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Localization of Global Education and Its Leadership Practices: A 
Case of China 

Hanlu Liu, Lingjie Yue, Qian (Sarah) Wang 

Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China 

Abstract 

Shadow education has become a popular educational service, and it has been 
booming in many regions of China, attracting a large population of school-age 
students. This study illustrates the current K-12 public and international school system 
in China and its association with shadow education. A report demonstrates two 
teachers’ and the Principal’s practices to deliver global education. The case study data 
reveal the localization process (i.e., how the teaching and management of a Western 
curriculum operates). It points out that shadow education often demands the 
integration of business models. The findings suggest that teachers and principals who 
work in shadow education require professional training in both pedagogy and business. 
In this line of work, teachers and principals must amend educational practices and 
solve commercial issues. While educators must become familiar with the local social 
and cultural context and local students' characteristics, they also need to master 
business skills, such as communication and marketing, to effectively connect with the 
local community. This study addresses leadership challenges and offers practical 
advice for improving shadow education in China.  

Introduction 

The mission of global education is to shape students as global citizens rather than 
merely deliver subject knowledge (Yang, 2010). The trend of global education in China 
has been developing since the 1980s, following the country's economic growth, which 
is a result of the “going global” strategy in the new millennium (Feng, 2021; Yang, 
2010). Global education is increasingly implemented, both in and outside public 
schools, in private educational institutions, known as shadow education. Studying to 
learn more about the localization process of global education has drawn many 
scholars’ attention in recent years.  

Previous research on shadow education focuses primarily on the evolution of its 
practices, mainly on how shadow education mimics public school subject teaching 
(Feng, 2021). Few studies have focused on the practice of shadow education of 
localizing global education, especially from a leadership perspective. Our research 
used a local shadow education case to examine the localization process. In particular, 
this study addresses leadership practices in localizing a western K-12 curriculum in 
China. 

We first discuss the case context and the study’s aim, followed by a description of the 
Chinese public schools’ teaching practices, the Chinese international-oriented school’s 
characteristics, and the role of shadow education in Chinese K-12 education. 



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Furthermore, we chose to present the path-goal theory as its theoretical pinning to 
understand leadership practices. 

The Case Context and Purpose of the Study 

This case study took place in Suzhou, China, which has a population of about 7.4 
million ("Suzhou Population," n.d.). Schooling is compulsory from Grade 1 at 
approximately age 6 to 9, till about age 15. Currently, 432 K-12 public schools serve 
the public’s educational needs for Chinese children ("Statistics about Suzhou 2020 
Primary Education," n.d.). In addition to public schools, there is an increasing demand 
for international-oriented schools (see the International-Oriented Schools and Its 
Characteristics section for definition) in urban areas. In Suzhou, the number of 
international-oriented schools has been increasing. According to the Suzhou 
International Schools’ website, there are 53 international-oriented schools 
(“Guojixuexiao.org,” n.d.). Although efforts to cultivate a global mindset and 
competency through the learning of English has been incorporated as a part of 
curriculum instruction in some public schools, the local Chinese learners’ English 
proficiency typically cannot meet the demand of effectively learning foreign textbooks. 
Consequently, parents in many public schools send their children to take extra tutoring, 
known as shadow education services, to improve their children's English proficiency 
and strengthen their global outlook.  

Literature Review 

Chinese Public Schools and Their Teaching 

The typical pedagogical approach in Chinese public schools concerns content 
knowledge delivery and rote memorization. Teachers often assess students’ learning 
outcomes by asking students to complete standardized tests. Part of the reason for 
that is the large classroom population. It is common for public schools to hold between 
50 and 60 students in a classroom. As a consequence, teachers find it difficult to 
perform student-centered learning. Teachers also lack the professional development 
to introduce more innovative teaching techniques. Therefore, most teachers use the 
cramming method (Zhang, 2014).   

