Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority: Why Do Confucian Students Reject Further Confucian Studies as Their Educational Future?

Throughout the twenty-first century, Confucian education has rapidly expanded among the grassroots in China. This study focuses on the most influential style of Confucian education, dujing (classics reading) education, and on a very understudied group, the students, in the Confucian education system. Using data collected at a Confucian school, this study aims to elucidate dujing students’ genuine thoughts and feelings toward their plans for future education. The findings suggest that dujing students exhibit an individualistic outlook, which is characterized by their personal aspirations, self-determination, independence, and self-pursuit, as well as a reluctance to pursue further Confucian studies. Their self-identity is further strengthened by resistance to the authoritarian discourse circulating in the domain of dujing education and by a shifting relationship with imposed parental expectations. This study argues that the development of Confucian individualism in students’ dujing experience must be understood within the broader social contexts shaping Chinese individualisms and subjectivities

Resurgence of Confucian education in contemporary China: Parental involvement, moral anxiety, and the pedagogy of memorisation

The resurgence of Confucian education in present-day China has received increasing academic attention over the last two decades. However, certain aspects of this trend remain poorly understood, particularly parents’ involvement in their children’s Confucian education. Based on a qualitative study conducted at a Confucian school, this article sheds light on why some Chinese parents today send their children to learn the Confucian classics. The parents interviewed criticised China’s examination-oriented state school system, which they regarded as too practically oriented to realise students’ personal and moral development. Instead, they wanted their children to cultivate Confucian virtues and moral suzhi (‘quality’). Also, Wang Caigui’s theory of ‘children reading classics’ education strengthened the parents’ confidence in the Confucian pedagogy of memorisation. Based on these findings, the article argues that using the critique tool, parents who advocate Confucian education have emerged as critical citizens who reflect on how not to be governed by the mainstream state education

Debatable "Chineseness": Diversification of Confucian classical education in contemporary China

© 2018, Francais sur la Chine Contemporaine China. This article discusses the ongoing debates about classics reading (dujing) in the revitalisation and diversification of Confucian classical education in mainland China. It begins by reviewing two disputes about dujing in modern Chinese history and then turns to the contemporary debate, focusing on how one professional and experienced practitioner expounded on the disparities in practicing classical education. The author summarises three controversial issues-(1) the relationship between the educative principles and methods, (2) historical legitimacy, and (3) the linguistic nature of Chinese language. Based on these, this paper reflects on the current dujing movement by concluding that the diversification of classical education has complicated the authenticity of "Chineseness" and rendered it a debatable public issue

Right, righteousness, and act: why should Confucian activists be regarded as citizens in the revival of Confucian education in contemporary China?

This article explores three core elements of citizenship–right, responsibility, and act–and their implications for the rise of Confucian activists in the revival of Confucian education in present-day China. Adopting an empirical research approach, the author draws from two sets of resources: public speeches by a leader in contemporary Confucian classical education, and interviews with teachers and parents at a Confucian school. A critical discourse analysis of the data is conducted to examine the emerging themes. First, the study identifies the widespread circulation of the discourse of right (quanli) to education within the field of Confucian education. Second, focusing on the emerging discourse of righteousness (yi), it reveals how this particular Confucian ideology, articulated through local terminologies, generates a sense of civic responsibility and obligation. Third, it investigates the Confucian idea of “extending innate knowledge” (zhi liangzhi) and its contribution to the conversion of internal, individual ethical reflection to creative, civic acts. Based on the findings, this study challenges the popular characterisation of Confucianism as a contradiction to citizenship. The revival of Confucian education offers an opportunity to explore a more nuanced understanding of the effects of Confucianism on the formation of the “Confucian citizen”

Individuality, Hierarchy, and Dilemma: the Making of Confucian Cultural Citizenship in a Contemporary Chinese Classical School

Is Confucianism compatible with citizenship? If yes, how? Cultural transformation in recent citizenship studies provides a theoretical junction to bring the two concepts together. In terms of cultural citizenship, this paper explores the making of Confucian cultural citizens by analyzing students’ discourses in a Chinese Confucian classical school. It reveals (1) the process of moral self-transformation, whereby the individualities are embedded into ethical relations by the extensive readings of classical literature; (2) practically discursive contradictions between individualism and authoritarianism that is based on the notion of a cultural hierarchy; and (3) the institutional predicament in striving for the recognition of cultural citizenship by the state and society. Finally, it concludes that the dilemmas in discourses and status are part of the contradictions in the overall Chinese party-state’s management of individualization

