Joining the World of Education? China’s Reaction to Internationalization Pressures

Abstract

Despite being politically closed, China has subjected itself to internationalization processes and pressures in education policy at both the secondary education level through Shanghai’s participation in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) as well as at the tertiary level, as China has the most students enrolled in higher educational institutions and the highest amount of students abroad. Although China as a whole does not participate in these international initiatives, ongoing structural reforms due to Bologna or PISA cannot be ignored. China, because of its political isolation, can also be seen as a test case: Plow does the country react to these internationalization pressures from abroad? To answer this question, we adapt Hirschman’s (1970) typology — exit, voice and loyalty- on China (see Introduction by Knodcl et al. to this volume). However, similar to the U.S. case presented in this volume, the question to apply the literature of political opportunity structures without engaging in conceptual stretching remains troublesome, particularly since this literature was developed for open, democratic Western states. In a nutshell, do political actors in China have opportunities to protest? What do we mean when we speak of exit or voice in the Chinese case?