我的致谢

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all the people who have helped make this thesis possible.

First and foremost, mygratitude goes to my primary supervisor, Professor Wing-Wah Law, who has been not only my tutor in academics, but also my mentor in life. In addition to giving prompt feedback, providing careful instruction on thesis writing, and always being supportive of my exchange applications, competition participation, and fieldwork, he set an example of how to be a teacher by guiding me to investigate things and to manifest virtue. Without him, I would not have learntso much in the last four rewarding years.

I would also give my thanks to all the participants from Fudan University who facilitated my data collection, including all the teachers, students and alumni whose names I cannot mentiondue to ethical considerations. Thanks to Ms. Jiaqi Liu and Mr. Yinghao Wang, I got access to a lot of documents and books in Fudan University. I would also like to thank Mr. Yang Li from Peking University for helping me finding documents and books. I am also truly grateful to all those who helped me input the data, including Mr.  Yilun Fan, Ms. Leiya Wang, Mr. Wenbin Dai, Mr. Zichen Yuan, Ms. Chouyan Chen, Ms. Ludi Wang, Mr. Minyi Sun, Ms. Xin Wang, and Ms. Peini Gu, for their devoted and conscientious work.

The Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong provided me with a great environment for research and tremendous academic support. Its staff and professors always inspired and encouraged me, in both my research and my deeper thoughts of what higher education should be like. I would like also to express my gratitude to all the professors who have helped me along my journey, including my co-supervisor, Dr. Ho Ming Ng, for the suggestions and trust provided, and people in other institutions, including Dr. John Armstrong, Dr. Yi Zhang, Dr. Chunrong Liu, Prof. Dingping Guo, Dr.  Yihan Xiong, Dr. Duanhong Zhang, Mr. Hao Huang, Mr. Zhonghao Pan and many other teachers, for illuminating my path in search of the good and the truth and for reaching out their helping hands. I also feel lucky to have received scholarship support from the Swire Group, which eased my concerns about finance, accommodation and other life chores, with the help of Ms.Winnie Wong and Prof. John Cheong.

My thanks also go to all my loving and caring friends. Ms. Chong Xiao has been a dear and true friend since we both registered for our PhD studies in HKU under the supervision of Prof. Law. The things we have shared and experienced were unprecedented and unparalleled, and the resulting friendship surely will last for life. I also would like to thank my friends, Ms. Lei Jiang, Ms. Jiaxin Chen, Ms. Yangyang Su, Ms.  Sisi Wang, Ms. Fang-yin Yeh, Ms. Qianshan Chen, Ms. Yunyun Qin for sharing many happy hours with me, particularly without these ladies’ help I would not be able to have enough practice so as to win the championship of the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition held in the University of Hong Kong; also Dr. Wenyu Chai, Dr. Shuyin Xu, Ms. Jianyi Du, Ms. Weihong Liang, Ms. Yuan Tao, Ms. Licui Chen, and other colleagues from our office for their support; myfriends in Swire Hall, Ms. Yuen Ying Ip, Ms. Yungnin Kuo, Ms. Vinethri Nanayakkara, Ms. Yajie Feng, Ms. Felicia Kristandy and other lovely girls for rejuvenating me; and also other dear friends from past to present who always had faith in me, brightened my life, and helped me spiritually in Shanghai, in Hong Kong, and all over the world.

My profound gratitude goes to my family for always being unconditionally supportive of my decisions. I feel so blessed to have had parents who gave me the perfect amount of happiness, affection, trust and guidance. Last, but by no means least, I thank Dr. Zhuo Deng for seeing me and loving me, and for making my life a bliss.