Cultivating the Confucian Individual: The Confucian Education Revival in China (Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective) 303127668X, 9783031276682

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Praise for Cultivating the Confucian Individual
Contents
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction: Confucian Education Revival and Chinese Individualization
Confucian Revival and Its Educational Implications
Confucian Education and Chinese Educational Reform
Research Setting and Methods
The Confucian School
Teachers
Students
Research Methods
Outline of the Book
References
Chapter 2: Individualization, Subjectification, and Confucian Education
Individualization and Confucian Education Revival
Individualization Thesis and Chinese Individualization
Privatization of the Chinese Education System
The Moral Shift of Chinese Subjectivity
Governmentality, Subjectification, and China
Conceptualizations of Governmentality and Subjectification
Governmentality and Subjectification in China
Summary
References
Chapter 3: Choosing a Confucian Education: The Rise of Critical Parents
Introduction
Criticizing State Education: Moral Anxiety and Confucian Virtues
Challenging Examination-Oriented Education Through the Rhetoric of suzhi
Parental Confidence in the Confucian Pedagogy of Memorization: Nationalism, Civility, and Middle-Class Families
Dis-embedding from State Schools: From Straddlers to Breakers
Summary
References
Chapter 4: Inventing an Individualized Approach to Memorization: Debates, Reforms, and Contradictions
Introduction
Two Debates on dujing (Reading the Classics) in Modern China
The Recent Debate Over Dujing in Contemporary China
Debatable Chineseness of Confucian Pedagogy in Contemporary Classical Education
Principles and Methods
Historical Legitimacy
The Linguistic Nature of Chinese Language
Pedagogical Reforms Toward a Confucian Method of Individualized Memorization
The Dominance of an Authoritarian Pedagogy Before March 2013
A Radical Transition to an Individualistic Pedagogy from March 2013 to September 2014
Hybrid Pedagogical Individualization from September 2014
Summary
References
Chapter 5: Cultivating the Autonomous Learner: Disciplinary Power, Techniques of the Self, and Pedagogical Dilemmas
Introduction
Techniques to Cultivate Confucian Autonomous, Learned Individuals
Minimum Memorization
Study Schedule and Examination
Competition
Mutual Monitoring in Groups
Educating Great Cultural Talents (wenhua dacai): Coercion and Resistance
Coercion Versus Autonomy in Classics Memorization
Student Resistance
Summary
References
Chapter 6: Returning to State Schools? Educational Re-embedding and the Institutional Dilemma
Introduction
Three Influences on “Re-embedding” into State Education: Uncertainty, Access to Degrees, and Marginalization
Uncertainty About the Prospects Afforded by a Confucian Education
Concern About Academic Qualifications
Anxiety About the Marginalization of the Confucian Educational Experience
The Dilemma of Providing a State-Approved Curriculum at a Confucian School
Between Independence and Obedience: Routinizing the State Curriculum at a Confucian School
Implications for “Re-embedding” into State Education
Summary
References
Chapter 7: Continuing Confucian Studies? The Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority
Introduction
Chinese Individualism and Its Relevance for the Youth in Confucian Education
Developing Soft Individualism in Confucian Studies: To Pursue Individual Aspirations or Boyue Academy?
“I don’t want to become a great cultural talent.” Students’ Individual Self Against the Sage Discourse
“I don’t want to let my parents down.” Students’ Individual Self and Parental Authority
Summary
References
Chapter 8: Conclusion: Individualization with Confucianism
Desire for Confucian Education: Choice, Dependency, and Hierarchy
Memorization-based Confucian Pedagogy: Moral Anxiety, Power, and Selfhood
Confucianism and Chinese Individualization: Individualism, Freedom, and Risk
Limitations and Implications for Future Research
References
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES ON CHINESE EDUCATION IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Cultivating the Confucian Individual The Confucian Education Revival in China

Canglong Wang

Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective Series Editors

Fred Dervin Department of Education University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland Xiangyun Du College of Education Qatar University Doha, Qatar

The transformation of China into a global super-power is often attributed to the country’s robust education system and this series seeks to provide a comprehensive, in-depth understanding of the development of Chinese education on a global scale. The books in this series will analyze and problematize the revolutions, reforms, innovations and transformations of Chinese education that are often misunderstood or misrepresented beyond its own borders and will examine the changes in Chinese education over the past 30 years and the issues as well as challenges that the future of Chinese education faces.

Canglong Wang

Cultivating the Confucian Individual The Confucian Education Revival in China

Canglong Wang Faculty of Arts Cultures and Education University of Hull Hull, UK

ISSN 2945-6576     ISSN 2945-6584 (electronic) Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective ISBN 978-3-031-27668-2    ISBN 978-3-031-27669-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to my beloved parents, Mr. Xianfa Wang and Mrs. Sifeng Wang. Thank you for giving me life and for raising and educating me with such great care.

Acknowledgments

This monograph is based on my Ph.D. thesis, and its publication is due first and foremost to my two Ph.D. supervisors, Julie Brownlie and Sophia Woodman, from the Department of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. I am sincerely grateful for their generous, continuous, and effective support during my doctoral studies. I would also like to thank Mette Halskov Hansen at the University of Oslo and Graham Crow at the University of Edinburgh, who served as external and internal reviewers, respectively, of the viva voce for my Ph.D. thesis. I am thankful to them for their constructive and helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to my friends and colleagues who have supported and helped me in various ways over the past few years, including Zhonghua Guo (Nanjing University), Zhenzhou Zhao (Education University of Hong Kong), Lin Yi (Xiamen University), Sébastien Billioud and Lan Jiang Fu (Université Paris Cité), Sandra Gilgan (University of Bonn), Yukun Zeng (University of Chicago), Kejie Huang (Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences), Anna Sun (Duke University), Yunxiang Yan (UCLA), Aleksandra Kubat (King’s College London), Lige Bao (University of Tokyo), Taihui Guo (Yunnan University), Ying Xia (Sun Yat-sen University), Yeow-Tong Chia (University of Sydney), Linda Walton (Portland State University), How Wee Ng (University of Westminster), Lydia Wu (Newcastle University), Kailing Xie (University of Birmingham), Tricia Shaw and Amanda Capern (University of Hull), alongside many others. I extend my deepest gratitude to my beloved parents, Mr. Xianfa Wang and Mrs. Sifeng Wang, for all they have done to raise and educate me over vii

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the past three decades. Meanwhile, I would like to thank my sister Qianqian Wang and brother-in-law Lailiang Xue for taking such good care of our parents while I was studying in the U.K. I reserve special thanks for my wife, Shuo Wang, for always being by my side; whether it was the cold winter nights in Edinburgh while I was writing my doctoral thesis or the festive Christmas days in Newcastle and Luton during the writing of this book, she has always been with me and has made me feel so much better about life. I want to say a big thank you to our lovely, bright son, Yunhe (Kieran). Soon to turn seven years old, he has provided me with so many joyful and heartwarming family moments during the long period of working on this book. My sincere thanks go to my editors at Palgrave Macmillan, Raghupathy Kalyanaraman and Rebecca Wyde, who have provided professional and effective support for this project from day one. The research receives a grant from the Open Project for International Cooperation Research, funded by the State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science (Yaredai jianzhu kexue guojia zhongdian shiyanshi) at South China University of Technology (grant number: 2020ZA01). I am very grateful to the research team members, including Xiaoxiang Tang from the South China University of Technology, Huanyu Guo from the South China Agricultural University, Ziwen Sun from the Beijing Institute of Technology, and Youping Nie from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Finally, some parts of this book have previously appeared elsewhere. I would like to thank the following publishers that permitted me to use them again in this book: (1) Wang, Canglong. 2018. “Debatable ‘Chineseness’: Diversification of Confucian Classical Education in Contemporary China.” China Perspectives (4): 53–64. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by China Perspectives. (2) Wang, Canglong. 2022. “Resurgence of Confucian Education in Contemporary China: Parental Involvement, Moral Anxiety, and the Pedagogy of Memorisation.” Journal of Moral Education 51 (3). https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2022.2066639. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. (3) Wang, Canglong. 2022. “Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority: Why Do Confucian Students Reject Further

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Confucian Studies as Their Educational Future?” Religions 13(2): 154–171. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).

Praise for Cultivating the Confucian Individual “The ambition to revive educational models inspired by a ‘dreamed tradition’ is one of the prominent features of today’s Confucian revival in China. Based on intensive fieldwork, this monograph offers fascinating insights into this phenomenon. It thoroughly explores the hopes, motivations and apprehensions of the different actors (teachers, parents, students) involved in a traditional school in South East China and highlights the critical reflexivity underlying their decisions. In so doing, it demonstrates how the reference to Confucianism also contributes to the ‘individualization of Chinese society’. A stimulating read for anyone interested in contemporary education, the reinvention of tradition and the affirmation of the individual in today’s China.” —Sébastien Billioud, Professor of Chinese Studies, Université Paris Cité, France What is the fate of Confucian education in contemporary socialist China? In this rigorously researched and fascinating study of the resurgence of Confucian education since 1978, Wang focuses on the tensions between what he calls ‘the spirit of Confucian individualism’ and external familial and social constraints. Grounded in extensive fieldwork conducted at a Confucian school and drawing on Foucault’s notions of subjectification and disciplinary power, Wang reveals the hidden processes at work in the making of the Confucian self in the 21st century.” —Anna Sun, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Sociology at Duke University, USA, and author or co-author of Against Happiness (2023), Situating Spirituality (2021), and Confucianism as a World Religion (2013)

Contents

1 Introduction:  Confucian Education Revival and Chinese Individualization  1 2 Individualization, Subjectification, and Confucian Education  27 3 Choosing  a Confucian Education: The Rise of Critical Parents 61 4 Inventing  an Individualized Approach to Memorization: Debates, Reforms, and Contradictions 97 5 Cultivating  the Autonomous Learner: Disciplinary Power, Techniques of the Self, and Pedagogical Dilemmas135 6 Returning  to State Schools? Educational Re-embedding and the Institutional Dilemma171 7 Continuing  Confucian Studies? The Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority203 8 Conclusion: Individualization with Confucianism229 Index253 xiii

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 5.1

Students’ gender, age, and length of reading classics at Yiqian School14 Minimum daily characters for memorization of the students in Qishun Class 142

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Confucian Education Revival and Chinese Individualization

This Introduction consists of four sections. The first two sections present the background of the Confucian education revival and its relevance for Chinese educational reform before clarifying the research questions. The third section introduces the research setting and discusses the methodological issues involved in the research. The final part of the chapter offers an outline of the remaining chapters of the book.

Confucian Revival and Its Educational Implications Confucianism1 held a dominant status in ancient China’s culture, society, and politics. However, since the end of the nineteenth century when Western powers pounded open China’s door with their solid ships and effective cannons, modern science, and political institutions (Li 2012), Confucianism, being considered by many Chinese intellectuals to be a backward, outdated ideology that had little reference to modern times, was blamed for China’s social, political, and economic ills (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Sun 2013). When the Communist regime was founded in  Confucianism is a system of thought, behavior, and politics originating in ancient China. It is variously described as a philosophy, a religion, a social ethic, a way of governing, or simply a way of life. Please refer to Gardner (2014) for a detailed introduction to Confucianism. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_1

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1949, the Confucian tradition was abandoned by the government; for Chinese people, it was just good enough to be relegated to the museum (Billioud 2021). Notably, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) saw the height of the anti-Confucian sentiment when “Confucianism was again vilified as the foundation of malevolent traditional ‘feudal’ values” (Sun 2013: 22). Over the past few decades since the 1980s, particularly since entering the twenty-first century, China has witnessed a growing revival of Confucianism in its schools, social life, spirituality, and governing ideology (Billioud 2010; Billioud and Thoraval 2007, 2008, 2009; Hammond and Richey 2015; Sun 2013, 2018). The Confucian revival in contemporary China can be understood as both a top-down (government-driven) phenomenon and a bottom-up (grassroots-driven) movement. First, according to Billioud and Thoraval (2015: 284; also see Billioud 2016), the top-down approach is driven by state power and cultural or political elites through government mandates and cultural dissemination. Particularly, the Chinese party-state has been increasingly open in its support for Confucianism since the early 2000s (Chia 2011; Yu 2008). In 2014, President Xi Jinping delivered the keynote address at an international academic symposium convened to mark the 2565th anniversary of Confucius’ birth. This was the first time that China’s supreme leader had spoken at this annual symposium. His speech was interpreted by academics and the mass media as a sign of the socialist party-state’s mission to promote the comprehensive revival of Confucianism (Hammond and Richey 2015). Alongside the top-down agenda, mainland China has experienced a bottom-­up movement of Confucian rejuvenation, which has been largely spearheaded by ordinary people with no affiliations with the state apparatus, through popular uptake and social campaigns. These bottom-up grassroots movements have facilitated the rise of “popular Confucianism” (minjian rujia 民间儒家, literally “Confucianism in the space of the people”) across various strata of Chinese society and gained political, religious, and educational dimensions (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 8). It is noted that the top-down and bottom-up approaches are not clear-cut parallels; rather, there are complex and dynamic interactions between them. This book focuses on the educational dimension of the grassroots Confucian revival. As an essential part of the panorama of popular Confucianism, Confucian-inspired educative projects are broadly considered to encompass activities relevant to learning national studies (guoxue 国学) (Gong 2008: 1). Moreover, Confucian education tradition,

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profoundly institutionalized by the imperial examination system (keju zhi 科举制)2 in ancient China (Lee 2000: 657), still influences present-day China, particularly Chinese learners’ learning models, cultural beliefs, and learning processes (Li 2012: 63). Generally, Confucian education emphasizes the lifelong exercise of self-cultivation (xiushen 修身), aiming to educate a person on five constant virtues, that is, benevolence (ren 仁), righteousness (yi 义), ritual (li 礼), wisdom (zhi 智), and trustworthiness (xin 信). Furthermore, Confucian self-cultivation must address five cardinal human relationships (Li 2012: 37–39), that is, parent-child relationship, sibling relationship, husband-wife relationship, basic economic relationship (employer-employee or supervisor-subordinate), and friendship, corresponding to the five virtues of filial piety (xiao 孝), respect (jing 敬), sibling love and responsibility (ti 悌), loyalty (zhong 忠), and trustworthiness, respectively. Of all these Confucian virtues and moral principles, ren (benevolence or humanity) is regarded as the highest level of self-cultivation, leading one to become a virtuous person (junzi 君子), the ideal personality of Confucianism. In addition, the Confucian education tradition embraces a core set of learning virtues such as sincerity, diligence, endurance of hardship, perseverance, concentration, respect for teachers, and humility (Li 2012: 49). The current rejuvenation of Confucian education can be traced back to the 1980s when the Chinese socialist regime began allowing public schools to teach traditional culture (Yu 2008). Since the early 2000s, grassroots Confucian education initiatives have achieved rapid and substantial development across China (Billioud and Thoraval 2007). Nowadays, tens of thousands of people in China have begun to take part in Confucian education (Billioud 2011). As a result, many Chinese parents not only learn about traditional Chinese culture themselves but also arrange for their children to study the Confucian classics (Wang 2022b). Moreover, teaching and learning practices have been diversified in the various types of sishu (old-style private schools 私塾) that have emerged in the past two decades. Here, many children and adults have taken advantage of opportunities to engage in the full-time or part-time study of Confucianism (Wang 2018). Although official statistics are lacking, estimates (Billioud 2021; Gilgan 2022b; Wang 2022a, 2023) indicate that over 3000 sishu were established 2  In ancient China, the imperial examination system required students to recite Confucian classics for the purpose of securing leadership positions at the court from the seventh century to 1905, when this system was abolished.

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in the 2010s and that thousands of students (from 6 to 15 years old, the age range corresponding to compulsory education) were enrolled in Confucian studies (Wang 2014).3 It should be noted that the scope of Confucian education remains lightweight within the larger Chinese educational system on account of the relatively small number of pupils engaging in the study of classics; however, as argued by Billioud and Thoraval (2015), it matters because “it might produce new generations of Confucian activists” (p. 48). Confucian education takes various forms in China today. While millions of children occasionally learn classics at home or in part-time study halls (xuetang 学 堂), hundreds of educational institutions associated with Confucianism offer full-time classical education to small cohorts of students (Billioud 2021). Moreover, the emerging Confucian schools experimented with distinct alternative pedagogies: while some radical ones solely emphasized the memorization of Confucian classics all day long, others adopted more liberal, balanced approaches to education, where students learned not only classics but also science, mathematics, nature, and English, and where students do all kinds of activities such as music and art (both Chinese and Western), poetry, archery, tea ceremony, and ritual propriety.4 This book focuses on one of these forms—“children reading classics” education (ertong dujing jiaoyu 儿童读经教育) or simply dujing (reading classics) education, which is perhaps the most influential and controversial form of Confucian education, as it has incurred widespread criticism from intellectuals and the public in terms of its course content, teaching methods, and learning style (Wang 2018, 2023; Wang and Billioud 2022). Caigui Wang, a reputable Confucian educator and philosopher from Taiwan, played a key role in campaigning for this Confucian education and crafting an appropriate pedagogy for classical teaching and learning. Wang initiated the promotion of Confucian classical education first in Taiwan in the mid-1990s by establishing a private academy to organize children to read classics together. As one of the earliest Confucian activists, Wang’s endeavors significantly impacted the expansion of Confucianism at the 3  However, these figures should be treated cautiously, as they are difficult to verify. For example, Billioud and Thoraval (2015) explained that these numbers might be problematic “since the ones who give them are also engaged in the movement and are therefore far from neutral in their assessments” (p. 75). 4  Some recent case studies (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Dutournier and Wang 2018; Gilgan 2022a) have presented some interesting Confucian teaching and learning facts, revealing the complexities and varieties of classical pedagogies in contemporary China.

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grassroots level. In 2001, Wang delivered a speech guiding children to read classics at Beijing Normal University. Praised by Confucian education practitioners as “the sensation of the century,” this speech came to be understood as the trigger for mainland China’s classical education movement. Influenced by Wang’s ideas, numerous sishu were established to initiate Wang’s dujing ideas, and an increasing number of parents started transferring their children to these schools from the state education system in the early 2000s.5 Moreover, many full-time sishu have moved toward autonomization and become rival institutions to official schools, even though local authorities are far from recognizing them (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 279–286). Notably, the resurgence of Confucian education has deep popular roots. Most teachers in Confucian schools or sishu come from modest backgrounds—they are working class, peasants, white-­ collar, self-employed entrepreneurs, or even school dropouts. Wang (2014: 41–66) proposed a comprehensive theory of children’s classics study, emphasizing three key points. First, the teaching content must include the great classics that have been published throughout human history, viz., the canonical literature, including both Chinese and Western classics,6 because these “most valuable books” are deemed “the crystallization of the profound wisdom of mankind” (Wang 2009: 5–6). Second, the learning method should primarily involve the extensive and mechanical memorization of content without the need to understand the literal meanings of the texts or the hidden principles. This is in relation to the third point—children below the age of 13 years are considered to have a robust memory but weak comprehension. Accordingly, Wang (2014: 6–15) recommended that from an early age, children should be guided to read and memorize the classics extensively, simply, candidly, and joyfully. He summarized his pedagogy in a six-word mantra (liuzi zhenyan 六字箴 言): “All students! Read after me!” (Xiao peng you gen wo nian 小朋友跟 我念). He argued that learners who faithfully follow this pedagogy in their classics study would effectively absorb the wisdom inscribed in these 5  See Billioud and Thoraval (2015: Chapter Two) for a detailed description of the movement of children reading classics education and an introduction to the leading activist Caigui Wang. 6  According to Caigui Wang’s recommended list of great books, Chinese classics include mainly those of Confucianism such as The Analects of Confucius, The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, and Mencius, as well as some of Taoism such as Daodejing and Zhuangzi; Western classics include the works of ancient Greek philosophers such as The Death of Socrates and Shakespeare’s plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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seminal works and achieve personal and moral development. Wang’s educational theory significantly impacts a number of parents who desire an alternative form of education to develop their children’s moral cultivation. Under his continuous influence, many parents have begun learning Confucianism by themselves and engaged their children in studying Confucian classics, and some have even established their own Confucian sishu (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 51–62; see also Dutournier and Wang 2018).

Confucian Education and Chinese Educational Reform In this book, I understand the resurgence of Confucian classical education as an intrinsic part of Chinese educational reform after 1978, featuring a shift from examination-oriented education (yingshi jiaoyu 应试教育) toward quality-oriented (suzhi 素质) education. Confucian classical education has ideological and pedagogical overlaps with both educational approaches but is not synonymous with them. The examination-oriented approach to education can be dated back to the imperial examination system in ancient China (Lee 2000: 657) and has had profound effects on modern China and East Asia’s schooling practices. Criticizing it as the “examination hell” (Ichisada 1974), many East Asian educators have attempted to reform examination-oriented education by introducing Western learning ideas such as active engagement, exploration and inquiry, critical thinking, creativity, and self-expression (Li 2012: 108). Nonetheless, this notorious exam-based system remains or even flourishes today. Scholars (Li 2012: 67–68) have explained that East Asian people and societies uphold the exam-based system mostly out of concern for educational equality and fairness. According to Li (2012: 67–68), without impartial test scores, rich and powerful people would gain educational resources more easily, whereas poor and disadvantaged groups would become more incompetent to compete for education advancement. Examination-oriented education is characterized by standardized testing, the pursuit of high scores and university admission, and learning by rote (Dello-Iacovo 2009). It has been criticized for adversely affecting students’ development by focusing primarily on intellectual ability (zhiyu 智育) and neglecting other essential qualities, such as moral, physical, and

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aesthetic abilities (Lou 2011; Yi 2011). Examination-oriented education has also been widely condemned for imposing excessive academic pressure, suppressing students’ creativity, ignoring their practical competence, and discriminating against those with low test scores (Hansen 2015). It is noted that the method of memorization accompanies learning Chinese classics in the contemporary revival of Confucian education. In contrast to examination-oriented education, quality or suzhi education is a more recent approach. The initial idea of suzhi education was proposed by Chinese intellectuals in the 1980s as a remedy for the perennial problems arising from Chinese examination-oriented education. The word suzhi, literally “quality,” refers to “the innate and nurtured physical, intellectual and ideological characteristics of a person” (Murphy 2004: 2). According to Lin (2009), underlying the suzhi rhetoric is that “the object described by suzhi is ‘correctable’ or ‘improvable’” (p.  289) and that human essence has the potential for future development and enhancement. Thus, the notion of suzhi suggests that essential qualities can be civilized, (re)shaped, or transformed to make a qualified human. Drawing on the discourse of suzhi (Kipnis 2006), intellectuals criticized examination-­ based education, arguing that students “who focus solely on passing examinations in fact become uncreative, not well-rounded, ‘low quality’ adults” (Kipnis 2001: 11). Consequently, in 1993, the Outline for the Reform and Development of China’s Education (Zhongguo jiaoyu gaige he fazhan gangyao 中国教育改 革和发展纲要), issued by the Central Committee and State Council of the Communist Party of China (CPC), stipulated that primary and secondary schools should shift from examination-oriented education to the comprehensive improvement of students’ intellectual, personal, and emotional qualities. Six years later in 1999, suzhi education was institutionalized as a national policy of educational reform when the Ministry of Education enacted a formal policy of education for quality in its Decision on Deepening the Education Reform and Promoting Quality Education (Guanyu shenhua jiaoyu gaige quanmian tuijin suzhi jiaoyu de jueding 关于深化教育改革全 面推进素质教育的决定). This 1999 Action Plan articulated the aim of cultivating all-round talents with five essential qualities: moral (de 德), intellectual (zhi 智), physical (ti 体), aesthetic (mei 美), and manual (lao 劳) (Yi 2011). Consistent with the promotion of suzhi education, the Ministry of Education of China introduced the New Curriculum Reform (NCR) in June 2001, which was first piloted in several selected schools and then expanded to all schools nationwide in 2007 (Guo and Guo

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2016a: 4). The basic reform trend of NCR was to move from a teacher-­ centered to a student-centered pedagogy (Lou 2011; Wu 2016) and to enhance students’ comprehensive abilities for innovative and critical thinking and autonomous, active, participatory, and cooperative learning (see Carney 2008; Guan and Meng 2007; Tan and Reyes 2016; Yin and Lee 2012). Relevant to the research of this book, I primarily focus on the moral aspects of suzhi education. Moral teaching has a long history in China due to the deep influence of Confucianism. Scholars (Dello-Iacovo 2009) have noted that the ethics-oriented approach to education never disappears in contemporary China but is often overshadowed by examination-oriented education due to fierce educational competition among pupils and schools. Furthermore, the socialist regime of China has reformulated a moral education system that combines the Confucian tradition of jiaohua (cultivation 教化, literally “to transform through education”) with socialist, collective values (Li 2011). On the one hand, the official Communist ideals of personhood are infused with the ideals of self-restraint, self-­ cultivation, self-assertion, and relational responsibility, which are self-oriented values sharing ideological affinities with Confucianism (Cheng 2009). These norms have comprised the genetic basis of Chinese political culture since the self-strengthening movement of the 1860s and today have found expression in the party culture of Xi Jinping.7 On the other hand, according to Confucianism, the essence of the self is not fixed but can be transformed through education that fosters civility and virtues (Chen 2012; Hwang 2013). Confucianism also argues for “inner sageliness and outer kingliness” (neisheng waiwang 内圣外王), implying that moral enhancement inside the person has the potential to promote and unite with benefits for the political community (Angle 2012; Wang 2015, 2021). This seminal Confucian argument is consistent with the logic of suzhi discourse, which assumes a uniformity of personal qualities and collective interests in socialist China (Lin 2017). In short, “the object described by suzhi is ‘correctable’ or ‘improvable’” (Lin 2009: 289–290), suggesting that people have the potential for development and enhancement.

7  Although this topic is not the focus here, it offers one explanation for the Communist regime’s increasingly apparent and open support for the revival of Confucianism in the past decade.

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Despite being implemented for decades, the efficacy of the suzhi education campaign has incurred nationwide criticism (see Kipnis 2011a, b; Lin 2017; Lou 2011; Guo and Guo 2016b). As Dello-Iacovo (2009) pointed out, one perplexing aspect of the suzhi education policy is the apparent widespread support for the suzhi education ideal in theory but coupled with a general resistance to it in practice (p. 244; see also Hansen 2015). Moreover, Kipnis (2011b) indicated two contradictory discourses accommodated by the project of suzhi education to explain the poor practical achievement. The first is the neoliberal discourse, stressing the need to remake schoolchildren as autonomous subjects “who will be entrepreneurial, democratic, and law-abiding, and take responsibility for their own health and welfare” (Kipnis 2011b: 291). The second is the authoritarian discourse, which requires subjects to “obey the whims and dictates of a sovereign, in this case the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]” (Kipnis 2011b: 291). Likewise, Woronov (2009) also revealed that while creativity, initiative, and entrepreneurialism are espoused as the core “qualities,” they must be controlled and managed by state agents (p. 585). With pervasive disappointment in suzhi education, many alternative forms of education, Confucian education being one type of them, have begun to emerge to seek better ways of teaching to improve students’ qualities and capabilities. Notably, there are two key differences between suzhi education and alternative Confucian education. First, Confucian education emphasizes students’ moral cultivation, while suzhi education prioritizes creativity and innovation. Second, Confucian education promotes the method of memorization, which makes it like but not synonymous with the examination-­ oriented approach, while suzhi education is designed to dismantle rote learning. Ironically, advocates of Confucian education have used the discourse of suzhi to defend the pedagogy of memorization as an effective and efficient way to improve pupils’ moral quality (Wang 2014), as discussed throughout the chapters of this book. A small but growing number of studies have empirically examined the revival of grassroots Confucian education in China in the 2000s. Of these, studies by Billioud and Thoraval, who used extensive fieldwork to investigate how Confucianism is being rediscovered in the educational domain of China, deserve much attention. This body of research encompasses a variety of topics, including the multiple approaches to institutionalizing Confucian-inspired educational initiatives (Billioud and Thoraval 2007; Billioud 2010, 2016), the controversial topic of anti-intellectualism in the

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rhetoric and practice of Confucian education (Billioud and Thoraval 2007, 2015), and the religious dimension of individual involvement in the study of Confucian classics (Billioud and Thoraval 2008). The ambiguous and complex identities of newly established Confucian educational institutions were also explored (Billioud 2011, 2016). Apart from the research of Billioud and Thoraval, other authors have discussed the role of Buddhism in promoting the extensive spread of Confucian education in the past two decades (Dutournier and Ji 2009; Ji 2018), the contradictions and vagaries of some Confucian education practitioners in their efforts to present Confucian teaching and learning as a “holistic” form of education (Dutournier and Wang 2018), the indoctrination of children and adults through classical music (Ji 2008), the variety of dujing (reading the classics) experience (Zeng 2022), and the rise of Confucian business persons and their implementation of jiaohua (cultivation) within “Confucian” companies (Jiang-Fu 2021; Jiang Fu 2022). In addition, several studies have attempted to offer theoretical explanations for the observed revival of Confucian education in China. For example, drawing on Hartmut Rosa’s concepts of alienation and resonance, Billioud (2023) aims to capture the reinvention and reappropriation of Confucianism among the general populace in China. Gilgan’s recent studies (2022a, b) draw from the grounded utopian movement theory to explore the dilemmatic utopianism of the educational movement of classics reading. My  (Wang  2023) recent book conceptualizes the rise of Confucian citizens in the education domain and beyond in contemporary China through theoretical reflections and empirical explorations. Given the background of the Confucian education revival presented above and considering the contributions of relevant studies, this book extends the developing literature by drawing on ethnographic research conducted within a Confucian classical school to reveal the pedagogical practices of the school and how the parents, students, and teachers in the school community account for their engagement in Confucian studies. It especially contributes to understanding the complexities of Confucian teaching and learning practices and their relevance to the making of Confucian individuals in contemporary China. To this end, the book discusses the parents’ choice to send their children to learn Confucianism at the classical school, the contradictions of the memorization-based approach amid the shift toward pedagogical individualization, the subject-­ making of Confucian education practitioners (i.e., students, parents, and

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teachers), and the planning of parents and students for the future education. Accordingly, this book explores the following research questions: (1) Why do parents look outside of the state education system and engage their children in Confucian classical education as an alternative? How do they account for this choice for their children’s education? What actions do they take to put this choice into effect? What difficulties do they face in doing so? (2) What teaching and learning practices are used at the Confucian school? How do students, parents, and teachers experience and interpret these practices? (3) How do parents plan for the future of their children’s education after attending the Confucian school? What do the students think about their parents’ plans for their future education? What challenges do parents and students face? How do they address these challenges? In the next section, I clarify the research setting and methods for addressing these questions.

Research Setting and Methods The Confucian School The research of this book is based on ethnographic fieldwork at a Confucian school in China, which is henceforth referred to by the pseudonym “Yiqian School.” Despite being located in a small, mountainous town in a southeastern province of China, Yiqian School attracts many non-local students and teachers from across and outside the province. The diverse geographical origins of the student population play a decisive role in making Yiqian School a full-time boarding school and a disciplined study ambiance (e.g., students are disallowed access to the Internet or cell phones).8 Yiqian School is a nine-year compulsory school approved by the local government but follows a classics-focused curriculum, primarily Confucian classics, plus Taoist, Buddhist, and Western classics. Most students fall within the age range corresponding to compulsory primary and junior middle school (i.e., 6–15 years old). They must spend most of the school day reading and memorizing classical texts. This teaching arrangement is due to the strong influence of Caigui Wang’s dujing (reading the classics) education theory, as clarified earlier in this chapter. Despite its significant 8  Boarding schools are also common in the current Chinese state school system, even at the primary education level (see also Hansen 2015).

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influence, Wang’s theory is not the only source of the Yiqian School’s pedagogy but accompanied by alterations and combinations resulting from pedagogical reforms, as addressed later in this book. Moreover, state-mandated courses are at a marginal, supplementary status, not part of the school’s daily teaching, only provided to students preparing for the junior middle school entrance examination. Yiqian School is among the earliest Confucian schools to have emerged in twenty-first-century China. As one of the earliest individuals who practiced Confucian education since the early 2000s, Mr. Chen, the founder of Yiqian School, started teaching his four-year-old son and gathering several preschool children to learn Confucian texts at home using the pedagogy recommended by Caigui Wang. Additionally, Mrs. Zheng, the headteacher of Yiqian School, endorsed Wang’s Confucian education theory in public. She encouraged students not only to read and memorize classics extensively but also to seek further Confucian studies at an academy established by Wang in the future. In 2010, Yiqian School was approved as a legal private school (minban xuexiao 民办学校, “school run by people”), which differentiates itself from many other forms of Confucian education such as homeschooling and those in the “gray areas.” Since then, this Confucian school has experienced a rapid expansion of its population of students and teachers, reaching a peak of nearly 250 students and 50 teaching staff in 2013. When I visited the school in 2015, it had 119 students, 19 teaching staff members, and 12 administrators and accommodators. Moreover, it had six regular classes, each assigned with a homeroom teacher (banzhuren 班主任, a position usually assumed by experienced senior teachers) and one or two teaching assistants (positions that younger, newer teachers assume). Most teachers had knowledge of traditional Chinese culture, and some had teaching experience in other Confucian schools. The turnover rate of the teaching staff was high at Yiqian School. In 2015, the teachers’ average tenure was less than two years (23 months). All but three of the longest-­ serving teachers had been replaced by new staff members since my first visit in 2012. Yiqian School charged each student RMB 30,000 (approximately GBP 3200) for tuition fees and an additional RMB 2000 (approximately GBP 220) for living expenses per year in 2015. This relatively high tuition fee (compared with China’s free public schools) indicates that most students at this Confucian school were from affluent families. At Yiqian School, the students attend classes in a dedicated four-level teaching building. In front of this building, there is a small open space in

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which students play games during breaks. Behind the teaching building is a dormitory area, which consists of two adjacent halls for boys and girls. The school cafeteria and playground are approximately 50 meters from the teaching building, and there is a large communal shower room next to the cafeteria. The layout of the school campus is compact and quite convenient for teachers and students as they go about their everyday lives. Teachers Of the school’s 19 teaching staff in 2015, 11 were men and 8 were women. The average age of the teachers was 26.7 years, with the oldest being 43 and the youngest 19. Removing the two oldest teachers (both 43 years old) decreases the average age to 24.8 years. In terms of educational background, four of the teachers held a middle school diploma, six held a three-year vocational college diploma, six held a bachelor’s degree, and three held a master’s degree. The four middle school graduates had dropped out of compulsory education when they were young and transferred to full-time Confucian education at this private classical school, which they first attended as students and then went on to work as teachers. The teachers had a diverse range of occupational backgrounds before commencing work at Yiqian School, including university graduates, self-­ employed storekeepers, fitness instructors, entrepreneurs of Confucian classical schools, and housewives. This diversity reflects the rise of popular Confucianism in contemporary China, which involves a rejuvenated grassroots Confucianism of unofficial activities pursued by ordinary people beyond the state apparatus (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 8). The Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China (Zhonghua renmin gongheguo yiwu jiaoyu fa 中华人民共和国义务教育 法) mandates that teachers employed by schools providing compulsory education must hold a teacher certification (jiaoshi zige zheng 教师资格 证) as proof of their professional competence. However, of the 19 teaching members in the Confucian school in 2015, only 7 held this certification. The figure was even lower in previous years, but Yiqian School had responded to a call by the local education bureau for an increase in the proportion of “teachers with the teacher certification” (chizheng jiaoshi 持证教师) by recruiting more certified teachers and encouraging its non-­ certified teaching staff to register for the teacher certification examination.