International-Oriented Schools and Their Characteristics 

In Suzhou, the term “international school” typically represents two types of non-public 
schools. One type of international school is designed only for foreign citizens who hold 
non-Chinese passports; the other type is bilingual schools that enroll local Chinese 
students who would benefit from a higher social and economic status. The bilingual 
schools combine domestic and western curricula and employ both domestic and 
foreign teachers to deliver courses. Students who attend this type of school usually 
pursue colleges overseas. Driven by this end goal, the concept of global education has 
been gradually recognized by more and more Chinese parents who send their children 
to bilingual schools. Both types of international schools require higher tuition fees than 
the average family in China can afford. Such a reality leaves the majority of parent 
population and their children who go to public schools knowing little about global 
education, or having a global mindset. 



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Shadow Education and Its Role in K-12 Education 

Shadow education, i.e., private tutoring after school, is bolstered by the advent of 
economic development and social trends (e.g., Aslam & Atherton, 2014; Buchmann, 
Condron, & Rescigno, 2010; Chapman, 2001; Rushforth, 2011; Stevenson & Baker, 
1992). Shadow education is a form of supplementary tutoring in China, in which 
educational services are offered beyond regular school hours, usually in the evenings 
or on weekends (Buchmann et al., 2010; Chapman, 2001; Rushforth, 2011; Stevenson 
& Baker, 1992). There are two popular forms of shadow education: one targeting 
children's extra-curriculum interests and talents beyond the school subjects, and one 
enhancing students’ learning of school subjects to improve their exam performance in 
science, math, and language (Feng, 2021). The former includes learning subject 
matter from the Western curriculum (Zhang & Bray, 2015). The aim is to increase 
students’ proficiency in English and develop global competences. This concerns 
especially students attending public schools. 

Previous research indicates that shadow education in private tutoring is significant in 
mainland China (Zhang, 2014). Chinese families are willing to spend money in 
exchange for such educational services (Wang, 2013). Statistics show that 73.8% of 
primary school children, 65.6% of lower secondary school children, and 53.5% of upper 
secondary school children receive shadow education services (Bray, 2013). On the 
one hand, shadow education serves as a robust supplement to the education market, 
meeting the needs of Chinese learners, while on the other hand, critics argue that most 
of such tutoring provides “more of the same” to Chinese students. For the most part, 
shadow education is a way to reinforce material already learned in public schools. One 
study suggests that the accessibility of shadow education can satisfy the increasing 
learning demand and ensure quality learning standards (Valerio, 2013). 

Regardless of the content of learning, one advantage of shadow education is that it 
can be flexible, providing remedial work that helps students keep up or targets high 
achievers who want to pursue beyond that which has been learned in school (Bray, 
2013). Shadow education services mainly depend on customer demand. As a result, 
operations share the characteristics of business operations. Shadow education 
institutions often position themselves as service companies and demonstrate 
commercial-like practices. For example, they treat parents and students as customers: 
they invest heavily in marketing and promotion and they are more willing to adapt to 
customers' needs, such as transferring teaching to an online platform or making the 
same service options available across multiple locations in a city or country (Bray, 
2013). 

The Chinese parents’ and students’ demand for shadow education to reflect its 
sociocultural emphasis on learners’ individual effort. Parents perceive that studying 
outside of school (i.e., extra effort) would improve their academic performance. Such 
generally-accepted social assumptions allow Chinese parents to trust the effectiveness 
of shadow education in boosting higher competencies. Their method of measuring 
results often refers to better examination scores or certificates of tangible, skill-driven 



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performances (e.g., dancing, playing piano, winning a math competition) (Chapman, 
2001; Kim & Lee, 2010; Tansel & Bircan, 2006).  

Research Questions: 

Our research questions were as follows: 

1. What challenges do teachers face with respect to shadow education while 
localizing the Western curriculum in Suzhou, China? 

2. What leadership challenges and practices can be identified in the Principal’s 
management of shadow education institutions?  

