administrators, and policymakers of government agencies think about how to restructure university curriculum for various disciplines.

1 The Changing Landscape of Higher Education Reforms and Development in China

At the turn of the twenty-first century, there is an unprecedented demand for a greater development in higher education. This development of higher education has a vital importance for cultural and economic development. Society has moved into a knowledge-based economy powered by information technology, biotechnology, and other innovations, all of which are leading to remarkable changes in the way people live and work.1 The ties between higher education and a nation’s economic health have become more and more apparent. In recent years, the long-standing assumption that education positively contributes to economic and social well-being has been transformed into an acknowledgment that education, especially higher education, acts as an essential component of the “cultural, socioeconomic and environmentally sustainable development of individuals, communities, and nations.”2 The economic and educational gap between developed and developing countries has been exacerbated by the phenomenal changes associated with the global movement from industrial-based to knowledge-based economies. Paul Romer, a Stanford University economist, states that knowledge is the basic form of capital and the driving force of economic growth.3 The authors of the World Development Report: Knowledge for Development acknowledge the existence of knowledge gaps that impede economic growth in developing countries, and assert that education has a critical role in creating, acquiring, disseminating, and absorbing knowledge, and the narrowing of these knowledge gaps.4 Higher education contributes to a knowledge-based society in many ways. Higher education institutions have the responsibility for training a country’s professional personnel, who then participate in the development, 5

6

Chapter 1

adaptation, and diffusion of innovations in the economy. Higher education institutions create new knowledge through research and advanced training and serve as a conduit for the transfer, adaptation, and dissemination of knowledge.5 Malcolm Gillis, the president of Rice University from 1993 to 2004, described the importance of higher education in a knowledge-based society in the following manner: Today, more than ever before in human history, the wealth—or poverty—of nations depends on the quality of higher education. Those with a larger repertoire of skills and a greater capacity for learning can look forward to lifetimes of unprecedented economic fulfillment.6

It is evident that many observers share the opinion that an inextricable link exists between higher education and economic growth as well as social development.

Three Stages of Reform in Higher Education The emergence of a global economy has forced many nation states to reshape their systems of higher education to make them globally competitive, and many countries have developed major plans for investment in higher education. Since 1978, China has undertaken a series of comprehensive reforms in higher education. China’s higher education system was shattered and broken during the ten-year Cultural Revolution but was restored in 1977 when universities held the first examinations to admit students to receive college education. During the post-Mao reform era following 1978, the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embraced the Four Modernizations: Modernization of Agriculture, Industry, National Defense, and Science and Technology. The party launched the economic reform and “opening-up” policy to accomplish social, economic, and educational development. Higher education was given the top priority to educate and train large numbers of advanced specialized personnel in various areas and disciplines to facilitate the nation’s economic reform. The Chinese government announced education, science, and technology to be the strategic driving forces of sustainable economic growth.7 Chinese political leaders and chief policymakers have long regarded higher education as a significant instrument vital to achieving individual well-being and national economic development. Between 1978 and 1985, China’s higher education expanded at a rapid pace. The enrollment grew from 625,319 in 1977 to 1,703,115 in 1985. By 1985, there were 1,080 institutions of higher learning, excluding institutions for continuing education, TV and radio universities, and corporate institutions. Of these, 36 were under the direction of the State Education



The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

7

Commission (SEdC), 316 under the ministries of government, and 664 under provincial governments.8 The second stage of reform occurred between 1985 and 1992. The old pattern of higher education administrative system and management structure was highly centralized. The central government and related provincial governments maintained excessive control over higher education financing, admission policies, instruction design, curriculum, and leadership assignment and promotion.9 This centralized system impeded the development of higher education and inhibited institutions from changing to meet social, political, and economic challenges.10 To delegate more autonomy to higher education institutions and increase their efficiency, two decisions were made by the CCP Central Committee (CCPCC) in 1985 on reforming the educational system. The Decision on the Reform of the Educational System in May 1985 defined one of the strategic goals of Chinese higher education as “contributing considerably to China’s independent scientific and technological development, and to solving major theoretical and practical problems that crop up in the course of socialist modernization.”11 According to the text of CCPCC’s Decision in May 1985, The key to success in the reform of the higher educational system is to transform the management system of excessive government control over the institutions of higher education, expand the autonomy of institutions under the guidance of the state’s unified educational policies and plans, strengthen the links between institutions of higher education and production organizations, scientific research organizations, and other social sectors, and enable the institutions of higher education to take the initiative to meet the needs of economic and social development.12

The Decision on the Reform of the Educational System brought fundamental changes to the higher education system. The series of new policies delegated to universities the authority to make decisions regarding instruction and curriculum, as well as the freedom to set admission policies to admit students outside the state plan. From then on, higher education institutions began to generate a certain amount of funding through private sources rather than solely through government allocation. The new policies also proposed the implementation of a three-level education management system at the central, provincial, and municipal levels of major cities. The Decision suggested diversification in institutional types and encouraged the establishment of more three-year and two-year specialized colleges and adult education, in addition to the normal baccalaureate institutions in order to meet the demand for the different levels inherent in a skilled workforce. The third stage of development began after 1992 and continues to the present. In that time, the Chinese higher education system has expanded at an unprecedented rate. Given the financing constraints in higher education

8

Chapter 1

in China, the central government and the State Education Commission, the major policymaking and planning organization for the Chinese higher education system, launched several reforms to improve the administrative system and to reconfigure the structure of Chinese higher education. In 1993, in the Fourth National Conference on Higher Education, The Outline for Educational Reform and Development in China was adopted by the SEdC as the new guidelines for reforms of higher education administrative system. The CCPCC and the State Council reinforced the role of higher education in China’s economic modernization in The Outline: To achieve the Four Modernizations, science and technology are the key, and education is the foundation. . . . Therefore, to improve the overall quality of the Chinese citizens and transform the heavy burden of a huge population into the advantage of having a huge source of human capital become the only way for our nation to accomplish socialist modernization. . . . Higher education must take the important task of training advanced specialists, developing science, technology and culture, and supporting the modernization drive.13

The Outline urged an increase in funding sources, decentralization of administrative structure, expansion of university autonomy, and restructuring of the system for efficiency and reasonable growth. Meanwhile, the SEdC proposed to make joint efforts with the local governments in supporting and constructing universities. In December 1994, the SEdC presented restructuring plans for Chinese universities at the National Forum on the Reform of Higher Education System. This plan was intended to implement systemic strategies rather than piecemeal solutions to change the existing highly centralized administrative system, in which universities were governed by both central government ministries and local governments.14 The overall system was divided into small closed systems. In these closed systems, universities and colleges reported to different divisions of government. Universities tended to be small and specialized in one area of study to prepare the workforce for a specific industry. As a result, the scope of knowledge of the graduates was relatively narrow. Since colleges were confined to the specific roles defined by the needs of their affiliated governmental agencies, they were lethargic to the changing environment. At the same time, there was a lack of cross-ministry intercollegiate coordination. The government felt that resources could not be shared and utilized efficiently. Furthermore, under the centralized planning system, universities and colleges had no autonomy for their own development. Institutions were unable to take initiatives to revise curricula and degree programs in response to economic and social changes in the labor market. Under such circumstances, from 1992 to 2002, 753 colleges and universities were merged and consolidated to form 285 larger universities. During



9

The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

this time, universities increased their efficiency dramatically in terms of student enrollment and teacher-student ratio. The average enrollment of undergraduate students at baccalaureate universities also increased from 1,919 in 1990 to 10,454 in 2002.15 The teacher-student ratio was increased from 1:6.3 in 1990 to 1:13.4 in 1999. Several mega-size universities were created as a result of the restructuring plan. For instance, Zhejiang University consolidated three other colleges into its system in 1998 and became one of the largest and most comprehensive universities in today’s China.16 The new Zhejiang University has 5 campuses, 40,000 full-time students, a staff of 10,000, and now covers all disciplines with 98 undergraduate programs, 193 postgraduate programs, and 106 doctoral programs. The increasing number of college students largely resulted from the expansion plan for higher education enrollment in China. Policies that were made in the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s authorized universities to make decisions regarding admissions. As a result, universities began to admit a small number of self-paying students to generate extra funding through private sources rather than relying solely on government allocations. In 1987, more than 25,000 employer-sponsored and self-paying students were admitted, about 2.5 percent of the total admitted students.17 This marks the beginning of a large-scale expansion of college enrollment. The most explosive expansion of Chinese universities started in January 1999, when the nation set a goal of achieving a gross enrollment rate of 15 percent by 2010. The national Action Plan to Rejuvenate Education in the 21st Century (the Action Plan), issued by the Ministry of Education, calls for “actively and steadily developing higher education, and accelerating the reform of higher education.”18 The Action Plan marks the transition from an elite and a meritocratic higher education to a mass higher education. As a result of this plan, student enrollment at universities increased from 7.8 million in 1998 to 15.61 million in 2005, and reached the targeted 15 percent gross enrollment rate.19 Such drastic expansion reflects Martin Trow’s theory of higher education development. American sociologist Martin Trow conceptualized three phases of higher education development: the elite phase (enrollment rate less than 15 percent of the age group), the mass phase (enrollment rate Table 1.1. Gross Enrollment Rate and Student-Teacher Ratio of China’s Higher Education (1993–2005) Year Gross rate StudentTeacher ratio

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

5.0

7.2

9.1

10.5

13.3

17.0

21.0

8.0

9.8

10.9

13.4

18.2

17.0

16.9

Source: Educational Statistical Yearbook of China (1993 to 2005).

10

Chapter 1

higher than 15 percent but less than 50 percent), and the universal phase (enrollment rate higher than 50 percent of the age group).20 Trow’s theory identifies three dimensions of growth in higher education: the rate of growth, the absolute size of both systems and individual institutions, and the proportion of the relevant age groups enrolled in higher education institutions. His theory was embraced by Chinese scholars and key policymakers when it was introduced into China in the 1990s. Trow’s idea about universal access to higher education served as a foundation for government policymaking in higher education. From its initial appearance, the expansion plan was designed to increase access to higher education. However, the timing of expanding higher education entrance and enrollment rates came when China’s economic growth slowed down as the result of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Domestically, Chinese consumers scaled back their spending and increased their savings. The unemployment rate went up from 7.9 to 8.3 percent as 11.7 million workers were laid off from the state-owned enterprises. Moreover, a large number of high school graduates experienced difficulty finding jobs. These economic-related factors posed a potential threat to social stability. Two Chinese economists, Tang Min and Zuo Xiaolei, proposed that the government stimulate domestic consumption by expanding student entrance and enrollment in higher education.21 Tang and Zuo’s proposal generated heated debate among Chinese scholars and policymakers. On June 24, 1999, the State Planning Committee (SPC) and the Ministry of Education announced jointly that student admissions to colleges and universities would be increased to 1.66 million in 1999 from 1.08 million in 1998. The strategy behind this policy decision was to encourage Chinese families to spend their savings on their children’s higher education to stimulate the nation’s economy. At the same time, the national government could continue to reduce its public expenditures for higher education as the funding needed for other public sectors was increasing. The new policy of expanding university admissions also helped China’s higher education sector to establish new patterns of financing, which will likely persist when government expenditures in higher educational decrease. At the same time, Chinese universities were in the midst of a transition to emphasize the research mode of academic organization. The central government introduced Project 211 in 1995 with the intention: (1) to improve some key academic disciplines and programs, (2) to enhance the basic infrastructure of higher education, and (3) to elevate the quality of teaching and research at the major universities in order to match up with the international standards. About ninety-nine universities received the funding from the central government for Project 211. However, the government did not initially define those international standards.



The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

11

In 1999, MOE announced a new ten- to twenty-year initiative, Project 985, to build a number of universities that would become China’s first world-class universities. From 1999 to 2002, the central and local governments allocated US$3 billion to strengthen research and infrastructure at these universities. These state-initiated projects have enabled a number of universities to gain resources in an effort to become elite universities and to participate in global higher education developments.22 Both projects are the part of the national discourse and narrative of building world first-class universities in order to increase China’s global competitiveness and to match China’s economic position, given a global environment in which governments are managing higher education for global competitiveness. In some regards, Project 985 is the continuation of Project 211. Project 985 is an integral part of the national initiative “Rejuvenating the Nation with Science and Education.”23 Several other national policies have already addressed the importance of education in the nation’s economic advancement. In May 1995, the CCPCC issued the “Decision on Accelerating the Advancement of Science and Technology.” The Decision intends to continue the strategy of “rejuvenating the country with science and education . . . place science and education at an important position in economic and social development.” In February 1998, the central government approved the Knowledge Innovation project proposed by the China Science Academy with an investment of 4.8 billion yuan (US$700 million) from 1998 to 2000. The project had a direct impact on the draft of the Project 985 plan. Universities selected for Project 985 receive substantial funding from both the central and the local government.

Changing Patterns of Governance The series of policies on the reform of higher education have exerted a direct impact on governance and management of universities in China. The centralized higher education system is the product of the planned economic system. With the transition to a market-driven economy, universities needed freedom to make decisions on academic affairs. Chinese higher education institutions today enjoy more freedom of institutional governance than before, as academic governance has shifted from a completely centralized model to a more locally governing model since the 1990s. However, in reality, government-institution relationships have been complicated in many areas. This transition delegates more responsibilities to institutions for making decisions and taking actions for their own well-being. On the other hand, college presidents, as chief executive officers of universities, assumed more responsibilities and were held accountable for the operation of the

12

Chapter 1

university. Many college presidents, who were often appointed by the government and the CCP, were on a steep learning curve to adapt themselves to the new administrative system. One of the constant challenges of the Chinese higher education system is the undefined boundaries of the decision making authority between the central government and the academic institutions. Before the economic reform of the mid-1980s, the central government had a direct influence on the management of higher education, including institutional policies on admissions, curriculum and instruction, leadership selection, and faculty employment. New policies, including the Decision on the Reform of the Educational System in 1985and the Outline for Educational Reform and Development in 1993, brought fundamental changes into the higher education system. This new policy delegated the authority to universities to make decisions regarding instruction and curriculum, admissions, and other academic and administrative affairs. It changed the role of the government in the governance of the universities, and eventually changed the government-university relationship. However, though universities have gained some autonomy of academic and administrative control, the boundary of the decision making authority between the government and the universities is vaguely defined. The central government provides specific guidelines on admissions, research and study scope, missions and objectives, and curricular structure. In terms of curriculum and instruction, national policies still have direct control of the curriculum of graduate education. The Chinese administrative system still contains elements of the traditional division of authority between central and local provinces.24 Extensive government intervention is embedded throughout the higher education sector. The system emphasizes good political skills over modern management capabilities. Higher education is a public sector and receives funding from both national and provincial governments. Even as universities continue to learn how to negotiate with the government to gain more autonomy and control over their own academic affairs, they are accustomed to the centralized system. Consequently, they tend to depend on central planning, central funding, and central policymaking. They must learn how to share the governing responsibility with the government under the new dual governance system. This dual governing system can often be translated as less funding, more regulations, and more guidelines from the central and local government. Universities are held accountable and liable for institutional planning, governance, and fundraising. Therefore, academic leaders need more knowledge, management skills, and business acumen in order to run today’s university effectively. As more authority has been delegated to individual universities, administrative power is being strengthened within each university. This leads to a



The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

13

shift from government bureaucracy to institutional bureaucracy. First, there is an undefined authority of academic governance between the president and the party secretary at each university. The Chinese Communist Party has its own committee at each university. During the early 1980s, the goal of the political reform was to separate the party from the administration and to clarify the functions of and relations between the two structures. Ideally, the administration should act independently in daily administrative affairs and the party should confine itself to policymaking. In reality, it is impossible to separate the party from the administration. The party’s political authority is much larger and higher than the administration’s authority at each university since the party is in charge of key personnel appointments and promotions in the university. Presidents and senior administrators are often party members and report to the party secretary. Therefore, administration is lacking in independent authority to run the university. The “presidential responsibility system under the Party’s leadership” does not allow the college president to run the university operation independently. College presidents feel that they are sandwiched in between the government and the party leadership since they are appointed by the government and the party, though they are liable for the operation of the university. Chinese academic leaders have been, for the most part, efficient at implementing policies and decisions made by the government and negotiating with the government in order to receive more resources. However, college presidents need knowledge and management skills to operate modern universities effectively. As the government expenditures on higher education are shrinking, the imminent challenge for college administrators is how to raise more funding to support research and instruction in this highly restrictive environment.

Funding The reforms in the early 1990s were intended to give higher education institutions more autonomy to generate their own revenues. As table 1.2 indicates, about 96 percent of the total budget for higher education in 1978 came from government appropriation. In 1992, funding for public higher education came from multiple sources, including student tuition and fees, donations, and revenues from universities’ businesses. Government allocations accounted for 82 percent of the total budget for higher education; revenue generated from various sources by universities themselves represented 14 percent, while tuition fees accounted for only 4 percent of the total budget. The percentage of the revenue that the university received from government has been shrinking ever since. In 2002, less than 50 percent of the

14

Chapter 1

university budget came from government appropriations. Meanwhile, university revenue from student tuition and fees increased, accounting for 26 percent of the total university funding. Universities have also become more entrepreneurial than before to generate funding from other sources to improve financial stability. Universities in China often have their own businesses and high-tech firms, especially when numerous technology development zones were created and built around universities. Universities often receive income from patent licensing and technology commercialization. Revenues from universities’ businesses and technology licensing fees have contributed approximately 21 percent of the total funding. One area that still accounts for a small percentage in the overall financial picture is the endowment and donations. Together, they only contribute less than 2 percent to the total funding of higher education in China. Higher education finance has already shifted from the state as the sole funding provider of higher education to a cost-sharing mechanism, which includes multiple parties sharing the cost of higher education. The central government has gradually reduced government financial subsidies to higher education and students. Meanwhile, universities, college students, and their parents have increasingly shared the financial cost of higher education. Funds from the nongovernmental sectors have helped institutions reduce their dependence on government financing and their vulnerability to budget fluctuations and have made many institutions more responsive to market signals. The major pitfall in the process of decentralization is the disparity in financial capacity to invest in higher education among provinces.25 China is divided into three macroeconomic and administrative regions: the coastal region includes highly developed provinces; the central area is comprised of medium-developed provinces; and the western region is a less-developed region. Provinces of the coastal region can appropriate more funding to higher education from their budget than other interior provinces can. Further disparities exist among provinces within the same region. Even within a province, disparity is evident in financial resources available for provincial universities and national universities. Universities under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education (MOE) receive more government funding than Table 1.2. Revenue from Different Sources for Higher Education in China (billion Yuan) Year 1978 1992 2002 2004

Total Revenue for Higher Education 1.5 11.04 158.32 177.86

Revenue from Government

Revenue Generated by Universities

1.436 9.03 78.75 84.996

Source: Educational Statistical Yearbook of China, 1979, 1993, 2003, and 2005.

0.064 2.01 79.57 92.864



15

The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

Table 1.3.  Distribution of Funding from Different Sources (Percentage) Source

1978

1992

2002

2004

Total Budgeted Allocation from Govt. Total University Funding University Generated Revenue Donations and Others Student Tuition and Fees Total Percentage

95.9 4.1 4.1 0 0 100

81.8 18.2 12.8 0.8 4.6 100

50.6 49.4 21.3 1.8 26.3 100

47.8 52.2 20.6 1.5 30.1 100

Source: Educational Statistical Yearbook of China, 1979, 1993, 2003, and 2005.

the provincial universities. Consequently, the expenditure per student for provincial universities is smaller than that for national universities in the same province. The key research universities in China are in a strong financial position. State appropriations have increased in the last decades to these key research universities to build infrastructure and research projects, but the funds given to many other universities have decreased. However, revenues from tuition and research grants have increased at an extraordinary rate, so they have a large operating budget. Competition for state appropriation has been intense among top-tier universities. Universities are dependent more upon tuition than they were two decades ago. Tuition revenue today accounts for more than 25 percent of the typical average operating budget. Even though sources of funds have been diversified when compared to ten years ago (table 1.3), major sources of funding remain tuition revenue and state appropriation. Cost-sharing financial mechanisms have reduced the financial dependability of universities on state appropriation and increased enrollment of higher education in China. However, rising tuition costs have also created an inequality of access to higher education as tuition has increased from an average of US$250 per year in 1996 to more than US$1,200 per year in 2008. Since 1990, China’s rapid economic development has accelerated the stratification of the Chinese society and the polarization and disparity between the new rich and the poor. The average income per capita in urban areas passed US$1,000 in 2005, while the average income per capita for rural families is barely US$300.26 This income disparity has created an inequity of educational opportunities between regions, between rural and urban areas, and between middle- and lower-income families. It is almost impossible for rural families to support a university student, especially when financial aid programs have not been institutionalized effectively. Urban families have more financial resources to invest in their children’s education, especially middle- and upper-income families. They can afford to send their children to college preparatory programs and private universities.

16

Chapter 1

Adult Learning and Continuing Education Another fast-growing sector in Chinese higher education is adult and continuing education, which are designed to accommodate an increasing demand for postsecondary education programs. Adult and continuing education is a facet of Chinese efforts to establish community education programs as a part of the higher education system. Since 1978, Chinese educators have discussed establishing community education with “Chinese characteristics.” The State Education Commission signed agreements with several foreign educational agencies to seek both partnerships and further understanding of community education in the various countries represented. Chinese educators visited American community, junior, and technical colleges, Australian technical and further education (TAFE) colleges, British polytechnic, and German fachhochschule (vocational technical colleges) in order to develop a uniquely Chinese community college system. China has already established its own system for adult and continuing education, which includes radio and TV universities, colleges of adult education within universities, and technical and vocational colleges. The total enrollment at adult and continuing education institutions was approximately 5.24 million in 2008.27 These institutions provide opportunities for students who are unable to get into baccalaureate universities to pursue their higher education. At the same time, adult learning institutions relieve universities from the pressure of an increasing demand for higher education. China also established two- or three-year colleges (zhuanke xueyuan or dazhuan) as commuter colleges to provide higher education for students in surrounding areas. In addition to the continuing and adult-learning institutions, these institutions are also regarded as another type of Chinese community colleges.28 They are part of the public postsecondary education system. Their primary purpose is to train and prepare skilled personnel for the local economic development. Their funding primarily comes from provinces, cities, or government agencies. These colleges evolved into residential colleges in the 1990s as they started recruiting students from farther afield. They emphasize professional training and prepare students to enter a work force after two or three years of study. Students are usually not able to transfer to a baccalaureate university to continue their study since no articulation has been established with baccalaureate universities. However, these institutions provide an alternative for students to receive higher education under China’s elite and meritocratic educational system. As universities expand their enrollments and start charging tuition, twoto three-year colleges face serious challenges from baccalaureate universities. Today’s students prefer four-year universities to two- or three-year colleges since they have more career choices and foresee a better economic return on their college education, especially when job markets are becom-



The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

17

ing competitive and college tuition is increasing. To accommodate students’ needs and to survive in the market place for higher education, some two- to three-year colleges transformed themselves into baccalaureate universities. Since the mid-1990s, some have been consolidated and merged with other universities in the vicinity to become comprehensive megauniversities. In 1998, 471 two- to three-year colleges existed, but only 320 were left in 2008 after aggressive consolidation and mergers among universities and colleges in China. When public two- and three-year colleges became baccalaureate universities, private universities emerged and took their place in providing community education. There were 265 nonstate private two- and three-year colleges and 30 private four-year baccalaureate universities in 2008.29

Minban Private Universities As public universities have undergone expansion and consolidation, the number of private universities has burgeoned in the last two decades. Private universities, which were established by foreign missionaries and Chinese entrepreneurs and educators in the early 1990s, were closed or transformed into public universities after the Communist Party took power in 1949. For example, Furen University, one of the most famous private universities in Beijing, established in 1925 by the Benedictines of St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe of Pennsylvania, at the request of the Holy See, was transformed to become part of Beijing Normal University after 1949. In the post-Mao era, with the economic reform and the expansion of the higher education system, universities began facing a growing demand for higher education. Public universities have limited capacity to admit students. As household income and the purchasing power of consumers increased in China, private education became a logical solution to the growing market for higher education. In 1993, Chinese government published Provisional Regulations on the Non-state Higher Educational Sectors to allow private sectors to establish and operate nonstate minban schools. In 2005, about 225 private universities were accredited by the government, with a total enrollment of one million students. These private universities are facing many challenges. First, they are short of permanent faculty members. Professors prefer working for public universities rather than private ones as public universities provide job security, stable income, excellent fringe benefits, and academic recognition and respect. Private universities depend heavily on retired and part-time faculty members. At some private universities, 80 percent of their faculty members teach part-time. Such instability of teaching faculty makes it difficult for new private universities to create their own academic culture. At the same

18

Chapter 1

time, research at these universities is void since no research faculty wants to work for private universities in China. Private universities are generally established in large cities and college towns to share resources with public universities, including faculty. For example, twenty-two private universities are in Xi’an at present, a city with more than forty-five public universities. Private universities have not posed any fierce competition for public universities yet since the degrees of public universities are well recognized, and academic programs at public university are broad and well established. Public universities recruit high school graduates first. Private universities can only recruit students after admissions to public universities have been completed. For students who are not admitted by public universities, private universities are the second choice for higher education. Another challenge for private universities is that their academic programs are still limited. Most of programs are professional studies, such as English training, business, and computer science. It is rare to have academic programs in humanities and sciences at private universities, which require more investment in lab research. Curricula at these universities are pragmatic. Most programs are two to three years long, and students will be awarded a diploma, dazhuan xuewei, when they complete the study. Private universities are still young in China, and the central government has published several regulatory documents to enhance private higher education. Such documents include the 1995 Provisional Regulations on Education Institutions Jointly Sponsored with International Institutions, the 1995 Education Law, the 1996 Vocational Education Law, the 1997 Regulations for the Non-State Education Sector, and the 1998 Higher Education Law. Private universities have also been working with the government for accreditation and improving education quality. Another type of private school thriving in China is the private training school. These schools provide nondegree language training, test preparation, business training, and technology training to all age groups. Students at all levels attend year-round, after-school training programs. Self-potential and ability development programs are also popular among the newly emerged middle-income class and white-collar professionals. Recent college graduates will also pay to improve their English or business skills, as they believe that they must do so in order to get promoted or find a higher-paying job. In a recent survey conducted by China Market Research Group, the result shows that in Shanghai, over 15 percent of recent graduates are willing to spend over 10 percent of their monthly disposable incomes on training courses.30 A successful school in the English training business is New Oriental Education. Founded in 1993, the company has since built a strong brand name for its foreign language and test preparation courses for GRE, GMAT, and TOEFL. Foreign language training and test preparation courses



The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

19

are the main growth drivers for the company. As China is plugged into the global market, the demand for English training is increasing. Its primary market is college students who plan to study abroad. Since 2002, more than 100,000 Chinese students have traveled abroad to pursue degrees. The company has also developed English training programs for adults and children lately since there has been burgeoning demand for English training. It has an extensive network in large cities, and currently operates 25 schools and 111 learning centers in 24 cities with an enrollment of 900,000 students. New Oriental Education has successfully developed a distinguished brand name among Chinese college students and is now publicly traded at the New York Stock Exchange. Privatization of higher education has also increased attention to the issue of inequality of access to higher education. Private training schools are booming only in large cities. Smaller cities have fewer English-speaking candidates and qualified teachers. In addition, like private universities, training schools primarily focus on foreign language training or business training. Curriculum in both types of schools lack diversity and breadth. However, the demand for practical and specialized training is growing among adults and college graduates.

Secondary Colleges and Independent Colleges Two other forms of minban colleges have also entered the market of higher education. After the Third National Meeting on Education held in Beijing in 1999, universities started to establish secondary colleges. Secondary colleges are affiliated colleges under the state-owned universities, but their budget comes from private funds from society. The idea of secondary colleges represents a new initiative of the government to encourage society to participate in higher education. These new types of colleges have several advantages over the private colleges: (1) they are endorsed by the state; (2) they are affiliated and under the auspices of public universities; (3) the academic quality and resources of these colleges rely heavily on their affiliated universities; and (4) they can attract private capital from enterprises and encourage multiple ownership of the college. They are often referred to as the “state-owned” and “people-run” colleges. Because the secondary colleges are invested with private capital, they are distributed unevenly. Most secondary colleges are densely located in east China’s coastal provinces, such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Eastern coastal provinces are more economically advanced than central and western provinces. They have enterprises, which are financially viable to invest and cobuild secondary colleges with universities. Student families from these areas are affluent and able to afford higher tuition than that of public universities.

20

Chapter 1

Independent colleges are established by public universities with private funding and capital.31 They are independent from their affiliated universities and have their own administration to run the operation of the university. They have their own campuses, which are usually located in other cities or provinces than their affiliated universities. They are also independent in granting academic degrees and credentials. However, their ties with the affiliated universities are inseparable. Faculty from their home universities often teach at independent universities in the summer. The operation of independent colleges follows the mechanism of private minban colleges. They have similar advantages to secondary colleges, such as a well-recognized university name affiliation and recognition. Furthermore, they have independence in administration, budget, and curriculum. Public universities use their intangible assets to attract private capital from society to establish private colleges. At the same time, scholars have raised concerns about the quality of independent colleges.32 As an emerging form of postsecondary education, the Ministry of Education issued a policy document on the Measures of Establishment and Administration of Independent Colleges in 2008 to regulate and strengthen the administration of independent colleges. The total enrollment at independent colleges had reached 1.467 million in 2008.33 A total of 322 independent colleges had been approved by the Ministry of Education by spring 2009.34 Both secondary colleges and independent colleges have posed unequal competition with private minban colleges.

A New System in the Making The rapid growth of China’s higher education exemplifies how a newly emerged stratified and hierarchical system can both improve China’s global competitiveness (by elite universities) and meet domestic needs (by local universities, private colleges, secondary and independent colleges, and vocational colleges). Chinese universities have to learn how to “walk on multiple legs” with public university, the private minban colleges, the quasi-public and private secondary and independent colleges, and vocational and technical colleges. Since the notion of the modern university was introduced to China by French Jesuit missionaries, American Protestants, and German industrialists after the mid-nineteenth century, China has been experimenting with different models and searching for its own model to structure its university system.35 In the early 1950s, China reorganized its university system in an imitation of the Soviet model. In the post-Mao era, China has been adopting higher education models from the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, primarily the teaching and research university model and community college model of the United States, the German Technische Hoch-



The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

21

schule model, the British polytechnic and open university model, and Australian technical and vocational model (TAFE).36 Over time, China has formed a multilayered system similar to the American model and the Carnegie classification of higher education institutions in the United States. However, the state is still the dominant force in Chinese higher education. Government directs the development, structure, instruction, and research of higher education through its funding and policymaking mechanisms. Recent reforms in higher education have accelerated the polarization of the universities. Substantial degrees of financial support from the central government have poured into the newly recognized research universities, which can afford to attract top researchers and scholars to teach and conduct research. The increasing disparity in government funding between research universities and other universities has created an elitism in the Chinese higher education system. Research universities have more elite status than provincial-level institutions. Smaller provincial-level colleges, which depend on local funding and tuition, have increasingly been consolidated with large universities. Universities have already started tapping financial resources from private sectors. As with their Western models, Chinese students, businesses, and private donors, along with government, share the cost of higher education. A multisector, cost-sharing financial mechanism of higher education is forming. China’s move to mass higher education deeply impacts the structure, provisions, and institutional administration of higher education. With the increased pace of reform and expansion in higher education, Chinese universities need to be more responsive to social and economic demand and to develop an effective administration model to achieve greater education access. It is under such circumstances that higher education a field of study has emerged to meet the urgent need for research concerning the growth and the changing nature of Chinese higher education. Scholars and intellectuals from various disciplines both in China and abroad have recognized that higher education as an academic field will be significant and instrumental in the sustained development of quality higher education.

Notes   1.  The World Bank, Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000).   2.  UNESCO, World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-first Century: Vision and Action (Paris: UNESCO, 1998), 2   3.  Paul M. Romer, “Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth,” Journal of Political Economy 94 (1986): 1002–37; and “Endogenous Technological Change,” Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 5 (1990): 71–102.

