Introduction and acknowledgements

Abstract

This book has been truly a collaborative effort, with four scholars in the inner circle of our efforts to understand China’s universities as they have been transformed through the massification process of the early 21st century, and many other scholars contributing in diverse ways. In the autumn of 2005 we made application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funds to enable us to study the changes that had come about in Chinese higher education between 1990 and 2005, and we are most grateful for the support they provided us. As we put together our research proposal, three questions stood out as being of greatest importance, both for China’s own socio-political, cultural and economic development, and for a wider global community with which China is interacting in more and more significant ways.