Parents as Critical Individuals: Confucian Education Revival from the Perspective of Chinese Individualisation

This article uses the theory of Chinese individualisation to understand the Confucian education revival by focusing on the rise of parents as critical individuals and a case study of one Confucian private school. Drawing on interview data from parental activists who enrol their children in the study of Confucian classics, this article presents the disembedding actions taken to break attachments to state schools and the paradoxical return to institutional safety. It finds that these parents exhibit ambivalence towards the state education system, and that family relationships affect individual parents’ decisions about Confucian education. Furthermore, this study discusses the implications of the individualisation dynamics for Confucian revival in reference to the reflexive conditions of modernity

Making of the Confucian individual: morality, subjectification and classical schooling in China

This research explores the complexity of Confucian schooling in the context of contemporary China. Based on fieldwork in a Confucian-­‐style classical school (given the pseudonym Yiqian School), the thesis reveals why parents choose Confucian education, how the school seeks to cultivate children as Confucian autonomous, learned individuals and what sense parents, students and teachers make of this schooling. Theoretically the thesis draws together three strands of scholarship—research on Chinese education and the rhetoric of suzhi/quality, the individualisation thesis as it applies to China, and governmentality and subjectification in the context of China. The study is ethnographic, drawing on participant observation and formal and informal interviews. Conducted in 2015, the fieldwork took place over six months in Yiqian School, a classical school with a student population spanning seven to 15 years. The research demonstrates the complexity of parents’ decisions to withdraw their children from state schools and in planning for their future education. These parents had contradictory dispositions towards the state school system: while many criticised compulsory schooling, at the same time they also recognised the importance of the state-­‐defined educational track in awarding academic certificate. The parental desire for their children to receive Confucian classical education was deeply influenced by anxiety about morality and a belief that classical education would enhance children’s moral status. As most parents came from middle-­‐class families, their stress on Confucian ethical virtue can be interpreted as an attempt to distinguish their children from other social groups through a Confucian-­‐inspired distinction between good/bad manners, high/low qualities (suzhi), and superior/inferior civilities (wenming). The thesis also explores the specific educational practices and techniques used in the Confucian school. While Yiqian School aimed to cultivate students as autonomous, learned individuals through the approach of “individualised memorisation,” this process is subjected to disciplinary power in two conflicting types of memorisation-­‐based pedagogy, an individualistic and an authoritarian mode. This meant the subjectification of the students involved a contradiction between autonomy and coercion. By showing how Confucian individuals are shaped within the education system, the thesis reveals what Confucian education tells us about the Chinese path to individualisation. The making of Confucian individuals in the school is not completely “dis-­‐embedded” from the “traditional” categories such as family relations, the state school system and social class. The tension between parents and their children in planning for the latter’s future education indicates how strongly the Confucian youth pursue personal aspirations. Furthermore, while parents were free to take their children out of the state school system and choose Confucian education, they had to face the risks resulting from the ambiguous status of Confucian education, particularly the lack of certificate-­‐granting powers and the marginalisation of the Confucian educational experience

Hybridising Minjian Religion in South China: Participants, Rituals, and Architecture

This study focuses on the ongoing hybridisation of minjian (folk or popular, literally “among the people”) religious activities in rural areas of south China. It demonstrates recent changes in religious hybridisation through extensive fieldwork in two villages. It also investigates intellectual debate on the concept of minjian religion and presents the relationship between state power and the religious revival in contemporary Chinese society. It then draws on fieldwork data to examine the hybrid nature of Chinese minjian religion from three aspects: the diversification of participants, the performative hybridisation of rituals, and the blending of spatial layouts. The main argument is that the revival of minjian religion involves the hybridisation of mystical and secular elements and of traditional and modern elements through the complex interactions between rural communities and official authorities

Réinventer l’éducation confucéenne dans la Chine contemporaine : nouvelles explorations ethnographiques

Depuis le début du XXIe siècle, la Chine connaît un renouveau croissant des références à la tradition confucéenne dans divers domaines tels que la politique, la religion, la vie sociale et l’éducation. L’éducation inspirée du confucianisme est une dimension centrale de ce « renouveau » et désigne les divers projets, initiatives et activités éducatifs inventés et réalisés en référence directe à des éléments de l’héritage confucéen. Malgré l’emprise du pouvoir de l’État sur la société, il est à..