Reciprocal learning across borders: Education as a bridge in turbulent times
ECNU Review of Education
In "Reciprocal Learning Among Chinese and Canadian Educational Cultures Amid Turbulent Global Relations," F. Michael Connelly and Shijing Xu (许世静) offer a timely account of how educators can maintain meaningful international collaboration during periods of political strain. They argue this process is potentially vital to the possibility of mitigating unproductive, ultimately dangerous, global tensions. Their article documents a long-term Canada–China educational partnership that continued to flourish even as the wider climate shifted from optimism toward tension and suspicion.
The article describes the Canada–China Reciprocal Learning Partnership in Teacher Education and School Education, launched in 2013, extended financially through 2024, and continuing through 2026 as the Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program at the University of Windsor as well as project publications continue and project friendships flourish. Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and participating institutions in both countries, the initiative connected universities, school boards, schools, teacher educators, researchers, teachers, teacher candidates, students, and families. Its purpose was not simply to compare two educational systems, but to create sustained opportunities for people in each system to learn with and from one another.
Two interconnected structures made this work possible. The Canada–China Sister School Network eventually involved more than 30 schools in Toronto, Windsor, Shanghai, Beijing, Changchun, and Chongqing. The Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program enabled Canadian and Chinese teacher candidates to undertake international school placements supported by preparation, guided reflection, and continued participation after returning home. Online meetings, classroom visits, co-planning, co-teaching, conferences, and collaborative research turned cross-cultural contact into shared educational practice
The authors describe their approach as Reciprocal Learning as Collaborative Partnership, or RLCP. Unlike versions of comparative studies that examine another culture from the outside, perhaps by using external detailed comparative research methods, RLCP is a study "with, not of," cultural partners. Participants work together on practical questions that matter in their own classrooms and institutions. Through these encounters, they learn about their international partners while also reconsidering their own assumptions and practices. Reciprocal learning therefore moves beyond the exchange of information: it depends on collaboration, self-reflection, and the integration of new insights into educational practice.
The study's methodology is best thought of as narrative in that rather than imposing common research frames to consistently apply across settings, the practical processes of teaching, learning and preparing for these matters drives the educational life conditions governing the collaborations. These ongoing, practical, educational life processes are the subject of study. The authors call this process narrative inquiry. The flexibility this process generates is uncomfortable for some, but rewarding in its relevance for the involved educational lives. Connelly and Xu understand educational experience as unfolding through time, relationships, and specific social and cultural contexts. Classroom events and participants' experiences are not treated as isolated observations or reduced to predetermined comparison categories. Instead, they provide openings for examining how practices developed, what they meant to participants, and where they might lead. This approach reflects the foundational view of narrative inquiry as the study of experience through stories and lived relationships. It is also collaborative and practice-oriented: researchers worked alongside educators, teacher candidates, and school communities rather than positioning them merely as objects of study.
The partnership generated substantial evidence of sustained activity, including six collaborative research teams, annual international conferences, approximately 130 journal articles, and a major Palgrave Macmillan book series. Yet its most important achievement may be relational. While political and media narratives increasingly presented Canada–China relations through a conflict lens, participants continued to exchange ideas, mentor teacher candidates, develop lessons, and publish together. Sister schools, exchange placements, shared leadership, research teams, and recurring conferences created a durable collaborative space without denying the surrounding political tensions.
The authors do not suggest that reciprocal learning eliminates disagreement or that it occurs automatically whenever people from different cultures meet. It requires time, institutional support, practical common purposes, cultural humility, and a willingness to reflect. Their account is hopeful without being naïve: it shows how educational relationships can endure beneath the turbulence of international politics and how collaboration can replace simplified cultural judgments with deeper understanding.
This article will be especially valuable to teacher educators, school leaders, comparative education researchers, policymakers, and those developing international partnerships. It presents education not as another arena for national competition, but as a form of patient bridge-building. At a moment of increasing global fragmentation, Connelly and Xu demonstrate that locally grounded, long-term educational collaboration can preserve trust, cultivate reciprocal understanding, and contribute to the larger aspiration of global harmony.
