46
Authors Writing About East Asian Higher Education
The 31 items were written by 46 authors: among them, most (20) were Westerners
based in the West, followed by East Asians working within their own region (13).
There were five authors who are originally from East Asia and now based in the West,
and four Western authors now based at East Asia. Two authors who are neither from
the West nor from East Asia originally worked at East Asia when the publications
were produced. In contrast, another two authors who are neither from the West nor
from East Asia originally were then based outside East Asia, but had written on East
Asia. They were consultants employed by the World Bank. While it is not a surprise
that most authors who publish in English are from the West, it deserves our attention
that more and more East Asian scholars are publishing in international English jour-
nals. It is also interesting to see more Westerners are watching East Asia from within
East Asia. As Asia’s rise continues, such trends are expected to continue.
Areas of East Asia Higher Education Researched
The 31 publications covered a wide range of themes, including internationalization
and regionalization of higher education in East Asia, higher education markets,
(higher) education governance, economic analysis of education projects (of the
World Bank), education and earnings, impact of family background on schooling,
educational software for training, digital access in an era of globalization, higher
education hubs, authorship and plagiarism, world-class universities, higher educa-
tion reform policies, university rankings, female academics, transnational higher
education, problem-based learning, private higher education, education in promoting
economic growth, innovation support systems, student and teacher experience, and
policy-borrowing in higher education. Based on such diversified research themes, it
is difficult to point out the most evident research focuses in the coming years.
References Cited
The 31 publications cited a total of 1270 references. Among them, 1159 (91.26%)
were in English, while 10 (0.78%) in German. Ninety-four (7.46%) government
documents were cited, of which 77 were from East Asia and 17 the West. Seven
local references were cited, among them, four were published in Sri Lanka and two
were in Chinese. The Chinese ones were indeed the same work cited twice by the
same author in two different publications. The imbalance between Western (espe-
cially English) literature and local scholarship cannot be more evident. This contrast
explains how researchers lack a local perspective. Such a gap often leads to divides
among local scholars between those publishing in English and those mainly writing
R. Ya ng