Methodology 

Data Source 

We conducted a qualitative case study at a local shadow education institute in Suzhou, 
China (Center). The Center provides holistic education using an American curriculum 
for students aged 3 to 12 years. The service is provided outside of the compulsory 
school time. The Center is part of an educational corporation with 11 branches in 
Suzhou and serves approximately 7,800 students collectively. The school promotes 
student-centered education by setting up smaller classrooms of 12-16 students each. 
It offers three subjects: English language, art, math, and science; all instruction is in 
English. Teachers and students are required to speak English when they are at the 
Center. With this content-based approach, the school aims to cultivate future talents 
with self-motivated learning ability, leadership, and global vision (“RISE Subject 
English, Philosophy,” n.d.).  

We collected data through semi-structured interviews with the Center’s Principal and 
two experienced teachers. We also reviewed relevant information on the Center's 
official website to learn general information about its curriculum offer, vision, and 
mission. We analyzed school documents, such as the Center's teaching plan, with its 
intended learning outcomes. By gathering data from the three sources, we satisfied 
the triangulation requirement for qualitative research (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2018).  

Interviewees 

We wanted to identify people who had reasonable experience in working in the shadow 
education field and knew the local culture well. Hence, we deployed the technique of 
purposeful sampling (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2018) with the following criteria: 
interviewees should hold more than five years of teaching experience and more than 
three years of work experience at the Center. The three selected interviewees satisfied 
this expectation before the interviews were conducted. All the interviewees were 
female and in their thirties. They had been working in schools for more than four years. 
The Center’s Principal (fictitious name: Jennifer) acquired her higher education degree 
in the United States. After working at the Center for two years, she was promoted to 
Principal. She had been working in the shadow education field for about five years. 
Her background and first-hand experience in shadow education enabled her to directly 
understand global education and the localization of global education as a teacher and 
leader. She obtained rich leadership experience in different situations while facing 



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multiple rounds of local policy changes. She is experienced in handling communication 
with parents, particularly in helping parents adapt to the global mindset. She is familiar 
with the teacher population growing up in the 80s and 90s, and their associated social-
cultural values. Kelly (fictitious name) teaches grades one to five. She is the leader of 
an elementary teacher team. Laura (a fictitious name) is a teacher leader of the K1-3 
team, which mainly covers kindergarten children. They both have rich experience 
(more than five years) in teaching students and communicating with junior teachers 
and parents.  

Data Collection  

Semi-structured interviews were designed and conducted separately for each 
interviewee. We interviewed the Principal face-to-face twice. The interviews with each 
teacher were conducted online. Each interview lasted approximately 30 minutes. The 
Principal’s interview was conducted in English, and the interviews with the teachers 
were conducted in Chinese. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for further 
analysis. The two teachers’ interview questions encouraged them to discuss their 
challenges when localizing the American curriculum within their teaching practices and 
communication with their parents. Follow-up questions were asked to the teachers to 
learn about their problem-solving techniques. The interview questions for the Principal 
focused on challenges and problem-solving, regarding both teaching and 
management.  

The data files were analyzed independently by two authors of this paper, using an 
inductive approach. Interview transcriptions served as the data source for the 
qualitative analysis. Data collected from the three interviews were coded thematically. 
Braun and Clarke (2006) define thematic analysis as identifying, analyzing, and 
reporting themes within the data. Thematic analysis requires a researcher to produce 
a generalized understanding of coded data with the repetition of codes. The codes may 
be more precisely defined as themes when they frequently appear in the dataset. In 
particular, the two authors performed the following steps to analyze the data. First, 
each author searched for repeated words, phrases, and relevant expressions to form 
a list of themes that illustrated the localization challenges and leadership practices. 
During this process, the two authors frequently revised the coding used to develop 
themes in the data. Such a practice ensures that the authors obtain the subjective 
consistency of inductive coding categories, which improves the reliability of the 
research findings. Next, the authors used the themes that emerged to compare the 
relevant situations in the data. Finally, the two authors cross-checked the identified 
themes. 

Key Findings 

Teachers’ Challenges: 

Based on the data analysis, the study found that teachers faced critical challenges with 
regards to pedagogy, marketing, and communication of the global mindset to parents. 



