Legitimising shared governance in China's higher education sector through university statutes. (19th January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhuang, Tengteng; Liu, Baocun; Hu, Yiyun
• Is Part Of: European journal of education. Volume 57:Number 1(2022)
• Page Start: 33
• Page End: 48
• Publication Date: 2022-01-19
• Subjects: Education, Higher -- Europe -- Periodicals; Education -- Research -- Europe -- Periodicals; 370.94
• DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12493
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-8211

Abstract

Abstract: This article reports on a study in which the legitimisation of shared governance in the Chinese higher education sector was investigated. Norman Fairclough's three‐level discourse analysis was used for analysing documents and interviews. The research materials consist of thirteen Chinese university statutes and qualitative semi‐structured interviews with 22 university administrators, faculty members, students and social representatives. The research focused on how university statute texts articulate shared governance, and how shared governance is practically implemented. Study findings demonstrate that Chinese university statute discourses officially legitimise shared governance in various manifestations, by replacing the term management with the term governance in statute texts, explicitly using democracy‐related phrases, especially establishing a joint meeting mechanism at both institutional and departmental levels, and by using the wording multiple‐stakeholder participation in university affairs. In practice, shared governance is a recognised ideal of governance structures to embrace among all different stakeholders. Chinese universities have, more than ever before, taken up shared governance practices. Yet, the degree of participation, or sharing, in policy implementation in general, remains to be further improved compared with the ideal state stipulated in discourses. Findings identify tokenism as a feature of policy implementation. Insufficient administrative professionalism is identified as a catalyst for such tokenism—a reason for why shared governance efforts remain incomplete thus far.