Cultivating the Confucian Individual: The Confucian Education Revival in China

ISBN-13: 9783031276682 / Angielski

Canglong Wang

Opis

This book explores the complexities of cultivating ‘Confucian individuals’ through classics study in contemporary China by drawing on the individualization thesis and its implications for the Confucian education revival. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a Confucian classical school, three topics are investigated: parents’ narratives and actions related to ‘dis-embedding’ their children from mainstream state education and transferring them to Confucian education as an alternative; the specific discourses and practices of teaching and learning the classics in everyday school life, guided by the aim of training students to become autonomous learners; and the institutional and subjective dilemmas that arise when parents and students seek to ‘re-embed’ themselves in either the state education system or further Confucian studies at an advanced academy for the next stage of education. The research presented in this book contributes to understanding the hidden dynamics of individualization in the Confucian education revival and the intricacies of subject-making through Confucian teaching and learning in the socialist state of China. 

Spis treści

Chapter 1 Introduction: Confucian education revival and Chinese individualization

 Chapter 2 Individualization, subjectification, and Confucian education

 Chapter 3 Choosing a Confucian education: The rise of critical parents

 Chapter 4 Inventing an individualized approach to memorization: Debates, reforms, and contradictions

 Chapter 5 Cultivating the autonomous learner: Disciplinary power, techniques of the self, and pedagogical dilemmas

 Chapter 6 Returning to state schools? Educational re-embedding and the institutional dilemma

 Chapter 7 Continuing Confucian studies? The individual self, sage discourse, and parental authority

Chapter 8 Conclusion: Individualization with Confucianism

 

 

 

 

O autorze

Canglong Wang is a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Hull, UK. His research extensively explores the cultural, social and political implications of the revival of Confucian education in contemporary China. His work has appeared in many leading journals and book chapters. He is the author of The Rise of Confucian Citizens in China (2023).

Blurb

This book explores the complexities of cultivating ‘Confucian individuals’ through classics study in contemporary China by drawing on the individualization thesis and its implications for the Confucian education revival. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a Confucian classical school, three topics are investigated: parents’ narratives and actions related to ‘dis-embedding’ their children from mainstream state education and transferring them to Confucian education as an alternative; the specific discourses and practices of teaching and learning the classics in everyday school life, guided by the aim of training students to become autonomous learners; and the institutional and subjective dilemmas that arise when parents and students seek to ‘re-embed’ themselves in either the state education system or further Confucian studies at an advanced academy for the next stage of education. The research presented in this book contributes to understanding the hidden dynamics of individualization in the Confucian education revival and the intricacies of subject-making through Confucian teaching and learning in the socialist state of China. 

Canglong Wang is a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Hull, UK. His research extensively explores the cultural, social and political implications of the revival of Confucian education in contemporary China. His work has appeared in many leading journals and book chapters. He is the author of The Rise of Confucian Citizens in China (2023).