Higher education with Chinese characteristics is inherently embedded in both Chinese traditional culture and Chinese modern political culture. This article examines the ontological conception of higher education with Chinese characteristics from both conceptual and political perspectives. First, by illustrating the Government agenda and politics for the construction of higher education with Chinese characteristics, this article explains the particular roles played by individual universities and colleges. The article then moves on to describe the ontological conceptual framework used in identifying higher education (...) with Chinese characteristics for the purpose of showing how higher education with Chinese characteristics differs from Western dominated higher education concepts and models. Both the distinction between the Eastern and Western contexts and the integration of the globalization and localization are involved in construction of the concept of higher education with Chinese characteristic. The final section considers the policy implications for the developing higher education with Chinese characteristics. (shrink)

School moral education in any country is carried out in a particular social and cultural context. The renewal of policy and practice in moral education in China has come about because of a rapidly changing Chinese society, as a result of the government's ‘reform and opening up’ policy since the end of the 1970s. The consequent changes in the Chinese economy, politics and culture are innovatory and challenging. It is these changes that have brought about, and will continue to bring (...) about, new ideas and practices in moral education. This paper describes how Chinese moral education has been influenced according to recent social changes and modernization in China, including the formation of the market economy, the impact of globalization, mass media and the Internet, cultural diversity and value pluralism, trends to democratization in politics, and structural changes in the family. It also considers the kind of social issues and challenges which are being dealt with and anticipated in policy, theory and practice in contemporary Chinese moral education. (shrink)