Multiple Perspectives and East Asian Higher Education Research

Abstract

The last three decades have witnessed rapid development with drastic achievement in higher education of East Asia.However,opinions vary with respect to the future of East Asian higher education.Disparities in these opinions might have arisen from differing research perspectives.This article attempts to analyze the importance of perspective in social research.Based on the analysis of current English literature,it argues that current conceptualization of East Asian higher education development relies almost entirely on Western theoretical constructions,and calls for multiple perspectives,especially perspectives that give weight to the impact of traditional East Asian ways of cultural thinking on contemporary development of East Asian higher education.

東亞高等教育近幾十年來取得了令人矚目的成就,然而國際學術界對其發展前景的預測卻存在較大分歧。不同學者在對東亞高等教育發展問題上的看法受到他們在研究中有意或無意間所采用的不同視角的影響。本文試圖分析'視角'在社會科學研究中的重要性,筆者認為目前關于東亞高等教育發展的研究主要基于西方的理論構建,繼而提出當前東亞高等教育研究亟需多元化的研究視角,尤其需要重視采用歷史文化視角以挖掘與研究東亞傳統文化對當代高等教育發展的影響。