22

Chapter 1

  4.  The World Bank, World Development Report 1998/1999: Knowledge for Development (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1998).   5.  The World Bank, Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1994).   6.  The World Bank, Higher Education in Developing Countries, 15.   7.  The state discourse on the importance of education and science can be seen in various speeches by Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao. Deng Xiaoping stated that “educational undertakings much be geared toward the needs of national economic development” (Speech at the National Educational Working Conferences in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping [Beijing: People’s Press, 1983]); President Jiang Zemin delivered a speech, “Science and Education for a Prosperous China (kejiao xingguo),” at the Chinese National Conference on Science and Technology in May 1995 as China moved into the twenty-first century.   8.  Ministry of Education of China, Achievement of Education in China (Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1985).   9.  Du Ruiqing, Chinese Higher Education: A Decade of Reform and Development (1978–1988) (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992). 10.  Yin Qiping and Gordon White, “The ‘Marketisation’ of Chinese Higher Education: A Critical Assessment,” Comparative Education 30, no. 3 (1994): 217–37. 11.  Qu Baokui, Selected Documents on Chinese Education Reform (Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1991), 805. 12.  Qu Baokui, Selected Documents on Chinese Education Reform. 13.  Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCCCP), The Program for Educational Reform and Development in China [Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guowuyuan Gongbao] (1993), 2:58–66. 14.  James Mauch, “Analysis of Higher Education: Focus on Market,” in Collected Works on Higher Education Reform and Development, ed. Shi Zhao (Beijing: National Academy of Education Administration, 1997). 15.  Data from Ministry of Education of China, Educational Statistical Yearbook of China 2002 (Beijing: People’s Education Press, 2003). 16.  Wen Hongyan and Bi Quanzhong, “Work Hard to Create the World FirstClass Zhejiang University and Its Road of Amalgamation and Reform,” People’s Daily, May 12, 2000. 17.  Yin and White, “The ‘Marketisation’ of Chinese Higher Education.” 18.  Ministry of Education of China, Action Plan to Rejuvenate Education in the 21st Century [Mianxiang 21 shiji jiaoyu zhenxing xingdong jihua] (Beijing, December 24, 1998). The full text of the Action Plan is vailable at MOE’s website, http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info3337.htm (accessed on March 8, 2009). 19.  Li Jun and Jing Lin, “China’s Move to Mass Higher Education: An Analysis of Policy Making from a Rational Framework,” International Perspectives on Education and Society 9 (2008): 269–95. 20.  Martin Trow’s three on three different phases of higher education can be found from his articles: “Reflections on the Transition from Mass to Universal Higher Education,” Daedalus 99, no. 1 (Winter 1970): 1–42; “Problems in the Transition from Elite to Mass Higher Education,” in Policies for Education, from the general report on the Conference on Future Structures of Post-Secondary Education



The Changing Landscape of Higher Education

23

(Paris: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1974), 55–101; “From Mass Higher Education to Universal Access: The American Advantage,” Minerva 37 (Spring 2000): 1–26. 21.  Tang Min and Zuo Xiaolei, “It is Time for Education to Stimulate Consumption (Jiaoyu Qidong Xiaofei Huzhiyuchu),” Economic Highlights, February 19, 1999. 22.  Chen Xuefei, “Ideal-Oriented Policymaking: Analysis of the Policymaking Process of Project 985” [Lixiang daoxiangxing de zhence zhiding— “985 gongcheng” zhengce guocheng fenxi], Peking University Education Review 4, no. 1 (2006): 145–57. 23.  David Y. Chen, “The Amalgamation of Chinese Higher Education Institutions,” Education Policy Analysis Archives 10, no. 20 (April 14, 2002). Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n20.html. 24.  The most thorough discussion of administrative system and bianzhi can be found in Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, “Institutional Reform and the Bianzhi System in China,” The China Quarterly, no. 170 (June 2002): 361–86. 25.  The World Bank, China: Higher Education Reform (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1997). 26.  National Bureau of Statistics, 2006. 27.  Ministry of Education (MOE) of China, Educational Statistical Yearbook of China, 2008 (Beijing: People’s Education Press, 2009). The total enrollment includes students enrolled at both adult learning institutions and adult-learning and continuing-education divisions of regular universities. 28.  Gerard Postiglione’s article, “Community College Development in China,” International Higher Education, Spring 2001, summarizes various types of the Chinese version of community colleges. 29.  Ministry of Education of China, Educational Statistical Yearbook of China, 2008. 30.  Shaun Rein, Training China’s Eager Middle Class. The report is available at http://china.seekingalpha.com/article/17279 (current 2007). 31.  In May 2003, the Ministry of Education issued a policy document, Several Opinions on Regulating and Strengthening Higher Education Institutions to Establish Independent Colleges on the Trial Basis with New Mechanism, which officially allowed public universities to run the independent colleges on an experimental basis. 32.  Zhous Haitoa, “Double Tasks and Dilemma: Interpreting Policy about Independent Colleges,” available at http://www.eduol.com.cn; Shi Qiuheng et al., “Affiliated Colleges and Private Higher Education Development in China: Take Independent College as an Example,” unpublished paper. 33.  Lu Xiaobai, “The Research on the Independent College: Teachers Configuration Model,” International Journal of Business and Management 3, no. 11 (November 2008): 31–34. 34.  Data were retrieved from the website of the Ministry of Education, available at http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/67/info7067.htm. 35.  Ruth Hayhoe provides a detailed account about the history and path of China’s higher education in China’s Universities and the Open Door (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1989). 36.  I was involved as a program coordinator for the Sino-Australian cooperation in technical and vocational education between the TAFE Commission and the Ministry of Education in the mid-1990s. I accompanied several Chinese delegations to visit TAFE colleges and study the TAFE model in New South Wales and Victoria.

2 Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

Compelling Needs and Growing Interests in Higher Education Interest in the field of higher education in China rose dramatically during the last quarter of the twentieth century as Chinese higher education grew rapidly.1 Such scholarly interest came as the result of the reforms and transformations that occurred at both systemic and institutional levels. China needs higher education leaders and scholars both to lead and manage the system and to examine changes as the system grows and develops. China’s higher education system is highly regulated and centralized by state agencies and functional administrative ministries.2 State control permeates all aspects of budget, personnel, academic planning, leadership, management, and curriculum. Its complexity comes from the overlapping administrative bureaucracy and hierarchical administrative system. The administration of higher education institutions involves both authorities of the central government and its respective ministries and provincial governments. The metaphor often used to describe such a shared administrative system is “vertical stripes” (tiao), which refer to ministries, and “horizontal pieces” (kuai), which refer to local governments. Colleges and universities in such an administrative system, affiliated to the “stripes” or “pieces,” are managed by the state at both levels. For example, national-level universities are directly controlled by their functional administrative ministries (tiao) and have a consultative relationship with their local government agencies and CCP committees; provincial-level universities are managed by the provincial education commissions (kuai) and regulated with policies from the central authorities. 25

26

Chapter 2

This system is the product of the planned economic system implemented by the Chinese Communist Party’s effort to reorganize and rebuild the Chinese higher education system as a part of the new social economic planning, in the imitation of Soviet patterns after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.3 In the new socialist societies, all private and missionary universities were absorbed into 181 new public institutions. In 1952, the Ministry of Higher Education was established, and it directly administered fourteen universities and six teacher education universities. Other universities were administered by respective central ministries and directly geared to national-, regional-, and provincial-level development plans. For example, of the thirty-eight engineering universities, ten were administered by the Ministry of Higher Education, while the rest belonged to other central ministries. Beijing, as the policymaking and political center, controlled the budget, resource allocations, and curriculum. Meanwhile, as the universities were located in local regions, they established a consultative and coordinated relationship with their local government agencies and CCP committees, especially in cadre recruitment, promotion and appointment (nomenklatura), land use, and conflict resolutions with other local political and business entities. This centralized administrative system continued to function in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Along with the shift to a market economy in the 1980s, the functions of the ministries of the central government in managing the economy and enterprises were undergoing major changes.4 Under a market economy, the marketplace played a fundamental role in regulating and developing resources. Economic development no longer was organized in terms of “stripes” of administrative ministries and departments in charge of specific lines of trade in society. Correspondingly, education must no longer be primarily planned and organized by these functioning ministries. In response to this transformation, reforming the administrative system of higher education has become critical to the overall efficiency of the system. Higher education could not be organized by an overlapping, two-level administrative system—the central government and the provincial-level governments. The old system of “stripes” and “pieces” was inert in responding to rapid change and incapable of surviving in a market economy. Several critical issues obstructed the effectiveness of China’s higher education system. First, with universities and colleges reporting to different divisions of governments and fulfilling different missions, the overall system was divided into small closed systems. In such closed systems, many small colleges and universities were established to focus on a single area of study, serving the interests of a specific department or profession. As a result, the scope of knowledge of the graduates was relatively narrow, and students were unable to adapt themselves to the broader needs of society. Since schools were



Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

27

confined to the specific roles defined by the needs of their affiliated departments, they were unable to adapt themselves to a new environment. Meanwhile, due to the “vertical stripes” and “horizontal pieces” that split the system, cross-ministry intercollegiate coordination and communication was constrained. The split of “stripes” and “pieces” led to massive redundancy and duplication in colleges and universities and in their programs. Academic resources could not be shared and utilized efficiently. Furthermore, under the centralized planning system, universities and colleges had no autonomy for their own development. Instead, a state bureaucracy directed a school’s development. Institutions were unable to take the initiative to make adjustments in the content and form of their programs in response to economic and social changes in the labor market.5 In 1985, The Resolution of CCPCC on the Reform of the Educational System proposed the reformation of the higher education administrative system. In 1993, in the Fourth National Conference on Higher Education, The Outline for Educational Reform and Development was adopted by the State Education Commission. This document specified plans for decentralizing the administrative structure, expanding university autonomy, and reconstructing universities for efficiency, effectiveness, and “a reasonable” expansion. The decentralization of economic and political authority to local governments was intended to establish the conditions for the development of a market economy. In response to compelling needs to enhance and sustain the country’s economic growth, Chinese higher education has undergone unprecedented changes since 1985.6 These changes include restructuring curriculum and programs, increasing admissions and expanding enrollment, rebuilding campuses, and reforming academic employment and promotion mechanisms. Universities were given the freedom to establish new programs in various disciplines, especially in social sciences, and to restore research as a key objective of disciplinary development.7 Meanwhile, rapid economic development has propelled universities to establish new programs to meet professional training needs and to conduct scholarly research to raise academic standards as well as fulfill their responsibilities for the nation’s social and economic development. New professional programs and areas, such as MBA and MPA, grew vigorously after 1992.

The Formation of Higher Education as a Field of Study Higher education as a field of study has been nurtured in such a rich political and economic environment. Dramatic changes in the academic environment have accelerated the formation and growth of the field of higher

28

Chapter 2

education. This has been, in part, a response to the need for academic leadership and research scholarship in higher education. The surging interest in the field of higher education in China occurred in response to the rapid growth of higher education after 1978 (Chen, 1999). A compiled publication of research articles and essays, 50 Years Higher Education Research in China, captured the development of higher education as a field of study in China. It is commonly believed that higher education, as an independent academic field, started after 1978.8 Yu commented that an increasing interest in higher education research and studies was concurrent with the changing landscape and context of Chinese higher education. Since the late 1970s, higher education in China has been undergoing the following developments: expansion of the higher education system, restructuring of curriculum and programs, development of two- to three-year colleges, the reform of the administrative system, expansion of enrollment, diversification of higher education institutions, the emergence of private higher education, and a renewed campaign for building world-class universities. Consequently, there was soon a growing need for both scholars and competent academic leaders to study and manage higher education. A small number of scholars recognized at a very early stage that the objective of the Chinese graduate programs in higher education would have to be the preparation of graduate students for administrative and scholarly careers in postsecondary education.9 The creation of graduate programs of study in higher education, particularly at the doctoral level, represents a major step in the direction of developing the necessary understanding and expertise. Graduate programs in higher education at Chinese universities laid the foundation for scholarly research of China’s higher education. The Committee on Academic Degree of the State Council recognized higher education as “a new field of study” and specified the mission of the study as “to study the theoretical and practical questions related to higher education.”10 Curriculum for doctoral programs is broadly defined by the Committee with two orientations as “higher education studies” and “Chinese higher education research.” This definition gives each program the latitude to develop its course offerings and program structure. Though programs have increased, and enrollment has grown, this policy is still the same. The landmark of higher education as a graduate field in China was the establishment of higher education research institutes (gaodeng jiaoyu yanjiusuo) at Xiamen University and Peking University in 1978 and 1980, respectively. Xiamen University claims to be the forerunner of the higher education studies and research in China. In 1983, the Committee on Academic Degrees of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, a governing board of graduate programs in Chinese higher education, listed higher education as a field of study. In 1984, the committee approved Xiamen Univer-



Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

29

sity and Peking University to offer master’s programs in higher education. It was not until 1986 that the committee approved Xiamen University to offer the first Ph.D. degree program in this field. By 2000, twenty-two programs across the nation have been approved to offer master’s program in higher education, and four programs to confer doctoral degrees. Graduate programs in higher education have grown rapidly since 2000. The number of master’s programs has increased from twenty-two in 2000 to eighty-eight in 2006, and the number of doctoral programs has increased from four in 2001 to seventeen in 2006. Fast expansion of graduate programs is in sync with the expansion of enrollment at the university. The rapid growth of the field partially resulted from the nationwide expansion plan of higher education participation rate in 1999 as well as the national campaign for developing and strengthening graduate programs in China. Since 1999, graduate students admitted to graduate programs have been increasing at an average 27 percent annual rate under the national policy of expanding higher education admissions. The total number of admitted graduate students has increased from 72,000 in 1998 to 402,000 in 2006. At institutional levels, universities have established and expanded their graduate programs with the hope of receiving more research funding from the state and increasing their competencies and rankings. It is an integral part of the strategic development of institutions. The field of higher education has experienced similar growth. The student enrollment of graduate programs had reached 2000 in 2006. The total number of graduate programs in the field of higher education increased to 88 (see table 2.1).

The Growth of Higher Education as a Graduate Field of Study As a new field, higher education has faced challenges in rapid growth and development. The field of higher education has gone through three stages: from 1978 to 1992, from 1993 to 2000, and from 2001 to present. From 1978 to 1992, research and literature in this field were limited and sporadic.11 Scholars from various fields and disciplines primarily established the theoretical foundation of higher education and set the orientation for the field. In 1984, Pan Maoyuan at Xiamen University, regarded as the vanguard of this field in China, published Higher Education Studies, the first edited book in this field. Pan’s book on higher education is regarded as the hallmark of the field and the theoretical foundation for research and scholarship. As Pan stated in the preface of the monograph, “The study of higher education is a new field and lacks mature theories and system to follow. . . . The book is an initial effort to summarize Chinese experience and practice

Table 2.1.  Master’s and Doctoral Programs in Higher Education in China Universities Project 211 Doctoral University Program

Master’s Program

1. Xiamen University 2. Peking University 3. Huazhong University of Science and Technology 4. East China Normal University 5. Nanjing University 6. Beijing Normal University 7. Northeast Normal University 8. Hunan Normal University 9. Central China Normal University 10. South China Normal University 11. Nanjing Normal University 12. Tsinghua University 13. Sichuan Normal University 14. Suzhou University 15. Northwest Normal University 16. Zhejiang University 17. Southwest University 18. Anhui University 19. Anhui Normal University 20. Beihua University 21. Beijing Polytechnic University 22. Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics 23. Beijing Institute of Technology 24. University of Science and Technolgy Beijing 25. Changjiang University 26. Dalian University 27. Dalian University of Science and Technology 28. Southeast University 29. Fudan University 30. Fujian Normal University 31. Guangxi Normal University 32. Guangxi Normal College 33. University of National Security Science and Technology 34. Harbin University of Science and Technology 35. University of Naval Engineering 36. Hebei University

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes — Yes Yes Yes — Yes — Yes — Yes — — Yes Yes Yes Yes — — Yes Yes Yes — Yes — Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

— Yes —

— — —

Yes Yes Yes

37. Hebei University of Sciences

—

—

Yes

Table 2.1.  (continued) Universities 38. Hehai University 39. Henan University 40. Helongjiang University 41. Hubei University 42. Hunan University 43. Hunan Agriculture University 44. East China University of Science and Technology 45. South China University of Science and Technology 46. Huaibei Coal Normal College 47. Jilin University 48. Jiangsu University 49. Jiangxi Normal University 50. Lanzhou University 51. Liaoning University 52. Nanchang University 53. Nanjing Aero University 54. Nanjing University of Science and Technology 55. Nankai University 56. Qufu Normal University 57. Sanxia University 58. Shandong University 59. Shandong Normal University 60. Shanxi University 61. Shaanxi Normal University 62. Shantou University 63. Shanghai Jiaotong University 64. Shanghai Normal University 65. Shenzhen University 66. Shenyang University 67. Shihezi University 68. Capital Normal University 69. Sichuan University 70. Tianjing Normal College of Engineering 71. Tianjing Normal University 72. Tongji University 73. Wuhan University 74. Wuhan University of Engineering

Project 211 Doctoral University Program

Master’s Program

Yes — — — Yes — Yes Yes

— — — — — — — —

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

— Yes — — Yes — Yes Yes Yes Yes — — Yes — — — — Yes — — — — — Yes — — Yes Yes —

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (continued)

32

Chapter 2

Table 2.1.  (continued) Universities 75. Wuhan University of Science and Technology 76. Xi’an University of Electronic Science 77. Xi’an Jiaotong University 78. Xi’an University of Science and Technology 79. Northwest University 80. Xihua Normal University 81. Yunnan University 82. Yunnan Normal University 83. Zhejiang Normal University 84. China University of Geology 85. Renmin University 86. China Petroleum University 87. Zhongnan University 88. Chongqing University

Project 211 Doctoral University Program

Master’s Program

Yes Yes Yes — Yes — Yes — — Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —

in higher education and systematize knowledge and theories in this field.”12 Pan also addressed in the book that experientialism, which describes a phenomenon from its appearance and relies only on experience and observation, dominated in research methods at the early stage of higher education study in China due to limited empirical research and theories in this field. At the same time, journals in higher education were established and published. Beijing University Education Review was launched in 1985. Higher Education Research was published by Huazhong University of Science and Technology. China Higher Education Research was published by and affiliated with the Chinese Association of Higher Education (CAHE). Scholars, including Zhu Jiusi, former president of Huazhong, Xue Tianxiang (from mathematics) at East China Normal University, Wang Yongquan (from physics), and Gu Mingyuan at Beijing Normal University became pioneers of teaching and research in higher education studies at their universities. These individuals came to the new field from disparate academic backgrounds and became scholars of higher education. They helped define the parameters and the knowledge base of the growing field with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. This history suggests that from the early stage, the field of higher education was formed as an interdisciplinary study. Organizationally, higher education programs were established as an independent research institute, not located and based in the college of education, making them clearly interdisciplinary on campus. During the same time, the next generation of scholars in higher education emerged in the late 1980s at the research institutes at these universities,



Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

33

including Min Weifang, Yu Yueqing, and Chen Xuefei at Peking University, Lao Kaisheng and Wang Shanmai at Beijing Normal University, Wang Weilian, Wu Daguang, and Liu Haifeng at Xiamen University, and Shen Hong at Hua Zhong University of Science and Technology. With the injection of the new blood, programs of higher education could create and offer studies in new specialized areas. For example, Min Weifang, a student of educational economics at Stanford University, joined the faculty at Peking University in the late 1980s and developed a graduate program in educational economics at the university. The field was also marked with professionalization as the Chinese Association of Higher Education (gaodeng jiaoyu xuehui), the first professional association, was founded in 1983. CAHE now has local branches in twenty-eight provinces. The second stage continues to see the development of higher education as a graduate field of study. A significant progress made in this stage was the collective efforts from both central policymaking government agencies and universities to build consensus about the direction for the field of higher education. Two national symposiums were held in 1992 and 1996 to discuss the training of graduate students in higher education studies. Both meetings focused on discussions about orientations, objectives, and curricula of the graduate programs in higher education. In 2003, the Committee on Academic Degrees of the State Council and CAHE held a joint meeting in Nanjing to address new issues and challenges in graduate studies of higher education as well as new reforms and ideas as China was making a fundamental transition from a centralized command economy toward a market economic system. Along with the shift to a market economy, functions of the central government in managing higher education were undergoing major changes. Government administration has been decentralizing though macro-planning, legislature formulation, and policymaking, and supervision has been strengthened by central authority. In higher education, institutions began to have more freedom in making decisions regarding admissions, financing, personnel, and institutional administration. Meanwhile, academic institutions were challenged with the expansion of enrollments, declining funding from central government, and increasing demand for greater quality and efficiency. Institutions, which were used to receiving ordinances from the central government, had to search for answers by themselves when facing challenges. Decentralization of government administration has had an impact on administration of higher education, likewise, on the orientation, contents, and priority of research and studies on higher education. This stage has seen the rise of research on microlevel studies on practical issues such as curriculum development, teaching and learning methodologies and technologies, program evaluations, financing, and strategies for institutional development.13

34

Chapter 2

The Nature of Higher Education: A Discipline (lingyu) or a Field of Study (xueke) When discussing what higher education should study and research, a similar question was raised among Chinese scholars about whether higher education should be a field of study or a discipline in China. Pan Maoyuan argued that higher education is not a discipline (lingyu) since its own knowledge system was not yet fully developed and established. Pan also argued that higher education is an evolving field of study (xueke) for application and practice, and the objective of research in higher education is to solve practical problems in education reforms.14 The discussion about higher education as a new field of study was complicated by China’s academic degree system. According to the Catalog of Disciplines and Fields for Granting Doctoral and Master’s Degrees and Training of Graduate Students (Shouyu boshi, shushi xuewei he peiyang yanjiusheng de xueke, zhuanye mulu) published by the National Committee on Academic Degrees in 1997, a total of twelve academic categories are identified, including philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, sciences, engineering, agriculture, medicine, military science, and management. Each of these academic categories can have level-one disciplines (yiji xueke) and level-two fields (erji xueke) under each discipline. A university’s number of disciplines shows its research strengths and academic levels. Level-two fields in each discipline often show how strong the university is in that discipline in the nation and how many key programs (zhongdian xueke) the university has. Level-one disciplines often are broad in scope and content. Graduate programs are often established and offered by level-two fields within a discipline. Education is defined as the level-one discipline (yiji xueke), higher education as the level-two disciplinary field (erji xueke), or a subfield of education. Discussions about higher education as a discipline or a field of study lead to questions about its theoretical foundation, knowledge system, and curriculum structure, three interrelated elements that Pan argued a mature discipline must possess.15 Pan also cited that the knowledge system of the study in higher education in China lacked theoretical foundation and appropriate research methodology. Knowledge base was not yet formed. Literature and monographs of the field in the early stage were limited, and most were derived from the knowledge base of education. Pan suggested that curriculum structure should be set to reflect the study’s mission and objectives and knowledge should be based on cognitive, psychological, and pedagogical theories. Discussions about this evolving field in the early stage focused on the characteristics of higher education as a field of study, including what is the objective and mission of the field, should it be considered a discipline or a



Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

35

field of study, what does it study—study focus, range, and subjects, as well as knowledge structure of the field.16 Pan agreed that higher education is a field of study at its early stage, but argued that the two concepts of discipline and field of study are not opposite but interrelated to each other. He stated that higher education is an emerging field to become a mature discipline. Such debates have continued to the present. The current debates tend to focus on the disciplinary nature of higher education. Wang Jianhua concurs that higher education is still a field of study in China’s disciplinary system. He argues that no matter whether higher education is a discipline or field of study, it needs to construct its own knowledge system and base.17

Direction of the Field: Research and Application Discussions also included the direction of the doctoral study in this field— whether the doctorate should be a research-to-produce-new-knowledge degree or an application-of-best-knowledge-to-practice degree. Early research studies and articles in this field tended to study theoretical and fundamental issues, discuss philosophical foundations of higher education, and focus on macro management of higher education as a system.18 Research at the early stage primarily stressed macro issues of higher education, such as the relationship between higher education and socioeconomic development, economics of education, higher education and market economy, objectives of higher education, and higher education and the society.19 These research interests are results of a highly centralized administrative system of higher education in the late 1970s and 1980s, when government administrative agencies specified missions, policies, objectives, curriculum, and instruction for higher education institutions. Under such a centralized system, studies focused on the macrosystem of higher education rather than institutional management and research. Studies in that period simply described facts and phenomena but were without solid theoretical foundation. They were different empirical studies, which were usually guided by evidence obtained from systematic research methods. Research methodology was monotonous. More practice- and application-oriented studies were advocated by scholars.20 Wang Yongquan recommended that the study of higher education should focus on current important problems. He stated that study in higher education should meet the need of higher education reform and development in China after 1978. He also asserted that the task and theme of this field is to study how to facilitate the development of higher education in the nation, how to adjust, reform, regulate, and improve current higher education administrative system, and how to prepare human resources for economic and social development.21 To accomplish these tasks, researchers

36

Chapter 2

and scholars in this field are encouraged to study current phenomena and important problems in higher education, including policies, administration and governance, planning, structure, teacher education, instruction and curriculum, and foreign higher education experience. Meanwhile, scholars also urged that the application of higher education should be built on theoretical foundation, which calls for efforts in empirical research and scientific inquiry of this field. Another issue related to the application of higher education research and knowledge, as Wang noted, was the preparation of scholars, researchers, and administrators in higher education. Only a small number of scholars received training in this field. The majority of scholars studying higher education came from other disciplines or administration. In 1992, there were only two professors in the whole nation who could serve as doctoral mentors for doctoral students, compared to more than thirty-five doctoral mentors now. With a shortage of professionally trained expertise in the field, a critical task for the nation was to prepare and improve qualified scholars in higher education. Graduate programs in higher education studies were recommended to be created to train and prepare “high-class” scholars and practitioners engaged in research, administration, and instruction.22

National Policy on Curriculum At the early stage, courses offered in the field of higher education were limited due to the shortage of teaching faculty. Before 1992, no more than four courses were commonly taught nationwide: the Study of Higher Education, Higher Education Administration, Comparative Higher Education, and Higher Education History. The limited number of courses was also caused by the national policy on graduate degree programs, which defines the scope, the objective, and missions of the graduate study in higher education. The Committee on Academic Degrees of the State Council, as a governing board of graduate programs in Chinese higher education, has a critical role in specifying program goals, missions, research scope and orientation, and curriculum structure of each field of doctoral studies. The Introduction of Disciplines and Fields Granting Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in China, jointly published by the Committee on Academic Degrees of the State Council and the Graduate Study Office of the State Department of Education, defined the objectives of the doctoral study in higher education as: to prepare advanced professionals for higher education research, administration, and teaching; to equip them with solid theoretical foundation on education, with deep understanding about higher education and its historical development, current condition and future trends, with thorough knowledge of current higher



Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

37

education research both at home and abroad, with ability to conduct independent research, and with a good command of a foreign language to read foreign literature and communicate at international academic conferences; and to develop their qualities as academic leaders with serious and honest attitudes and behaviors, and their creativity in searching the solutions to the problems of in the midst of Chinese higher education reform and development.23

The national guideline spells out not only the objectives in the knowledge areas to be achieved by doctoral candidates, but also goals in foreign languages and academic competencies. The Introduction also outlined the subjects and the direction for the research and teaching of higher education as a field of study. These subjects formed specialized subareas of the field at individual programs: Higher education is a newly emerged field of study. Its primary task is to conduct research on theoretical and practical problems in this field and discuss its fundamental principles. This field has developed rapidly in last twenty years and a number of subjects of studies have evolved, including higher education economics, higher education sociology, higher education administration, higher education theories, higher education history, comparative higher education, higher education structure, higher education evaluation, and higher education pedagogy.24

National policy statements not only defined the scope and the content of the academic field but also specified the curriculum of higher education. For example, the national policy requires that doctoral programs in higher education include two compulsory courses of higher education and issues of Chinese higher education. These two courses cover major theoretical questions regarding higher education development and a broad range of issues and practical problems in China’s higher education arena. Institutions have to structure their curriculum to comply with the national curriculum guideline. Several critical questions are raised regarding curriculum in the field of higher education: Is there a shared mission among Chinese doctoral programs in higher education? Do curricula of these programs carry out the national guidelines? How are the curricula structured and how do they reflect the knowledge distribution of this field? Thus, this research intends to answer these questions through examination of current curriculum and course offerings in higher education doctoral programs in China.

Purpose of the Study The debate over the nature of higher education would be incomplete without examining the curriculum of higher education and addressing the dominant question about the disciplinary knowledge base of higher

38

Chapter 2

education—is it a field, a discipline, a subfield of an academic discipline, or can it be an interdisciplinary field? An examination of curriculum will provide a new perspective to understand the nature and characteristics of the field. This study examines and analyzes the knowledge and curricular structure of higher education in order to understand the nature, focus, and body of knowledge of this field. The first task of the study intends to use a conceptual framework to analyze curriculum structure of doctoral education in the field of higher education. Course structure represents the general body of knowledge distributed in this field, and reflects facts, concepts, principles, and values characterizing higher education as a field of study. The study hopes to delineate the distribution of knowledge and components of the curriculum in this field. The second undertaking of this study involves the creation of the inventory of courses in this field with an intention to reveal whether there is a national consensus on the knowledge base in this field and where, and from which disciplines the courses are drawn to form the knowledge core of the field. In addition, the study will examine the knowledge and curricular structure in the relationship to the stated mission, the knowledge core, and the total body of knowledge within the field of higher education. Curriculum has always been regarded as a significant component of the graduate study in academic disciplines. In the recent years, higher education as a field of study has been evolving from a generalized area of inquiry into a field with emphasis on professional specialization. Graduate programs in higher education have enormous potential to provide scholars and academic leaders with the knowledge and skills to understand the complexities of academic institutions.

Notes   1.  Chen Xuefei, ed., Higher Education Research in China for Fifty Years (Beijing, China: Educational Science Publishing House, 1999).   2.  A detailed description of China’s political bureaucratic system can be found in Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).   3.  John Burns, “China’s nomeklatura System,” Problems of Communism 36 (1986): 36–51.   4.  Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China: From Revolution through Reform, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 2004).   5.  Min Weifang, “Chinese Higher Education: The Legacy of the Past and the Context of the Future,” in Asian Universities: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges, ed. Philip G. Altbach and Toru Umakoshi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)



Development of Higher Education as a Field of Study in China

39

  6.  Yin Qiping and Gordon White, “The ‘Marketisation’ of Chinese Higher Education: a Critical Assessment,” Comparative Education 30, no. 3 (1994): 217–37.   7.  A detailed account of curriculum and research in Chinese universities during the reform era can be found in Ruth Hayhoe’s China’s Universities and the Open Door (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1989), and A Century of Cultural Conflict: China’s Universities 1895–1995 (New York: Routledge, 1996). Hayhoe examined the overall patterns of curricular change at universities and political and social changes associated with the development of higher education.   8.  Yu Yueqing, “Facing the Calling of Practice to Theory: Retrospect on Fifty Years of Higher Education Theory and Foundation Research” [Yingda shijian dui lilun de huhuan: Gaodeng jiaoyu lilun yanju wushinian huigu], in Higher Education Research in China for Fifty Years, ed. Chen Xuefei (Beijing: Educational Science Publishing House, 1999).   9.  Wang Yongquan, “A Few Questions in Developing Higher Education as a Study” [Fazhan gaodeng jiaoyu kexue de jige wenti], Educational Research 5 (1983). 10.  The Committee on Academic Degree of the State Council, Introduction of Disciplines and Fields Granting Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in China (Beijing: Higher Education Publishing Press, 1999), 69. 11.  Xue Tianxiang and Yin Li, “Teaching and Learning Activities in Advanced Specialized Knowledge: Logic of Theoretical System of Higher Education Study” [Gaoshen zhuanmen zhishi de jiao yu xue huodong], Shanghai Higher Education Research 3 (1997). 12.  Pan Maoyuan, Studies of Higher Education [Gaodeng Jiaoyu Xue] (Beijing: People’s Education Publishing House; Fuzhou: Fujian Education Publishing House, 1984), 1. 13.  Zhou Nanzhao and Cheng Fangping, “Research on Higher Education in China,” in Higher Education Research at the Turn of the New Century: Structures, Issues, and Trends, ed. Jan Sadlak and Philip C. Altbach (Paris: UNESCO Publishing; New York: Garland Publishing, 1997). 14.  Pan Maoyuan, “A Few Questions on Constructing Higher Education as a Field of Study” [Guanyu gaodeng jiaoyuxue xueke jianshe de ruogan wenti], Higher Education Research 1–2 (1983). 15.  Pan, “A Few Questions on Constructing Higher Education as a Field of Study.” 16.  A number of Chinese scholars have contributed to discussions about these issues: Wang Weilian, “Discussions on Reforms of Higher Education Studies” [Shilun gaodeng jiaoyuxue de gaizao], Shanghai Higher Education Research 4 (1993); Pan, “A Few Questions on Constructing Higher Education as a Field of Study”; Wang, “A Few Questions in Developing Higher Education as a Study.” 17.  Wang Jianhua, “The Debate about Discipline or Field of Study and the Construction of Higher Education Conceptual System” [Lingyu, xueke zhizheng yu gaodeng jiaoyu gainian tixi de jiangou], Modern University Education, no. 2 (2006). 18.  Xue Tianxiang and Tang Yuguang, “Key Issues and Discussions in Higher Education Theories in the 1980s in China” [Bashi niandai woguo gaojiao lilunjie zhenglun de jige zhongda wenti], Journal of Higher Education Studies 2 (1991). 19.  Some exemplary research topics and articles include Li Yining, “Discussions on Appropriate Proportion of Education Expenditure in GNP” [Shilun jiaoyu jingfei

40

Chapter 2

zai guomin shouru zhong heli bili de yiju], China Social Sciences 4 (1984); Gu Mingyuan, “Ideal of Universities and Market Economy” [Daxue de lixiang he shichang jingji], Comparative Education Research 2 (1994); Zhou Chuan, “Theoretical Thoughts on Objectives of Higher Education” [Guanyu gaodeng jiaoyu mubiao de lilun sikao], Shanghai Higher Education Journal 2 (1990); Huang Jiaju, “Characteristics and Strategies of Higher Education in the Initial Phase of Socialism” [Shehuizhuyi chuji jieduan gaodeng jiaoyu de tedian yu duice], Higher Education Exploration 1 (1988). 20.  Pan, “A Few Questions on Constructing Higher Education as a Field of Study”; Wang, “A Few Questions in Developing Higher Education as a Study.” 21.  Wang, “A Few Questions in Developing Higher Education as a Study.” 22.  Wang, “A Few Questions in Developing Higher Education as a Study.” 23.  Introduction of Disciplines and Fields Granting Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in China (Beijing: Higher Education Publishing Press, 1999), 69–70. 24.  Introduction of Disciplines and Fields Granting Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in China, 69.

