Critical Thinking in Academic Writing

The book compares how critical thinking is conceptualised, applied and acquired by Chinese postgraduate students in three different settings in China and the UK. It aims to uncover the cultural conditions for them to understand and apply critical thinking skills in academic writing tasks. The book inquires into critical thinking through a cultural approach. Based on an ethnographic study, it compares Chinese postgraduate students’ conceptualisations and applications of critical thinking in three different settings in China and the UK. From an insider’s perspective, it analyses the intricate interplay of multiple cultural and individual factors that conditions students’ critical thinking development as they learn to write an academic thesis and to manage postgraduate learning. The book offers insights into the nature of problems that Chinese students encounter with critical thinking and envisions possibilities for the ideas for critical thinking to have a transformative power in an intercultural space. The book will primarily be of interest to academics and educators who work on critical thinking and academic writing, especially those who work with Chinese students. Scholars interested in intercultural issues in higher education may also find it relevant.