journal article
LitStream Collection
Home
Chen, Wang; Wei, Luo; Yuefei, Wu
2021 History of Education Review
This paper traces the incorporation of western educational histories in the development of normal-school curricula during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China (1901–1944). It uses publication networks to show how the study of comparative educational history facilitated the international circulation of knowledge in the teaching profession, and how the “uses” of educational history were shaped by larger geopolitical forces.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyzes the international exchange of texts between normal schools in China and Japan and, subsequently, between normal schools in China and the United States. A database of 107 publications in the field of western educational history that were adopted in China reveals specific patterns of textual citation, cross-reference, and canon-formation in the field of educational historiography.FindingsWith conclusions derived from a combination of social network analysis and clustering analysis, this paper identifies three broad stages in China's development of normal-school curricula in comparative educational history: “Japan as Teacher,” “transitional period” and “America as Teacher.”Research limitations/implicationsStatistical analysis can reveal citation and reference patterns but not readers' understanding of the deeper meaning of texts – in this case, textbooks on the subject of western educational history. In addition, the types of publications analyzed in this study are relatively limited, the articles on the history of education in journals have not become the main objects of this study.Originality/valueThis paper uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to uncover the transnational circulation of knowledge in the field of comparative educational history during its formative period in China.
2021 History of Education Review
Some studies have claimed that Chinese thinker Hu Shi (or Hu Shih) received and responded to John Dewey's educational ideas only at a theoretical level and did little for education at a practical level. This paper reexamines Hu's reception of Dewey's ideas with a focus on how he used those ideas to solve China's educational and social problems during the late 1910s and 1920s.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws upon what Schriewer (2012) has called “theories of reception.” Rather than focusing on the international dissemination of ideas and knowledge, this approach emphasizes the reception of foreign ideas from the perspective and needs of the receiver, interpreter and/or reader who apprehends such ideas within a particular socio–cultural context.FindingsThis paper finds that Hu not only received — and examined — Dewey's educational ideas in a systematic way, but also used them pragmatically to reform China's systems of education as part of the New Culture Movement after 1919.Originality/valueThis research offers a new understanding of Hu's reception of Dewey's educational ideas. It shows that Hu was not merely a “thinker” in the field of education but also a “doer” who sought to apply Dewey's ideas in practice. This new view allows us to reevaluate Hu's role in the modernization of Chinese education.
Jiang, Chunjiao; Mao, Pengcheng
2021 History of Education Review
:The purpose of this paper is to examine how Si-shu, a traditional form of local, private education grounded in classical instruction, responded to the rapid modernization of education during the late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China and to explain why these schools, once extraordinarily adaptable, finally disappeared.Design/methodology/approach:The authors have examined both primary and secondary sources, including government reports, education yearbooks, professional annals, public archives, and published research to analyze the social, political and institutional changes that reshaped Si-shu in the context of China's late-19th- and early-20th-century educational modernization.Findings:Si-shu went through four stages of institutional change during the last century. First, they faced increased competition from new-style (westernized) schools during the late Qing dynasty. Second, they engaged in a process of intense self-reform, particularly after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. Third, they were marginalized by the new educational systems of the Republic of China, especially the Renxu School System of 1922 and the Wuchen School System of 1928. Finally, after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, they were considered remnants of feudal culture and forcibly replaced by modern schools.Originality/value:This paper brings hitherto unexplored Chinese sources to an English-speaking audience in an effort to shed new light on the history of traditional Chinese education. The fate of Si-shu was part of the larger modernization of Chinese education – a development that had both advantages and disadvantages.
2021 History of Education Review
This essay focuses on the Chinese-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and examines how the Library collected and transported Chinese rare books to the United States during the 1930 and 1940s. It considers Harvard's rationale for its collection of Chinese books and tensions between Chinese scholars and the Harvard-Yenching Institute leaders and librarians over the purchase and “export” of Chinese books.Design/methodology/approachThis research is a historical study based on archival research at Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Harvard-Yenching Library, as well as careful readings of published primary and secondary sources.FindingsBy examining the debates that surrounded the ownership of Chinese books, and the historical circumstances that enabled or hindered the cross-national movement of books, this essay uncovers a complex and interwoven historical discourse of academic nationalism, internationalism and imperialism.Originality/valueDrawing upon the unexamined primary sources and published second sources, this essay uncovers a complex and interwoven historical discourse of academic nationalism, internationalism and imperialism.
2021 History of Education Review
This study asks how American institutions of higher education defended the principles of academic freedom (or intellectual autonomy) during the 1950s, even as they became increasingly dependent on the federal government's financial support, their eligibility for which required an oath of political loyalty under the terms of the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Universities whose students or professors resisted the oath faced a dilemma of institutional governance as well as intellectual integrity during the early years of the Cold War.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on documentary and archival sources, including the Congressional Record, the AAUP Bulletin, student pamphlets, newspapers and other publications of the US federal government, and on secondary sources.FindingsThe author finds that the US federal government began to invest heavily in higher education during the 1950s, but financial support was often accompanied by political oversight. Higher education institutions and their professors struggled to reconcile a sense of responsibility for national service with a desire for academic freedom. The findings show how the federal government treated institutions of higher education and dealt with the issue of academic freedom during the Cold War.Originality/valueThis study draws on a large pool of primary sources and previous research to offer new insights into an enduring ideological tension between academic freedom, public service and financial patronage.
2021 History of Education Review
This paper examines China's historiography on foreign education since 1900, with an emphasis on the period since 1949. The understanding of “foreign education” in China during this period shifted rapidly from the Western-centered approach that had been introduced from Japanese during the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China to the Soviet-centered approach that followed the founding of New China to a restoration of Western-centered approaches after the “opening” of the late 1970s and 1980s. The paper asks: how has the study of foreign educational history changed over time in the People's Republic of China, how has the broader discipline of history of education changed, and how have successive generations of historians of education conceived of their intellectual and political roles?Design/methodology/approachGrounded in archival documents and the published works of influential historians of education, this study notes the ways in which political regime change affected the construction and application of academic knowledge.FindingsThis study identifies four stages in the Chinese historiography on foreign education: a formative stage (from 1900 until the late 1940s); a difficult post-revolutionary recovery, followed by growth and then suppression (from 1949 until the mid-1970s); a period of achievement combined with an academic crisis (from 1978 until the early 2000s); and finally, a recent transition marked by theoretical innovation and global integration (from the 2000s until the present).Originality/valueThis study finds that a narrow focus on “practical utility” or service to politics and policy has perturbed historians of foreign education in China and stunted their field's development. A look back at early periods in the historiography offers a warning about the potential dangers of extreme ideological/political utilitarianism. These dangers existed not only in the history of foreign education but also in the history of education research more broadly. A close examination of these dangers can help twenty-first-century historians of education in China balance the practical, political and professional dimensions of their research. To grasp the meaning of foreign education, historical research needs to be politically independent.
Showing 1 to 10 of 12 Articles