3 Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

Higher Education as a Field of Study in the Global Context China’s higher education development echoes the theme of higher education in the global context. The global economic development has been the driving force for the growth and development of higher education. As higher education grows worldwide, postsecondary education has become a major policy concern in every country.1 There has been an increasing interest in higher education and an expansion of research, service, and training programs intended to serve higher education systems and institutions. The study of higher education is a post–World War II phenomenon— a product of expansion in the 1960s and of the emphasis on accountability and assessment as postsecondary education experienced financial programs in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the United States. In the global context, several factors have contributed to the development of higher education as a field of specialty worldwide. First, as academic institutions expand, they need institutional research to gather more data and information about themselves—such as enrollment trends, statistics concerning student achievement, and data concerning faculty and students. Institutional research is common and well organized in colleges and universities in countries such as the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Elsewhere, institutional research is less organized.2 Second, university-based centers or departments with a focus on higher education have been established in a small number of countries to educate higher education professionals and researchers. There are approximately two hundred university-based programs worldwide. In the United States alone, 41

42

Chapter 3

about one hundred universities have programs in higher education located in schools of education.3 These programs offer post-baccalaureate studies in higher education. Some are research-oriented, and some are teaching-focused. Some prominent European examples are the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the Institute for Higher Education Studies at the University of London. However, European centers do not provide degree-level training for professionals. The third factor is the increasing government funding for the purpose of research on improving higher education. Governments require national data and research for planning in higher education, the allocation of funds, and accreditation purposes. Government-sponsored research agencies are established to assist with higher education reform and innovation. For example, the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement at Stanford University is funded by the federal government of the United States. State planning and coordinating agencies play a pivotal role in the development of the field of higher education. They have been established in many countries, and these organizations sponsor research and collect statistics to help them to meet the need for relevant information and analysis. Even though national agencies and institutions play key roles in the research and study of higher education, the role of international and regional organizations cannot be neglected. International organizations, such as the World Bank, UNESCO, and OECD, play an effective role in bringing together specialists on higher education as well as providing a forum for discussing higher education issues. UNESCO, established in 1946, has been involved with higher education since its inception—sponsoring conferences, stimulating research, and publishing books and reports. It has also established regional offices that focus on higher education. The World Bank has funded research and issued publications regarding higher education. A number of studies have been published, and they constitute the best resources for research on higher education in developing countries. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an agency representing the industrialized nations, has long been involved with higher education research and related activities and has produced a series of country-based studies that provides useful analysis. Professional associations and university associations in many countries are also engaged in research domestically and, to some extent, internationally. In the United States, the American Council on Education, the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Universities, the Council of Graduate School, and many other entities have made research and the dissemination of information part of their missions. These professional organizations, research institutes and centers, and university degree programs in higher education have generated voluminous research studies, reports, and other publications concerned with higher education administration, coordination, and



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

43

policy. These literatures and institutional efforts contribute to the development of the knowledge base in higher education worldwide. Professional associations and organizations were created to serve as a forum for the study in higher education. For example, the Association of Professors of Higher Education (APHE), which was sponsored by and affiliated with the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) from the mid1950s to the mid-1970s, became an independent society, known as the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), in 1976, and started to hold its own annual meetings in 1985.4 The attendees of the annual meeting of ASHE include professors, graduate students, administrators, members of state and federal government agencies, and other concerned parties. The history of the ASHE represents the growing interests in the formal study of higher education. In 1981, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the largest scholarly association devoted to the study of education, established a formal division, Division J, for studying postsecondary education. The creation of the specialized division and forum on the research of higher education at the AERA acknowledged the growing amount of research on higher education. These associations and organizations have played pivotal roles in higher education research and forming and shaping the field of higher education as an academic discipline. The global development of higher education as a field of study reveals an increasing worldwide interest in the formal study of higher education and the broadening constituency in postsecondary education. It is even more important to notice the trends and transition of the field from a disciplinebased study toward a professional-oriented study. The discipline has grown with an increasing need for professionals and effective administrators in higher education. However, such a disciplinary growth based on professional need has been mainly limited to the United States, Canada, and Australia. Only recently have other worldwide postsecondary institutions experienced a growing need for professionally educated administrators in higher education.

Higher Education as a Field of Study in the United States Although higher education is an emerging field in most of countries, the United States is one of few countries with well-developed graduate training programs. Higher education as a field of study in the United States has almost one hundred years of history. The field can trace its roots back to 1893, when G. Stanley Hall, the first president of Clark University, offered the first course on higher education. Two other universities, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Minnesota, started offering courses in higher education in

44

Chapter 3

the early 1900s.5 During the 1920s, some universities began to offer graduatelevel courses in higher education, including Purdue, New York University, Yale, George Washington, and Cornell.6 Most of these courses were offered to prepare students for faculty teaching positions. Formal programs of the field were not created until the 1920s at the University of Chicago, the Ohio State University, and the Teachers College of Columbia University. Higher education as an object of study was growing rapidly after World War II. From 1920 to 1945, courses in higher education were offered at twenty-seven universities, while from 1945 to 1963, sixty-four more universities started offering higher education courses.7 The field of higher education started to emerge as graduate programs were established to train and prepare administrators for new universities and colleges. In a 1969 study, there were eighty-six graduate programs, with fifty-three offering a higher education concentration at the doctoral level.8 Paul Dressel and Lewis Mayhew identified sixty-seven doctoral programs in 1974;9 S. O. Mason and Barbara Townsend identified eighty-eight institutions offering higher education programs in the year 1987–1988.10 Philip Altbach and D. Engberg recognized 120 graduate degree programs in higher education in the United States, making it the world’s largest research and training enterprise in the field of higher education.11 From a historical perspective, multiple forces have contributed to the evolution of higher education as a field of study. The early interest in higher education was closely associated with institutional research, which intends to acquire a better understanding about how individual institutions function. Some seminal studies include Herbert B. Adams’s Institutional History of William and Mary in 1887 and Knight’s The Influence of Reconstruction: Education in the South in 1913. Herbert Baxter Adams, American historian and educationalist, edited a book series for the U.S. Bureau of Education on the contributions to American Educational History. He wrote an institutional history of the College of William and Mary in 1887 as the first volume for the book series. His early studies were primarily descriptive and concerned with how the institution changed over time. These writings used disciplinary method of history to interpret and understand the institutions, and proved that the institution of higher education and its purpose could be understood through the application of scholarly and disciplinary techniques.12 Studies in the early twentieth century shifted their focus to the evaluation of institutions. Abraham Flexner visited all 155 medical schools in North America and examined their curricula, methods of assessment, and requirements for admission and graduation, and he eventually published a booklength report in 1910.13 Scholars at the University of Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s examined various higher education institutional practices as a basis for establishing administration principles. For example, Floyd W. Reeves, A. J. Brumbaugh, and John Dale Russell published their seminal



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

45

work, The Liberal Arts College: Based upon Surveys of Thirty-five Colleges Related to the Methodist Episcopal Church.14 The survey project studied the cause of Christian education, appraised their work, and made suggestions for program improvement. The final report included seventy-two chapters and offered detailed information on the aims of the institutions, location and denominational constituency, charters and by-laws, buildings and grounds, library, course offerings, faculty salaries, training and scholarly productivity of faculty members, student government and discipline, sources of income, agencies promoting religious influences among students, and so on. Evaluative studies of this nature, such as Flexner’s study on medical education, were premised on the belief that scholarly examination of the educational process could provide a basis for policy formation, and gradually evolved into the field of institutional research. The focus of higher education studies was on program evaluation for policy formulation and improvement.15 With the growth of higher education after WWII came the interest and involvement of various national or regional commissions in higher education. Exemplary national commissions included the Truman Commission on Higher Education, the Commission for Financing Higher Education, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, and the White House Conference on Education Beyond High School. These agencies initiated intensive studies on higher education and attempted to provide recommendations or formulate policies for higher education programs and degrees. For example, the Carnegie Commission has published essays and research monographs to define the outlines of higher education as a scholarly field. Their efforts demonstrated the need for a greatly expanded professoriate and set the stage for the research and theory regarding the academic enterprise.16 In sync with national and regional commissions, many states conducted studies and published reports on the state needs in higher education. California conducted three studies, The Survey of the Needs of California in Higher Education by George Strayer of Columbia University in 1948, A Restudy of the Needs of California in Higher Education directed by T. R. McConnell in 1955, and A Study of the Need for Additional Centers of Public Higher Education in California in 1957.17 All these studies have provided the planning concepts and policies and eventually led to the creation of the 1960 Master Plan. As a by-product of the California studies, the Center for the Study of Higher Education was created at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. The Center gathered a group of scholars, conducted a number of studies, and contributed to the formation of higher education as a scholarly field. A number of other forces and conditions in the late 1950s and 1960s called for an even fuller understanding of higher education and more professionals moving into the field. The external funding was given to support the study of higher education. The Carnegie Corporation gave grants to the Teachers College of Columbia, UC Berkley, and the University of Michigan

46

Chapter 3

to study developing programs of higher education and conduct research on higher education.18 A federal grant was provided to UC Berkeley to establish the Center for the Study of Higher Education in 1957.19 Federal influence and financial support encouraged institutions to undertake self-studies, which would lead to accreditation by regional association. Institutional self-studies increased awareness and concerns about the nature of higher education institutions. As the federal government became more significant in the conduct of higher education, the number and size of Washingtonbased associations grew dramatically, and specialists in higher education research and policy studies were urgently needed. Similarly, state systems and state coordinating agencies for higher education required research and policymaking personnel to interpret higher education to political leaders. Professional staffs in this field were also urgently needed. Another force driving the development of higher education studies resulted from the need for student personnel services designed to measure and evaluate students and their learning in colleges and universities. The increasingly heterogeneous student body in the postwar period changed the nature and scope of higher education. New types of colleges and higher education systems emerged to accommodate the rapid increases in enrollment. Meanwhile, institutions and university administrations were faced with requirements of more knowledge concerning the financing of higher education and the utilization of facilities to increase the efficiency of operation. There was a compelling need for programs of higher education to produce the professional administrators, business managers, and specialists for relevant administrative roles in higher education. Student protest movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s were another factor stimulating academic studies and research in higher education in the United States. American college students’ demonstration against the Vietnam War stimulated a number of studies concerning student growth and development during the colleges years, including a major longitudinal study at Michigan State University directed by Dressel. Scholars were attracted from such disciplines as psychology, sociology, psychiatry, history, theology, as well as philosophy to study the characteristics of higher education. Sociologists such as Martin Trow and Burton Clark at UC Berkeley were regarded as the most prominent scholars of social science research on higher education and studied student cultures using sociological methods.20 Trow joined the Center for Studies in Higher Education at Berkeley, the first academic research institute in the United States to focus on higher education policy issues, after it was established in 1958. He also brought comparative higher education to the field. He studied higher educational systems in the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, and Japan, and published a number of articles on the economic, political, and social class implications of the development of mass higher education in various countries.



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

47

The evolving nature of higher education during this time period encouraged more research and more writings about the practices of higher education and collegiate administration than ever before. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, people expected higher education to be able to solve most complicated social problems and research on it to produce the answers it needed to do so. It was also during this period that scholars started questioning the longrooted belief that doctoral programs in higher education were developing researchers instead of practitioners and administrators. Universities were called to create degree study programs to prepare administrators and practitioners with knowledge of colleges and universities as educational institutions and competency to manage the complex collegiate environment. After World War II, with the expansion of higher education in the United States, nearly one hundred doctoral and master’s degree programs in higher education emerged in this new field of study by the 1960s, compared with twentyseven degree programs before 1945.21 These multiple forces have contributed to the evolution of higher education as a graduate field of study.

the Nature of Higher Education: A Discipline or a Field of Study? American experience suggests that the interest in studying higher education parallels growth and decline in higher education: as society becomes more aware of postsecondary education problems that require unique solutions from persons trained to bring about concrete resolutions, interest in the field increases. These previously mentioned social and economic forces made possible the expansion of higher education as a field of study because of the underlying widespread belief in the value of higher education and research on higher education. American experience in higher education is also characterized by the discussion of whether the field should be an academic discipline or a field of study. In their seminal work, Higher Education as a Field of Study, Dressel and Mayhew argued that one commonly accepted criterion of an academic discipline is a general body of knowledge, which has logical taxonomy and sequentially ordered knowledge areas.22 The sense of sequence, which enables scholars to seek the next level of knowledge, is the key of all criteria. Dressel and Mayhew stated that the study of higher education possesses no such logic for a scholar to move to the next study topic. The growing body of literature concerning higher education provides more knowledge of the opinions of writers than the sequential knowledge of the phenomenon of higher education. In addition, academic disciplines have a recognized sequence of experience for the preparation of scholars and researchers, but no

48

Chapter 3

such generally recognized sequences of experiences exist for scholars of higher education. Another criterion is that research in a discipline can be dichotomized as basic or applied, and scholars in a mature discipline devote considerable time and effort to solving basic or theoretical research. However, current research and scholarship in higher education is applied and practice-oriented. There is a lack of research studies contributing to build its own theoretical foundation. Higher education as a field of study includes various subjects, governance, finance, teaching, testing, counseling, and so forth. The field grows to become an interdisciplinary field; however, at the same time, it does not have a single theoretical base. Another particular issue related to this emerging field is that there is no established and recognized parameters or linkages with other disciplines. A discipline usually possesses stable outer limits that help define the scholarship of the discipline. Higher education as an emerging field does not have a clear boundary defining issues to be studied.23 This issue of boundaries has considerable implications to the curriculum and knowledge structure of this field. Without a boundary, it is difficult to define the focus of the curriculum and knowledge structure. Other essentials of a discipline include a commonly understood methodology of inquiry, a specialized vocabulary, a generally accepted basic literature, and a body of theory and knowledge. They were all missing in the early development stage of higher education, even though an accepted literature has been established. Theories and methodology of inquiry were established on other academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and history. Therefore, Dressel and Mayhew asserted that higher education has not yet become a mature discipline. It is an emerging field of study to understand the complexity of higher education and to prepare professionals for careers in this field. This emerging field lacks “many of the attributes of a discipline,” and “its future is obscure” unless its current programs are strengthened and its curriculum content resolved.24 The discussion of whether higher education is a discipline or a field of study has exerted a strong influence on curricular structure and course requirements in this field. In Administration as a Profession, edited by Jonathan Fife and Lester Goodchild, eight research studies were conducted to examine graduate programs in higher education in the United States from different perspectives.25 Goodchild, from a historical perspective, explored how higher education originated and expanded as a field of study between 1893 and 1960. He examined graduate programs at six research or land-grant universities: Ohio State University, the University of Chicago, the University of Pittsburgh, Teachers College of Columbia University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. Lester Goodchild’s study offers a critical viewpoint on origins and expansions from institu-



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

49

tional perspectives in different periods, and provides a more close-up lens to look at curricular evolvement of the field. Goodchild analyzed the purpose of each program and found how the focus of each program was shifted in different time frames and how the curricular structure and content were formed and evolved to serve different missions. For example, the study shows that, at Ohio State University, curricular structure evolved throughout three generations: from the earliest focus on administration, to professional training, and eventually to research. Goodchild’s analysis found that the development of higher education programs and their curricula in each era reflects professional demands and practical needs in the field. Goodchild’s study elaborated not only the historical context in which higher education programs were instituted and the institutional politics for their existence, but also the curricular patterns programs adopted, the philosophical rationales embedded in curriculum structures, and forces that shaped the curricular structure of these programs. For example, during the 1920s, in response to the growing demand for junior college administrators, courses on higher education offered at Ohio State University in 1918, Teachers College in 1920, and the University of Chicago in 1921 were primarily focused on junior colleges. In these cases, the rationale centered on training graduate students for the administration of junior colleges, which grew in number from 46 in 1917 to 248 by 1927,26 as well as of fouryear institutions, which expanded after World War I.27 Goodchild’s analysis revealed the conceptual evolution of the field and summarized three early curricular philosophies and patterns of graduate programs of higher education between 1893 and 1960. First, programs used theoretical or disciplinary principles to structure their curricular offerings.28 For instance, G. Stanley Hall employed psychological principles to structure curricular offerings in higher education at Clark University. Similarly, Ralph W. Tyler borrowed a social science approach to the study of higher education at the University of Chicago in the 1940s and thereafter. Second, the curricula at Ohio State University, Teachers College, the University of Chicago under Chase, the University of California at Berkeley, and early programs at the University of Michigan were shaped by the practical needs of administrators and faculty. Such curricula represented the longstanding educationalist ideal of training students to work in the “field of education.”29 The third approach was to use applied research to create curriculum, linking empirical research findings to program structure. The creation of the Carnegie centers at the University of California at Berkeley, Teachers College, and the University of Michigan demonstrated that curricular offerings were advanced when sufficient higher education research, methods, and funding were available. The best higher education examples of this development may be seen in the areas of organizational theory, curriculum, and student personnel. Although these six graduate programs of

50

Chapter 3

higher education cannot typify the current 120 programs in the United States, they are the representation of current designs of higher education programs. Goodchild’s study concurs with Dressel and Mayhew that higher education had evolved from an apprenticeship method to a field of study for future practitioners from 1893 to 1980 and has drawn its knowledge from various disciplines (see figure 3.1).30 Graduate programs of higher education have been expanded with the increasing need to train professionals for bureaucratic tasks and for institutional leadership. Hobbs and Francis argued that no matter how programs organize their curricula, programs often view higher education as a multidisciplinary field of study and use the disciplines as their organizing principle. For example, each core course reflects a particular discipline such as philosophy, history, economics, sociology, and political science.31

Curriculum and Knowledge Structure Curriculum is an essential part of college education. Curriculum reflects how knowledge evolves and how courses are structured to reflect the knowledge of the field. An academic field needs to have and identify its own common core of knowledge, which is generally reflected in the curriculum.32 What factors define the curriculum of an academic field? The Carnegie

Figure 3.1.   Fishbone Diagram of Knowledge-Base Evolvement of Higher Education in the United States



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

51

Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1977) argued that the curriculum of an academic area is primarily defined or influenced by six factors: student educational expectation, faculty expectation as reflected in the program mission statement, employer expectation of the skills that the program develops, expertise available to a program as reflected in the numbers of full-time and part-time faculty, the purpose and sequence of courses, and the total body of knowledge within an academic area as represented by all courses taught nationally.33 These factors should be taken into consideration when universities, departments, and professors design a program and its curriculum. In addition, curriculum has strategic significance to universities.34 First, curriculum is strategic to institutions of higher learning because all decisions made by institutions are rooted in the content and format of their educational programs.35 Second, the design and implementation of curriculum is an integral part of the institution’s overall deliberate strategies to achieve the institution’s competitive advantages and stated goals.36 Curriculum is an important attribute of high-quality programs across degree levels.37 Curriculum defines instructional objectives and educational processes and defines the structure, sequence, and education process of the discipline. According to Clark et al., through a national survey of graduate deans to identify attributes of high-quality doctoral programs, a coherent program curriculum emphasizes three quality-related attributes: core and specialized coursework, residency requirements that encourage on-campus study, and a culminating experience—such as a thesis, research project, or comprehensive examination.38 According to Dressel and Mayhew, a number of curricular issues are concerned with higher education as a field of study in the United States. The major weakness of higher education curricula centers on course content. Many of the courses offered in programs of higher education are descriptive and frequently emphasize current issues and events. Courses rarely represent a consistent framework or a consistent set of theoretical presuppositions. In part, this reflects the descriptive quality of much of the literature available for courses in higher education and also the fact that higher education is such a young field of study that the basic descriptive data has yet to be fully collected. Courses seem to be primarily transmission vehicles to channel the growing amount of descriptive information into the minds and notebooks of graduate students. Another deficiency of the curriculum is that when compared with more descriptive historical or current-issues courses, programs seem to ignore or assign relatively modest attention to quantitative analysis and statistical inference preparation, which is the foundation for research. A few programs require a single course in basic descriptive statistics rather than advanced inferential statistics and experimental research.

52

Chapter 3

In addition to the quantitative weakness, another critical issue is that courses offered in programs in higher education represent a core of materials appropriate for a generalist, on the assumption that administrative specialization will likely come later based on the individual’s own abilities and the condition of the market for academic administrators. Another issue related to the curriculum of higher education is the lack of clarity in the stated purposes, goals, and educational objectives of all programs.39 Such a common problem is reflected in Florida State University’s objectives, which are stated to prepare students to have “general knowledge of American higher education,” “special knowledge of one area,” and to “be able to do research,” “be able to work with people,” and “be qualified to teach in lower division course.” These objectives are carefully articulated but “general knowledge” is vaguely defined in the statement—whether the curriculum exposes the individual to the general knowledge of the course requirements, or in terms of facts, concepts, principles, and values characterizing higher education.40 Both specialized and area need to be clarified— is the knowledge specialized because a particular area of higher education is studied both more intensively and more analytically than other areas, or is it specialized (that is, practitioner-oriented) by focusing on such practiceoriented fields as academic administration, admissions, budgeting? This raises another critical question about the orientation of the higher education programs: should they be scholarly research-oriented or practice-oriented? Higher education programs are implicit in this scholarlyversus-practitioner emphasis. Some programs use this to differentiate between the practitioners (Ed.D.) and the researchers (Ph.D.). The objective “be able to work with people” can have different connotations. Is it an ability that the program proposes to develop, or simply a vague expression of an ideal? Lack of clarity about definitions of curriculum and about objectives of the programs is a common problem among all higher education programs.41 What exacerbates the situation is the disconnection between the curriculum and the stated objectives and goals, a common criticism of university curricula both at the graduate and undergraduate levels. The statements of goals and learning objectives become more diffused with variability in the range and level of emphases offered. There is no unanimity about the objectives and curriculum of higher education graduate programs in the United States.42 However, the ongoing conversation about objectives and curriculum of higher education as a field of study has always been focused on whether the field is defined as an academic discipline preparing researchers and scholars or a professional education preparing practitioners, accordingly, whether the curriculum emphasizes research or application.43 To further understand the purpose and mission of higher education programs, scholars explored the missions and objectives of doctoral programs



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

53

by raising two basic questions to examine the missions of higher education doctoral programs.44 First, is there a national consensus on the mission for higher education doctoral programs? In other words, does the purpose for these programs suggest a shared and similar mission or distinctive ones? Second, what are some the corollaries of program missions? Davis et al. found that all higher education programs in the United States affirm a mission of preparing administrative practitioners for universities. Across program types, however, programs tend to emphasize one or several curriculum options, including teaching and learning, student services, administration, research, adult and continuing education, and the study of the field of higher education. Less prestigious regional and local programs tend to have more practice-oriented curriculum with strong commitments to practice and applied research; highly reputable national programs tend to emphasize theoretical research.45 The ongoing conversation and debate on what curricula should focus on—theoretical and intellectual inquiry or practical knowledge and application—are further represented by two groups of scholars. One group of scholars in early development of the field strongly supported a theoretical approach to research in higher education.46 The other side, represented by C. Fincher and others, is more concerned about preparing reflective administrative practitioners with some scholarly interests in the field of higher education inquiry based in part on a solid and meaningful dissertation experience.47 There are also scholars who suggest that curriculum of higher education programs should balance theoretical learning and applied training. Curriculum of a graduate program should incorporate both intellectual and practical skills and knowledge.48 As a result of this research-versus-practice debate, compromising degree structures and curricula are created to accommodate both demands by offering degrees of the doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.), the doctor of education (Ed.D.), or both in higher education doctoral programs in the United States.49 The Ph.D. is the conventional mark of the trained scholar who has demonstrated his or her ability to do original research in one field or discipline. The first doctor of philosophy degree in the field of education was announced in 1893 by Teachers College, Columbia University.50 The Teachers College Ph.D. carried the research tradition of the field. The doctor of education is the highest earned research doctorate in the field of education.51 During the period of greatest expansion of higher education in the United States, a new emphasis began on practical knowledge. The idea of the Ed.D. was created and originally fostered at Harvard University, which granted the Ed.D. degree in 1921. The Harvard Ed.D. emphasized professional practice. As of 1997–1998, about 220 institutions offered the Ed.D. degree.52 The Ed.D. is offered both at comprehensive universities and at research universities. 53

54

Chapter 3

The doctor of education is an American creation in education. This degree represents professional preparation for leadership positions in the field of education on both practical and theoretical levels. Original research is considered a necessary part of this preparation. Research shows that the degree requirements of the Ed.D. are similar to those of the Ph.D. in many schools.54 The curriculum for the Ed.D. program often differs from the curriculum for the Ph.D. in education in that there may be no foreign language requirement, the amount of coursework may be greater, and the research and dissertation may be more application and practice oriented than theory oriented.55 However, research indicates that the distinctions between the two degrees are nearly without recognition in terms of the requirements and the dissertation topics.56 Research shows that little change occurred in the types of degrees offered in the sixteen years between Dressel and Mayhew’s study in 1974 and Townsend and Manson’s study in 1990. Both studies found that approximately one half of higher education programs offer both degrees; programs awarding only the Ph.D. or the Ed.D. are evenly divided. The doctor of education represents an effort and a shift of higher education toward professional study in the United States.57 Two distinguishing traits of professionalization are the acquisition of a unique body of knowledge and skills and the adoption of a service orientation.58 Unique skills and knowledge of a field could be described by its curriculum, through which they are dispersed. Research shows that higher education as a field of study possesses unique knowledge and skills through a curriculum analysis. Research also shows that core requirements in higher education usually consist of three to six courses, which define the unique skills and knowledge of higher education.59 The core requirement for the 1982 to 1983 timeframe consisted of coursework in seminar, organization and administration, finance, history and philosophy of education, curriculum, and the community and junior college, similar to the Dressel and Mayhew finding that a typical core is composed of a foundations course (introduction, nature, and issues), student personnel work, community college, and administration.60 For the purpose of describing the status of the professionalization of higher education as a field of interest, higher education is more professionalized in terms of curricular characteristics than the emerging professions of business and library science but less so than law and medicine. When compared to other professional fields of education, business, library science, medicine, and law, higher education as professional education possesses both general and professional knowledge. Its curriculum reflects the consistency of the knowledge content, which indicates the maturity of a professions education.



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

55

Curriculum Components Ambiguity still exists due to a lack of clarity about definitions of curriculum and about objectives of the programs, and there is no unanimity about curriculum of higher education graduate programs in the United States. However, three types of programs are identified for the preparation of administrative professionals and scholars in higher education in the United States.61 Each type has a different focus and structure on curriculum. The first type is found in institutions providing support for the scholarly talent needed. Curriculum of these programs focuses on preparing researchers and scholars in this field. The programs at UCLA, Stanford, and Columbia are examples of this type. A second type of program, smaller and more local in perspective, serves the host institution and neighboring ones in the objective of professional development. The curriculum and course offerings are application-oriented. The third type of program is the hybrid of the first two programs. These programs have a less formal core curriculum. While there are variations in curriculum structure in the three curricular examples, higher education programs generally include the following requirements: education core requirements; higher education requirements; internship requirements; research requirements, including dissertation; specialty requirements in higher education; and foreign language requirements.62 Core requirements are the “foundation” courses, such as educational psychology, educational philosophy, sociology of education, and history of education. Some programs include research methodology or statistics in this category. The core requirement in education is not unanimously adopted by all higher education doctoral programs. Some education faculty believe the integrity of the doctorate in education would be endangered by elimination of this core for the doctoral programs in higher education. In contrast, higher education faculty and students may view the general requirement in education as wasted effort, especially when the core courses virtually ignore the nature and problems of higher education.63 Stanford University includes a series of courses as a core of education: curriculum and instruction, behavioral science studies, and inquiry skills, and so on. Higher Education Core Requirements Foundation courses in a higher education core are suited to the interest of professors and students in higher education. The core provides an overview of the broad field of higher education and a sampling of the several specialties in higher education studies. Most of the higher education core requirements involve six or seven courses.64 A typical requirement may include foundations (nature, issues) of higher education, student personnel work,

56

Chapter 3

community college, and administration. Courses in college teaching, curriculum, and history are also frequent elements of the core. One of the more extensive core requirements includes the following: American college and university, history and current issues, research on the college student, academic program organization and administration, and research seminar. Specialization Specialization refers to courses and knowledge specialized in a particular area of higher education, which allow students to study the subject more intensively and more analytically than other areas. Specialization intends to provide some sense of focus and unity and permits students to have a rational selection from an overly diverse array of courses, seminars, problems, and experiences. Some primary specialties among higher education programs include academic administration, student personnel administration, community college administration, financial administration, institutional research, research on higher education, and planning in higher education.65 Internship Since higher education as a field of study covers research, teaching, and administrative work, internship is necessary and highly desirable in higher education programs. Due to various orientations and specializations offered by higher education programs, each program’s requirement of an internship is different. The range of internships include teaching assistant, teaching fellow, research assistant, administrative assistant, student activities assistant or director, and so on. Some programs consider the residency to be “an internship based upon the conception that library, laboratories, courses, research experiences, and immersion in a culture for a significant period of time is required to produce a scholar.”66 Others think that preparation for administration, teaching, and service activities requires an integration of theory and practice, which is attainable in the fullest sense only if abstract learning is related to reality. Traditional residence requirements may no longer be appropriate for internships. Other scholars agree that internships are vital for the training of both researchers and administrators.67 Henderson et al. define a higher education administrative internship as a period of experience in a college or university.68 These core components reflect the underlying principles and policies used in formulating doctoral programs and serve as an integral part of the overall degree requirements. Besides the requirement of the core courses, a doctoral program usually includes a residence requirement, a dissertation requirement, and a foreign language requirement.



