Understanding and Supporting the Confucian Heritage Culture International Students in Victorian Independent Schools: A Perspective of School Leaders

Greater demand for quality post-secondary education has been seen in Asia, particularly in China. Many Western countries have seen a rise in international education. Increasingly, schools in Australia are embracing internationalisation policies, leading to an increase in international student enrolment before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. International students in school education are something of a little-understood issue for educational scholars, policy makers and the general public. Leadership is seen as pivotal in the success of schools’ internationalisation program. By applying a mixed-method approach to collect data from an online Qualtrics survey and semi-structured interviews with independent school leaders in Australia, this paper reports how school leaders understand Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) international students’ linguistic, cultural and educational contributions to schools, and their experience in supporting the international students to adapt into the new educational environments through various programs and strategies. This article also advocates that it is vital to respect the international students’ educational subjectivities generated in their “home” countries when providing support programs to help them engage with new educational contexts in “host” nations.

Examining the Scientific Argumentation Implemented Through a Social Constructivism-Based Curriculum Designed for Primary Science Education in a Confucian Heritage Culture: A Case Study in Vietnam

This study describes the improvement of a science curriculum based on a social constructivist approach in order to support primary students in a Confucian heritage culture in practicing scientific argumentation. The former design is adjusted by the application of an adapted model of the learning placemat for argumentation and by the formulation of concrete teaching-learning activities which are articulated with the application of the adapted learning placemat. The practice of a designed curriculum unit reveals that the designed curriculum can support the primary students in practicing scientific argumentation and in attaining consensually agreed knowledge. Nevertheless, the study also shows that primary teachers and students in a Confucian heritage culture do not pay much attention to the activities of qualifying and rebutting in scientific argumentation. The study recommends that further developmental research needs to deal with the refined problem of how to improve qualifying and rebutting in scientific argumentation in the practice of science lessons in a Confucian heritage culture.

The joy of obligation: Human cultural worldviews can enhance the rewards of meeting obligations

Is it particularly human to feel coerced into fulfilling moral obligations, or is it particularly human to enjoy them? I argue for the importance of taking into account how culture promotes prosocial behavior, discussing how Confucian heritage culture enhances the satisfaction of meeting one's obligations.