Chapter 4: Education Groups as a Chinese Way of School Collaboration for Education Improvement

Since the early 2000s, China has been actively promoting school collaboration to narrow down educational gaps between schools to achieve inclusive and quality education for all. Among the reforms, building education groups has become one of the most widely adopted approaches for school improvement. This chapter aims at visualizing a hybrid model of school collaboration formulated by both hierarchist and egalitarian approaches in the Chengdu City of China. It starts with policy review on the construction of education groups for education improvement in China to interpret how social cohesion and regulation are constructed at policy level to promote school collaboration. Through data collected from education groups in District A of Chengdu, it then provides an analysis of the practice of improving education quality through promoting education groups among public schools in this province. The study reveals top-down policy initiatives, bottom-up school autonomy, and a shared responsibility for constructing quality education for all are key factors which enabled education groups to contribute to school improvement. The research also reveals how a lack of policy coordination and limited shared value and trust within education groups have become barriers to this reform. It concludes by discussing possible solutions for further promoting a sustainable school collaboration based on experiences of some ongoing practices at school level.