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

57

Curriculum: Conceptual Framework and Knowledge Base Though many programs are carefully planned, one common problem in structuring curriculum in doctoral programs in higher education is the lack of consistent framework, which prevents students from not seeing the relevance of a course in the overall curriculum structure.69 Jonathan Fife’s research shows that the majority of academic programs in higher education do not have a conceptual framework for organizing and structuring course offerings and sequence in higher education doctoral programs across the United States. To understand the knowledge structure and the range of the knowledge base in higher education, Fife developed a curricular model to analyze the organization and sequence of courses in the field of higher education (see figure 3.2). This curricular framework includes the following seven conceptual areas: Introductory/Foundation. These courses are designed to give a broad review of relationships. Students develop sensitivity to the complexity of basic areas of higher education. Example: “Current Issues in Higher Education.” Theory. Theory courses review the theoretical, conceptual, and research knowledge underlying specific concepts with depth. Example: “Change Strategies in Higher Education.” Application. Application courses are more skill-oriented but closely interrelated with theory courses. For example, an application course addressing the implementation of long-range planning would depend on some knowledge of the theories of various planning concepts, such as strategic planning or management. Example: “Computer Application in Higher Education.” Clinical/Internship Experience. Higher education programs traditionally include some form of clinical internship experience. Students achieve some practical insight into the knowledge gained through the theory and application courses. For the neophyte administrator, an internship may be the first experience in an administrative role. For the more seasoned administrator, the clinical/internship experience provides experience in new administrative areas. Synthesis. These courses are designed to facilitate critical thinking and to bring together into a conceptual whole the various theories and administrative skills covered in the student’s program of study. As the name suggests, these courses are usually offered at the end of a program. Research Skills. Designed to develop in students a sense of research excellence, as well as an understanding of the research process, such courses

58

Chapter 3

develop the skills necessary to complete the culminating experience of a doctoral program, the dissertation. Courses may include “Research Design in Education,” “Statistics,” “Qualitative Research Method,” and so forth. Dissertation Research. Discussion continues over what is appropriate research for the Ed.D. and the Ph.D. degrees. Nevertheless, the dissertation research experience is generally designed to instill an appreciation for in-depth examination of a specialized knowledge base, research methods, and discovery of new knowledge. Another category of courses, continuing professional and lifelong learning, are included in the conceptual framework. These courses are offered by programs through special seminars, workshops, and conferences to assist administrators in keeping abreast of new practices or problem areas. Examples include annual workshops on faculty development and summer courses. Fife’s Theoretical Framework for Higher Education Curricula In Fife’s study of the 88 doctoral programs in higher education in American universities, 124 different courses were identified.70 To study the knowledge content of the field, an inventory of courses was created to indicate the extensive contribution and its potential that exists in the universal body of knowledge represented by all the doctoral program offerings. The higher education courses can be grouped into following categories according to content emphasis: discipline content, administration, specific area focus, issues affecting higher education, special sectors of higher education, and research. Discipline Content. The study of higher education was originally conceived as an area of intellectual inquiry rather than a specialized area of a professional study. Early higher education courses were originally developed by discipline-trained faculty from other fields.71 In addition, many early courses examined higher education strictly as a specialty with the inquiry of a specific discipline. Therefore, some courses in higher education programs have a disciplinary orientation, such as history of higher education, philosophy of higher education, and sociology of higher education. However, the majority of courses offered in higher education programs are multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. For example, “Policymaking and Politics in Higher Education” may draw theories and knowledge from political science, history, and sociology to study the policymaking process in the United States. Administration. The majority of programs and students see the higher education curriculum as a means to study, develop, and enhance administrative practices and skills.72 Therefore, a majority of the courses



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

59

Figure 3.2.   Conceptual Framework of Course Offerings in Programs of Higher Education

being offered in higher education programs are logically placed under the topic of administration.73 Courses of administration are categorized in the following areas: general administration (administration of

60

Chapter 3

higher education, organization of postsecondary education, and academic governance), specialized areas of administration (adult and continuing education, administration of student services, institutional research, and student services), administrative skills (budgeting and finance, faculty and personnel administration, law and policy, business management, planning), and theories of higher education administration (organizational theory, leadership and administrative decision making, and theories of student personnel administration). Specific Area Focuses. This group of courses focuses on specific nonadministrative activities within higher education. The purpose of these courses is generally to acquaint students with the importance of these areas to the overall mission or functioning of the higher education institution, including issues related to curriculum, faculty, teaching and instruction, and students. Issues Affecting Higher Education. Courses of this group review the issues affecting higher education. These courses incorporate interdisciplinary methods as well as theoretical and applied concepts. Courses of this category include courses of general issues (current issues of higher education, foundations of higher education), and courses of specific issues (comparative and international education, multicultural issues of higher education, enrollment and admissions, student attrition and retention, computer applications in higher education, and other courses of miscellaneous issues). The objective of these courses is to develop an understanding of the magnitude of these issues and the various ways they affect the institutions. Special Sectors of Higher Education. The courses of this category are courses about community college, continuing education, adult education, vocational education, and private colleges. Research. Research courses deal with the research on higher education and appropriate research methods. Examples of this category include “Evaluation in Higher Education,” “Proposal Writing,” “Research in Higher Education,” “Statistical Analysis and Design,” and so forth. Several institutions offer the course “Higher Education as a Field of Study,” which is designed to give students a context for their curriculum. Students whose career goals are to become part of a higher education faculty take this course to develop a conceptual framework for the study of higher education.74 Fife also argued that the total body of knowledge within an academic area is represented by all courses taught nationwide. The range of the knowledge is displayed in the organization or sequencing of courses and in the variety of courses offered in all the programs. A course becomes part of the curriculum both because that topic is important to the knowledge base



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

61

and it contains both research and practitioner-oriented dimensions, as well as because the program faculty has the necessary expertise. The American case suggests that there is a national consensus on the knowledge base for higher education as a field of study, indicated by the six most frequently offered courses by the majority of doctoral programs: administration, curriculum, finance, history, higher education law, and community colleges. Furthermore, the American experience shows that the field of higher education has already shifted its focus from research-oriented, discipline-based inquiry to professional training and multidisciplinary study. From the perspective of curriculum offerings in the 1970s and the early 1990s, American higher education programs have evolved from a generalized area of inquiry into a curriculum of professional specialization.75 Courses of administration are obviously predominant in the overall structure. Curricula of higher education doctoral programs now place more emphasis on providing academic and institutional leaders with administrative skills, knowledge, and understanding about the complexities of academic institutions.

Implications Fred Harcleroad argued that the American experience in the field of higher education suggests that higher education, as a developing academic field of study, went through a relatively long and sometimes painful gestation period.76 Evolvement of higher education as a newly emerged field in most developing countries indicates a similar experience. China’s experience suggests that the evolvement of the field and an increasing interest in the field has been a result and reflection of reforms in education administrative systems since the late 1970s. As development of higher education became a priority in the national policy agenda in China, there has been a compelling need for scholars and practitioners to study higher education and provide theoretical foundations, long-term development plans, and management strategies to implement comprehensive university reforms. The development of this burgeoning field in China is a testimony of Harcleroad’s statement as it has gone through struggles and challenges, and continues to seek answers and solutions to unresolved issues.

Notes   1.  Philip G. Altbach, “Research and Training in Higher Education: The State of the Art,” in Higher Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Centers and Programs, ed. Philip G. Altbach and D. Engberg (Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 2001).

62

Chapter 3

  2.  Altbach, “Research and Training in Higher Education.”   3.  Altbach, “Research and Training in Higher Education.”   4.  Barbara K. Townsend describes the history and role of AAHE and ASHE in the development of higher education as a graduate field of study in her book chapter “Doctoral Study in the Field of Higher Education,” in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, ed. John Smart (New York: Agathon Press, 1990), 6:161–99.   5.  Townsend, “Doctoral Study in the Field of Higher Education.”   6.  Arthur J. Dibden, “A Department of Higher Education: Problems and Prospects,” Educational Record 46 (1965): 209–12; A. M. Palmer, “Professional Study of Higher Education,” Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges 16 (1930): 283–85.   7.  C. W. Burnett, “Higher Education as a Specialized Field of Study: A Review and Interpretation of the Literature,” in Higher Education as a Field of Study: Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting (Chicago: Association of Professors of Higher Education, 1972); J. C. Ewing and W. H. Stickler, “Progress in the Development of Higher Education as a Field of Professional Graduate Study and Research,” Journal of Teacher Education 15 (1964): 397–403.   8.  J. F. Rogers, Higher Education as a Field of Study at the Doctoral Level (Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, National Education Association, 1969).   9.  Paul L. Dressel and Lewis B. Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study: The Emergence of a Profession (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974). 10.  S. O. Mason and Barbara K. Townsend, “Graduates of Doctoral Programs in Higher Education: Demographics and Career Patterns,” Paper presented at an annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, St. Louis, MO, 1988. 11.  Altbach and Engberg, Higher Education. 12.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 13.  Abraham Flexner, Medical Education in the United States and Canada (New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1910). 14.  The book has more than seven hundred pages. It was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1932. 15.  Burnett, “Higher Education as a Specialized Field of Study.” 16.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 17.  These studies and their significance can be found in The History of the California Master Plan for Higher Education: Digital Archive, available at http://sunsite.berkeley .edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/masterplan/pre1960.html. 18.  J. C. Ewing, The Development and Current Status of Higher Education as a Field of Graduate Study and Research in American Universities (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Florida State University, 1963); Marvin Peterson, “Form, Functions and Strategic Issues in the Study of Higher Education,” Journal of Research and Development in Higher Education 6 (1973): 16–29. 19.  S. M. Pemberton, A Brief Historical Review of Research on Higher Education (1900–1960) (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare National Institute of Education, 1980). 20.  Martin Trow and Burton R. Clark, “The Organizational Context,” in College Peer Groups: Problems and Prospects for Research, ed. Theodore M. Newcomb and Everett K. Wilson (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966), 17–70.



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

63

21.  Arthur J. Dibden, “A Department of Higher Education: Problems and Prospects,” Educational Record 46 (1965): 209–12. 22.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 23.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 24.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study, 31. 25.  Jonathan D. Fife and Lester F. Goodchild, eds., Administration as a Profession (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991). 26.  S. Brint and J. Karable, The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America (1900–1985) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 27.  Dibden, “A Department of Higher Education: Problems and Prospects.” 28.  Michael B. Katz, “From Theory to Survey in Graduate Schools of Education,” Journal of Higher Education 37 (1966): 325–34. 29.  Katz, “From Theory to Survey in Graduate Schools of Education,” 332. 30.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 31.  W. C. Hobbs and J. B. Francis, “On the Scholarly Activity of Higher Educationists,” Journal of Higher Education 44, no. 1 (1977): 51–60. 32.  Joan Stark and L. A. Lattuca, Shaping the College Curriculum: Academic Plans in Action (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997). 33.  Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Missions of the College Curriculum: A Contemporary Review with Suggestions (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1977). 34.  R. J. Kushner, “Curriculum as Strategy: The Scope and Organization of Business Education in Liberal Arts Colleges,” Journal of Higher Education 70 (1990): 413–45. 35.  P. Kotler and P. E. Murphy, “Strategic Planning for Higher Education,” Journal of Higher Education 52 (1981): 470–89. 36.  H. Mintzberg, “Opening Up the Definition of Strategy,” in The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts and Cases, ed. J. B. Quinn, H. Mintzberg, and R. M. James (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988). 37.  M. J. Clark, R. T. Hartnett, and L. L. Baird, Assessing Dimensions of Quality in Doctoral Education: A Technical Report of a National Study in Three Fields (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1976); C. F. Conrad and A. M. Pratt, “Designing for Quality,” Journal of Higher Education 56, no. 6 (1985): 601–22; J. S. Glazer, The Master’s Degree: Tradition, Diversity, Innovation, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report no. 6. (Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1986); C. W. Minkel and M. P. Richards, Components of Quality in Master’s Degree Programs (Knoxville: University of Tennessee at Knoxville Graphic Arts Service, 1986); W. Toombs and William G. Tierney, Meeting the Mandate: Renewing the College and Departmental Curriculum, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report no. 6 (Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1992). 38.  M. J. Clark, R. T. Hartnett, and L. L. Baird, Assessing Dimensions of Quality in Doctoral Education. 39.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study, 25. 40.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study, 36. 41.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study.

64

Chapter 3

42.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study; J. D. Grace, Higher Education as a Profession: A Curriculum Analysis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, 1984). 43.  T. M. Davis, E. L. Faith, and P. H. Murrell, “Missions of Higher Education Doctoral Programs: Corollaries, Constraints, And Cultures,” in Administration as a Profession, ed. Jonathan D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991); Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study; J. D. Grace and J. D. Fife, “A Profile of Student Expectations of Graduate Programs in Higher Education: A Marketing Approach,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Student of Higher Education, San Antonio, TX, 1986; Townsend, “Doctoral Study in the Field of Higher Education.” 44.  Fife and Goodchild, Administration as a Profession; Davis, Faith, and Murrell, “Missions of Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” 45.  Davis, Faith, and Murrell, “Missions of Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” 46.  W. C. Hobbs and J. B. Francis, “On the Scholarly Activity of Higher Educationists,” Journal of Higher Education 58 (1973): 443–62. 47.  C. Fincher, “Research in Higher Education: The Possibilities and Actualities of Disciplined Inquiry,” Research in Higher Education 32 (1991): 625–50. 48.  Dibden, “A Department of Higher Education: Problems and Prospects.” 49.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 50.  D. D. Dill and J. L. Morrison, “Ed.D. and Ph.D. Research Training in the Field of Higher Education: A Survey and a Proposal,” The Review of Higher Education 8 (1985): 169–86. 51.  G. K. Schweitzer, The Doctorate: A Handbook (Springfield, IL: Thomas Books, 1965). 52.  National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2000 (Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, January 2001), NCES 2001-034, Table 260. 53.  R. T. Osguthorpe and M. J. Wong, “The Ph.D. versus the Ed.D.: Time for a Decision,” Innovative Higher Education 18, no. 1 (1993): 47–63. 54.  Schweitzer, The Doctorate. 55.  Jack K. Nelson and Calleen Coorough, “Content Analysis of the Ph.D. versus Ed.D Dissertation,” Journal of Experimental Education 62, no. 2 (1994): 158–69. 56.  Dill and Morrison, “Ed.D. and Ph.D. Research Training in the Field of Higher Education.” 57.  Barbara K. Townsend, “Rethinking the Ed.D., or What’s in a Name?” paper presented for the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Sacramento, CA, November 21–24, 2002. 58.  J. D. Grace’s research (1984) on curriculum of higher education described the curricular characteristics of graduate programs in higher education for the purpose of establishing criteria upon which to measure the professionalization of the field. 59.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 60.  Grace, Higher Education as a Profession. 61.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 62.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 63.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study, 61.



Higher Education, an Evolving Academic Field in the United States

65

64.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 65.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study. 66.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study, 32. 67.  A. L. Roaden and D. L. Larimore, “The Scholar-Practitioner Paradox, Revisited in Higher Education,” Journal of Research and Development in Education 6, no. 2 (1973): 50–62. 68.  A. D. Henderson et al., Training University Administrators: A Program Guide (Paris: UNESCO, 1970). 69.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study; Jonathan D. Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs,” in Administration as a Profession, ed. J. D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991), 78–79. 70.  Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” 71.  L. F. Goodchild, “Higher Education as a Field of Study: Its Origins, Programs, and Purposes (1893–1960),” in Fife and Goodchild, Administration as a Profession. 72.  Grace and Fife, “A Profile of Student Expectations of Graduate Programs in Higher Education.” 73.  Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” 74.  Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” 75.  Dressel and Mayhew, Higher Education as a Field of Study; Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” 76.  Fred F. Harcleroad, ed., Higher Education: A Developing Field of Study (Iowa City, IA: ACT Publications, 1974).

4 The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure of Higher Education as a Field of Study

Higher education as a field to produce scholarship and prepare academic leadership requires a combination of intellectual, theoretical, and practical knowledge and skills to accomplish complex tasks. Doctoral education is a process of acquiring knowledge, research skills, and understanding. The process takes place primarily through the curriculum, courses, and other academic and professional activities. This study intends to look into the history, the size, areas of specialization and concentration, and organizational location of the doctoral programs within China’s higher education institutions. The study presents findings from six programs, which represent the field of higher education of the country in terms of size, history, prestige, and peer program recognition. This research examines data collected from thirty-one interviews with individual doctoral students, seventeen interviews with individual faculty members and program directors, along with written documents, including program handbooks, catalogs, syllabi, textbooks, web publications, and other related written documents, in order to determine whether the field of higher education studies possesses unique knowledge and skills. The research also collects the demographic information of each program, including the program history, organizational structure, number of doctoral students enrolled, number of faculty members, and areas of specialization. In addition, the study is interested in the history of each program as the history often illustrates the evolvement of the field of higher education. The primary question of this study is concerned with the knowledge and curricular structure of higher education as a field of study. The study adopted Jonathan Fife’s conceptual framework for analyzing the curricular structure of doctoral programs in the field of higher education (see 67

68

Chapter 4

chapter 3, figure 3.2).1 Fife’s framework classifies courses offered in higher education doctoral programs into one or more of the eight conceptual areas: introductory/foundation courses, which are defined as broad-based introductory and foundational courses of the field, theory courses, application courses, clinical and internship experience and courses, synthesis courses, research courses, dissertation research requirement, and continuing professional and lifelong learning courses, which include special seminar, workshops, and conferences on new practices in higher education areas. This model is specifically designed for curricular analysis of doctoral programs in higher education. The research adopts this model to illustrate how curriculum of higher education is organized and how the knowledge is distributed and dispersed in the curriculum. The conceptual framework is straightforward in displaying curriculum structures of doctoral programs in higher education. In addition, an inventory of courses is established to explore the common core knowledge in the field of higher education based on the consistency of courses offered in the curriculum (see table 4.2). The six programs selected for the research include the four oldest and largest programs in the field, the “Big Four,” and two relatively new ones. The six universities housing these programs have many characteristics in common. All of them are baccalaureate universities with graduate schools or graduate programs. They are all national key universities under the auspices of MOE or other central ministerial agencies or departments (see table 4.1). They all are universities of Project 211 and Program 985, which have received substantial funding from the state to become world-class research universities. However, at the same time, they are distinctive in institutional history, tradition, academic emphasis and orientations, and geographical locations. They Table 4.1.  Categories of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in China in 2007 Total

Regular HEIs 1.  Baccalaureate HEIs HEIs with Graduate Programs 2.  Two- or Three-Year Colleges (Including 1015 Tech-Vocational HEIs) 3.  HEIs for Adults 4.  Nonstate/Private HEIs

HEIs under HEIs under HEIs under Nonstate Private Local MOE Other Authorities HEIs Central Agencies

1908 740 479

73 73 73

38 33 25

1502 604 381

295 30 —

1168

—

5

898

265

413 906

1 —

2 —

397 —

2 906

Source: Educational Statistical Yearbook of China, 2008.



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

69

Table 4.2.  Inventory of Courses in the Field of Higher Education Discipline Content (courses originated from other disciplines: history, sociology, philosophy, economics, etc.) Administration •  General administration •  Specialized areas of administration (administration of adult and continuing education, residence life, institutional research, student services, and technology systems) •  Administrative skills (skills in budgeting and finance, faculty and personnel administration, law, business management, planning, and policy) •  Theories of higher education administration (theories of change strategies, leadership, organizational change, organizational theory, and administration) Specific Area Focuses (issues related to curriculum, faculty, teaching and instruction, and students) Issues Affecting Higher Education (courses incorporate interdisciplinary methods as well as theoretical and applied concepts. Their purpose is to develop an understanding of the magnitude of these issues and the various ways they affect the institutions. ) —General issues (foundation/introductory courses) —Specific issues (subtopics include comparative and international education, diversity, enrollment—policies, attrition, and retention—technology, and miscellaneous issues.) Special Sectors of Higher Education (sectors include community college, continuing education, adult education, vocational education, and private colleges.) Research Higher Education as a Field of Study Source: Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs,” 78.

are pursuing a unique group of objectives and specializations, and demonstrating different approaches to staffing, funding, research, and teaching. All six programs of higher education are worth noting. They represent six different types of programs with commonalities but also uniqueness.

Demographic Profiles Xiamen University Xiamen University was founded by a patriotic overseas Chinese entrepreneur in 1921 as a private university. It became a public comprehensive university after 1949. The university is located in the coastal city Xiamen,

70

Chapter 4

one of the original four special economic zones during the reform era in the 1980s. The university administration decided to restore its historic mission, “Self-strengthening and highest excellence.” Because of its history and its ties with Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia, the university has always had strong academic ties with other prestigious universities in the region, including the ones in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand. The university is proud of its history, tradition, and its cultural identity. Some strong academic areas include economics, marine studies, and chemistry. The university has also introduced new areas of study in social sciences and humanities, including the first graduate program in higher education. Since it is located far away from Beijing, China’s political center, it does experience less political bureaucracy and receives more local support and respect due to its history and prestige. The university did not merge or consolidate any colleges or universities during the mid-1990s fad of academic mergers and consolidations. It built a new campus in the suburbs of Xiamen and established a subsidiary college to increase its enrollment and tuition revenue. The total enrollment of the university expanded from 7,714 in 1995 to 17,797 undergraduate students and 14,236 graduate students in 2005. The university receives a substantial amount of research funding from the central government and the provincial government as one of the Project 211 and Program 985 universities. It has received 0.57 billion Yuan (US$85 million) investment from the central government and local government from 1998 to 2005. The university’s research budget has increased from 27.5 million Yuan (US$4.2 million) in 1999 to 162 million Yuan (US$24 million) in 2005. As we noted in previous chapters, Xiamen University is the pioneer in offering higher education studies. Advocated by Pan Maoyuan, a forerunner in the field of higher education studies in China, the first ever higher education research office was established at Xiamen University in May 1978 and evolved to become a research institute in 1994. The degree program in this field was offered in 1982 after China adopted an academic degree system in 1981. Xiamen University was approved to be the first institution in China to grant a master’s degree in this field. In 1986, the Committee on Academic Degrees of the State Council accredited the institution to offer a doctoral program in higher education, the first doctoral degree program in this field. Currently, the Higher Education Research Institute at Xiamen University has eleven doctoral advisors/mentors and more than sixty-eight doctoral students, compared to four doctoral advisors and twenty doctoral students in 2001.2 The Higher Educational Development Research Center was established as an independent research unit in 2000 on the basis of the Institute of Higher Education Science. The center is recognized as one of the key research bases for humanities and social sciences by the Ministry of Education. It has three research centers: the Center for Higher Education



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

71

Theory and Policy, the Center for Higher Education Administration, and the Center for Higher Education Testing. Xiamen University’s doctoral program at the Higher Education Research Institute is regarded as one of the national key programs of social sciences. It offers six areas of specialization: higher education theories, higher education sociology, higher vocational education, higher education administration, comparative higher education, and testing research. It is noted that the program emphasizes research and theories. It has conducted several national studies, including a longitudinal study of college students from 2001 to 2005 and the quality of doctoral students. In recent years, the program has started to offer an applied approach to prepare administrators for various regional universities in that area. By the end of 2003, the total number of doctoral students having been admitted to the program had reached 102 since the inception of the program in 1987. About forty-one of them have graduated. Doctoral dissertations cover a broad spectrum of topics, including the history of ancient Chinese academy (shuyuan), higher education theories, contemporary issues of higher education in China (massification of higher education, private universities, etc.), and comparative studies of higher education (academic administration in China and the United States). Some dissertations demonstrate strong disciplinary roots, while others use cross-disciplinary research methods. Table 5.3 presents doctoral-level courses offered at Xiamen University’s Research Institute of Higher Education for 2005–2006. The doctoral program at Xiamen University shows that the overall curriculum consists of the university requirements of doctoral studies and the departmental required courses. The university common course requirement has thirteen credit hours, including foreign languages and political education, which account for more than half of the total required curriculum for doctoral study in higher education. Department core courses consist of a seminar of higher education and current issues in Chinese higher education. Students are required to choose one three-hour course to qualify their area of specialization. It is interesting to note that no research course is required as a degree requirement. Total hours for department degree requirements are eleven. Dissertation does not count for any hour. Elective courses are offered based on individual needs but counted toward the degree plan. Peking University Peking University is one of the oldest and the most prestigious university in China. Founded in 1898, Peking University was originally known as the Imperial University of Peking. It was the first modern university in Chinese history, and has played the significant role of pioneer in the course of

72

Chapter 4

Table 4.3.  Course Offerings in Higher Education at Xiamen University Course Area

Course Name

Higher Education Core Studies of Higher Education (Required: 8 hrs) Current Issues in Chinese Higher Education Specialization (One required: 3 hrs) Research Courses University Core Requirement

Elective Courses

Practicum/Internship Dissertation Total Required Hours

Credit Hours Percentage 4

46

4

Chinese Higher Education History 3 Curriculum and Instruction Western Higher Education Thoughts No 6 1st Foreign Language 4 2nd Foreign Language 3 Political Science and MarxismLeninism Philosophy System Engineering of Higher Education Higher Education in East Asia Research Methods in Higher Education Policy and Law Research on Chinese Higher Education Psychology of College Student and Counseling Sociology of Education Higher Education in Hong Kong and Taiwan Higher Education Measurement and Statistics Adolescent Psychology Higher Education Administration No Non-credit hour 24

54

100

Source: D  octoral Students Preparation Plan (2007) at the Higher Education Research Institute of Xiamen University.

China’s modernization. It is also the birthplace of modern ideas of democracy and science in China. At the centennial celebration of the founding of the university on May 4, 1998, the then-president of the People’s Republic of China, Jiang Zemin, delivered a speech and expressed the idea of “establishing a number of world-class socialist universities in China in order to accomplish modernization.”3 This policy initiative of building the first-class universities



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

73

and disciplines is also known as Project 985. Peking University has high hopes of becoming a world-class university in the twenty-first century. The university received 1.4 billion Yuan (US$210 million) as a government investment to boost up its research productivity. In 2001, the university had 24,000 students and 199 doctoral programs. The Research Institute of Higher Education at Peking University was founded in 1984 as an independent research institute on campus. The institute was approved to offer a master’s program in higher education in 1986 and a doctoral program in higher education in 1990. In 2000, the Graduate School of Education was formed as a new entity over the Research Institute of Higher Education. The Research Institute of Higher Education provides doctoral studies in three specializations: higher education theories and methods, higher education administration (public policy administration and higher education), and international comparative higher education. Meanwhile, the institute conducts theoretical and applied research on higher education, consultation, and policy recommendations to educational institutions and policymaking agencies in educational administration. Currently, the Institute of Higher Education has four full-time doctoral advisors, two adjunct doctoral advisors, and seventeen doctoral students, which has not changed since 2001. The early focus of doctoral programs at the Research Institute of Higher Education was placed on educational economics due to the faculty specialization in the area. The early dissertations of the doctoral program were dominated by educational economics and demonstrated a strong disciplinary-based research. These dissertations are concerned with the costeffectiveness analysis of educational investment from the state and input and output issues. Even after a doctoral program in educational economics was established in 1998, the doctoral program in higher education was still not completely freed from the dominance of research in educational economics. However, when new faculty joined the program, new methodologies, such as qualitative research, were introduced to and included in the curriculum. The research of the program covers a broad range of topics with strong disciplinary orientation, for example, history, sociology, and political science. The research projects tend to examine macro issues of education in China with a purpose of providing advice and suggestions for policymaking due to its location in Beijing and close ties with central administrative agencies and think tanks in Beijing. The focus of the research has also shown transition to more topics on the mechanism of higher education in the socialist market-oriented economy and micro issues dealing with academic administration. Table 4.4 displays the courses offered to doctoral students at the Peking University Institute of Higher Education for 2005–2006. Doctoral students are required to take eight hours in foreign languages and three hours in

74

Chapter 4

Marxism theories to fulfill the university requirements of common courses, which account for more than half of the total curriculum requirements. Department requirements of core courses consist of literature on educational classics, foundation of higher education, current issues in Chinese and international higher education, organizational theories and management of higher education, seminar on higher education, and research methodology in higher education, totaling ten credit hours, which accounts for 48 percent of the total curriculum. Dissertation does not count for any hours. Electives can be taken based on the individual needs of doctoral students. Elective courses have more varieties than the ones at other programs probably due to the size of its faculty and the specialized areas of its faculty. The elective courses are drawn from such disciplines as economics, history, and statistics. The program offers more courses in research methodology and educational economics than other programs. East China Normal University East China Normal University (ECNU) is a highly reputable teacher training university under the auspices of the Ministry of Education (MOE). The university leaders had a vision for the university to become a comprehensive university with education as its leading field and several other worldclass areas of scholarship. During the fad of the academic merger and consolidation in the mid-1990s, it merged several local teacher training colleges in order to become a comprehensive university to serve Shanghai and the surrounding Yangtze River delta. Under the nation’s massification and expansion policy of higher education, the student body of the university has increased from 5,913 in 1995 to 12,256 in 2005 and graduate students increased from 1,320 to 6,898. The faculty-to-student ratio increased from 1:4.7 to 1:11.2. Traditionally students of normal universities are expected to take teaching positions after graduation from the university. Therefore, it is essential for all students to take teacher education courses. To build a comprehensive world-class research university, the university decided to diversify its curriculum so that half of the students are in academic programs other than teacher education. The university was selected by the Ministry of Education for Project 211 and received a substantial amount of investment from Program 985. It built a new campus in Minhang, a suburb of Shanghai. The administration and all departments moved there, except education and foreign languages. Its old campus now has an international center for 5,000 international students. The university maintains close ties with Ecole Normal Superieur in Paris and other Grandes Ecoles in France, universities in Japan, and in the United States. It tends to set an example for the rest of the normal universities in China as a modern teacher training institution in the globalization era.



75

The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

Table 4.4.  Course Offerings in Higher Education at Peking University Course Area

Course Name

Higher Education Core Literature of Educational Classics (Required) Foundations of Higher Education

Research Courses (Required) University Core Requirement Electives

Credit Hours Percentage 2

47.6

2

Current Issues in Chinese and International Higher Education

1

Organizational Theories and Management of Higher Education

2

Seminar on Higher Education

2

Research Methodology in Higher Education 1st Foreign Language

1

2nd Foreign Language

4

Marxism Theories Advanced Studies in Economics of Education

3

4

52.4

Economics of Education Theory of Curriculum and Instruction Educational Statistics International Comparative Higher Education History of Foreign Higher Education History of Chinese Higher Education Organizational Behavior and Management Psychology Chinese Higher Education System Qualitative Research in Education Computer Application in Educational Research Practicum/Internship Dissertation Total Hours

Higher Education Administration No Non-credit 21

100

Source: D  octoral Students Preparation Plan (2007) at the Higher Education Research Institute of Peking University.

In 1994, East China Normal University was approved by the National Committee on Academic Degrees to offer doctoral studies in higher educa-

76

Chapter 4

tion. Six research orientations are offered for doctoral students, including higher education theories, higher education administration, higher education policies, comparative higher education, higher education evaluation, and teacher education. The program has six doctoral advisors, including four full-time and two adjunct faculty members. Ruth Hayhoe, professor at the University of Toronto and specialist on comparative education and education in China, serves as an adjunct faculty member of the program. The program is offered by the Research Institute of Higher Education, a departmental-level unit located within the School of Education Science. It enrolled thirty-seven doctoral students in 2005, compared to fifteen enrolled in 2001. About forty-two students had received doctoral degrees by 2004. Dissertation topics primarily cover the following seven areas: higher education theories, higher education quality and evaluation, teacher education, comparative education, higher education history, university curriculum, and career of college graduates. Among them, 40 percent of the dissertations are concerned with higher education theories and macromanagement (courses such as development theory of higher education and its application in China; analysis of Chinese higher education system, etc.). Table 4.5 illustrates courses offered in the doctoral study of higher education at East China Normal University. The research core courses include higher education theories, higher education administration, and comparative higher education. These are not research methodology-oriented courses but core courses of the field. This accounts for 39 percent of total degree course requirements; foreign language study and political study, as university common courses, account for 30 percent of overall curriculum. Total degree required courses are twenty-three credit hours. The program places a strong emphasis on practicum, which includes three components, literature reading, seminar attendance, and publications of two journal articles. Huazhong University of Science and Technology Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) is a conglomerate university as the result of a series of mergers and consolidations in 2000 of the former Huazhong Institute of Technology (founded in 1953), Tongji Medical University (founded in 1907), Wuhan Urban Construction Institute (founded in 1954), and Wuhan Vocational College of Science and Technology (founded in 1968). The University is one of leading universities directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. Full-time students numbered over 50,000, including 12,000 master’s students and 4,400 doctoral students. The university has a strong emphasis on research. Even in 1984, Huazhong Institute of Technology was one of the twenty-two state key universities approved to establish a graduate school by the State Council. The Insti-



77

The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

Table 4.5.  Course Offerings in Higher Education at East China Normal University Course Area

Course Name

Credit Hours Percentage

Department Core Courses Specialization (2 credit hours) Research Courses (9 credit hours)

One cross-disciplinary or major course Research on Higher Education Theories

2

9

3

39

University Common Core Courses (7 credit hours) Electives (2 credit hours, choose 1 or 2 courses)

Practicum/Internship (3 credit hours)

Research on Higher Education Administration

3

Research on Comparative Higher Education Foreign Language

3 4

Political Science and Theory

3

Higher Education Policy Research

2

Research of Higher Education Development

2

Research Management Research

2

Higher Education Evaluation

2

Seminar on Teacher Education

2

Readings of Higher Education Literature

2

Second Foreign Language At fifty attendances to academic seminars

2 1

30

9

13

Social research-oriented practicum 1 Dissertation Total Required Hours

Two publications at core journals Non-credit hour

1 23

100

Source: D  octoral Students Preparation Plan (2007) at the Higher Education Research Institute in East China Normal University.

tute had thirty master’s degree programs and thirteen doctoral programs approved by the newly established Committee for Academic Degrees under the State Council in 1982 through a heavily regulated evaluation process. Only twenty-two universities received the approval for establishing a graduate school that year. The university has a long tradition of including humanities and social sciences in its academic programs and curriculum. The Institute of Higher Education was founded in 1985 as an independent research institute at Huazhong

78

Chapter 4

University of Science and Technology. The program was approved to grant a doctoral degree in higher education in 1998. The doctoral program in higher education provides studies in areas of higher education administration, higher education theories, higher education philosophy, and moral education. In 2000, the Graduate School of Educational Science was established on the basis of the Institute of Higher Education. The newly formed school also contains the International Comparative Education Research Center, the Basic Education Research Institute, and the Psychology Research Institute. Besides doctoral and master’s degrees in higher education, it also offers an MPA in educational economics and administration. At present, the program in higher education has nine doctoral-level faculty and fifty doctoral students. The school organizes both domestic and international conferences on higher education and hosts the Journal of Higher Education Research. The creation and development of the Research Institute of Higher Education was attributed to the former president of HUST, Zhu Jiusi. In Ruth Hayhoe’s Portraits of Influential Chinese Educators, she described Zhu Jiusi as a visionary academic leader. Zhu is a well-established intellectual and political figure with a high degree of academic initiative. He had ideas of attracting top scholars and having research lead teaching after the Cultural Revolution.4 These ideas are far in advance of the governmental thinking of his time. After his retirement in 1984, Zhu was engaged in teaching and research on higher education at the Research Institute of Higher Education. He served as doctoral advisor for the first group of doctoral students graduated from the institute. Table 4.6 displays information regarding course offerings at the Higher Education Institute of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Courses offered include department-required core course, university-required common courses, interdisciplinary courses, courses of specialization, and elective courses. The curriculum requires twelve credit hours for doctoral studies in higher education, with five credit hours for university common core courses consisting of foreign language study and Marxism theories, five hours for department-required courses in philosophy of education, foundations of higher education, and a one-hour seminar course and a two-hour interdisciplinary course from other departments or schools based on individual interests. Electives are optional according to individual needs, but they do not count as degree requirements. Dissertation does not count for any hours. The percentage of department core course requirement is fiftyeight and university common courses forty-two. Besides the four oldest and largest programs in higher education, two newer higher education programs at Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiaotong University, are included in the research for comparison in order to illustrate differences and commonalities between the new and the old programs.



