China Today is a one credit (Pitt)/three unit (CMU) mini course, consisting of 14 hours of classes over a weekend, with a final paper assignment to be handed in for credit. The course will explore:
- How does China’s multi-ethnic composition affect educational opportunity and career advancement?
- Education in China past and present: How does the history of education in China affect educational opportunity today?
- What is in store as China moves from technological supplier to technological innovator?
Who
are the Chinese, and what are the social, economic, and cultural
factors that make China a major player on the world stage today?
In this short course, we will seek to understand China’s present, and
predict China’s future, so as to understand China’s place in our
increasingly globalized world.
Main textbook: Modernization and Revolution in China: From the Opium Wars to World Power, by June Grasso, Jay Corrin, and Michael Kort (M. E. Sharpe, 2004). Textbook will be available for purchase onsite.
Download the brochure (1.5MB PDF)
Assessment:
Due to the immersive nature of the course, students are expected to attend all sessions on all three days. Attendance will be recorded. Further,
each student will be required to read the assigned book and develop a
term paper on one dimension of modern China. Students may refer
to the textbook, the CHINA TODAY presentations, and to the Recommended
Readings that will be posted for each session. The length of the term
paper will be 5-10 pages, double-spaced in 11 point font. Term
papers are due by Monday, April 20, 2009, and should be submitted through the Digital Dropbox on the CHINA TODAY courseweb site.
Sample topics for term papers include:
- Historical factors in the development of China’s market economy
- Factors that encourage or retard technological innovation in China
- The role of education in making China a world power
- Financing innovation in China: foreign, multinational, and Chinese enterprises
- Taiwan and Hong Kong: portals for investment and innovation?
- Education and innovation in China
- Ethnicity and educational opportunity
- Can China’s economy sustain its recent growth rates?
- China’s economy—communist, socialist, capitalist, or something else?
- State planning, innovation, and the Chinese economy
- Global forces impacting the Chinese economy
- Global forces impacting the Chinese education system
Instructors (responsible for grades and class organization):
Katherine Carlitz and Dennis M. Hart, University of Pittsburgh
Indira Nair, Carnegie Mellon University
Paul Le Blanc, La Roche College
Sponsored by:
University of Pittsburgh: Katz Graduate School of Business, the Swanson School of Engineering, Asian Studies Center, Global Studies Program, National Consortium on Teaching About Asia (NCTA), Confucius Institute, International Business Center, Office of the Provost
Carnegie Mellon University: H. John Heinz III College, Office of the Provost, Division of Student Affairs
La Roche College