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1. Pedagogical Challenge: Teachers struggle between the English language and 
content teaching because more emphasis on either may lead to unsatisfactory student 
learning experiences and outcomes. 

Since the training school provides lessons for students in English, the students need 
to learn both the subject content and the English language simultaneously. However, 
the problem is that most students' English proficiency is insufficient to support their 
learning of content in a satisfactory manner, especially in science and math subjects. 
For instance, since the students had already learned most of math concepts, theories, 
and question-solving techniques in their public schools in Chinese, they felt that 
learning the same again in English would be redundant. The students were only 
interested in learning mathematical terms and expressions in English. Although the 
teachers tried to expand the students' competencies (e.g., teamwork or public 
speaking in English) by introducing more methods to learn math, some students felt 
that these efforts were pointless. Students faced even more significant challenges 
when taking science lessons because learning science demands a tremendous 
amount of English vocabulary, most of which is distant from students’ everyday lives. 
Hence, most students found it difficult to relate to science content and could not 
comprehend science knowledge. Moreover, the teachers at the Center are required to 
follow American curriculum requirements and teaching plans. This means that they are 
not allowed to alter teaching content. When the content is misaligned with the chosen 
medium of instruction, it is no wonder that students' academic performance is stagnant. 
When parents saw no improvement in their children's public school examination 
results, they began to doubt the value of following the Western curriculum. 
Consequently, some students dropped out.  

Teacher Kelly commented on that in the following way:  

“When I teach them Math in English, they know how to solve the problems and 
answer correctly. However, they cannot express their ideas in English. So, I have 
to let them remember English words and phrases first. For example, they know 
1+1=2, but they do not know how to express it. Sometimes, students feel bored 
about this type of learning and say, 'I have learned this!’” 

“In my S1 class, most of the students are in Grade 3 in public schools, which means 
they should be capable of learning the S3 content in our system curriculum. But 
their English is too poor to support their content learning, especially the science 
class with too many unknown words.”  

“I think it is a challenge for us. We have to use many teaching activities to make the 
class interesting and provide a platform to speak English. Even so, some parents 
would not buy it (i.e., the teaching of American curriculum and philosophy).” 

2. Marketing Obstacles: Teachers feel stressed to push parents for service renewal 
(marketing) when communicating with them about the pedagogy, curriculum 
(academic) and children's performance improvement.  

 



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Teachers at the Center need to communicate with students’ parents for dual purposes. 
On the one hand, teachers are asked to explain what they have done to help their 
children develop as a whole person. Here, the purpose of communication is to inform 
parents of their children's learning. On the other hand, the Center hopes that teachers 
can convince parents to pay an additional fee for extended services during this line of 
communication. Thus, teachers feel that there is a lot of extra communication to carry 
out. For the most part, teachers are passionate about teaching and not as much 
interested in generating revenue for the Center.  

For example, teacher Laura stated: 

“Although I know our Center needs to make money, I still think the teacher’s 
responsibility is teaching, not pushing parents to pay. It makes me feel that it is not 
professional for a teacher to talk about money.”  

3. The Challenge of Cultivating Chinese Parents’ Global Mindset: The traditional 
exam-oriented mindset still plays a dominant role in parents' educational choices for 
their children. Hence, they tend to select shadow education services that aim to 
improve children's exam performance and develop their personal competencies on a 
more holistic level. 

The Center utilizes the student-centered teaching methods and follows Bloom's 
taxonomy when designing teaching activities. The teaching goal is to cultivate future 
leadership, covering content knowledge and abilities such as critical thinking, 
teamwork, and public speaking (Rise, 2021).  

However, teacher Laura mentioned:  

“Some parents feel that their children have not improved in English learning. 
Because we follow our curriculum instead of the public school’s requirements 
concerning students’ learning, they tend to choose the exam-oriented training 
schools after grade two, when the school examination result becomes increasingly 
important for them.”  

4. Professional Development to Support Teachers: The school tries to establish a 
professional team by training teachers in global pedagogy and management of parent-
teacher relations through effective communication.  

