| Developing Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools has become an important strategic choice for China in the new era to continue expanding high-level educational openness, accelerate the construction of an educational powerhouse, and actively integrate into the global innovation network. Utilizing social network analysis and negative binomial regression models, this study explores the scale and spatial evolution characteristics of the Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools network from a global perspective between 1991 and 2020, along with the mechanisms of multidimensional proximity. The results show that: in terms of network scale, the Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools network exhibits a trend of "steady development followed by rapid growth" and holds tremendous development potential; in terms of spatial pattern, the network has transitioned from cooperation mainly with European and American countries to a global cooperation stage, forming a distribution characterized by "optimized layout, diverse partners, and varied layers". The evolution of this network is influenced by multidimensional proximity, including prominent language proximity, waning economic proximity, weakening spatial proximity, significant cultural complementarity, and beneficial organizational proximity. Based on these findings, it is recommended that from a national perspective, efforts should be continuously increased to cultivate the Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools network, and adopt differentiated strategies to appropriately address the heterogeneous impacts of multidimensional proximity, so as to achieve coordinated development in the depth and breadth of educational cooperation. |
