1st Edition
Citizenship and Education in Contemporary China Contexts, Perspectives, and Understandings
A key objective of education in China is to cultivate one's moral values, with the ultimate objective of becoming fully human (做人). Unlike the "West", which regards moral cultivation as related to but separate from citizenship cultivation, East Asia (including China) views moral and citizenship cultivation as synonymous. The essays in this book offer various perspectives on and understandings of Chinese citizenship and education by a group of scholars of Chinese heritage situated inside and outside of China. They offer compelling evidence and rich theoretical discussions about the practice of teaching citizenship in the state education, the interplay between citizenship and China's cultural and religious traditions, and the construction of citizenship from the groups from marginal positions. The book uses citizenship as a lens to examine the pressing issues of identity, democracy, religion and cosmopolitanism and sheds new light on China's ongoing social and educational changes. Thinking through citizenship and citizenship education may act as an important driving force to transform the culture and paradigms of governance in China and the new meanings of becoming fully human.
This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Education, Politics, Sociology and Public Policy. The chapters in this book were originally published in various Routledge journals.
1. Citizenship and Education: Chinese Context and Conceptualisations
Yeow-Tong Chia and Zhenzhou Zhao
Section 1: Practising Citizenship within China’s State Education System
2. Rethinking Citizenship and Citizenship Education in Contemporary China: Discourses and Politics
Sicong Chen
3. Does Democracy Still Have a Chance? Contextualizing Citizenship Education in China
Tianlong Yu
4. Marginal Citizens Exercising Their Individual Autonomy for Self-Identification: The Case of Migrant Students at a Vocational High School in Beijing
Wing On Lee and Ji Qi
Section 2: Envisaging Citizenship through a Cultural Lens
5. Educating the Cosmopolitan Citizen in Confucian Classical Education in Contemporary China
Canglong Wang
6.State–Actor Interactions in Cultivating National Identity with Traditional Culture: Experiences in China’s Cultural Governance
Shuqin Xu
7. Religious Façade of ‘the Chinese Nation’ in China’s School Curriculum
Zhenzhou Zhao
Section 3: Implementing Citizenship Education in Hong Kong
8.Understanding Civic Education in Hong Kong: A Bernsteinian Analysis of Teachers’ Perspectives
Kin Cheung Adrian Yan
9. Identity and Citizenship in Hong Kong: A Theoretical Reflection Using Chinese Landscape Painting
Derrick Tu
10. The Changes in Hong Kong Students’ Perceptions of the ‘Good Citizen’: Implications for Implementing Civic Education Curriculum
Hui Li, Xiaoxue Kuang and Mingyue Liang
Afterword
Citizenship and Education in a Changing Chinese Society: Concepts, Challenges, Practices and Future Tasks
Meiyao Wu
Biography
Yeow-Tong Chia is Senior Lecturer in History Education in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney. He is the author of Education, Culture and the Singapore Developmental State: World-Soul Lost and Regained? (2015) and co-author of Teacher Preparation in Singapore: A Concise Critical History (2022).
Zhenzhou Zhao is Assistant Professor in Department of Curriculum and Instruction, the Education University of Hong Kong. She is an editor of Cogent Education and a member of the International Advisory Board of the British Journal of Religious Education. She also serves on the editorial boards of Gender and Education and Chinese Education and Society.
