Debates about higher education’s purpose have long been polarized between specialized preparation for specific vocations and a broad, general knowledge foundation known as liberal education. Excluding the United States, specialized curricula have been the dominant global norm. Yet, quite surprisingly given this enduring trend, liberal education has new salience in higher education worldwide. This discussion presents liberal education’s non-Western, Western, and u.s. historical roots as a backdrop for discussing its contemporary global resurgence. Analysis from the Global Liberal Education Inventory provides an overview of liberal education’s renewed presence in each of the regions and speculation about its future development.
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Becker Jonathan “What a Liberal Arts Education is . . . and is Not” Bard Institute for International Liberal Education 2003 http://iile.bard.edu/research/
Cao Li de Bary Brett “Redefining ‘Liberal Education’ in the Chinese University” Universities in Translation: The Mental Labor of Globalization 2010 Hong Kong Hong Kong University Press 153 163
Du Ruiqing Chinese Higher Education: A Decade of Reform and Development (1978-1988) 1992 New York St. Martin’s Press
Geiger Roger The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture from the Founding to World War ii 2015 Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press
Godwin Kara A. The Global Emergence of Liberal Education: A Comparative and Exploratory Study 2013 Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Boston College
Hayhoe Ruth China’s Universities and the Open Door 1989 Armonk, New York M. E. Sharpe
Hutchins Robert Maynard The Higher Learning in America 1936 New Haven, CT Yale University Press
Jiang You Guo Liberal Arts Education in a Changing Society: A New Perspective on Chinese Higher Education 2014 Leiden, Netherlands Brill
Makdisi George The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West 1981 Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press
Nussbaum Martha C. Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education 1997 Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
Nussbaum Martha C. “Liberal Education & Global Community” Liberal Education 2004 90 42 47
Rothblatt Sheldon The Living Arts: Comparative and Historical Reflections on Liberal Education. The Academy in Transition 2003 Washington, DC Association of American Colleges and Universities
Rudolph Fredrick Curriculum: A history of American Undergraduate Course of Study Since 1636 1977 San Francisco Jossey-Bass
Scharfe Harmut Education in Ancient India 2002 Leiden, Netherlands Brill
Singh Gurpreet “Influence of Religion on Indian Education” International Journal of Educational Administration 2010 no. 2 335 343
Task Force on Higher Education and Society Higher education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise 2000 Washington, DC World Bank
Thelin John R. “Higher Education and the Public Trough” Public Funding of Higher Education: Changing Contexts and New Rationales 2004 21 39
Tu Wei-ming Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation 1985 Albany, NY State University of New York Press
Van der Wende Marijk “The Emergence of Liberal Arts and Sciences Education in Europe: A Comparative Perspective” Higher Education Policy 2011 June 24 no. 2 233 253
Zakaria Fareed In Defense of a Liberal Education 2015 New York W.W. Norton
Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (New York: W.W. Norton, 2015).
Jonathan Becker, “What a Liberal Arts Education is . . . and is Not,” Bard Institute for International Liberal Education (2003), http://iile.bard.edu/research/; Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1997);—, “Liberal Education & Global Community,” Liberal Education, no. 90 (2004): 42-47; Sheldon Rothblatt, The Living Arts: Comparative and Historical Reflections on Liberal Education. The Academy in Transition (Washington, dc: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2003).
Ibid., p. 8.
You Guo Jiang, Liberal Arts Education in a Changing Society: A New Perspective on Chinese Higher Education (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2014).
Ruiqing Du, Chinese Higher Education: A Decade of Reform and Development (1978-1988) (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992) 2.
Harmut Scharfe, Education in Ancient India (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2002).
Gurpreet Singh, “Influence of Religion on Indian Education,” International Journal of Educational Administration, no. 2 (2010): 336.
George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981).
Yale College. (1828). Report of the Course of Instruction in Yale College by a Committee of the Corporation and the Academical Faculty. New Haven: Yale College.
John R. Thelin, “Higher Education and the Public Trough,” Public Funding of Higher Education: Changing Contexts and New Rationales (2004): 21-39.
Fredrick Rudolph, Curriculum: A History of American Undergraduate Course of Study Since 1636 (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1977).
For more detail, see Godwin, The Global Emergence of Liberal Education, 2013.
You Guo Jiang, Liberal Arts Education in a Changing Society, 2014.
Li Cao, “Redefining ‘Liberal Education’ in the Chinese University,” in Universities in Translation: The Mental Labor of Globalization, ed. Brett de Bary (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 153-163.
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Debates about higher education’s purpose have long been polarized between specialized preparation for specific vocations and a broad, general knowledge foundation known as liberal education. Excluding the United States, specialized curricula have been the dominant global norm. Yet, quite surprisingly given this enduring trend, liberal education has new salience in higher education worldwide. This discussion presents liberal education’s non-Western, Western, and u.s. historical roots as a backdrop for discussing its contemporary global resurgence. Analysis from the Global Liberal Education Inventory provides an overview of liberal education’s renewed presence in each of the regions and speculation about its future development.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 2458 | 691 | 89 |
Full Text Views | 382 | 29 | 5 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 344 | 62 | 13 |