Making globalization work for Chinese higher education by building bridges between internationalization and multiculturalism

The rapid expansion of higher education in China is bringing together two phenomena, internationalization and multiculturalism. This study explores the question of what Chinese universities are doing to bridge the gap between these two. Three types of higher education institutions attended by minority students are selected: a university under the governance of an ethnic autonomous region, located in Inner Mongolia; a university under the Central Ministry of Education in Beijing, and a university under the Ethnic Affairs Bureau, specifically designated for nationalities, in Hubei Province. A content analysis of selected relevant documents and interviews with university academic/administrative staff, Han and ethnic minority students were carried out. Chinese universities seem more than willing to internationalize for status advancement. However, multiculturalism in the sense of recognition of ethnic minority cultures, is not viewed as bringing higher status. The implications for bridging internationalization and multiculturalism are raised.     

From Ethnic segregation to impact integration: state schooling and identity construction for rural Tibetans

This paper examines the context of ethnic identity formation in schools for rural Tibetan children. It reviews rural primary education within Tibet and the secondary education for Tibetans in boarding schools across China. Data are presented on policies, student recruitment, curriculum, teachers and the campus environment, as they impact on students' identity formation. Although there is little that is multicultural about the learning process in these schools, these schools do not strictly deny Tibetan culture to Tibetan children. The school architecture, sculptures, photographs, wall paintings and so forth provide representations of Tibetan culture, albeit selectively and interpreted by the state in terms of the ideological themes of national unity, patriotism, revolutionary traditions, civilised behaviour and love of Tibet. The conclusion points to a make‐or‐break opportunity for state education to support a more even‐handed cultural policy, rather than the dichotomy of segregation and impact integration.     

A Bayesian approach for non-homogeneous gamma degradation processes

A Bayesian approach based on the Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique is proposed for the non-homogeneous gamma process with power-law shape function. Vague and informative priors, formalized on some quantities having a “physical” meaning, are provided. Point and interval estimation of process parameters and some functions thereof are developed, as well as prediction on some observable quantities that are useful in defining the maintenance strategy is proposed. Some useful approximations are derived for the conditional and unconditional mean and median of the residual life to reduce computational time. Finally, the proposed approach is applied to a real dataset.     

A Bayesian bivariate hierarchical model with correlated parameters for the analysis of road crashes in Italian tunnels

Statistical Methods & Applications - An analysis of crashes occurring in 252 unidirectional Italian motorway tunnels over a 4-year monitoring period is provided to identify the main causes of...