CERA Annual Conference 2019 ‘call for abstracts’ is open. The conference this year will take place on the 13th and 14th June 2019 at UCL Institute of Education.

Transformation in space: migration and mobility in Chinese education

The conference theme this year seeks to reflect on the pluralities of space in Chinese education, something that has been transformed in recent years. Examples of the pluralities of space are the changing divide between rural areas and cities in China, the growing numbers of Chinese students studying abroad, the development of Sino-foreign university cooperation and the spread of privately funded ‘international’ schools in China: interrelated spaces between rural/urban, national/international and public/private.

Young people no longer think solely in terms of futures limited to the places where they grew up, so China and the wider world of their imaginations are now accessible and within reach. Access to international education through studying abroad has been an important development alongside the expansion of mainstream education in China ever since the nineteen century and in recent decades has intensified through the growth of ‘international’ education including the development of universities and privately funded schools in China. Therefore ideas of ‘space’ within Chinese education not only refer to the physical locations where education takes place but also to our understanding of the ever expanding scope of education and learning. Ideas also include considerations of ‘virtual’ space as developments in the global online environment have brought people closer, collapsing distances and accessibility.

Click to view the call for abstracts