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The teachers’ demographics shown above are typical of the emerging field of Confucian classical education in contemporary China. The recruitment of teaching staff is a major challenge for many Confucian schools. As a private and non-mainstream school, Yiqian School finds it difficult to recruit qualified teachers in competition with local state schools, which can offer higher salaries, a stable working environment, and other benefits. Therefore, when recruiting teaching staff, this Confucian school was not emphasizing the applicants’ academic qualifications, professional capabilities, or work experience but rather their genuine love of traditional Chinese culture, identification with classical education ideas and methods, and enjoyment of working with children. Furthermore, Yiqian School responded to an insufficient number of teaching staff and a high turnover rate by encouraging older students who had been learning the classics for many years to serve as teaching assistants. Depending on their performance, some of these students were given the opportunity to transfer to full-time teaching roles. Students As shown in Table 1.1, of the 119 students at Yiqian School in 2015, there were 81 boys (68.1%) and 38 girls (31.9%). One possible explanation for the gender disparity is the difference in the academic performance of boys and girls in state education. Most of the students attending Yiqian School had transferred to Confucian education because of the obstacles they had encountered in the state school system, and boys seem to struggle more with the pattern of state education than girls (see Lin and Ghaill 2017; Table 1.1  Students’ gender, age, and length of reading classics at Yiqian School Qishun Class Gender

Male 22 Female 0

Average age (years) 9.7 Age group (years old) 6–12 Average length of reading 14.7 classics (months) Source: By the author

Qibo Class

Qili Class

Qijing Class

Qile Class

Qizhi Class

Total

22 0

0 17

19 0

18 0

0 21

81 38

13.5 13–17 30.5

13.8 8.3 13–17 6–9 28.6 24.2

10.9 7–12 26

8.8 6–12 17.8

10.8 6–17 23.4

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Martino et  al. 2005; Ringrose 2007; Warrington and Younger 2001). Consequently, more boys than girls had transferred from state schools to study Confucian classics at Yiqian School. Each of the 119 students had been assigned to six single-gender classes: two classes of girls and four classes of boys. Mrs. Zheng, the headteacher of Yiqian School, justified the single-gender classes as conducive to the daily management of teaching and living activities, particularly on account of Yiqian School being a full-­ time boarding school. According to my observations at the school, some differences in teaching content were apparent between the classes for boys and those for girls. For example, courage was emphasized as a virtue for boys, whereas girls were trained with the qualities of gentleness and quietness (wenjing 文静) in their conduct and thinking. Nevertheless, these gender differences are not within the scope of this book and do not form part of the findings. As shown in Table 1.1, the age bracket of the students at Yiqian School spanned from 6 to 17 years with an average age of 10.8 years, which is equivalent to Year Five in primary school in China. Of the six classes, Qili Class consisted of older girls, with an average age of 13.8 years and an age range of 13–17 years; Qizhi Class consisted of younger girls, with an average age of 8.8 years and an age range of 6–12 years; and Qibo Class consisted of older boys, with an average age of 13.5 years and an age range of 13–17  years. The other three classes were made up of younger boys: Qijing Class, Qishun Class, and Qile Class had average ages of 8.3, 9.7, and 10.9 years, respectively. Most of the students in Qili Class and Qibo Class, aged between 13 and 17  years, were at the junior middle  school stage, whereas most of the other pupils were aged between 6 and 12 and at the primary school level. Table 1.1 also shows that the students’ average length of reading classics at Yiqian School was 23.4  months (approximately two years). One student had been studying the classics in the school for more than six years, which was the longest period at the time of my fieldwork in 2015. The students in Qibo Class and Qili Class had been learning classics for the longest time on average—30.5 and 28.6  months, respectively—and those in Qishun Class and Qizhi Class for the shortest time on average—14.7 months and 17.8 months, respectively.

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Research Methods I visited Yiqian School in 2012, 2013, and 2015, staying for two months, one month, and six months, respectively. After 2015, I kept up with developments at the school by following its official website and public WeChat account and maintaining contact with the participants. Nonetheless, the three fieldwork visits constitute the main data source for this book. During each visit, I collected data through interviews with and participant observations of students and teachers in the school. The students and teachers were asked a wide range of questions on their opinions, feelings, and experiences about learning or teaching Confucian classics and the difficulties they encountered in their engagement in Confucian education. Particularly,  I conducted long-term participant observations in Qishun Class. As the school provided me with a single room on campus, I was able to engage in daily interactions with teachers and students at Qishun Class, observe the teaching and learning activities, and establish rapport and trustworthiness with the participants. I attended a variety of classes to observe the practices of learning and teaching and the students’ interactions with peers and their teachers. Also, I participated in the daily lives on campus beyond Qishun Class, including various activities that took place in other classrooms, dorm rooms, the cafeteria, and the playground. Additionally, I conducted multiple group discussions with older students in Qibo Class and Qili Class in 2015. I chose these two classes based on students’ age, gender, and length of reading classics (see Table 1.1 for the two classes’ details). I conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 parents, including 6 fathers and 11 mothers. I recruited the parental participants by snowball sampling. Most of the parents interviewed live in urban areas (n = 16), and their educational experience ranges from high school education to a master’s degree level. In terms of occupation, the parental informants include self-employed entrepreneurs (n  =  6), white collars in private companies (n = 3), low- to mid-level civil servants (n = 3), teachers (n = 3), an engineer (n = 1), and a full-time mother (n = 1). A few of the parents described themselves as Buddhist or Christian. Although religion may be an incentive for some parents to choose Confucian education for their children,

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this is not the topic of the present research.9 Instead, I emphasize the role of education-related anxiety in stimulating parents to switch to the non-­ mainstream mode of Confucian education, particularly parents whose children have experienced academic frustration or discrimination at public schools. I conducted telephone interviews with the parental informants because Yiqian School is a boarding school, and students must spend most of the year on campus, except for official school holidays. Thus, it was unpractical to conduct interviews in person with the parents because I had limited access to them on campus. Each interview with the parents lasted one to two hours and was recorded with an audio recording device after the interviewee’s permission was obtained (all interviewees agreed to be recorded). I asked parents a list of semi-structured interview questions, including, how did you know of Confucian education and this Confucian school? What do you think of Confucian education ideas and styles? Why did you send your child to this school? What changes do you think classic reading has brought to your child? How do you evaluate these changes? How do you see the current state education? Why? What is your plan for your children’s future education? In summary, this book uses interviews and school fieldwork data (i.e., participant observations, group discussions, and collected documents) with parents, students, and teachers to explore the making of Confucian individuals in their engagement in Confucian classical education in contemporary China. It should be noted that the research participants may not be fully representative of all actors involved in Confucian education. However, this book’s findings indicate the complexities and contradictions in the general revival of Confucian education in contemporary China. For ethical reasons, I use pseudonyms for all the participants in the research of this book. The spoken language in the fieldwork was Mandarin, and as a native speaker, I conducted and transcribed all interviews myself. This research uses critical discourse analysis of the collected data to generate data-driven categories and themes. When analyzing the data, I edited the collected materials, saved them in hundreds of numbered documents, and imported them into NVivo for coding. I clarify that this study is not based on grounded theory; neither does it follow the full procedures for conducting grounded theory research. However, it uses the three-step coding method 9  Studies have noted the intertwining of Buddhism and Confucianism, indicating that Buddhist religious groups have been central to the Confucian education revival since the early 2000s (see Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Ji 2018).

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for critical data analysis: “developing categories of information (open coding), interconnecting the categories (axial coding), [and] building a ‘story’ that connects the categories (selective coding)” (Creswell 2007: 160). In data coding, I repeatedly reviewed the fieldwork notes and interview transcriptions and identified emerging meaningful themes to explore further.

Outline of the Book This book consists of eight chapters, including this Introduction. In Chap. 2 that follows, I review the relevant literature and construct a theoretical framework for the research. The chapter addresses two strands of the sociological literature: (1) the individualization thesis and its application to China, and (2) Foucault’s conceptual tools of governmentality and subjectification and their relevance to contemporary Chinese society. Chapter 3 focuses on the “dis-embedding” dimension of the Confucian education revival and draws on the individualization thesis to explore how and why parents engage their children in the full-time study of Confucian classics at Yiqian School. It shows how parents apply critical techniques to challenge the legitimacy of state education and its examination orientation. The parent informants’ desire for their children to improve moral suzhi (quality) intensifies their determination to transfer their children to Confucian education, hoping they will learn Confucian ethical virtues through the memorization of a large number of classics. However, due to the institutional constraints on the pursuit of this alternative form of education, the parents also demonstrate a dependency on the state education system and the socialist political authority in making the educational choice for their children to undertake classical studies. This chapter concludes with the argument that the spirit of Confucian individualism has stimulated the rise of critically minded parents in the field of Confucian education in present-day China. Chapters 4 and 5 present the specific narratives and practices of teaching and learning the classics in everyday school life at Yiqian School. In Chap. 4, I discuss the process of pedagogical individualization in the Confucian school, the debates over dujing (reading the classics) in modern and contemporary China, and the educational reforms that the school has enacted to move toward the individualized approach to memorizing the classics. Finally, I argue that the invented hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization includes two paradoxical knowledge sources: the

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Confucian education principle of individualized teaching and learning and the goal and method of extensive memorization of the classics. Chapter 4 lays the intellectual foundation for Chap. 5, which depicts the concrete teaching and learning techniques applied at Yiqian School for the purpose of cultivating its students to become autonomous, learned individuals. Focusing on Qishun Class, I describe the following techniques used for classics study: minimum memorization, making self-study schedules, examinations, competitions, and mutual monitoring in groups. I also present the opinions of the students, parents, and teachers at Yiqian School on the pedagogy of individualized memorization of the classics and demonstrate various practices of coercion and resistance in students’ learning of Confucian classics. I conclude Chap. 5 by arguing that students of Confucian education encounter a pedagogical dilemma between autonomy/individualism and coercion/authoritarianism in becoming Confucian individuals: on the one hand, they are governed by the technologies of power in the disciplined classroom; on the other hand, they are motivated to become masters of their own studies using technologies of the self. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the “re-embedding” dimension of the Confucian education revival according to the individualization thesis. They investigate the two most common options available to parents for their children’s future education. Chapter 6 discusses the first option, which is returning to state schools. It reveals three elements that drive parents to return their children to state education after years of classical study: uncertainty about the prospects of Confucian education, concern about academic qualifications, and anxiety about the marginalization of the Confucian education experience. In addition, this chapter describes Yiqian School’s failure to provide state-stipulated courses as part of its regular teaching arrangements. The major argument of this chapter is that despite their critical attitudes toward the state education system from which they are attempting to dis-embed, the parents and students involved in Confucian education face a paradoxical situation, as they struggle to re-embed themselves in state schools to pursue a stable and securely institutionalized approach to further education. Chapter 7 focuses on the second of the two options for future education, which is the pursuit of further Confucian studies at an advanced Confucian academy. The findings of this chapter suggest that Confucian students exhibit an individualistic outlook in their resistance to further Confucian studies after learning the classics at Yiqian School. As

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individuals, students are characterized by soft individualistic values of personal aspiration, self-determination, independence, and self-pursuit. Moreover, I show that the students’ self-identity is strengthened by their reluctance to submit to the authoritarian sage discourse and to their parents’ authority. I conclude this chapter with the main argument that the development of Confucian individualism in students’ experience of learning the classics should be understood as taking place within the broader social contexts shaping Chinese individualization and subjectivities. The concluding Chap. 8 connects the findings and arguments of the book and summarizes them into three main points: the dilemma of making the desire for Confucian education, the contradictions present in the Confucian pedagogy of memorization, and the relationship between Confucianism and Chinese individualization. Moreover, this chapter reflects on the research limitations and implications for future studies on the Confucian education revival, Chinese individualization, and governmentality and subjectification in socialist China.

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———. 2011a. Governing Educational Desire: Culture, Politics, and Schooling in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/ CBO9781107415324.004. ———. 2011b. Subjectification and Education for Quality in China. Economy and Society 40 (2): 289–306. Lee, Thomas H.C. 2000. Education in Traditional China: A History. Leiden: Brill. Li, Jin. 2012. Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Li, Maosen. 2011. Changing Ideological-Political Orientations in Chinese Moral Education: Some Personal and Professional Reflections. Journal of Moral Education 40 (3): 387–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305724 0.2011.596342. Lin, Delia. 2017. Civilising Citizens in Post-Mao China: Understanding the Rhetoric of Suzhi. London and New York: Routledge. Lin, Qinghong. 2009. Civilising Citizens in Post-Mao China: Understanding the Rhetoric of Suzhi. Griffith University. Lin, Xiaodong, and Mairtin Mac an Ghaill. 2017. Shifting Discourses from Boy Preference to Boy Crisis: Educating Boys and Nation Building in Neoliberal China. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. https://doi. org/10.1080/01596306.2017.1312284. Lou, Jingjing. 2011. Suzhi, Relevance, and the New Curriculum: A Case Study of One Rural Middle School in Northwest China. Chinese Education & Society 44 (6): 73–86. https://doi.org/10.2753/CED1061-­1932440605. Martino, Wayne, Martin Mills, and Bob Lingard. 2005. Interrogating Single-Sex Classes as a Strategy for Addressing Boys’ Educational and Social Needs. Oxford Review of Education 31 (2): 237–254. https://doi. org/10.1080/03054980500117843. Murphy, Rachel. 2004. Turning Peasants into Modern Chinese Citizens: ‘Population Quality’ Discourse, Demographic Transition and Primary Education. The China Quarterly 177 (Mar.): 1–20. Ringrose, Jessica. 2007. Successful Girls? Complicating Post-Feminist, Neoliberal Discourses of Educational Achievement and Gender Equality. Gender and Education 19 (4): 471–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250701442666. Sun, Anna. 2013. Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2018. Contemporary Confucius Temples Life in Mainland China: Report from the Field. In The Varieties of Confucian Experience, ed. Sébastien Billioud, 205–234. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004374966. Tan, Charlene, and Vicente Reyes. 2016. Neo-Liberal Education Policy in China: Issues and Challenges in Curriculum Reform. In Spotlight on China: Changes in Education Under China’s Market Economy, ed. Shibao Guo and Yan Guo, 19–33. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

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Wang, Caigui. 2009. Jiaoyu de Zhihuixue (Wisdom of Education). Nanjing: Nanjing University Press. (In Chinese). ———. 2014. Dujing Ershi Nian (Two Decades of Classics Reading Education). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. (In Chinese). Wang, Canglong. 2015. Confucianism and Citizenship: A Review of Opposing Conceptualizations. In Theorizing Chinese Citizenship, ed. Zhonghua Guo and Sujian Guo, 49–81. New  York: Lexington Books. https://books.google.co. uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IsFnCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA49&dq=info:V mq1B7VlGuQJ:scholar.google.com&ots=bqjDoyc6NJ&sig=qV9mtDJRwLJf Kqs2qC2YVDuGJY8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. ———. 2018. Debatable ‘Chineseness’: Diversification of Confucian Classical Education in Contemporary China. China Perspectives, no. 4: 53–64. https:// doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.8482. ———. 2021. Confucianism and Citizenship Revisited. In Routledge Handbook of Chinese Citizenship, ed. Zhonghua Guo, 287–300. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003225843-­26. ———. 2022a. Parents as Critical Individuals: Revival of Confucian Education from the Perspective of Chinese Individualisation. China Perspectives, no. 2: 7–16. ———. 2022b. Resurgence of Confucian Education in Contemporary China: Parental Involvement, Moral Anxiety, and the Pedagogy of Memorisation. Journal of Moral Education 51 (3). https://doi.org/10.1080/0305724 0.2022.2066639. ———. 2023. The Rise of Confucian Citizens in China: Theoretical Reflections and Empirical Explorations. London: Routledge. Wang, Canglong, and Sébastien Billioud. 2022. Reinventing Confucian Education in Contemporary China: New Ethnographic Explorations. China Perspectives, no. 2: 3–6. https://www.cefc.com.hk/article/editorial-­reinventing-­confucian-­ education-­in-­contemporary-­china-­new-­ethnographic-­explorations/. Warrington, Molly, and Mike Younger. 2001. Single-Sex Classes and Equal Opportunities for Girls and Boys: Perspectives through Time from a Mixed Comprehensive School in England. Oxford Review of Education 27 (3): 339–356. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054980120067393. Woronov, T.E. 2009. Governing China’s Children: Governmentality and ‘Education for Quality’. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 17 (3): 567–589. Wu, Jinting. 2016. Ambivalent ‘Quality’ and the Educational Sublime: Curriculum Reform Meets Ethnic Rural Development in Southwest China. In Spotlight on China: Changes in Education Under China’s Market Economy, ed. Shibao Guo and Yan Guo, 67–84. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Yi, Lin. 2011. Turning Rurality into Modernity: Suzhi Education in a Suburban Public School of Migrant Children in Xiamen. The China Quarterly 206 (2011): 313–330. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741011000282.

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Yin, Hong-Biao, and John Chi-Kin Lee. 2012. China’s National Curriculum Reform in the Global Era. In Curriculum Reform in China: Changes and Challenges, ed. Hong-Biao Yin and John Chi-Kin Lee, 1–10. New York: Nova Science Publishers. https://doi.org/10.3868/s110-­002-­013-­0041-­3. Yu, Tianlong. 2008. The Revival of Confucianism in Chinese Schools: A Historical-­ Political Review. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 28 (2): 113–129. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02188790802036653. Zeng, Yukun. 2022. How to Read the Analects Eight Hours a Day: The Variety of Dujing (Reading Classics) Experiences amid the Confucian Revival. China Perspectives, no. 2: 17–28.

CHAPTER 2

Individualization, Subjectification, and Confucian Education

This chapter introduces the theoretical framework applied to the research presented in this book. It addresses two strands of the sociological literature: the individualization thesis and its application to China and the Confucian education revival, and Foucault’s conceptual tools of subjectification and governmentality and their relevance to contemporary Chinese society. First, by drawing on the literature on individualization and the Chinese path to individualization, I aim to lay a theoretical foundation for the presentation of the students’ self-formation, their parents’ moral anxieties, the plans made for the students’ future education, and the ambivalent relationship between Confucian education practitioners and the state education system, as shown in later chapters. Second, by looking into the literature on subjectification and governmentality and applying it to the Confucian education revival, I aim to establish a conceptual basis for revealing the pedagogical practices adopted in the Confucian school and the implications of these practices for the subject-making of Confucian individuals.

Individualization and Confucian Education Revival Individualization Thesis and Chinese Individualization Current scholarship on the individualization of Chinese society (Hansen 2015; Y.  Yan 2009b, 2010) has paid little attention to the revival of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_2

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Confucianism. In recent discussions of Chinese individualization, Confucianism is usually associated with authoritarian and collective values, codes, and behavioral norms from which Chinese individuals strive to dis-­ embed themselves (Yan 2010: 492–493). This assumption makes it inaccurate to explain the current revival of Confucianism in general and Confucian education in particular in the context of the rise of individuals as the result of the accelerating dynamics of individualization since the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s. Despite a lack of systematic studies, a few passing references have suggested how Chinese individualization may help to explain the Confucian revival. For example, Billioud (2016) reminded us that modern Confucian activism should be understood as part of this trend of individualization in that it makes it possible for people to affirm their subjectivity through the reactivation of collective links and values in the context of expanding both their “field of experience” and “horizon of expectations” (p. 793). The propositions about Chinese individualization in this research are an adaptation of the original individualization thesis, which was applied to explain Western Europe’s societal transitions from the first modernity to the second modernity (Beck 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Giddens 1991). Although the term “individualization” can be found in various sociological works, including those of Marx, Simmel, and Parsons (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002: xxi), the individualization thesis is more recent and was developed systematically by Ulrich Beck (Beck 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Beck and Williams 2004), Zygmunt Bauman (2001, 2002), and Anthony Giddens (Beck et al. 1997; Giddens 1991). The process of individualization has three interconnected aspects. The first is that “traditional” values, assumptions, and categories as defined by the first modernity, such as class and social status, gender roles, family, and neighborhood, have become “zombie categories”—ideas that are sociologically alive even though the reality to which they correspond is dead (Beck and Williams 2004: 51–52)—in a second or reflexive modernity constructed by individualization (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Beck and Lau 2005). This is called the dis-embedding process; for an individualized person, it results in the proliferation of life choices and an increase in individual agency (Beck and Williams 2004: 24). In this “self-­actualizing individualism of personal discovery” (Burgess 2018: 86), we become “what we make of ourselves” (Giddens 1991: 75). However, becoming dis-embedded from “traditional” categories is always coupled with disenchantment, which is the second dimension of individualization (Beck

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1992: 128). The individualized self, “deprived of a ready-made set of assumptions and norms,” experiences more intense pressure “than ever before, rooted in greater socio-economic insecurity,” and must “confront the uncertainty more alone than in the past” (Burgess 2018: 93). Consequently, there is an urgent search for “re-embedding,” which is the third aspect of individualization. Two approaches to re-embedding have been mentioned in reference to West European societies: (1) re-imposing old social controls and constraints on the individual, for instance, the state, religiosity, nationalism, and economic measures, and (2) creating new social categories and commitments in civil society to restore a sense of security and safety, for example, more emphasis on aspirations of the individualized actors (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002: 17, 161). The individualization thesis has been the subject of criticism (Atkinson 2007; Dawson 2012; Howard 2007). One typical controversy lies in whether the zombified categories would be completely abandoned and torn up in the process of individualization (Burgess 2018). Some researchers have pointed out that some “traditional” categories will continue, such as social class (Anderson et  al. 2006; Atkinson 2007; Barbalet 2016; Dawson 2012), family relations (Crabb 2010; Hansen and Pang 2008), religiosity (Pollack and Pickel 2007), standardized life course within the nation-state boundary (De Beer 2007; Elchardus and Smits 2006), job-­ seeking models (Fevre 2007), and political participation (Anderson et al. 2006; Gaiser et al. 2010). Nevertheless, many scholars have argued that the individualization thesis represents a trend worldwide (Beck and Grande 2010), including in China (Yan 2009b, 2010). However, the Chinese path to individualization is distinct from its counterparts in Western Europe. When it was initially proposed, the individualization thesis was sociologically defined in close connection with Western European conditions of late or second modernity, such as cultural democracy, the welfare state, and classic individualism (Bauman 2001; Beck 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Beck and Williams 2004; Beck et al. 1997; Giddens 1991). In sociological and anthropological  studies of modern China, a new convention has formed around applying the individualization thesis to the social consequences of the neoliberal market transformation since the late 1970s (see Hansen 2015; Hansen and Svarverud 2010; Kipnis 2012; Ong and Zhang 2008; Yan 2009b, 2010, 2011, 2012). Researchers have indicated that Chinese individualization is manifested in aspects such as the institutional untying of the labor market (Barbalet 2016; Gong and Dobinson 2017),

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the privatization of education systems (Guo and Guo 2016; Koinzer et al. 2017), greater choices for individual agents (Hansen and Pang 2008; Wu 2013), the intensification of citizenship rights consciousness (Guo and Guo 2015; Janoski 2015; Naftali 2014), the reshaping of public and private boundaries (Delman and Yin 2008; Naftali 2010), sexual freedom and more individual-oriented family life (Burgess 2018; Li and Jankiowiak 2014; Li and Lamb 2015; Qi 2016; Zang 2011), and the making of the liberal subject and individual self (Hanser 2001; Liu 2010; Ong and Zhang 2008; Wang 2022a). Two terms are typical to reflect the uniqueness of the Chinese path to individualization. First, Yunxiang Yan (2009b) conceptualized the individualization of Chinese society as “party-state managed individualization,” whereby the party-state “directs the flow of individualisation by soft management (…) of the interplay among the players: the individual, the market, social groups, institutions and global capitalism” (p. 289). This concept has three basic implications: (1) the socialist party-state acts as the initiator of the process of individualization and the manager of the interplay among various players (Yan 2010: 509); (2) “the individual remains a means to the end of modernisation,” implying that the smaller individual self must be subordinate to the bigger, collective, and national entity (Yan 2010: 509); and (3) “the disjunction between the public and private spheres,” which means “the individual arises mainly in the sphere of private life” but gains “only limited space and rights in public life” (Yan 2008b: 6). In short, the concept of party-state managed individualization reveals that the individual–state relationship, not the individual–society relationship, is the central axis of Chinese individualization (Yan 2009b, 2010). In the same vein, Mette Hansen (2015) proposed the idea of “authoritarian individualization,” emphasizing that the party-state “promotes the rise of the individual in some spheres while holding it back to others, forcing the individual to experiment with appropriate means to simultaneously make a ‘life of one’s own’ and adhere to political authorities” (p.  16). Notably, this conception emphasizes the subjective domain of the making of Chinese individuals. It reveals the hybridity in creating neosocialist citizens (Pieke 2009), whose private self-interest, self-reliance, self-­ improvement, and self-responsibility are different from but coexist with the public building of political loyalty and “acceptance of the party’s monopoly on truth” (Hansen 2015: 182).

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Privatization of the Chinese Education System The research of this book contextualizes the Confucian education revival by highlighting two basic conditions shaped by the dynamics of individualization: the privatization of the educational system and the moral shift of Chinese subjectivity. I clarify the first aspect in this section and the second in the next. The profound dynamics of institutional individualization have played a crucial role in promoting the privatization of educational systems in the Chinese context and beyond. The privatization of the Chinese educational system has been marked by the state-sponsored institutional untying, a process wherein the socialist state apparatus selectively retreats from the educational field but “force(s) individuals to shoulder more responsibility, to more actively engage in market-based competition, and to assume more risks and to become more reflexive” (Yan 2010: 499). Some researchers have argued that the privatization of education has become a global phenomenon over the last two decades (Ball 2009; Burch 2009; Davies and Bansel 2007; Dýrfjörð and Magnúsdóttir 2016; Forsey et al. 2008; Guo and Guo 2016; Koinzer et al. 2017; Tan and Reyes 2016; Verger et al. 2017). In the literature on Western and Chinese societies, the continuing controversy over the privatization of education is generally couched in terms of freedom versus equality. From the perspective of educational freedom, one direct consequence of educational privatization is a boom in parents’ choices of private schools for their children (see Ben-­ porath 2012; Egalite and Wolf 2016; Forsey 2015; Kosunen and Carrasco 2016; Rhinesmith 2017). In the Western context, it has been argued that this expanded choice of private schools has contributed to reducing state intervention, improving the overall level of education (Ball 1993; Cucchiara and Horvat 2014), promoting students’ academic performance (Robert 2010), and raising parents’ satisfaction with their children’s schooling (Kosunen 2014; Kosunen and Carrasco 2016; Rhinesmith 2017). Although the situation is similar in China, there are noticeable distinctions in concrete aspects. Privatizing the Chinese education system has opened space for the entry of for-profit institutions in the education field and extended the freedom and opportunities for parents to make school choices (see Koinzer et al. 2017; Yan 2009b, 2010). The rapid growth of educational opportunities in China has followed China’s unprecedented transition to a market economy in the post-1978 era (Guo and Guo 2016: 1) and is inseparable from the increasing demand for labor (Postiglione

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2011). Privatization, as the core of educational reforms in post-Mao China (Yan 2007), is reflected in the retrenchment of state-sponsored education, which has fundamentally changed the nature, value, and formation of education “from a public good to a private one” (pp. 14–20). In addition to parents’ options in choosing the most desirable schools for their children having multiplied (Crabb 2010; Koinzer et  al. 2017; Xiong 2015; Yan 2007), other changes associated with the privatization of the Chinese education system include curriculum reforms to foster students’ creativity and innovation skills to meet the demands of global competition (Law 2016; Ross and Wang 2013; Tan and Reyes 2016; Wang and Ross 2010; Wu 2016), the emerging private tutoring market in urban areas (S.  Guo 2016a; Y. Guo 2016b; Wang and Chan 2016; Zhang and Bray 2016), and the market orientation of higher education (Bai 2016; Lu and Zong 2016; Postiglione 2011; Shan and Guo 2016; Wang 2013; Yan et al. 2016; Lei Zhang et al. 2016). However, the process of educational privatization has worsened social inequality insofar as privileged families have more resources and capital to select desirable schools (Angus 2015; Ball 1993, 2009; Ben-porath 2012; Carlson and Hans 2017). Many studies have demonstrated that the market-­based expansion of school choices in China, especially among elite or “key” schools, benefits primarily urban middle-class families,1 with working-class and rural families remaining disadvantaged (Crabb 2010; Kim et  al. 2017; Liu 2008; Sheng 2012; Wu 2008, 2012, 2013). The privatization of the education system reinforces the superior status of urban middle-class families, who gain entry to key schools for their children by “buying houses near preferred schools, paying choice fees or co-­ founding fees, [and/or] giving donations” (Wu 2008: 595). Middle-class parents also have the means for their children to attend paid private tutoring classes or spend their spare time undertaking various skills training 1  The middle class in China has various definitions in sociological studies (Chen 2006; Goodman 2016; Hong and Zhao 2014; Li and Li 2007; Li and Wang 2017; Liu 2007; Rocca 2017; Sun 2009a; Zhu 2007; Zhou 2005). In general, there are two types of common criteria to describe the middle class in contemporary Chinese society: the objective criteria, “such as education, income, occupation and level of consumption,” and the subjective criteria, “such as lifestyle, manners, political ideas and identification with a social figure” (Rocca 2017: 3; see also Liu and Li 2005; Liu and Liu 2010). Additionally, in the post-1978 reform era, the middle class has emerged to become “a politically and economically stabilizing force,” “promoters of advanced culture,” and “represent moderation and rationality” (Lu 2006: 21–23; see also Guo 2012; Li 2006).

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sessions, through which their children can develop overall suzhi (qualities) and increase their chances of winning in the education competition against state school pupils (Wang and Chan 2016; Wu 2008, 2012; Zhang and Bray 2016). The urban middle class thus becomes the new winner in the education competition, with working-class families being disadvantaged (Wu 2012: 363). However, a strong desire for their children to receive a good education is shared by working-class and middle-class parents (Hong and Zhao 2014; Kipnis 2011a; Y. Wang 2014b). Narrowing the lens to focus on Confucian education, which is the topic of this book, Yiqian School is similar to many Confucian-style classical schools in operating as a private educational institution and offering a curriculum that differs from that stipulated for state school education. Private Confucian schools usually charge high tuition fees and provide parents and their children with additional choices beyond the state school system. As Billioud and Thoraval (2015: 35) pointed out, while some sishu (old-­ style private schools) are engaged in rivalries or struggles for independence from the state school system, others must (re)assert themselves within the very space of state education. The choice of parents to send their children to learn Confucianism can be reasonably placed in the broader context of the privatization of Chinese education. However, scholars have paid insufficient attention to this phenomenon, particularly parents’ motivations, feelings, and actions in choosing this private form of Confucian education.2 Consequently, there is an inadequate understanding of the complexities of the decision-making of parents opting to send their children to Confucian schools and of how this educational choice is linked to inequalities across social classes in China. As Billioud and Thoraval (2015) indicated, urban middle-class elites have played a crucial role in promoting the re-emergence of Confucian education/culture in contemporary China, which consists of “enterprises able to mobilise both economic resources of consumer society and official support that, in the end, serve the emergence of a new middle class” (pp.  300–301). The elite-based dynamic implies that contemporary Confucian education/culture has been intentionally engineered by political, economic, and intellectual elites to “shape model citizens and, beyond, to reproduce new elites” (p. 301). This argument was echoed by Rocca (2015, 2017), who proposed that urban middle-class people were actively 2  One recent study (Elizondo 2021) analyzes parents’ motivations for a range of traditional Chinese education projects, including those of Confucianism.

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invoking Confucian symbols and representations to improve their qualities (suzhi) and civilities (wenming) and create new lifestyles. However, there is a lack of empirical research on the relationship between urban middle-class families and Confucian classical education in its contemporary revival. The research presented in this book contributes to filling this gap in the literature by describing and interpreting the discourses and practices of parents—mostly from urban middle-class families—who have chosen to engage their children in Confucian education. The Moral Shift of Chinese Subjectivity The shifting moral landscape of contemporary China reflects how the general thrust of individualization has influenced the making of Chinese subjectivity. Post-Mao China has experienced an enormous change in the moral spectrum “from a collective system of responsibility and self-­sacrifice to an individualistic system of rights and development” (Yan 2011: 72). The highlight of individualistic values and the decline of socialist collective morality have been confirmed in many studies (Gong and Dobinson 2017; Lee and Ho 2005; Li 2011; Li et al. 2004; Liu 2008, 2009, 2010; Naftali 2010, 2014; Soysal 2015). This moral shift indicates that the Chinese individual is undergoing a huge change in the subjective domain, that is, “a re-formation of the self and a search for individual identity” (Yan 2010: 504). Moreover, the concept of the “divided self” proposed by Kleinman (2011) may further the understanding of the complexities of Chinese subjectivity. This term describes the ambivalence of how contemporary Chinese individuals deal with the power of the socialist state. It suggests that “personal ‘transcripts’ in China are not only or primarily about acts of resistance; they are also about acts of accommodation and collaboration that enable ordinary people to negotiate China’s social reality in such a way as to open or protect the individual’s space while getting on with life lived in an authoritarian society” (p. 231). Consequently, the dividing line within the self is blurred “between what is deeply personal and what is an intrusion of the authoritarian state into speech and behaviour” (p. 232). With this concept in mind, individual selfhood in today’s China can be understood as a product of the governance of the socialist party-state, with state power internalized as self-discipline and self-censorship (p. 231). The notion of a “divided self” is relevant to the discussion in this book, as it illuminates the varieties of subjectivity in contemporary China. The book

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discusses how Confucian education participants (i.e., parents, students, and teachers) form subjectivities and what strategies they take to address the power of the socialist party-state, which has increasingly shown an open and supportive attitude toward Confucianism (Hammond and Richey 2015; Lin 2017; Wang 2017). The emerging individual-oriented values in post-Mao China do not completely deviate from the traditional dual framework for understanding Chinese social relations: dawo (great self) and xiaowo (small self). In this conceptual duality, xiaowo or the individual is sacrificed for the sake of dawo or the collective when the two are in conflict, and any overexpression of the individual xiaowo is seen as deviant for potentially damaging the benefits of the collective dawo (Cao 2009; Cheng and Bunnin 2008; Fei 1992; Guo and Guo 2015; Hsu 1985; Moore 2005; Pye 1991; Wang 2014a; Yan 2009b, 2010). It must be acknowledged, however, that the significance of privacy, emotionality, desire, the pursuit of individual success, and the spirit of entrepreneurship has been increasingly legitimated and emphasized in post-socialist China (L. Hoffman 2006, 2010; Lamont and Molnár 2002; Rofel 2007). The individual small self is thereby progressively highlighted in the profound process of individualization as an integral part of producing neosocialist individuals (Hansen 2015; Ong 2006; Pieke 2009). Some studies (Gong and Dobinson 2017; Li 2011; Liu 2010; Naftali 2016) have pointed out the negative effects of the spread of individualistic values. There is a perception of the collapse of collective norms and a resulting “moral crisis” or “moral vacuum” arising from the transition to market-based arrangements due to the rise of consumerism and the highlighting of individual choice, freedom, and desire (Gong and Dobinson 2017: 9). However, as Yunxian Yan (2009b: 289) pointed out, modern China has tended to adopt an incomplete or unbalanced understanding of individualism as a simplistic utilitarian notion that can even deform into a doctrine of egotism or mere selfishness. This truncated version of individualism remains an integral element of individualization in post-Mao China and has helped plant the seeds of public perceptions of moral crisis (Yan 2021). Moreover, it has led to the rise of the “uncivil individual” (Yan 2003b: 226; see also Yan 2009a), not only making “the individual egotistic and uncivil” but also amplifying “the negative aspects of individualisation, such as the relentless individual competition and the decline of social trust” (Yan 2009b: 289).

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It is against this background that many Chinese people have turned to Confucianism and embraced its virtues as an alternative source of moral values to counteract the effects of selfish individualism (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Gilgan 2022a, b; Wang 2022b, c). While recognizing the risk of oversimplification, I refer to the following passage to clarify the relationship between the Confucian revival and moral imbalance in the individualization process of modern Chinese society: [Since the early 2000s,] popular Confucianism has developed in a context often described—both in official discourses and within the population—as a time of moral crisis driven by egoism and its manifestations: the cult of money, selfishness at the expense of justice, neglect of the common good and development of private desires, and so on. (…) However, these destructive tendencies have also been somewhat counterbalanced by a reverse trend focusing on the promotion of “things collective.” (…) People and projects associated with Confucianism are also part of this countercurrent. (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 11)

There is a lack of attention in the literature to the relationship between Confucian morality and the individualization of Chinese society, and inadequate studies have explored this relationship from an empirical perspective. I propose two reasons for this lack. First, Confucianism is often assumed to provide a remedy for selfish individualism and is therefore considered an alternative source of moral values (Hammond and Richey 2015). Second, the discussion of Chinese individualization has tended to uncritically presuppose that Confucianism represents authoritarian and collective values, codes, and behavioral norms, from which emerging Chinese individuals strive to dis-embed in their pursuit of modernity (Yan 2010: 492–493). Concomitantly, the individual-oriented side of Confucianism (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Chaibong 2001; Chen 2012, 2015; Ivanhoe 2000; Li 2016; Tan 2017; Tu 1984) has been largely overlooked in the literature. For example, William de Bary (1983) argued for Neo-Confucian individualism that embraces the notions of ziren (taking it upon oneself) and zide (getting it by or for oneself) (pp. 45–46). Additionally, Chen (2014) characterized Confucian ethics as being concerned with the self, which is “about how to realise a self as fully self-conscious being-for-itself of definite character, substance, and personality” (p. 67).

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In summary, I address in this book the nascent topic of the relationship between the Confucian version of individualism and a Chinese individualization that is characterized by an “incomplete or unbalanced understanding of individualism” (Yan 2009b: 289). Within this frame, the book investigates the discourses and practices of making Confucian-inspired individuals through an ethnographic study conducted in a Confucian classical school. It emphasizes the moral condemnation of state schooling by parents, students, and teachers who favor Confucian education, their moral anxieties in contemporary Chinese society, and their desire for Confucian virtues. The findings presented in the book therefore offer insights into the relationship between Confucian morality and individualization in contemporary China.

