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2025 No. 5

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The Corruption of Education and the Decline of the Regime: An Analysis of Book Ⅲ of Plato's Laws
LI Changwei
2025, (5): 5-15.
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In Book Ⅲ of Laws, education is regarded as the decisive factor in the rise and fall of a regime. The harem education in Persia led to the decline of monarchy, while the musical education in Athens led to the decline of democracy. The harem or court education was indulgent, fostering the monarch's capriciousness and enslavement of the people; musical education was likewise indulgent, fostering the people's capriciousness and fearless attitude towards the authority of law. Good education must be "temperate" and "moderate", that is, it must maintain a middle course in the relationship between freedom (pleasure) and slavery (awe), without leaning to either extreme. Only on such a foundation can a stable and virtuous regime be built.
From Historical Imagination to Historical Writing: Peter Brown's Historiographical Method and New Directions in the History of Education Studies
LI Mingmei, WANG Chen
2025, (5): 16-29.
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To explore and innovate the research and writing of history of education studies, this paper takes the research achievements of Peter Brown, the founding figure of Late Antiquity studies, as analytical material, studying the migratory role of his historical conception and method in shaping history of education studies. Brown's historical research begins with historical imagination and transformed historical imagination into historical scholarship within the historical context that combines texts with backgrounds, and spiritual revolutions with social revolutions, through a historical methodology that integrates interdisciplinary perspectives and is corroborated by a wealth of historical evidence. Finally, using delicate strokes of narrative, Brown unfolds the complex rhythms and diversities of historical processes. Brown's historical practice, including his exploration in historical thinking, methodology, and narrative, not only inspires scholars in Late Antiquity studies but also influences other fields of historical research. The field of history of education could profitably draw on his methods to further explore new paths for innovation in this field.
The Cultural Narration of Educational Policy Implementation from the Perspective of the Relational Theory
LIU Hui
2025, (5): 30-38.
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The Relational Theory holds that the policy implementation is an expression of culturally embedded relations, and is also collaborative actions of educational policy implementers in a cultural network of multiple relationships. Based on the relational theory, the cultural narrative of educational policy implementation abandons the static and immersive narrative methods in the discourse of western individualism and structural functionalism. Instead, it constructs a three-dimension cultural narration cube: on the "top-down" relationship dimension, it examines the cultural foundation of educational policy identification; on the "inside-outside" relationship dimension, it analyzes the cultural nesting and interactive influence of "large fields" and "small fields"; on the "front-back" relationship, it examines the sense-making changes and similarities. The cultural narration of educational policy implementation provides inspiration for optimizing the cultural "toolkit" of educational policy implementation, as well as enhancing cultural governance capabilities.
Teaching in Learning: Reflection Notes on the First Half of the Qualitative Research Methods Course
CHEN Xiaofei
2025, (5): 39-44.
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From the perspective of a teaching assistant for the Qualitative Research Methods course, this paper first clarifies the connection between interesting research and meaningful research. It then conducts reflections from three aspects: 1) before class, the reflections focus on optimizing the management of 35 course materials, the craftsmanship value of collective lesson preparation, and student selection centered on the adaptability of research paradigms; 2) during class, analyzing the dilemma of Teaching Assistants between integration and observation, the issue of students' insufficient critical thinking, and corresponding solutions; 3) after class reflections, combined with cases, emphasizing the sources of valuable research questions and the cultivation of research sensitivity, thereby providing a basis for the subsequent optimization of the course.
"Reality Show" Course: Self-Presentation in the Teaching Life of "Qualitative Research Methods"
CHEN Xianzhe
2025, (5): 45-48.
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The course of "Qualitative Research Methods", which emphasizes the interactive participation of both teachers and students, possesses a "reality show" quality to some extent. It advances along the main thread of the course logic but takes "learning by doing" as its teaching objective, making its process more contextual and full of tension, which is conducive to breaking the communication predicament in the current university classrooms. Moreover, the course progresses amid the interweaving and flow of high-intensity emotions, making the self-presentation in daily teaching life more concrete and facilitating the construction of a more sustainable academic community.