79

The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

Table 4.6. Course Offerings in Higher Education at Huazhong University of Science and Technology Course Area

Course Name

Credit Hours Percentage

Foundation Core Seminar Specialization (Required one: 2 hrs)

Philosophy of Education Seminar in Higher Education Foundations of Higher Education Higher Education Administration Moral Education (On individual need)

2 1 2

Interdisciplinary Courses (Required) Research Courses University Common Courses Elective Courses

Practicum/Internship Dissertation Total Required Hours

No 1st Foreign Language

58.3

2

3

41.7

Marxism-Leninism Philosophy and 2 Modern Thoughts Chinese Higher Education History Western Higher Education History Educational Psychology Educational Research Methodology Sociology of Education Higher Education Evaluation Cultural Studies of Education Comparative Higher Education No 12

100

Source: D  octoral Students Preparation Plan (2007) at the Higher Education Research Institute of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University, regarded as China’s MIT, was built in 1911 with the funding provided by the Boxer Rebellion Indemnity Scholarship Program, which consisted of money from indemnities China had paid the United States following the Boxer Rebellion. It was originally built as a preparatory school for students to be sent by the government to study in the United States. The faculty members for sciences were recruited by the YMCA from the United States, and its graduates transferred directly to American schools as juniors upon graduation. In 1925, the school established its College Department as the National Tsinghua University and started its Research Institute on Chinese Study. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Tsinghua University became a polytechnical university focusing on engineering as the result of China’s university restructuring plan to build a Soviet-style system with individual institutions specialized in a

80

Chapter 4

certain field. Since the 1980s, the university began to build and restore new disciplines and programs. It has established the School of Sciences, School of Economics and Business, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Law School, School of Public Policy and Management, the Academy of Arts and Design, and medical school. As one of the top-tier universities, Tsinghua University had a total enrollment of 31,786 in 2007, with 13,788 undergraduates, 12,842 master’s students, and 5,156 doctoral students, with 2,321 foreign students. Tsinghua University established its doctoral program in higher education in 2004. The program is provided by the Institute of Education with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. The program had fourteen doctoral students in 2008, but only two have graduated from the program. Among the current students, nine students are full-time and five are teaching or administrative staff at Tsinghua. The program has four doctoral advisors/mentors. Two specialized areas are offered in the programs: higher education studies and educational economics and administration. This new program in higher education emphasizes research and has a clear degree plan for doctoral students. The program has initiated several national research projects, including the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), funded by the Ford Foundation. The project is modeled after the famous NSSE of Indiana University at Bloomington. Table 4.7 displays the courses offered to doctoral students at the Tsinghua University’s Research Institute of Education for 2006–2007. Doctoral students are required to take two credit hours in foreign languages and a threecredit-hour course of Marxism and Contemporary Social Thoughts to fulfill the university common course requirements for the doctoral students, which accounts for 25 percent of the total curriculum requirements. Students have to take a minimum of ten credit hours to fulfill the departmental requirement, including fundamental theories of higher education (three credit hours) and higher education core courses (minimum seven credit hours). The core of higher education courses consists of literature on educational classics, foundation of higher education, current issues in Chinese and international higher education, organizational theories and management of higher education, seminar on higher education, and research methodology in higher education, totaling ten credit hours, which accounts for 47.6 percent of the total curriculum. The university requires a practicum and internship experience as part of the curriculum for the doctoral program. Dissertation does not accumulate any credit hours. The program requires the students to read extensively on the literature of higher education in order to choose a research topic and write a research proposal. About forty books are listed in the degree plan as required reading for the program. More than half of the books are foreign literature either in English or translated versions in Chinese.



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

81

For the students who are new to the area of higher education as a field of study and have not studied higher education in the master’s program, the program requires them to take an extra eighteen credit hours of courses in fundamental theories as prerequisites for the doctoral study after entering the doctoral program, thereby making their curriculum thirty-eight credit hours. These classes of fundamental theories include the study of higher education, educational research methodology, Chinese and foreign history of education, international and comparative education, organizational theory and educational administration, statistics for education, qualitative research and its application in education, and social psychology. Therefore, though not much emphasis is placed on educational research, it is assumed that doctoral students have already taken these types of courses in their master’s level of study. The doctoral program shifts the emphasis on independent research with the assigned advisors and mentors and familiarity of literature in the field rather than the research methodology itself. Doctoral students are expected to apply research methodology in designing their research in practice when writing their research proposal and dissertation. Shanghai Jiaotong University Shanghai Jiatong University was established after 1898 when the Qing lost in the war against Japan and built as the Nanyang Public School to promote science and technology learning in China. The school initially focused only on politics, law, and translations of western literature. In 1937, the university came under the authority of the Ministry of Education. During the Anti-Japanese War (1937–1945), the university was temporarily relocated to the French Concession in Shanghai and then to various places in central China. At the end of the war, all sectors of the university returned to their original campuses. The university was split in two in 1954 as the result of China’s higher education restructuring, and the majority of disciplines and departments moved westward to become the then–newly founded Xi’an Jiaotong University. Traditionally, the university is well-known for its teaching and research in the fields of science, engineering, and technology. After 1985, the university established new schools and programs in law, humanities, and social sciences. It added a College of Agriculture and a College of Medicine after it took in Shanghai Agricultural College in 1999 and Shanghai 2nd Medical University in 2005 as a goal to become a world-class research university. The total enrollment of the university was 26,228 in 2006, including 9,469 graduate students (3,457 doctoral students, 6,192 master’s students), 15,285 full-time undergraduate students, and 1,474 foreign students on campus. The university also has an adult learning college and an Internet learning college, which have an enrollment of about 27,000 students.

82

Chapter 4

Table 4.7.  Course Offerings in Higher Education at Tsinghua University Course Area

Course Name

Credit Hours Percentage

University Core Requirement (5 credit hours) Fundamental Theory Courses (Required; 3 credit hours) Higher Education Core (Required; minimum 7 credit hours)

Foreign Language Marxism Theories

2 3

25

Educational Literature

3

17

Seminar on Research of Higher Education Studies

2

33

Philosophy and Social Foundations 2 of Higher Education Development and Policy Analysis of 2 Higher Education

Required Phases (4 credit hours)

Seminar on Higher Education Psychology

2

Seminar on Education and Human Resource Development

2

Degree and Graduate Education Literature Reading and Proposal Presentation

2 1

20

Academic Activities and Academic 2 Presentations Qualification Exam Practicum/Internship Publication Requirement Dissertation Total Hours

1

Internship Yes 1 Two journal articles are required to be published in core journals of the field Non-credit 20

5

100

Source: D  octoral Students Preparation Plan (2007) at the Education Research Institute of Tsinghua University.

Compared to other universities, Shanghai Jiaotong University only came to the field of higher education in 1998 when a master’s program was approved to be offered at the Higher Education Research Institute. In 2003, the research institute started a doctoral program in science and technology and higher education. In 2007, the Graduate School of Education (gaodeng jiaoyu yanjiuyuan, School of Higher Education Research) was established on the basis of the Research Institute of Higher Education as part of the university’s ambition to become a world-class comprehensive research university.



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

83

It is small in size but innovative with new specialized areas and distinctive research orientations from other programs. From the beginning, the program has integrated research with application. The graduate program’s research in world-class universities is the first in the nation. The Center of World-Class Research publishes the Academic Ranking of World Universities and has attracted attentions from all over the world. The program has organized three international conferences on World-Class Universities and the Center for World-Class Universities since 2003 and organized a meeting for the International Rankings Expert Group. The school also publishes the Journal of International Higher Education. Currently, the program has thirty-one master’s students and four doctoral students. It has ten full-time faculty and research staff and ten adjunct faculty and affiliated research staff, including two doctoral advisors. The doctoral program is a three-year program with a minimum seventeen credit hours. The doctoral program at Shanghai Jiaotong University describes its objective as to prepare high-level specialized professionals with broad knowledge and solid understanding of issues and trends of domestic and overseas higher education research with independent research and analytical ability in order to work in educational administration, consulting, and research. The program has five subresearch centers: the World-Class University Research Center, Strategy and Management Research Center, the Research Center of Modern University System, University Instruction Research Center, and the Graduate Education Research Center. These are also specialized areas for doctoral students.

Curricular Requirements and Components The sample programs represent several types of research universities in China. Each program has its own distinctive characteristics and emphasis embedded in the overall academic culture of the university. Some have a strong social science and humanities tradition, and some have a strong science, technology, and engineering background but with an ambition to become a world-class comprehensive university and build and strengthen their social science research. Some are traditional comprehensive universities. Higher education is formed as an academic field as a way to build research programs in social sciences and management. In teacher-training universities, the study of higher education is an even more important subfield within the discipline of education. After examining the curriculum of the higher education program at the six universities, it is evident to see that curriculum at the doctoral level primarily consists of two categories of instructional courses: courses to meet department degree requirements and courses to meet university require-

84

Chapter 4

Table 4.8.  Course Offerings in Higher Education at Shanghai Jiaotong University Course Area

Course Name

Credit Hours Percentage

University Core Requirement (6 credit hours)

Foreign Language (English)

3

3 Marxism Theories and Modern Science and Technology Revolution Required Core Courses Quantitative Research Methodology 3 (5 credit hours) for Science and Educational Administration Academic Research Seminar Higher Education Core Seminar on the World-Class Universities (Required; minimum 6 credit hours) Policy and Administration of Science and Technology

Practicum/Internship Publication Requirement Dissertation Total Hours

2 3

35

30

35

3

Seminar on Instruction for University Education

3

Seminar on Higher Education Administration

3

Seminar on Graduate Education 2 No Two journal articles are required to be published on core journals of the field Non-credit ≥ 17

100

Source: Doctoral Students Preparation Plan (2007) of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiaotong University.

ments of common core courses. University common core courses usually include courses of foreign language and political studies. They are required by the National Committee for Academic Degree to all doctoral students. University common course requirement accounts for about half of the doctoral curriculum at all universities. In addition to the universal requirements of foreign language studies and political studies, the Committee for Academic Degrees requires the doctoral program in higher education to offer two compulsory courses as the core of the doctoral program, study of higher education, and issues of Chinese higher education. The two courses are intended to cover major theoretical questions regarding higher education development and a broad range of issues and practical problems in China’s higher education arena. Each program has the freedom to make its own curriculum and decides how to cover knowledge required by the national guideline. Some programs may choose a seminar; some may cover the knowledge in several seminars or courses.



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

85

Regardless of the format, the content and the scope of the core courses demonstrate a strong interdisciplinary nature of the academic field as the courses cover a broad range of subjects and issues from multiple disciplines. Some of these core courses amass as much information as possible about higher education hoping that the accumulated information will cover every single aspect of higher education. Generally the core courses consist of two to five courses, including courses concerned with theories, histories, administration, and current issues of higher education. The core covers the fundamental knowledge of the field. The number of core courses offered at each program depends on the number of faculty members and their specialty areas. It is evident that core requirements tend to be broad both in numbers and varieties when the program has more faculty members. The range of course offerings in large programs is much wider than that of the smaller programs. Large programs also provide more elective courses and specialized areas than the smaller programs. Though each program is embedded at universities with distinctive history, academic culture, and emphasis, commonality can be drawn in course offerings across all programs. One commonly held introductory course at all programs is the foundation of higher education. The course, as most syllabi indicated, discusses values, functions, goals, and missions of higher education as well as the relationship between higher education and its social context. Topics such as democratization, globalization, and modernization of higher education are also covered in class discussion. Higher education studies and current issues in Chinese higher education are offered across all programs as foundation and introductory courses. These two courses discuss broad issues regarding research and issues in higher education. For example, the higher education studies course offered at the East China Normal University specifies objectives and content of this course as to “understand values, functions, goals of universities, and underlying philosophy and issues in higher education.” Literature of the course includes Ernest Boyer’s The Undergraduate Experience in America (1987), and Clark Kerr’s The Uses of the University (1963) as well as monographs by Chinese scholars. The philosophy of education course, described in the syllabus obtained from the Huazhong University of Science of Technology, aims to enable students to learn both Chinese and Western philosophy in education. Reading includes works by Confucius, Mencius, Marx, Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and John Dewey. Course discussions emphasize Marxist philosophy and its application in education. This course often serves as the foundation for future research in Chinese education. What does not show on the degree plan and course structure of these programs is the reading requirements, a key component of the overall doctoral curriculum across all programs. Some programs offer a specific read-

86

Chapter 4

ing course. For example, a literature reading course at Peking University is designed to expose students to Western and Chinese classics on higher education. The objectives are to strengthen understanding of higher education theories and to pave a broad and deep foundation for future research. Literature includes classics on higher education, educational economics, and management science, such as The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman (1996), The Uses of the University by Clark Kerr (1963), Functions of the Executive by Chester Barnard (1968), and Economy and Society by Max Weber (1954) as well as some Chinese literature on higher education. Syllabi indicate that most foreign literature is available in Chinese versions. These books also demonstrate the multidisciplinary nature of the field. Some curricula list about forty to fifty books for students to read through the doctoral study period. Readings are drawn from the similar pool of literature and include both Chinese and foreign literature (please see the appendix for the reading list). The reading list includes, among others, Burton Clark’s The Higher Education System (1983); Perspectives on Higher Education: Eight Disciplinary and Comparative Views (1984); The Organizational Context by Burton Clark and Martin Trow (1966); Clark Kerr’s Uses of the University (1962); Higher Education Cannot Escape History: Issues for the Twenty-first Century (1994); and The Great Transformation in Higher Education 1960–1980 (1991); Frank Rhodes’s The Role of the American University (2001); Derek Bok’s Beyond the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibilities of the Modern University (1984); John H. Van de Graaf et al.’s Academic Power: Patterns of Authority in Seven National Systems of Higher Education (1978); Ernest L. Boyer’s College: The Undergraduate Experience in America; and John Brubacher’s On the Philosophy of Higher Education.5 In addition to Western literature, a number of books by Chinese scholars are widely used, including Hao Keming and Wang Yongquan’s Research on China’s Higher Education Structure (1988), Pan Maoyuan’s newly edited book New Higher Education Study (1996), and Market Economy and Higher Education (1999) by Chen Lie, among others. It is the belief shared by all programs that these books instill knowledge about the field. These books, both Chinese and Western, direct the thinking of students and scholars of the field. Some books have exerted strong influence in scholarly research as well as national policies on higher education. For instance, Martin Trow’s collected essays The University in the Highly Educated Society: From Elite to Mass Higher Education (1976) was translated into Chinese and widely read and cited by Chinese scholars when the country’s higher education was making transition from elite to mass. Policymakers and scholars cited Trow’s theory to affirm the anticipated result of the university expansion policy implemented in the mid-1990s. Burton Clark’s seminal book The Higher Education System (1983) was endorsed by Chinese scholars when the government and scholars at elite universities advocated a multitier system of higher education. Shen Hong’s book on the Formation



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

87

and Development of American Research Universities is widely used when scholars discuss the state discourse on building world-class research universities.6 While is evident that there is a strong relationship between current issues in higher education and the popularity of these books on higher education, it is difficult to discern whether this literature has influenced the thinking and policymaking in Beijing, or if the current issues of policymaking have exerted strong influence on the reading choice of the doctoral study in higher education. Compared to other components of the curriculum, research courses are rarely required in the doctoral programs, and only a limited number of research courses are offered in these programs. The dissertation is usually not counted as a credit course in the degree plan, and no structured internship courses are offered. Elective courses can be either departmental electives or cross-disciplinary elective courses, but generally, they are not counted in the degree plan. In addition to core course requirement, universities, such as Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Tsinghua University, reported that doctoral students are required to attend a certain number of academic lectures and presentations to meet the degree requirements.

Faculty and Students The enrollment of doctoral programs in higher education has been growing at an unprecedentedly rapid pace. Compared to 96 enrolled doctoral students across the whole nation in 2000, about 230 students are enrolled at 17 doctoral programs at the time of this writing. Programs vary in size from three to sixty-eight students. Large programs at Xiamen and Huazhong University of Science and Technology have more than fifty students each. Smaller new programs usually have four or five students. The number of doctoral advisors varies from one to eleven. New programs often have one or two doctoral advisors directing research and dissertation. Well-established programs, such as the “Big Four,” have an average of eight doctoral mentors. The ratio of doctoral student to full-time doctoral faculty at the “Big Four” averages 5.1:1. Some programs also have loosely affiliated faculty members from other departments. Some also reported to have overseas scholars serve as part-time or adjunct faculty members of the program. Hiring overseas scholars is an integral part of strategies to build the world-class university and world-class programs, but overseas scholars usually only teach in residence for a short time period each year. In some situations, when the program is located within a graduate school of education as a research institute, professors associated or affiliated with higher education hold titles in other departments within the school. When the program has an independent research institute on campus, professors affili-

88

Chapter 4

ated to the program of higher education often come from other disciplines or hold some administrative appointment, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of higher education as a field of study. The dually appointed or affiliated faculty members often come from sociology, public administration, economics, psychology, management, and other areas of education. At times, even some presidents or vice presidents hold a courtesy title, reflecting their desire for academic professoriate. Meanwhile, this reflects the departments’ desire to be closely associated with the administration and demand for practical experience and knowledge from practitioners. In some programs, there are as many affiliated faculty members as there are the full-time faculty. The makeup of the faculty certainly adds strength to the department or the research institute and earns acceptance and respect from the rest of the university. However, complaints are also associated with such faculty arrangements. Some faculty members pointed out that many of these affiliations are nominal and loosely associated to the program. Some also expressed their concern about the criticism of the program being too broad without enough core faculty. Different from the pioneers of the field, who often came to the field from other disciplines or administration, the majority of the younger junior faculty of doctoral programs hold a Ph.D. in higher education. Higher education faculty are increasingly the product of higher education programs rather than former administrators or scholars from other disciplines. The newer faculty value research and scholarly inquiry over administration in academia. In addition, they may socialize their students into the academic world of scholars and researchers. The study has noticed that an increasing number of faculty in higher education have been taking administrative responsibilities and new administrative positions outside the department or the institute. Some become the university’s chief officer of academic affairs, leaders of state research entities, and consultants to government agencies. These administrative positions seem to be appropriate for faculty in programs of higher education, especially when considering that more students are interested in administrative jobs in higher education after graduation. At the same time, it strengthens the belief that higher education as a graduate study is under professionalization in order to become closely attuned to practitioners’ interests and administrative training needs.

Organizational Location The way doctoral programs are embedded in the organizational structure of a university provides information to help us understand how higher education doctoral programs maintain and gain their identity and their autonomy and how programs grow and evolve within the university. Programs in higher

Table 4.9.  Summary of Six Doctoral Programs in Higher Education in China Institutions

Organizational Location within University

Number of Number Specialization/ Doctoral of Research Orientation Advisors Doctoral Students

Xiamen University

Higher Education Research Institute, within the Higher Education Development Research Center

11

68

Peking University

Research Institute of Higher Education, within the Graduate School of Education

6

21

East China Normal University

Research Institute of Higher Education, within the School of Educational Science

4 full-time 15 2 adjunct

Huazhong University of Sci. and Tech.

Higher Education 9 Research Institute, within the Institute (Graduate School) of Educational Science

50

Tsinghua University

Research Institute of 4 Education, within the School of Humanities and Sciences 4

14

Shanghai Jiaotong University

4

Higher Education Theories Chinese Higher Education History Higher Education Curriculum and Instruction, Higher Education Administration Comparative Higher Education Testing Chinese Higher Education Higher Education Administration Comparative Higher Education Higher Education Theories Higher Education Administration Comparative Higher Education Higher Education Evaluation Teacher Education Higher Education Theories Higher Education Administration Higher Education Policy Higher Education Evaluation Teacher Education Comparative Higher Education Higher Education Studies Educational Economics and Administration World-Class University Strategy and Management Modern University System University Instruction Graduate Education

Source: Program handbooks and degree plans from each program from 2006 to 2007.

90

Chapter 4

education at Chinese universities are designated in several ways: program, department, center, or research institute. China’s experience suggests that higher education programs most likely start as a small research entity within the university, grow as an independent research institute with a master’s program, and, eventually, evolve as a research institute affiliated with a larger academic unit. For example, Xiamen University’s Research Institute of Higher Education started as an office for higher education research but is now a national key research institute in the field and stands as an independent unit within the university. Other programs, such as the ones at Peking University and East China Normal University, have evolved to become a departmentallevel research unit under a college. At Peking University, it is housed under the Graduate School of Education as an interdisciplinary research institute and offers its own doctoral degree study in higher education. The Graduate School of Education has three departments (Department of Education and Human Development, Department of Educational Economics and Administration, and Department of Educational Technology), two institutes (Institute of Higher Education and Institute of Educational Economics), and one center (Center for Elementary Education and Teacher Education). Some centers and institutes exist within colleges of social sciences. The Institute of Higher Education functions as an instructional unit as well as a research institute. There is rarely a department of higher education as higher education is an interdisciplinary field and lacks faculty of its own. Though the terms “department,” “institute,” and “research center” of higher education may suggest different organizational functions and structure, they have similar roles. They are all instructional units offering courses in graduate programs and conducting research studies. Few of them are departments so they can be interdepartmental or interdisciplinary within the university to allow affiliation of faculty members other than education to be involved in teaching and research. In many cases, faculty from management, public policy, sociology, psychology, and history are associated with the centers and institutes. Some smaller programs are created jointly with other academic units and departments. For example, at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang), the Research Institute of Higher Education became an independent research unit in 1986 in the original Office of Higher Education Research, which was under the Office of Academic Affairs. The research institute was relocated later under the newly formed School of Humanities and Social Sciences. The doctoral study was established in 1995, but it is under the doctoral program of management science and engineering. It is not an independent doctoral program per se, but a new orientation or subspecialty area under the doctoral program of management science and engineering. Each year, the program only admits two to three doctoral students. The focus of the doctoral study is on the system analysis of higher



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

91

education. Currently, it has twelve professors with two doctoral mentors. Other similar cases include Shanghai Jiaotong University. The doctoral degree and study in higher education is under the discipline of management science, a level-one academic discipline. Both universities have strong academic traditions in science and engineering and have already established a level-one discipline in management science. Therefore, it is easy and cogent to place a Ph.D. program in higher education as the level-two field under the already-established level-one discipline of management science and engineering. Programs at both universities focus on science and technology administration and systemic thinking of higher education. This arrangement of academic degree programs reveals unique characteristics of the academic degree administration in China. According to the Catalog of Disciplines and Fields for Granting Doctoral and Master’s Degrees and Training of Graduate Students (Shouyu boshi, shushi xuewei he peiyang yanjiusheng de xueke, zhuanye mulu) published by the National Committee on Academic Degrees in 1997, a total of twelve academic categories, including philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, sciences, engineering, agriculture, medicine, military science, and management, are identified. Each of these academic categories can have level-one disciplines and level-two fields under the discipline. Master’s and doctoral programs are often built on the level-two fields. The number of disciplines a university has shows its research strengths and academic levels. Level-two fields in each discipline often demonstrate how strong the university is in that discipline in the nation and how many key programs (zhongdian xueke) the university has. Level-one disciplines often are broad in scope and content. Graduate programs are often established and offered by level-two fields within a discipline. If the discipline is already approved to offer the doctoral study, it is easy to set up a level-two field under the level-one discipline. For example, management includes level-one disciplines such as management science, business management, public administration, information system management, and agricultural and forestry management. Both management science and public administration as level-one disciplines can establish a program oriented to higher education administration. This arrangement of academic degrees and programs also allows higher education to become an interdisciplinary field.

Admission Requirements Though programs vary in their organizational structures, admission requirements are similar because the admission plans of each institution are regulated and decided by the Ministry of Education. Applicants to doctoral studies need

92

Chapter 4

to have a master-level degree and be under forty-five years old. Applicants need to submit their application materials to the university, including transcripts, thesis, publications, resume, recommendation letters, and a personal statement of academic and career interests and goals. They have to take two rounds of tests at the universities to which they are applying. The first round includes written tests on foreign languages and two courses, history of higher education and higher education administration. The second round includes a written test and a personal interview, which will evaluate the applicants’ analytical abilities, foreign language proficiency, academic background, and disciplinary competencies. Applicants also need to give a presentation on individual research to demonstrate their understanding of a specific area or issue pertinent to higher education. Finally, the department or the institute will make decisions on admissions of individual applicants. The admission process is monitored by the university and by each program, but the number of students admitted to each program is centralized by the Ministry of Education.

Degree Options and Requirements All programs currently offer a Ph.D. in higher education or in a related level-one discipline. The length of doctoral studies is reported from three to five years. Courses are usually required to be completed in the first two years of study, and the last two years of doctoral study often concentrate on conducting research and writing the dissertation. Hours of degree requirements vary from program to program (see table 5.10). The doctor of education (Ed.D.) has not been officially adopted by China’s academic degree system. However, the doctoral program at Peking University established in 2003 a new practice-oriented program and has cooperated with the University of Pennsylvania and China’s National Education Administration Institute to offer a nontraditional Ed.D. program to train and prepare administrators and policymakers to become senior administrators. This is the first Ed.D. program in China. Each year the program admits seventeen students. It offers classes in summer and winter breaks as well as Internetbased distance learning. Classes are taught by faculty members from Peking University and the University of Pennsylvania. Dissertations are required, and topics of those dissertations can be on practical issues prevalent in educational administration. The Ed.D. program is created for professional training rather than the preparation of independent researchers. The Ph.D. program has long been considered to be for scholars wishing to specialize in some area for the advancement of research. In traditional Ph.D. programs, residency is required. Each program has a clear structure of the curriculum and instructions on how to work with the doctoral advisors and mentors for research proposals and dissertations. The current Ph.D. program usu-



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

93

ally is research oriented, and it is common to see some programs require students to publish during the doctoral study period. For example, at Shanghai Jiaotong, it is required to have three to five faculty members on the individual dissertation committee, and half of them are eligible doctoral advisors.

Areas of Specialization All programs have a core of higher education courses required for all students and provide areas of specializations within the field of higher education for students to choose. Areas of specialization provide a sense of focus for an academic program, and these specialized courses allow students to select relevant courses from an array of diverse courses and seminars of a program to strengthen their knowledge in a specific area. The research found that about fourteen different areas are offered nationwide. The three most frequently offered specialized areas include, listed in descending order of frequency, higher education administration, comparative higher education, and higher education theories (or studies of higher education) (see table 4.11). These recurring programs across all programs show a common interest in these areas nationwide. In addition, specialty areas are usually drawn from other disciplines and fields, such as sociology, economics, history, and management. These areas of specialization in higher education reflect both the disciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of the field. Compared to the specialization areas in 2000, several new areas have been added to the list, such as world-class university research, system of higher education, management and strategies, and graduate education, etc. Such trends of growth in specialized areas reflect that programs have expanded to a wider focus and more specializations over the years as more programs have entered the field. In addition, this trend also represents an increasing interest in current national policy issues and the impact of these policy issues on educational research and studies in China. For example, the specialized area in world-class universities at Shanghai Jiaotong UniverTable 4.10.  Comparison of Required Hours among the Six Doctoral Programs Institutions

Hours of Degree Requirements

Xiamen University Peking University East China Normal University Huazhong University of Sci. and Tech. Tsinghua University Shanghai Jiaotong University

21 24 23 12 20 17

94

Chapter 4

sity reflects the state discourse of building world-class research universities in China. Curriculum and areas of specialization in higher education programs are shaped by characteristics of the university and the nature of the program. Each institution organizes its specialty areas of the doctoral program differently according to its size and specialty areas of the faculty within the programs, and the programs establish unique areas in order to enhance their academic stature and distinctions from other programs. For example, Peking University’s emphasis on educational economics is based on its faculty expertise and the state’s interests in the macroeconomic policymaking on higher education; Xiamen University provides specialized study in testing, curriculum, and instruction; Huazhong University of Science and Technology has a focus on moral education; the higher education program at East China Normal University is characterized by its specialization on teacher education and higher education evaluation. At universities that traditionally have strong programs in sciences, engineering, and sciences, such as Shanghai Jiaotong University, specialized areas include an in-depth study of management and administration of science and technology. For young and small programs, areas of specialization are often offered with other larger programs or disciplines. For example, the doctoral program at Beihang is grouped with a large discipline such as management science and engineering. One specialized area in the public administration and policymaking offered at Tsinghua University shows the collaboration with the School of Public Administration and focuses on public policymaking and analysis in education. Table 4.11.  Recurring Areas of Specialization in Higher Education Rank

Areas of Specialization

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Higher Education Administration Comparative Higher Education Higher Education Theories/Foundation Chinese Higher Education and History Higher Education Evaluation Teacher Education Curriculum Instruction World-Class Universities System of Higher Education Higher Education Philosophy Testing Management and Strategy of Higher Education Graduate Education Higher Education Policy

Frequencies (N=6) 5 4 4 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

95

Most institutes of higher education have vague descriptions about areas of specialization and research orientations in their written documents. However, compared with other institutes, the Research Institute of Higher Education at Peking University has specific descriptions to each area of specialization and research orientation. For example, specialization in higher education theories and methodologies is to “study theories regarding higher education, higher education curriculum and instruction, education sociology, higher education history and research methodologies in education.”7 Specialization in Chinese higher education and international comparative higher education is intended to “engage students in studying Chinese higher education history and its current theoretical and practical questions, including administrative system, structure and function, growth and development, administration, finance, teaching and research, faculty and students, and thoughts on higher education.” International comparative higher education is specialized in “learning comparative research inquiry between China and foreign countries on higher educational system, organization and function, administration, teaching and research, faculty and students, and higher educational thoughts.” Higher education administration emphasizes “research in management theories and its application to higher education, including research in macro- and micro-organization of higher education system, higher education decision-making process and analysis, interconnection between higher education institution and its social context, higher education efficiency, and research in management of instruction, research, human resources, and finance.” There is also no description about what experience justifies or constitutes a specialty among the doctoral programs. Usually, two or three courses, some readings, and a dissertation with a focus on a specific area likely suffice the requirement of a specialization in most cases. Students at most programs expressed that they view their dissertation topic as their specialty.8 The research also recognized that some specialties are underrepresented or missing in programs, especially practice-oriented areas, such as private higher education, technical and vocational education, college students, and adult higher education. With an emerging interest in Ed.D. programs in China, these programs will be able to offer more specialty areas geared to practice-oriented subjects. Currently, only two universities are offering doctoral classes to college and university presidents, administrators, and educational practitioners as part-time students. This new trend reflects an increasing interest in higher education as a field of study in the training of administrators and practitioners for higher education institutions. These programs of preparing administrators admit that accepting college administrators into doctoral programs broadens constituencies of their programs and strengthens their relationship with the government agencies and surrounding universities and colleges.

