Academic Events
Lecture (No.134) A Study of China-s Educational Soft Power in an International Comparative Perspective
Publish Date:2021-11-30

 

On November 30, 2021, IICE HU Yiyun delivered a lecture entitled “A Study of China's Educational Soft Power in an International Comparative Perspective” for IICE’s International Education Podium. The lecture was chaired by IICE Professor LIU Baocun and attended by faculty members and graduate students from the IICE.

 

Teacher HU pointed out that the soft power of education is an important part of China’s soft power. Through the soft power of education, it has become the strategic goal of China’s education to help improve the soft power of Chinese culture and even the overall soft power. Therefore, how to recognize, evaluate and enhance China’s soft power of education has gradually become a hot research topic in the education sector. She gave a detailed introduction to this topic from four aspects, including the definition, the elements, the current situation, the problems and the countermeasures.

 

First, she defined the concept of educational soft power, based on which she constructed an analytical framework for educational soft power, namely educational value power, educational institutional power, educational policy power, educational innovation power and educational communication power. Second, after comparing and analyzing the data of the four major international soft power rankings, she pointed out that there is still a gap between educational soft power of China and that of developed western countries. Educational soft power of China still had problems of not being good at putting forward educational concepts with value power, imperfect system construction, inadequate policy design, educational innovation power to be improved, and limited educational communication power.

 

Finally, combined with the analysis framework of soft power and the main indicators of the international soft power rankings, she proposed that in order to further improve China’s educational soft power, China should increase investment in education to consolidate the “hard” foundation of educational soft power; build an education theory system, knowledge system and discourse system with Chinese characteristics and global recognition to enhance the influence of Chinas education philosophy; strengthen system construction and policy design to enhance the affinity of Chinese educational systems and policies; build an educational communication system and tell the story of Chinese education.

 

Teacher HU pointed out that the construction of Chinas educational soft power is in the process of mutual shaping of modernity and globalization, and how to break the contradiction between the autonomy of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the globalization based on the logic of capital has become the fundamental basis of the strategy to enhance the soft power of socialist education with Chinese characteristics. At the end of the lecture, she had further discussions with teachers and students.