Abstract
Academic freedom is best understood not as an abstract universal principle or an ideal state of being but as concrete university practices nested in specific relational environments. As such, practices of academic freedom vary across the world, according to variations in political cultures, educational cultures and state-university relations. The article discusses these variations with particular reference to differences between universities associated with the limited liberal states of the English-speaking world, and those associated with comprehensive East Asian states in the Sinic tradition, including China. Given the different traditions there is no point in imposing judgments on one system in terms of the norms of another, but worth exploring the potential for common ground. Any world-wide approach to academic freedom would need to combine a universal element with space for context-specific elements.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Gernet, J. (1996). A history of Chinese civilization (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Hartnett, R. A. (2011). The Jixia Academy and the birth of higher learning in China: A comparison of fourth-century B.C. Chinese education with ancient Greece. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Hayhoe, R. (2011). Introduction and acknowledgements. In R. Hayhoe, J. Li, J. Lin, & Q. Zha, Portraits of 21st century Chinese universities: In the move to mass higher education (pp. 1–18). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Hayhoe, R., Zha, Q., & Yan, F. Q. (2011). Peking University: Icon of cultural leadership. In R. Hayhoe, J. Lin, & Q. Zha, Portraits of 21st century Chinese universities: In the move to mass higher education (pp. 95–130). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Marginson, S. (2011). Higher education in East Asia and Singapore: Rise of the Confucian model. Higher Education, 61(5), 587–611. doi: 10.1007/s10734-010-9384-9
Marginson, S. (2013). Emerging higher education in the post-Confucian heritage zone. In D. Araya & P. Marber (Eds.), Higher education in the global age: Education policy, practice and promise in emerging societies (pp. 89–112). New York, NY: Routledge.
Marginson, S., & Mollis, M. (2001). “The door opens and the tiger leaps”: Theories and reflexivities of comparative education for a global millenium. Comparative Education Review, 45(4), 581–615. doi: 10.1086/447693
Oba, J. (2007). Incorporation of national universities in Japan. Asia-Pacific Journal of Education, 27(3), pp. 291–303. doi: 10.1080/02188790701594059
Scott, P. (2011). The university as a global institution. In R. King, S. Marginson, & R. Naidoo (Eds.), Handbook of globalization and higher education (pp. 59–75). Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar.
Tu, W. M. (Ed.). (1996). Confucian traditions in East Asian modernity: Moral education and economic culture in Japan and the four mini-dragons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wang, H. (2009). The end of the revolution: China and the limits of modernity. London, England: Verso.
Wang, Q. H., Wang, Q., & Liu, N. C. (2011). Building world-class universities in China: Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In P. G. Altbach & J. Salmi (Eds.), The road to academic excellence: The making of world-class research universities (pp. 33–62). Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.
Zang, X. W. (2011). Government and changing state-society relations. In X. W. Zang (Ed.), Understanding Chinese society (pp. 170–182). Abingdon, England: Routledge.
Zha, Q. (2011). Is there an emerging Chinese model of the university? In R. Hayhoe, J. Li, J. Lin, & Q. Zha (Eds.), Portraits of 21st century Chinese universities: In the move to mass higher education (pp. 451–471). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Marginson, S. Academic Freedom: A Global Comparative Approach. Front Educ China 9, 24–41 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03397000
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03397000