ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes and comments on those aspects of China's education system and practice which are most pertinent as background to our research project. Non-indigenous educational practice within China has become a common phenomenon since the reforms of the 1970's. The chapter discusses the aspects of the privatization of education in China to consider the interplay between Chinese and international educational influences at a fundamental level in order to establish some of the broader context of the study. Education and social mobility In spite of this emphasis on control at the centre of education in the country, the main focus for the delivery of education in imperial China was informal relying on an adhocracy of tutors hired by the rich or by communities to work with students of promise for the imperial examinations. A powerful artefact of the internationalization process in educational intellectual life in contemporary China is the pervasiveness of English language in education.