Am I a 'Moderator' or a 'Challenger' of the Focus Group Interviews?
ZHANG Tingzhao
2025, (5): 49-51.
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In qualitative research (focus group) interviews, the host's perception of self-identity affects the trend of data collection. However, the existing literature rarely discusses host's identity, worldview and the flow construction of social reality. This reflection presents the conflict among the three teaching assistants' understanding of the identity of the host: Should the host focus on explaining the interviewee more, looking for preset answers, or guiding the interviewee to self-critical reflection? These three identities are closely related to the paradigm of the host. Interpretivism, post-positivism, and criticism will guide the host to adopt a completely different approach to interviews. Through reflection, the author finds that interviews based on these three paradigms have their own advantages and limitations, and researchers should clarify the underlying mechanism of the research "story" presented at the end.
Humor or Impoliteness? Understanding the Moderator's Role in Focus Group Interviews
CHEN Zhuojun
2025, (5): 52-56.
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Drawing upon the author's personal experience as a focus group moderator, this paper explores the role positioning and practical conflicts of moderators in qualitative research. The study highlights how focus groups depend not only on participants' interaction but also on the moderator's capacity to regulate discussion flow, balance voices, and apply adaptive communication strategies. By reflecting on moments of anxiety, improvisation, and humorous interventions, the paper argues that strategic interruptions and humor, rather than being impolite, can effectively enhance engagement, maintain coherence, and foster collective insight. The article further reflects on the role of the moderator's personality in research, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a dynamic balance between "listening" and "guiding." Such experience not only deepens the understanding of the focus group method but also offers insights for researchers in self-positioning and practice across different contexts.
Why Is the "Moderator" Challenged? The Role of "Gatekeeper" for Ensuring the Textual Legitimacy
CHEN Zhihui
2025, (5): 57-61.
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This article presents a teaching reflection from the course of Qualitative Research Methods, focusing on a debate among the teaching assistant team triggered by a focus group interview conducted at the end of the course. Beginning with a portrayal of the diligent and dedicated work approach of the lead instructor, the analysis highlights disagreements among the assistants regarding the role of the moderator and data collection methods during the interview. The core of the debate revolves around how the moderator in a focus group interview should balance guidance and intervention, and how to obtain legitimate, complete, and contextually rich qualitative data within power dynamics. The text engages with concepts such as "Group Dynamics," "Post-positivism," and "Interpretivism" by the authors mentioned earlier, attempting to explain the root causes of the opposing standpoints in the debate. It emphasizes that dialogue in educational practice should be equal and transcend power structures. Finally, the author points out the positive significance of the dispute itself, stressing that its original intent should lie in the pure pursuit of truth. Moreover, the impact of the course extends far beyond the classroom, encouraging participants to "slow down, live meaningfully, and discover oneself."
Cultivating Principal Leadership for Modernizing Schools: Connotation, Elements and Evaluation
ZHANG Wei, LI Xueliang
2025, (5): 62-70.
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School modernization is essentially a process of increasing modernity, which requires principals to play a nurturing role within the self-organizing system of the school. The principal leadership' essential factor of cultivating modern school cosist by three aspects: personal traits, influence, and the ability to continuously improve the organization. In terms of personal traits, principals need to possess modern qualities, advanced educational philosophies, and strong communication and crisis management skills. Influence includes the exemplary power of the principal, governance, school vision construction. The ability of continuously improving the organization is manifested as the ability to continuously coordinate and promote sustainable development. The evaluation of such leadership can adopt a key-projects approach, using the interaction between the principal's core functions and leadership elements as an evaluation framework, emphasizing feedback during the evaluation process to guide the development of principal leadership and school modernization.
The Historical Evolution, Typical Characteristics and Educational Value of Sudoku
ZHONG Jianlin
2025, (5): 71-79.
