Transforming China's educational landscape with conglomeratizing elite schools

Abstract

School-to-school collaboration (SSC) has received significant research attention as a global strategy for improving low-performing schools and promoting educational equality within regions. However, scant attention has been paid to the phenomenon of conglomeratizing elite schools (CES) with Chinese characteristics, which represents an essential manifestation of SSC. This research aims to investigate the influence of national and regional policies on CES practices and identify collaborative modes and underlying mechanisms within CES. By critically analyzing SSC theory’s compatibility with CES and incorporating symbiosis theory, a “Regional School Symbiotic System Model” is constructed as the conceptual framework. This research employs a combination of case studies, documentary analysis, and semi-structured interviews involving eight stakeholders from four schools within an educational conglomeration in Guangzhou to examine evidence of internal collaborative networks in education. The findings demonstrate that CES has evolved from a local practice to a national strategy, with policy and practice mutually influencing each other. As a crucial symbiotic environment, policies have profoundly influenced the roles and interactions of participants within the conglomeration, leading to the diversification of member schools towards singularization and a shift in Conglomeration A’s underlying motivation from spontaneous expansion to government guidance. Collaborative modes and paths in CES are also explored in depth, where Conglomeration A exemplifies a comprehensive but unidirectional symbiotic path, resulting in problems of school homogeneity and lack of innovation. A significant academic contribution of this research is the categorization of six collaborative modes that describe interactions within CES based on dimensions of inter-school interdependence and reciprocal linkages. While the member schools exhibit an integrated and mutualistic symbiotic mode with the core school, disparities among them still exist. Establishing an integrated collaboration and mutualistic symbiosis mode emerges as the most effective and desirable approach for eliminating school disparities and achieving regional educational equity. This research addresses the scarcity of SSC literature concerning regional experiences in China, providing an idealized model system and theoretical foundation for CES. It offers new insights for exploring and advancing urban education during periods of educational transition and in the context of diversified schooling.