96

Chapter 4

Curriculum Structure and Course Distribution A direct examination and categorization of courses in higher education yields a pattern of curriculum structure. When placing courses of the six programs into each of the seven categories of Fife’s conceptual framework— introduction/foundation, theory, application, clinical/internship experience, synthesis, research skills, and dissertation—we can clearly see the curriculum structure and the course distribution of doctoral programs in higher education in China. The following tables (tables 4.12 to 4.17) present information of curriculum structure and course distribution in the higher education doctoral program at six sample universities. Each table is accompanied by a chart to show how evenly courses are distributed among the seven conceptual areas. Degree required courses of each program are highlighted in the tables. Both table 4.12 and figure 4.2 show that doctoral study in higher education at Peking University has a strong emphasis on foundation and theory as a majority of courses are distributed under categories of introductory/foundation, theory, and research. These courses account for 67 percent. Few courses are found in other categories, such as application, synthesis, and internship. Data from other programs reveal a similar course distribution pattern (see tables 4.13 through 4.17). Courses of introductory and theoretical nature are predominantly featured in curriculum, 75 percent at Xiamen University, 77 percent at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 100 percent at East China Normal University, 61 percent at Tsinghua, and 57 percent at Shanghai Jiaotong University. Doctoral curriculum of each program offers three to five introductory and foundation courses, which cover a broad range of topics—history, philosophy, and higher education systems. These courses are described as giving a broad review of knowledge foundation and helping students develop an understanding of the complexity of basic areas of higher education study. The majority of the courses are drawn from other disciplines and fields. Most course titles are explicit, but some are obscure and ambiguous, which makes it difficult to determine the course’s classification. Some courses can be classified in one or more of seven conceptual areas. For example, higher education administration, a course commonly held in doctoral programs, can be categorized either as an application or a theory course. As described in the syllabus at Peking University, this course is engaged in learning theories, fundamental concepts, research designs, and methodologies of higher education administration. The course intends to help students acquire the knowledge base regarding the primary management thoughts and schools and theoretical foundation for problem resolution. The class elaborates on such concepts of administration as division of



The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

97

labor and coordination, size and structure, decentralization and centralization, quality and efficiency, and autonomy and accountability. Evidently, the course is more concerned with theories of higher education administration than practice and application. The course syllabus solicited from Huazhong University of Science and Technology contains the same view. The course is described as discussing topics such as educational administration theories, organizational theories of higher education, organizational behaviors, motivation, leadership and decision making, management theories, higher education reform theories, and strategic planning in higher education administration. The class requires literature reading and class discussions. Therefore, it is appropriate to place this course in the theory category. Research courses offered in all higher education programs are limited in number. Very few universities require students to take research courses. The research shows that universities with a strong science tradition, such as Shanghai Jiaotong University, Tsinghua University, and Beihang, place more emphases on quantitative research skills than other universities. Schools with a longer history in higher education programs offer more varieties of courses in research skills than the new ones. At Peking University, it is specified in the degree plan that doctoral students in higher education must take one research course. A few programs offer research courses as elective courses. Programs presume that all doctoral students of higher education have taken a research design and methodology class in their master’s study. Therefore, research courses are not necessary in the curriculum of doctoral study. Some programs also attribute this situation to the shortage of faculty teaching such research courses, especially qualitative research methodology and statistical analysis. Application courses are concerned with strategies and skills in higher education. They are more oriented toward management of higher education institutions. Course distribution suggests that courses related to application are rarely offered at these institutions. Although all programs claimed higher education administration as an area of specialization, courses in this area are sparse. The majority of the programs do not require an application course. The study also noticed that courses related to areas of college student services, budgeting, strategic planning, policy analysis, college teaching, adult learning, faculty issues, and higher education business management are not found in these doctoral programs. As this book discussed earlier, doctoral programs have been research oriented, and practice-oriented courses are fewer due to the limited number of faculty members. Synthesis courses are designed to integrate various theories and issues into a conceptual whole. The research shows that courses of synthesis are not commonly offered in all six programs. The seminar on higher education is found at Peking University, Huazhong University of Science and

98

Chapter 4

Technology, and Tsinghua University. The seminar in higher education is placed under synthesis instead of theory or foundation, because it is described in the syllabus as offering a broad range of discussions of issues, concepts, and topics in the field of higher education. None of the programs specify a research or administrative internship in the degree plan. The majority of the programs do not require an internship for which a student receives course credit. Some universities do require a so-called social practicum experience for all doctoral students. Such “social practicum” intends to help students to be engaged in society. It is different from a well-designed and structured research or administrative internship. The dissertation is generally not counted as credit hours. Course offerings and distribution reflect the emphasis of the curriculum structure. With Fife’s conceptual framework for curriculum structure in the field of higher education, the research reveals a pervading theme characterizing the distribution of instructional courses in higher education doctoral programs in China: an unbalanced curriculum structure with a strong emphasis on foundational, introductory, and theoretical courses but a lesser emphasis on research, application, internship, and synthesis (see figures 4.1 to 4.6).

Program Missions and Objectives Goals and objectives of academic programs and departments are one of the important elements to the success of universities and programs. The analysis of statements of program goals and objectives indicates that all higher education doctoral programs are primarily geared to the research mission. This is conceivable as all these doctoral programs are located at the key universities that are ambitious to become world-class research universities in China and have received funding for building graduate and Ph.D. programs. In other words, the objectives of programs are consistent with the institutional mission of the university. It is difficult to differentiate between broad program purposes and learning objectives’ and goals because the institutional missions of all programs are derived from the national objectives of preparation explicated in the national policy framework. For example, the Institute of Higher Education at Peking University describes objectives of their higher education program as to prepare students with knowledge in the following three areas: (1) solid and broad theoretical foundation in higher education; (2) in-depth knowledge of a specialization; and (3) interdisciplinary knowledge of education economics, educational administration, philosophy of education, and sociology in education.9 With knowledge in these areas, the program also expects that students have the ability to con-



99

The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

Table 4.12.  Department Core Course Distribution at Peking University Conceptual Areas Courses (n = 18)

Percentage

Introductory/ Foundation

33.3%

Literature of Educational Classics Foundations of Higher Education Issues in Chinese and International Higher Education History of Foreign Higher Education History of Chinese Higher Education

Theory

System of Chinese Higher Education Higher Education Administration

33.3%

International Comparative Higher Education Theory of Curriculum and Instruction Advanced Studies in Economics of Education Economics of Education Organizational Behavior and Management Psychology Organizational Theories and Management of Higher 5.6% Education Clinical/Internship Required by the university but no course related Experience Synthesis Seminar on Higher Education 5.6% 22.2% Research Skills Research Methodology in Higher Education Application

Computer Application in Educational Research Educational Statistics Qualitative Research in Education Dissertation

duct independent research in higher education and to contribute to the field with creative research designs. Objectives of doctoral studies in higher education at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) are stated as: To prepare advanced professionals in the field of higher education with ability to conduct independent research, to solve theoretical and practical problems in the midst of Chinese higher education development and reform, and to engage in higher education research, teaching, and administration.

Objectives of the Research Institute of Higher Education at Xiamen University are quoted as to “conduct theoretical research in higher education, administration, and student psychology, to prepare researchers and practitioners in this field, and to organize nationwide academic research activities.” Objectives for doctoral study in higher education at Tsinghua Univer-

100

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1.   Course Distribution in Higher Education at Peking University

sity include “to be able understand foundational theories and research methodology, to be able to conduct important research projects independently, and to be able to teach, research, and work as administrators at universities as well as research institutions.”10 Even if the objectives of these programs are phrased in a different fashion, they all suggest a shared and similar mission—preparing research personnel in this field. This is consistent with the national goals and objectives specified by the Committee on Academic Degrees of the State Council. The mission statements of these doctoral programs in China all describe the important mission to train and prepare researchers and scholars for the field of higher education. Programs stated very little about training practitioners or personnel in administration. Table 4.18 illustrates how different types of scholarship are reflected in the mission statements of each program and how consistently and coherently curricula reflect the stated mission of the programs. All programs announce research as the primary goal of the doctoral study. Peking University and East China Normal University articulate that research is the primary objective, and their missions are reflected in their curricula to prepare scholars with an emphasis on foundations and theories. Xiamen University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology admit both scholarship of research and application as their missions. However, curricula of these two programs do not show a strong presence of application courses to support this dimension of scholarship. Apparently, current curriculum structures of the six programs suggest there is a national consensus on the mission of higher education doctoral programs—to train researchers and scholars in this field. This is consistent with the national policy goals proposed by the Committee of Academic Degrees of the State Council. No distinctive variations in missions exist among the six



101

The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

Table 4.13.  Department Core Course Distribution at Xiamen University Conceptual Areas Courses (n = 16) Introductory/ Foundation

Theory

Percentage

Higher Education Studies 25% Current Issues in Chinese Higher Education Chinese Higher Education History Western Thoughts on Higher Education Curriculum and Instruction 50% Higher Education Administration Higher Education in Hong Kong and Taiwan Higher Education in East Asia Psychology of College Student and Counseling Adolescent Psychology Sociology of Education Policy and Law Research in Chinese Higher Education System Engineering of Higher Education 6.25%

Application Clinical/Internship Experience Synthesis Research Skills Research Methods in Higher Education Higher Education Measurement and Statistics Evaluation of Higher Education Dissertation

18.75%

Figure 4.2.   Course Distribution in Higher Education at Xiamen University

doctoral programs. However, while all six programs indicate an objective to prepare and train research scholars in this field, in paradox, research receives moderate attention in curriculum structure. Research courses are in a distinct minority, and generally no course requirement is placed on research methodology by most of the doctoral programs. Only one program requires a onehour research course to fulfill the degree requirements.

102

Chapter 4

Table 4.14.  Department Core Course Distribution at East China Normal University Conceptual Areas Courses (n = 4) Introductory/ Foundation Theory

Percentage

One cross-disciplinary course

20%

Higher Education Administration

60%

Higher Education Theories Comparative Higher Education Application Clinical/Internship Experience Synthesis Literature Reading and Academic Presentation Research Skills Dissertation

20%

Figure 4.3.   Course Distribution in Higher Education at East China Normal University

Core of Knowledge Base The organization, the sequence, and the variety of courses of the doctoral programs delineate the range of knowledge of this newly emerged field in China. Usually, a course becomes part of the curriculum because that topic is important to the knowledge base. The collection of all courses taught nationwide represents the total body of knowledge within an academic area. Though only six programs are examined in the research, they probably represent the doctoral education and offer the most of courses in the field as many other programs are similar in course offerings and structure. This group of sample universities represent all types of universities who offer doctoral study in higher education: two comprehensive universities (Peking University and Xiamen University), one normal (teacher training) university, and three universities with strong science and engineering backgrounds



103

The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

Table 4.15. Department Core Course Distribution at Huazhong University of Science of Technology Conceptual Areas Courses (n = 13) Introductory/ Foundation

Philosophy of Education

Percentage 31%

Foundations of Higher Education Chinese Higher Education History

Theory

Western Higher Education History Higher Education Administration

46%

Moral Education Educational Psychology Culture of Education Comparative Higher Education Sociology of Education Application Clinical/Internship Experience Synthesis Seminar in Higher Education Research Skills Educational Research Methodology

7.6% 15.4%

Higher Education Evaluation Dissertation

Figure 4.4.   Course Distribution in Higher Education at Huazhong University of Science and Technology

but adding humanities and social sciences to their academic programs. From the six doctoral programs, thirty-seven different courses are identified (see table 4.19). The intent of this inventory is to reveal the universal body of knowledge represented by all the doctoral program course offerings. Courses are classified into each of five categories according to their content. Courses in bold are the most frequently offered courses within the six programs.

104

Chapter 4

Table 4.16.  Department Core Course Distribution at Tsinghua University Conceptual Areas Courses (n = 13) Introductory/ Foundation

Literature on Education

Percentage 30.7%

Seminar on Higher Education Studies Philosophy and Social Foundations of Higher Education

Theory

Higher Education Studies Seminar on Higher Education Psychology

30.7%

Seminar on Education and Human Resource Development Degree and Graduate Education Application Clinical/Internship Experience Synthesis Research Skills

Comparative Education Development and Policy Analysis of Higher Education 7.7% Yes Literature Reading and Academic Presentation Qualitative Research Method

7.7% 23.2%

Educational Statistics Educational Research Methodology Dissertation

Figure 4.5.   Course Distribution in Higher Education at Tsinghua University

The research reveals that foundational courses of higher education are discipline-based, originating from history, philosophy, sociology, behavior science, and economics. These courses examine higher education with a specific disciplinary inquiry and perspective. This represents the interdisciplinary nature of the field of higher education at an early stage of the development of the field in China.



105

The Reality and Nature of the Knowledge Structure

Table 4.17.  Department Core Course Distribution at Shanghai Jiaotong University Conceptual Areas Courses (n = 7)

Percentage

Academic Research Seminar

28.6%

Theory

Seminar on Higher Education Administration Seminar on the World-Class Universities

28.6%

Application

Seminar on Graduate Education Seminar on Instruction for University Education

28.6%

Introductory/ Foundation

Policy and Administration of Science and Technology Clinical/Internship Experience Synthesis Research Skills Quantitative Research Methodology for Science and Educational Administration Dissertation

14. 2%

Figure 4.6.   Course Distribution in Higher Education at Shanghai Jiaotong University

Four courses are recognized as administration. They are found in a small number and homogenous in the sense of content. Courses emphasize only organizational theories. Courses are rarely offered in specialized areas, such as administration of adult and continuing education, residence life, institutional research, student services, and technology systems. No courses are found regarding change strategies, leadership, budgeting and finance, faculty and personnel administration, law, business management, planning, and policy.

106

Chapter 4

Table 4.18. Stated Mission and Curriculum Focus of the Six Programs in Higher Education in China Peking Stated Research Mission Curriculum Introduction/ Focuses foundation; Theory; Research skills

Xiamen

Huazhong East China Tsinghua

Research Application Introduction/ foundation;

Research Research Research Research Application Introduction/ Introduction/ Introduction/ Introduction/ foundation; foundation; foundation; foundation; Theory; Theory; Research Research Theory Theory skills skills

Theory

Jiaotong

Courses with specific area interest are broad. They cover issues regarding curriculum and instruction, student and adolescent psychology, moral education, world-class universities, and graduate education. These courses focus on specific nonadministrative activities within higher education and represent a small segment of issues of overall mission or functioning of the higher education institution. Courses concerned with faculty issues, student development and learning issues, and adult learning issues are not on the list. Courses on issues affecting higher education appear to have the largest number when compared with other categories. Twelve courses are classified as courses dealing with issues and the various ways they affect the institutions. These courses include foundation and introductory courses and some other specific issues. No courses are offered in the category of Special Sectors of Higher Education, which is concerned with community college, continuing education, adult education, vocational education, and private colleges. The last group of courses are concerned with research methods in higher education. Six different courses are classified under this category. There is a national consensus on the knowledge base for this field. Evidently, higher education administration, history of Chinese higher education, foundations of higher education, international and comparative education, and research methodology in higher education are the five most frequently offered courses among the six programs. These courses or a selection of these courses often serve as core courses at each individual program. The most frequently offered courses form the knowledge core for higher education doctoral study. The remaining courses analyze higher education as a social and cultural institution from multiple perspectives. These courses together construct the knowledge base of higher education as a graduate field.

Table 4.19. Inventory of Instructional Courses in Higher Education at Six Doctoral Programs Areas of Content Discipline Content

Courses (N = 37)

Philosophy of Education Sociology of Education Educational Psychology History of Chinese Higher Education Western Thoughts on Higher Education Advanced Studies in Economics of Education Economics of Education Seminar on Human Resource Development Administration Higher Education Administration Organizational Behavior and Management Psychology Organizational Theories and Management of Higher Education System Engineering of Higher Education Specific Area Focuses Moral Education Curriculum and Instruction Psychology of College Student and Counseling Adolescent Psychology Graduate Education Administration of Science and Technology World-Class Research Universities Issues Affecting Higher General Issues (Foundation/Introductory Courses) Education Foundations/Studies of Higher Education Current Issues in Chinese Higher Education Seminar on Higher Education Literature of Educational Classics Literature on Higher Education Chinese Higher Education System Specific Issues Western/Foreign Higher Education History Comparative Education Higher Education in Hong Kong and Taiwan Higher Education in East Asia Culture of Education Policy and Law in Chinese Higher Education Special Sectors of Higher Education Research Research Methodology in Higher Education Computer Application in Educational Research Educational Statistics Qualitative Research in Education Higher Education Evaluation Seminar on Current Research in Education

108

Chapter 4

Notes   1.  Jonathan D. Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs,” in Administration as a Profession, ed. J. D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 1991), 78.   2.  In Chinese universities, the highest ranked professors are doctoral advisors who can direct doctoral dissertations and convene the doctoral student’s committee.   3.  Chen Xuefei, “Ideal-oriented Policymaking: Analysis of the Policymaking Process of Project 985” [Lixiangdaoxiangxing de zhence zhiding—“985 gongcheng” zhengce guocheng fenxi], Peking University Education Review 4, no. 1 (2006): 145–57.   4.  Ruth Hayhoe, Portraits of Influential Chinese Educators (New York: Springer Publishing, 2007).   5.  Burton Clark, Perspectives on Higher Education: Eight Disciplinary and Comparative Views (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984), translated into Chinese as Gaodeng jiaoyu xinlun: Duo xueke de yanjiu (Zhejiang Education Press, 1988), reprinted in 2001; Burton R. Clark and Martin Trow “The Organizational Context,” in College Peer Groups: Problems and Prospects for Research, ed. Theodore M. Newcomb and Everett K. Wilson (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966), 17–70; Derek Bok’s Beyond the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibilities of the Modern University (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).   6.  Shen Hong, The Formation and Development of American Research Universities [Meiguo yanjiuxing daxue de xingcheng yu fazhan] (Wuhan, China: Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press, 1999).   7.  From the program introduction of Peking University.   8.  Student interviews conducted between May 29 and July 29, 2001, and interviews conducted between June 25 and August 15, 2008.   9.  From the introduction of the higher education program at Peking University. 10.  From the program guide for doctoral students.

5 Issues and Discussions

Higher education has emerged as a field of study, and graduate programs of the field have grown with an increasing interest in the development of higher education in China. Doctoral programs have increased from the original two programs in the early 1990s to seventeen programs, and master’s programs have grown from four to eighty-eight. The student enrollment of both master’s and doctoral programs has seen a dramatic increase in recent years, numbering over 2,000 now. From the study of the six programs and interviews with students and faculty members of these programs, I have found some pervading themes characterizing the field and knowledge structure of this field. Some of the themes resonated with responses from the interviews, and some reinforced the concerns developed from my observation and conversations with students and faculty members. Though thematic issues may not be applicable to all programs, they reveal wide-ranging issues related to the nature and the state of higher education as a field of study in China. The field of higher education is characterized with the following themes: (1) a consensus on objectives of preparing research scholars as the top priority; (2) inconsistency of program missions with course offerings; (3) limited course offerings in the field; (4) descriptive nature of the knowledge content in the field of higher education; (5) a shared core of knowledge and an interdisciplinary nature of the knowledge base; and (6) a curriculum structure with uneven distribution of courses and unbalanced representation of knowledge areas. By discussing these issues regarding the curricular and knowledge structure of higher education as an area of study, it will help us understand the nature of this field—is it a discipline? A field of study? Or an interdisciplinary field? 109

110

Chapter 5

Program Missions and Objectives An important theme of the field of higher education is concerned with the purpose and objectives of the field. This is the key point of interest because it shows what type of personnel should be prepared in higher education programs: researchers, teachers, administrators, government agency employees and administrators, policymakers, or professors. If the preparation of researchers is the primary goal, what direction and emphases should be encouraged and guided? All programs unanimously agree preparing research scholars is the top priority when describing their missions. These recurring mission statements indicate that there is a shared mission among Chinese doctoral programs in higher education and an agreement on the dimensions and scope of the study of higher education at large. This is the result of both institutional decision and national academic regulation. Under such a highly centralized educational system, it is not surprising to conceive that doctoral programs have showed little differentiation in missions and objectives of doctoral study in higher education as decisions on graduate programs. The direction of the program, the number of students to be admitted, and the curriculum of each program are still being regulated and approved by the state academic degree committee. The national policy leaves little room for the university to decide what direction to take. In addition, such reality raises a concern about the heterogeneity of doctoral education in this field. Programs seem to be all research oriented and lack application and practiceoriented initiatives many students hope to have. Some have failed to distinguish themselves from their educational purposes. Training professionals in higher education as administrators has not received the priority at higher education doctoral programs, though some programs have stated in their mission statements that one of their objectives is to prepare administrators for universities and government agencies. However, no concrete and specific plans and curricula are provided by programs. A couple of large programs have started offering the practitioneroriented doctoral program in order to strengthen their teaching and service missions, but these missions are vaguely stated. As the mission of these programs becomes clearer and as higher education leaders begin to look for this type of specialized education, these programs will be more important in the professionalization of higher education administrators. Another pertinent issue to the educational objectives of programs is that the objectives are vague, unspecific, and sometimes lacking of clarity. These statements, though well thought-out, raise several questions. For example, the Institute of Higher Education at Peking University describes objectives of its higher education program as to prepare students with knowledge in the following three areas: (1) solid and broad theoretical foundation in higher education; (2) in-depth knowledge of a specialization; and (3) inter-



Issues and Discussions

111

disciplinary knowledge of education economics, educational administration, philosophy of education, and sociology in education. The program statement of Peking University avoids terms such as research, teaching, and administration as its objectives but implies knowledge areas that students need to study. Though the statement is commendable, it also raises several questions. The statement does not specify what areas of specializations are available for students. Are the specialized areas the same as the interdisciplinary areas as higher education is an interdisciplinary field of study? If not, what are the specialized areas in higher education? Some statements need to be more definitive. For example, a common statement of “fundamental knowledge and understanding” requires some explanation. Does it refer to facts, values, principles, and concepts characterizing higher education in China or those characterizing global higher education? Some programs specify their objectives for doctoral students in higher education to be able to teach, research, and work as administrators at universities as well as research institutions. However, these programs do not clarify in what areas graduates will be teaching: higher education, education courses at undergraduate levels, or holding teaching positions in disciplines pertinent to higher education? What makes the situation more complicated and challenging to programs is how to represent multiple interests and objectives from students, faculty members, the department as well as the university in doctoral education. Faculty, departmental, and institutional purposes are intermixed with student learning objectives. Often it is the state’s and the university’s objectives that dictate the mission of the program and the curriculum. In many cases, the establishment and creation of a doctoral program of higher education is to help the university to meet its goals to become a comprehensive research university. Such objectives of the university are often political and overpower the students’ and faculty’s interests and goals. Students and the faculty’s objectives are often underrepresented and subdued in the statements. Most higher education programs end with similar indistinctive purposes and objectives. The curriculum of these programs reflects the similar reality and problems.

Inconsistency of Missions and Curricula This study has brought my attention to a key issue that has emerged from this research—the inconsistency between the knowledge and course content and the stated missions and objectives. The research shows that the stated mission of the programs is to prepare research scholars. However, the curricula focus is not on the development of appropriate skills of inquiry. Research training has not been given adequate attention. Research courses

112

Chapter 5

are sporadic across all programs, and the majority of programs require less than one course in research methodology. Inadequate emphasis on research courses contradicts with the objective of training researchers in higher education. Research courses are designed to develop students who have a sense of research excellence, an understanding of the research process, and skills necessary to design, implement, and complete research studies and a dissertation. A handful of research courses cannot sufficiently support the research mission and objectives of the programs. Eventually, lack of training in research design and methodology will restrain the advancement of the research in this field. Several factors are attributed to the shortage of the research courses. First, the doctoral programs are generally believed to be the continuation of the master’s study in the field of higher education. Therefore, research courses are generally prerequisites before students start the doctoral study. Programs assume doctoral candidates have already had adequate research training and courses at the master’s level. Therefore, students are not required to “retake” such research courses at the doctoral level. Second, most programs are experiencing a shortage of faculty. Faculty are more likely to teach major-related course than research-related course. Research courses are not given the highest priority in doctoral curriculum. Furthermore, it is a common belief among Chinese scholars that doctoral students are expected to learn how to conduct research by working with doctoral advisors on actual research projects and to acquire research skills through their own dissertations. However, during the interviews with students, some expressed their concerns about the faculty’s involvement in too many projects off and/or on campus, which have taken faculty members away from the classroom and compromised the instructional quality of the faculty. However, some students expressed that the learning experience with their faculty mentors during the study has strengthened their understanding about research projects. It is debatable about pros and cons of having faculty members to serve as consultants and advisors. Though it is valuable to have on-campus and offcampus research and consulting services, such services take faculty away from teaching. The quality of teaching will be compromised if the faculty are constantly involved in such projects. The study also finds that research courses offered at most programs tend to use descriptive methods rather than sophisticated experimental design. Most courses offered by programs are introductory courses to research design. My interviews with doctoral students at various institutions have led me to conclude that students lack empirical research experience (shizheng). Students often expressed that programs emphasize theoretical thoughts and analysis (sibian). The research also indicates that knowledge of research methodology is still being reconstructed and refined in China. For example, qualitative re-



Issues and Discussions

113

search method was only taught at a handful of programs in 2000 and is now being taught widely among the programs. A large variety of books and materials on research methodology has also been written and published to help students understand what education research is about. Though uniformity can be found in research course offerings, institutional history and tradition play some roles in determining university policies and practices in research course offerings. The study shows that universities with strong science and technology background and tradition place more emphasis on research and offer more research courses than other comprehensive or teacher training normal universities. Universities with strong science and technology backgrounds are innovative in developing an interdisciplinary curriculum for higher education. They also have advantages in building collaboration with science-related departments and schools, which have strong traditions in research training. For example, Shanghai Jiaotong University’s program has articulation with management science. They are conscious about academic and research resources they have at their campuses and take advantage of the available resources to find a unique niche for higher education programs. They integrate higher education as a degree of study with science-related and management-related disciplines and create new directions and specializations for the field.1 Such academic collaboration and the endeavor of co-building the graduate program in higher education strengthens the interdisciplinary nature of the field of higher education.

Course Offerings Thirty-seven different courses and fourteen areas of specialization are identified in this study. Compared with Fife’s study about curricula and course offerings in the United States, 124 different courses and 65 different areas of specialization are found to be offered by American doctoral programs.2 Obviously, Chinese higher education programs offer limited courses in the field and areas of specialization. Courses offered by doctoral programs in the United States are diverse and broad. For example, courses in administration cover areas of budgeting and finance, faculty and personnel management, law, planning and policy, institutional research, administration of student services, institutional advancement, and theories of higher education administration. Courses in specific areas include curriculum issues, faculty issues, instruction and teaching issues, and student development issues. All of these categories of courses in the United States provide multidisciplinary perspectives to understand higher education administration. Two main factors can explain the situation of the limited course offerings at doctoral higher education programs. One factor is the small number of

114

Chapter 5

faculty members teaching in each program due to the emerging nature of the field. This situation also correlates with the limited areas of specialty of faculty members. Small programs, which have only two or three faculty members, have serious problems in course offerings. The elective courses beyond the national curricular guideline in this field are extremely limited.3 Another factor is that traditionally, China’s higher education programs have evolved from an independent research institute on campus. Most of these programs are not embedded in colleges or schools of education and have a small selection of courses for students. Courses of higher education are often offered by the research institute, which also functions as an instructional unit on campus. Even in teacher education universities, also known as normal universities in China, higher education programs seem to have a limited number of courses. The research shows that some programs at comprehensive universities have a broader range of courses due to their articulations with other academic departments and programs. The impression persists in this research that the majority of courses offered in programs of higher education are descriptive, historical, foundational, and of current issues. For example, the course on the issues of Chinese higher education discusses a number of current issues facing Chinese higher education institutions, such as the expansion of university enrollment, how to build China’s world-class research university, and the financing of higher education. Some other courses, such as administration of higher education and literature on education classics, simply describe the Western and Chinese literature available in the field. Thus, courses seem to be primarily transmission vehicles to channel the growing amount of descriptive information to doctoral students. This reflects the descriptive nature of the early stage of the field of study as many of the courses offered in programs of higher education in the early stages are descriptive and frequently place emphasis on current issues and events.4 These courses rarely present a consistent theoretical framework, except for courses on the history of higher education in China, which may have adopted a historical and chronological framework, and courses of comparative education. It is difficult to adopt a consistent theoretical framework when higher education as a graduate field is new in China, but the field and the course content have been continuously enriched due to the constant changes that characterize higher education in China. Another observation from course analysis is that courses represent a core of materials appropriate for a generalist. Core courses, such as studies of higher education, administration of higher education, and current issues in Chinese higher education, are generic courses. The core courses are interdisciplinary as they cover a broad range of disciplinary subjects and issues. Some of these core courses amass as much information as possible about higher education, hoping that the accumulated information will cover every



Issues and Discussions

115

single aspect of higher education. They emphasize a broad understanding but lack in-depth exploration of knowledge. Courses in specific knowledge areas are limited and rarely offered to match with specializations. Administration of higher education is one of the most common areas of specialization. However, courses in specific areas of higher education administration are rarely seen in the curriculum of all programs. This may be due to the fact that higher education as a field of study has not yet been regarded as professional education in China. Therefore, in-depth professional training and knowledge have not been given adequate emphasis and representation in the overall curricular structure. This raises a concern about the breadth or depth of curriculum and the balance of both in doctoral education. The curriculum of the field needs to have a balanced emphasis on both breadth and depth of knowledge.5

Areas of Specialization Beyond these concerns, another curricular issue remains: that of specialization. What specialty areas should be offered by programs? How much coursework should be required and completed in order to claim a desirable specialization? Not only do almost all programs have a core of higher education courses required of all students in the program, but they also allow students to choose an area of specialization. The three most frequently offered specialized areas include higher education administration, comparative higher education, and higher education theories. The requirement of a specialization consists of two to three courses in the specialized area. It is much less than the requirement of the core course in foundational courses and common courses in political studies and foreign languages. Some scholars and students during the interviews have attributed the situation to the limited credit hours of degree requirement for the doctoral study, which is usually from twelve to twenty-four. Compare this with course requirements in the United States, where a typical doctoral program requires an average total of fifty to sixty credit hours.6 However, the problem seems to run deeper than just the degree requirement of limited credit hours. Programs seem to have different approaches to offering specialized areas. Some programs allow students to take elective courses within the program by its own faculty as a compliment to students’ major studies. Some programs allow students to take elective courses from other departments either in education or in other fields. Some programs also encourage students to have a cognate area outside higher education or education. However, there is no specific explanation from programs about specialization areas. A small number of comprehensive and prestigious universities

116

Chapter 5

have an agreed relationship with other departments or schools so that students can have a minor in other areas. This relationship seems to have been especially developed in public administration where students can study public policymaking in relation to higher education. Some of the specialized areas allow students to drift away from the field as some students expressed their interests in human resources management and business management if no jobs are available in higher education when they graduate.

Knowledge Core The findings suggest that there is a shared core of knowledge in this field across the programs. Analyses of the curricula of the programs reveal that five courses are common to most of programs and form the knowledge core for the majority of doctoral programs: (1) history of Chinese higher education, (2) higher education administration, (3) studies and foundations of higher education, (4) comparative education, and (5) research methodology in higher education. Compared with the Fife’s study of the curriculum in the United States (see table 5.1), the knowledge core for the majority of doctoral programs in the United States includes six courses: administration, curriculum, finance, history, higher education law, and community colleges. Comparison of the curriculum in the two nations reveals that the knowledge core in China has a strong orientation toward theory- and disciplinebased courses, while the one in the United States includes more professional and application-oriented courses. The American experience shows a similar path and stage when the early stage of this field was characterized with the disciplined-based curriculum of higher education programs. Early studies found that in the majority of courses of higher education programs, 47 percent were classified as general courses, 25 percent were concerned with administration, 14 percent with curriculum, and 14 percent with stuTable 5.1. Knowledge Core of Higher Education in China and the United States Knowledge Core in China

Knowledge Core in the United States (Fife 1991)

History of Chinese higher education Higher education administration Foundations and theories of higher education Comparative education Research methodology

History Administration Curriculum Finance Higher education law Community colleges

Source: Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs,” 78.



Issues and Discussions

117

dent personnel.7 This research finding affirms that higher education as a field in China and the United States had a similar path at the early stage. It is also noted that the field of higher education has begun to emerge as a professional education. Courses with professional orientation, such as organizational behavior, higher education administration, and system engineering of higher education, have been offered lately in some programs. However, such courses are still limited in number and scope. Two of the doctoral programs in China reported that they have already begun offering doctoral study to college administrators. However, no evidence shows that curriculum has yet been modified to accommodate such a trend and shift. Courses related to areas of college student services, budgeting, strategic planning, policy analysis, college teaching, adult learning, faculty issues, and higher education business management are rarely found in these six doctoral programs.

Uneven Knowledge Base and Curriculum Structure It is noted that the curriculum structure of the programs places weight on discipline-based courses and less emphasis on administration and other specific areas of higher education. The research indicates that 35 percent of all courses are discipline based, drawn from economics, comparative education, history, and philosophy. In addition, the inventory of courses offered in doctoral programs shows that distribution of courses is unbalanced. The majority of courses are clustered under categories of theory and introduction/foundation. Courses in other categories, such as application, internship experience and practicum, synthesis, and research, are scant. Knowledge pertinent to the administration of higher education is still limited and does not expand to cover many functioning areas of universities, even with the increasing interest in administration of universities. Another critical issue concerning the curriculum is the knowledge base of this field. At present, it is evident to see that Western theories of higher education dominate the field of China’s higher education research and teaching.8 Western theories and literature often overpower and overshadow research studies and theories produced by domestic scholars. Western literature on higher education has been broadly translated, read, discussed, and cited by doctoral students and scholars in higher education. Some extremely influential Western scholars and their theories in China include Martin Trow and his theory and idea of the elite, mass, and universal higher education system, Burton Clark’s university system, Bruce Johnstone and his cost-sharing idea in higher education, Ernest Boyer and his idea on different dimensions of scholarship, Clark Kerr and his notion of “multiversity,” Philip G. Altbach

118

Chapter 5

and his application of dependence theory to international higher education.9 Books about these Western theories and thoughts are often required as textbooks. Articles discussing Western theories and ideas by Chinese scholars are widely published on major research journals. It is noted that these theories and ideas have already exerted influence on policymaking in China. For example, theories and policies regarding the massification of higher education, the notion of research universities, and the university ranking system have had some impact on China’s policies on the reform of higher education. For higher education scholars, it is encouraging to see research findings are used as an input to developing policies on higher education and used to bridge the gap between researchers and policymakers. As the field and its knowledge expansion are driven by the introduction of Western theories to China, knowledge creation of this field has been restrained. The primary theoretical knowledge and leading thoughts in higher education are borrowed and drawn from the West. Western theories are often adopted as theoretical framework to explain current issues concerning the development and administration of higher education. This situation affirms the dependency theory about the development of international higher education. Philip G. Altbach used center-periphery as a metaphor to explain that universities may be classified as either “influential” or “dependent.”10 The influential universities are creators of knowledge, while dependent universities are distributors or receivers of knowledge. Universities in developing countries are often dependent universities who function as peripheries in the international system of knowledge creation. The curricular and knowledge structure of higher education in China attests that the field is overpowered by Western theories and books. Domestically, there is also a center-periphery relationship in the knowledge creation and distribution system of this field. Higher education as a graduate field of study has been dominated by the four oldest and largest programs. Chinese textbooks, which are used by the majority of programs, are primarily written by scholars and professors from the “Big Four.” The universities of the Big Four programs are the “flagship” institutions in creating knowledge of research and teaching in the field.11 Other programs, which are comparatively small and young, are in the position of receiving knowledge produced by researchers from the “Big Four” institutions in this field. In research, these universities are located at the center of the country’s knowledge creation system and have an advantage in receiving funding and grants to conduct research in higher education. They are also closer to the center of the country’s politics and policymaking agencies. Research studies conducted by these universities have exerted strong influence on the development of this field. These universities will continue to be at the center of this field and have national influence in this field, even though new programs have been established throughout the country.