Training schools have programs for teachers of every grade, who can learn new 
teaching methods annually, each lasting about two weeks. They must attend the 
training program and pass the exam successfully to obtain a certificate to teach. As 
teacher Laura mentioned, “Teachers can always learn new teaching methods and 
ideas when they attend the training. They can meet teachers from different branches 
and learn from them. Such an organizational initiative is a training requirement as well 
as a teacher selection method.” The training aims to improve teachers’ teaching and 
consulting abilities in global education, enhancing their professional competencies. 
The hope is that teachers can communicate more effectively and professionally with 
parents. The school promotes a cooperative learning structure and utilizes Bloom's 
taxonomy to design teaching goals. Such an approach enables teachers to conduct 



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personalized education with different students. The school provides authorized 
teaching materials to support teachers' teaching activities accordingly. 

Leadership Challenges 

In addition to the challenges faced by teachers, the study explored the challenges 
faced by the Center's leader. More importantly, the study aimed to determine how the 
leader handled challenges in her leadership practice. 

1. Leadership Challenge and Practice: The Generation Gap: Some teachers are 
becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the Center's current leadership styles, as most 
of the population changed between the 80s to the 90s. 

The Principal of the Center mentioned that the headquarters sent monthly revenue 
goals to each center. The Principal then passes down the requirements to the teachers, 
stating: “How well we can achieve the goal will affect our income.” Thus, the Principal 
puts pressure on teachers to push them for better performance and better results in 
asking parents to renew services. She believes that leaders should have higher 
expectations of teachers, “Because sometimes, when you reach the goal, you get 
rewarded. Then, you will know that everything you put in is worth it.” Her statement 
suggests that she believes that if teachers want to pursue more money and a better 
reputation, they have to comply with the company's requirements. Nevertheless, the 
Principal revealed her powerlessness in this respect when discussing the differences 
between the 80s and 90s’ generation of teachers.  

The Principal stated: 

“In the 80s, the parents were hardworking because they were not as rich or wealthy. 
Or, they felt like you should be working hard to obtain the result. In the 90s, their 
parents were already richer; they did whatever they liked to do. The environment 
changed. Society changed. Therefore, the individuals from the 90s were harder to 
motivate because there were not many things you could motivate them with. They 
did not lack money. They had houses. They did not care about other fancy stuff, 
they cared about themselves.”  

Therefore, the leader needs to apply different leadership practices for teachers from 
the 90s’ generation. The Principal needs to respect this group of teachers’ ideas and 
values, or they will not believe in the Principal’s opinions or commands. Moreover, 
even when the leader tries to communicate with this group in different styles, it might 
not work as expected. Since the teacher generation and its culture in the organization 
are changing, the leader needs to consider generational differences and try to manage 
conflicts caused by dissimilar interpretations of teachers’ roles and responsibilities.  

Discussion and Implications 

Teachers’ Dual-Role in Localizing an American Curriculum 

The findings suggest that, in contrast to traditional teachers in public schools, teachers 
working in shadow education have to play dual roles in their jobs: an academician and 
a salesperson. This unique characteristic is due to the local people's sociocultural 
preference toward exam-oriented education rather than the Western teaching 



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approach. Not many parents and students have embraced the concept of holistic 
development. With the demand for economic survival, the Center expects teachers to 
promote a global education mindset and explicitly communicate its advantages to 
parents in the hope of convincing them to pay for more services. Thus, shadow 
education teachers need to develop better communication skills as well as teaching 
abilities. Teaching alone will not help in promoting a global education mindset to 
students and parents; explicit and frequent promotions and explanations are required.  

Dual-Value Contradiction  

As the Principal mentioned, each center receives a sales target (i.e., renewing 
students’ quota), which determines the Center’s monthly rewards and punishment, and 
her routine work requires her to provide each teacher with their targets. In addition to 
mentioning sales goals, she needs to make specific plans to support teachers so that 
they are likely to achieve the given targets. This leadership practice represents some 
elements of the path-goal theory in leadership.  

