Comprehensive and authoritative, this Handbook provides a nuanced description and analysis of educational systems, practices, and policies in Asian countries and explains and interprets these practices from cultural, social, historical, and economic perspectives.

Using a culture-based framework, the volume is organized in five sections, each devoted to educational practices in one civilization in Asia: Sinic, Japanese, Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu. Culture and culture identities essentially are civilization identities; the major differences among civilizations are rooted in their different cultures. This framework offers a novel approach to capturing the essence of the diverse educational systems and practices in Asia.

Uniquely combining description and interpretation of educational practices in Asia, this Handbook is a must-have resource for education researchers and graduate students in international and comparative education, globalization and education, multicultural education, sociocultural foundations of education, and Asian studies, and for educational administrators and education policy makers.

This book identifies "development-oriented poverty reduction" as a crucial part of what is now often billed as China's unique development path, experience and model. China's success serves as an example for any society aiming to eradicate poverty. However, there is still a tough road ahead as the country enters a new phase of the war on poverty. In addition to a systematic overview of the country's development-oriented poverty reduction experiences over recent decades, the book also offers an outlook for poverty reduction in the coming years, including challenges the country will face as it enters the final stretch in the race to achieve moderate prosperity for all. It also discusses policy options for meeting the government's poverty-reduction targets by 2020 within the precision-targeting strategy framework.

By addressing the Western understanding of the status and nature of animals and the relation of animals to the question of life, this book provides a discourse on animality through an interdisciplinary investigation into various areas of humanities. The nature of animals is explored by drawing on materials from literature, art, religion, philosophy, and political science, focusing on discussions of animality about the classical culture of ancient Greece, metaphysics and its application to debates on life, Martin Heidegger’s philosophical theories, and biopolitics. Although the distinctive difference between human beings from animals has long been emphasized, the author argues that they are inseparable from one another to achieve understanding. The interrogation of animality, therefore, provides a new perspective on the nature of human beings in this postmodern era. Academics in Western literature, literary theory, literary criticism and comparative literature will find this work an insightful addition to debates in their respective fields, whilst it will also help senior university students pursuing their studies.

This book identifies “development-oriented poverty reduction” as a crucial part of what is now often billed as China’s unique development path, experience and model. China’s success serves as an example for any society aiming to eradicate poverty. However, there is still a tough road ahead as the country enters a new phase of the war on poverty. In addition to a systematic overview of the country’s development-oriented poverty reduction experiences over recent decades, the book also offers an outlook for poverty reduction in the coming years, including challenges the country will face as it enters the final stretch in the race to achieve moderate prosperity for all. It also discusses policy options for meeting the government’s poverty-reduction targets by 2020 within the precision-targeting strategy framework.