Description:
The English language has become a global language, a development which has influenced English language teaching and learning throughout the world. This influence has occurred more impressively in China than in other parts of the world as a result of the breathtaking pace at which China has integrated with global economies. Increasing industrial, economic and multicultural development has spurred language educators in China to question the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum in relation to the role of English, particularly in secondary schools. In this paper we present a brief review of the role of English as a global language in the Chinese context, a context which is now to be seen as a global one. The new curriculum has been progressively rolled out in Chinese schools since 2001. We highlight the redefinition of the role of English in the new EFL curriculum in Chinese secondary schools in particular and the significance of this as it presents new features of the new EFL curriculum as part of a developing research field, based on a comparison with the 1993 EFL curriculum. In this study, we focus on policy statements and curriculum documents as well as published previous research in order to understand the redefining of the role of English as a foreign language in the new EFL curriculum.
Description:
China has one of the most powerful military forces in the world. However, a little over 100 years ago, the Chinese military was repeatedly defeated by Western colonial powers and Japan. These defeats motivated the Chinese to make dramatic changes to their military forces.
Description:
China has one of the most powerful military forces in the world. However, a little over 100 years ago, the Chinese military was repeatedly defeated by Western colonial powers and Japan. These defeats motivated the Chinese to make dramatic changes to their military forces.
Description:
In this chapter we focus on discursive practices of research higher degree supervision as crucial elements in constructs of international student subjectivities when undertaking studies in Australian universities. We position our discussion within an Australian context, but we would argue that the issues we raise regarding the supervision of such students are applicable to other western English-speaking countries that attract international Higher Degree Research students. In doing so, we focus on discursive fields emerging within domains of internationalization, globalization, and resistance. We examine processes and protocols in a number of Australian universities postgraduate divisions’ practices in the conduct of research higher degree supervision—in the context of increasing pressures towards internationalization within frameworks of globalizing influences. We take issue with western custom and tradition as privileged within the field of supervision of research higher degree students. We suggest variations of supervision of International candidates as intentional and systematic interventions, based on literature deriving from existing research of supervision which acknowledges the problematic natures of cultural relationships in relation to teaching, learning, and knowledge production, and student resistance within these fields. We examine issues of discursive practices and the problematic natures of power relationships in supervisor/supervisee protocols and possibilities suggested by alternative models of higher degree by research supervision of international students.
Description:
Over the last 100 years China’s Olympic movement has been through turbulent times. Olympic sports were introduced into China during the colonial period via Western missionaries and schools. It has been part of the globalisation of China. However, China’s globalisation experiences in the 19th and early 20th centuries were largely painful encounters. Foreign invasions and subsequent unequal treaties brought social upheavals, financial losses and humiliations on both individual and national self-esteem. The development of Olympic sports followed a similar path. The economic reforms over the last 30 years have not only brought China out of financial poverty, but have facilitated China’s re-emergence in the Olympic Games. China rejoined the Olympics in 1984. For the first time in history, China broke its zero record in Olympic gold medal tally by winning fifteen gold medals in the Los Angeles Games. In 2008, Beijing hosted a spectacular Olympic Games and became Number one in the gold medal count. The paper will analyse this part of Chinese history and the motivation for China’s achievement in the Olympic Games. It will explain the reasons for China’s determination in modernising its Olympic sport sector from historical and cultural perspectives. The paper will reveal the system and processes that the Chinese government has put in place for the modernisation of sport in preparation for Olympic Games participation.
Description:
This paper is concerned with the emergence of hospitality in Colonial Victoria, and is part of ongoing research into understanding Victoria’s ‘tourism era of discovery’, which focuses on the embryonic or emergent phase in which the tourism and hospitality industry is coming into being. Travellers’ accounts and other contemporary sources are used to provide insights into Victoria’s nascent hospitality - through them we should be able to see the various places that were emerging as settlements in the colonial space. It offers a social history of Aboriginal interactions and associations with bush inns including camping sites; cultural performances; alcohol consumption; restrictions on serving alcohol to Aboriginal people; and sites of violence. In the pre-gold period, accommodation responded to the needs of pastoral travellers and reflected physical discontinuities such as river crossings, which were logical places to stop and rest. These discontinuities also became opportunities for interactions with Aboriginal peoples
Description:
This unique book examines the vital and contested connections between colonialism and tourism, which are as lively and charged today as ever before. Demonstrating how much of the marketing of these destinations represents the constant renewal of colonialism in the tourism business, this book illustrates how actors in the worldwide tourism industry continue to benefit from the colonial roots of globalisation.
Description:
This article draws together arguments for an interdisciplinary ‘spatial turn’ within sociology to analyse the subjectivities and biographical imaginings of Australian rural youth. It draws on a theoretical dialogue between theories of social change, and developments in socio-spatial theory in order to analyse the spatial contours of young people’s narratives, making a case for the significance of an ‘extraverted’ and porous sense of place for understanding rural youth identity. After a theoretical argument about the contemporary meaning of place for theories of globalisation and individualisation, the article presents two theoretically driven sets of case studies. The first discusses rural youth whose identities speak to the importance of place and ‘the local’ as resources for identity, while the second describes young people whose identities are ‘stretched’ across multiple spaces and locales. The analysis speaks to the importance of place for understanding the forms of reflexivity that rural youth mobilise in constructing their place in the world, and speaks to new ways in which to re-embed sociological analyses of youth within the spatially complex social landscapes of a globalised world.
Description:
In March 2011 scholars met in Prague at the conference Interculturalism, Meaning and Identity. This event revitalised this important theme related to Diversity and Recognition. The terms 'interculturalism' and 'integration' are experiencing a renaissance. As the extent of human movement between nations increases attempts are made to balance cultural difference and social cohesion. In some contexts immigration and settlement policies are becoming more draconian in response. Because of this, interculturalism can take on many meanings. However, pivotal to the way interculturalism is understood is identification. As the relationship between nation, ethnicity and language becomes more complex so too do the ways in which people represent them selves. The cultural resources drawn on and the processes used to form identities are examined in this truly international collection. So too are the implications of these developments for how we theorise culture, meaning and identity.
Description:
The vital and contested connections between colonialism and tourism are as lively and charged today as they ever were. From staged weddings in Mauritius, curated walks through the Medina of Tunis, surfing off the high-rise hotel development at Waikiki or riding on an Elephant Safari Tour in Himachal Pradesh, much of the marketing of these kinds of destinations represent the constant renewal of coloniality in the tourism business. Actors in the worldwide tourism industry continue to benefit from the colonial roots of globalisation. The ownership of tourist infrastructures, for example, airlines, hotel booking systems and resorts, are restructured by a neo-colonial order. Colonialism is echoed in the imaginations of tourists, in the marketing of destinations and in the production of touristified landscapes. Whether found on bespoke tours, or at resorts or tourist attractions, strategies to package the colonial past have arguably become more sophisticated through the situated and exciting offers encountered variously through specialist accommodation, architecture, food, stories and design. The growth in tourism and its intensi- fication and expansion into new markets has amplified the encounters with history and memory. Hélène Cixous’s (2004: 55) aphorism ‘everything passes, except the past’ presents a potent guide in commencing our thinking on these issues. As much as time is receding, the colonial past is growing in influence. Many societies find themselves cast into situations where they variously elide, exploit and re-negotiate their relationships to their colonial experience (Strachan, 2002) "From introduction"