Governmentality, Subjectification, and China This section contextualizes the revival of Confucian education into the scholarly literature on governmentality and subjectification. Governmentality, as defined by Foucault (1983), refers to “the conduct of conduct,” involving “all endeavours to shape, guide, direct the conduct of others (…) and to govern oneself” (pp. 220–221). Governmentality has an intimacy with the other Foucauldian concept of subjectification (Foucault 1983). Subjectification means “the interrelation among scientific modes of classifying people, the dividing practices of governments, and the means by which human beings objectify and act upon themselves, that is, see and create themselves as particular types of human subjects” (Rabinow 1984, as cited in Kipnis 2011b: 289). The conceptual tools of governmentality and subjectification are crucial for the research of this book, first, because they are related to the Confucian tradition of jiaohua (cultivation) and the suzhi discourse. As researchers have argued, suzhi rhetoric closely connects with the idea of Confucian jiaohua and plays a meaningful role in formulating contemporary Chinese governmentality. It legitimates and reproduces social and political hierarchies of all sorts by showing and anchoring the inadequacy of individual qualities such as a lack of civility, “culture,” and morality (Anagnost 2008; Hansen and Woronov 2013; Jacka 2009; Ling 2015; Sun 2017a; Woronov 2004, 2009; Xiong 2015; Yan 2008a), “with those of ‘high’ suzhi being seen as deserving more income, power and status than those of ‘low’ suzhi” (Kipnis 2006: 295). Second, the significance of the concepts of governmentality and subjectification for the present study is that, as

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explained by Kipnis (2011a), the subjects of governmentality include not only the state but also teachers, parents, and students—in fact, everyone. Additionally, the perspective of governmentality “opens up consideration of specific disciplinary techniques as well as governmental manipulations of a wider social environment” (Kipnis 2011a: 5–6). The literature review in the following sections first expounds Foucault’s interpretations of governmentality and subjectification and then situates these two concepts in the context of contemporary Chinese society. Conceptualizations of Governmentality and Subjectification The discussion of Chinese governmentality can be inspired by Foucault’s study of Western liberal governmentality, where he elaborated on governmentality as “not necessarily a particular ideological or social formation” but rather “a way of doing things” or “a common set of technical mechanisms” (Collier 2005: 11; see also Kipnis 2008; Larner 2003; Yan 2003a). Governmentality implies “a means of understanding shifts in relations between knowledge, power and subjectivity in the context of early modern Western societies” (Sigley 2006: 490). As Lemke (2001) indicated, governmentality has two interlinked sides: one is the form of representation, meaning that “government defines a discursive field in which exercising power is ‘rationalised’”; one is the form of intervention, suggesting that “a political rationality is not pure, neutral knowledge (…); instead, it itself constitutes the intellectual processing of the reality which political technologies can then tackle” (p. 191). Governmentality, or to be specific, the “government of self and others” (Foucault 1988a), has the population as its object and “ask[s] the best ways to exercise power over conduct individually and en masse so as to secure the good of each and all” (Rose 1999: 23). The notion of governmentality allows for “coupling forms of knowledge, strategies of power, and technologies of the self” to achieve “a more comprehensive account of the current political and social transformations” (Lemke 2002: 54). Moreover, governmentality is concerned with how individuals or groups constitute themselves in power relations to become governable subjects by techniques of government (Dean 1999: 17) in a process that Foucault (1983) called “subjectification.” In Taylor’s (2011b) view, subjectification is a two-way process: on the one hand, we constitute ourselves as subjects (we are enabled) by various practices of the self; on the other hand, we are constituted (we are constrained) insofar as the way in which

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we undertake these practices is shaped by the institutions, norms, and values of society (p.  173). Accordingly, the governmentality of the self indicates how individuals constitute themselves as subjects to access the truth about themselves by way of a set of practices that subordinate them to authority (see Besley 2005; Deacon 2002; Foucault 1988b, 2011; Stone 2011). Subjectification can also be understood as a process created by the intertwined technologies of power and technologies of the self. In this regard, Foucault (2003: 146) explained as below:  [T]echnologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, and objectivizing of the subject; (…) technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immorality.

The notions of governmentality and subjectification have been widely used by scholars in critical analyses of various forms of Western neoliberal governing practices, through which a common thread is to create self-­ responsible, self-caring, self-reliant, self-motivated, entrepreneurial, and autonomous subjects who are assumed to bear responsibility for social risks, such as disease, unemployment, poverty, and educational inequality (see Ball 2016; Ball and Olmedo 2013; Cheng 2016; Davies and Bansel 2007; Joseph 2013; Kipnis 2008; Lemke 2002; Peters 2007; Yan 2003a). However, governmentality and subjectification may be rather complicated when applied to the educational context in China. As Kipnis (2011b) argued, it is “far from an easy task” to discern “the types of subjects that are being produced in China’s classrooms,” and the “subjectifying rhetoric and practices in China’s classrooms” are always “a contradictory mix” (p. 289). This argument is relevant to the research of this book because it aims to investigate what practices are used to create which type of subject through the memorization-based pedagogy for classics study in the Confucian school. Additionally, when addressing subject-making and governmentality in Confucian schooling practices, this book involves Foucault’s interpretations of power. Foucault expanded the traditional understanding of power as descending from the top of a pyramid and reconceived it to arise “in all

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kinds of relationships, and can be built up from the bottom of a pyramid (or any structure)” (Lynch 2011: 13). Thus, power is “something that is always exercised and circulating” (Lilja and Vinthagen 2014: 108). Foucault identified various modern forms of power, including disciplinary power and bio-power,3 and the pre-modern form of sovereign power4 (Ball 2013; Foucault 1979a, 1980; Harwood et al. 2014; Hoffman 2011; Hope 2016; Lemke 2001; Lilja and Vinthagen 2014; Lynch 2011; Peters 2007; Rabinow 1984; Taylor 2011; Tyler 2010). Some researchers regarded these three forms as a triangle of power (Dean 2010: 122), which “emerged in different historical phases of modernity, but did not replace each other” (Larsson et al. 2012: 9–10). Of the three forms of power, as clarified by Foucault, this book primarily concerns disciplinary power in the analysis of students’ practice of memorizing classics. Disciplinary power concerns individuals (Foucault 2006: 75). As Foucault (1979a) argued, “[T]he chief function of disciplinary power is to ‘train.’ […] Discipline ‘makes’ individuals; it is the specific techniques of a power that regards individuals as objects and as instruments of its exercise” (p. 170). The purpose of disciplinary power is to make the individual body “more obedient as it becomes more useful” (p. 138). It exercises through several basic techniques—hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and examination (pp.  172–192). Accordingly, the theoretical concept of disciplinary power can aid in interpreting the empirical findings of this book regarding how the students at the Confucian school are examined, monitored, and regulated in their learning of the classics. Concomitantly, this book addresses students’ resistance to the technologies of disciplinary power in teaching and learning Confucian classics. Foucault (1990) argued that resistance is a structural feature of power, “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” 3  Bio-power is the form “to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (Foucault 1990: 138). As Foucault explained, this type of power deals with “living beings, and the mastery it would be able to exercise over them would have to be applied at the level of life itself: it was the taking charge of life, more than the threat of death” (Foucault 1990: 142–143). 4  Sovereign power is a classical, juridico-legal form of power that appeared in the premodern era, whose focus lies on the right of subtraction (Taylor 2011: 42). As Foucault (1990: 136) argued, “The sovereign exercised his right of life only by exercising his right to kill, or by refraining from killing; (…) The right which was formulated as the ‘power of life and death’ was in reality the right to take life or let live.”

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(p. 95). Relevantly, Andrew Hope (2013) summarized several practices of resistance used by students against surveillance in schooling contexts, including false conformity, avoidance, counter-surveillance, and playful performance (p. 45). Governmentality and Subjectification in China When applying Foucault’s conceptual toolkit to a non-Western society such as China, it is sensible to consider the contextual particularities of governmentality and subjectification (Kipnis 2006, 2011a; Sigley 1996, 2006).5 This section summarizes two arguments about post-Mao Chinese governmentality and subjectification that emerge from the literature. These arguments can help to bring out the complexity and heterogeneity of producing the Confucian individual through memorization of the classics, as described later in the book. The first argument holds that the practices of governmentality in post-­ Mao China are undergoing a “neoliberal turn” similar to that of Western societies, thus resulting in the shaping of neoliberal subjects (Harvey 2005, 2007; Hoffman 2010; Jacka 2009; Ong 2006; Ong and Zhang 2008; Sun 2017a; Yan 2003a). Proponents of this argument believe that China has created a new neoliberal political agenda in which it attempts to shape Chinese society through “the educated and informed choices of active citizens, families, and communities” (Rose 1996: 20). For example, the emerging urban middle class is produced by China’s policies of making families and consumption desires be of the “entrepreneurial subject, responsible for his/her own ‘profits and losses’ […] whose identity as a rights-bearing subject is defined in terms of being a consumer” (Anagnost 2008: 515). In particular, suzhi plays an important role in the Chinese neoliberal fashion of governmentality and subjectification, being manifest in legitimizing the exploitation of so-called low-quality workers and masking social inequalities (Anagnost 2004; Kipnis 2007; Yan 2003a). The second argument proposed by scholars is that Chinese governmentality and subjectification are characterized by a mixture of socialist and neoliberal rhetoric (Gong and Dobinson 2017; Huang 2008; Kipnis 5  On the other hand, some researchers have commented that from the perspective of governmentality, both China and Western Europe are a hybridity of neoliberal and authoritarian governmentality practices (see Gong and Dobinson 2017; Taylor 2017; Lemke 2001, 2002, 2007, 2012).

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2011a, b; Nonini 2008; Ong 2007; Rocca 2017; Sun 2009b, 2017a; Yan 2010). According to Sigley (2006), the governmentality practices in post-­ Mao China “involve a creative blending of neoliberal rationalities and revitalised forms of socialist rationalities” (p. 504). Some researchers have recognized this point as the neosocialist rhetoric of Chinese governmentality and subjectification, which combines a neoliberal capitalist economy with a socialist authoritarian political system (see Hansen 2015; Pieke 2009). The key difference between neosocialist and neoliberalist rhetoric is that the former stresses the prominence of China’s party-state in implementing the tactics of governmentality and making neosocialist subjects (Liew 2005; Logan and Fainstein 2008; So 2005; Yan 2009b). Given the above, Chinese governmentality is marked by pro-growth authoritarianism (Lai 2010); the socialist state, which is not “retreating” but rather “regrouping” during the reform era, intervenes in the reorganization of forces, plans, and people to promote economic development and social reforms (Sigley 2006: 497). Paradoxically, the neoliberal rhetoric in neosocialist governmentality even “assists an authoritarian state in its management of inequality” (Sun 2017a: 4). Accordingly, even urban middle-­class individuals who are increasingly becoming consumer citizens (Anagnost 2008) are still subject to the regulation of state policies and official power (Crabb 2010; see also Goodman 2016; Naftali 2014) and hence have to simultaneously assume national responsibility and obligation, cultivate the spirit of patriotism, and obey the collective order (Brownell 2009; Cen 2008; Li and Tan 2017; Nie 2008; Tse 2011; Vickers 2009; Zhao 2014). The hybridity of socialist-neoliberal forms of political rationality in post-Mao China can be illustrated by the aforementioned concepts regarding the uniqueness of Chinese individualization, that is, party-state managed individualization (Yan 2009b, 2010) and authoritarian individualization (Hansen 2015). As Hansen (2015) noted, the technologies of governmentality and subjectification in reform-era China aim to create the new neosocialist individual who, on the one hand, has a high degree of self-control and self-discipline and “is knowledgeable of his or her own rights and obligations as set within the limits of the law” and who, on the other hand, “respects the fact that the party-government provides the true interpretation of it” (p. 94) and “remains loyal to political authorities” (p. 172). The profound processes of individualization have brought new challenges to the practices of governmentality and subjectification in socialist

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China. Institutionalized individualization leads to a loosening of traditional categories (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Beck and Williams 2004), the rise of the individual as an independent unit of action and discourse, and an enhanced consciousness of citizenship rights (Hansen and Svarverud 2010; Yan 2009b, 2010). These changes require the socialist state to make corresponding changes to the forms of governmentality and subjectification. One crucial change is that the subjects of governmentality are no longer limited to the state but now extend to non-state agents, such as organizations and individuals (Foucault 1979b; Kipnis 2008; Lemke 2012; Rose et al. 2006). The subjects of the practices of governmentality depicted in this book are the teachers, students, and parents involved in the Confucian school. I argue that the dynamics of individualization serve as the fundamental driving force for the diversification of subject-making in reform-era China. However, the Chinese path to individualization has never been outside of the management and control of the state; instead, it serves as the means by which the socialist state pursues modernization (Yan 2009b, 2010). The individual–state relationship thus remains at the core of the discussion of Confucian education in this book. Moreover, the subjective complexity of neosocialist individuals echoes the heterogeneity of China’s shifting moral landscape, as clarified in the previous sections. This point is typically reflected by the term “patriotic professionalism,” coined by Lisa Hoffman (2006, 2010). This term refers to “a self-enterprising subject that is at once autonomous from state planning agencies and still tied to the nation through strategic expressions of patriotism” (Hoffman 2006: 565–566). According to this notion, choice and autonomy constitute a new significant aspect of producing Chinese individual subjects in late socialist China (Hoffman 2006: 550), reflecting “a sense of responsibility not just to self-advancement but also to the nation” (Hoffman 2010: 83). Although neoliberal-style values such as individual freedom, self-determinacy, and self-reliance circulate transnationally in global societies (Soysal 2015), nationalistic or authoritarian values play a prominent role in the Chinese context (Zhao 2020). Therefore, the subjectivity of the contemporary Chinese individual displays a hybrid late-socialism-cum-neoliberalism (Sigley 2004) in which self-enterprise is found alongside nationalism (Yan 2010). Meanwhile, the hybridity of Chinese governmentality and subjectification can be confirmed by unpacking the heterogeneity of the discourse of suzhi education, within which socialist and neoliberal rhetoric coexist (Gong and Dobinson 2017). Suzhi education should be understood as

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embracing a set of techniques of governmentality and subjectification and as being constituted by the conflict between neoliberal and authoritarian discourses and practices, which result in neither a coherent model of government nor a single form of subjectivity (Kipnis 2011b; see also Kipnis 2011a; Hansen and Woronov 2013; Woronov 2004, 2009). In light of this, suzhi education may be better seen “as an ever-ongoing project of meaning-making that aims to form a body of knowledge in China’s exploration of new paradigms of governance” (Yi 2011: 330). Concomitantly, the new paradigms of governmentality as applied to children may be considered an assemblage of authorities, knowledge, and techniques that both homogenize and individuate the subjects (Woronov 2009: 585). Therefore, the practices of governmentality and subjectification in today’s China present contradictions between autonomy and obedience and between neoliberal and nationalist-collectivist values (Naftali 2016). The evidence presented in this book illuminates these paradoxes based on fieldwork conducted at a Confucian school that cultivates students to become autonomous, learned individuals through the individualized pattern of classics memorization while simultaneously subjecting them to the collective and nationalistic goals of the Confucian education revival.

Summary This chapter discusses two strands of sociological scholarship that are drawn upon in this book. The individualization thesis is the first strand of the literature used to build up the theoretical framework for this study. I provide a critical review of the major arguments of the individualization thesis and their application to the context of China. I then clarify two concrete aspects associated with the profound processes of Chinese individualization that are relevant to the research of this book. First, the individualization thesis offers an inspiring perspective from which to study the privatization of the Chinese education system and the consequent proliferation of the choice of private schools for urban middle-class parents. However, a lack of research into the expanded choice of private Confucian schools leaves us with an insufficient understanding of how parents’ desire for their children to receive a Confucian education is associated with the (re)production of social-class inequalities amid the dynamics of individualization in contemporary China. Second, the individualization thesis sheds light on the hybridity of China’s shifting moral landscape, which constitutes an important

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theoretical background for this book, as it offers the potential to explain why Chinese parents have the desire to rejuvenate Confucian morality by engaging their children in the study of Confucian classics. Concomitantly, I reveal a gap in the literature on the individual-oriented side of Confucianism and emphasize its significance for understanding the complexities of the individualization of Chinese society. This book promises to enrich this research area with an empirical study of Confucian education. The second strand of the literature used for the theoretical framing of this book is that surrounding Foucault’s concepts of governmentality and subjectification. I first introduce these concepts and then clarify their particular application to the Chinese context. I argue that the practices of governmentality and subjectification in post-Mao China reflect a mixture of socialist and neoliberal rhetoric. The complexity of Chinese neosocialist governmentality and subjectification reverberates the heterogeneity of suzhi discourse, the ambiguity of Chinese individualization, and the moral landscape shift of Chinese society. Having laid the research foundation in relation to the literature and constructed the theoretical framework in this chapter, I address the research questions proposed in the Introduction and present the findings from my fieldwork study at a Confucian classical school in the following chapters.

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———. 2011. Chapter One: The Changing Moral Landscape. In Deep China: The Moral Life of the Person, ed. Arthur Kleinman, Yunxiang Yan, Jun Jing, Sing Lee, Everett Zhang, Tianshu Pan, Wu Fei, and Jinhua Guo, 36–77. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2012. Of the Individual and Individualization: The Striving Individual in China and the Theoretical Implications. In Futures of Modernity: Challenges for Cosmopolitical Thought and Practice, ed. Michael Heinlein, Cordula Kropp, Judith Neumer, Angelika Poferi, and Regina Römhild, 177–195. Bielefeld: Transcript. ———. 2021. The Politics of Moral Crisis in Contemporary China. The China Journal 85 (1): 96–120. Yan, Fengqiao, Dan Mao, and Qiang Zha. 2016. Institutional Transformation and Aggregate Expansion of Chinese Higher Education System. In Spotlight on China: Changes in Education Under China’s Market Economy, ed. Shibo Guo and Yan Guo, 191–213. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Yi, Lin. 2011. Turning Rurality into Modernity: Suzhi Education in a Suburban Public School of Migrant Children in Xiamen. The China Quarterly 206 (2011): 313–330. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741011000282. Zang, Xiaowei. 2011. Introduction. In Understanding Chinese Society, ed. Xiaowei Zang, 1–8. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. Zhang, Wei, and Mark Bray. 2016. Shadow Education: The Rise and Implications of Private Supplementary Tutoring. In Spotlight on China: Changes in Education Under China’s Market Economy, ed. Shibao Guo and Yan Guo, 85–99. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Zhang, Lei, Ruyue Dai, and Yu. Kai. 2016. Chinese Higher Education since 1977: Possibilities, Challenges and Tensions. In Spotlight on China: Changes in Education Under China’s Market Economy, ed. Shibo Guo and Yan Guo, 173–189. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Zhao, Zhenzhou. 2014. Pedagogisation of Nation Identity through Textbook Narratives in China: 1902–1948. Citizenship Studies 18 (1): 99–112. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2014.865895. ———. 2020. Religious Façade of ‘the Chinese Nation’ in China’s School Curriculum. Discourse 43 (2): 295–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630 6.2020.1830031. Zhou, Xiaohong. 2005. Survey of the Chinese Middle Classes (Zhongguo Zhongchan Jieceng Diaocha). Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press. Zhu, Guanglei. 2007. Analysis of the Social Strata in Contemporary China (Dangdai Zhongguo Shehui Ge Jieceng Fenxi). Tianjin: Tianjin remin chubanshe.

CHAPTER 3

Choosing a Confucian Education: The Rise of Critical Parents

Introduction Yiqian School is a grassroots private, or minban (literally “run by people”), classical school with a Confucian pedagogy that prioritizes reading and memorizing the classics. This pedagogy is very different from that of mainstream state schools, which teach a state-stipulated and compulsory curriculum. In contrast, Yiqian School rarely provides comprehensive compulsory courses; students instead spend most of their school time extensively memorizing classic texts (primarily of Confucianism, also of Taoist and Western literature), with additional classes on calligraphy and physical education.1 Despite the distinct pedagogical practices of Yiqian School, many parents prefer Confucian education and choose to enroll their children in the full-time study of Confucian classics. Why do these parents make such a  decision? What elements drive parents to choose Confucian education for their children? How do they actualize their choice of Confucian education? What experiences, feelings, and opinions do these Confucian parents develop when making this educational decision?

1  Yiqian School previously tried to offer the  state-approved curriulum  but encountered numerous obstacles and difficulties that prevented it from implementing these courses. More information on this schooling practice can be found in Chap. 6.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_3

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In this chapter, I investigate parents’ discourses and practices regarding their decisions to engage their children in Confucian classical education. Drawing on the individualization thesis (Beck 1992; Beck and Beck-­ Gernsheim 2002; Beck and Williams 2004) and its application to the Chinese context (Yan 2009b, 2010, 2011; Hansen 2015; Hansen and Svarverud 2010), as discussed in Chap. 2, I provide theoretical explanations for these parents’ choice to engage their children in Confucian education. I demonstrate how these parents produce and apply critical discourse focused on improving their children’s moral suzhi (quality) to justify their decisions to transfer their children from the state-sponsored compulsory education system to private Confucian schools. As Hoffman (2010) argued, individual actors’ choices in post-Mao China should be understood as subject to their relationship with the state, and thus their individual decisions imply “a sense of responsibility not just to self-­ advancement but also to the nation” (p. 83). As such, exploring the parents’ choices for Confucian education provides an opportunity to probe into the complexities and nuances of Chinese subjectivity (Hoffman 2006) in the context of the socialist state’s call to revive “fine traditional Chinese culture” (zhonghua youxiu chuantong wenhua, Confucianism being the core). In this analysis, I unpack the self-formation of parents as critical individuals through the decision to enroll their children in Confucian schools. This chapter focuses on the “dis-embedding” dimension of the Confucian education revival through the lens of the individualization thesis. Drawing on data from interviews with parents and students of Yiqian School, the chapter discusses how parents’ desires for Confucian education are formed under the constraints of the Chinese state education system. The chapter contains five sections. The first three sections outline the discursive intricacies present in parents’ explanations for their choice of Confucian education. The first two sections display these parents’ critical discourse against state education and demonstrate  their concerns about their children’s poor academic performance in the examination-oriented education system at state schools. These two sections drive the argument that the parental actors’ development of a critical attitude toward state education is closely associated with and is intensified by their desire for their children to cultivate their moral qualities through extensive study of Confucian classics. The third section continues to investigate these parents’ moral anxiety and explores how it engenders a firm belief in the memorization-based Confucian pedagogy. The fourth section describes

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the concrete actions the interviewed parents took to actualize their educational choices and the difficulties they encountered. The final and fifth section summarizes the main points of the  chapter and extends the discussion.

Criticizing State Education: Moral Anxiety and Confucian Virtues In the Chinese context, the dynamics of individualization encourage individuals to assert themselves as independent units of action and discourse (Hansen and Svarverud 2010; Yan 2009b). This aligns with the findings from my interviews with the parents, who demonstrated a critical attitude toward state schooling that drove them to speak and act as critical individuals by transferring their children out of the state education system. When asked why they enrolled their children in the Confucian school, most parents criticized state schools, stating that they overemphasize skill-­ based knowledge and inadequately develop students’ moral character. The state school system is based on exam-oriented education (yingshi jiaoyu), and the interviewed parents believed that state education undervalues students’ natural temperaments and aesthetic sensibilities and provides limited opportunities for character refinement. Instead, students are given extensive schoolwork and tests, and teachers are primarily focused on students’ academic results, class rankings, and rates of admission to higher-­ level schools. Why did the interviewed parents display such a negative attitude toward the state school system? Their critical remarks often stemmed from negative reflections on their personal state schooling experiences. For example, Mr. Li, whose son was 12 years old at the time of the interview and had been learning Confucian classics at Yiqian School for 2 years, said, “I have a deep hatred for the state education system. State schooling is nothing but a fiery pit for kids!” Despite these cynical words, Mr. Li seemed to be a success story for the state system, as he holds a master’s degree from an elite Chinese university and became an IT engineer after graduating in the early 2000s. Given his educational and professional background, we can describe him as part of China’s emerging middle class (Rocca 2017). Although he acknowledged that his postgraduate education and participation in the state education system taught him how to survive in society, he felt rather frustrated and disappointed with his state education experience because it did not educate him on “how to be a human,” “how to get

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along with people,” “how to develop one’s morality,” or “how to contribute to society.” Rather, he argued that the state schooling experience taught students to lack gratitude and to only care about their own interests. He therefore asserted that his state education was a complete failure and vowed that he would never send his offspring to state schools. Similarly, Mr. Zhong, who, along with his wife, graduated from university in the mid1980s, an era with much  fewer university graduates  than today, indicated that state schooling provides “an education lacking morality” (quede jiaoyu) that imparts students with neither moral knowledge on how to be a virtuous person (junzi) nor principles on how to conduct oneself and interact with people. These two examples are illustrative of the moral anxiety that contributes to parents’ dissatisfaction with state education. Furthermore, these parents stated that the state-stipulated curriculum used in compulsory schools is too instrumentalist to promote students’ moral cultivation. Their perception of state education being instrumentalist can be understood as antithetical to their belief of Confucian education aiming for moral enhancement. They did not deny the value of practical knowledge and skills but emphasized that the cultivation of ethical virtues and moral qualities should be a priority for their children’s education. This anti-instrumentalist ideology highlights their view that the moral dimension of education should take precedence over the rote acquisition of instrumental knowledge. This way of understanding education is consistent with the Confucian idea of jiaohua (cultivation) or transforming the self through education (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Wang and Billioud 2022).2 The parents interviewed based their criticism of state education on a dualistic framework in which state education prioritizes knowledge and Confucian education prioritizes morality. Their descriptions reduced state education to a simplistic “education for knowledge” (zhishi jiaoyu) system that serves only to impart instrumental knowledge and is unconcerned with the moral transformation of human life. They argued that their children learned nothing of value at state schools and that the mandated Chinese language course was too superficial to cultivate one’s mind and sensibilities. They were also dissatisfied with the compulsory mathematics modules, arguing that they were beyond students’ natural 2  This point echoes Jiang Fu’s (2022) article, where she discussed the implementation of jiaohua policies within companies claiming to hold Confucian values and how the idea of jiaohua has contributed to the construction of the identity of the “Confucian entrepreneur” (rushang).

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capacity. In contrast, the parents highly valued the Confucian education system, which they called “education for morality” (daode jiaoyu). They argued that education for morality is superior to education for knowledge because it aims to enhance learners’ personalities and improve their moral integrity by requesting them to engage in repetitive reading and memorization of great books. The parents interviewed were adamant that their children should not waste time studying practical knowledge devoid of cultural value; instead, they should focus on learning the classics and cultivating their morality. The parents’ preference for Confucian education corresponds to Caigui Wang’s theory of dujing (reading the classics) education, introduced in the Introduction of this book. He claimed that the age range from 3 to 13 years is the golden period of memory, characterized by a robust capacity for memorization but a weak faculty of comprehension. The most appropriate pedagogy for children of this age group thus involves high levels of memorization with less emphasis on comprehension, a practice that is supposedly consistent with the law of human nature (Wang 2014: 27–33). Wang advocated that children be taught the wisdom conveyed through the seminal classics of human history, as these books implant morals into learners’ minds, develop their sensibilities, and awaken the moral seeds of their human nature, even if they are not yet able to understand the deeper meanings of the texts (Wang 2009: 5–6). Wang also assumed that as children grow older, their increased capacity for comprehension and greater life experiences allow them to gradually grasp the profound lessons of the classics. Memorizing the classics in childhood therefore serves as a kind of moral fertilizer for the development of a child’s ethical competence, conduct, and character (Wang 2014: 41–66). The separation of memorization from comprehension proposed in Wang’s dujing theory is notable, as it does not necessarily align with its historical precedents (Billioud and Thoraval 2015) and has generated extensive debate both through public mass media channels and in intellectual circles (Ke 2017; Wang 2016a, 2017, 2018). Chapter 4 offers a detailed investigation on this topic. Here, I emphasize that this teaching philosophy has had a profound influence on shaping the parents’ critiques of state education. All of the interviewed parents acknowledged that they had watched Wang’s videos or read his books, and some even quoted him to support their viewpoints. They approved of the system of memorization and expected their children to internalize the hidden spirit of the classics through repeated reading  and embodying  Confucian virtues  in everyday life.

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However, there were differences in opinion among parents about the efficacy of memorization. Inspired by the anti-instrumentalist idea, most parents highlighted the necessity for children to memorize classics before they can fully understand them. However, a few parents stated that rote memorization is too boring and that memorization should be combined with other learning methods, such as singing (yinsong) and textual interpretation, to increase students’ interest in learning the classics. This group did not wholly reject a memorization-based pedagogy, but held that children should not be rushed into their understandings of classical texts and would gain a deep and comprehensive appreciation of the texts as they increased life experience. These differing opinions echo studies (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Gilgan 2022; Wang 2022a) that have noted criticism for Caigui Wang’s extensive memorization method among Confucian activists and that have revealed other Confucian schools are more creative in adapting the classics-reading courses to their own distinctive curricula (Wang 2018, 2020). Parents’ preference for Confucian education, and for the memorization-­ based pedagogy in particular, was linked to their belief that Confucian education offers moral teachings that help their children learn how  to become virtuous people and how to conduct themselves in society. This idea, translated as zuoren, was frequently mentioned by the informants and has been commonly referred to by scholars as a fundamental feature of Confucian morality (Chen 2012, 2014, 2015; Tu 1985). Three aspects of the parents’ notion of zuoren emerged from the interview data. First, zuoren implies that a person should engage in a set of relation-based practices to achieve moral self-transformation in line with the behavioral norms described in the classical texts. Through the constant study of Confucian classics such as the Four Books (i.e., The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, and Mencius), which convey the fundamentals of Confucian ethics and teach learners the tenets of zuoren, one not only cultivates oneself but also seeks cultivation through others to develop a benevolent, altruistic, and right-­ minded personality, to learn to treat people with respect and sincerity, and to develop appropriate manners in social interactions. I quote one mother, Mrs. Liu, whose son was 15 years old at the time of the interview and had been studying Confucian classics for 5 years. Mrs. Liu spoke of her son’s moral changes since beginning to study the classics, happily indicating that

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studying Confucianism had improved her son’s character and developed his social skills: Nowadays, many children are somewhat self-centered and do not care about other people. (…) I feel that studying Confucian classics has changed my son’s personality and his way of perceiving things and getting along with people. He has become a more thoughtful, patient, and polite person and can put himself in other people’s shoes. This may be why his relationships with the family have improved so much. For example, every time he calls us from school, he thoughtfully asks if everything is okay at home and reminds his dad to take care of himself and not to work laboriously. When he comes back home from school, he greets us and his grandparents and shows interest in family matters. I am so delighted that he has become a person who thinks of other people. So rarely do children today behave and speak like this. His changes make me feel very happy and proud. (…) He has achieved such changes, of course, thanks to the Confucian culture he is learning, his teachers’ wise counsel, and the positive influence of his classmates at the Confucian school. All these factors together have contributed to his growing understanding of people, things, affairs, and social relations.3

Other parents held similar opinions. For example, Mrs. Wu stated that she enrolled her son in the study of Confucian classics because “he was bad-mannered or even rebellious in the state school and did not listen to anything we advised him to do. (…) He was just a self-centered person and did not show respect to teachers and parents.” Mrs. Jiang echoed this sentiment, stating that Confucian education educates children on how to behave properly, correct their selfishness, and enhance their moral integrity. Moreover, Mrs. Zhu indicated that her nine-year-old son became “a little adult” after learning Confucian classics. “He has become very sensible and thoughtful,” she reported cheerfully. “Nowadays, he consciously knows how to behave modestly and courteously and consider other people’s feelings. (…) I think that these are the manifestations of the subtle transformative influence of the classics on his character.” In summary, I argue that the desire to instill Confucian-inspired moral qualities and cultivate the Confucian ethics of zuoren in their children encouraged these parents to engage their children in Confucian classical education. The second key aspect of zuoren, according to the parents, adheres to the ethical code of conduct associated with one’s multiple roles and  Interview in July 2015.

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relationships, particularly those relevant to family life. An illustrative example was provided by Mrs. Lan, who had two sons. The younger one (13 years old) was studying at the Confucian school, and the older one (15 years old) was studying at a state school. When comparing her two sons’ day-to-­day behaviors, she asserted that the younger boy had become more polite, sensible, obedient, and willing to do housework when he returned home from school since beginning his study of the Confucian classics. In contrast, she was cross with her older son and blamed his poor behavior on his state school. She reported that the older boy “never cares about what the parents say” but instead “just plays on the computer, striking the keyboard loudly” with “no interest in talking with people.” Based on Mrs. Lan’s account, I posit that her younger son’s behavioral change reflects how he learned to perform the Confucian ethical virtue of filial devotion (xiaoshun). This is demonstrated in his growing awareness of the relationships he ought to have with his parents, what concrete ethical roles and responsibilities he should have in these relationships, and how to put these moral norms into practice in his everyday life. The older son, in contrast, showed a lack of respect for his parents, which obscured the ethical and normative roles he should have performed and led to a neglect of his family duties and obligations (Ames 2011). Overall, the transformative effects of Confucian schooling she saw in younger son’s behavior impressed upon Mrs. Lan the value of classical education. She acknowledged that she regretted not sending her older son to a Confucian school and would consider engaging him in the study of Confucianism someday. Other informants echoed Mrs. Lan’s sentiments. In these parents’ narratives, the transformative efficacy of the practical Confucian ethics centered on children’s emotional attachment to parental authority and their expression of love for the elder members of the family. The parents called this particular ethical virtue “docility” (tinghua), which requested children to respect the elders’ authority and sympathize with their situations (see Kipnis 2009; Sung and Pascall 2014; Yan 2011, 2021). When asked about the effects of reading the classics, several parents mentioned that their children had become more dutiful and had begun to care for their older relatives. For example, Mrs. Wei reported that learning Confucianism transformed her daughter’s temperament: She cares about other people. In our big family, there are two other children in her generation, her aunt’s kids, who studied in the state education system. I think my daughter does the best out of these three children, as she fully

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respects the teacher and dutifully follows parents’ instructions. She has learned to put herself in other people’s shoes and to consider their feelings instead of merely focusing on her own interests. She shows love to people, cares for family members, and always treats the elders with respect. I once unintentionally raised my voice when speaking to my father. She reminded me, “Mom, you should not speak to grandpa like that.”4

Based on these interviews, I argue that emotions become resources and a form of capital. Allatt (1993) defined the concept of emotional capital as “emotionally valued assets and skills, love and affection, expenditure of time, attention, care and concern” (p.  143). Reay (2000) built on this definition by focusing on how such resources are “passed on from mother to child through processes of parental involvement” (p. 569). I echo these ideas and emphasize that the (re)production of emotional capital  in Confucian education is considered by the parents as the outcome of reading and memorizing the classics, a process in which Confucian wisdom is passed on through classical literature to modern learners. The parents did not have extensive knowledge of Confucian culture, as they had no opportunity to study Confucian classics when they were young. Conversely and consequently, they emphasized the necessity of their children absorbing Confucian wisdom by reading and memorizing the classical texts. The third and final aspect of zuoren highlighted by the parents is focused on the individual, featuring inwardly oriented, self-based virtues such as self-control and remaining true to oneself. This finding is consistent with the Confucian idea of selfhood as a form of creative transformation (Tu 1985). As Chen (2016) argued, becoming a virtuous person under Confucianism requires “the cultivation of persons who take personal excellence as their ultimate value and in so doing raise above all that is vulgar and common in their conduct” (p. 93). The parent informants’ narratives echo this argument. For example, Mr. Zhong explained why he had urged his 11-year-old son to study Confucian classics: [My son] was one of the top students at his state school, but this inadvertently made him arrogant—so much so that he could not bear criticism from anyone. At that time, I was concerned that he would be unable to endure frustration in life when he grew up. I did not want him to be like that. (…) I believed that every single sentence of the classics would play a significant

4

 Interview in August 2015.

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role in his moral cultivation, teaching him the truth of life and how to become an authentic person.5

Mr. Zhong and many of the interviewed parents prioritized the notion of xue (learning), specifically in reference to the memorization of Confucian classics. According to Kipnis (2011a), the Chinese idea of xue suggests that a learner should “imitate a model in a process of internalization— mental or bodily memorization” (p. 91). Education in the Chinese context therefore serves to teach the individual how to learn by modeling behavior (Bakken 2000). These arguments reflect the views of the parents interviewed, who believed that through repeatedly reading and memorizing classical texts, their children would internalize the texts’ wisdom and cultivate the skills of self-discipline and self-reliance.6 According to the parents, a self-disciplined Confucian individual should be able to restrain their propensity for selfishness, correct inappropriate behaviors, conduct themselves in line with Confucian rituals, and treat people with respect and sincerity. The parents also expected their children to engage in constant self-cultivation and purify their mind through the study of Confucian classics. They argued that  constant classical study would eliminate children’s animalism (dongwuxing), prompt them to seek spiritual pleasure and hold high aspirations, and help them to develop independent learning and critical thinking capabilities. For example, one interviewed father worked as a civil servant in a county-level government office and confessed that he did not find genuine happiness in his work but passively performed the tasks assigned by his superiors. He expressed the hope that his 12-year-old son would experience lasting and profound spiritual delight from reading Confucian classics and develop into a virtuous person. Given this,  I argue that the parents' expectation for their children's ideal education embodies the Confucian notion of zide, a term used to describe Neo-Confucian individualism. As argued by Theodore de Bary (1983), zide is the process of “learning or experiencing some truth for oneself and deriving inner satisfaction there from” (pp. 45–46). In summary, this section discusses how the parents’ engagement with Confucian education was closely related to their criticism of state  Interview in June 2015.  As discussed in Chaps. 6 and 7, there was an inherent tension between parents’ expectations for their children’s moral development and the Confucian school’s memorizationbased pedagogy. 5 6

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education and their desire to develop their children’s Confucian moral capabilities, embodied in the notion of zouren. This focus on moral cultivation encouraged parents to prioritize the learning of Confucian ethical virtues in their pursuit of children’s ideal education. Against the wider context of Chinese education, I argue that these findings are consistent with the discourse of suzhi, which, per Kipnis (2006), has profound roots in the Confucian tradition of cultivation. The rhetoric of suzhi holds that human qualities have the potential to be improved and corrected (Lin 2017). The parents’ critique of state education and their expectation of their children to improve Confucian moral suzhi can therefore be better understood in the context of the larger socio-political landscape in post-Mao China, where to be a citizen “entails the cultivation of oneself to become a particular type of individual” (Lin 2017: 268). I return to this point in later sections. Finally, as most of the interviewed parents were from urban, middle-­ class families, their call for cultivation of Confucian-inspired emotional capital, embodied by the ethical virtue of zuoren, could be interpreted through a class lens. That is, parents in China’s emerging urban middle class promote the moral development of their children through Confucian ethical resources, where the discourses of suzhi and civility are interwoven to distinguish these middle-class children from their counterparts in other social classes (Rocca 2015, 2017). This point is expanded on in the following sections.