Path-goal leadership theory, built on expectancy theory, claims that leader behavior 
affects followers’ outcomes and motivations (House, 1996). The theory argues that the 
essential role of leaders is to ensure that subordinates see the connections between 
outcome and action in the hope of effectively triggering subordinates’ motivation. 
According to House (1971), path-goal theory focuses on making a connection between 
two dimensions. The first dimension is between work effort and work goal achievement. 
Regarding leadership practices in this dimension, leaders are first required to explain 
clearly to subordinates what their responsibilities are. Second, leaders need to support 
subordinates to improve their ability to complete tasks. When followers face challenges 
during the process, leaders should offer support in helping clear obstacles. The second 
dimension is between work goal achievement and rewards valued by followers. This 
suggests that leaders need to address the following two aspects in their practices: (1) 
communicate with followers clearly about the possible rewards related to their work 
achievements and (2) be willing to adjust those rewards in a consistent manner 
according to the follower group's performance. Furthermore, the valued rewards can 
be in multiple forms, such as rewards that target enhancing followers’ extrinsic 
motivation (e.g., cash bonus or promotion) or targets triggering followers’ intrinsic 
motivation (e.g., an appraisal for individual growth).   

However, the findings suggest that some key elements are missing at the Center 
according to the path-goal theory approach. First, the Center’s goals are not made 
collectively with teachers; instead, they are directly announced to teachers by the 
leader without their input. During the  Principal’s discussions with teachers, the 
conversation is usually about achieving the goal, not whether the teachers accept the 
already made-decisions. The participatory leadership approach suggests that teachers 
combine their expertise and creativity to develop shared plans, design methods 
collectively, and solve problems. In the Center’s case, all instructions and supportive 
behaviors are achievement-driven. The Principal assumes that her practices will be 
helpful in motivating and supporting subordinates to achieve set goals. This approach 
is a pattern seen at all levels of the Center’s operation, including the teaching process, 
quality assurance, teachers’ training, and promotion of sales.  



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However, the Center promotes the concept of student-centered and holistic education, 
which focuses more on the development process. According to Chipunza and Malo 
(2017), organizational culture and the quality of the organization's social climate 
determine the dominant positions of all workers. The school’s achievement-oriented 
culture subtly sets the unspoken criteria for leaders and teachers. It exists as an 
implicit, powerful force that drives teachers’ daily work practices. This force contradicts 
the publicly promoted student-centered value and becomes an invisible barrier in 
teachers' everyday work experience.  

Generational Sub-Cultural Influence 

According to the interviewees' descriptions, in the 80s generation, leadership practices, 
such as motivating teachers through self-development opportunities, generating 
inspiring personal passion for teaching, and giving a bonus, were very effective. 
Although teachers may complain about business-oriented work, such as pushing 
parents for renewing services, they would ultimately obey the Center’s expectations, 
having considered tangible rewards. However, for the 90s’ generation, the same 
leadership behaviors do not work. The Principal mentioned that “they [the 90s’ 
generation] like big money and are more creative. They want the school to change to 
what they like.” Hence, applying the same leadership practices does not lead to the 
same results. The post-90s’ generation teachers form subcultures within the Center. 
Consequently, sub-cultural conflicts exist between the leader and the younger teachers 
when delineating roles and responsibilities. According to the role theory, the role of 
followers and the role of leaders affect one another’s behavior during work (Chen et 
al., 2012). In view of this, the Principal has already begun to adjust leadership practices 
after witnessing an increase in the turnover rate.  

