Dr Hongzhi Zhang is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. His main research interests are educational equity, education policy, Asia study, and curriculum and pedagogy. Drawing on educational philosophies of Asian traditions, Hongzhi’s research about ‘Asia as method’ is innovative and influential. He has established ‘Asia as method’ as a researchable concept, and contributed influential theoretical and empirical developments in research about ‘Asia as method’ in educational studies, particularly how it can be developed in multicultural, postcolonial Asia countries and for it to be culturally expansive in Western education systems as an ideal and as a practice across cultures. His particular foci have been in researching an overall ‘Asia as pedagogy' to help to cultivate a new research imagination in Australian cross-curriculum priority ‘Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia’.

Hongzhi has a sustained track record of publication of his work about ‘Asia as method’ in educational studies (an edited book with Routledge - Asia as Method in Education Studies: A Defiant Research Imagination, published 2015). This is a unique and ground breaking book project and promises to start a new movement in the field of education research. In one of his edited books - Equality in Education: Fairness and inclusion (Sense Publisher, 2014), Hongzhi put together a diverse, informative, and interesting account of equality and fairness that transcends international borders.

Hongzhi has evolved different research projects in last three years. He is currently leading a research project Internationalization of Australian independent schools: The influences of Confucian heritage culture on pedagogy (2017-2019, AU$200,000). This 3-year project will mainly focus on the international student programs in Victoria independent school. It will construct the legitimate theoretical base for the incorporation of Confucian Heritage Culture in Australian independent school, and examine the effects of Confucian pedagogy on teaching and learning styles.

He was also leading the Dragon’s Den Project - Engaging China: Strategies for the Faculty of Education in the Faculty of Education, Monash University in 2015. This project has provided market intelligence that will inform a set of strategies for making the most of the opportunities presented by China’s growth and for overcoming identified challenges that can limit the faculty’s engagement with China. This project has significant impact on the faculty’s strategies to develop the China’s partnership. Hongzhi helped the faculty to establish initiative collaborations with the Chinese counterparts, provided specialist consultant in various engaging China activities, and successful organized professional development services to Chinese clients since 2016. 

EDF5610: Investigating education issues in global contexts

EDF5611: Interacting with research in education contexts

EDF5614: Research project

EDF5663: Education and globalisation in the Asian century

EDF3065: Indigenous perspectives and learning.

EDF2031: Indigenous perspectives on teaching and learning

EDF3009: Schooling, education and equity: Local and global perspectives

EDF3216: Humanities and social sciences education in the primary and secondary years

Engaging China: Strategies for the Faculty of Education