Current Thinking and Liberal Arts Education in China

Abstract

Liberal arts education is an emerging phenomenon in China. However, under the pressure of exam-oriented education, memorization, and lecture pedagogy, faculty, university administrators and policy makers have not embraced it whole-heartedly. Through qualitative methodology, this study explores the current thinking of Chinese policy makers, university administrators, and faculty members on liberal arts education and its challenges. A study of the perceptions of 96 Chinese government and university administrators and faculty members regarding liberal arts education through document analysis and interviews at three universities helps in comprehending the process of an initiative in educational policy in contemporary Chinese universities. This research analyzes Chinese policy making at the institutional and national levels on curriculum reform with particular emphasis on the role of education in shaping well-rounded global citizens, and it examines how the revival of liberal arts education in China would produce college graduates with the creativity, critical thinking, moral reasoning, innovation and cognitive complexity needed for social advancement and personal integration in a global context. This research also found that the revival of interest in liberal arts education in China demonstrated that government and universities have begun to realize that the current curricula, professional training, and narrowly specialized education fail to help students to be competent in a globalized economy, and liberal arts is valued in China, and will be more effective as politics, economy and society more developed.