Author(s)

Nicole Zheng ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ NEWS PRIVATE SCHOOL, No.590, Jiushuidong Road, Qingdao, Shandong, China

Corresponding Author

Nicole Zheng

ABSTRACT

With the general education curriculum at New York University Shanghai (NYU Shanghai) and the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) as research objects, this paper focuses on the practical model of the general education system in Sino-foreign cooperative universities. Based on the theory of liberal education and the theory of international culture in local contexts, this paper conducts a systematic analysis of the general education curriculum in two universities in terms of their curriculum structure, curriculum objectives, teaching mode, and assessment and evaluation. The research results indicate that NYU Shanghai adopts a university-wide mandatory general education model. Similarly, it arranges the general education curriculum in the first two years of undergraduate training, with the cross-civilizational courses and the institutionalized China Studies courses as its core. Furthermore, its curriculum system implements the education mode characterized by student enrollment without declaring a major, realizing broad-based student development through six curriculum modules. By contrast, UNNC, which has not established an independent university-wide general education system, mainly distributes its general education content in the foundation transition courses and embedded modules within the specialty. Its curriculum content is mainly implemented around English for academic purposes (EAP) and foundational disciplinary competencies training. Simply put, the differences between them regarding the general education system reflect the diverse institutional logic followed by American-style general education and British-style specialized education. Concurrently, the aforementioned differences reveal the tension between the global educational paradigm and the local educational practice.

KEYWORDS

Sino-foreign Cooperative Universities; General Education; New York University Shanghai; University of Nottingham Ningbo China; Liberal Education

CITE THIS PAPER

Nicole Zheng. Comparison of General Education Models at Sino-Foreign Cooperative Universities: A Case Study of New York University Shanghai and the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Advances in Educational Technology and Psychology (2026). Vol. 10, No. 4, 18-23. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/aetp.2026.100403.

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