Issues and Discussions

119

The Interdisciplinary Nature of the Field Discussions of the knowledge and curricular structure of higher education would be incomplete without addressing one the most critical questions regarding the nature of higher education as an area of graduate study—is higher education an area of study? Or is it an interdisciplinary field? Few studies have examined this question from the perspective of curriculum and knowledge structure. The traditional way of categorizing an academic discipline or a field is to examine whether the field or the discipline possesses its own disciplinary knowledge base. Higher education as a graduate field of study has evolved into an interdisciplinary field rather than a field or a subfield to the discipline of education. Its knowledge base is not confined to the discipline of education but includes knowledge from various disciplines and fields. The number of specialized areas and the variety of course offerings among Chinese higher education programs provides impressive evidence of the interdisciplinary nature of this field. Not only are courses from multiple disciplines, but also faculty’s prior work experience and original disciplinary training shows the interdisciplinary nature of this field and their influence on the orientation and focus of higher education programs. Higher education has become a field with professors who, starting from disparate backgrounds, helped define the parameters of a growing field. Some came to the field with administrative experience and practical knowledge of higher education. Some came back from abroad after doctoral studies in higher education. This research shows that higher education does not only become a more interdisciplinary field in terms of academic degree offerings and curriculum structure, but also becomes a professional field as the administrative interests and needs have been growing and providing an environment for higher education to grow in pertinent disciplines. For instance, management and public administration have become ramifications of higher education. Management of science and technology, graduate education, policymaking, and policy analysis have become subfields of higher education. The organizational location of the program within the university administrative structure also provides ample evidence that higher education as a graduate field of study has become interdisciplinary in nature. China’s programs are usually established as an independent research-oriented entity on campus. They have evolved into interdisciplinary academic programs located at various places. They have established academic articulations with other fields, academic programs, and departments, such as economics, management, and public administration. It is noted that all programs have affiliated faculty from other disciplines and fields, who often teach crossdisciplinary courses.

120

Chapter 5

Program Evaluation and Assessment One last concern about higher education as a field of graduate study comes from the rapid growth of programs in higher education. Programs have proliferated in the last decade as a result of the growing need and demand for higher education administrators and professionals as well as a research need due to vigorous changes in the higher education system. However, there seems to be very little information on the quality of these programs. There is no mechanism of program evaluation and quality control undertaken by the State Committee on Academic Degrees or by universities themselves. The need for both external assessment and internal assessment is urgent, especially when programs have a less than adequate number of faculty and suggested tendencies of excessively large enrollments. It is up to the program directors and their university leaders to counter these tendencies through better program evaluation and quality control if universities and higher education programs expect higher education as a field of study to mature beyond marginality.

Notes   1.  At some universities, education administration or education economics are offered under the discipline of public administration.   2.  Jonathan D. Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs,” in Administration as a Profession, ed. J. D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991), 78.   3.  The national curriculum guideline on doctoral study in higher education requires that doctoral programs offer two compulsory courses: the study of higher education and issues of Chinese higher education. No requirement for elective courses is provided by the national guideline.   4.  In studying higher education programs in the United States, Dressel and Mayhew attributed this descriptive nature of courses to the descriptive quality of the literature available for courses in higher education at this stage and also to the fact that higher education is such a young field of study that the basic descriptive data has yet to be fully collected (1974). This might be true in China’s case as the field of higher education is relatively young when compared to other disciplines and academic fields.   5.  J. D. Grace had a detailed description about the breadth and depth of the curriculum in “Higher Education as a Profession: A Curriculum Analysis” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, 1984). Grace defined breadth as the sum of three areas of coursework: core in higher education; education electives not in higher education; and electives taken outside of the College of Education. Depth is defined as a detailed knowledge of the concepts, terminology, and methodology of a particular way of organizing knowledge through academic disci-



Issues and Discussions

121

plines. Depth refers to the sum of two areas: courses in higher education outside the core and research work including the dissertation hours.   6.  This result is confirmed by a number of studies, including Grace, “Higher Education as a Profession”; Fife, “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs,” 1991; Barbara K. Townsend, “Doctoral Study in the Field of Higher Education,” in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, ed. John Smart (New York: Agathon Press, 1990), 6:161–99.   7.  Townsend, “Doctoral Study in the Field of Higher Education.”   8.  The required textbooks and the reading list for seminars on higher education at the majority of universities show an imbalance in the composition of books by western and Chinese authors. A typical example of the required reading list for the seminar includes nine books by Chinese authors, three by German authors, two by British authors, three by French authors, and four by American authors.   9.  A large number of articles and books have been translated into Chinese and published by Chinese publishers. Listed are some examples: Martin Trow’s Selected Essays on Martin Trow’s Educational Thinking (in Chinese) (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 2001); “Problems in the Transition from Elite to Mass Higher Education,” Studies in Higher Education 1 (1976): 11–22, translated by Wang Lixiang and reprinted in Chinese in Foreign Higher Education References 1 (1999 ): 1–31; Martin Trow’s The Enduring Legacies: In Defense of the American University (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), was translated into Chinese by Pu Lanlan, and published in Peking University Education Review 1, no. 4 (October 2003): 5–16; “American Higher Education: Past, Present, and Future,” translated into Chinese and reprinted in Higher Education Research Journal, no. 6 (1989): 99–104; Burton Clark’s The Research Foundations of Graduate Education: Germany, Britain, France, United States, Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), translated into Chinese by Wang Chengxu, published by Zhejiang Education Press (2001); The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective, translated into Chinese by Wang Chengxu, published by Hangzhou University Press (1994); Perspectives on Higher Education: Eight Disciplinary and Comparative Views (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), translated by Wang Chengxu et al., published by Zhejiang Education Press (2001); Clark Kerr’s The Uses of the University (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), translated by Chen Xuefei, published by Jiangxi Education Press (1991); Eric Ashby’s Adapting Universities to a Technological Society (California: Jossey-Bass, 1974), translated into Chinese by Teng Dachun and Teng Dasheng, published by People’s Education Press (1983). 10.  Philip G. Altbach, “The University as Center and Periphery,” Teachers College Record 82 (Summer 1981): 601–22. 11.  Most commonly used textbooks among the programs include Pan Maoyuan, Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Higher Education Research [Duoxueke guandian de gaodeng jiaoyu yanjiu] (Shanghai: Shanghai Education Press, 2001); Xue Tianxiang, Study of Higher Education [Gaodeng jiaoyu xue] (Cuilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2002).

6 Toward the New Models Implications for National Policymaking and Institutional Initiatives

Previous chapters have analyzed the curriculum and knowledge structure of higher education as a field of study in Chinese universities. The research has identified some patterns and characteristics of the knowledge structure of the field. Curriculum is a complex issue and has a subtle relationship with other elements and constituencies, including institutional missions and objectives, government agency policies, students, and faculty members. Discussions about this scholarly field have brought us to consider the need for contemplating new models for higher education programs.

New Objectives A discussion of curriculum and knowledge structure must start with defining the objectives that need to be accomplished for programs in higher education. China’s higher education programs are diverse in terms of organizational structure and pattern—some are departments, some are research institutes, and some are joint units of existing departments. However, existing programs for a doctorate in higher education have focused on research and preparation of research scholars and professors in higher education. When the national agenda focuses on research, universities seem to be confined to be innovative in changing the nature and purpose of the programs. Therefore, exploration of alternatives and recommendations for possible models are multifaceted at both the national policymaking level and at the institutional level. At the national level, graduate education is an integral part of the state discourse of building world-class research universities in the twenty-first 123

124

Chapter 6

century. Graduate education plays a strategically important role in preparing advanced scholars and professionals for economic, social, and technological development in China. The country’s leadership has also stated that doctoral studies in higher education have enormous potential to provide academic and institutional leaders with the knowledge and skills that will advance administration and research of higher education. Scholarship and knowledge produced in this field will continue to make contributions to the growth and expansion of higher education in China. National administrative agencies, including the National committee on Academic Degrees as the national governing board of graduate studies, need to consider how to encourage programs of higher education to embrace different objectives and missions rather than a similar objective, especially when the number of higher education doctoral programs has grown to seventeen, and to encourage programs to explore all other dimensions of scholarship, such as application, teaching, and administration, which are inadequately described and visible in program missions. The current discourse of the national policy on the study of higher education is vague and ambiguous about application and professional education in the objectives of this field. As Chinese higher education continues rapid expansion and growth, more competent administrators are needed in all areas of higher education. Adequate attention should be paid to different dimensions in the doctoral study of higher education. At the institutional level, the statement of program goals and purposes becomes the key issue for program planners and administrators. A degree program needs to clarify its goals and objectives and reorient its curriculum to the defined objectives. One concern at the institutional level is how to make the curriculum more consistent with the stated mission and how to construct curricula to accurately reflect the mission and objective of doctoral studies. Although doctoral programs are intended to prepare both researchers and professionals in higher education, adequate attention and necessary courses have not been allocated to accommodate either of the two objectives. Programs need to reconstruct curriculum to strengthen the course emphases on both research and application. In the research area, programs need to add more courses in research methodology for degree requirements. To emphasize practice and application in their missions and objectives, programs and departments need to integrate practice-related courses in their curricula of doctoral education. For example, for practice-oriented programs, curriculum of doctoral education needs to cover the knowledge of university and college as complex organizations—including organizational cultures, structures, functions, and knowledge of the concepts of leadership, power, authority, and conflict— and special knowledge of and understanding about the operation of college administration, including financing and budget planning, legal issues, stu-



Toward the New Models

125

dent affairs administration, institutional research, university and government relations, research administration, administration of auxiliary services, personnel management, faculty recruitment, libraries, property management, community relations, and so on. For research-oriented programs, curriculum needs to include knowledge of research, nurture students’ ability to conduct research with disciplined inquiry in the social sciences, using quantitative (description, inference, measurement, hypothesis testing, and experimental design) and qualitative (interview, focus group, ethnography, and field visit) methodologies. At present, programs are commendable for covering the knowledge of the history of higher education in China and worldwide, current issues and challenges of higher education, and functions of education in other cultures. As higher education is growing at an unprecedentedly rapid pace, programs need to expand their knowledge base, and their objectives to meet the growing need for scholars and practitioners in higher education enterprises. Curricular requirements of each program should follow program objectives. This will help programs to have clarity in learning objectives and help students to understand the scholarly knowledge and competencies they will acquire from doctoral education.

Redefining and Expanding the Interdisciplinary Knowledge Base The current understanding of the knowledge base in this field is narrowly defined in national policy statements and does not adequately reflect the scope of this field. Theoretical knowledge is vaguely defined as a sole basis, and knowledge for professions education is not specified. Professional knowledge and courses about higher education administration need to be added. National policymaking agencies need to redefine the scope of the knowledge base in this field to make the knowledge scope genuinely reflect the knowledge base and more relevant to professional needs. In addition, national policies need to reflect the balance between professional and foundational emphases in curriculum. Other segments of higher education and the university should be added to the knowledge base, including adult education, community college, private university, undergraduate education, student services, administration, program evaluation, as well as education of researchers and professors of higher education. These areas are the fastest growing sectors in China’s higher education. However, courses about these areas are lacking. The knowledge base in these areas needs to be enriched. At the institutional level, a broad knowledge base should reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the field. Among existing programs, too many programs are based on the traditional research-oriented disciplinary Ph.D. They are not well-suited to the preparation of researchers in the

126

Chapter 6

broad interdisciplinary field of higher education nor to the preparation of practitioners for the administrative field of higher education. Programs of higher education may consider taking some broad approaches to the development of individual programs in order to strengthen the depth of the program and interdisciplinary nature of the field. Some programs should consider the interest and career goals of those who seek administrative careers in areas of student counseling, admissions, finance and budget planning, and instructional technology. The knowledge base of these areas is interdisciplinary, and knowledge needs to be drawn from multiple disciplines. The lack of academic orientation to these areas in many programs has constrained the expansion of the interdisciplinary knowledge base of this field. Programs will have to think how to build a cross-disciplinary knowledge base. This will be a new direction for practitioner-oriented programs. In retrospect of the history of higher education as a field of study in China, during the early development era of the field, faculty members were drawn from different disciplines and academic fields. These faculty have made contributions to the knowledge base of higher education with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. This history suggests that from an early stage, the field of higher education was formed as an interdisciplinary study. Today, more and more faculty members join the faculty with a Ph.D. in higher education. However, the interdisciplinary nature of this field will probably continue and even strengthen as new areas and sectors of higher education will be studied and examined with cross-disciplinary perspectives and methods. Organizationally, higher education institutes were originally established as an independent academic program or research institute on campus. They were not located and based in the college of education, making them clearly interdisciplinary on campus. It is commendable that higher education programs are established as interdisciplinary research units in Chinese universities, which are not easily formed in universities where the academic departments are the primary unit for offering courses. The research institutes of higher education may have adopted new identities on campus. Some have become a composite department within education, including higher education, teacher education, and educational psychology; some are independent multifocus departments of higher education including teaching, research, and administration; the most common form is still a universitywide department, institute, or center drawing faculty from the entire university. Though it is unlikely to find consistent patterns for higher education programs, they still keep strong interdisciplinary connections with other departments in their institutions. The organizational location of the program also shows that some programs are close to the administration of the university. They are often consulted about current problems and requested to conduct research studies on



Toward the New Models

127

them. Some programs that were established as independent research institutes also carry the similar service function to serve the university’s demands for institutional studies. These services that higher education programs provide for the university are multifaceted and cross-departmental. Though programs are often interdisciplinarily established and formed, other factors may have limited the expansion of the interdisciplinary knowledge base of higher education. In addition to the short history of the field in China, the early stage of the programs often depends on one or two faculty members or scholars with established stature. Consequently, the specialty areas of the faculty often strongly dictate the curriculum and specialized areas offered by the program, which continue to be the core and the orientation of the program in some cases. This may have limited the overall development of the program and the exploration of new specialty areas, especially when the field has been under vigorous expansion and growth. The disciplinary influence of the field will continue to characterize the field. Higher education will continue to draw its body of knowledge from various fields and disciplines, including sociology, history, economics, psychology, and evaluation. Programs can take a broad approach to constructing curriculum around knowledge areas, including areas of backgrounds, organization, management, and human factor.1 For example, background knowledge includes history, social role of higher education, philosophy, politics and policy, and sociology of higher education; organization of higher education includes operation, decision making process, leadership, bureaucracy and system, power and authority, and culture of universities as institutions and organizations; management area includes, economics, budgeting, and finance; human factors include knowledge related to different groups of the universities, faculty characteristics, students, and politics and policy. For the research area, programs can include a wide range of research courses: statistics, research methodology, qualitative research, and proposal writing. Smaller programs can collaborate with other academic departments to offer these courses. In addition, programs should think to allot credits to internships, practicums, and dissertation. Currently, these areas receive minimal credit or no credits as the requirements for core courses account for a large proportion of the total credits specified for the degree. How can the university make curriculum reflect the interdisciplinary nature? How can it organize its curriculum around the interdisciplinary nature of the field? Should the program continue to concentrate on a few basic core courses and allow students to take electives in other areas of higher education or in other disciplines? Or should the program allow students to have a cognate area from other departments and fields to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the field? How should it organize research courses?

128

Chapter 6

These are some critical questions that need to be pondered by faculty members of higher education programs.

Curriculum Components Components and requirements for degrees depend upon national degree guidelines as well as institutional policy, organizational pattern, and specialties offered at each institution. Nationwide and university-wide requirements on graduate programs, which include the foreign language requirement and the political study requirement, comprise the first level of determination. These requirements are imposed on all universities and all doctorates. Another core curriculum requirement is the couple of courses from the national curriculum guideline of this field.2 This combination of policies and requirement may greatly restrict the uniqueness and the individuality of the higher education programs. Therefore, the National Committee on Academic Degrees needs to relieve itself from overseeing the core curriculum, but consider how to create program evaluation criteria and mechanisms to develop, implement, and enhance a program accreditation and accountability process in order to advance the doctoral education in the field of higher education. This will give more authority and freedom to the university and the program to decide curriculum component and specialties. The changing nature of the higher education enterprises and the evolving nature of the field complicate the issue of curriculum. Doubts and ambiguities exist in defining curriculum and knowledge in the field of higher education. A series of questions regarding curriculum structure and composition needs to be further discussed and resolved. What courses and knowledge should be included in curriculum? Should curriculum concentrate on a few basic discipline courses or create an interdisciplinary knowledge? How should the curriculum be coherent, cohesive, and relevant? What approach is needed to construct curriculum? These questions present difficulties in developing curriculum in the field of higher education. Perhaps the key issue underlying other curricular issues is the lack of conceptual framework in these programs. Many programs seem to enter the field too quickly without considering a conceptual structure as an analytical framework to structure curriculum and course offerings. Such conceptual framework is needed to assure that courses are offered and structured to manifest the knowledge areas of the field and are related to the learning objectives of higher education as the field of study embraces many different fields and subjects. A curriculum framework will help programs construct a curriculum and knowledge base to fully reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the field. Such conceptual framework is highly recommended to individual programs when structuring their curriculum for doctoral education.



Toward the New Models

129

Degree Options: Scholar versus Practitioner I have observed and found through the research a growing interest in the application of higher education in various segments and areas of higher education. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss an alternative to the current degree offering in higher education. This is timely since the discussion of offering the Ed.D. is occurring among programs, and practitioner-oriented programs are being offered at Peking University and Xiamen University. The curriculum structure of Chinese higher education programs is not well balanced, with strong emphasis on research and theoretical studies but less stress on professional training. The existing programs are not well suited to the preparation of practitioners and professionals for higher education. Therefore, a major recommendation to the National Committee on Academic Degrees agency and universities is to reorganize the degree option in higher education and add a new doctoral of education as an alternative to the programs that plan to offer a practitioner-oriented degree plan. As a field evolving from a generalized area of inquiry into a curriculum of professional specialization, higher education needs to differentiate emphases on research and professional practice. Currently, two universities have been running either weekend or summer programs for administrators. The alternative of a new degree in this field allows programs to emphasize the practical study as some American universities have done to differentiate researcher preparation and professional training. The two tracks, the doctor of education (Ed.D.) and the doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.), of higher education offer two degree structures and options. The Ph.D. is the conventional mark of the trained scholar who has demonstrated his or her ability to do original research in one field or discipline. The Ed.D., an American creation, is an earned research doctorate in the field of education.3 The purpose of the Ed.D. study is to provide professional preparation for positions of leadership in the field of education at both practical and theoretical levels. As the study suggested, the trend of professionalization will continue in this field. National policymaking agencies need to consider offering two degree options in higher education doctoral studies by creating a new degree program, the Doctor of Education, in higher education to prepare practitioners, leaders, administrators, and policy analysts in the field. Meanwhile, the current Ph.D. programs need to be strengthened with an emphasis on preparing research and teaching scholars. Though basic requirements of the two degrees are similar, the practitioneroriented study includes specific knowledge and skills drawn from specific fields, which vary from individual interests and goals. Table 6.1 illustrates the comparison of degree requirements for the Ph.D. and the Ed.D. in higher education. The program should devise its curriculum to allow students to acquire knowledge and skills needed for their careers (see table 6.1).

130

Chapter 6

Such curriculum can include electives, internship, cognate areas, and dissertation in professional areas with practical knowledge and immersion experience. At the institutional level, implementing different degree tracks will differentiate training of research-oriented scholars and practice-oriented professionals. There is no clear-cut pattern for the degree plan of an Ed.D progam. Each program may have its own characteristics reflected in its curriculum and degree plan. However, this emphasis may make the program more accessible to students who want to focus on the application of theories and practice. Table 6.2 is an illustration of compared requirements in curriculum for the Ph.D. and the Ed.D. in higher education at an American university. This table is provided to enrich the understanding of the differences between the two degree options. As the table demonstrates, differences in curriculum exist in research requirements and cognate areas. Students with the Ed.D track will have more time and opportunities to do an internship and take a minor in other areas with practice-oriented knowledge and understanding.

Prospects of the New Models This book would not be complete without discussing how these proposed curricular patterns fit in the new and existing programs, or vice versa, how programs of higher education need to reorganize and restructure their curricula toward the new models. Two types of programs are worth considering by Chinese universities and the central policymaking agencies: research-oriented programs and practitioner-oriented programs. These two types of degree programs represent two distinctive focuses, depending on the institutional history and academic tradition. The majority of doctoral programs of higher education are offered at the universities with prestige and ambition to become world-class research universities in China. They are primarily located in China’s coastal provinces and cities with an advanced economy. These programs and their universities are seeking to maintain a national and international status. They recruit faculty members among Chinese students who studied in the United States, Japan, Australia, and Europe, and have a large amount of research money to fund large-scale national research projects and send their faculty to international conferences. Programs located at these universities recruit students and place graduates nationwide. Many doctoral graduates work as professors and scholars at other universities, research institutions, and government agencies. These programs will continue to emphasize research and scholarly activities. They organize international conferences on higher education. The pro-



Toward the New Models

131

Table 6.1.  Degree Options of Ed.D. and Ph.D. in Higher Education Ed.D. Distinctive Objectives

Preparation of professional leaders competent in identifying and solving complex problems in education. Focus on what individual can do with the subject matter. Managerial or administrative Intended Professional leadership in educational institutions or related organizations; policy Career analyst in educational agency; staff developer and trainer in organizational settings; coordination and dissemination of institutional studies. Curriculum A higher proportion of practiceoriented courses such as teaching methods, instructional materials, evaluation, finance and management, and policy studies. Research Management statistics Methods Management analysis Policy analysis Program evaluation Research design Internship A field practicum appropriate to intended professional career

Ph.D. Preparation of professional researchers. Focus in on what individual can do to the subject matter. Research, teaching, or scholarship at university, college, institute, or educational agency.

A higher proportion of researchrelated courses on theory and methods pertinent to dissertation and future research directions.

Quantitative and qualitative research methodology Policy analysis Program evaluation Research design A practicum in organizing and analyzing quantitative or qualitative data. Emphasis on growing edge of Dissertation Typically applied research or theory and methods. A report of evaluation study. A well-designed monograph with substantial value for substantial original research illustrating mastery of competing informing educational practice. It should reflect the appropriate use of theories and with the clear goal of theory or knowledge for addressing a informing disciplinary knowledge. decision-oriented problem in a specific applied setting. Source: Dill and Morrison, “Ed.D. and Ph.D. Research Training in the Field of Higher Education,” 169–86.

grams are interested in comparative perspectives, and the majority of faculty members have knowledge of higher education in other countries. The number of faculty advisors for doctoral candidates is often around four to five. They have vigorous research agenda and receive funding from internal and external sources. They are involved in both national and institutional research projects as well as consultation when significant issues

132

Chapter 6

Table 6.2. Comparison of Curriculum Requirements of Ph.D. and Ed.D. in Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University Ph.D. Curriculum Requirements

Ed.D. Curriculum Requirements

Core Area: 15 credits History of American Higher Education Curriculum in Higher Education Students and Clientele Administration in Higher Education Organizational Theory Advanced Study: 12 credits Area of Specialization Research Skills: 12 credit minimum Statistics through Multivariate Qualitative Methods Research Design Advanced Research Skills: 9 credit minimum Electives: Optional 12 credits of coursework to enhance knowledge base where necessary Cognate Area: 15 credit minimum when combined with the advanced research skills, could be applied toward a master’s degree if a student so desires Proposal Course: 3 credits minimum must be taken in formal class; 9 credits maximum, for completion of the proposal. Used to complete the Comprehensive Examination process (dissertation proposal defense). Dissertation: No credits are accumulated in the Ph.D.; student registers for 0 credits. Total: 78

Core Area: 15 credits History of American Higher Education Curriculum in Higher Education Students and Clientele Administration in Higher Education Organizational Theory Advanced Study: 12 credits Area of Specialization Research Skills: 12 credit minimum Statistics through Multivariate Qualitative Methods Research Design Internship: 9 credit internship or practicebased courses, based on previous experience Electives: Optional (12 credits of coursework to enhance knowledge base where necessary) Minor: 15 credit minimum (as required by the Graduate School)

Proposal Course: 3 credits minimum must be taken in formal class; 9 credits maximum, for completion of the proposal. Used to complete the Comprehensive Examination process (dissertation proposal defense). Dissertation: 15 credits

Total: 81

Source: Higher Education Handbook, Higher Education Program at Pennsylvania State University. Note: The program of higher education administration at Pennsylvania State University was ranked No. 1 in the field by the U.S. News & World Report America’s Best Graduate Schools in 2010. The program is located within the Department of Educational Policy. The doctoral program of higher education has the degree options of Ed.D and Ph.D. Information about the program is available at http://www.ed.psu.edu /educ/eps/higher-education/degree-programs/comparison-between-ph-d-and-ed-d.

of higher education are being studied locally, regionally, or nationally. Faculty members of this type of program are located either at a department or a research institute within a school of education or as an independent research institute within the university.



Toward the New Models

133

The “Big Four” programs at Beijing University, Xiamen University, East China Normal University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology are the archetype of programs of this kind. At the same time the challenge for smaller programs is how to distinguish themselves from the four oldest and largest programs with prestige and define their own distinctions in objectives, curriculum, and targeted students groups. These programs of smaller size are often new programs. The majority of these programs are limited in geographical scope and personnel resources. They usually have two or three doctoral advisors. These programs may need to think in a different direction and form a new set of objectives for the programs. Some programs should focus on services to students of regional areas with practice-oriented purpose and curriculum. Both faculty and student research will tend to focus on practice issues and problems. Specialty areas need to be closely related to practical and administrative areas. Curriculum might be geared to the preparation of administrators in higher education with specialty areas. This is not to say that these programs will not produce any scholars and researchers. The curriculum of these programs will include research courses as an important component of the overall curriculum. However, the curriculum focus will be on practical areas of higher education, including administrative positions at government agencies. An internship or a practicum should be included to allow students to develop their administrative, management, and research competencies. Different from students of research-oriented programs, who are generally full-time students, students of practice-oriented programs may have fulltime jobs. These students will enhance and enrich their understanding about policymaking and higher education administration through internships and their actual work experiences. Programs of this type can include a cognate area for students to strengthen and deepen their knowledge and understanding about a professional area. This requires the program to collaborate with other departments within the college of education or the university. The move to the new model may cause necessary organizational changes. For example, many programs are called and function as a research institute of higher education. It is questionable whether programs of this type should continue to be labeled as an institute of higher education as the unit is being transformed to a teaching and instructional unit on campus. As programs of this type are devoted to the preparation of scholars and researchers, they should consider adopting and offering the Ed.D. programs and curriculum with practice as focus. These two types of programs distinguish themselves from each other in function and primary objectives. Research-oriented programs train and prepare researchers, scholars, and professors in higher education and generate new disciplinary-based and interdisciplinary knowledge about issues and problems of higher education. Practice-oriented programs can train profes-

134

Chapter 6

sionals of higher education to become administrators in higher education and government agency staff. Professors of research-oriented programs focus on research and consultation services to the university and national policymaking agencies and institutions. Faculty members of these programs are disciplinary-oriented, who train students to apply the discipline to higher education. Faculty of practitioner-oriented programs focus on teaching and services to regional society, and the teaching faculty of these programs can also include senior administrators of the university and higher education. Probably we have to present another alternative for programs in higher education. This alternative allows programs to offer both degree options for students. As I am writing this manuscript, this mixed approach is being practiced at Beijing University. Will this mixed approach with two tracks of objectives and degree plans work for programs? As the majority of programs in higher education are comparatively small in size with only three to four doctoral advisors, the two degree tracks will add more burden to faculty’s existing teaching and research load. In addition, as many programs have been increasing their doctoral enrollment, I doubt that this mixed alternative will work for faculty members without hurting and sacrificing the quality of the program. However, a small number of programs with national prestige and resources may offer the two degrees as they have need from professionals and government agencies. Some smaller and newer programs at large prestigious universities may plan to offer the two degrees as they have the prestige, budget, and ambition to grow larger in the future in order to compete with well-established large programs. During the research and interviews with program directors, students, and faculty members, my impression is that people are sensitive but keen to curricular revisions and program changes. However, change in program and curricular structure often opens the discussion about increased resources, funding, personnel, and new obligations for faculty members. Given China’s current centralized system of higher education, some changes and initiatives need to come from the national level. The current national policy on graduate study detailed specifications on admissions, research and study scope, missions and objectives, and curriculum. National policymaking and administrative agencies, including the National Committee on Academic Degrees and the Ministry of Education, need to develop macromanaging guidelines and policies to help institutions redefine objectives, curriculum, and study scope as well as knowledge base of the field of higher education. National policymaking agencies should create a policy environment for the development of the field and give more autonomy to institutions and programs to make decisions on curriculum and courses. They need to recognize the professionalization of this field and create alternatives of the Ed.D. As most existing programs in higher education are research-oriented, a clear



Toward the New Models

135

delineation between the training of practitioners and researchers will be beneficial for programs to make clear distinctions in both the objectives and curricular structure for the long-term development and healthy growth of the field. The significant role the Association of Higher Education Studies plays in the field of higher education cannot be neglected. It has a wide and broad membership throughout the country and can serve as a strong voice of the field in introducing initiatives for higher education programs from the bottom level and a liaison between universities and national administrative agencies. The association needs to work with the national government agencies as well as universities to take new initiatives in developing a new program evaluation mechanism as there is little evidence of the efficacy of higher education programs in preparing researchers and administrators in higher education. The research is not to question the value of courses about higher education and the significance of the field, but to identify characteristics of the knowledge base and curricular structure of this young burgeoning academic field. The field has manifested a strong interdisciplinary nature in curriculum and knowledge structure, drawing its knowledge from various disciplines and academic fields. Especially when higher education in China has become an enterprise with broad scope, a formal study with an interdisciplinary approach is urgently needed to examine and analyze complex issues of higher education, such as curriculum, student affairs, research management, finance, budgetary, governance, and administration. At the same time, higher education as a field is being professionalized with its own knowledge base and a set of skills in applying this knowledge to practical areas. The field is being challenged with the need to prepare and train competent professionals for various administrative posts. Therefore, a new degree option of Ed.D., as a professional and practitioner-oriented degree, aims at preparing education professionals for administration and highly needed and recommended in this field. An Ed.D. program in higher education is similar in nature to a graduate degree in business, in law, or in medicine as well as in teaching or teacher training.

Notes   1.  Dressel and Mayhew recommended this approach in their seminal book, Higher Education as a Field of Study (1974). Dressel and Mayhew (1974) proposed a broad approach to specifying knowledge, research, scholarly skills, and abilities in curriculum at individual programs in higher education by adding knowledge and developing theory, applied research and evaluation, and values underlying the higher education enterprise. They further elaborated that knowledge includes back-

136

Chapter 6

grounds (history, philosophy, sociology); current organization and operation; learning processes and goals (cognitive, modes of learning and teaching, concepts, and methodology of the disciplines); management (resource allocation and utilization, economics, politics science); and human factors (student characteristics and motivations, faculty characteristics and motivation, reward systems, and evaluation). Research and scholarly skills and abilities include the research methodologies from the relevant disciplines. Applied research and evaluation skills, including evaluation and cost benefit analysis, aim at improving operation in relation to the needs of society and resources required and study and improvement of the decision making process. Though the book was published in the United States more than thirty years ago, I find this idea can be applied, not replicated, by some programs in China in forming their curriculum.   2.  The national curriculum guideline on doctoral study in higher education requires that doctoral programs offer two compulsory courses of higher education and issues of Chinese higher education. No requirement for elective courses is provided by the national guideline.   3.  G. K. Schweitzer, The Doctorate: A Handbook (Springfield, IL: Thomas Books, 1965).

