This book explores the pedagogical practices and representations of young people in Chinese history from a multidisciplinary perspective, addressing education and childhood in modern and pre-modern Chinese sources.
This book explores the pedagogical practices and representations of young people in Chinese history from a multidisciplinary perspective, addressing education and childhood in modern and pre-modern Chinese sources.
Drawing on a varied corpus of sources spanning from the Tang period (618–907) to the Republican era (1912–1949) this book examines how concepts of childhood were shaped, transmitted, and transformed in imperial and early Republican China, responding to shifting social, cultural, and political contexts. The book also demonstrates how the scope of education in China evolved alongside society, adapting to emerging challenges and becoming an effective tool for modernisation. Presenting a nuanced understanding of how Chinese educational practices combined local traditions with external influences, it succinctly highlights youth’s role in nation-building and social renewal.
By bridging humanities and social sciences, this source-rich collection is an essential reference for students and scholars researching the historical formation of childhood and youth in China.
Section 1: Educating through Words: Transcultural Transmission of
Theories, Concepts and Texts
1. Dialogues of Knowledge: Jesuit Liberal Arts
Within Chinese Traditions of Early Learning in Late Imperial China
2. When
Aesop Became a Chinese Language Teacher: Robert Thoms Yishi yuyan , Its
Pedagogical Agenda and Legacy in Modern China
3. Replicating, Rewriting, and
Reinventing Youth: A Transcultural Analysis of Shanghai Commercial Press
Zuixin guowen jiaokeshu Section 2: Adapting Educational Practices to
Reality: Pragmatism, Life and Social Change
4. Childrens Journey through
Life and Death in Premodern China: A Brief Survey on Protective Rituals,
Ghostly Realms, and Education
5. Ye Shengtaos Early Perspective on
Education: A Reading of Xiaoxue jiaoyu de gaizao (1919)
6. Tradition
Rewritten. Bao Tianxiaos Textual Strategies and the Education of Young Women
Section 3: Representing Childhood and Youth: Lyrics, Visual Culture and the
Making of the Young
7. Childhood and Youth in Poetry from the Tang Dynasty
(618907)
8. Visualising Childhood and Youth in Late Qing China: Images,
Readership, and Education in the Dianshizhai huabao (18841898)
9.
Forging the Young Body: Health, Discipline and Children in the New Life
Movement (19341937)
Giulia Falato is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Parma, Italy. Renata Vinci is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Palermo, Italy.
