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Learning Individualism: Hesse, Confucius, and Pep-Rallies in a Chinese Rural High School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2013

Mette Halskov Hansen
Mette Halskov Hansen*
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Norway. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

In Chinese public discourse, it has almost become a truism that the generation born after the mid-1980s is more selfish, individualistic, and materialistic than previous generations. Consequently, an important task for public moral education is to correct this behaviour and to generate compassion for others beyond the family, to strengthen nationalist sentiments and to imbue a sense of duty to the greater community. Schools provide the Chinese government with a key opportunity to achieve this. Based on fieldwork in a rural high school in China, this article demonstrates how the official visions of the learned individual portrayed in textbooks collide with a more powerful ideology of individualism that is implicitly promoted through activities within the school, and is reflective of an ongoing process of individualization, not only in Chinese society, but also within state institutions, such as the school.

Keywords

educationindividualizationhigh schoolindividualChina
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 213 , March 2013 , pp. 60 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2013

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