Challenging Examination-Oriented Education Through the Rhetoric of suzhi Parents’ criticism of state schooling and decision to transfer their children to a Confucian school were also driven by skepticism regarding the examination-­ oriented education delivered in state schools. Although China has promoted nationwide suzhi education reforms since the late 1990s to counteract the detrimental impact of examination-oriented education, the actual effects of these reforms have been widely questioned (Kipnis 2011b; Lou 2011; Wu 2016). One perplexing aspect of the reform for suzhi education is that despite its widespread support, the core elements of examination-oriented education remain influential in teaching and learning practices and ideologies (Dello-Iacovo 2009; Hansen 2015; Wu 2012). Dissatisfaction with attempts at reform is clear in the parents’

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reflections on their children’s learning experiences at state schools. All of the parental informants reported that excessive examinations and homework had burdened their children. Notably, most of the parents’ children were middling to low academic performers, and some were even at the bottoms of their classes. The parents stated that their children’s poor academic performances within the state education system led them to seek alternative modes of education. The interviews with students at Yiqian School further demonstrated this point. Most of the students at the Confucian school once studied at state schools. Of the three classes where I conducted participant observations, interviews, and group discussions, all of the students in Qishun Class (22 boys) and Qibo Class (22 boys) came from state schools, and of the 17 girls in Qili Class, only one had studied Confucian classics since the age of five and had never attended a state school. Among these students, only two in total in Qili Class and Qibo Class stated that they were among the best students in their state schools. Furthermore, in Qishun Class, all but two pupils said that they transferred to the Confucian school because of poor academic performance at state schools. The student and parent interviews demonstrate that most of the students at this Confucian school performed poorly at state schools. Moreover, these students recalled being berated by teachers at their state schools for failing examinations, breaking class rules, or neglecting their homework. The parents said that at state schools, their children “had no interest in what was taught” (Mrs. Liu), “were very undisciplined in their studies” (Mrs. Lan), “did not have a happy childhood at all” (Mr. Yan), “suffered from psychological problems” (Mrs. Zhao), and “were bullied by classmates” (Mr. Wu). Additionally, some parents had been urged by state schools’ class teachers to supervise their children’s learning more strictly, as their children’s poor academic performance was pulling down the average grades for the whole class. These parents acknowledged that this experience made them feel ashamed (mei mianzi). Studies have cast doubt on the value of examination-oriented education because of its excessive focus on students’ intellectual capabilities and its neglect of other essential personal characteristics (Hansen 2015; Kipnis 2011b; Yi 2011). Although the suzhi education reforms and the campaign to reduce the amount of schoolwork assigned (jianfu) to children have lasted for over two decades, many parents, teachers, and scholars are disappointed in and critical of the current state schooling system. This criticism is echoed by the parents I interviewed, who spoke bluntly and poorly

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about the compulsory education system and its examination orientation. They argued that students at state schools were overburdened with schoolwork and homework and had to complete an endless stream of assessments. They also pointed out that the goals of examination-oriented education were instrumental focuses such as academic grades, class rankings, and promotion rates, which did not leave room for moral and personal cultivation. These parental informants spoke about their concerns that the excessive schoolwork set at state schools would harm their children physically and mentally. For example, Mrs. Zhu was anxious about her eight-year-old son, who often failed to finish his homework until nine o’clock at night when attending the state school. “I heard that the study workload would increase when he went to Year Three,” said Mrs. Zhu. “I was unsure about whether he could bear the overwhelming study pressure.” Another mother acknowledged that the main reason for sending her 11-year-old son to the Confucian school was that he would “not have to do so much homework.” The parents were also concerned that the pressure from schoolwork would reduce their children’s interest in learning, diminish their ability to learn independently, and suppress their imagination and curiosity. Mrs. Zhu, for example, feared that the tremendous pressure of studying at the state school would turn her child into a passive learner or, even worse, an examination-taking machine who lacked self-consciousness and learning autonomy. She therefore allowed her son to ignore aspects of school she deemed unnecessary, such as oral calculations, repetitive writing in English, and Chinese character practice. Similarly, Mr. Li encouraged his 12-year-old son to take a relaxed approach at his state school. Another mother with a university background, whose 13-year-old son had studied at Yiqian School for more than five years, was shocked that state schools provided standard answers for reading comprehension tasks in Chinese language courses. She said, “As I see it, every single person has his or her distinctive life experience, so every single student should be encouraged to generate his or her own understanding of the same piece of reading. It is nonsensical to offer standard answers!” She worried that state education would decrease her son’s ability to learn autonomously, inhibit his creative thinking, and impair his ability to think independently. Many of the students I interviewed expressed similar discontent with examination-oriented state education. They described their experiences with state schools using negative words like “boring,” “uninteresting,” “disappointing,” “stressful,” and “depressing.” They stated that the

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volume of schoolwork and endless examinations caused them frustration and made them tire of studying at state schools. These were the key factors that drove them to pursue an alternative form of education. They also described resisting the strict discipline imposed by state schools by failing to complete schoolwork, skipping classes, fighting with classmates, and quarreling with teachers. According to Foucault (1990), acts of resistance always accompany power and shape one’s conduct by altering power relations. In the Chinese context, the examination-oriented education regime has created a rigid school hierarchy based on students’ test scores and class rankings, which classifies them into distinct categories according to their academic performance and hierarchizes them in everyday classroom interactions (see also Wang 2016b). To illustrate this point, I refer to a dialogue from a group discussion with the students at Qili Class in which two girls, Yanran and Xinyue, criticized the academic-performance-based classification system established in state education using the terms “good students” and “bad students”: Yanran [girl, 14 years old]: State school is where students are assessed and valued by their examination results. They treat each other according to their test grades. If your grade is high, everyone is happy to be your friend, but if you receive a low grade, those good students with higher grades may dislike you and treat you as a bad guy. The teacher allocates the front desks to good students and arranges for the bad students to sit in the back. I still remember one harsh comment often repeated by my class teacher when I was at the state school: “I don’t like you, bad students! I hope you will all be expelled someday! It is your low grades that pull down my salary!” Xinyue [girl, 13 years old, nodding at Yanran]: The good students in my state school class even came together to form their own groups, excluding the bad students.7

Not all students reported experiencing academic frustration or discrimination at their state schools, and a few had been seen by their teachers as “good students.” However, not even these students enjoyed their state school experience, and their parents continued to worry about their academic performance. Heavy schoolwork combined with numerous afterschool tutorial sessions kept the students busy around the clock, even to the point of exhaustion. Mrs. Fan recalled that her daughter Xiaoxiao, 7

 Group discussion in June 2015.

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who had excelled academically at her state school, “once hid in bed crying because her grades had dropped slightly.” The parents of academic overachievers, like those of underachievers, were anxious that “the excessive examinations and assignments set at state schools would injure pupils’ physical and mental well-being” (Mrs. Zhu). A few parents acknowledged the merits of China’s compulsory education. Some even defended the system, arguing that it gives students the knowledge they need to survive within and integrate into mainstream society. One father, Mr. Yan, said, “If something goes wrong, we should first look for the problem with the particular person in charge rather than the system itself.” Nevertheless, all the parents I interviewed—even the few who recognized the benefits of the state system—were critical of the examination-oriented nature of state education. They confirmed that this was the fundamental reason for transferring their children to a Confucian school. As clarified in Chaps. 4 and 5, the memorization-based pedagogy applied in the Confucian school shares similar elements with the teaching and learning processes in state schools, such as rote learning, repetitive reading and recitation, and imitation. These similarities are understandable, given that Confucian and state schools are both influenced by Chinese traditional culture (Li 2012; Wang 2022a). However, these parents enrolled their children in Confucian education to free them from the examination-oriented state school system. It seems that the parents feel that Confucian education, as an alternative form of education outside the state system, contrasts with examination-oriented education. How can we explain this seeming contradiction in the parents’ perception of the relationship between Confucian education and state education? I argue that the key to understanding this contradiction is to uncover what suzhi means to these parents. The rhetoric of suzhi, rooted in the Confucian tradition, prioritizes the transformation of the individual (Kipnis 2006; Lin 2017; Wu and Devine 2018). This idea is consistent with the information provided by the parents interviewed, who argued that the examination-­ oriented state schooling system focused too much on their children’s intellectual development (zhiyu) and forced them to spend their time competing for external grades and rankings, but it failed to improve children’s internal moral qualities or instill an intrinsic love of learning. The parents believed that in contrast, Confucian education would contribute to students’ moral development and ethical self-transformation through an extensive study of classical literature.

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Parental Confidence in the Confucian Pedagogy of Memorization: Nationalism, Civility, and Middle-Class Families This section addresses the final driver of the preference for Confucian education expressed by the parental informants—their confidence in the pedagogy of memorization, which was intertwined with their sense of national identity. While a more detailed discussion of the evolving and complicated pedagogical reforms at the Confucian school is offered in Chaps. 4 and 5, in short, the parents’ confidence in the memorization-based pedagogy used in Confucian education underpinned their decision to transfer their children to a Confucian school. Overall, parents expected their children to read and memorize many classics as early as possible, believing that this mode of study would lay the moral and intellectual foundations for their children’s lives. The parents’ confidence in the Confucian pedagogy of memorization is based on their Chinese identities. As Dryburgh (2011) indicated, Chinese identity is rooted in shared traditions that have been shaped by Confucian thought. Given this, the parents’ engagement with Confucian culture could be ascribed to a nationalistic sense of shame arising from their lack of access to Confucian education when they were young. Mrs. Fan, for example, stated: I, a Chinese person, did not study the classics of our great ancestors when I was a child. Currently, I not only read classics myself but also require my daughter to do the same. (…) The more I read, the more I can absorb the wisdom of life from the classics.8

Similarly, when explaining why she wanted her son to learn Confucian classics, Mrs. Zhao stated, “I think today’s children have been estranged from Chinese traditional culture, which they should have learned from childhood. Therefore, I send my son to study Confucian classics.” Mr. Yan wanted his 11-year-old son to learn the classics because they “are insightful and thought-provoking, but we adults had no access to them when we were kids. What we did not learn must be learned now.” In multiple conversations, the parents explicitly conveyed their regret that Confucianism had been removed from official educational institutions in the early 8

 Interview in August 2015.

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twentieth century, which they thought deprived Chinese citizens of an essential part of their cultural heritage. In the words of some interviewed parents, “the classics are good things” (Mrs. Liu), “Chinese traditional culture is a priceless treasure” (Mr. Li), and “it is worth learning what has been handed down by our ancestors” (Mrs. Hua). The parents’ cultural preservation efforts can be understood as a response to globalization, which dialectically “evokes localization as its counterforce” (Hermans and Dimaggio 2007: 32). Actors living in a globalized world have to dynamically recover and reshape local values to encompass global values (McKenzie 2020). The parents’ feelings of shame and their condemnation of the removal of Confucianism from the state education system are seen in their pursuit of Confucian education for their children. Multiple parents described feeling a sense of desperate urgency after encountering Caigui Wang’s classical education theory. Two aspects of this theory strengthened the parents’ confidence in the Confucian pedagogy of memorization. The first was the timing of education. According to Wang (2014: 104–106), the years before 13 are the “golden memory period,” when one’s memory is strongest. Children should therefore make full use of this time to memorize as many classics as possible. One of the parents I interviewed, Mrs. Liu, described her sense of urgency as follows: My son was already nine years old when I happened to learn the theory [proposed by Caigui Wang]. (…) As soon as I heard it, I became apprehensive that my boy would miss this golden memory period if I did not send him to read the classics right now! I was concerned that it might be too late for him to memorize the classics at the age of nine.9

Mr. Zhong reported a similar experience: As soon as my son started the second semester of Year Five at the state primary school, I felt a powerful sense of urgency and was compelled to do something about his education. This feeling arose from one sentence by Caigui Wang, who said that if a child does not read the classics before the age of 13, he will have no hope of memorizing these texts later. Inspired by this argument, I persuaded my wife [that our son needed to receive Confucian schooling] and decided to transfer my boy out of his state school.10 9

 Interview in July 2015.  Interview in June 2015.

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The second factor strengthening parents’ confidence in the memorization pedagogy related to the teaching content. In a speech, Wang (2014: 55–57) criticized China’s modern vernacular (baihuawen) education, arguing that it does nothing but waste teachers’ time and ruin children’s lives. He proposed replacing the state education system with Confucian education, as classical Chinese (wenyanwen) is a high-level language enabling learners to grasp the profound wisdom it describes. One interviewed mother, Mrs. Chen, spoke about her response to Wang’s arguments, her voice trembling: Over and over again, I watched the videos of Caigui Wang’s speeches. The more I watched, the more desperate I felt. He said that if your child can read through the state-stipulated Chinese language textbook in one week and then recap it fluently, you will be unable to teach her anymore—to teach her would be to harm her. I was shocked by what he said and became extremely anxious. (…) My daughter does have an excellent memory. She could read through her entire Chinese textbook in only one day and easily repeat the content! (…) I told myself that a child like my daughter could no longer be wasted! I therefore started looking for a full-time Confucian school for her to read the classics.11

The notion of fuqi (literally “good fortune” or “benefit”), which has frequently appeared in Caigui Wang’s speeches, also strengthened the parents’ confidence in Confucian education. Wang (2014: 62) clarified the relationship between fuqi and parents’ educational responsibility as follows: The extent of one’s involvement in classic reading depends on how much fuqi one has. If a child has a lot of fuqi, he will be able to read many classics; if he has some fuqi, he will be able to read a few classics; but if he has hardly any fuqi, he will have no chance to read classics at all. (…) An adult can certainly produce fuqi by himself. But parents are responsible for making fuqi for their children.

The above quotation reveals two key implications of the idea of fuqi. First, one’s fuqi indicates their good luck in having a chance to read Confucian classics. Second, and more importantly, when a person has enough fortune to engage in Confucian education, they are responsible for producing their own fuqi through their actions. This second  Interview in August 2015.

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implication of fuqi echoes the Confucian individualistic idea of zide (“getting it by or for oneself”) (de Bary 1983: 45). I emphasize here how the Confucian individualism reified in the discourse of fuqi shapes the parents’ educational desires and actions. The notion of fuqi associates the motivations for parents’ actions with a sense of responsibility for their children’s education, implying that they are obliged to generate fuqi for their offspring by taking proactive action. This underlying meaning of fuqi resembles the neoliberal rhetoric around parenting that prioritizes parental responsibility and self-sufficiency, emphasizes parenting quality, and posits that there is a causal relationship between parenting and children’s educational outcomes (Budd 2005; Vincent 2017). Wang used the idea of fuqi to encourage parents to take responsibility for their children’s education, including by transferring their children from the state system to Confucian schools. Wang (2014) claimed that the educational goal of Confucian classical education is to cultivate great cultural talents (wenhua dacai), particularly philosophers and thinkers, politicians, and entrepreneurs (pp.  41–77). He emphasized that reading as many classics as possible forms the foundation for children to “become humans and talents” (pp. 119–120). Influenced by these ideas, the parents highlighted the extensive memorization of Confucian classics as the key to their children’s educational success. For example, Mrs. Chen believed that if a child can memorize 300,000 characters of classics, they will lay a solid foundation for developing themselves to become a great cultural talent. Mrs. Chen stated, “I came to dream that my daughter could achieve academic success like this.” She explained that she has the unshakable duty to make fuqi for her daughter and that she expects her daughter to become a Confucian-­ inspired scholar or businesswoman, adding that regardless of what job her daughter performs, “she must prioritize the reading of the classics during the next few years because it is the best way to lay the foundation for becoming a virtuous person, learn to behave properly, and find pleasure in studying.” Mrs. Chen said that she has confidence that her daughter would develop moral qualities after years of learning Confucian classics and that she would achieve career success in the future. In the same vein, Mrs. Liu was optimistic that her son would become “a person who rides the wave of success in the future” if he receives a strong Confucian education. She hopes that her son will learn ethical virtues through reading the classics and that he will set a good example for younger children.

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However, some parents expressed concern about the memorization-­ based pedagogy at Yiqian School. They worried that children who spent all their time merely memorizing the classics in an isolated schooling environment (Yiqian School is a boarding school) would be excluded from mainstream education and society as they grow up. This concern was voiced by Mrs. Hua, who had reenrolled her son in a state school at the time of her interview. She criticized the memorization method of Yiqian School and worried that it would educationally marginalize her son. She also noted that the goal of this pedagogical approach is to cultivate Confucian scholars (rushi), of whom there were few in ancient China and are few today. Although some interviewed parents expressed skepticism with the school’s pedagogy, most did not question Wang’s ideology. Indeed, through reading his articles and watching his speeches, the parents imitated Wang’s rhetorical style, copied his words and phrasing, and advocated his recommended method of memorization. This imitation of Caigui Wang’s ideas is rooted in the traditions of China’s exemplary society (see Bakken 2000) that have persisted for thousands of years. Additionally, I expand on two further aspects of the parents’ support for Confucian education, as influenced by Caigui Wang’s classics-reading theory. First, parents’ preference for the memorization-based pedagogy, as well as their underlying anxiety about their children’s moral development, is intertwined with the socialist regime’s ever-increasing public appreciation of and support for Chinese traditional culture (of which Confucianism is a core element). Some parents mentioned President Xi Jinping’s visit to the Confucius Institute in 2013,12 arguing that this was an explicit and strong signal that the socialist regime is strengthening its efforts to promote traditional culture. They were also happy that state schools have begun to pay more attention to traditional Chinese culture and increase the number of ancient poems and classical essays taught in Chinese language and literature courses throughout the nine years of compulsory education. Moreover, a few interviewees discussed their excitement that Tsinghua University, one of China’s top two universities, had implemented an independent admission policy to bring in “talented students for national

 See http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2014/0925/c164113-25731729.html (accessed on January 1, 2023). 12

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studies” (guoxue techangsheng) in 2015.13 I argue that the parents’ positive attitudes toward the socialist state’s efforts to revive traditional Chinese culture strengthened their identification with and support for Confucian education. For example, Mr. Feng acknowledged that enrolling his son in the study of Confucian classics was “compatible with the current governance ideology of the Chinese Communist Party” and therefore was “an absolutely correct and wise decision.” Moreover, he was sure that this decision aligned “with the trend of Chinese cultural development” and would put his child “one step ahead of his peer group in learning about traditional culture.” The second aspect of the parents’ preference for a Confucian pedagogy is related to the rising number of middle-class families. I adopt this social-­ class perspective to further explore the parents’ desire for their children’s educational success. Scholarship (Kipnis 2011a; Naftali 2016; Wu and Devine 2018) shows that middle-class families are heavily invested in their offspring’s educational success and have anxiety about maintaining their social status or achieving upward social mobility. Middle-class families, however, have more economic, social, and cultural capital than working-­ class families (Bourdieu 1984, 1986), which gives them an advantage in China’s competitive educational landscape (Hong and Zhao 2014; Carlson and Hans 2017; Wu 2008). The majority of the parents interviewed came from urban, middle-class families, had graduated from institutes of higher education, and had enough money to afford the tuition fees at a private Confucian school. In addition to these objective criteria for measuring the parents’ middle-­ class backgrounds, I highlight the subjective elements of their cultural,  According to an independent admission policy, some elite Chinese universities are authorized to independently admit a maximum of 5% of the total number of undergraduates per year and to implement a separate selective examination for high school graduates before the nationwide gaokao (national college entrance examination). Students with special talents are favored by these self-administered entrance examinations. Those who succeed in this examination can receive pre-admission eligibility or score reductions, determined at the discretion of different universities. In 2015, Tsinghua University included a selective examination specifically for “talented students for national studies” in its independent admission program, which aimed to admit up to ten students. It should be noted that Tsinghua’s policy does not target students at Confucian classical schools, and students from these schools who may want to attend Tsinghua’s self-administered entrance examination must also take the gaokao with counterparts from state schools.  13

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moral, and spiritual tastes. Middle-class parents enroll their children in Confucian schools to develop their children’s moral qualities, social civilities, and behavioral patterns through the extensive study of classical literature. I argue that these parents’ pursuit of Confucian moral education is a method through which to signal social differentiation and establish a cultural hierarchy. According to Rocca (2015), the rise of middle-class elites in China has intensified the national interest in traditional Chinese culture, reflected in this group’s appreciation of classical ethics and aesthetics, consumption of traditional cultural products, payments to attend courses on national studies (guoxue), and efforts to live their lives by Confucian standards (see also Hammond and Richey 2015; Murray 2015). By engaging in these “traditional” activities, these middle-class individuals can improve their suzhi (qualities) and wenming (civilities), confirming their socio-­ cultural identities and distinguishing themselves from members of the working class (Rocca 2015: 90–91). In the interviews, however, parents made no references to themselves in terms of social class, which may be because of discomfort with discussing class  directly. Nevertheless, the data presented above demonstrate the middle-class educational aspirations of these parents. The parents regarded moral educational achievement as the most important criterion on which to assess the quality of teaching and learning across all types of educational institutions. As such, I use a class perspective to argue that parents’ narratives and practices reinforce social distinctions, where “[T]he distinction between bad and good manners follows the line of social hierarchy. Bad manners are those displayed by people at the bottom of the society and good manners are those displayed by people situated above” (Rocca 2017: 125). Therefore, the engagement of these Chinese middle-class parents in the revival of Confucian education can be seen as an ongoing process of civilization (Elias 1991), where the distinctions between social classes and the classification of individuals within social classes are (re)produced (Rocca 2017) by drawing the dividing lines between good and bad manners, high and low suzhi, and superior and inferior lifestyles.

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Dis-embedding from State Schools: From Straddlers to Breakers I have described three key reasons why the parents interviewed sent their children to Confucian schools: critique of the state education system based on an anti-instrumentalist ideology, dislike of the examination-oriented state education system, and confidence in the memorization-based Confucian pedagogy. This section discusses the actions that the parents took to disconnect themselves from the state education system. These disconnecting actions, motivated by a thirst for Confucian virtues, are a form of “dis-embedding,” one of the three components of the individualization thesis, as clarified in Chap. 2. In the context of Confucian education, disembedding is understood as a process whereby parents and their children transform themselves from “straddlers,” or participants in both regular and Confucian educations, to “breakers,” who are largely disconnected from state schools. During the “straddling” period, the parents asked their children to read Confucian classics as an extracurricular activity while continuing to study at a state school. Children studied the classics at home with one or both parents, attended a weekend tutorial class, or participated in summer or winter classics study camps.14 Mr. Li, for example, sent his son to study Confucian classics at a local study hall (xuetang) every weekend until his transfer to Yiqian. “I read classics with my son,” he said. “No matter the weather, we went to the study hall every Saturday and Sunday.” He began working as a volunteer (yigong) in the study hall to further engage his son in the study of the classics. Some parents also organized independent parent–child co-reading classes (qinzi gongdu ban). Mrs. Lu was an organizer of these classes in her community. The purpose of the classes was to bring together peers with whom her son could learn about 14  Many Confucian schools across China hold intensive Confucian classics camps during summer or winter. Yiqian School regularly organizes a one-month classics summer camp from July to August. These types of summer camps attract students from state schools, who come to learn and memorize classics in a relatively short period of time. In 2015, the Yiqian School summer camp fee was 5000 RMB (equivalent to about 700 USD), which covered the tuition and accommodation fees for the whole month. The summer camp was a useful recruitment tool for Yiqian School, as some children would transfer into full-time study after the classics reading camp. The school also suggested that those interested in pursuing fulltime Confucian study attend the summer camp to adapt first to the learning environment and to life on campus.

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Confucianism in a friendly and encouraging environment where children and parents could read the classics. Many parents, however, acknowledged that these extracurricular classics studies often increased children’s already excessive schoolwork loads. The parents also felt that the part-time approach only allowed their children to memorize a small number of classics. When discussing this part-­ time study experience, Mrs. Song stated that she asked her son, who was then in Year Two at the state school, to read classics for two hours each day, one hour in the morning before going to school and one hour in the evening after school. She acknowledged that at first, her son did not like reading the classics and could not sit still, and she intensified her management and supervision of her son’s study schedule. As a result, she found that her son often finished the homework from his state school after ten o’clock at night, so she told her son to prioritize reading the classics over regular schoolwork. This approach was not sustainable, so she began searching for a full-time Confucian school. Following a friend’s recommendation, she transferred her son to Yiqian School. Mrs. Fan had a similar experience with balancing part-time Confucian study and state school attendance. She tutored her daughter in the classics after school but quickly realized that her daughter struggled with the doubled workload. She, like Mrs. Song, told her daughter, “Reading the classics is something you must do. I can allow you to skip the schoolwork when necessary.” Her daughter resisted this compromise. Mrs. Fan stated: My daughter often complained, “My classmates do not read classics, but I have to!” (…) Indeed, she was among the few students who read classics at that time. (…) She took the teacher’s requirements very seriously, so she always tried her best to finish her schoolwork. But I was increasingly concerned that if the situation continued, her time for reading classics would continue to decrease and she would become more and more exhausted.15

One solution to this dilemma, as the interviewed parents disclosed, was to give up the “straddling” approach and transfer their children to a full-­ time Confucian school. Ten of the seventeen interviewed parents, however, admitted that they encountered opposition to this decision from family members, such as their partners or parents. Multiple parents reported being caught in protracted, bitter quarrels with family members  Interview in August 2015.

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about whether to transfer their children from the state school into full-­ time classics study. Some of these debates were so severe that they pushed couples to the brink of divorce. When speaking about familial opposition to sending his child to a Confucian school, Mr. Li stated: I am currently very concerned that my wife and father-in-law (…) will continue to exert pressure and that this will cause me to give up on my child’s classical education. (…) My wife thinks it is risky to have a child read classics outside the regular school system and ridicules me. My father-in-law (…) does not sympathize with me either. (…) He strongly opposes my decision to take the child out of the state school.16

Mrs. Hua withdrew her son from Yiqian School because of a promise she made to her in-laws to return her son to the state school after two years of full-time Confucian study. Mr. Zhong similarly mentioned that his relationship with his father had worsened since he transferred his son from a state school to the Confucian school. For many informants, disputes with family members continued throughout the entirety of their children’s classics study, indicating continued opposition by family members to parents’ alternative schooling decisions. The informants clarified that family members did not question the value of Confucian classics in general, but were opposed to full-time enrollment in Yiqian School because of the accommodations, the social reputation of Confucian education, and the lack of an academic certificate. Additionally, many parents indicated that the whole family, rather than individual parents, paid the tuition fees for their children’s Confucian education. These observations suggest that family relationships impact individual parents’ decisions to dis-embed from state education. In other words, while an individual parent’s educational preferences play a significant role in engaging their children in full-time classical education, their partners, parents, and parents-in-law have a huge impact on this choice as well. This finding contributes to the discussion on whether the dynamics of individualization result in a family becoming a fragile or disintegrated unit (Beck and Lau 2005). In this context, family bonds and commitments retain their underlying influence on individualized Chinese actors’ behavioral patterns, social relationships, and ethical values (Qi 2016; Yan 2021).  Interview in May 2015.

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Furthermore, the parents did not completely distance themselves from state power and regulation. For example, parents were concerned about authorized school registration (xueji) or a child’s official status as a student affiliated with a state-accredited school. A nationally unified school registration information system for all primary and secondary schools was introduced across China in September 2013.17 Through this national information system, each student has an exclusive lifetime student number that follows him/her if he/she changes schools. All parents interviewed admitted that either they or their family members were worried about school registration when children were taken out of state schools. This concern was more intense among parents who sent their children to Yiqian School before 2014, when the school had not established an online school registration system  and, therefore,  parents encountered obstacles when transferring their children from state schools. To gain additional insight into this matter, I interviewed Mr. Huang, who worked as a section chief (kezhang) in the local education bureau of the county in which Yiqian School is located. He confirmed that many students at Yiqian School did not register and had no student numbers before 2014. He also indicated that Yiqian School did not have its own independent school registration system because of its relatively small number of students. Instead, its students were registered with (guakao) a local public primary school. With this background, we can understand why Mrs. Lan and her partner were extremely concerned about their son’s registration when transferring to Yiqian School. Mrs. Lan said: When I sent my son to Yiqian, the headteacher told me that their students had no approved registration number. This made me extremely anxious. Why did I do it so blindly?! My friend said this meant that my boy would become an “illegal student” who could neither register at this Confucian school nor return to the state school ever again. I was extremely worried at that time.18

Mrs. Lan even tried to mobilize her guanxi (relationships or connections) to persuade her son’s state school to retain his registration number after his transfer, although this failed. The school registration and the associated student number were crucial to Mrs. Lan because they would affect 17  See http://china.cnr.cn/ygxw/201308/t20130822_513390152.shtml (Accessed on December 28, 2022). 18  Interview in July 2015.

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the availability of degree certificates for her son and were necessary for him to progress to the next stage of his education. A small number of parents stated that they were not concerned about issues around school registration and degree certificates because they expected that their children would continue with Confucian education and would not return to state schools. However, most parents stated that these factors influenced their plans for their children’s educational future, a topic that is elaborated on in Chap. 6. I argue that the parents’ concern about school registration reveals their ambivalence toward the state education system. Despite their criticisms of the system, the parents were concerned with obtaining state-recognized schooling status. They were empowered to send their children to alternative Confucian schools but remained dependent on the state system for the later stages of their children’s educations. These ambiguous feelings about the state education system are reflective of the divided self, a term used by Arthur Kleinman (2011) to describe the ambivalence of contemporary Chinese individuals in their dealings with socialist state power. In the interviews, I rarely heard parents complain about the government, nor did they intend to pressure the state to resolve the school registration issue. In contrast, they likened their children to “lab rats” in an ongoing educational experiment, implying that failure was sometimes inevitable and that they would have to deal with the consequences. The interviewed parents tended to blame themselves rather than the restrictive political conditions of the Chinese education system for the uncertainties surrounding their children’s schooling. This self-­ accusatory approach has been noted in other studies about the rise of Chinese individuals (Hansen 2015). These parents’ introspective way of dealing with the political authority when enrolling their children in alternative educational institutions reflects the Neo-Confucian individualistic notion of ziren or the idea that one must take full responsibility for one’s own actions (de Bary 1983: 45). To conclude, the parents interviewed hoped to disrupt the state monopoly on education and to transfer their children to full-time study in an alternative Confucian school. However, they could not completely distance themselves from the state school system, as they relied on school registration numbers and degree certificates provided by the state system. The choice to enroll children in alternative schools therefore appears to be contradictory: it seems to be an independent choice but is still managed

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and regulated by the state education system. This argument brings us back to the discussion of Chinese individualization. The finding that parents held few critical opinions of the state, despite their disappointment with the state education system, reveals the particularities of China’s “party-­ state managed individualization” (Yan 2009b) or “authoritarian individualization” (Hansen 2015) (see Chap. 2). In the Chinese context, parents critical of the state education system remain subject to the state’s power and are limited in their ability to exercise self-choice and autonomy within the political constraints imposed by the party-state.

Summary This chapter explores the complexities of parents’ engagement with Confucian education with a focus on analyzing  the “dis-embedding” dimension of the Confucian education revival through the lens of the individualization thesis. The chapter presents and analyzes parents’ decisions to send their children to a Confucian school, arguing for the rise of critical parents in today’s China. The accounts reveal that parents’ desire for their children to learn Confucian ethical virtues and improve their moral suzhi empowers them to criticize the state education system and send their children to alternative schools. However, the confusion and hesitancy expressed by parents toward this change demonstrates their dependency upon the state education system and their ambivalent attitude toward state control over education (further discussion in Chap. 6). Moreover, family relations and an urban middle-class family background also impact how parents navigate their children’s involvement in Confucian education. The findings discussed in this chapter suggest that the spirit of Confucian individualism encourages parents to seek alternative education even when they encounter institutional paradoxes. I refer to these parents as “Confucian individuals,” broadly defined as people who are indoctrinated in Confucian teachings and who make decisions as independent actors governed by Confucian ethical codes to participate in Confucianism-­ related activities, such as classical education. This chapter discusses two specific notions of Confucian individualism in its classification of parents as Confucian individuals (de Bary 1983): zide (getting something by or for oneself), reflected in parents’ confidence in the memorization-based Confucian pedagogy and their push to engage their children in full-time study of Confucian classics, and ziren (bearing the responsibility oneself), which is embodied in parents’ introspective approach to dealing with the

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uncertainties, risks, and negative consequences of their children’s Confucian education. Furthermore, the findings of this chapter demonstrate the complexities inherent in the formation of a Confucian individual through parents’ narratives about why they chose Confucian education for their children. First, parents, as Confucian individuals, demonstrated a critical attitude toward state education. Their criticism was based on an anti-instrumentalist ideology toward state schooling and its examination-oriented pedagogy. I highlight the role of this critique in shaping the parents’ individual self. As Foucault (1997) explained, critique is an art “[of not being governed] like that, by that, in the name of those principles, with such and such an objective in mind and by means of such procedures, not like that, not for that, not by them” (p. 28; original italics). While modern subjects cannot use critique to extricate themselves completely from power relations, they can achieve a certain degree of freedom by navigating power relations in ways that attempt to minimize constraints (Taylor 2011). As such, I argue that parents who advocate for Confucian schooling emerge as critical citizens who reflect on how not to be governed by the power of state education, although they may still be governed by other forms of power (e.g., the power of Caigui Wang’s Confucian education theory) (see also Wang 2022b, 2022c, 2023). In this sense, critique is an “emancipatory practice” (Taylor 2011: 180) through which parents articulate their aversion to state schools, cast doubt on the value traditionally ascribed to mainstream schooling, and actualize their commitment to an alternative mode of education, Confucian schooling. I highlight the theoretical significance of the rise of parents critical of the state education system. Critical parents are not uncommon in China, and most of these parents can afford to send their children to international schools within and outside China as a pathway to Western universities (Wright et al. 2021). It is therefore important to emphasize that for the parents interviewed, criticism of state education is intertwined with their desire for their children to develop moral suzhi, a quality inspired by Confucianism. Secondly, the critical parents, as Confucian individuals, were reluctant to completely detach from the state education system, indicating that the apparently independent decision to choose Confucian education is still subject to the underlying influence of state power. For example, many parents interviewed expressed their deep concerns about whether their children could still hold a valid school registration status and acquire a

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state-recognized degree certificate by studying Confucian classics. For more details, please refer to Chap. 6, which discusses the institutional constraints that parents face when returning their children to state schools. In addition, despite their criticism of the Chinese state education system, the parents did not challenge the authority of the Chinese Community Party. They spoke highly of the socialist state’s positive and tolerant attitude toward Confucianism and Confucian education. Given this, I argue that the critical mentality of parents toward state education is intertwined with their dependence on the general state school system. As Confucian individuals, critical parents are therefore not detached from the power of the state in the context of contemporary China. The family and social class are the third and fourth factors affecting the development of critical parents as Confucian individuals. I find that parents faced opposition from their family members when they took their children out of state schools. Parents’ desire to cultivate the Confucian ethical virtue of zuoren illustrates the importance placed on family-­oriented values such as respect and care for elders. The majority of the parents interviewed came from urban, middle-class families, and their desire for Confucian morals can be interpreted as this emerging social class utilizing Confucian resources to drive the moral development of their children. They used the rhetoric of suzhi to both further their children’s moral cultivation and distinguish themselves from other social groups (Rocca 2015, 2017). As such, I argue that family-related elements (e.g., family relations and values) and social status still play a meaningful role in parents’ engagement with Confucian education. In addition, it should be noted that these middle-class parents’ desire to cultivate Confucian moral qualities in their children is deeply rooted in the public sense of moral anxiety that has permeated Chinese society. The implementation of market-oriented reforms and opening-up policies in the late 1970s prompted a moral shift in China from collective values of responsibility and self-sacrifice to a more individualistic morality that emphasizes individual rights and self-cultivation (Yan 2011). Scholars have argued that the conflict between collective and individualistic values has resulted in a widespread moral crisis in Chinese society (Kleinman 2011; Yan 2009a). Scholars have also posited that the individualization accommodated by Chinese society contains an incomplete or unbalanced comprehension of individualism, partially understood as utilitarian individualism or simply selfishness (Yan 2009b). This conceptual bias has created an egoistic and uncivil image of the Chinese individual and has

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amplified “the negative aspects of individualization, such as the relentless individual competition and decline of social trust” (Yan 2009b: 289). In response to this rise in selfish individualism, Confucian education has experienced a revival in China since the early 2000s (Wang 2022a). Some Chinese parents now expect their children to study Confucian classics to learn how to behave appropriately and to develop refined cultural tastes to counteract the negative effects of individualism (Billioud and Thoraval 2015). To conclude, this chapter uses empirical data drawn from interviews with parents and children engaged in Confucian education to discuss the concept of the “Confucian individual.” The conceptualization of a Confucian individual refers not only to the critical parents but also to the students who are educated on Confucian classics and ethics. The questions arise: What concrete teaching and learning practices are applied in the Confucian school to cultivate students to become Confucian individuals? What are the characteristics of Confucian learners? These issues are explored in the next two chapters.