Appendix

Reading List for the Doctoral Students in Higher Education at Tsinghua University Books Ashby, Eric. Adapting universities to a Technological Society. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974. Translated into Chinese by Teng Dachun and Teng Dasheng. Published by People’s Education Press, 1983. Bok, Derek. Beyond the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibilities of the Modern University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. Boyer, Ernest L. College: The Undergraduate Experience in America. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Published in Chinese by Beijing Normal University Press, 1993. Brubacher, John S. On the Philosophy of Higher Education. Rev. ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1982. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 1987. Cai, Keyong, ed. Analysis of Higher Education System Reform and Its Comprehensive Efficiency. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1997. Cerych, L., and Sabatier, P. Great Expectations and Mixed Performance: The Implementation of Higher Education Reforms in Europe. Oakhill, UK: Trentham Books, 1986. Chen, Guisheng. Historical Analysis of Educational Phenomena: Examining Modern History of Education [Lishi de jiaoyuxue xianxiang toushi: jindai jiaoyuxue shi tansuo]. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1998. Chen, Lie. Market Economy and Higher Education: A Worldwide Topic [Shichang jingji yu gaodeng jiaoyu: yige shijiexing de keti]. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1999. Chen, Yukun. On China Higher Education Evaluation [Zhongguo gaodeng jiaoyu pingjie lun]. Guangzhou, China: Guangdong Education Press, 1993. Clark, Burton R. The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. 137

138

Appendix

———. Perspectives on Higher Education: Eight Disciplinary and Comparative Views. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Translated into Chinese by Wang Chengxu et al. Published by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. Fan, Fumin, ed. Research on College Student Psychological Education [Daxuesheng xinli jiankang jiaoyu yanjiu]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2001. Faure, Edgar, et al. Learning to Be: The World of Education of Today and Tomorrow. Paris: UNESCO, the International Commission on the Development of Education, 1972. Published in Chinese by Education Science Press, 1996. Hao, Keming, and Wang, Yongquan, eds. Research on China’s Higher Education Structure [Zhongguo gaodeng jiaoyu jiegou yanjiu]. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1988. Huang, Ji. Educational Philosophy [Jiaoyu zhexue]. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 1985. ———. Theories of Educational Philosophy [Jiaoyu zhexue tonglun]. Taiyuan, China: Shanxi Education Press, 1998. Hutchins, Robert M. The Higher Learning in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1936. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. Jaspers, Karl. What Is Education. Shanghai: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1991. Kerr, Clark. The Uses of the University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. Translated into Chinese by Chen Xuefei. Published by Jiangxi Education Press, 1991. ———. The Great Transformation in Higher Education, 1960–1980. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. ———. Higher Education Cannot Escape History, Issues for the Twenty-first Century. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Kleiman, Lawrence S. Human Resource Management: A Tool for Competitive Advantage. Minneapolis/St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1997. Published in Chinese by Machinery Industry Press, 2003. Lin, Zhengfan, ed. University Psychology [Daxue xinli xue]. Hangzhou, China: Zhejiang University Press, 2003. Pan, Maoyuan, ed. New Higher Education Studies [Xinbian gaodeng jiaoyu xue]. Beijing: Normal University Press, 1996. Powell, Walter W., and DiMaggio, Paul J. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991. Project Team of China Education and Human Resources Problem Report. Stepping from a Country of Big Population to a Country with Strong Human Resources [Cong renkou daguo maixiang renli ziyuan qiangguo]. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2003. Qu, Baokui, Education and Social Development [Jiaoyu yu shehui fazhan]. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1989. ———, ed. Collected Essays on Educational Studies: Education and Educational Studies [Jiaoyu xue wenji: jiaoyu yu jiaoyuxue]. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1993. Rhodes, Frank H. T. The Role of the American University. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2001. Shattock, Michael. The Structure and Governance of Higher Education. Edited by the Leverhulme Programme on the Study of the Future of Higher Education. SRHE, 1983. Published in Chinese by Northeastern Normal University Press, 1997. Shen, Hong. Formation and Development of American Research University [Meiguo yanjiuxing daxue xingcheng yu fazhan]. Wuhan, China: Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press, 1999.



Appendix

139

Sherman, Arthur, Bohlander, George, and Snell, Scott. Managing Human Resources. 10th ed. Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing, 1995. Published in Chinese by the Northeast University of Finance and Economics Press, 2001. Van de Graaff, John H., et al. Academic Power: Patterns of Authority in Seven National Systems of Higher Education. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. Wu, Shuangshuang, ed. Human Resources Development and Management [Renli ziyuan kaifa yu guanli]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2002. Xu, Hui. The New Phase of Higher Education Development: On the University-Industry Relationship [Gaodeng jiaoyu fazhan de xin jieduan—lun daxue yu gongye de guanxi]. Hangzhou: Hangzhou University Press, 1991. ———. Market Economy and China’s Reform of Higher Education Administrative System [Shichang jingji yu zhonguo gaodeng jiaoyu tizhi gaige]. Changsha, China: Hunan Education Press, 1995. Yang, Dongping, ed. Spirit of Universities [Daxue jingshen]. Liaohai Press, 2000. Zhang, Houcan, ed. University Psychology [Daxue xinli xue]. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 2001. Zhang, Jingying, et al., eds. University Management Psychology [Daxue guangli xinli xue]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 1993. Zhou, Fengnian. Research on China’s Higher Education Operation System [Zhongguo gaodeng jiaoyu yunxing jizhi yanjiu]. Guangzhou, China: Guangdong Higher Education Press, 1994.

Journals China Higher Education (Zhongguo gaodeng jiaoyu) China Higher Education Research (Zhongguo gaojiao yanjiu) China Social Science Digest (Zhongguo shehui kexue wenzhai) Chronicle of Higher Education Education Research (Jiaoyu yanjiu) Foreign Social Sciences (Guowai shehui kexue) Harvard Educational Review Higher Education (Gaodeng jiaoyu) Higher Education Research (Gaodeng jiaoyu yanjiu) Human Development Report, UNDP Research in Higher Education World Education Report, UNESCO Xinhua Digest (Xinhua wenzhai)

Reading List for the Doctoral Students in Higher Education at East China Normal University Altbach, Philip G., Berdahl, Robert O., and Gumport, Patricia J., eds. American Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

140

Appendix

Bok, Derek. Beyond the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibilities of the Modern University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. Brubacher, John S. On the Philosophy of Higher Education. Rev. ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1982. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 1987; revised edition, 2001. Bush, Tony, and Coleman, Marianne. Leadership and Strategic Management in Education. London: Paul Chapman; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000. Chen, Xuefei, ed. 50 Years of Higher Education Research [Zhongguo gaodeng jiaoyu yanjiu 50 nian]. Beijing: Education Science Press, 1999. Chen, Yukun. Education Evaluation [Jiaoyu pingjie xue]. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1999. Clark, Burton. Perspectives on Higher Education: Eight Disciplinary and Comparative Views. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Translated into Chinese by Wang Chengxu et al. Published by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. ———., ed. The Research Foundations of Graduate Education: Germany, Britain, France, United States, Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. Flexner, Abraham. Universities: American, British, German. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang University Press, 2001. Hannan, Andrew, and Silver, Harold. Innovating in Higher Education: Teaching, Learning and Institutional Cultures. Buckingham, UK, and Philadelphia: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, 2000. Inayatullah, Sohail, and Gidley, Jennifer, eds. The University in Transformation: Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2000. Japanese Teacher Education Association, ed. Teacher Education [in Japanese]. Vols. 1–3. Tokyo: Gakubunsha Co. Ltd., 2002. Kerr, Clark, et al., eds. Higher Education Cannot Escape History: Issues for the Twentyfirst Century. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang University, 2001. Kogan, Maurice, ed. Transforming Higher Education: A Comparative Study. London and Philadelphia: J. Kingsley Publishers, 2000. Leadership Team of China and Foreign University President Forum of the Ministry of Education. Collected Articles of the Forum for China and Foreign University Presidents [Zhongwai daxue xiaozhang luntan wenji]. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2002. Losco, Joseph, and Fife, Brian L., eds. Higher Education in Transition: The Challenges of the New Millennium. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2000. Seki, Masao. Japanese University Education Reform: History, Present, and Outlook [in Japanese]. Tokyo: Tamagawa University Press, 1988. Sporn, Barbara. Adaptive University Structures: An Analysis of Adaptation to Socioeconomic Environments of U.S. and European Universities. London and Philadelphia: J. Kingsley Publishers, 1999. Tang, Yuguang, and Fang, Jiansen. On Higher Education Reform [Gaodeng jiaoyu gaige lun]. Guilin, China: Guangxin Normal University Press, 2001. Teichler, Ulrich, and Sadlak, Jan, eds. Higher Education Research: Its Relationship to Policy and Practice. Oxford: Published for the IAU Press by Pergamon, 2000.



Appendix

141

Van de Graaff, John H., et al. Academic Power: Patterns of Authority in Seven National Systems of Higher Education. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. Van Patten, James J. Higher Education Culture: Case Studies for a New Century. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000. Van Vught, Frans, et al., eds. Higher Education Policy: An International Comparative Perspective. Oxford and New York: Pergamon Publishing, 1993. Published in Chinese by Zhejiang University Press, 2001. Xie, Anbang, ed. Comparative Higher Education [Bijiao gaodeng jiaoyu]. Guilin, China: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2001. Xue, Tianxiang, ed. Higher Education Administration [Gaodeng jiaoyu guanli]. Guilin, China: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2001. ———. Higher Education Studies [Gaodeng jiaoyu xue]. Guilin, China: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2001. Yuan, Zhenguo, ed. Education Policy Studies [Jiaoyu zhengce xue]. Nanjing: Jiangsu Education Press, 1996. Zheng, Fuzhi, ed. Country Reports on Higher Education Policy [Gaodeng jiaoyu zhengce guobie baogao]. Beijing: Education Science Press, 2003.

Bibliography

Adams, H. B. The College of William and Mary. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1887. Altbach, P. G. “Research and Training in Higher Education: The State of the Art.” In Higher Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Centers and Programs, edited by P. G. Altbach and D. Engberg. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 2001. Ashby, Eric. Adapting Universities to a Technological Society. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974. Translated into Chinese by Teng Dachun and Teng Dasheng, published by People’s Education Press, 1983. Baldridge, J. V. “Organizational Characteristics of Colleges and Universities.” In The Dynamics of Organizational Change in Education, edited by J. V. Baldridge and T. Deal, 38–59. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan, 1983. Barnard, C. I. Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968. Best, J. W., and Kahn, J. V. Research in Education. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1997. Birnbaum, R. “Searching for a Leader.” AAHE Bulletin 359 (1983): 9–11. ———. How Colleges Work: The Cybernetics of Academic Organization and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988. ———. How Academic Leadership Works: Understanding Success and Failure in the College Presidency. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992. Blackburn, R. T., Armstrong, E., Conrad, C., Didham, J., and McKune, T. Changing Practices in Undergraduate Education: A Report Prepared for the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies. Berkeley, CA: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1976. Bowen, W. G., and Rudenstine, N. L. In Pursuit of the Ph.D. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Boyer, E. The Undergraduate Experience in America. New York: HarperCollins, 1987. ———. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990. 143

144

Bibliography

Brint, S., and Karable, J. The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900–1985. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Burnett, C. W. “Higher Education as a Specialized Field of Study: A Review and Interpretation of the Literature.” In Higher Education as a Field of Study. Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Association of Professors of Higher Education, Chicago, 1972. Burns, John. “China’s Nomeklatura System.” Problems of Communism 36 (1986): 36–51. Cai, K. “Research in Higher Education Administration of Fifty Years in China.” In Higher Education Research in China for Fifty Years, vol. 3, edited by Chen Xuefei, 481–86. Beijing: Educational Science Publishing House, 1999. Cameron, K. S., and Whetten, D. A. “Models of the Organizational Life Cycle: Applications to Higher Education.” Review of Higher Education 6 (1983): 269–300. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Missions of the College Curriculum: A Contemporary Review with Suggestions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1977. Chen, David Y. “The Amalgamation of Chinese Higher Education Institutions.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 1020 (April 14, 2002). Chen, Lie. Market Economy and Higher Education: A Worldwide Topic. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1998. Chen, Xuefei, ed. Higher Education Research in China for Fifty Years. Beijing: Educational Science Publishing House. 1999. ———. “Ideal-Oriented Policymaking: Analysis of the Policymaking Process of Project 985” [Lixiang daoxiangxing de zhence zhiding—“985 gongcheng” zhengce guocheng fenxi]. Peking University Education Review 4, no. 1 (2006): 145–57. Cheng, D. “The Chinese Economy in 2000: Promises and Pitfalls.” Unpublished article presented for the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, 2000. Clark, B. R. “The Organizational Saga in Higher Education.” Administrative Science Quarterly 17 (1972): 178–84. ———. Perspectives on Higher Education: Eight Disciplinary and Comparative Views. The University of California Press, 1987. Translated by Wang Chengxu et al., published by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. ———. The Research Foundations of Graduate Education: Germany, Britain, France, United States, Japan. The University of California Press, 1993. Translated into Chinese by Wang Chengxu, published by Zhejiang Education Press, 2001. ———. The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective. Translated into Chinese by Wang Chengxu, published by Hangzhou University Press, 1994. Clark, M. J., Hartnett, R. T., and Baird, L. L. Assessing Dimensions of Quality in Doctoral Education: A Technical Report of a National Study in Three Fields. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. 1976. Cohen, M. D., and March, J. G. Leadership and Ambiguity: The American College President. 2nd ed. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1974. Conrad, C. F. The Undergraduate Curriculum: A Guide to Innovation and Reform. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978.



Bibliography

145

———. “Meditations on the Ideology of Inquiry in Higher Education.” Review of Higher Education 4, no. 1 (1988): 25–32. Conrad, C. F., and Pratt, A. M. “Making Decisions about the Curriculum: From Metaphor to Model.” Journal of Higher Education 54 (1983): 16–30. ———. “Designing for Quality.” Journal of Higher Education 566 (1985): 601–22. Courtenay, B. C. “Eliminating the Confusion over the Ed.D. and Ph.D. in Colleges and Schools of Education.” Innovative Higher Education 13 (1988): 11–20. Davis, T. M., Faith, E. L., and Murrell, P. H. “Missions of Higher Education Doctoral Programs: Corollaries, Constraints, and Cultures.” In Administration as a Profession, edited by J. D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991. Dibden, Arthor. J. “A Department of Higher Education: Problems and Prospects.” Educational Record 46 (1965): 209–12. Dill, D. D., and Morrison, J. L. “Ed.D. and Ph.D. Research Training in the Field of Higher Education: A Survey and a Proposal.” The Review of Higher Education 8 (1985): 169–86. Dressel, P. L. Administrative Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981. Dressel, P. L., and Mayhew, L. B. Higher Education as a Field of Study: The Emergence of a Profession. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974. Du Ruiqing. Chinese Higher Education: A Decade of Reform and Development 1978– 1988. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. Ewing, J. C., and Stickler, W. H. “Progress in the Development of Higher Education as a Field of Professional Graduate Study and Research.” Journal of Teacher Education 15 (1964): 397–403. Fife, Jonathan D. “Course Offerings in Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” In Administration as a Profession, edited by J. D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991. Fife, Jonathan D., and Goodchild, L. F., eds. Administration as a Profession. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991. Fincher, C. “Research in Higher Education: The Possibilities and Actualities of Disciplined Inquiry.” Research in Higher Education 32 (1991): 625–50. Flexner, A. Medical Education in the United States and Canada. New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1910. Frank, D., Schofer, E., and Torres, J. C. “Rethinking History: Change in the University Curriculum, 1910–90.” Sociology of Education 67 (1994): 231–42. Glazer, J. S. “The Master’s Degree: Tradition, Diversity, Innovation.” ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report no. 6. Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1986. Goodchild, L. F. “Higher Education as a Field of Study: Its Origins, Programs, and Purposes, 1893–1960.” In Administration as a Profession, edited by J. D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991. Goode, W. J. “Encroachment, Charlatanism, and the Emerging Professions: Psychology, Sociology, and Medicine.” American Sociological Review 25 (1960): 903–4. Grace, J. D. “Higher Education as a Profession: A Curriculum Analysis.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, 1984. Grace, J. D., and Fife, J. D. “A Profile of Student Expectations of Graduate Programs in Higher Education: A Marketing Approach.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Student of Higher Education, San Antonio, TX, 1986.

146

Bibliography

Gu, Mingyuan. “Daxue de lixiang he shichang jingji” [Ideal of Universities and Market Economy]. Comparative Education Research 2 (1994). Hall, G. S. “Decennial Address.” In Clark University 1889–1899: Decennial Celebration, edited by W. E. Story and L. P. Wilson. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. 1899. ———. “Contemporary University Problems.” In Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., 1889–1914. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. 1914. Harcleroad, F. F., ed. Higher Education: A Developing Field of Study. Iowa City, IA: ACT Publications, 1974. Hayhoe, Ruth. China’s Universities and the Open Door. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1989. ———. A Century of Cultural Conflict: China’s Universities 1895–1995. New York: Routledge, 1996. Hirsh, W. Z., and Weber, L. E., eds. Challenges Facing Higher Education at the Millennium. Washington, DC: American Council on Education/Oryx Press. 1999. The History of the California Master Plan for Higher Education: Digital Archive. Available at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/masterplan/pre1960 .html. Hobbs, W. C., and Francis, J. B. “On the Scholarly Activity of Higher Educationists.” Journal of Higher Education 44, no. 1 (1977): 51–60. Huang, Jiaju. “Shehuizhuyi chuji jieduan gaodeng jiaoyu de tedian yu duice” [Characteristics and Strategies of Higher Education in the Initial Phase of Socialism]. Higher Education Exploration 1 (1988). Katz, M. B. “From Theory to Survey in Graduate Schools of Education.” Journal of Higher Education 37 (1966): 325–34. Kauffman, J. F. “The Professor-Administrator.” In Higher Education: A Developing Field of Study, edited by Fred F. Harcleroad. Iowa City, IA: ACT Publications, 1974. Keller, G. Academic Strategy: The Management Revolution in American Higher Education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Kerr, C. The Uses of the University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963. Translated into Chinese by Chen Xuefei, published by Jiangxi Education Press, 1991. Knight, E. W. The Influence of Reconstruction in the South. Published doctoral dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 1913. Kotler, P., and Murphy, P. E. “Strategic Planning for Higher Education.” Journal of Higher Education 52 (1981): 470–89. Kushner, R. J. “Curriculum as Strategy: The Scope and Organization of Business Education in Liberal Arts Colleges.” Journal of Higher Education 70 (1999): 413–45. Levine, A. Handbook on Undergraduate Curriculum. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1977. Li, Jun, and Jing, Lin. “China’s Move to Mass Higher Education: An Analysis of Policy Making from a Rational Framework.” International Perspectives on Education and Society 9 (2008): 269–95. Li, Yining. “Shilun jiaoyu jingfei zai guomin shouru zhong heli bili de yiju” [Discussions on Appropriate Proportion of Education Expenditure in GNP]. China Social Science 4 (1984).



Bibliography

147

Lieberthal, Kenneth. Governing China: From Revolution through Reform. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2004. Lieberthal, Kenneth, and Oksenberg, Michel. Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. Lynton, E. A. “A Crisis of Purpose: Reexamining the Role of the University.” Change 10 (1983): 19–53. Mauch, James. “Analysis of Higher Education: Focus on Market.” In Collected Works on Higher Education Reform and Development, edited by Shi Zhao. Beijing: National Academy of Education Administration, 1997. Mayhew, L. B. “Problems and Issues in Programs in Higher Education.” In Higher Education: A Developing Field of Study, edited by Fred F. Harcleroad. Iowa City, IA: ACT Publications, 1974. McMillan, J. H., and Schumacher, S. Research in Education: A Conceptual Introduction. 5th ed. New York: Longman Publishing Group, 2000. Min, Weifang. “Higher Education Finance in China: Current Constraints and Strategies for the 1990s.” Higher Education 21 (1991): 151–61. ———. “Current Trends in Higher Education Development in China.” International Higher Education 22 (2001): 22–24. ———. “Chinese Higher Education: The Legacy of the Past and the Context of the Future.” In Asian Universities: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges, edited by Philip G. Altbach and Toru Umakoshi. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Ministry of Education (MOE) of China. Educational Statistical Yearbook of China. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1978–2008. ———. Action Plan to Rejuvenate Education in the 21st Century [Mianxiang 21 shiji jiaoyu zhenxing xingdong jihua]. Beijing, December 24, 1998. ———. Bulletin of Doctoral Programs Admissions of 2007 in China. 2008. Minkel, C. W., and Richards, M. P. Components of Quality in Master’s Degree Programs. Knoxville: University of Tennessee at Knoxville Graphic Arts Service, 1986. Mintzberg, H. “The Professional Bureaucracy.” In The Structuring of Organizations, edited by H. Mintzberg, 347–79. Englewoood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979. ———. “Opening up the Definition of Strategy.” In The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts and Cases, edited by J. B. Quinn, H. Mintzberg, and R. M. James. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988. Moore, H. E., Russel, J. H., and Ferguson, D. G. The Doctorate in Education: An Inquiry into Conditions Affecting Pursuit of the Doctoral Degree in the Field of Education. Vol. 2. Washington, DC: The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 1960. National Committee on Academic Degrees. Introduction of Disciplines and Fields Granting Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in China. Beijing: Higher Education Publishing Press, 1999. Nelson, G. M. “Higher Education Doctoral Programs: A Demographic Portrait.” In Administration as a Profession, edited by J. D. Fife and L. F. Goodchild. San Francisco: Jossey‑Bass, 1991. Nelson, Jack K., and Coorough, Calleen. “Content Analysis of the Ph.D. versus Ed.D Dissertation.” Journal of Experimental Education 62, no. 2 (1994): 158–69. Newman, J. H. The Idea of a University. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.

148

Bibliography

Osguthorpe, R. T., and Wong, M. J. “The Ph.D. versus the Ed.D.: Time for a Decision.” Innovative Higher Education 18, no. 1 (1993): 47–63. Pan, Maoyuan. “Guanyu gaodeng jiaoyuxue xueke jianshe de ruogan wenti” [A Few Questions on Constructing Higher Education as a Field of Study]. Higher Education Research 1 and 2 (1983). ———. Gaodeng Jiaoyu Xue [Studies of Higher Education]. Beijing: People’s Education Publishing House; Fuzhou: Fujian Education Publishing House, 1984. Palmer, A. M. “Professional Study of Higher Education.” Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges 16 (1930): 283–85. Powell, A. G. The Uncertain Profession: Harvard and the Search for Educational Authority. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. Qu, Baokui. Selected Documents on Chinese Education Reform. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1991. Roaden, A. L., and Larimore, D. L. “The Scholar-Practitioner Paradox, Revisited in Higher Education.” Journal of Research and Development in Education 6, no. 2 (1973): 50–62. Rodman, B. “Sweeping Overhaul of Licensing, Training of Administrators Urged.” Education Week 3, no. 18 (1987). Rogers, J. F. Higher Education as a Field of Study at the Doctoral Level. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, National Education Association, 1969. Romer, Paul M. “Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth.” Journal of Political Economy 94 (1986): 1002–37. ———. “Endogenous Technological Change.” Journal of Political Economy 985 (1990): 71–102. Schweitzer, G. K. The Doctorate: A Handbook. Springfield, IL: Thomas Books, 1965. Shen Hong. The Formation and Development of American Research Universities [Meiguo yanjiuxing daxue de xingcheng yu fazhan]. Wuhan, China: Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press, 1999. Stark, J. S., and Lattuca, L. A. Shaping the College Curriculum: Academic Plans in Action. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997. Suspitsin, D. A. “Research on Higher Education in Russia: Is It Ever to Become an Interdisciplinary Endeavor.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Student of Higher Education, 1998. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 427 604. Tang, Min and Zuo, Xiaolei. “It Is Time for Education to Stimulate Consumption” [Jiaoyu Qidong Xiaofei Huzhiyuchu]. Economic Highlights, Feb. 19, 1999. Toombs, W., and Tierney, W. G. “Meeting the Mandate: Renewing the College and Departmental Curriculum.” ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report no. 6. Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1992. Townsend, B. K. “Doctoral Study in the Field of Higher Education.” In Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, vol. 6, edited by John C. Smart. New York: Agathon Press, 1990. ———. “Rethinking the Ed.D., or What’s in a Name?” A paper presented for the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Sacramento, CA, November 21–24, 2002. Townsend, Barbara K., and Manson, S. O. “Career Paths of Graduates of Higher Education Doctoral Programs.” Review of Higher Education 14 (1990): 63–81.



Bibliography

149

Trow, Martin. “Reflections on the Transition from Mass to Universal Higher Education.” Daedalus 99, no. 1 (Winter 1970): 1–42. ———. “Problems in the Transition from Elite to Mass Higher Education.” Studies in Higher Education 1 (1976): 11–22. Translated into Chinese by Wang Lixiang, reprinted in Foreign Higher Education References 1 (1999): 1–31. ———. “American Higher Education: Past, Present, and Future.” Translated into Chinese. Shanghai Higher Education Research Journal, no. 6 (1989): 99–104. ———. “From Mass Higher Education to Universal Access: The American Advantage.” Minerva 37 (Spring 2000): 1–26. ———. The Enduring Legacies: In Defense of the American University. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Translated into Chinese by Pu Lanlan, reprinted in Peking University Education Review 1, no. 4 (Oct. 2003): 5–16. ———. Selected Essays on Martin Trow’s Educational Thinking (in Chinese). Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 2001. Trow, Martin, and Clark, Burton R. “The Organizational Context.” In College Peer Groups: Problems and Prospects for Research, edited by Theodore M. Newcomb and Everett K. Wilson, 17–70. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966. UNESCO. World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-first Century: Vision and Action. Paris: UNESCO, 1998. Walton, J. G. Graduate Study in Universities and Colleges in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Government, 1934. Wang, Jianhua. “The Debate about Discipline or Field of Study and the Construction of Higher Education Conceptual System” [Lingyu, xueke zhizheng yu gaodeng jiaoyu gainian tixi de jiangou]. Modern University Education, no. 2 (2006). Wang, Yongquan. “Fazhan gaodeng jiaoyu kexue de jige wenti” [A Few Questions in Developing Higher Education as a Study]. Educational Research 5 (1983). Wen, Hongyan, and Bi, Quanzhong. “Work Hard to Create the World First-Class Zhejiang University and Its Road of Amalgamation and Reform.” People’s Daily, May 12, 2000. Weick, K. “Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems.” Administrative Science Quarterly 21 (1976): 1–19. Whaalen, J., and Wilson, L. Policies and Practices in Certificate and Diploma Education in Canadian Universities. Toronto: Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, 1991. World Bank. China: Management and Finance of Higher Education. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1986. ———. Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1994. ———. China: Higher Education Reform. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1997. ———. World Development Report 1998/1999: Knowledge for Development. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1998. ———. World Development Report 1999/2000: Entering the 21st Century. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1999. ———. Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000. ———. World Development Indicators WDI 2000 Database. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000. Available from WDI 2000 Database: http://www.worldbank .org/data/countrydata/aag/chn_aag.pdf.

150

Bibliography

Xue, Tianxiang, and Tang, Yuguang. “Bashi niandai woguo gaojiao lilunjie zhenglun de jige zhongda wenti” [Key Issues and Discussions in Higher Education Theories in the 1980s in China]. Journal of Higher Education Studies 2 (1991). Xue, Tianxiang, and Wang, Weilian. “Shilun gaodeng jiaoyuxue de gaizao” [Discussions on Reforms of Higher Education Studies]. Shanghai Higher Education Research 4 (1993). Xue, Tianxiang, and Yin, Li. “Gaoshen zhuanmen zhishi de jiao yu xue huodong” [Teaching and Learning Activities in Advanced Specialized Knowledge: Logic of Theoretical System of Higher Education Study]. Shanghai Higher Education Research 3 (1997). Yin, Qiping, and White, Gordon. “The ‘Marketisation’ of Chinese Higher Education: a Critical Assessment.” Comparative Education 30, no. 3 (1994): 217–37. Young, B. B. “The Rise and Development of Instructional Courses in Higher Education.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1952. Yu, Yueqing. “Yingda shijiao dui lilun de huhuan: Gaodeng jiaoyu lilun yanju wushinian huigu” [Facing the Calling of Practice to Theory: Retrospect on Fifty Years of Higher Education Theory and Foundation Research]. In Higher Education Research in China for Fifty Years, edited by Chen Xuefei. Beijing: Educational Science Publishing House, 1999. Zhou, Chuan. “Guanyu gaodeng jiaoyu mubiao de lilun sikao” [Theoretical Thoughts on Objectives of Higher Education]. Shanghai Higher Education Journal 2 (1990). Zhou, N., and Cheng, F. “Research on Higher Education in China.” In Higher Education Research at the Turn of the New Century: Structures, Issues, and Trends, edited by Jan Sadlak and Philip C. Altbach. Paris: UNESCO Publishing; and New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.

Index

foundation, 29, 34, 35, 36, 48, 61, 96, 98, 110

American Association of Higher Education (AAHE), 43 Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), 43 Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang), 30, 90 “Big Four” programs, 68, 87, 118, 133 Chinese Association of Higher Education (CAHE), 32, 33 Clark, Burton, 46, 86, 117 Committee on Academic Degrees of the State Council, 28, 33, 34, 36, 70, 75, 91, 100, 120, 124, 128, 129, 134 course distribution, 96–106 curriculum: structure, 7, 8, 12, 13, 20, 21, 27, 28, 34–38, 48–51, 53, 55, 57, 61, 67, 68, 85, 87, 88, 90–92, 95–98, 100, 102, 109, 115, 117, 118, 119, 123, 124, 128, 129, 134, 135; component, 5, 38, 55, 56, 76, 83, 85, 87, 128, 133; conceptual and theoretical framework, 38, 52, 57– 60, 67–68, 96, 114, 118, 128; objectives, 33–37, 51, 52, 55, 69, 85, 86, 98–100, 109–12, 123–25, 128, 131, 133–35; theoretical

doctoral programs: admission requirements, 91; areas of specializations, 93, 111; doctoral students, 36, 67, 70–84, 87–89, 97, 98, 111, 112, 114, 117; faculty, 33, 36, 60–61, 67, 73, 74, 76–79, 83, 85, 87–88, 90, 92–95, 97, 106, 109, 111–15, 117, 119–20, 123, 125–28, 130–34; history, 27–38, 41–47, 67– 69, 70–87, 90–97; location of organizational structure, 88–91, 120, 123, 124, 126; missions, 35, 36, 42, 49, 52, 53, 85, 98, 100–101, 109–12, 124, 134; national policy, 29, 36, 37, 61, 93, 98, 100, 110, 123–25, 129, 134; size, 46, 67, 74, 83, 87, 94, 97, 133, 134. See also curriculum East China Normal University, 30, 32, 74–77, 85, 89, 90, 93, 94, 96, 100, 102, 106, 133 Ed.D. (doctor of education), 52–54, 58, 92, 95, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133–35 Fife, Jonathan D., 63–65, 116

151

152

Index

Hayhoe, Ruth, 24, 39, 76, 78 Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 30, 32, 76, 78, 79, 87, 94, 96, 97, 99, 103, 106, 133

private universities. See private minban colleges Project 211, 10, 11, 30–32, 68, 70, 74 Project 985, 11, 73

independent colleges. See private minban colleges

reform of higher education, 8, 9, 11, 118 research-oriented study, 52, 61, 97, 110, 119, 125, 130, 133–34

Kerr, Clark, 85, 86, 117, 121 massification of higher education, 71, 118 Min, Weifang, 33, 38 New Oriental Education, 19 Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 21, 42 Pan, Maoyuan, 29, 34, 39, 70, 86 Peking University, 23, 28, 30, 33, 71, 73–75, 86, 89, 90, 92–100, 102, 106, 110, 111, 129 Ph.D., 29, 52–54, 58, 88, 91–93, 98, 125, 126, 129–30, 131, 132 practitioner-oriented study, 129 private minban colleges: independent colleges, 20, 23; secondary colleges, 19, 20; training schools, 18, 19

secondary colleges. See private minban colleges Shanghai Jiatong University, 81, 106 technical and vocational colleges, 16 Trow, Martin, 10, 46, 86, 117 Tsinghua University, 30, 78–80, 82, 87, 89, 93, 94, 97, 98, 104, 106 university enrollment, 7, 9–10, 15–16, 29, 70, 80, 82, 87, 92, 114, 120, 134 world-class university, 73, 83, 87, 89, 93 Xiamen University, 28–30, 33, 69–72, 89, 90, 93, 94, 96, 99–100, 101, 106, 129, 133 Zhu, Jiusi, 32, 78

About the Author

Xin Wang is associate professor of Chinese studies and acting director of Asian studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He worked for both private and public sectors in China before he joined the Baylor faculty in 2003. His research interests include contemporary society and culture in China, especially the relationship between Chinese universities and the government, the civic culture of the emerging middle class, and the subculture of artist communities and villages and the cultural industry in China.

153