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Sudoku is a number-filling game and an intellectual sport that exercises logical thinking, enhances observation skills, and cultivates patience and perseverance. The development of Sudoku can be traced back to ancient Chinese "Nine Gridss" and other games, with its prototype being the "Latin Square", and it took shape as the "Number Place" puzzle. The rule system was established in Japan as "Sudoku", and its rapid spread was facilitated by the first Sudoku auto-generation software developed by Gordon Royle. Sudoku has become a widely popular and extensively practiced intellectual sport due to its characteristics such as easy-to-understand rules, readily available materials, difficulty levels, wide participation, mental challenge, and interdisciplinary integration. It holds multiple educational values: repeated attempts during play enhance exploratory skills, emphasis on reasoning improves logical abilities, intense concentration boosts focus, facing challenges builds resilience, and open information processing fosters integrative capabilities.
Why Has the Social Mobility Function of Higher Education Disappeared: A Combined Theoretical Explanatory Framework
SU Ai
2025, (5): 80-92.
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Based on the theoretical combination of technological progress, social variable capital and labor market supply and demand, this study constructs an explanatory model for the change of the mobility function of higher education class and analyzes the impact of the dynamic change structure of labor demand on the labor market supply and demand relationship and the effect of higher education diploma effect. The results show that there are three phased characteristics since our country's implementation of the higher education expansion policy: a strong mobility function during the elite education phase (1999–2001), a moderate mobility function during the mass education phase (2002–2018), and a negligible mobility function in the universal education phase (2019–present). The study concludes that changes in labor market supply-demand relationships and the credential effect of higher education directly influence the ability to realize labor value, thereby leading to a process in which the social mobility function shifts from "full realization" to "gradual weakening" and finally to "near disappearance."
The Effect of Higher Education on The Development of Social Emotional Competencies: An Empirical Analysis Based on the data of Chinese Family Panel Studies
LIU Lin
2025, (5): 93-104.
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As the core competitiveness in the 21st century, social emotional competence is an important indicator for evaluating the quality of talent cultivation in higher education in the new era. Based on the data of Chinese Family Panel Studies, this study employs a propensity score matching method to accurately estimate the impact of higher education on the development of social-emotional competencies. The study found that compared with primary education, higher education significantly improved individual s' altruism, but had no significant effect on responsibility, open-mindedness, joyfulness and emotional regulation. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the gain of altruism mainly came from undergraduate education and pre-expansion higher education, whereas associate degree education and higher education after the expansion have no significant effect on any of the five social emotional competencies. Therefore, it is imperative for higher education institutions in China to prioritize the development of students' social-emotional competencies to cultivate high-quality talents capable of adapting to and leading future social development.
The Theoretical Logic, Value Mission and Breakthrough Paths for the High-quality Development of Vocational Education Empowered by New-quality Productivity
LIU Kerong, ZHANG Minlin
2025, (5): 105-112.
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From the dimensions of the contradictory movement of productive forces and production relations, element reconstruction, system evolution, and globalization embedding, this paper deeply explores the theoretical logic of the high-quality development of vocational education empowered by new-quality productivity. Consequently, it identifies four key value missions for new quality productive forces in empowering China's vocational education: 1) constructing the training system for innovative high-skilled talents; 2) building a scientific and technological achievement transformation system; 3) advancing the upward shift of the vocational education level; 4) enhancing the international service ability of vocational education.Finally, in light of the development dilemmas faced in realizing these four value missions, this paper proposes four breakthrough paths: First, guided by the concept of serving "local economy and national strategy", taking the construction of talent cultivation system that meets the requirements of new-quality productivity as the starting point, and continuously improving the adaptability of vocational education to social needs. Second, following the logic of "a proactive government and an effective market", focusing on constructing a new-quality industry-education integration model to continuously enhance the support for vocational education. Third, leveraging the development opportunities of the "New Double High Plan" and vocational undergraduate education, centering on the construction of new-quality "Five Key Elements" to continuously increase the achievement rate of vocational education goals. Finally, adhering to the concepts of "education follows output" and "industry and education go global together, " explore new models for the internationalization of vocational education as a breakthrough to continuously boost its international recognition.

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