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CHAPTER 4

Inventing an Individualized Approach to Memorization: Debates, Reforms, and Contradictions

Introduction This chapter, along with the next Chap. 5, presents the specific narratives and practices of teaching and learning the classics in everyday school life at Yiqian School. The current chapter focuses on pedagogical individualization, which refers to the process of changing from an authoritarian, collectivist teaching system to an individualistic system in which students’ autonomy and independence in their learning and personality formation and skills of self-development, self-regulation, and self-management are increasingly valued and emphasized. In the context of Confucian education, the dynamics of pedagogical individualization have resulted in widespread debates over dujing (reading the classics) and driven educational reforms toward the individualized approach to memorizing Confucian classics within Yiqian School. This chapter mainly investigates the narratives of Yiqian School’s leaders regarding the debates, reforms, and contradictions of Confucian classical education, which has been subject to the dynamics of pedagogical individualization. It thereby lays an intellectual foundation for the pedagogical activities described in the next chapter. The chapter begins by reviewing two early debates over dujing in modern Chinese history—one in the 1930s and one in the 2000s—to build up a historical background to the contemporary debate. It then describes the contemporary and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_4

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ongoing debate over dujing, revealing three controversial issues: the relationship between educational principles and methods, historical legitimacy, and linguistic Chineseness. This recent debate over dujing has had a direct impact on Yiqian School and encouraged it to implement a set of pedagogical reforms toward a method of individualized memorization of the classics under the name of “Confucianism.” Notably, the invented pedagogy of individualized memorization combines two paradoxical knowledge sources  of Confucian education: the individualized teaching principle and the method of extensive and repetitive memorization of the classics. The self-contradiction of this hybrid approach is revealed in the actual teaching activities at Yiqian School.

Two Debates on dujing (Reading the Classics) in Modern China In this section, I present two nationwide debates on dujing (reading the classics) in modern Chinese history, one in 1934 and one in 2004. This historical review of dujing can contribute to a more profound understanding of the ins and outs of the third debate, which is still ongoing in contemporary China and has resulted in the pedagogical individualization at Yiqian School, as shown in the next sections. Since the early twentieth century, dujing has become a highly debatable topic in China, closely connected with the grand narratives of national survival and state modernization. Influenced by stubborn anti-traditional ideology since the early 1900s, the ideological trend of pursuing modernization and eliminating Confucian classics dominated the ethos (Gong 2008: 2). Dujing was abolished with two milestone occurrences: (1) the abolition of the imperial examination system (kejuzhi) in 1905, which meant that Confucian intellectuals lost their institutional route to upward mobility via the study of Confucian classics; and (2) the abrogation of requiring students to learn classics in primary schools in 1911, which officially negated the legitimacy of Confucian education (Wang 2009: 4). Further destruction of  Confucian classical education resulted from the launch of the New Culture Movement in the mid-1910s, when modern Chinese intellectuals condemned Confucianism (dujing included) as “feudalistic,” “backward,” and “decayed” and considered it to fail to rescue the nation of China from crisis or build a rich and mighty nation-state. The particular impact was felt in the 1920s when the government

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compelled students at the stage of primary education to change their study to writings in vernacular Chinese (baihua wen) from those in classical Chinese (wenyan wen). In brief, Confucian classical education was seen as an impediment to saving the Chinese nation (zhonghua minzu). Hence, modern Chinese intellectuals argued that only by excluding dujing education and Confucian culture could China avoid being destroyed and achieve modernization. Confucian education encountered a severe challenge at the dawn of the twentieth century, which resulted in the creation of new-style modern schools. However, there remained a considerable number of sishu (old-­ style small private schools)1 that occupied an important position in the primary school system, particularly in the vast, remote rural areas, even though they suffered from innovative reforms to integrate elements of “traditional and modern, old and new, and Western and Chinese” (VanderVen 2012: 56; see also Jia 2002). Relevant to this situation, supporters of dujing and Confucianism never disappeared. In 1913, some Chinese intellectuals such as Kang Youwei and Chen Huanzhang, two influential Confucian ideologists then, submitted a petition to the Senate and the House of Commons and formally proposed that “Confucianism must be designated as the state religion in the Constitution” (Zeng 2013: 63–71). While the parliament ultimately rejected this proposition, it promoted the first influential movement of esteeming Confucius and reading the classics (zunkong dujing) in modern China. Unfortunately, this movement ended up with failure in company with the abortion of restoring the monarchy by Yuan Shikai.2 However, from then on, Chinese intellectuals were increasingly aware of the positive value of Chinese traditional culture (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 31–32), and this trend was apparently different from the original anti-traditional ideology. This change in cultural attitude was related to the political contingencies at that time. In 1931, the September 18th Incident, in which Japanese troops invaded and occupied Northeast China, made many Chinese people pessimistic about their national fate. On this occasion, conservative intellectuals thought of adopting dujing as an educational approach to restore national 1  In the following sections, I use the pinyin “sishu” as the Chinese abbreviation of “oldstyle small private schools” for the sake of conciseness. 2  In December 1915, Yuan declared himself to be the emperor and changed the title of the state to “Chinese Empire” (Zhonghua diguo 中华帝国). However, all other parties rapidly raised strong opposition to him. Consequently, only 83 days later, Yuan was forced to step down, signifying the failure to restore the monarchy.

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confidence,3 but this immediately incurred objections from liberalists. Consequently, a national debate erupted over the necessity and usefulness of learning Confucian classics. In 1934, He Bingsong, a historian who then worked as editor-in-chief of Education Magazine (Jiaoyu zazhi), sent more than 100 letters to educational experts soliciting their views on dujing. He later compiled more than 70 replies into a special issue of Education Magazine in 1935 and summarized the responses as follows: All people agree that dujing can be a specialist study but do not think it necessary to make it a compulsory subject in either primary or secondary schools. (He 2008: 10)

Referring to the abovementioned discrepancies, He classified the comments into three broad categories: absolute proponents of dujing, relative proponents or relative opponents, and absolute opponents. There were merely ten “absolute proponents” or “absolute opponents,” whereas the relativists were the majority but varied in degree. As He (2008: 10) explained: “While some proposed that [students] start reading the classics in primary school, others [supported students to engage in classics study] starting in secondary school or even university.” Regardless of the nuances of these categories,4 most commentators focused on the value of classical literature per se and disagreed over the necessity or usefulness of reading the classics from childhood onward. Their fundamental divergence rested on “whether classical texts still have a moral attribute” (You 2008: 423). Echoing the 1934 debate, another nationwide discussion about dujing occurred in 2004. I argue that the two contests share conspicuous similarities regardless of their different historical conditions. The more recent dispute was ignited by the publication of a 12-volume series called Chinese Cultural Classical Textbooks for Elementary Education (Zhonghua wenhua 3  Billioud and Thoraval (2015: 33–34, 181–182) pointed out that the changing political circumstances also generated new attempts to use Confucianism as a tool of social and ideological control. One typical example is the New Life Movement (Xin shenghuo yundong), which was launched by the Nanjing nationalist government in 1934, with the primary aim of cultivating behavioral standards and civic responsibility among citizens through the reappropriation of traditional Chinese moral values. They indicated that the broad debate on dujing in 1934 should be observed within the context of the New Life Movement. 4  Billioud and Thoraval (2015: 33–34) presented a more detailed introduction to both positions in the 1934 debate.

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jingdian jichu jiaoyu songben) in late 2004, edited by Jiang Qing, a representative scholar of so-called Mainland Neo-Confucianism (Dalu xinrujia). Once published, the textbooks soon stirred up a national debate about dujing in academia, mass media, and civil society. In 2005, a book that collected various views to show the panorama of the discussion was published (Hu 2005). In light of this edited book, opponents of dujing criticized proponents for “cultural conservatism towards ignorance” and argued that the mechanical approach of learning classics would merely turn students into “nerds” (shudaizi) who lacked the capability of critical thinking (Xue 2005b: 41–44). On the other hand, advocates of dujing satirized their adversaries for “obscurantism under the guise of modernization” and “rational vainglory and ego-centricity,” and as merely inheriting the anti-traditional stereotype since the May Fourth Movement (Qiufeng 2005: 45–47). I summarize four features shared by both parties in the 2004 debate. Firstly, comments on both sides were based on a dual framework of enlightenment (qimeng) versus ignorance (mengmei), with the content of classical literature at the core. Secondly, both parties located arguments in the intellectual history of modern China and struggled to discover the touchpoint of traditional dujing and modern values. Thirdly, most discussions had a philosophical flavor, lacking sufficient attention to the pedagogical practice in actual Confucian classical education institutions. Fourthly and lastly, the disputes mainly occurred in mass media, such as newspapers, and the majority of participants were scholars. Linking the two debates in 1934 and 2004, I refer to the following passage by Billioud and Thoraval (2015: 34), who showed that both controversies reflect the (…) tension between shaping the child and a liberal education; tension between the authoritarian jiaohua [cultivation] of the citizen and ideals of construction of the self-anchored in modern and humanistic Confucianism; finally, tension between intellectual and practical ways of relating to appropriated Confucian texts.

I propose two more specific points related to this chapter’s discussion. First, I find that both debates paid extensive attention to the value of classical texts per se as well as their potential interlocking with building a powerful and modern China. There were indeed comments criticizing the method of obliging children to memorize classics mechanically in the

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1934 debate (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 34). A few commentators also raised the methodological issue in 2004 (see Wang 2005: 84–87), which, however, did not become the core topic throughout the discussion. Additionally, Xue Yong’s subsequent reply to Qiufeng alluded to the importance of shifting the focus of the discussion to the pedagogic methods of how to read the classics but did not receive the latter’s feedback (Xue 2005a: 48–50). Nonetheless, participants involved in the two debates, whether proponents or opponents, optimists or pessimists, generally took it for granted that ancient “Chinese” or “Confucian” education5 must employ a homogeneous teaching approach, that is, rote memorization. The second point is that arguers in both debates presupposed that dujing was tantamount to the entire system of traditional “Chinese” or “Confucian” education,6 regardless of their different attitudes toward traditional texts, notwithstanding that the former should actually be part of the latter. When participants mentioned dujing, it was as if talking about the sweeping category of “Chinese” or “Confucian” education. For example, in the 1934 debate, conservatives regarded the revival of Confucian and Mencian teachings (Kongmeng zhidao) through dujing as a good recipe for rescuing society from moral decline and the state from national crisis (Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 33). Meanwhile, opponents raised critiques that did not discriminate between dujing and ancient “Chinese” or “Confucian” education as a whole; they merely emphasized that dujing and Confucianism, both as the cultural leftovers of the old time, were irreconcilable with modern values and thus unable to contribute to China’s modernization (You 2008: 424). The same situation occurred in 2004 when both sides treated dujing as a synonym for ancient “Chinese” or “Confucian” pedagogies. Concomitantly, the only difference between the parties was that in contrast to the opponents’ criticism of dujing failing to cultivate modern citizens as effectively as modern Western education (Xue 2005b), the advocates defended the educative function of dujing in modern society (Qiufeng 2005). 5  I put the two terms in quotation marks because, as I will show in the following analysis, so-called Chinese or Confucian education is more of an assertion or imagination of identity than an objective reality. 6  Admittedly, ancient “Chinese” education cannot be equated with “Confucian” education, as the former also includes pedagogies of Taoism and Buddhism, which corresponds to the fact that Chinese culture comprises not only Confucianism but also Taoism and Buddhism. However, I do not see disputants show explicit intention to differentiate between “Chinese” and “Confucian” education in their narratives.

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However, the above two points have been challenged in the contemporary debate on Confucian classical education, which has directly impacted the pedagogical individualization and teaching reforms at Yiqian School, as presented in the next sections. Two tit-for-tat arguments are raised. The first is that the methodological uncertainty of how to read the classics has become the predominant issue throughout the most recent controversy. In particular, rote memorization is blamed for going against the principle (dao) of ancient Chinese education. Second, the current debate explicitly differentiates the single part of dujing from the comprehensive system of ancient Chinese education, indicating that the latter actually covers a broader range of content than merely reading the classics. The next two sections are to expound on these arguments using the interview data with Mr Chen, the founder and headteacher of Yiqian School, whose ideas have exerted a big influence on the school’s pedagogical individualization, reflecting the continuous diversification of Confucian classical education in today’s China.

The Recent Debate Over Dujing in Contemporary China This section and the next investigate the nationwide debate over dujing that has been going on since the 2010s in China, which has had a direct impact on Yiqian School’s teaching style. Dujing education has in fact faced criticism since the very beginning of its revival in the mid-1990s, initially from scholars, the media, and the general public but then also from its practitioners (e.g., Confucian school founders, teachers, and parents). Unlike the preceding two periods of debate, which were dominated by intellectuals, the current debate therefore involves a number of participants from the emerging domain of Confucian classical education who have firsthand experience in teaching and learning Confucian classics. Accordingly, as shown in this and the subsequent sections, this ongoing debate attends to various concrete pedagogical issues in the study of Confucian classics. In the Introduction of this book, I have outlined the rejuvenation of Confucian classical or dujing education since the mid-1990s, as initiated and promoted by Caigui Wang. After more than a decade of development, this re-established Confucian classical education reached its peak in the 2010s. Although official statistics are lacking, estimates by some scholars

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(Billioud 2021; Wang 2018, 2022, 2023) indicate that over 3000 old-­ style private schools (sishu), study halls (xuetang), and academies (shuyuan) have been established across China; thousands of students (from 6 to 15 years old, the age range corresponding to compulsory education) have been enrolled in the full-time study of Confucian classics; and over 100 million people across the world—children and adults—have taken to reading the classics (see also Wang 2014: 13–16). However, criticism of Wang’s dujing education has never ceased, neither in the mass media (e.g., Cai 2016; Dai 2016; Jia 2016; Wei 2016; Yao 2016; Zhang 2016) nor among scholars (e.g., Liu 2004; Liu 2011; Wang 2016, 2017b). Two significant events are worth mentioning in this regard. The first is a news report (Zhang 2014) published in a mainstream Chinese newspaper, Southern Weekly (Nanfang zhoumo), on September 5th, 2014, which revealed that the dujing education movement across the country had suffered a clear decline in student enrollment due to its failure to cultivate in students the expected moral qualities of virtuous persons (junzi). Showing that numerous private Confucian schools or sishu had given up Caigui Wang’s dujing theory after years of practicing it, the report concluded that the contemporary Confucian classical education movement had reached a crucial turning point. The second incident creating a predicament for dujing education was incited by a Chinese scholar of Confucian studies, Xiaogang Ke, who directly and publicly attacked Wang’s dujing theory for overemphasizing the educational function of rote memorization and denounced this approach as a poisonous method of learning the classics (Ke 2017: 284–305). These two events served as the direct and immediate trigger for intense debates over dujing in contemporary China and pedagogical reflection, diversification, and individualization in the domain of Confucian education. Notably, this contemporary debate has involved a large number of participants from within the circle of Confucian classical education. Although some practitioners still believe with certainty in Wang’s theory of dujing education, many have begun to reflect on the method, process, and effectiveness of classics study based on their personal teaching and learning experiences. The involvement of practitioners is one fundamental feature of the current debate that makes it different from those in 1934 and 2004, when scholars rather than practitioners of classical education raised arguments based on philosophical knowledge rather than hands-on teaching experience. Nevertheless, I do not mean to imply that the mass media or intellectuals have been absent from the contemporary debate.

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For example, the two abovementioned incidents were ignited by criticism not from within the dujing circle but from outside: from a newspaper report and a university professor. The contemporary debate about dujing not only occurs in academia but also extends to civil society and involves individual citizens of different social strata. Many participants are practitioners of classical education, including Confucian school founders, teaching staff working in study halls or academies, parents who teach their children to read the classics, and the youths who engaged in classics study when they were younger but have now grown up. They commonly believe in classical literature’s cultural and educative values, arguing that dujing contributes to one’s moral enhancement and personal perfection. Nonetheless, they are far from agreeing on what methods are best for students to approach the learning of classical literature. Their divergent and public discussion on the methodological validity and effectiveness of studying Confucianism is an important driving force behind the pedagogical individualization and diversification in Confucian classical education. I do not suggest that this methodological contention appears for the first time in the contemporary debate, but rather that it stands out much more conspicuously than in 1934 and 2004, as clarified in the preceding section. It is important to mention that Caigui Wang’s dujing theory has profoundly influenced many practitioners involved in the recent debate. Many even implemented this kind of educational “experiment”7 from as early as 2002, shortly after Wang’s “centenary shock” speech in 2001 (see Wang 2014). However, after years of practicing his dujing education, quite a few practitioners ultimately gave it up because of the insurmountable difficulties they encountered in teaching; they turned instead to pursue alternative types of Confucian-inspired pedagogy (see, e.g., Wu 2016, 2017). When involved in the debate, they point out the merits and drawbacks of dujing education primarily based on their years of educational practice. In this section and the next, I do not aim to draw an overall and sweeping picture of the heterogeneities of the recent debate. Rather, I take a case study approach to focus on one typical practitioner of classical education, Mr Chen, the founder and headteacher of Yiqian School, and analyze his narratives of criticizing Caigui Wang’s dujing pedagogy, which he once 7  Interestingly, this term was frequently used by many practitioners of Confucian classical education to describe what they are doing, implying that this movement of dujing education is still in development and far from reaching a final verdict.

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loyally followed. In so doing, I aim to go into the details of the current discussion on dujing, demonstrate its complexities and nuances, and, more importantly, establish an ideological reference to the reforms of pedagogical individualization that occurred in Yiqian School, as to be shown later in this chapter. Mr Chen is among the earliest practitioner of Wang’s dujing theory in the Chinese mainland. As early as 2002, he began to engage his son in classics study by following Wang’s pedagogy, that is, to read the classics simply and extensively. A few years later, he opened up a small sishu enrolling full-time students to learn Confucian classics. As a loyal follower of Caigui Wang, Mr Chen accumulated a wealth of practical experience in dujing education, enjoyed firm prestige within the dujing domain, and was even praised by Wang in public speeches. Moreover, Mr. Chen pioneered the current debate. Since the fall of 2012, he has started to rethink the schooling  problems appeared  in his practice of Confucian classical education. In 2013, he posted a few articles on a BBS called Global Classics-reading Education (Quanqiu dujing jiaoyu), an important virtual space in the dujing domain, founded by Caigui Wang, in which Mr. Chen incisively pointed out the flaws of Wang’s dujing theory and the adverse results of it. For instance, he indicated that some students were unable to read Chinese characters or write essays after years of mechanically memorizing the classics, became weary of classics study, failed to cultivate the ability to learn by themselves, and so on. His critical comments soon caused a widespread debate within the domain of classical education. He subsequently gave public speeches all over China, calling on all practitioners to reconsider the previously adopted teaching pattern influenced by Caigui Wang. More importantly, by rejuvenating the ancient Chinese sishu educational inheritance system (gudai zhongguo sishu jiaoyu chuancheng tixi), Mr. Chen emphasized that this type of classical education would make up for the deficiencies of the existing dujing education. Consequently, influenced by Mr. Chen, many sishu practitioners gave up their previous teaching style and changed to his proposed sishu education.8 In this respect, I argue that Mr. Chen has contributed to promoting pedagogical diversification in the domain of Confucian classical education in contemporary 8  However, this educational reform resulted in shrinking the student population of sishu. Also, it is one direct reason for what Nanfang zhoumo reported in 2014, as mentioned earlier (see Zhang 2014).

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China (Wang 2018). Rote memorization and Caigui Wang’s dujing theory have indeed been criticized for years. However, Mr. Chen is among the first, and possibly the most contentious, to attack what he had done and firmly believed in for years and, more importantly, to explore an alternative classical pedagogy and promote it throughout the country. I first met Mr. Chen in 2012 and did further interviews in 2013, 2015, and 2016. Most of our talks were informal and unstructured, like everyday chats, whereas a few were formal and semi-structured. These interviews constitute the primary data for the next section. Additionally, given that the recent debate inevitably involves Caigui Wang’s dujing theory, I refer to some of his written materials. Most of these materials are public speeches collected in published books and may serve as a comparison with Mr. Chen’s arguments. In the following section, I analyze the discourse of these interviews and documents and unfold the intricacy of the current debate.

Debatable Chineseness of Confucian Pedagogy in Contemporary Classical Education Based on what I will show in this section, I argue that the core issue of the current controversy over dujing since the 2010s lies in the debatable Chineseness, that is, what type of classical education is imagined to be “authentically” Chinese. This argument lays the conceptual groundwork for the reforms of pedagogical individualization implemented within Yiqian School, as presented later. Mr. Chen’s ideas serve as a perfect example to illustrate the above argument. He stated that the dujing method proposed by Caigui Wang and characterized by prioritizing the pure and extensive memorization of classics did not correspond to the principle (dao) of ancient Chinese sishu education and therefore was not an authentic style of Chinese education. I summarize Mr. Chen’s arguments into two points. On the one hand, he criticized Caigui Wang’s dujing pedagogy did nothing but force students to mechanically memorize the classics and went against human nature and was consistent with the logic of the examination-oriented education. Therefore, he blamed this type of classical education as a product of westernization (xihua) in modern Chinese history and having nothing to do with the ancient Chinese sishu educational inheritance system. On the other hand, Mr. Chen stressed that genuine ancient Chinese education

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must be premised on the principle of yincai shijiao (teaching students according to their natural abilities, or simply put, individualized teaching and learning). He believed this principle accorded perfectly with human nature and ancient Chinese sishu education.9 Mr. Chen’s personal reflection on classical education can be divided into three more specific topics: (1) the relationship between principles (dao) and methods (shu), (2) historical legitimacy, and (3) the linguistic nature of the Chinese language. All three aspects, which I will discuss in the following sections, demonstrate the complicating debatable Chineseness of Confucian pedagogy and, to some extent, show the overall tendency toward pedagogical diversification, individualization, and heterogenization in the domain of Confucian classical education in today’s China. Principles and Methods Laying the premise for his arguments, Mr. Chen distinguished two “principles” concerning Confucianism. The first is “the principle of culture” (wenhua zhidao), the core of which he stated as benevolence (ren) and righteousness (yi) and which he believed would never fade away. He argued that the educational reforms launched in his Confucian classical school aimed not to go against the principle of culture but to promote it. However, Mr. Chen advocated radical changes in the second principle, “the principle of education” (jiaoyu zhidao), the core of which was to perfect humans (chengren) via classical learning. He realized that the crux of classical education should be how to perfect humans and that this would necessarily involve teaching and learning techniques and methods or shu, as Mr. Chen termed it. Regarding the relationship between the principle and the method in the domain of classical education, Mr. Chen said: A principle separate from the method is definitely not a genuine principle. No principle can be independent of the method, and no method can be divorced from the principle. If someone cut off the articulation between principle and method, it would prove nothing but that he knew little about the principle, as a principle is necessarily and always embodied by a method.10

9  Interviews in June 2015. Unless otherwise specified, all information regarding Mr. Chen comes from multiple interviews in June 2015 at his classical school. 10  Interview on 5th June 2015.

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Regarding the interlocking of principle and method, Mr. Chen blamed himself for mistakenly separating principle from method in his previous practice of dujing education. As he stated, Nowadays, so many people are talking about how to read the classics through the simple and extensive approach (…) and even claiming a person can use any method to recite the classics. It’s totally wrong! Let me ask if I can make a wooden table by any method. No! Similarly, there must be a feasible and suitable way to tackle dujing. [In other words,] the principle must suit the method.11

He criticized himself for wrongly treating the simple and extensive approach to memorizing the classics as a specific teaching method without realizing that this approach was actually the ultimate purpose and, more importantly, the subjective expectation of teachers and parents toward students. He argued that there should be various approaches to achieving this purpose, among which the best must accord with the principle of individualized teaching. As Mr. Chen pointed out, The fundamental principle of education is individualized teaching. As long as we talk about education, it [necessarily involves] individualized teaching, which is the principle of treating students as the authentic subject (zhuti) in the learning process. This is the core issue. Everyone should be taught in accordance with what he is good at.12

Mr. Chen continued to explain that the individualized teaching principle was completely consistent with the nature of human development and respected individual differences. Based upon this, he considered the method of “one (teacher) on one (student)” (yiduiyi)13 to be the most appropriate approach under the guidance of individualized teaching. Also, he clarified that the purpose of the individualized pedagogy was to enhance students’ learning autonomy and cultivate them into authentic subjects  Interview on 5th June 2015.  Interview on 6th June 2015. 13  Despite the literal translation of “one teacher on one student,” the conceptualization of yiduiyi does not entail assigning one teacher to each student. Instead, teachers are supposed to differentiate and customize their educational content and methods according to each student’s natural ability. Mr. Chen and his Confucian school viewed this method as a pedagogical invention in concert with the principle of yincai shijiao (teaching students in accordance with their aptitude). 11 12

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able to regulate, manage, and supervise the study process on their own. He repeatedly emphasized the importance of respecting students’ learning agency. For example, he explained, If a child makes a mistake, just let it be. He will realize on his own how to correct it and learn a lesson from it later on. Unfortunately, [today’s mainstream education] does the opposite, doing nothing but telling him a standard answer, a “right” answer to follow. This is indeed a bad education.14

In contrast to the principle of individualized teaching accompanied by the one-on-one method, Mr. Chen stated that the simple and extensive manner of memorizing the classics that he practiced for years was profoundly influenced by the thought of examination-oriented education. He even labeled this method as “one (teacher) for all (students)” (yiduizhong, in sharp contrast to the aforementioned “one-on-one” method). This label referred to a collective and uniform way of teaching and learning that contradicted the principle of individualized education. Furthermore, he criticized this collective fashion of dujing education for assuming that students are passive learners who merely follow what the teacher orders them to do. In this regard, Mr. Chen argued: If you ask me what changes I’ve made in the past few years, [I would say] I find that Professor [Caigui] Wang’s15 dujing theory is exactly the same as the examination-oriented education in mainstream compulsory schools. (…) Both “All students! Read after me” [in classics-oriented dujing schools] and “All students! Listen to me” [in examination-oriented state schools] assume that students are passive followers in learning.16

It is noteworthy that while Mr. Chen complained that the collective one-for-all method violated the principle of individualized teaching, he admitted the reasonableness of memorizing classics as the purpose of classical education. Hence, he claimed to replace the collective learning approach, which he felt went against human nature, with the individualized one, which he argued tallied with the diversities of human personality.  Interview on 5th June 2015.  This refers to Caigui Wang, as he was an associate professor when he retired from the National Taichung University of Education. Mr. Chen seldom called him by name during interviews but instead addressed him as “Professor Wang,” which shows respect for him. 16  Interview on 5th June 2015. 14 15

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I note that this idea has had a profound influence on the reforms of pedagogical individualization that took place at Yiqian School and resulted in shaping the mixed method of “individualized memorization” under the name of “Confucianism,” which actually combined the individualized teaching and learning principle with the purpose of reading and reciting a large number of classics. I will go back to this point in the next section. I compare Mr. Chen’s critical interpretations of Caigui Wang’s dujing theory with those of Wang’s followers. Both sides hold the common ground that extensive memorization of classics should be the explicit goal of Confucian classical education, whereas they disagree with what specific means should be taken to achieve it. Unlike Mr. Chen’s emphasis on the individualized method, Wang and his followers have enhanced the authoritarian pedagogy by proposing “the method of double-ten dujing” (shuangshi dujing fa), that is, to encourage students to read the classics for ten hours every day and continue for ten years (Wang 2010).17 Wang even suggested 200,000 Chinese characters plus 100,000 non-Chinese words as the bottom-line criterion for extensive memorizationof classics. He asserted that as long as a student succeeded in reciting that number of classics, he was confident to train him or her to become a great cultural talent (wenhua dacai) (Wang 2014: 114). According to the whole-course plan of dujing education drawn up by Caigui Wang, memorizing 300,000 characters and words is just the first stage of the entire learning program, which, as he suggested, should ideally last for one decade. Once completing the first stage, students are encouraged to pursue further Confucian education at an advanced Confucian academy, which Wang founded and is widely recognized by many practitioners of dujing education as an ideal place for students to spend another decade interpreting the already memorized classics and then extensively reading great books of both the Oriental and Occidental traditions (Wang 2014: 107–119). It is necessary to emphasize the point of time at which the debate occurred because this is crucial to understanding the continuous reforms of pedagogical individualization in Yiqian School, as to be clarified in the next section. Specifically, it is since the end of 2012 that the diversification within the domain of classical education has intensified, and also since then 17  Caigui Wang (2010) indicated that the double ten method was not required for everyone but served to strengthen the educational idea that the more classics one read, the more moral enhancement one would receive.

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the gap between Mr. Chen and Caigui Wang has increasingly widened. I have two pieces of evidence to prove that the time point “end of 2012” is important to map out the evolution of classical education in the contemporary era. The first is that, as I mentioned before and will display in detail later, Mr. Chen’s educational reforms, featuring the shift from the authoritarian pedagogy of dujing promoted by Caigui Wang to a more individualized approach to classics study, were first brewed in the fall of 2012 before being officially implemented in early 2013, and since then has become increasingly influential beyond his school, insofar as that nowadays many small private classical schools have established their own teaching system based on the individualized principle and the “one-on-one” method advocated by him (see Wu 2016). The second piece of evidence is that Wang officially established his Confucian academy in the fall of 2012, which has become a milestone event to promote the emergence of more private classical schools in Wang’s dujing education style. Given this, I argue that, roughly since late 2012, classical schools of the two different types have confronted each other and constantly reiterated the legitimacy and truth of their own educational philosophies (see also Kongshan 2017: 46–94). Furthermore, Caigui Wang’s dujing theory at one point achieved such tremendous and extensive influence that it even became a synonym for Confucian classical education, which should be a generic category. However, since late 2012, Wang’s dujing theory has slowly but gradually lost popularity, and various new forms of classical education have begun to emerge, the sishu education advocated by Mr. Chen as one influential type of them. Consequently, the dujing education proposed by Caigui Wang has begun to be downgraded from an overarching generic category to a specific type, and contemporary Confucian classical education shows an evident trend of pedagogical diversification and individualization (see also Wu 2016). Historical Legitimacy Historical legitimacy constitutes the second aspect of the debatable Chineseness in the pedagogical diversification and individualization of Confucian classical education in contemporary China. Mr. Chen’s argumentation for an individual-oriented type of classical education is not based on the knowledge of Western education but on his rethinking of ancient Chinese education history. To this end, he proposed the term “sishu education” to support his criticism of Caigui Wang’s dujing

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education. From a historical perspective, sishu education can hardly be separated from the dujing-based pedagogy in ancient China. I clarify that dujing education here refers to a unique form of classical education advocated by Caigui Wang rather than a generic category of classical education, and its fundamental feature is to memorize the classics simply and extensively. This signifies that in the remaking of classical education, sishu education emerges as the opposite of dujing education and is aimed at remedying its shortcomings. Mr. Chen compared sishu education to the stage of enlightenment education (mengxue) in ancient China, similar to primary schooling in the modern education system, set up and operated by individual Confucian intellectuals and located in local communities. Unlike Caigui Wang, who suggested that children start their education with the study of classical literature, ideally with The Analects of Confucius, as he recommended, Mr. Chen argued that students involved in sishu education should initiate their study of the classics with simpler enlightenment textbooks such as The Three Character Classic (San zi jing), The Book of Family Names (Bai jia xing), The Thousand Character Classic (Qian zi wen), and the like because all these books would provide pupils with rudimentary knowledge and lay the foundation for everyday life and further classics studies. I note that this argument directly influenced the educational reforms of Yiqian School, which was reflected in the fact that this Confucian school required students to read and memorize these easy-to-understand primers before learning other more sophisticated classical works. Also, unlike Wang’s dujing education, which focuses primarily on memorizing the classics, Mr. Chen claimed that sishu education is a comprehensive system that enables students to learn varieties of knowledge, including literacy, recital, and poetry. Mr. Chen argued that sishu education adopts the one-on-one method, which proves that it is authentic Chinese education insofar as it perfectly accords with the principle of individualized teaching and learning. Furthermore, he attempted to prove the legitimacy of sishu education in terms of historical inheritance and criticized his previous practice, which was profoundly influenced by Wang’s dujing theory as the product of westernization and in conflict with the ancient Chinese educational inheritance system. He stated, Professor Wang invented [the pattern of dujing education] out of thin air, without any foundation of inheriting [the ancient Chinese education sys-

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tem]. (…) There is no such way of learning classical books as he advocated throughout the entire history of China. “All students! Read after me” never appeared in ancient China because it is a Western notion by nature. Chinese people never applied such a collective one-for-all pedagogy. In other words, we are born in an era in which the Chinese educational system and social ethos have been profoundly westernized for over a century. Professor Wang’s way of thinking is also westernized.18

What Mr. Chen meant by the term “westernized” was further explained in his critique of dujing education. He denounced dujing education as implying a strongly instrumental way of thinking like the examination-­ oriented education in mainstream state schools. Even though the tradition of examination-oriented education occupied a significant position in Chinese history, especially as reflected in the entrenched imperial examination system (Lin 2011; Wu 2014), Mr. Chen seemed to selectively ignore this aspect but emphasized that the examination orientation in contemporary Chinese education suffered excessively from the imported Western notion of pragmatism. He alleged that the dujing education proposed by Caigui Wang was not Chinese but rather Western in form and was inconsistent with the ancient Chinese educational inheritance system and, therefore, ultimately lacked historical legitimacy. Conversely, he regarded sishu education as genuinely Chinese because it carried on the individualized principle and method in accordance with ancient Chinese pedagogy. He narrated: The Chinese sishu education system (…) has constantly been taking shape throughout the length of history and has been able to correct and adjust itself according to historical conditions. Therefore, it has proved to be an authentic and effective education form. (…) There are always “ancient times” for each dynasty in China’s 3,000-year history, but the inheritance system [of sishu education] has never disappeared. Hence, just let the unchanged remain constant. (…) This is the meaning of an eternal principle (changdao), which should not be violated.19

According to existing literature, sishu education in ancient China did not exist in a homogenous or fixed manner but varied in teaching content and methods during different historical periods (Jiang 2015; Qin 2007;  Interview on 7th June 2015.  Interview on 7th June 2015.

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Wang 2017a). Also, it is easy to find evidence that the ancient Chinese sishu education system was interrupted and destroyed in the modern era (Hao and Wang 2005; Tian and Yang 2005). Despite these facts, the key point that Mr. Chen underlined is that over the course of thousands of years in ancient China, sishu education has evidenced its historical legitimacy by what it achieved in cultivating generations of talents. He argued, We can easily make a long list of great figures throughout the 3,000 years of Chinese history, proving that sishu education is indeed an efficient, valuable, and successful system. Of course, some may counter this point by indicating that there were quite a few illiterate people in ancient China, but [they still have to acknowledge that] so many remarkable intellectuals were cultivated by sishu education.20

Furthermore, Mr. Chen attempted to prove the irrationality of dujing education by criticizing its failure to attract students to learn the classics gladly. He said: [For more than a decade,] so many students have memorized the classics but forget them after a certain period and then have to memorize them again. Suffering from all the torment and boredom, students become disgusted with learning the classics, and many even refuse to stay in the classical school. Doesn’t it sound exactly like what their peers experience in mainstream examination-oriented schools?21

Additionally, Mr. Chen’s highlight of historical legitimacy reflects another essential aspect of the contemporary development of Confucian classical education: to seek a touchpoint in traditional Chinese pedagogy for the self-claimed educational concepts. Interestingly, Mr. Chen, Caigui Wang, and their respective followers all underscored that their pedagogies aligned with historical truth. For example, supporters of Caigui Wang’s dujing theory asserted that the pedagogy of requiring students to memorize the classics simply, extensively, and mechanically conformed to the historical reality of ancient Chinese sishu education and was also a creative product that combined traditional and modern educational practices (Kongshan 2017: 63–67, 76–79). This point is different from the stance of Mr. Chen, who explicitly excluded Wang’s dujing theory from the  Interview on 6th June 2015.  Interview on 7th June 2015.

