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French Media Critics of Asian Education: A Systematic Quest for the Cultural Other

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Intercultural Masquerade

Part of the book series: Encounters between East and West ((EEWIP))

Abstract

Over the years, the Asian populations have become the focus of the representations of an exotic, imagined East, e.g. Asian students are portrayed as being successful and excelling in all fields they participate in, such as academic activities, sports, music, etc. However, this praising is associated with harsh criticisms of their education which is deemed authoritarian and repressive. In this article, I analyse how Asian education is portrayed and then criticised in French TV news and documentaries. Data were collected from YouTube postings dealing with Asian students and their academic success. The results show that in the French media, Asian students are often depicted as representatives of their community of origin. They appear as ‘good’ and successful students based on cultural classifications where their individual voice is not heard or silenced. Critics regarding Eastern education are indeed contextual and aim at discrediting it in the eyes of an academically less successful ‘western’ population.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia

    E-Lynn Yeow

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  1. E-Lynn Yeow
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Correspondence to E-Lynn Yeow .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia

    Regis Machart

  2. Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Fred Dervin

  3. Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Minghui Gao

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Yeow, EL. (2016). French Media Critics of Asian Education: A Systematic Quest for the Cultural Other . In: Machart, R., Dervin, F., Gao, M. (eds) Intercultural Masquerade. Encounters between East and West. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47056-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47056-5_4

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