Teaching American social emotional learning in Chinese kindergartens? a decolonial reflection on education transfer

This paper provides a decolonial reflection on education transfer by investigating a specific example – how an American social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum underwent cultural adaptation when it was transferred to China. It explores the ontological differences between Western and Chinese views of self and emotion – the core notions of SEL – and, building on this foundation, probes the philosophical and cultural assumptions underlying this American curriculum. Based on the data from documents, interviews and class observations, this paper shows that this curriculum, rooted in Western modernity, was insubstantially adapted during the transfer, rarely addressing ontological considerations. Consequently, the curriculum used in China remained culturally Western. Thus, this paper argues that, without deep ontological reflections, education transfer is highly likely to lead to superficial localisation, privileging particular education knowledge and limiting our explorations of alternatives. By doing so, this paper decolonialises education transfer in order to guide us towards pluriversality.