20 21

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Chinese educational tradition. Given this, I raise the argument that so-­ called ancient Chinese education has become an imagined and ad-hoc category and an exclusionary notion. It is construed by practitioners of various types of classical education in an effort to construct their own classical pedagogy and play down other alternatives. No matter what different forms of classical education they are involved in, arguers seem to be able to find convincing evidence from ancient Chinese educational literature to prove the historical legitimacy of their own practice of classical education. In remaking historical legitimacy, teaching principles and methods have become increasingly diversified in Confucian classical education, and their selection and interpretation are more subject to individual practitioners. The Linguistic Nature of Chinese Language The debatable Chineseness of the diversified and individualized pedagogies in present-day China’s Confucian classical education manifests itself not only in the arguable relationship between principles and methods and in the heterogeneous construing of historical legitimacy but also in the specific linguistic nature of Chinese language. According to Mr. Chen, the disparity between the sishu education promoted by himself and the dujing education proposed by Caigui Wang results from controversial understandings of the method of memorization. Unlike Wang’s obsession with rote memorization, Mr. Chen, referring to the studies of Professor Jianshun Xu, a contemporary Chinese classical education scholar working at a university in Beijing, maintained that it is singing (yinsong) rather than reading monotonously (pingdu) that counts as the genuine Chinese version of memorization (Xu 2012).22 Mr. Chen went on to explain that it is a stereotype to imagine rote memorization as the basic method in ancient Chinese education and that this stereotype shows the public’s ignorance of what constitutes authentic sishu education. So instead, he offered an alternative interpretation of the method of memorization as follows:

22  Professor Xu and his research team spent several years interviewing about 1000 elderly people all over China who once studied in sishu when they were young. This study allows him to suggest that nowadays, the so-called du (reading) is actually singing in ancient China. Following this, he argued that ancient Chinese scholars did not read the classics in a flat tone but sang them.

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Why are Chinese people good at memorizing? And why do they love to learn through memorization? (…) It is because Chinese language is one of melody. [When ancient Chinese people memorized the classics,] they were actually singing. They were not learning by rote; they were singing.23

Mr. Chen contended that the critical point differentiating singing from mechanical memorization is that singing is always accompanied by a certain level of understanding of the classic texts. Thus, the teacher must lead students to acquire comprehension of the literal passage at first in order for them to consolidate their understanding and memorization through singing it. In tandem with this, Mr. Chen explained why Westerners do not excel at memorizing and that this is related to the disparity between Chinese and Western languages. He said, Western language does not have a melody. It is a stress language without the four tones that Chinese language has. As a result, [Westerners] are unable to sing the texts in their own language.24

Based on the linguistic difference, Mr. Chen emphasized singing-based memorization rather than mechanical memorization as the authentic Chinese approach to learning traditional culture, which perfectly unifies the individualized teaching principle with the one-on-one learning method. That being so, he criticized his previous practice guided by Caigui Wang’s dujing theory and the method of mechanical memorization for forcing students to read the classics in a monotonous tone, in this way completely violating the melodic nature of Chinese language. He clarified that the popularity of the mechanical approach to memorization in a monotonous tone is a result of the modern linguistic movement aimed at transforming the polysyllabic tonal Chinese language into a monosyllabic stress type similar to Western languages. He believed that this movement, which occurred in the early twentieth century, had a huge negative impact on the practice of contemporary classical education. He stated: A perplexing problem has now emerged. (…) Some classical schools force students to memorize poems and songs mechanically, but students hate to do this. I bet nobody likes mechanical memorization. However, Chinese ancients all enjoyed learning the classics! Why? (…) [It’s because] Chinese  Interview on 7th June 2015.  Interview on 7th June 2015.

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language is a melodic language and is quite suitable for chanting to memorize. In this case, if you turned Chinese language into a monosyllabic stress language, it would become unsuitable for memorizing by recital.25

It is impossible to verify whether or not “Chinese ancients all enjoyed learning the classics.” Also, some other practitioners of classical education criticized Mr. Chen’s conception of ancient sishu as a “romantic imagination,” arguing that in ancient sishu there were also students weary of learning (see Kongshan 2017: 76–79). However, the above quote draws our attention to the relationship between comprehension and memorization, which may be the most challenging issue in the contemporary debate about dujing. Caigui Wang asserted that the optimal time for education is before the age of 13, which is a golden period when the learner is best at memorizing and, therefore, must devote as much time as possible to reading the classics and as little time as possible to understanding them (Wang 2009: 15–26). Mr. Chen was once a devout believer in this theoretical assertion and practiced it without question for years,26 until he had to admit that many students reported forgetting what they had already memorized after a period of time, even if they indeed had successfully recited the entire book. Caigui Wang acknowledged this occurrence but claimed that even if classics were forgotten, they would still play a subtle and positive role in transforming the learner’s habits and attitudes in their life experience. Mr. Chen did not go along with this point. Rather, he argued that once the classical texts were forgotten, they would disappear from the learner’s mind forever, thus without much influence on their moral cultivation or personal development. He argued, [The theory of Professor Caigui Wang implies] a dualistic thinking. That one’s memory ability is strong and comprehension faculty is weak before the age of 13 does not mean that he has only memory without any capacity for comprehension. (…) Well, I have to say this is nothing but a Western style

 Interview on 7th June 2015.  When I first visited Mr. Chen’s school in 2012, the school was applying a method of “memorizing an entire book” (baoben) to maximize students’ faculty of memory, which meant requiring students to read and recite an entire classic book such as The Analects within a given period. Following this method, students were often forced to achieve the aim of baoben, which generated much pressure. The next section is to display details about this approach as part of the Confucian school’s pedagogical reform. 25 26

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of dualistic thinking, but the authentic Chinese way of thinking is just the other way around.27

In tandem with this, Mr. Chen raised that memorization and comprehension must be synchronized throughout the entire educational process. He argued that such a holistic way of thinking nurtured the genuine Chinese version of pedagogy. He narrated, When someone is memorizing the classical texts by singing them out, he must have gained a bit of understanding of them in the meantime. The understanding here basically refers to knowing the literal meaning of characters. Likewise, when someone tries to understand a classical passage, he must have memorized at least part of it. In such a synchronous process as a whole, he can comprehend the texts’ implicit principles.28

Furthermore, Mr. Chen classified the comprehension of the classics into two relevant but different levels: the lower level is to understand the literal meanings of characters (ziyi), whereas the higher level is to interpret the profound and implicit principles (yili) of the  classical literature. He stated that while character meanings are explicit and easy to understand, the grasp of textual principles must deepen along with the accumulation of life experiences and is bound to vary from person to person. Mr. Chen argued for the necessity of learning character meanings before memorizing the classics because Chinese character meanings have changed constantly throughout history, and later generations may find them hard to understand. He, therefore, emphasized grasping character meanings in the first stage, which would lay the learner a solid foundation for comprehending the profound philosophy of classical texts in the next stage. Mr. Chen said, The colloquial language of our own times is exact and definite, as it was in Confucius’s time. So why has it become difficult for modern people to understand Confucius’ spoken language, which was actually so easy to ­comprehend in his time? It is because the language [that Confucius spoke] has changed dramatically today rather than because the moral principles implied by his words are too profound to grasp.29  Interview on 7th June 2015.  Interview on 7th June 2015. 29  Interview on 7th June 2015. 27 28

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The above argument directly challenges Caigui Wang, who implied a hierarchical notion of classical and modern writings. As Wang explained, classics are written in classical Chinese, which is a written language that accommodates “superior” cultural values; thus, by reading the classics over and over again, learners will naturally and easily be able to understand the pieces written in modern vernacular Chinese, because the latter is considered merely a spoken language with “inferior” cultural values (Wang 2014: 55–58). Mr. Chen did not agree with Wang on this idea and took The Analects as an example to illustrate his viewpoint, saying, [The Analects] is a collected record of what Confucius said instead of what he wrote. If his spoken words had philosophical connotations, his disciples would take note of them because these sentences contained profound cultural values; otherwise, they would not record them at all. So, it has nothing to do with whether the language is spoken or written.30

Linguistic hierarchy is also shown in the discourse concerning the relationship between the fundamental (ben) and the incidental (mo). In Caigui Wang’s view, the fundamental in his proposed dujing education is to simply, extensively, and mechanically memorize the classics. In contrast, other items, for example, recital, literacy, and understanding, which all constitute the basic curriculum of sishu education, as Mr. Chen advocated, are merely incidental (Wang 2009: 21–25). Wang suggested that learners spend some time on the incidental, if possible, on the condition that memorizing the classics be given the priority, but disagreed with reversing the order (Wang 2009: 21–25). In contrast, Mr. Chen opposed this hierarchical notion of the fundamental and the incidental and criticized it as assuming a dualistic mode of thinking. Instead, he argued that the fundamental and the incidental comprise a whole, but Caigui Wang mistakenly supposed them to be separate. Nonetheless, Mr. Chen admitted that fundamental issues outweigh the incidental ones. Hence, he emphasized the significance of educational sequence (jiaoyu cidi) in actual teaching and learning activities. He stated, Dujing is very important, but this does not necessarily mean we must do it first. (…) The colloquial language has become entirely different from what  Interview on 7th June 2015.

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it was in ancient times. (…) This has led to an issue of educational sequence. This issue must be understood from the history of Chinese educational inheritance, and according to this history, we know that the most appropriate sequence of learning is first to learn the literal meanings of characters and then move on to the intensive reading of the classics.31

Pedagogical Reforms Toward a Confucian Method of Individualized Memorization The contemporary debate over Confucian classical education, as clarified in the preceding sections, has had a direct and profound influence on the reform of pedagogical individualization since early 2013 at Yiqian School, represented by the figure of Mr. Chen, the school’s founder and headteacher. Broadly, this pedagogical reform combined two contradictory knowledge sources  of Confucian education: the individualized teaching and learning principle and the method of extensive and repetitive memorization of the classics. On the one hand, the principle of yincai shijiao (teaching according to students’ abilities), as advocated by Mr. Chen, was highly valued and practiced in Yiqian School’s pedagogical reforms, with some new teaching and learning techniques implemented to enhance students’ perceptions of and skills in autonomous learning. On the other hand, the extensive memorization of the classics, as proposed by Caigui Wang, was retained as a goal and method in the teaching arrangements of the Confucian school. Consequently, this reform produced an invented pedagogy of “individualized memorization” under the name of “Confucianism,” which suffers from internal contradictions that are manifest in its actual teaching and learning activities. In this section, I use the observation and interview data collected at Yiqian School to present the pedagogical reform and its internal contradictions. In essence, the Confucian school’s teaching reform sought to address two different and conflicting “Confucian” pedagogies: the authoritarian, collective pedagogy of Caigui Wang and the individualistic, student-centered pedagogy advocated by Mr. Chen. Wang’s dujing pedagogy, with its fundamental method of reading the classics purely and extensively, had once dominated the teaching and learning at Yiqian School but came under fierce criticism for being too authoritarian to accommodate students’ differences in learning abilities and was therefore replaced by a  Interview on 7th June 2015.

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more individual-oriented approach to the study of the classics. The educational reform ended up with a compromise between the two pedagogies, creating a hybrid, self-contradictory “Confucian” style of individualized memorization of the classics. The discussion of this process of Confucian pedagogy reform presented here lays the foundation for the next chapter’s description and interpretation of the classroom techniques used to cultivate students to become autonomous learners in their study of Confucian classics. Two key moments anchored the course of the pedagogical reform at Yiqian School: March 2013 and September 2014. Accordingly, the reform process of pedagogical individualization is divided here into three periods: (1) before March 2013, when it was dominated by the authoritarian, collective pedagogy of Confucian study; (2) from March 2013 to September 2014, when there was a radical and dramatic transformation to the individualistic style of teaching and learning; and (3) after September 2014, when the principle of individualized teaching was mixed with the goal of extensive memorization of the classics. In the remainder of this part, I elaborate on each of these three periods. The Dominance of an Authoritarian Pedagogy Before March 2013 Before March 2013, Caigui Wang’s dujing theory played a dominant role in establishing an authoritarian, collective approach to teaching and learning the classics at Yiqian School. Mr. Chen and Mrs. Zheng, the two founders and headteachers of Yiqian School, were once devout followers of Wang. They confessed in multiple interviews with me that one fundamental aim of setting up this Confucian school was to practice and verify Wang’s dujing theory and, as Wang anticipated, cultivate “great cultural talents” (wenhua dacai) with a thorough knowledge of Western and traditional Chinese cultures. To this end, students were required to engage in extensive memorization of classical texts. They were also expected to follow a common mode of promotion through Confucian classical education, as outlined by Wang. This involved memorizing a large volume of classics at the Confucian school, preferably up to 300,000 characters, and then pursuing further Confucian studies at a Confucian-style academy established by Wang, in which they would be trained to interpret the memorized classics and read a wide range of great works from throughout human history. Responding to Wang’s dujing theory and the classics study program outlined above, Yiqian School invented a system of collective

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memorization called “Seven Sections Five Rounds” (Qijie wulun) to encourage students to recite the classics. “Seven Sections” referred to the practice of dividing a classic book evenly into seven sections with the same number of pages and splitting one day into seven classes so that each class covered one section. “Five Rounds” referred to the division of the entire process of memorizing the classics into five rounds. In the first round, the teacher led the whole class to read a part of a classic book. In the second round, students read the memorized part aloud by themselves, and in the third they recited it. In the fourth, they combined the parts they had memorized into one larger section. By the fifth and final round, they were able to recite the whole book. As a collective memorization method, Seven Sections Five Rounds sought to create a uniformly encouraging atmosphere in which a class could read a classic book together and recite it at the same pace. The school believed that this practice would improve students’ efficiency in reading and memorizing the classics. However, according to Mr. Chen, one of the two founders of Yiqian School and a leader in reforming the school’s pedagogy, the collective style of memorizing the classics inhibited the learning agency of individual students and impaired their enthusiasm for studying the classics. He indicated that the collective memorization model held a hierarchical, authoritarian view of students as passive objects rather than active learning subjects. In multiple interviews, he suggested that the Seven Sections Five Rounds approach did not fully consider individual differences in students’ memorization faculties and failed to cultivate their learning autonomy. Consequently, students were only pushed by their teachers and classmates to move forward in reading the classics. Mr. Chen faulted this collective pattern of classics memorization for establishing homogeneous requirements and objectives for all students, who were expected to recite entire classic books at similar rates of progression and then move on to pursue further Confucian studies at Wang’s academy. He also criticized this collective pedagogy of classical learning and its uniform requirements and objectives for its underlying hierarchical ideology in which students were assumed to be at a lower level and seen as purely passive followers, and teachers were presumed to be at a higher level and endowed with absolute authority to manage and discipline their students in learning Confucianism.

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A Radical Transition to an Individualistic Pedagogy from March 2013 to September 2014 In March 2013, Yiqian School initiated the reform of pedagogical individualization under the umbrella of yincai shijiao (teaching according to students’ abilities), embracing an alternative pedagogy that gave prominence to learners’ individuality and autonomy. This reform took place in two periods: a critical period from March 2013 to September 2014, which I regard as a radical transition to a purely individualistic pedagogy for the study of the classics, and a moderate, hybrid pedagogical construction implemented from September 2014 onward. The pedagogical transition from March 2013 to September 2014 was radical in that the Confucian school completely abandoned the previously dominant authoritarian, collective pattern for learning and memorizing the classics. The school leaders, represented by Mr. Chen and Mrs. Zheng, argued that the old pedagogy was essentially teacher-centered and that the truth of ancient Chinese sishu education rested on a learner-centered pedagogy that encouraged students to study independently. They believed that their pedagogical reform was consistent with the individual-oriented practice commonly applied in ancient Chinese education, which had lasted more than 2500 years since the time of Confucius. Accordingly, the school began to apply the core Confucian educational principle of individualized teaching and learning in line with yincai shijiao and invented a new “one (teacher) on one (student)” (yiduiyi) teaching method, as proposed by Mr. Chen and outlined above. Regarding the specific practices involved in the renewed individualistic pedagogy for the study of the classics, the Confucian school did not require its teachers to exert coercive pressure on students in their study of Confucianism or to compel them to engage in extensive memorization of advanced Confucian classical literature. Instead, teachers were to encourage students to begin their classical studies with the simpler enlightenment textbooks. As explained earlier, the so-called enlightenment textbooks are the primary and original books that children initially engaged with when they started their education in ancient China. Yiqian School had a recommended list of primers as follows: The Three Character Classic, The Thousand Character Classic, and The Book of Family Names, all of which played a role in literacy education in Chinese history; The Enlightenment Book of Sound (Shenglv qimeng), whose educational function was to cultivate students’ phonological sense and lay the foundation for composing

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poems; and Standards for Students (Dizi gui), which was a primary textbook to discipline children’s civility and courtesy in everyday life. In accordance with the ideas of Mr. Chen expounded on earlier in the chapter, Yiqian School now asserted that learning Chinese classics should follow the experience of ancient Chinese sishu education by not directly beginning with reading and memorizing a great volume of advanced Confucian classical literature. Instead, students must first go through a preparatory stage of two to four years of enlightenment study during which they learn to read and write, cultivate the phonological sense and ability to compose poems, study Chinese history, and develop appropriate social behaviors. This period of enlightenment study can lay a solid intellectual foundation for the subsequent study of the more sophisticated Confucian classics, such as the Four Books (i.e., The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, and Mencius). Students are therefore better prepared to move on to the next stage of classical studies (jingxue), in which they need to recite many classics. Yiqian School retained the method of memorization for students’ study of enlightenment books and advanced classical literature but revoked the mechanical approach and began emphasizing the individual, self-directed study of Confucian classics. Students were now encouraged to study the meanings of characters from classical writings and, to some extent, to understand the deeper principles and implications of the texts rather than spending all day reading and reciting the classics by rote. Some uniform standards were also dropped in this radical transition period, such as all students having the same number of characters to memorize, and the importance of Wang’s academy as the next stage of education was downplayed. However, this radical transition toward an individualistic style of teaching and learning the classics survived only until September 2014, as it caused a significant loss of students whose parents did not identify with this new, alternative pattern of classics study. This radical reform of pedagogical individualization also generated new problems. For example, as the teachers were required to discipline and manage their students’ learning process as little as possible, the students enjoyed so much freedom in the classroom that it often became  disorganized. Moreover, as the uniform target for the number of recited characters from the classics was abandoned and no longer assessed as part of learning the classics, pupils could not recite even the simplest primer within a semester. Some parents who still believed in Caigui Wang’s dujing theory sharply criticized this

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pedagogical change as a waste of students’ time and useless in promoting their classical studies. This soon prompted Yiqian School’s leaders and teachers to reflect on the changes, and a revision of the reform began in the fall of 2014. Hybrid Pedagogical Individualization from September 2014 At the start of the fall semester in September 2014, Mrs. Zheng took over Yiqian School as Mr. Chen left the school to manage another Confucian school. During this period, Mrs. Zheng led efforts to correct the previous radical practice of pedagogical individualization. She shared many of Mr. Chen’s ideas, especially the principle of individualized teaching and learning, and supported experimenting with an individual-oriented pedagogy. However, she had reservations about the radical manner of the school’s pedagogical transformation and did not subscribe to the need for a complete decoupling from Caigui Wang’s approach of extensive reading of the classics. Accordingly, Mrs. Zheng took two steps to rectify the pedagogical reform. First, she recovered some elements of Wang’s authoritarian pedagogy for the study of the classics by requiring students to read and memorize a large number of classics, including the primers and more sophisticated classical literature. Second, she held on to the core educational principle of teaching students according to their natural abilities while recovering the approach and goal of simple and extensive memorization of the classics. Mrs. Zheng explained that the Confucian school should continue encouraging students to pursue an extensive study of the classics but this should be done in an individualized style rather than collectively. Consequently, Yiqian School created a new hybrid pedagogy that I call “individualized memorization” to distinguish it from the previous approach of “collective memorization,” which was introduced earlier and represented by the concrete method of Seven Sections Five Rounds. The basic idea of individualized memorization was to vary students’ workloads and the content of their study of the classics according to their memorization capacity. The purpose of the method was to reduce the level of enforcement imposed on students and strengthen their self-learning skills, thereby encouraging them to recite as many classics as possible to the best of their ability. Mrs. Zheng justified the approach as follows:

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In ancient China, teachers taught students according to the learners’ natural abilities. What does this mean? [Let’s say] a child is able to recognize 10 characters, but the teacher teaches him only eight; if he can do 100, the teacher allows him to learn 80. Moreover, let’s say that two children study in the same classroom—even if they start with the same content, their learning progress will vary sharply after 10 days. Therefore, theoretically and practically, the teacher cannot organize students to learn the classics collectively; instead, she must educate students according to their merits. Actually, this teaching practice lasted thousands of years in ancient China.32

How should the pedagogical hybridity of the individualized memorization be understood? What are the implications of combining the authoritarian and individualistic elements of the two pedagogies applied in the teaching reform of pedagogical individualization at the Confucian school? I propose two points in reply to these questions. First, Mrs. Zheng’s explanation quoted above implies an affinity between classics memorization and learning autonomy, as further discussed in the next chapter regarding the specific classroom activities and teaching and learning techniques at Yiqian School. Confucian education embraces the tradition of jiaohua (literally, “to transform someone by education”) (see Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Culp 2006; Kipnis 2006; Wu and Devine 2018), which can be interpreted in this context as classics memorization serving to improve students’ autonomy in learning and character development. According to Bakken (2000), memorization enables educated individuals to enhance their “constancy of mind and self-­ control” (p.  143) and develop “a constant attitude towards the norms, thus ensuring proper conduct even in the absence of direct surveillance” (p. 169). As I have argued in Chap. 3, among parents, the expectation that their children would improve their learning and moral autonomy was one fundamental reason for engaging their offspring in studying the classics. This idea is also echoed in the following passages from the school documents I collected in 2015, which stress the integration of learning and memorizing the classics with moral enhancement: (1) Seeking knowledge should go hand-in-hand with learning how to become a decent human.

 Interview in June 2015.

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(2) Students are encouraged to combine the study of the classics with ordinary life practice and regard inner cultivation and academic performance as the same cause. Second, this hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization was self-­ contradictory in theory and practice. Its self-contradiction was reflected in the Confucian school’s persistent pursuit of two conflicting pedagogical approaches—the authoritarian and the individualistic—simultaneously, with the former supporting teachers’ superior authority and allowing them to compel students to memorize the classics extensively and repetitively, and the latter defending students’ individuality and autonomy in learning and personality development. My observations at Yiqian School therefore reveal a complicated landscape of these two different pedagogies being integrated into one renovated teaching system. I elaborate on this point in the next chapter based on my fieldwork data on the teaching and learning activities taking place in the classroom at the Confucian school. Suffice it to say here that the pedagogical hybridity described in this section is crucial to understanding the concrete practice of studying the classics presented in Chap. 5 because of its potential to lead Confucian classical education into a dilemma between autonomy/individualism and coercion/ authoritarianism in cultivating autonomous learners.

Summary In this chapter, I have demonstrated the presence of pedagogical individualization in the burgeoning domain of Confucian classical education in contemporary China and its impact on the didactical reform in Yiqian School. The dynamics of pedagogical individualization have contributed to the emergence and development of the contemporary debate over Confucian education. Unlike the two national debates on dujing that took place in 1934 and 2004, this ongoing argument involves many practitioners of classical education, such as founders of Confucian schools, teachers, and parents, who draw on their years of firsthand experience in practicing Caigui Wang’s dujing theory to speak out, with a particular focus on the pedagogical aspects of how to read and memorize the classics. These outspoken practitioners are often dissatisfied with the current state education system, especially its examination orientation, and are concerned over a palpable moral crisis in society; therefore, they desire for their children or students to improve their moral cultivation,

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learn how to conduct themselves in social life, and become virtuous persons through the extensive and constant study of Confucianism. In Chap. 3, I have explained how these Confucian education practitioners were motivated to “dis-embed” their children from state education and engage them in the full-time study of the classics, and described the rise to prominence of these practitioners as critical individuals who were outspoken in expressing their dissatisfaction with state education and took determined action to realize the anticipated ideal education. I have gone further in this chapter to show that these individual Confucian educational actors also played a significant role in promoting the pedagogical individualization of classical education by critically rethinking the authoritarian pedagogy proposed by Caigui Wang and facilitating an accommodation within a Confucian pedagogy of an individual-based philosophy of teaching and learning. Mr. Chen of Yiqian School was a notable participant in the ongoing debate over the pedagogy of reading the classics and contributed to the individualization and diversification of classical pedagogy. This chapter has elaborated on the following three controversial issues raised by Mr. Chen, all of which pose a direct challenge to the previously dominant dujing theory advanced by Caigui Wang. The first controversial issue is the relationship between principles and methods in the classical education process. According to Mr. Chen, dujing education adopts a principle of dualism whereby the collective and authoritarian one-for-all teaching approach is separated from and violates the individualized tenet of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, Mr. Chen called for drawing lessons from ancient Chinese sishu education to combine the individualized teaching principle with the one-on-one method. Secondly, by drawing upon the notion of historical legitimacy, Mr. Chen argued that his proposed sishu education is authentic Chinese education because it perfectly conforms to the inheritance system of ancient Chinese pedagogy. In contrast, Caigui Wang’s dujing education is merely a product of westernization and is therefore incompatible with Chinese educational tradition. Moreover, the range of learning in sishu education, as Mr. Chen indicated, is far more extensive than reading the classics, and this point breaks through the assumption of equating the single element of dujing to the entire system of ancient Chinese education. Thirdly, the legitimacy of sishu education is consolidated by the linguistic nature of Chinese language. Mr. Chen argued that Chinese language is melodic and suitable for memorization by singing rather than reading in a

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flat tone. Memorization and comprehension of classic texts can be achieved simultaneously when the learner sings them out. In light of this, as Mr. Chen concluded, mechanical memorization, which is universally assumed to be the dominant method in ancient Chinese education, actually goes against the melodic nature of Chinese language and is, therefore, not an authentic Chinese way of education. Furthermore, the above arguments of Mr. Chen directly drove the implementation of the reform of pedagogical individualization at Yiqian School. In this chapter, I have detailed the process of this pedagogical reform, identifying the authoritarian and individualistic pedagogies involved. The teaching reform ended with an invented pedagogy that I call individualized memorization, which is a self-contradictory hybrid of the individualized teaching principle, venerated by Mr. Chen, and Caigui Wang’s promotion of extensive memorization of the classics. In the next chapter, I explore how Yiqian School used the individualized memorization approach in its classroom activities to foster students’ learning autonomy and encourage them to memorize as many classics as possible. To this end, I focus on the teaching and learning techniques applied at the Confucian school to develop students into autonomous, learned individuals.

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Liu, Xiufeng. 2011. Ertong Dujing Shifou Yinfa Ertong Jiaoyuguan Zhi Bian (Whether Reading Classics Education Arouses Debates on Children’s Educational View). Zhongguo Jiaoyu Xuekan (Journal of the Chinese Society of Education) 7: 22–25. (In Chinese). Qin, Yuqing. 2007. Chuantong Sishu de Lishi Bianqian (Historical Changes of Traditional Private Classical Schools). Xungen (Roots Seeking) 2: 8–11. (In Chinese). Qiufeng. 2005. Xiandaihua Waiyi Xiade Mengmei Zhuyi (Obscurantism under the Guise of Modernization). In Dujing: Qimeng Haishi Mengmei? Laizi Minjian de Shengyin (Dujing: Enlightenment or Ignorance? Voices of the Folk Society), ed. Xiaoming Hu, 45–47. Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe (East China Normal University Press). Tian, Zhengping, and Yunlan Yang. 2005. Zhongguo Jindai de Sishu Gailiang (The Modern Sishu Reform in China). Zhejiang Daxue Xuebao (Renwen Shehui Kexue Ban) (Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences)) 35 (1): 5–13. (In Chinese). VanderVen, Elizabeth. 2012. A School in Every Village: Educational Reform in a Northeast China County, 1904–1931. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Wang, Xiaohua. 2005. Guanjian de Wenti Shi Ruhe Dujing (The Key Issue Is How to Read the Classics). In Dujing: Qimeng Haishi Mengmei? Laizi Minjian de Shengyin (Dujing: Enlightenment or Ignorance? Voices of the Folk Society), ed. Hu Xiaoming, 84–87. Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe (East China Normal University Press). Wang, Caigui. 2009. Jiaoyu de Zhihuixue (Wisdom of Education). Nanjing: Nanjing University Press. (In Chinese). ———. 2010. The Rationale for Classics-Reading Education (Dujing Jiaoyu de Jiben Yuanli). Sina Blog of Wang Caigui. http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/s/ blog_6552756e0102uxx3.html?type=1. ———. 2014. Dujing Ershi Nian (Two Decades of Classics Reading Education). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. (In Chinese). Wang, Canglong. 2016. Benmo Xianhou Yu Yinren Eryi: Dangdai Dujing Jiaoyu de Liangge Yuanze Yu Neizai Zhangli (Two Principles and Internal Tension in Contemporary Theory of Classics Reading Education). Rujia Wang (Confucian Website). http://www.rujiazg.com/article/id/9215/. ———. 2017a. Modern Sishu: Change, Legitimacy and Policy (Xiandai Sishu: Bianqian, Hefaxing Yu Duice). China References (Zhongguo Cankao) 1: 78–86. ———. 2017b. Zuo Jiji Gongmin: Dujing Jiaoyu, Zai Fansi Zhong Chongxin Chufa (Be Positive Citizens: Reading Classics Education to Restart out of Reflections). Rujia Wang (Confucian Website). http://www.rujiazg.com/ article/id/12333/.

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———. 2018. Debatable ‘Chineseness’: Diversification of Confucian Classical Education in Contemporary China. China Perspectives 4: 53–64. https://doi. org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.8482. ———. 2022. Parents as Critical Individuals: Revival of Confucian Education from the Perspective of Chinese Individualisation. China Perspectives 2: 7–16. ———. 2023. The Rise of Confucian Citizens in China: Theoretical Reflections and Empirical Explorations. London: Routledge. Wei, Xing. 2016. Dujingcun Zhengzha Shi (Struggle of One Village of Classics Reading). Nanfeng Chuang (Southern Window), September. Wu, Zongjie. 2014. ‘Speak in the Place of the Sages’: Rethinking the Sources of Pedagogic Meanings. Journal of Curriculum Studies 46 (3): 320–331. https:// doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2013.839005. Wu, Yabo. 2016. Xiandai Sishu Jiaoyu Zhi Wojian (My View on Modern Sishu Education). http://www.djwcg.com/content/?727.html. ———. 2017. Wo Weihe Fandui Chundujing? (Why Go against Pure Classics Reading?). Rujia Wang (Confucian Website). http://www.rujiazg.com/article/id/11532/. Wu, Bin, and Nesta Devine. 2018. Self-Cultivation and the Legitimation of Power: Governing China through Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory 50 (13): 1192–1202. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1395737. Xu, Jianshun. 2012. Wo Suo Lijie de Zhongguo Gudai Jiaoyu (Chinese Ancient Education in My Opinions). Legeng Academy. http://www.logeng.com/ show-­8-­132-­1.html. Xue, Yong. 2005a. Shenme Shi Mengmei? (What Is Ignorance?). In Dujing: Qimeng Haishi Mengmei? Laizi Minjian de Shengyin (Dujing: Enlightenment or Ignorance? Voices of the Folk Society), ed. Xiaoming Hu, 48–50. Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe (East China Normal University Press). ———. 2005b. Zouxiang Mengmei de Wenhua Baoshou Zhuyi (Cultural Conservatism Going towards Ignorance). In Dujing: Qimeng Haishi Mengmei? Laizi Minjian de Shengyin (Dujing: Enlightenment or Ignorance? Voices of the Folk Society), ed. Xiaoming Hu, 41–44. Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe (East China Normal University Press). Yao, Xiaodan. 2016. Youzou Zai Huise Didai de Sishu Shuyuan (Sishu and Shuyuan Walking in the Gray Areas). Guangming Ribao (Guangming Daily), October 12. You, Xiaoli. 2008. Dujing Taolun de Sixiangshi Yanjiu (A Study on the Intellectual History of the Discussion of Reading the Classics). In Dujing You Shenme Yong (What Is the Use of Reading Classics), ed. Pengcheng Gong, 419–428. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe (Shanghai People’s Publishing House). Zeng, Yi. 2013. Theory of Confucianism, Confucius Religion and State Religion (Ruxue, Kongjiao Yu Guojiao). Journal of Tongji University (Social Science Section) (Tongji Daxue Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban)) 4: 63–71.

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Zhang, Rui. 2014. Shizi Lukou de Dujing Cun (A Village of Reading Classics at the Crossroads). Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekly), September 5. http:// www.infzm.com/content/103904. Zhang, He. 2016. Ruci Dujing Weihe Zhineng Zaojiu Yongcai (Why Does Classics Reading in Such Way Only Create Mediocrity). Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), September 8.

CHAPTER 5

Cultivating the Autonomous Learner: Disciplinary Power, Techniques of the Self, and Pedagogical Dilemmas

Introduction Anyone who entered Yiqian School would see a large poster on the wall of the Teaching Building giving the school’s mission, authority, teaching principle and spirit, regulations of study, and briefings for teaching staff. Alongside were photographs exhibiting visits from local Education Bureau officials, all six classes, and smiling students dressed in traditional Han Chinese clothing. The words and pictures on the poster would leave visitors with an impression of the Confucian school’s high quality classical education, its good relationship with local officials, the solidarity and professionalism of its teaching staff, and the enjoyment of students in learning Confucianism. My attention was immediately drawn to the following sentence in particular: The school devotes itself to educating students in accordance with their natural ability and applies an individualized approach to teaching practices.1

The above quotation is a literal translation of the Chinese phrase “yincai shijiao,” which implies that a teaching style should reflect each pupil’s ability. I translate this pedagogical principle simply as “individualized education.” Yincai shijiao was initially proposed by Confucius and has 1

 School observation in April 2015.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_5

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been a fundamental principle of Confucian education throughout Chinese history. However, I found its evocation on the poster unusual because intellectuals and political campaigns to condemn Confucianism over the past century have ingrained a stereotype of Confucianism as an authoritarian ideology that represses individuality and of Confucian education as negating learners’ autonomy (Lee 2000; Wang 2018; Wu 2014). This stereotype is seen in the discussion of Chinese individualization, with Confucianism presumed to embrace the absolute primacy of the collective over the individual and considered an old category from which Chinese individuals strive to “dis-embed” in their pursuit of modern values (Yan 2010, 2011). Yiqian School claims to have rejuvenated the teaching principle of yincai shijiao, which apparently evokes an individual orientation within Confucianism. The notion of yincai shijiao was inscribed in multiple school documents. For example, one class evoked it in its Rules of Study, expressing “Hope that all students (…) can develop the capability of self-­ discipline, independent study, self-improvement to a greater extent, and the gradual achievement of self-perfection.” Furthermore, on the school website, in the brochures handed out to visitors, and throughout the annual reports to the local Bureau of Education, the idea of yincai shijiao was articulated as Yiqian School’s foremost teaching principle. In Chap. 4, I have revealed that the principle of yincai shijiao was explicitly proposed by Mr. Chen, the founder and headteacher of Yiqian School, to challenge the authoritarian pedagogy advocated by Caigui Wang. I have also explained that introducing the individualized teaching principle was an ideological motivation for the pedagogical individualization reform launched at Yiqian School in early 2013. The principle of individualized education was finally mixed with the goal of extensive and repetitive memorization of the classics to generate a hybrid method of “individualized memorization,” which was introduced in the fall of 2014. This chapter addresses the following questions: How did the Confucian school implement the individualized teaching principle of yincai shijiao in mundane classroom activities? What concrete techniques did the school take to educate students on the study of the classics following this educational principle? What were the outcomes and efficacies of these teaching and learning practices? What kind of student was Yiqian School aiming to cultivate? How did the students react to these practices of learning the classics?

