ABSTRACT
When I set out for China in 1988, I took with me many assumptions and commitments. For example, I assumed that my enquiries into the social worlds of Chinese schools would generate layers of meaning, some of which would be more accessible to me than others and that these would evolve. I assumed that processes of social inclusion and exclusion were not mere sorting exercises aimed at greater efficiency; personal and political consequences would be significant and inescapable. I saw the continuing search for objectivity in educational enquiries as a different kind of project but nonetheless political. My perspective is shaped by ‘western’ values but I do not represent them like an ambassador. Indeed, the dominant values of the British educational research establishment may be closer to those of some of my Chinese colleagues than they are to mine.