Journal
ECNU Review of Education
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Reciprocal Learning Among Chinese and Canadian Educational Cultures Amid Turbulent Global Relations
Article Publication Date
27-Jul-2026
Chinese graduate students help transform Japanese universities as active contributors, not passive learners
ECNU Review of Education
International students are often discussed in terms of what they gain from studying abroad: degrees, skills, language ability, employability, and intercultural experience. A new study published in ECNU Review of Education shifts the focus to a different question: how do international students contribute to their host universities and societies?
The study, titled "How Do Chinese Graduate Students Contribute to Japanese Universities: An Agential Perspective," was conducted by Lilan Chen from Waseda University, Shuoyang Meng from the University of Tokyo, and Ming Li from the University of Osaka. Focusing on Chinese graduate students in Japan, the research argues that international students should not be viewed merely as recipients of education, but as active agents who shape academic knowledge, institutional connections, intercultural understanding, and the everyday internationalization of universities.
Japan has long sought to attract international students as part of its higher education internationalization strategy. Since the 1980s, the Japanese government has implemented major policies to increase inbound student mobility, including targets of 100,000, 300,000, and more recently 400,000 international students. Chinese students have remained one of the largest and most important groups within this landscape. Yet existing research has largely focused on why international students choose Japan and what they experience after arrival. Less attention has been paid to what they give back to Japanese universities and communities.
To address this gap, the authors used collaborative autoethnography, a qualitative method that combines personal reflection, shared narrative, and collective analysis. Drawing on their own experiences as former or current Chinese graduate students in Japanese universities, they examined how international students contribute across four dimensions: academic–formal, academic–informal, nonacademic–formal, and nonacademic–informal.
The findings reveal that Chinese graduate students contribute to Japanese universities in multiple ways. In formal academic settings, they expand research agendas by bringing knowledge of China and transnational contexts into Japanese academic spaces. They also enhance Japan's global academic visibility through English-language publications, international conference presentations, and cross-border research collaboration.
International students also act as academic conduits between institutions. The study shows how Chinese graduate students help connect Japanese universities with Chinese universities through lectures, translation, academic introductions, and collaborative opportunities. These activities support knowledge diplomacy, not only between China and Japan, but also within a broader global academic ecosystem.
Their contributions are not limited to formal academic roles. In informal academic spaces, Chinese graduate students influence peers, junior colleagues, and supervisors by shaping research interests, encouraging international publication, and helping Japanese students participate in global academic networks. Their multilingual and multicultural experiences allow them to serve as network brokers who connect scholars across linguistic, disciplinary, and national boundaries.
Beyond academia, the study highlights students’ cultural and social contributions. Some participants taught Chinese language in Japan, introduced Chinese culture to local communities, and participated in city-level international exchange activities. Through these practices, they served as cultural mediators who helped Japanese students, residents, and communities develop more nuanced understandings of China and Chinese society.
The authors also emphasize that the effects of international student mobility travel in multiple directions. Chinese students' experiences in Japan influence not only Japanese universities but also families, friends, younger students, and academic communities in China. By sharing their experiences, advising future students, and maintaining transnational ties, they contribute to broader patterns of brain circulation and cross-cultural understanding.
"Our study suggests that international students are not simply moving through universities. They are also helping to reshape them," the authors note. "Their agency matters because internationalization is not only a policy target or institutional strategy. It is also produced through the everyday academic, cultural, and interpersonal work of mobile students."
The study calls on universities and policymakers to recognize international students as essential contributors to higher education. Rather than treating them mainly as learners, consumers, or future workers, institutions should create more supportive environments that value their academic, linguistic, cultural, and social roles. This includes providing opportunities for international students to participate in research networks, community engagement, intercultural education, and institutional internationalization.
In an era of demographic change, geopolitical uncertainty, and growing debates over the purpose of internationalization, the study offers a timely reminder: international students are not peripheral to universities. They are central actors in the circulation of knowledge, the formation of global academic communities, and the building of more open and connected societies.
Journal
ECNU Review of Education
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
How Do Chinese Graduate Students Contribute to Japanese Universities: An Agential Perspective
Article Publication Date
26-Jul-2026
