“On the Centre–Periphery Borderline”: Educational Studies on/in Mainland China in the Global Context

In the context of China’s rising global role, the question of where its academia is moving to becomes a matter of concern. Embedded in the literature on academic (de)colonization and intellectual pluralism, research was conducted by Chinese educational scholars on the status quo of educational studies on and in mainland China within the world system of knowledge production. We report its major findings in order to respond to continuing struggles within the contemporary Chinese academic society and between global “centres” and “peripheries.” Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted with both overseas ethnic Chinese and non-Chinese education researchers, as well as bibliographic and content analyses among relevant academic publications, its findings indicate the growing but still limited global impact of educational studies on/in China especially theoretically and epistemologically, tensions between “centres” and “peripheries” within the world knowledge system, as well as tensions between internationalization and local knowledge. Suggestions for future directions have been concluded based on empirical data.