Practical Implications and Suggestions 

Offering global education at a local shadow education center is done by providing 
supplementary resources to public schools. Such a service can provide additional 
support for parents who want to ensure more educational opportunities for their 
children. Since shadow education operates differently than public school education, 
teachers in the shadow education center need training and motivation to foster 
academic teaching and business skills. In addition, leaders should enhance one-on-
one mentoring between leaders and teachers to establish a shared mindset and 
culture. In turn, this practice can help teachers communicate and explain the global 
mindset approach more effectively to parents and students. Often, teacher recruits in 
the Center are preferred to be university students with English majors. Based on the 
findings of this study, it is suggested that the recruitment pool could go beyond English 
or English-related majors. So long as applicants demonstrate the potential for 
demonstrating desired abilities, a person’s mindset, attitudes, and professional skills 
are vital. For example, candidates with a business background and fluency in English 
should also be considered. Finally, training centers can strengthen communication with 
public schools. For example, they can introduce and promote personalized teaching 
and cooperative learning structures to local public school teachers to enhance their 
abilities and help local students embrace and experience educational approaches 
beyond examination-oriented education. 



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Limitation and Future Studies 

As a case study on a shadow education center, this research aimed to gain insight into 
the localization process rather than produce generalizable conclusions on all shadow 
education practices. In addition, the study only interviewed three people at the Center, 
without covering all types of teachers. Therefore, the findings represent only a part of 
teachers’ opinions on localizing global education. Moreover, this study mainly focused 
on the teachers’ and leaders’ methods to meet the challenges of promoting 
international education locally. More teachers and diverse dimensions warrant further 
research and exploration. For example, future research may consider the necessary 
adjustments in teaching methods when localizing the American curriculum in a foreign 
location. 

Conclusion 

Shadow education as supplementary education is not enough to overturn the 
profoundly rooted presence of examination-oriented education in China. Bringing the 
U.S. curriculum to China and teaching local students without sufficient sociocultural 
support leads to several operational barriers. Creating a suitable sociocultural context 
as part of the localization process is essential. When aiming to localize global 
education, shadow education practices need to address teachers’ deficiencies in 
business skills. In addition to demonstrating ideas through their teaching, teachers and 
school leaders help local parents embrace the global mindset. For leaders of shadow 
education, assisting teachers with communication skills and business literacy will be 
the main direction to help them achieve their performance goals if those goals cannot 
be jointly developed with teachers. Shadow education could be more effective when 
positioned to complement public school offerings and can become a positive 
enhancement or an alternative for promoting positive change in Chinese education, 
i.e., making it more about holistic development rather than only about passing exams.   

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Author Notes 

Hanlu Liu is a postgraduate student in MA Global Education Program at Xi’an 
Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China. She has been working in the shadow education 
industry for five years and won the prize of Sina Five-Star Teacher in China in 2017. 
Her research interest is in educational leadership and entrepreneur education. 
Moreover, she has attended a series of academic activities. Hanlu was a co-presenter 
at the 6th Annual Global Issue Conference 2021. She also delivered an invited speech 
on Action Learning and Teaching in Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University Annual 
Learning and Teaching Colloquium in April 2021.  

Email: Hanlu.Liu20@student.xjtlu.edu.cn 

Lingjie Yue is a postgraduate student in MA Global Education Program at Xi’an 
Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China. Besides completing courses in Educational 
Leadership, Education in the Asia-Pacific Region, and Policies and Practices of Global 
Education, she has participated in multiple academic and non-academic global 
activities such as EU-China Cooperation and Green Transition: Green Transition and 
Digital Economy Between National Policies and Multi-Polarism. Lingjie was a co-
presenter at the 6th Annual Global Issue Conference 2021. With four years of working 
experience in the shadow education industry of teaching students of the elementary 
education stage, she is currently working and studying at XJTLU and interested in 
global citizenship and research-led learning. Email: 
Lingjie.Yue20@student.xjtlu.edu.cn 

Dr. Qian (Sarah) Wang is an assistant professor at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University 
in Suzhou, China. She is particularly interested in using innovative teaching methods 
to empower younger generations, especially females, to be unstoppable and positively 
impactful individuals in society. She teaches education leadership and educational 



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internship modules in the MA Global Education program, where the majority of her 
students are female. Sarah uses action learning and action research methods to help 
her students enrich their potential and achieve personal transformation. Qian Wang is 
the corresponding author. Email: qian.wang@xjtlu.edu.cn 


