A comprehensive collection on twentieth-century educational practices in China

Paul J. Bailey provides the first analytical study in English of Chinese women's experiences during China's turbulent twentieth century. Incorporating the very latest specialized research, and drawing upon Chinese cinema and autobiographical memoirs, this fascinating narrative account: - Explores the impact of political, social and cultural change on women's lives, and how Chinese women responded to such developments - Charts the evolution of gender discourses during this period - Illuminates both change and continuity in gender discourse and practice Approachable and authoritative, this is an essential overview for students, teachers and scholars of gender history, and anyone with an interest in modern Chinese history.

This book argues that the current state of China requires an important paradigm shift in the way the party-state manages the country’s development, and goes on to assess the fitness of the party-state for implementing such a paradigm shift and the likelihood of the party-state bringing this about. It brings together an examination of the very latest situation in a range of key areas where current developments have the potential to undermine substantially the status quo, areas such as the recent economic crisis and the resulting economic slowdown, increasing labour unrest, mounting calls for social justice, worsening urban-rural disparity, the urgent need to implement social welfare programmes, the rise of civil society, and the impact of new media. Overall, the book provides a thorough appraisal of the difficulties which China currently faces.

The university system, both in America and abroad, has always claimed a universal significance for its research and educational models. At the same time, many universities, particularly in Europe, have also claimed another role--as custodians of national culture. Transnational Intellectual Networks explores this apparent contradiction and its resulting intellectual tensions with illuminating essays that span the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century nationalization movements in Europe through the postwar era.

Shortlisted for the 2014 BAAL Book Prize This book explores the meaning of modernization in contemporary Chinese education. It examines the implications of the implementation of reforms in English language education for experimental-urban schools in the People’s Republic of China. Pérez-Milans sheds light on how national, linguistic, and cultural ideologies linked to modernization are being institutionally (re)produced, legitimated, and inter-personally negotiated through everyday practice in the current context of Chinese educational reforms. He places special emphasis on those reforms regarding English language education, with respect to the economic processes of globalization that are shaping (and being shaped by) the contemporary Chinese nation-state. In particular, the book analyzes the processes of institutional categorization of the "good experimental school", the "good student", and the "appropriate knowledge" that emerge from the daily discursive organization of those schools, with special attention to the related contradictions, uncertainties and dilemmas. Thus, it provides an account of the on-going cultural processes of change faced by contemporary Chinese educational institutions under conditions of late modernity. Winner of The University of Hong Kong's Faculty Early Career Research Output Award for outstanding book publication, by the Faculty of Education

Through an empirical, multi-archival study of a transnational foundation—the Harvard-Yenching Institute (HYI) from the 1920s to the early 1950s—this book presents the story of transplanting Western/American humanities scholarship into Asia/China and addresses central questions in U.S.-China relations. This book focuses on the HYI’s programs in teaching, research, and publication of Chinese humanities within China to the early 1950s and, to a lesser extent, its activities at Harvard that had close ties with its China side. Through the HYI story, the author examines in depth the cooperation, tensions, adaptation, and integration in the operation, management, and governance of the HYI’s programs on both sides of the Pacific, and the complex multi-layered interactions between American educators and their Chinese partners, treating each side sympathetically but without losing sight of the big picture. As the first comprehensive study on the subject, the book adopts a concept of “cultural engineering,” which is defined as a conscious design to use cultural heritage to recreate culture in order to promote a society's development, to look at key issues in a way which accounts for interactions and initiatives on both sides and shows the difficult path toward developing common interests without neglecting tensions and conflicts, thus going beyond the various one-sided historiographies which pit Chinese against Americans or nativist rejection of modernity against cultural imperialism. The HYI experience in China from the 1920s to the early 1950s resonates down to the present day in American relations with the world. The United States faces many similar challenges in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America today as in revolutionary China of the 1920s to 1950s. Therefore, this study offers a window onto many issues relating to cross-cultural interactions today, especially between the United States and non-Western nations.

