On the morning of May 15, the School of Teacher Education (Physical Education) hosted Associate Professor Wang Dan from the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, for an academic lecture on “Ruralization of Education and Sustainable Development: Concepts and Practices” in Conference Room 8409, Linhai Campus. Dean Zhang Fuwei, Associate Dean Zhang Yingying, and core research faculty attended.

Lecture scene

Professor Wang offered a critical examination of the goals of rural education. She argued that the dominant orientation toward urbanization and social mobility reduces education to a tool for individual gain, often at the expense of rural public goods—a model she termed “individualism 1.0.” While recent reforms emphasizing local curricula, non-academic programs, egalitarian teacher-student relationships, and inquiry-based learning reflect humanistic progress, they remain essentially individual-focused (“individualism 2.0”), treating rural areas merely as educational resources rather than as educational ends. Such approaches, she contended, cannot sustain comprehensive rural revitalization.

To address the theoretical and practical impasse, Wang cited the story of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and the “Tomato Story” to illustrate the intricate links between urban and rural sectors in modern industrial chains, along with the economic and ecological crises facing sustainable rural development. From the perspectives of national security, developmental justice, ecological justice, and public welfare, she made a strong case for the strategic centrality of rural sustainability. She also shared fieldwork findings from Zhanghu Ecological Primary and Secondary Schools, presenting a vivid “place-based care, school-community symbiosis” reform approach. She explicitly advocated for “educational ruralization”—a pathway oriented toward public good rather than private interest, aimed at cultivating builders of sustainable urban-rural development.

After the lecture, participants engaged in lively discussion, connecting theoretical perspectives with the practical realities of rural schools in Taizhou.

Expert profile:

Wang Dan is an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Education, with a PhD from Syracuse University. Her research focuses on rural education, rural community development, teacher education, and the sociology of education. She has led projects on the impact of educational migration on rural communities and longitudinal comparative studies on literacy gaps among urban and rural students in China. She is the author of The Demoralization of Teachers: Crisis in a Rural School in China and has published in journals including The China Journal and The China Quarterly on topics such as educational migration, rural decline, and the education of migrant children.