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To explore the above questions, I use Foucault’s concepts of governmentality and subjectification, the meanings of which are clarified in Chap. 2. In particular, disciplinary power, which, as Foucault (1979) argued, works through enabling subjects to regulate themselves by surveillance and eventually by self-surveillance, offers an effective approach to analyzing how students are trained to become autonomous, learned persons through regular and continuous supervision, control, and examination in the process of learning the classics. Moreover, I apply the conceptual tool of technologies of the self in the data-driven sections that follow. According to Foucault (2003), the technologies of the self permit “individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immorality” (p. 146). In this chapter, I draw on the observation and interview data collected during my fieldwork at Yiqian School to demonstrate various practices and activities of teaching and learning the classics in the classroom and reveal how they contribute to cultivating students to become autonomous, self-­ disciplined learners. As clarified in Chap. 4, Yiqian School has redrawn its educational blueprint through its pedagogical reform since September 2014 by confirming the goal of cultivating autonomous learners who can memorize many classic books and also understand them to a certain degree. Moreover,  the teachers described autonomous learners as those who had acquired the consciousness of self-discipline and self-­management in their study of the classics, had an enhanced capability for self-regulation and self-control in moral cultivation, and were aware of studying for themselves rather than for others. Referring to the general education background can help to explain why this Confucian school places so much emphasis on learner autonomy. In the broader context, although the cultivation of autonomy in personality and morality has been a central target of Western liberal education (Bonnett and Cuypers 2003; Hand 2006; Levinson 1999), this has not been the case in modern Chinese education (Halstead and Zhu 2009; Littlewood 1999). Since the post-1978 reform era, the rise of suzhi (quality-­oriented) educational reform has focused on learner autonomy more than personal autonomy. Learner autonomy means encouraging students to take responsibility for their own learning (Littlewood 1999: 71), whereas personal autonomy refers to “the capacity of the individual to make free, informed, rational decisions and thus to take responsibility for

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his or her own life” (Halstead and Zhu 2009: 444). However, some researchers have argued that even learner autonomy is unrealistic in Chinese classrooms because of the residual impact of examination-­oriented education (Dello-Iacovo 2009; Hansen 2015; Kipnis 2011; Lou 2011). The above point was reflected in the interviews with Mrs. Zheng and Mr. Chen, the founders and headteachers of the Confucian school, who had a profound influence on the pedagogical reform, as shown in Chap. 4. They criticized the state education system for failing to develop students’ independent thinking and autonomous learning.2 Hence, they sought to use the Confucian idea of individualized education or yincai shijiao and the compatible teaching method of “one (teacher) on one (student)” (yiduiyi) to reform the authoritarian approach of extensive memorization, which the two founders argued was no different from mainstream examination-­ oriented education. They indicated that the authoritarian approach of learning the classics treated students as passive, submissive conformists rather than active, autonomous learners. As Mr. Chen said, I judge that [our previous pedagogy] shared exactly the same teaching principle and method as mainstream examination-oriented education, except that the learning content was changed from the state-mandated textbooks to Confucian classics. We taught students this way in the past: the teacher would say, “Attention all! Read after me!” Who was the subject in the teaching and learning? The teacher! And the students were merely followers. Is it any different from the examination-oriented education of state schools? The most popular teaching method in mainstream state schools is “Attention all! Listen to me!” The students are passive learners, whereas the teacher plays the central role, too! To conclude, I am sure that what we did before was nothing but assume that students were submissive learners, controlled by the teacher in the learning process, and consequently not enjoying their study of the classics at all.3

In the following sections, I first describe some typical techniques applied at Yiqian School for teaching and learning the classics under the umbrella pedagogy of “individualized memorization,” aiming to cultivate students to become autonomous, learned individuals. I then discuss what 2  Similar critical comments against state education by parents of children at Yiqian School can be found in Chap. 3, showing the parents drawing on an anti-instrumentalist ideology to challenge China’s current examination-oriented state education system. 3  Interview in May 2015.

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the participants (students, teachers, and parents) thought about the individualized memorization approach to studying the classics and reflect on the implications of their opinions for the subject-making process among students. Before concluding, I reveal students’ resistance to coercion in implementing the pedagogy of individualized memorization in their study of the classics. By presenting these teaching and learning practices, I show the pedagogical dilemmas of Yiqian School. On the one hand, this Confucian school attempted to implement the memorization of classical literature following the individualized teaching principle, as shown in Chap. 4, and to respect students’ disparities in memorization capabilities. On the other hand, with its ultimate goal of training students to become great cultural talents, Yiqian School also attached great importance to coercing them to recite the classics beyond the limits of their abilities, which provoked private resistance among students. I argue that the students were governed by technologies of power in the disciplined classroom while also being encouraged to be the masters of their own study according to the technologies of the self so as to become autonomous learners. In a broad sense, the revived Confucian education encounters a profound dilemma between autonomy/individualism and coercion/authoritarianism in making Confucian individuals.

Techniques to Cultivate Confucian Autonomous, Learned Individuals As discussed in Chap. 4, the pedagogical reform of Yiqian School has resulted in a hybrid, self-contradictory pedagogy of individualized memorization of the classics, which combines two knowledge sources of Confucian education: the individualized teaching principle of yincai shijiao and the goal and method of extensive and repetitive memorization of classical literature. I have argued that these two knowledge sources represent and reveal aspects of Confucian education that are not always congruent. In this section, I go further to indicate that they are entangled in forging technologies of power (in relation to governmentality) and of the self (in relation to subjectification) in the classroom practices at the Confucian school. Moreover, exploring how students are developed into autonomous learners through the extensive study of the classics helps to unveil the subtleties of subject-making in Confucian education, about

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which surprisingly little is known. Subject-making, as clarified by Taylor (2011), is a two-way process: while we constitute ourselves as subjects (thus being enabled) by way of various “practices of the self,” we are simultaneously constituted (thus being constrained) insofar as the way in which we undertake these practices is shaped by society’s institutions, norms, and values (p. 173). In the following sections, I describe five techniques involved in the individualized approach to memorizing the classics, through which the Confucian school strove to cultivate autonomous learners: minimum memorization, study schedule, examination, competition, and mutual monitoring. These practices manifest subject-making through disciplinary power, the purpose of which, as Foucault (1979) explained, “is to ‘train.’ (…) Discipline ‘makes’ individuals; it is the specific techniques of a power that regards individuals as objects and as instruments of its exercise” (p. 170). Disciplinary power yields effects by targeting the body, exerting control over bodily activities, and making the body “more obedient as it becomes more useful” (p. 138). The exercise of discipline also brings with it coercive mechanisms of observation, normalization, and examination (p. 184). Individuals are trained in repetitive practices according to norms to learn how to control and regulate their own behaviors and attitudes through external surveillance (pp. 176–177). Minimum Memorization “Master Confucius said, ‘There may be those who act without knowing why. I do not do so. Hearing much and selecting what is good and following it; seeing much and’ … uh … and …” It was the third time that day that Wenbo, an eight-year-old boy, had lost his place as he attempted to recite the required section of The Analects of Confucius in front of the teacher. His face turned red, his eyes were closed tightly, and his brows knotted into a frown as if to gather all his mental strength to retrieve the text. He put two index fingers over his ears when reciting to shield himself from the outside noise so that he could concentrate on remembering the passages written in classical Chinese. After struggling for approximately 20 seconds, he opened his eyes, loosened his brows, pulled his hands from his ears, and looked at the teacher anxiously. The third failure frustrated him. It was the third class of the day, but he had recited fewer than 100 characters and his minimum character requirement for memorization every day was 220 characters. Other students also

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had to memorize their minimum number of characters, which varied according to their memorization ability. The teacher, Miss Xu, was sitting in front of a desk and facing the students, with a portrait of Confucius hanging on the wall just behind her. She did not blame Wenbo. She shut the classic book that she was focusing on when Wenbo was reciting and said gently, Wenbo, do you know why you failed to recite the passage? Because you have not read the text enough times. Please do not force yourself to memorize them. Do not cram. Slow down and be more patient. Just do the best you can. Read at least 20 times, and you will be able to recite naturally.4

Wenbo nodded slightly, and his look of anxiety lessened. He picked up the book, bowed to the teacher, said, “Thank you, teacher,” and returned to his seat to continue reading the given passage aloud, over and over again. This scene is typical of the everyday teaching and learning practice in Qishun Class, one of the six classes at Yiqian School, as discussed in the Introduction chapter. Wenbo felt pressure from the difficulty of meeting the minimum requirement for individualized memorization. In Qishun Class, the daily tasks of reciting the classics were divided into two parts. The first part concerned the compulsory task of memorizing a minimum number of characters, which constituted the primary content of daily study. The second part concerned extra characters that were to be memorized by students once they completed their minimum for the day. The headteacher of Qishun Class, Mr. Sun, viewed this division between minimum and additional tasks as signaling how the individualized principle operated in the actual practice of memorizing the classics. The compulsory task reflected the baseline established by the careful evaluation of students’ individual memorization capacities. The minimum target characters varied from student to student with the aim of, in the words of Mr. Sun, achieving a state in which students “eat something” but not enough to satisfy them, so that they maintain their desire to “eat” (memorize) more. The additional memorization task was set to maximize students’ inner motivation to recite as many classics as possible, serving the Confucian school’s goal of having students read the classics extensively. How did the teachers recognize and confirm every student’s minimum number of characters? First, the teachers asked the students to report the 4

 School observation at Qishun Class in April 2015.

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number they believed reflected their self-assessed memorization capability. The teachers then reviewed the proposed target numbers and corrected them according to their judgments of the students’ past performance in the study of the classics. The minimum number of characters for memorization was not static, as it was subject to change each month. The students were also allowed to modify their proposed minimum number of characters after a discussion with the teacher. The variation in the minimum number of characters for memorization was supposed to epitomize how committed the school was to implementing the individualized teaching and learning principle. Table 5.1 shows the minimum number of characters for the students in Qishun Class in April 2015, when the lowest number of characters was Table 5.1 Minimum daily characters for memorization of the students in Qishun Class

Student (anonymized) Minimum Number of Characters A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V

300 260 400 (650)a 200 300 (350) 500 350 1600 (700) 300 700 (600) 200 400 300 280 260 500 450 650 350 100 370 200

The number in brackets refers to the proposed minimum number of characters suggested by the student before it was finalized with input from the teacher a

Source: From the author

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100 and the highest was 1600. The student with the lowest number was the youngest, at six years old. His teacher thought that he was too young to study independently and that it was not feasible to assign him extra work beyond his aptitude. The pupil who was set 1600 characters as his minimum number for memorization requested a minimum of 700 but accepted his teacher’s suggestion to increase it. The boy acknowledged that it was not difficult to complete the minimum task because the number included both the characters for memorizing new classics and those he was reviewing from previous rounds of memorization. The average minimum number of characters for memorization across Qishun Class was 408 in April 2015. However, if the highest number is excluded, this mean value drops to 350. Overall, the figures in Table 5.1 show how the individualized memorization approach was put into practice in Qishun Class for students’ study of the classics. The technique of minimum memorization engendered two outcomes in classroom practices. First, most of the students in Qishun Class reported no difficulty in accomplishing their minimum number of characters, and quite a few requested extra work that sometimes amounted to as many as double the minimum. Second, the minimum memorization technique continued to apply pressure on a few students, such as Wenbo, who had difficulty completing the baseline requirement for classics memorization every day. The teachers encouraged slower students to do their best to catch up and reduced their minimum number of characters when necessary, to make the students comfortable and avoid dampening their passion for studying the classics. The minimum memorization technique differentiated the study requirements for each student but also divided students into two categories: those who memorized quickly and those moving at a slower speed. The disparities in students’ memorization capacities were respected, as evinced by the wide variety of minimum recitation character numbers in Table 5.1. However, coercion continued to be a factor for the slower students, and all students were required to follow the same pattern of completing the minimum tasks first and then completing the extra tasks. Disciplinary power was thus exerted through division and coercion. The practice of minimum memorization also shaped two aspects of the students’ attitude toward learning. First, the compulsory minimum tasks required students to be honest with themselves about their performance and learning ability. Second, the optional extra tasks stimulated students to do their best in the study of the classics and recite more if they could.

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Study Schedule and Examination The students of Qishun Class generally started their workday by making a personalized study schedule according to their self-assessed capability. They were then expected to use this schedule to guide themselves to arrange and complete their memorization tasks. “Attention, all students! Please take out your planners and start writing down your study plans for today!” Miss Yang shouted while the students were still talking. Hearing these words, the students immediately stopped making noise, obediently took out their planners from their desk drawers, and began to plan their study, as Miss Yang had asked them to do.5

The scene depicted in the above passage took place during the first class of the day, when the students developed their study schedules. The study schedule had a standard structure, despite the diversity in the students’ required tasks for learning the classics. It took the form of a diary with three parts: morning, afternoon, and evening. In addition, it included the date, day of the week, and weather at the top of the page. There were usually two compulsory tasks to be scheduled: memorization of (1) the classics (written in classical Chinese) and (2) annotations (zhujie; written in modern vernacular Chinese). Memorizing the original classics without interpretation was the first and most essential task of the day for every student. The scheduled range of classics was marked from one sentence to another and the number of characters was specified. Memorization was divided into two consecutive steps: “to read” (du) and “to recite” (bei). Students had to read each passage at least 20 times before reciting it. The reading step was considered a precondition for the natural achievement of the recital, and students were discouraged from moving on to reciting too quickly before reading sufficiently. This structure is similar to the memorization practice of ancient China. According to Bakken (2000), Zhu Xi (1130–1200), a representative of Neo-Confucianism who lived during the Song Dynasty, admired the method of repetition and recitation and recommended that students read a book “from front to back over and over again, to the point of ‘intimate familiarity’” (pp. 142–143). Zhu Xi viewed the repetitive practice of

5

 School observation at Qishun Class in April 2015.

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reading and memorizing the classics as necessary “to clear one’s mind, and to make the social rules a part of oneself and one’s own body” (p. 143). I draw on some theoretical points made by Erving Goffman to further the understanding of the memorization approach to learning the classics. Following Goffman (1971), the methods of repetition and recitation that students used for their study of the classics involved the two processes of routinization and ritualization. Goffman argued that individuals in highly routinized environments are concerned with the rule of self-respect and protecting their self-image. Therefore, they restrain their emotional involvement to behave according to situational properties (i.e., demeanor) (p. 62). However, in highly ritualized environments, individuals not only are concerned with the rule of self-management but also take into consideration the thoughts of others to maintain others’ image (i.e., deference) (Goffman 1967). The Confucian school expected students to cultivate a self-disciplined personality and become “well demeaned individuals” (p.  37) through routinization, while maintaining a reverent attitude toward classical literature and ancient sages through the repeated reading and memorizing of the classics. The second task logged in the daily schedule was to recite the annotations written in modern vernacular Chinese. This activity was not included until 2015, in an attempt to address the problems caused by mechanical memorization. As revealed in Chap. 4, reflection on the problems caused by the method of learning the classics by rote motivated the radical pedagogical individualization reform in the Confucian school from early 2013 to the fall of 2014. Later, Mrs. Zheng attempted to reconcile the pedagogical contradiction between the individualized teaching principle and the goal of memorizing the classics extensively and created a hybrid method of individualized memorization. As part of this attempted reconciliation, reading and memorizing annotations of classical texts were added to students’ everyday classics study. However, the teachers of Qishun Class informed me that memorizing annotations did not facilitate the students’ understanding of the original classics because they merely learned the annotated texts mechanically. Ancient Chinese intellectuals developed a methodological system for interpreting Confucian doctrines, whereby learners could generate new ideas by expounding on seminal books loyally and critically (Wu 2011, 2014). Unfortunately, this achievement was rarely seen in the teaching outcomes at Yiqian School. In addition to the two compulsory core tasks for the everyday study of the classics, the students in Qishun Class engaged in calligraphy practice,

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so they added this to their study plans. The calligraphy practice scheduled on a daily basis was of two types: the younger students practiced Chinese writing with the hard-tipped pen (yingbi) and the older students used the soft brush pen (ruanbi). All of the students followed the fundamental method of linmo (tracing and imitating) in their calligraphy practice, first tracing in black ink over characters printed in red on paper and then imitating the characters in spaces without red tracing. As Bakken (2000: 137–141) explained, the practical modes of repetition and imitation, as exemplified by classics memorization and calligraphy practice in students’ study schedules, have continued for centuries in the history of Chinese education and have been seen as the basic approaches to subjectification through the logic of exemplarity. The general purpose of the study schedule was the same as that of the minimum memorization technique, as both sought to train students to become autonomous learners. However, the study schedule also oversaw and controlled students by transforming the learning process into a calculable, standardized trajectory, countable by the number of characters, pages, and reading and reciting times. It divided the entire process of study into clear steps, in each of which the students were expected or required to manage and regulate their own pace. The planners were the students themselves, who had to list every task, mark every assignment with explicit character and page numbers, and complete them one by one. This process was always concomitant with an examination by the teacher. There were two types of examinations at Yiqian School. The first was the everyday examination, in which the teacher played the role of examiner, checking every item on the self-study plan. When students were ready for this check, they walked to their teacher to request an examination. They then handed over their schedules to their teacher in a respectful manner and started reciting the classics from memory. The school specified that students could only be prompted twice at most. When a student passed the examination, the teacher would sign the study plan notebook to indicate that the task was finished. If a student failed, they had to continue reading the passage and prepared for the next round of examination. According to the school rules, each section to be checked must be no less than 100 characters. When the minimum memorization tasks were done, students were encouraged to decide for themselves how many extra tasks they would like to add to their study schedules—here, the techniques of study schedule and examination were linked to the aforementioned practice of minimum memorization. Once all of their tasks were completed,

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students would be graded at the end of their study plan notebooks with a stamp that read “Excellent,” “Work harder,” “Recitation done,” “You are great,” “First rate,” “Read over,” or “100 points.” Sometimes the teacher would make comments on the students’ performance to encourage them to do better next time. The school used a second type of examination called baoben (reciting an entire book) to test students’ memorization efficiency and effectiveness. This practice required them to recite a classic book from the first sentence to the last in one go. When students succeeded in reciting every part of a book, they were asked to review the whole book and combine all of the memorized sections. As the school valued this practice as a barometer of educational achievement, students’ recitation performances were recorded on VCDs that were delivered to their parents at the end of the semester. It should be noted that the examination method of baoben was popularly used before the reform of pedagogical individualization in early 2013, at the time when Caigui Wang’s dujing theory dominated Yiqian School’s teaching and learning processes. In Chap. 4, I have discussed the collective memorization system called “Seven Sections Five Rounds” (Qijie wulun), which was designed to encourage students to achieve the goal of reciting an entire book. Here, however, we see the return of baoben after the pedagogical individualization reform as an examination technique to test students’ memorization through an individualized approach. The recovery of baoben also serves as an example of the pedagogical hybridity and internal contradiction of the compromise method of individualized memorization. The self-study plan acted as a government technique, providing the teacher with a distinct image of what tasks were included and how and when the students were to finish them. It enabled the teacher to oversee each student’s performance in memorizing the classics and regulate the progress of the entire class. The technique of examination, which Foucault (1979) regarded as a practice facilitating the exercise of disciplinary power, incorporates hierarchical observation and judgment into a “normalizing gaze” (p.  184). Foucault indicated that disciplinary power manifests its potency by arranging objects, and “the examination is, as it were, the ceremony of this objectification” (p. 187). The examination practice objectified the students so they could be controlled, overseen, and managed. The teachers monitored and judged the students’ study of the classics. They were also examiners and prompted students to continue learning, especially when they had slacked off.

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Competition The fourth typical technique for educating students on learning autonomy through studying the classics was to create a competitive classroom environment. Acknowledging external competition with other people, the Confucian school emphasized internal competition; that is, it guided students to learn how to compete with themselves so as to achieve constant self-transformation and self-improvement. This particular idea conforms to the Confucian tradition of jiaohua (to transform oneself and others through education) (Kipnis 2006; Lin 2017; Wang and Billioud 2022). One specific practice to foster a competitive relationship between students was ranking them according to the number of characters they had memorized. Taking Qishun Class as an example, the teacher wrote down the names of the five students who recited the most characters from the classics every week and the number of characters they had memorized on the blackboard. Furthermore, the results of the memorization examinations were announced on the class WeChat group, to which the parents of all students in Qishun Class subscribed. The students were also informed that their parents would be notified of their academic performance at school. In addition, the top five students in the weekly competition would receive material rewards, such as snacks, toys, or the privilege of eating delicious food. Students who were not in the top five would be encouraged by the teacher to work harder and strive to make it to the top of the ranking the following week. The class headteacher, Mr. Sun, explained that the competition in classics memorization was not meant to generate inequality or discrimination among students but rather to stimulate their inner motivation to recite as many classics as they could so as to train them to become autonomous learners. In multiple interviews, Mr. Sun repeatedly emphasized the importance of cultivating students’ honest attitudes toward their own learning. The everyday teaching practices were therefore designed to encourage students to relate to themselves with authenticity. Furthermore, he reminded the students that the aim of the method of ranking according to the number of characters memorized was not to push them to engage in external rivalry with others but rather to improve their internal power to practice self-cultivation and enhance their consciousness of learning the classics for their own benefit. Accordingly, Mr. Sun requested all students to learn to become responsible for their studies and do their best to memorize classical texts. I argue that this particular idea by Mr. Sun

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corresponds to the Confucian individualistic notions of zilv (self-­discipline) and zide (self-realization), which allow Confucian individuals to devote themselves to moral cultivation for their own spiritual benefit instead of any external utilitarian results, so as to achieve the formation of an authentic self (de Bary 1983: 45; see also Chen 2016; Tu 1989). To address the question of whether the competition for classics memorization achieved the intended effect, I draw on one story and one practice. First, some of the students indeed motivated themselves to surpass their classmates in the number of characters memorized as they competed for higher rankings and material rewards. To illustrate the competitive environment that was formed among the students, Xingjian and Kangshuo were the top students in classics memorization in Qishun Class and often competed against each other in the everyday study of classical literature. One day, during the first evening class, Mr. Sun asked the students how many characters they had already memorized that day; Xingjian and Kangshuo reported 2000 and 1000 characters, respectively, which far exceeded that of other pupils and provoked a big round of applause in the classroom. However, Xingjian was unsatisfied with his achievement and wanted to recite more classics. When I asked him why he was not satisfied, he told me, “It is because Older Brother Kangshuo6 has memorized more classics than I have.” When he saw Kangshuo stand up and go to Mr. Sun for another recitation check, he added in a defiant tone, “I must surpass him!” For the background to this story, Kangshuo had recited 7285 characters in the previous week to rank first in the class, and Xingjian had ranked second with 4703 characters recited. Consequently, Xingjian had set himself to outperform Kangshuo as his goal for the week and was therefore stimulated to work harder and memorize more classics. In the competitive environment of Qishun Class, Xingjian aspired to achieve better study performance than the previous week in classics memorization and encouraged himself to become a more diligent, active, and autonomous learner. Second, one practice to boost students’ competition for classics memorization in Qishun Class was to request them to sign a military order 6  The teacher advised students in Qishun Class to call each other not directly by name but by adding “older brother” (xiong) or “younger brother” (di) before the first name. The purpose of this practice, as Mr. Sun explained, was to cultivate closer fraternal ties and affection among the boys, most of whom are the only child in the family, in their everyday school life.

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(junling zhuang). In ancient China, a military order was a guarantee signed by a commander to promise the completion of a certain important military task. This practice originated from wars in ancient times and worked as a technique to impose absolute power upon the signer, strengthen their inner determination, and reinforce their sense of responsibility. Penalties were to be used in association with a military order: if the signer failed to accomplish the task as promised by the deadline, they would be punished according to the codes of military law. Mr. Sun, who was familiar with and enthusiastic about ancient Chinese military affairs, implemented an analogous practice to guide students to divert their devotion from external competition to internal competition and motivate them to recite entire classic books. In the middle of the spring semester at the end of May, less than one month before the summer holidays, Yiqian School intensified its requirement for students to read and memorize at least one classic book in its entirety. To achieve this goal, Mr. Sun advised the pupils of Qishun Class to pledge to complete the task within one week and to sign a military order as a resolute promise. The military order read as follows: Military Order Today, I solemnly sign this military order and pledge to complete Book One/Book Two within this week. If I fail to do it, I am willing to receive any punishment.       __________ (Student signature)

“Book One” refers here to a collection of primers, including The Classic of Filial Piety, Standards for Students, The Three Character Classic, The Book of Family Names, and The Thousand Character Classic, and “Book Two” refers to another collection of more advanced Confucian classics, including The Great Learning, The Doctrine of Mean, and The Analects of Confucius. As the students were allowed to select one of the two books according to their study performance, this practice was also considered by the teachers as an indicator of the Confucian school’s implementation of the individualized principle of teaching and learning in the study of the classics. Moreover, as reciting one of the two recommended collections was scheduled as the teaching goal and task for Qishun Class throughout the spring semester, these were the books that the students had been reading and memorizing since the beginning of the semester.

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Eight of the twenty-two students in Qishun Class committed themselves to complete the recitation of Book One, and another two promised to finish Book Two. The students who did not sign the military order continued to follow their original study plans to accomplish the minimum daily memorization tasks. It should be noted that students volunteered to sign the order rather than being coerced to do so. Once they had signed it, however, they became subject to enforcement in the course of carrying out the promised task and would even suffer penalties if they did not achieve the goal. The practice of signing a military order had an immediate effect on students’ classics memorization. I observed that those “warriors” who signed the military order became much more diligent and active in learning the classics; this was in stark contrast to their previous relatively lethargic state of learning. Many times, I saw them reading the classics at lunchtime, a time they usually spent playing. One week later, half of the ten challengers had fulfilled the signed commitment and were praised by the teacher in front of the whole class. However, the other half who failed the task were punished by either reciting twice the minimum number of characters or studying overtime under the watchful eye of the teacher. The technique of the military order served the goal of encouraging students to recite entire classic books by respecting their differences in academic performance and maximizing their potential learning capacity. By the end of the spring semester, all ten challengers had completed the signed order ahead of schedule. In the meantime, more “warriors” followed suit to sign their military orders; those who finished the first book under a military order voluntarily took another to recite the second. Given this, I argue that when the students were motivated to take on the signed tasks, they gave their consent to be subject to the norms, discipline, and punishments imposed by the teacher. Accordingly, the teacher was authorized by the students’ signed order to pressure them to study the classics over time. Mutual Monitoring in Groups Mutual monitoring in groups was the fifth and final typical technique used at Qishun Class to cultivate students’ learning autonomy and encourage them to memorize many classics. By dividing students into several study groups and changing the spatial arrangement of the classroom, Qishun Class introduced a new pattern of student interactions in which they

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Fig. 5.1  Mutual monitoring in groups in Qishun Class. *Image taken in June 2015

engaged in mutual monitoring in their independent study of the classics. Mr. Sun invented this grouping method by splitting the class into four groups of five students, each with an appointed leader. Figure 5.1 shows the grouping pattern in the classroom. In the actual learning of the classics, each of the four groups operated as a self-governing unit in which students were encouraged to govern themselves in the process of studying the classics and were also monitored by their group leader and groupmates. The group leader was responsible for reminding group members to concentrate on their studies at all times, especially when they were distracted; he was also accountable for checking their recitations to reduce the teacher’s workload. Furthermore, as the group leader sat inside the group rather than outside of it, positioned in front of and directly facing other group members, he could keep an eye on their behavior. The teacher also expected the group leader to set a good example for the other students in the group, not only in classics memorization but also in self-disciplined conduct and autonomous learning. Moreover, the group members could exert surveillant power upon the leader by observing his performance and reminding him to focus on his own study of the classics. Groupmates were also responsible for

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monitoring each other and reporting to the leader when someone behaved inappropriately. According to Foucault (1979, 1982), the monitoring techniques of power aim to produce rational self-control by regulating the body and correcting behavior (see also Hoffman 2011; Power 2011). The task of monitoring rests on individuals, but its functioning, as Foucault (1979) indicated, “is that of a network of relations” that “‘holds’ the whole together and traverses it in its entirety” (pp. 176–177). In the class, the constant intensive interactions of “seeing” and “being seen” in groups involved disciplinary power being simultaneously imposed on the group leader and group members. Finally, the students learned how to manage themselves in the learning process by internalizing and complying with the disciplinary power operating through the pattern of mutual monitoring in groups.

Educating Great Cultural Talents (wenhua dacai): Coercion and Resistance Having described the concrete teaching and learning activities involving the techniques of the self and practices of disciplinary power in Qishun Class in the preceding section, I now discuss what the participants (students and their teachers and parents) of this Confucian school thought of the pedagogy of individualized memorization of the classics. I also reflect on the implications of their opinions for the subjectification process among students. As clarified above and in the previous chapter, Yiqian School embraced the individualized teaching and learning principle in its renovated pedagogy of classics study and confirmed its commitment to cultivating students’ autonomy in learning and personality development. However, it also retained the idealized goal of training pupils to become great cultural talents (wenhua dacai) and the method of reading and memorizing the classics extensively, as proposed by Caigui Wang. Consequently, the Confucian school invented a hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization and practiced it in its everyday classroom teaching and learning activities. This particular method emphasized pedagogical individualism in students’ study of the classics and worked to encourage learners to recite a large number of classical texts in a self-directed, autonomous way. However, as I have shown in the previous section, the students were

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simultaneously following the collective examination pattern of baoben (reciting an entire classic book), being a typical example of how disciplinary power operates in the process of studying the classics through normalization, coercion, and monitoring. This section provides a deeper understanding of the internal contradiction of the individualized memorization method by drawing on interview data from various participants in Yiqian School. It then proceeds to show some practices of students in resisting the authoritarian aspects of the hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization and the underlying disciplinary power. Coercion Versus Autonomy in Classics Memorization The students at Yiqian School often found themselves trapped in a dilemma between autonomy and coercion in their study of the classics. For many students, the hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization did increase the number of characters from the classics they could learn and recite. For example, Juanran, a 14-year-old girl in Qili Class, acknowledged that she could memorize far more classics than she was able to previously because she was now allowed to make and follow her own study schedules: When I came to this Confucian school in 2011, the school still adopted the approach of collective reading (qidu) of the classics, by which we were often asked to read the given passages all together more than 300 times. Even if someone was already able to recite the texts fluently before reading them 300 times, they had to continue to read until they had done so 300 times. Using this method, we could read and recite 3,000 to 4,000 characters in a month. Later, the school changed to promote the method of self-reading (zidu) of the classics, so we no longer read together. Instead, we are now encouraged to read the classics ourselves and develop our study plans. Using this new method, I am able to recite more than 10,000 characters in only one month! This is a big number that I would not have imagined achieving three years ago!7

Some other students shared a similar experience. In the group discussions in Qili Class, many girls reported that the individualized approach of reading and memorizing the classics had significantly boosted their efficiency and effectiveness in learning classical literature and had particularly 7

 Class discussion in June 2015.

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improved the number of characters they could recite. This finding echoes the story I presented in the previous section, showing that the boys in Qishun Class were motivated to compete for rankings in classics memorization and some were able to recite an incredibly large number of characters from classical texts. Meanwhile, however, the students had to subject themselves to their teachers’ authority and disciplinary power in memorizing the classics. In this regard, I refer to the following quotation from Linxuan, a 13-year-old girl who was a classmate of Juanran in Qili Class: Miss Hou (the class headteacher) often does not arrange the study tasks according to our personal differences. In her view, all we need to do is just read and recite; the more, the better. (…) She allows me to count the number of memorized characters from the classics every day. She even suggests I learn by rote sometimes, but in this way, I would quickly forget the memorized texts and fail to recite them. (…) I have my own study plan, but she frequently disrupts it and requires me to review what I have already recited. I often ask for her permission to read some passages more times, but she just says “no, no!” She simply denies my requests and discourages my thinking every time! (…) Consequently, I become very upset, annoyed, and bored, having no idea whether I should review the memorized classics or learn the new ones.8

As soon as Linxuan finished speaking, the other students in Qili Class nodded in agreement, echoing in unison, “That is right!” They complained that Miss Hou often intervened in the development of their self-­ study schedules and imposed on them memorization tasks exceeding their actual capabilities. For example, 14-year-old Zitong conveyed a similar sentiment: Last semester, Miss Hou often assigned me more tasks than I wanted. For example, she required me to schedule the recitation of the entire Book of Changes in my study plan for that semester and suggested how I could divide this large task into smaller,  consecutive steps day by day. Well, if I could finish the minimum memorization no later than the second class (four classes in total for classics memorization per day in Qili Class), it was fine with me when Miss Hou arranged extra memorization tasks. However, if I completed the minimum memorization in the third class or even later but 8

 Class discussion in May 2015.

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she still insisted on adding extra 300 characters to my study plan, I would feel very pressured because it was really difficult for me to make it. The school claims to educate students according to their natural aptitude, but I feel that it is just the opposite in my learning experience! I actually feel that the teacher often forces me to recite more classics than I can.9

Another female student, 14-year-old Lanxin, confessed the same experience of being forced to read the classics: As far as I’m concerned, what the teacher (Miss Hou) does is nothing but force us to recite the classics as much as she thinks we can. If you finish the tasks scheduled for today, she will ask you to start doing the tasks you plan to do for tomorrow. Anyway, she just requires you to keep reading and memorizing the classics all the time! If you are distracted for just a moment when learning the classics in the classroom, the teacher will immediately remind you to regain your attention. An occasional reminder might be useful, but what she does actually exceeds my maximum tolerance limit! She always forces me to read more classics than I want; this practice makes me feel very stressed.10

Notably, the students’ learning experience shown above is similar to what they had previously suffered in the state education system, in which they had to deal with an overload of schoolwork, as revealed in Chap. 3. Here we see that they were facing similar struggles in the Confucian school with the excessive burden of memorizing the classics. They also had to submit to their teacher’s authority and arrange their everyday study plans following their teacher’s demands, which sometimes went against their will. Respecting the authority of teachers is an essential element of Confucian thought (Chen 2016; C.  Wang 2022; X.  Wang 2017). However, what is especially evident in these Confucian students’ experience of studying the classics is not “respect” for but rather “obedience” to the teacher. This finding offers new evidence of the Confucian school’s self-contradictory pedagogy of individualized memorization. On the one hand, Yiqian School claimed to promote the role of the teacher as a guide and facilitator of students’ learning rather than dominating their process of memorizing the classics. Accordingly, it placed great emphasis on developing students’ self-directed learning. On the other hand, this 9

 Class discussion in May 2015.  Class discussion in May 2015.

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section demonstrates the dissatisfaction of the Confucian school students with their teacher’s excessive interference in their study schedule and learning process. Given the above, I argue that the Confucian school’s hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization encountered a tension between autonomy and coercion when it came to actual teaching and learning practices. The school sought to cultivate students to become autonomous, learned individuals in the study of the classics while simultaneously retaining the collective goal of extensive memorization and even allowing the teacher to interfere with students’ self-made study plans, which in turn impaired students’ learning autonomy. Additionally, the teachers’ coercion of students to read and memorize more classics than they wanted to was found not only among the older students in Qili Class but also in the mandatory rules for the younger students in Qishun Class. In the preceding section, I have described how Qishun Class practiced the technique of minimum memorization to encourage students’ inner motivation to study the classics and associated this technique with other teaching and learning activities. For example, one document entitled Rules for Comprehensive Learning Management, issued by Qishun Class in May 2015, mandated the following: Students cannot have lunch or dinner until they have completed the required minimum memorization tasks. When finishing the compulsory minimum tasks of the day, students are to have the privilege of reading extra-curricular books in evening classes.

This excerpt from the class rules shows that Qishun Class associated students’ study performance in classics memorization with the activities of having meals and free reading. It provides one more piece of evidence for the tension between the technique of minimum memorization and the individualized teaching principle. Indeed, Mr. Sun, the headteacher of Qishun Class, revealed some reservations about the pedagogy of individualized memorization: Teaching students according to their natural capabilities is absolutely correct and reasonable. (…) However, an authentic, individualized education cannot simply request students to read and recite the classics. (…) In my opinion, the method of reading and memorizing a large number of classics is pointless because students will soon forget the texts they have recited, only

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to be asked to re-read and re-memorize them. Even if students recite an entire classic book, they still forget much of it after a while. (…) Not to mention that this coercive approach to studying the classics is detrimental to children’s physical and mental health and can only create more problems.11

My discussion with Miss Hou, the Qili Class headteacher, revealed a hidden reason for the contradiction between autonomy and coercion in implementing the method of individualized memorization. Miss Hou confessed that she was aware of her students’ dissatisfaction with her coercive teaching style, but she felt that she had to adopt it due to pressure from Mrs. Zheng, the headteacher of Yiqian School. She indicated that Mrs. Zheng constantly asked her to impose pressure on the older students in Qili Class to maximize their potential to read and recite as many classics as possible. I followed up on this insight by conducting multiple interviews and daily chats with Mrs. Zheng, which contributed to understanding the reasons for the development of this situation. First, she explained that her request for Miss Hou to pressure her students in their study of the classics was based on her firm belief that the more classics the students read and recited, the more moral qualities they could obtain, and the more likely they would be cultivated to become “great cultural talents”. Mrs. Zheng inherited this idea of Confucian education from Caigui Wang, who identified the training of students to become great cultural talents through extensive memorization of the classics as the basic goal of his classical education theory (see Wang 2009, 2014). Mrs. Zheng described a great cultural talent as a highly learned and moral Confucian individual, which is compatible with Wang’s theory. She went further to argue that contemporary Chinese people have been alienated from the ancient Chinese classics, Confucianism included, due to the disappearance of Confucian education for decades in modern Chinese history. Hence, she believed that only by nurturing a group of great cultural talents with profound moral cultivation and the cultural ability to shoulder the responsibility of revitalizing Confucianism and Chinese classical culture would China make up for this cultural lacuna. Accordingly, Mrs. Zheng proposed a specific plan for students’ Confucian study: first read and memorize the classics at Yiqian School and then move to a Confucian academy established by Caigui Wang to pursue  Interview in April 2015.