This volume explores Chinese identity through the lens of both the Chinese and English languages. Until the twentieth century, English was a language associated with capitalists and "military aggressors" in China. However, the massive progression of globalisation in China following the 1980s has transformed the language into an important tool for China’s modernisation. Regardless of the role English plays in China, there has always been a fear there that the spread of culture(s) associated with English would lead to weakening of the Chinese identity. This fear resulted in the development of the ti-yong principle: "Chinese learning for essence (ti), Western learning for utility (yong)." Fong’s book aims to enhance understanding of the ti-yong dichotomy in relation to people’s sense of being Chinese in China, the penetration of English into non-English speaking societies, the resultant tensions in people’s sense of personal and national identity, and their place in the world. Using Q methodology, the book presents observations based on data collected from four participant groups, namely high school and university students, teachers and parents in China, to investigate their perspectives on the status and roles of English, as well as those of Chinese. Considering the growing international interest in China, this volume will appeal to readers interested in China’s contemporary society in general, its language, culture and identity. It will be a useful resource for academics, researchers and students in the field of applied linguistics, language education and Chinese cultural studies and can also be adopted as a reference book for undergraduate courses relating to language, identity and culture.

This volume presents a timely assessment of the Hu Wen Administration at the juncture of preparing a change of China s leadership in 2012 13. The assessment is important because the administration s apparent success tends to create a path-dependent orientation on the part of its successor. Bringing together a collection of nineteen major essays, this book offers a fresh perspective of evaluating the performance and achievements of China in the Hu Wen era in terms of economic development, the establishment of a rudimentary social security system and her rising international status. The new opportunities and challenges facing China, and how will the likely successors Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang handle those opportunities and challenges, as well as new policy programmes will also be discussed in greater detail. Each essay is written by experts and scholars from different academic disciplines and backgrounds to provide readers with a unique overview of their respective areas of expertise.

Accompanying China’s economic reform and open-door policy in 1978, illicit drug use emerged in the late 1980s, and gradually developed into a serious social problem. Heroin was the dominant illicit drug consumed in the new drug epidemic, and the number of female heroin users has increased rapidly in the country. While heroin use in China is soaring, little is known about women’s heroin use in the context of China’s rapidly changing society. Using intensive interviews with 131 female heroin users, this book explores the careers of female heroin users in China under changing social contexts in the reform era. It investigates the impacts of sociological and individual factors on women’s heroin use in each developing stage of their drug use careers. It also examines the social consequences of women’s heroin use by looking at connections between women’s heroin use and criminality, and the change in women’s social relations after heroin use. Lastly, the book analyzes and ascertains the impact of current narcotics control policies on women’s drug use careers. This groundbreaking book has important policy implications for both China and the international society in the context of increasing global concern about women’s substance abuse.

Indoctrinating the Youth examines how the Guomindang (GMD or Nationalists) sought to maintain control of middle-school students and cultivate their political loyalty over the trajectory of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and postwar Taiwan. During the Sino-Japanese War the Nationalists managed middle-school refugee students by merging schools, publishing and distributing updated textbooks, and assisting students as they migrated to the interior with their principals and teachers. In Taiwan, the China Youth Corps (CYC) became a symbol of the regime’s successful establishment. Tracing Nationalist efforts to indoctrinate ideology and martial spirit, Jennifer Liu investigates how GMD leaders Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo tried to build support among young people in their efforts to stabilize Taiwanese society under their rule. By comparing two key youth organizations—the Three People’s Principles Youth Corps in China, and the CYC on Taiwan—Liu uses education as a lens to analyze state-building in modern China. Liu’s careful analysis of the inner workings of GMD youth organizations also illuminates the day-to-day operations of military training in gender-segregated upper-middle schools—including how the government selected instructors and the skills taught to students. According to Liu, mandatory military training contributed to preventing major protest against the government but the policy was not without critics. Intellectuals, parents, and students voiced their dissent at what they perceived as excessive control by a repressive government and a waste of resources interfering with academics. The government-mandated civics curriculum, including government-approved textbooks and standards, reveals the characteristics and duties GMD officials believed modern citizens of the next generation should possess. Through provisions for refugee students, youth organizations, military training, and civics classes, GMD secondary education policy played a critical role in the process of state building in both modern China and Taiwan. Skillfully combining archival work in Nanjing and Taipei, along with oral interviews with former students and CYC administrators, instructors, and members, Liu offers a unique perspective toward a balanced assessment of Nationalist Party rule.