The conference theme this year aims to create a critical space for consideration of focused local studies alongside presentations that cast a broader eye upon global impacts and initiatives. Often, education research that is focused upon seemingly small-scale, localised settings produces findings that have wider implications and relevance. Conversely, research into broad global themes often produces findings of relevance to a variety of local settings. One of the conceptual threads connecting these two seeming opposites is that of culture. At the global dimension, many studies now explore intercultural transformations, while there is also a renewed interest in the particular aspects of localised cultures. This has led to the term Glocal being coined.

As China moves from the stage of making provision for a universally available basic education in China, we are now faced with the challenges and opportunities of moving forward, with China exerting a broadening influence on the world stage. The change in the international status of China calls for the current education system and its practices to re-orient itself towards global educational themes and priorities. However, one of the key challenges is to find ways of injecting qualitative elements into the planning, management and delivery of education for local learners of all ages that will contribute to China’s future economic, social and cultural relationships with the wider world. We pose the question of whether education can achieve the prominence in national policy-making of the ‘One Belt and One Road’ initiatives, exploring links between the local and the global. Our aim for the conference is to explore ways in which Chinese education can match the major and impressive advances being made in other areas such as infrastructure, civil engineering and transportation, and in which it might learn from other educational systems around the globe. We, therefore, welcome research papers that focus on local, global and ‘glocal’ aspects of the changing realities, issues and possibilities for Chinese education and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead in the next period of development. The conference hopes to attract contributors raising questions about these issues through their current research.

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