From June 6 to 8, 2025, the 4th Doctoral Student Symposium on Comparative Education of the Comparative Education Branch of the Chinese Society of Education was held at South China Normal University. The symposium included 8 keynote reports at the doctoral student plenary session, 10 parallel forums, and 2 special events: Academic Journals Face-to-Face with Authors and Doctoral Supervisors on School-Based Characteristics of Talent Cultivation. A total of 5 faculty and students from TEC participated, including Professor Hu Guoyong, Associate Professor Yan Wenle, and doctoral students Duan Chenying, Wang Lidan, and Chen Chuan, who delivered speeches and provided comments.
Professor Hu Guoyong was invited to comment on the keynote reports at the doctoral student plenary session. Regarding the report Policy Practice of Well-being Literacy in Japan, he pointed out that the essence of well-being literacy is related to social-emotional competence, suggesting that the presenter strengthen the connection between theory and practice and enhance the persuasiveness of the research through practical cases. For the report on Digital Transformation of Education, he emphasized the need to critically examine the value and risks of digital technology in education, encouraging the presenter to analyze the value orientations behind national practices to deepen the theoretical depth of the research. Finally, Professor Hu Guoyong expressed hope that all doctoral students present would gain insights from the symposium and wished the event a complete success.
Associate Professor Yan Wenle, as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Comparative Education, was invited to participate in the Academic Journals Face-to-Face with Authors special event. She noted that the Journal of Comparative Education is among the first-batch youth scholar-friendly journals, and elaborated on the journal's positioning and key research topics, welcoming doctoral students present to submit their manuscripts. Additionally, addressing the common concerns about academic publication, Associate Professor Yan shared her own submission experiences and advised doctoral students to identify research topics they are truly interested in amid policy hotspots, while selecting themes they are capable of completing, thereby achieving an organic integration of academic passion and publication.
Doctoral student Duan Chenying delivered a keynote report at the doctoral student plenary session entitled From 'Selecting Talents' to 'Cultivating Talents': The Evolutionary Logic and Drivers of U.S. Gifted Education Standards – A Case Study of Pre-K-12 Gifted Education Service Standards. The study systematically reviewed the evolution of gifted education standards issued by the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) in the United States, revealing the shift in educational logic from selecting talents to cultivating talents from four dimensions: value orientation, identification mechanism, cultivation pathways, and educational ecosystem construction. It further analyzed the drivers of this evolution from three aspects: policy orientation, practical needs, and research iteration.
Doctoral student Wang Lidan delivered a report entitled Social-emotional Competence Measurement among 10 Cities: Exploratory Graph Analysis using the OECD SSES 2019 Data at Parallel Forum 7, validating the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) framework based on the Big Five personality theory. The study found significant differences in the functional dimension division of students' social-emotional competence across different ages and cities, and that cultural differences influence the development patterns of students' social-emotional competence.
Doctoral student Chen Chuan delivered a report entitled From Learning to Inquiry: An Analysis of Japan's New Round of Comprehensive Curriculum Reform in Senior High Schools at Sub-forum 3. The report analyzed the main background and core changes of the inquiry-oriented shift in Japan's new round of comprehensive curriculum reform amid the diversification of senior high schools, summarized the core characteristics of the new Comprehensive Inquiry Period from three dimensions: goal upgrading, method focus, and structural differentiation, and put forward targeted suggestions for optimizing research-based learning in China's senior high schools.
