Modern transformations of Chinese educational traditions : a study of contemporary policy and practice

Abstract

Traditions play an essential role in the development of a society. After the end of the Cold War, cross-civilizational dialogue emerges as a globally heated topic with great concerns over the clash of civilizations. Learning from other cultures is increasingly viewed as an indispensable way to develop national educational traditions. In this globalized era, cross-civilizational dialogue cannot escape from the effects of the center-periphery structure. Non-Western societies must respond to the pressure from Western culture. Chinese people have endeavored to modernize their traditions since the arrival of Western learning in the mid-19th century. Against the backdrop of a rising China, contemporary Chinese people need to continue to integrate Western elements into Chinese culture. Significant to the international cultural exchanges and the domestic cultural modernization, such Chinese experiences, however, have been rarely studied. Empirical studies are even more lacking. This thesis examines how contemporary Chinese policymakers, scholars and school principals modernize their educational traditions by incorporating Western elements into policy formulation and implementation in their everyday professional lives. Based on the transformational model of social activities postulated by Roy Bhaskar, it explores the inheritance of Chinese educational traditions (CETs), the transformative strategies held by contemporary Chinese frontier educational researchers and practitioners, and their efforts to transform CETs. Employing semi-structured interviews and document analysis as its major approaches to collecting first-hand empirical data, and guided by Critical Realism, this doctoral project analyzes the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the contemporary Chinese in the modernization of CETs and the underlying causal mechanisms. This study reports that within a modern Western-style education system, many elements of CETs are still inherited through school curriculum and personal growth experience. Although contemporary Chinese people’s understanding of CETs is often fragmented and even messy, CETs continue to be highly cherished in the society. Indeed, the contemporary Chinese endeavor to seek effective strategies for the modern transformation of CETs, with evident difficulties and barriers in synthesizing Chinese and Western traditions. Their approaches are informed by various mechanisms at state, social and individual levels. While the development of traditions is influenced by political, economic, and cultural factors, the varying level of economic development in China’s different regions has little effect on the transformation of CETs. Despite great challenges, contemporary Chinese people have achieved much in the modernization of their educational traditions and prepared themselves well for “a new Axial Age.” Such experiences and efforts provide other nations with rich food for their modernization of traditions in response to the West.