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further classical studies. According to the admission criteria for Wang’s Confucian academy, prospective students must recite at least 200,000 characters of Chinese classics and 100,000 words of non-Chinese classics. Therefore, Mrs. Zheng hoped that the students in Qili Class could memorize the classics and meet the admission standards of Wang’s academy as soon as possible. To achieve this goal, she even resorted to forcing students to memorize more characters from the classics than they wanted, and to  interfering in their study plans. However, by placing students’ everyday study of the classics within the full framework of classical education, the goal of which was to seek advanced Confucian studies at the academy, it was difficult not to undermine students’ learning autonomy through restrictive and coercive teaching and learning practices.12 The demands placed by parents on this Confucian school and their expectations for their children’s achievements in the study of the classics were another equally important factor in retaining the authoritarian aspects in the hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization. To some extent, recovering the method of extensive memorization of the classics and reconfirming the goal of proceeding to Wang’s academy for further Confucian studies were necessary steps for Yiqian School to meet some parents’ aspirations for an ideal classical education for their children. The words of Mr. Sun, the headteacher of Qishun Class, provide evidence for this point: We always face contradictions when attempting to teach students according to their aptitude. Well, a number of parents want to see immediate effects and academic achievements in their children’s reading of the classics. But what is the most obvious and easily measurable teaching achievement? The number of characters memorized  from the classics! Hence, the school requires students to read and recite a large number of classics to make their parents happy.13

I draw on some interview data from parents to support the above statement of Mr. Sun. For example, Mrs. Song, whose son had been learning the classics for five years at Yiqian School at the time of her interview, 12  In addition, some students went against their parents on the issue of whether they would move on to the Confucian academy for their future education. A number of parental informants disclosed that they expected their children to go to the academy, but their authority was challenged by their children’s independent thoughts and actions. A detailed discussion of this topic is provided in Chap. 7. 13  Interview in April 2015.

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regarded memorizing the classics extensively as the fundamental and reasonable pathway to cultivate students to become moral and learned individuals. She stated the following: In the process of memorizing a large number of classics, a pupil is able to absorb the beautiful and profound ancient texts in his mind, improve his moral cultivation, and settle down and get on with his pursuit. (…) I was extremely concerned when this Confucian school previously completely abandoned the method of extensive memorization of the classics. If a child wants to accumulate a wide range of knowledge and obtain deep life wisdom, he must make the most of the golden period for memory (i.e., before the age of 13) in his life and memorize as many classic books as he can. I would feel sad if he missed out on this golden period.14

Nine of the seventeen parents interviewed expressed clear support for the extensive memorization of the classics. Although other parents were skeptical or critical of this method, they did acknowledge that it could serve as a straightforward and effective measure of achievement in classical education. Notably, some parents were concerned that Yiqian School had for a period dropped the pedagogy of requiring students to memorize a great number of classics and shifted to a purely individualistic pedagogy based on the principle of teaching students according to their individual needs. For example, Mrs. Fan described her feeling and experience at that time as follows: It was a really painful time. I was extremely anxious in those days. My daughter’s [14 years old at the time of the interview] number of characters memorized from the classics was very low throughout the semester. (…) I was pretty sure she must have been playing around at school. I knew how many characters she could memorize because I had taught her to read the classics since she was a kid. (…) I was worried she was doing nothing at school and wasting her life. (…) I felt so helpless and could only keep asking myself, “What should I do?”15

However, not all parents agreed with the authoritarian pedagogy of memorizing the classics extensively. Nearly half of the parental informants expressed some degree of criticism about the school’s excessive emphasis  Interview in July 2015.  Interview in August 2015.

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on the extensive memorization of the classics. They did not deny the didactical value of the memorization method but argued that such a coercive teaching style would inhibit students’ development of autonomous personhood. Mr. Qian recounted an occurrence involving his eight-year-­ old son who had studied the classics for two years at Yiqian School, which left him greatly worried. He stated that his son bruised his head by knocking it on the desk because he had failed to recite one book and was very disappointed in himself. This behavior made this father realize that his child was not happy to study the classics at the Confucian school. Admitting that he did not care about the number of characters from the classics a child could master, he explained the following: I am really disgusted with the practice of the teacher pressuring students to memorize a large number of classics. Something must have gone wrong if my child feels unhappy reading the classics. He told me a few days ago that staying at the Confucian school was like being in prison! These words might not matter to other people, but to me, they show that he is not happy at school! (…) The school claims to implement the principle of individualized teaching. However, does it truly do so? If so, why is my child still feeling unhappy? Why did he do that [knock his head against the desk]? (…) How to develop a child’s genuine interest in studying the classics? How to nurture his personality and aspirations? How to make him learn the classics happily? All these issues matter to me.16

Likewise, Mrs. Jin, when talking about the approach of making students engage in the extensive memorization of the classics, argued that such a teaching and learning method was unsuitable for her 14-year-old son as it would harm his physical and mental health. She observed, “The older students are primed to form their independent minds and do not want to be forced by parents or teachers,” and continued to argue that In today’s society, children cannot only read and memorize the classics; rather, they must learn many other skills and capabilities. They should be taught to study happily, and their personalities and individualities cannot be suppressed. (…) Sometimes, the teacher exerts too much interference in students’ learning process. Some children are too young to clearly understand the teacher’s interference, but the older students might perform

 Interview in July 2015.

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­ bediently and submissively in front of the teacher while actually harboring o different thoughts.17

In summary, the controversies over the hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization of the classics applied at Yiqian School revolved around the basic themes of autonomy versus coercion, individuality versus collectivity, and independence versus obedience. I argue that the pedagogical dilemmas evident in this Confucian school are relevant to the complicated general situation of contemporary China, shaped by the dynamics of party-state managed individualization (Yan 2009, 2010). Specifically, individualization and the rise of individuals have intensified Chinese people’s craving for individual-oriented values. This social change is reflected in moral education (Cheung and Pan 2006; Feng and Newton 2012; Li 2011; Ye 2014). In this context, Chinese children are experiencing “growing empowerment and individualisation (…) within the family and society,” which is “one of the most important developments in the modern era” (Naftali 2016: 118). However, the revival of Confucian education and memorization-based pedagogy have legitimated the disciplinary power that coerces children to engage in extensive memorization of the classics to lay the intellectual and moral foundations for them to become great cultural talents. Student Resistance In this section, I discuss the practices that the students of Yiqian School engaged in to resist the coercion of the disciplinary power embedded in the authoritarian approach of extensive memorization of the classics. As noted in Chap. 2, the practice of power is always accompanied by resistance: as Foucault (1990) argued, “Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (p. 95). Some sociological studies have explored children’s resistance in the school context. For example, Hope (2013) revealed how students resisted observational practices in schools through false conformity, avoidance, counter-surveillance, and playful performance (pp. 45–48). There are also discussions in the literature of students’ resistance to the surveillance curriculum (Hope 2010) and challenges to schools’ surveillance technologies (Hope 2016).  Interview in August 2015.

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The regime of moral cultivation based on extensive memorization of the classics triggered dissatisfaction and resistance against coercion and surveillance among students in the Confucian school. Despite recognizing the importance of educating students on learning and personal autonomy through studying the classics, the Confucian school lacked deep reflection on the approach of extensive classics memorization, which inevitably involved rote learning of classical literature. I have observed that teachers were not allowed to explain annotations of elusive classical texts and could not tell stories or play games in the classroom. No critical discussions of the classics were permitted; instead, the students read the classics repetitively and extensively without any requirement to understand them. All of these practices fit under the umbrella of training students to become great cultural talents, as proposed by Caigui Wang, and aimed to encourage them to finish the extensive memorization of the classics before moving to Wang’s Confucian academy to pursue further classical studies. As a result, many students reported feelings of boredom, anxiety, disinterest, disappointment, and depression. From my fieldwork in Qishun Class, I describe two typical techniques of resistance that the students often applied in the process of reading and memorizing the classics: seeking loopholes (zuan kongzi) and dawdling (mo yanggong). The teachers used both terms to describe how students reacted to the extensive memorization of the classics in their learning. Seeking loopholes was one technique that the students in Qishun Class frequently adopted to escape from the disciplinary power they experienced in the requirement to memorize many classics. It seems that the pupils were sophisticated in discerning loopholes and flexible and clever in exploiting them. In my first few days in the class, my status as a newcomer who was not yet familiar with the teaching schedule and content that needed to be memorized was exploited by several sharp-witted children seeking opportunities to escape recitation.18 Some students intentionally picked out shorter passages of only 50 or 60 characters to recite, as they 18  It should be noted that I played two roles simultaneously in Qishun Class during my fieldwork—one as a researcher and one as a teacher. My role as a researcher was to observe and record the students’ activities for the sake of the research project, but I was quickly assigned by the school leader to work as a teacher in Qishun Class. Taking on this teaching role meant that the students expected me to fulfill the responsibilities of a regular teacher, such as monitoring their learning of the classics and examining them on their memorization.

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knew passages with fewer words were easier to memorize, even though this practice went against the school’s regular requirement of at least 100 characters for each task. Unfortunately, it was only later that I realized I was being taken advantage of by these students. Moreover, some pupils relied on my ignorance to recite easier content rather than the more difficult books. One day, for example, a boy asked me to examine his recitation of The Thousand Character Classic, a readable primer for kids written in simple Chinese. However, he did not tell me that he had not completed the compulsory minimum memorization of The Analects, a seminal and much more profound book of Confucianism. On another occasion, a student tried to use my ignorance of the class regulations for his own benefit. When I had just arrived in class, he repeatedly asked me if he could play Chinese chess during the break, and I agreed. It was not until later that I learned that students were prohibited from playing chess. This example also reflects the strict discipline the students experienced in the Confucian school, which was so rigorous that even playing chess was restricted. In addition to exploiting my ignorance of the rules, the students took advantage of loopholes in communication among teachers as they attempted to muddle through the recitation examination. For example, one student wrote a monthly summary (yue zongjie) to review his study performance, which was marked as a failure by the teacher, Miss Xu, who told him to rewrite it. However, when the class headteacher, Mr. Sun, who knew nothing about the issue, came to the class, the student presented the same writing to him, seeking to obtain a pass. The student’s plan was unsuccessful in the end, as Mr. Sun spoke with Miss Xu and the attempt to exploit the loophole was laid bare. Dawdling was the second typical technique adopted by students in Qishun Class to resist the extensive memorization of the classics. The school’s embrace of the idea of individualized teaching and learning in its pedagogical reform entailed a free and relaxing study environment, which created ideal conditions for students to dawdle in the classroom. For example, although the students were required to develop their own study plans in the first class of the day, a few of them, especially three or four regular procrastinators, simply sat still in their seats and dawdled for so long that they did not take their notebooks out of the desk drawer until the teacher reminded them to do so. Sometimes I observed that these dawdlers did not focus on reading the classics at all throughout the three morning classes; instead, they would stare blankly into space, fight with

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their desk mates for fun, or just lay their heads on the desk and doze off. These dawdling behaviors can be seen as the students’ reaction to the Confucian school’s repressive and monotonous pedagogy. Reading the students’ monthly self-summaries gave me further insights into how they killed time when they should have been engaged in reading the classics. A few pertinent extracts follow (italics added). (1) Mom was extremely dissatisfied with my conduct and attitude, (…) but I did not feel a sense of crisis from hearing her words and increasingly became presumptuous. [What I did was just] kill time in class, and I felt trapped in a daze and was crazy thinking about chasing popstars. (13-year-old girl, March 2015) (2) Recently, I have been very easily disturbed in class and often look around. My learning efficiency is not high. I am trying to figure out why this happens. I want to learn the classics, but I always feel like there is something wrong, as if maybe I am lacking something, but there is nothing to find out at all. (12-year-old boy, April 2015) (3) Lately, I often fall asleep in the first two classes of the day, which are considered the best time for memorizing the classics. The teacher reminds me of this hundreds of times, and I am extremely regretful for doing so. What a loss of two classes! (16-year-old boy, April 2015) (4) The teacher requested me to recite the entire section of Teng Wen Gong II of Mencius, but I refused because I had wasted too much time in the past. I would have been able to do it if I had not wasted so much time. (12-year-old boy, May 2015) It has been argued that the school context may breed cultures of resistance that serve a purpose in broader society (Willis 1977; Xiong 2015), such that resisting school surveillance might equip students for their future lives in a surveillance-saturated society (Hope 2013). However, the significance of the students’ resistance to their subject-making through the study of the classics in this Confucian school should not be overestimated. Neither seeking loopholes nor dawdling negated the Confucian memorization-­based cultivation regime. The students’ resistance practices were not an effort to overthrow the cultivation regime but rather an effort merely to momentarily challenge it or make it bearable. In other words, the students did not directly confront the authority of Confucian pedagogy but only challenged it subtly and “create[d] room for themselves

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without getting into trouble” (Hansen 2015: 61). Therefore, these actions should be interpreted “as a means of negotiating self and self-interests” (Hansen 2015: 35) within the context of the organized school. They also perfectly echo the notion of the divided self (Kleinman 2011), suggesting that contemporary Chinese personal “transcripts” are about the “acts of accommodation and collaboration that enable ordinary people to negotiate China’s social reality” (p.  231) but without explicit defiance of the authoritarian structure.

Summary In this chapter, I have shown that Yiqian School claimed to cultivate students to become autonomous learners through the invented, hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization of the classics. However, its actual teaching and learning processes were subject to the intersections of the technologies of disciplinary power—found in the teachers’ coercive practices, the method of examination, and students’ mutual surveillance—with the technologies of the self, such as self-management, self-motivation, and internal competition. The subject-making process through the study of the classics thus demonstrates a contradiction between autonomy and coercion in the Confucian school. The Confucian school attempted to implement the practices of teaching and learning the classics under an individualized teaching principle that would respect students’ different memorization abilities. Simultaneously, however, it attached great importance to coercing students to read and memorize as many characters from the classics as possible, and ideally to recite entire classic books. In this regard, I have described the practices involving the technologies of disciplinary power and the self in training students’ learning autonomy: minimum memorization, self-­ study schedule, examination, competition, and mutual monitoring in groups. Based on these findings, I have further clarified in this chapter the enduring authoritarian aspects of the mixed pedagogy of individualized memorization in shaping learners’ obedience to the goals of memorizing the classics extensively and pursuing further classical studies at a Confucian academy established by Caigui Wang. I have also presented the opinions of the students, teachers, and parents on the pedagogical dilemmas in the implementation of the approach of individualized memorization. Some of the students confessed that their teachers often intervened in their

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self-­made study plans and even coerced them to engage in more memorization of the classics than they wanted. These coercive practices in the study of the classics imply profound cultural anxiety among some teachers and parents, who expected these authoritarian teaching and learning methods to serve the direct goal of cultivating students to become great cultural talents who could assume the responsibility of revitalizing Confucian culture. Moreover, students’ development of practices of resistance against the disciplinary power embedded in the method of extensive memorization provides further evidence of the pedagogical authoritarianism of classics learning in the Confucian school. Although students reacted by seeking loopholes and dawdling to express their dissatisfaction with the memorization-­based regime of cultivation, they did not mean to overturn it but merely to momentarily challenge or avoid it. Furthermore, these acts of resistance never led to a direct confrontation with the authoritarian pedagogy; instead, they only opposed it in a subtle way without getting students in trouble (see also Hansen 2015). In summary, Yiqian School’s conflicting implementation of the pedagogy of individualized memorization of the classics indicates that the revival of Confucian education is fluctuating between autonomy/individualism and coercion/authoritarianism in educating students to become autonomous, learned Confucian individuals. In other words, students of Confucian education are governed by the technologies of disciplinary power while being motivated to use technologies of the self to take control of their learning process. In the next chapter, I continue to discuss these contradictions in Confucian pedagogy and self-formation but shift the focus to the educational re-embedding of students and their parents in the Confucian school.

References Bakken, Børge. 2000. The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control, and the Dangers of Modernity in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bary, William de. 1983. The Liberal Tradition in China. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Bonnett, M., and S. Cuypers. 2003. Autonomy and Authenticity in Education. In The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education, ed. N.  Blake, P.  Smeyers, R. Smith, and P. Tandish, 326–340. London: Blackwell.

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Chen, Lai. 2016. The Ideas of ‘Educating’ and ‘Learning’ in Confucian Thought. In Chinese Philosophy on Teaching and Learning: Xueji in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Xu Di and Hunter McEwan, 77–96. New York: State University of New York Press. Cheung, K., and S. Pan. 2006. Transition of Moral Education in China: Towards Regulated Individualism. Citizenship Teaching and Learning 2 (2): 37–50. Dello-Iacovo, Belinda. 2009. Curriculum Reform and ‘Quality Education’ in China: An Overview. International Journal of Educational Development 29 (3): 241–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2008.02.008. Feng, Ling, and Derek Newton. 2012. Some Implications for Moral Education of the Confucian Principle of Harmony: Learning from Sustainability Education Practice in China. Journal of Moral Education 41 (3): 341–351. https://doi. org/10.1080/03057240.2012.691633. Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ———. 1982. The Subject and Power. Critical Inquiry 8 (4): 777–795. ———. 1990. The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. Edited by R. Hurley. New York: Vintage. ———. 2003. Technologies of the Self. In The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, ed. Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose, 145–169. New York: The New Press. Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour. London: Penguin. ———. 1971. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Halstead, J. Mark, and Chuanyan Zhu. 2009. Autonomy as an Element in Chinese Educational Reform: A Case Study of English Lessons in a Senior High School in Beijing. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 29 (4): 443–456. https://doi. org/10.1080/02188790903308944. Hand, Michael. 2006. Against Autonomy as an Educational Aim. Oxford Review of Education 32 (4): 535–550. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03054980600884250. Hansen, Mette Halskov. 2015. Educating the Chinese Individual: Life in a Rural Boarding School. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Hoffman, Marcelo. 2011. Disciplinary Power. In Michel Foucault: Key Concepts, ed. Dianna Taylor, vol. 49, 27–39. Durham: Acumen Publishing. https://doi. org/10.5860/CHOICE.49-­4791. Hope, Andrew. 2010. Student Resistance to the Surveillance Curriculum. International Studies in Sociology of Education 20 (4): 319–334. https://doi. org/10.1080/09620214.2010.530857.

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———. 2013. Foucault, Panopticism and School Surveillance Research. In Understanding Foucault, Bourdieu, Habermas and Derrida: Social Theory and Education, ed. Mark Murphy, 35–51. London: Routledge. ———. 2016. Biopower and School Surveillance Technologies 2.0. British Journal of Sociology of Education 37 (7): 885–904. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569 2.2014.1001060. Kipnis, Andrew. 2006. Suzhi: A Keyword Approach. The China Quarterly 186 (July): 295–313. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741006000166. ———. 2011. Subjectification and Education for Quality in China. Economy and Society 40 (2): 289–306. Kleinman, Arthur. 2011. Chapter Eight: Quests for Meaning. In Deep China: The Moral Life of the Person, ed. Arthur Kleinman, Yunxiang Yan, Jun Jing, Sing Lee, Everett Zhang, Tianshu Pan, Wu Fei, and Jinhua Guo, 213–234. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lee, Thomas H.C. 2000. Education in Traditional China: A History. Leiden: Brill. Levinson, M. 1999. The Demands of Liberal Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Li, Maosen. 2011. Changing Ideological-Political Orientations in Chinese Moral Education: Some Personal and Professional Reflections. Journal of Moral Education 40 (3): 387–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305724 0.2011.596342. Lin, Delia. 2017. Civilising Citizens in Post-Mao China: Understanding the Rhetoric of Suzhi. London and New York: Routledge. Littlewood, W. 1999. Defining and Developing Autonomy in East Asian Contexts. Applied Linguistics 20 (1): 71–94. Lou, Jingjing. 2011. Suzhi, Relevance, and the New Curriculum: A Case Study of One Rural Middle School in Northwest China. Chinese Education & Society 44 (6): 73–86. https://doi.org/10.2753/CED1061-­1932440605. Naftali, Orna. 2016. Children in China. Cambridge: Polity Press. Power, Michael. 2011. Foucault and Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology 37: 35–56. Taylor, Dianna. 2011. Practices of the Self. In Michel Foucault: Key Concepts, ed. Dianna Taylor, 173–186. Durham: Acumen Publishing. Tu, Weiming. 1989. Confucianism in an Historical Perspective. Institute of East Asian Philosophies 15: 42. Wang, Caigui. 2009. Jiaoyu de Zhihuixue (Wisdom of Education). Nanjing: Nanjing University Press. (In Chinese). ———. 2014. Dujing Ershi Nian (Two Decades of Classics Reading Education). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. (In Chinese). Wang, Xiao-lei. 2017. Cultivating Morality in Chinese Families—Past, Present, and Future. Journal of Moral Education 46 (1): 24–33. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/03057240.2017.1291416.

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Wang, Canglong. 2018. Debatable ‘Chineseness’: Diversification of Confucian Classical Education in Contemporary China. China Perspectives 4: 53–64. https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.8482. ———. 2022. Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority: Why Do Confucian Students Reject Further Confucian Studies as Their Educational Future? Religions 13 (2): 154–171. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020154. Wang, Canglong, and Sébastien Billioud. 2022. Reinventing Confucian Education in Contemporary China: New Ethnographic Explorations. China Perspectives 2: 3–6. https://www.cefc.com.hk/article/editorial-­reinventing-­confucian-­ education-­in-­contemporary-­china-­new-­ethnographic-­explorations/. Willis, Paul E. 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnham: Ashgate. Wu, Zongjie. 2011. Interpretation, Autonomy, and Transformation: Chinese Pedagogic Discourse in a Cross-Cultural Perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies 43 (5): 569–590. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2011.577812. ———. 2014. ‘Speak in the Place of the Sages’: Rethinking the Sources of Pedagogic Meanings. Journal of Curriculum Studies 46 (3): 320–331. https:// doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2013.839005. Xiong, Yihan. 2015. The Broken Ladder: Why Education Provides No Upward Mobility for Migrant Children in China. China Quarterly. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0305741015000016. Yan, Yunxiang. 2009. The Individualization of Chinese Society. Oxford: Berg. ———. 2010. The Chinese Path to Individualization. The British Journal of Sociology 61 (3): 489–512. ———. 2011. Chapter One: The Changing Moral Landscape. In Deep China: The Moral Life of the Person, ed. Arthur Kleinman, Yunxiang Yan, Jun Jing, Sing Lee, Everett Zhang, Tianshu Pan, Wu Fei, and Jinhua Guo, 36–77. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ye, Wangbei. 2014. Power and Moral Education in China: Three Examples of School-Based Curriculum Development. Lexington Books. Lexington Books. http://crec.edu.hku.hk/books/2537/.

CHAPTER 6

Returning to State Schools? Educational Re-embedding and the Institutional Dilemma

Introduction In previous chapters, I explore why parents choose to enroll their children in Confucian classical education (Chap. 3) and the Confucian school’s practices of cultivating students to become autonomous learners through the extensive study of Confucian classics (Chaps. 4 and 5). This chapter shifts the focus to the “future” dimension, aiming to reveal how students and their parents think about the next stage of education. In so doing, I seek to demonstrate the institutional dilemma encountered by students and their parents in their search for a less risky approach to re-embedding in education after years of full-time study of Confucianism at the private classical Yiqian School—that is, returning to state schools. The findings of this chapter bring us back to some of the main points of the individualization thesis (Giddens 1991; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002) and further our understanding of the “re-embedding” aspect of the Chinese path to individualization (Yan 2009, 2010). According to Beck (1992), “re-embedding” refers to “a new type of social commitment” and signifies the control or reintegration dimension of individualization in modern societies (p. 128). As Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) pointed out, the individualization thesis provides for the following two means of “re-embedding”: (1) reimposing “old” social controls and constraints (e.g., state, religiosity, nationalism, gender, and social class) on © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_6

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individuals; and (2) creating “new” social categories and commitments in civil society (such as the fractured sets of values and increased emphasis on the aspirations of the individualized self). Specific to the context of Confucian education in this book, one “old” way of “re-embedding” for students and their parents is to go back to conventional state schools, which is the focus of this chapter. A “new” way to “re-embed” is to pursue further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy, an advanced institution established by Caigui Wang that is widely regarded by parents as an ideal place to learn Confucianism, as discussed in the next chapter. I begin this chapter with the story of Mr. Li and his 12-year-old son Yangyang. Just a few days before my interview with Mr. Li, he received surprising news when Yangyang, who was preparing for the secondary school entrance examination, called him from the Confucian school. “My son told me that he wants to go back to the state secondary school and does not want to continue studying Confucian classics,” Mr. Li told me with a deep sigh, revealing his anxiety and disappointment. He added, “I really don’t know what to do now!”1 Mr. Li’s worry was understandable in light of the extent of his efforts to ensure that Yangyang would learn the Confucian classics. Two years earlier, continuously opposed by his wife and parents, Mr. Li had taken Yangyang, who was then in Year Four, out of state education and transferred him to Yiqian School for full-time Confucian studies. He was eager for Yangyang to memorize 300,000 characters of classical literature at the Confucian school before pursuing further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy.2 Accordingly, Mr. Li acknowledged that he had never considered returning his son to a state school. Mr. Li’s determination to enroll his son in Confucian education echoes the main argument in Chap. 3 that parents dis-embed from state education due to both dissatisfaction with that education and the desire to expose their children to Confucian moral concepts. Some studies have also demonstrated Chinese parents’ general expectations and efforts to ensure that their children pursue an ideal education (Kipnis 2011; Hizi 2019; Wang 2022).

 Interview in May 2015.  As mentioned in the preceding Chaps. 4 and 5, Boyue Academy has established an admission requirement that all applicants must have successfully recited at least 300,000 characters of the classics before they submit an application, including 200,000 characters of Chinese classics and 100,000 words of non-Chinese classics (e.g., English, German, and Sanskrit). 1 2

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However, Yangyang did not agree with his father about the plan for his education. Two years of full-time study of Confucian classics through repetitive and extensive memorization had left him tired and bored. He confessed that he had no interest in the educational future mapped out by his father; nor did he feel that memorizing 300,000 characters of the classics, as expected by his father and the Confucian school, was something that he could do. In several conversations with me, Yangyang repeated that he wanted to go back to a state school for his secondary education, because he believed that this was the only way to be accepted by a good senior high school and then a good university. By way of background, Yiqian School, whose curriculum focuses on the classics, is a nine-year compulsory school approved by the local government. Although Yiqian School is institutionally designed to enable students to complete their compulsory education, few students do so; most choose to transfer to state schools or other Confucian schools after several years of studying classics. The main reason for this situation is that since its establishment, this Confucian school has not provided compulsory courses. Later in the chapter, I will return to and conduct a detailed analysis of this issue. In addition to returning to state schools, students at Yiqian School have another option for continuing their education: enrolling in Boyue Academy. This option requires them to stay at the Confucian school for a long time to finish the first phase of their classical study: memorizing 300,000 characters of the classics. A few parent informants expressed their expectation that their children would pursue advanced Confucian studies at Boyue Academy. This expectation was particularly prevalent among the parents who had engaged their children in classical studies at an early age and firmly believed in Caigui Wang’s classical education theory. Notably, these parents usually pinned their hopes for their children’s further education on the whole-course planning of classical education proposed by Caigui Wang. As Wang (2014: 81–120) explained, a thorough classical education is composed of two stages. The first stage is called “reading the classics” (dujing), which means that the student should successfully memorize a required number of classical texts, namely a minimum of 300,000 characters. The second stage is called “interpreting the classics” (jiejing), for which Wang suggested that students apply for admission to Boyue Academy to pursue advanced Confucian studies under his supervision. However, according to my fieldwork at Yiqian School, only a small number of students expressed an interest in studying at the Confucian academy after memorizing the classics. Indeed, most of the students confessed that

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they lacked enthusiasm for this educational option. Consequently, many students reported experiences that conflicted with their parents’ expectations for them to engage in further Confucian education. I briefly present Yangyang’s case in this regard and return to this point, along with other students’ stories, in Chap. 7. I do not suggest that all of the parents and children in the Confucian education system necessarily contradict each other on the matter of further education, particularly in light of the relatively small sample used in this study. I emphasize that the data presented in the follow-up sections reveal that the participants’ common and deep concern about future education is associated with the state’s institutional restrictions on grassroots Confucian education. In addition, some of the students and parents who were interviewed indicated that they might consider approaches to future education beyond the two options above, such as transferring to another Confucian private school,3 becoming a tutor at the Confucian school, or preparing for the self-study higher education examination.4 However, given the dominance of the two aforementioned options in the informants’ discourse, I focus mainly on them in both this chapter and the next. This chapter examines the first of the two typical options exercised by students and their parents for their further education—returning to state schools. In the following sections, I first discuss three interlinked aspects of parents’ decision to return their children to the state education system after years of full-time study of Confucian classics, based on my fieldwork data from Yiqian School. Second, I describe how the Confucian school failed to institutionalize the state-approved compulsory education 3  Some studies (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Gilgan 2022b) have revealed that some parents leave one Confucian school to find another sishu (old-style private school) that better matches their expectations. There are circulations between traditional schools and parents’ reflections on the ideal education. Acknowledging the truth of it, this book, however, takes a different focus on the circulations between traditional schools and the official education system. 4  The self-study higher education examination, or the self-study examination (zixue kaoshi) for short, is a form of higher education that integrates self-study, social study, and national examinations. It is considered an open, inclusive educational system, and its target audience is very broad: students taking the self-study examination are not restricted by gender, age, nationality, race, or educational background. More than 100 programs are provided to applicants for the self-study examination, and they are allowed to choose the one that best matches their interests. Students are eligible for a bachelor’s degree when they successfully pass all of the modules and earn the required credits after years of self-study. In addition, a self-study degree can be used to pursue a master’s degree and even a doctorate.

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curriculum as part of its regular teaching arrangements and explain the influence of that failure on the individual participants’ re-embedding actions into state schools. The main argument of this chapter is that the parents and students involved in Confucian education are caught in an institutional dilemma between freedom and risk in their approaches to educational re-embedding.

Three Influences on “Re-embedding” into State Education: Uncertainty, Access to Degrees, and Marginalization The parents’ and students’ decision to return to state schools seems self-­ contradictory given that they initially wanted to disrupt the tendency to stay in the state system and dissociate themselves from the examination-­ oriented state education. I demonstrate the rise of critical parents in Chap. 3 and their ambivalent attitude toward the state education system. Many of the parents and students interviewed disclosed their reluctance to return to state schools. On the one hand, they were discontented with state schooling and its orientation toward examinations, which they criticized fiercely based on an anti-instrumentalist ideology. This critical mentality provided them with the impetus to “dis-embed” themselves from state education and encouraged them to engage in full-time Confucian classical education. On the other hand, these parents acknowledged that state schools would guarantee their children a secure channel for the next stage of their education. Their plan to return to state schools touches on the “re-embedding” dimension of the individualization thesis, specifically “re-­ embedding” by reimposing “old” categories such as state and family. The following remarks from Mrs. Jin are typical of the abovementioned paradoxical attitude. At the time of the interview, she was considering taking her 14-year-old son, Xinxin, out of his Confucian school and returning him to a state school. She explained, Going back to the state school would be nothing more than a compromise in response to real-world restrictions. Suppose my son wants to survive in society. In that case, he has to follow the conventional path: pass the high school entrance examination and then the gaokao (national college entrance examination). I am reluctant to do this, but I have to.5 5

 Interview in August 2015.

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This was not an easy decision. On returning to a regular school, Xinxin would enter Year Three of secondary school (chusan), as he had left in Year One and spent two years at the Confucian school. However, he would be unable to catch up with the missing compulsory courses because the Confucian school had not provided them on a systematic basis. “If I returned directly to attend Year Three [in the secondary school],” he said, “I would very likely fail the courses because I did not learn them. If I were to receive a low grade, it would be very difficult to get admitted to a top high school and then to a good university.” A more realistic option would have been to start in Year One, but this would have been a source of shame (mei mianzi, “no face”), as Xinxin would have had to study with pupils two years younger than him. He explained, “I don’t want to start from scratch [Year One] because that would be the equivalent of saying that I took two years off from the state school and did not make any progress in the compulsory courses during that time. It would be embarrassing.” In the interview, Xinxin shook his head and sighed heavily, his eyes full of confusion about the future. He admitted that he and his mother felt extremely uncertain about whether to return to a state school. He continued, My mom is very confused, and I am more confused than her. (…) Parents of children at state schools often compare their children with other people’s children. If I went back to a state school, my relatives and friends would criticize my mom. They would say that I had not learned anything at the Confucian school and just wasted two years of my life. They would even say that it is useless to learn Confucianism.6

The story of Mrs. Jin and Xinxin is not unique. Many of the interviewed parents shared similar concerns about their children’s future after Confucian studies, as I show in the following sections. That said, two of the parents reported no such feelings of anxiety. They explained that their children were in the earliest stage of primary education, so scheduling the next stage was not urgent. Another possible reason for this attitude was that these parents did not care about the value of degrees and thus were not concerned about returning their children to state education. Nevertheless, the majority of the parents interviewed confessed that they felt uncertain about the future of Confucian classical education. Notably,  Interview in July 2015.

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those who considered returning their children to regular schools still recognized the moral education aspect of studying the classics but had to give it up, primarily because it failed to guarantee clear educational prospects for their children. In other words, they were still critical of state education and its examination orientation because it did not satisfy their desire for their children to receive an education with moral qualities. However, they had to “re-embed” themselves into state schools because those schools would provide their children with an institutionally stable path to the next stage of education. This “re-embedding” action sounded instrumental and similar to these parents’ critique of “instrumentalist” state education, as presented in Chap. 3. However, I emphasize that this situation demonstrates parents’ limited access to alternative forms of education, particularly to a valid route for further Confucian studies. Therefore, returning to the state education system seems like a “forced choice” for many parents due to uncertainties relating to their children’s studies at a Confucian school. In the following sections, I present three interlinked aspects of the parents’ decision to return their children to state schools: (1) uncertainty about the prospects afforded by a Confucian education, (2) concern about academic qualifications, and (3) anxiety about the marginalization of the Confucian educational experience. Uncertainty About the Prospects Afforded by a Confucian Education Many parents used the word “confused” (mimang) when discussing the prospects afforded by a Confucian education. They confessed their uncertainties about their children’s future after years of learning Confucianism at a full-time classical school. This uncertainty may have been mild when their children were young. However, as their children grew older, the parents experienced a growing sense of urgency to rethink the next stage of their children’s education after their classics study and to reassess the potential risks of continuing their Confucian education. For example, Mrs. Jiang, whose 13-year-old son had been studying Confucianism for four years at Yiqian School at the time of the interview, described her confusion about the future of Confucian education: As far as I know, many parents are very confused about what will happen after their children’s Confucian studies. (…) What exactly is the purpose of having children read the classics? What kind of work can a child do after a

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Confucian education? In the very beginning, parents may be guided by a fervent passion, feeling that the classics are a good thing and therefore their children should read them. However, the above issues still persis, particularly because there is no formal Confucian education system to give parents confidence and a clear, step-by-step understanding of how their children can progress, graduate, and find a job. (…) Once, my husband asked me, “When does reading the classics end?” I had to admit that I didn’t know!7

Mrs. Wei had a very similar experience. At the time of her interview, Mrs. Wei’s 14-year-old daughter had already returned to a state school after one year of study at Yiqian School. Another informant recommended Mrs. Wei as an interview candidate. Regarding the reason for leaving Yiqian School, she said, I felt terribly uncertain about my daughter’s future after she went to study at the Confucian school. I was concerned about her education and career prospects, which seemed dim, hopeless, and remote. I had confidence neither in the Confucian school nor in myself.

This uncertainty about the future was also reflected in some parents’ hesitancy about sending their children to Boyue Academy. Notably, there was no official agreement for a student exchange program between Boyue Academy and Yiqian School. However, Yiqian School explicitly encouraged its students to pursue further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy as soon as they could successfully recite 300,000 characters of the classics (this is Boyue Academy’s official admission requirement). Moreover, many parents who had a firm belief in Caigui Wang’s classical education theory, including some interviewed in this study, recognized Boyue Academy as the optimal choice for their children to pursue further Confucian studies. The fieldwork data collected at Yiqian School, however, revealed parents’ ambivalence about whether their children should study Confucianism at Boyue Academy. Whereas some parents were adamant that their children should attend the Academy, others were reluctant to follow this path. For example, Mrs. Jin, the mother mentioned earlier in this section, discussed the next stage of her son Xinxin’s education with him and quickly ruled out Boyue Academy as an option. She believed it was dedicated to training

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 Interview in August 2015.

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Confucian scholars specializing in ancient Chinese literature, whereas her son’s interests lay in pop music and screenplay writing. She said, If I were to force my son to do academic research on Chinese classics, he would find it pointless because he doesn’t like it. In my opinion, it is crucial to nurture a child according to his personality and aptitude.

Similarly, Mr. Qian had no plan to keep his son on the Confucianism track for the duration of his education. Rather, he emphasized the significance of respecting children’s personal interests and aspirations when making decisions on the next stage of education. Thus, Mr. Qian did not think that Boyue Academy was an appropriate place for his son to pursue further studies. Instead, he pinned his hope on university education, saying, “When [my son] studies at university, he will have opportunities to expand his horizons and worldview, deal with different people, and develop his interests freely. However, these opportunities will not be available to him if he shuts the door to the outside world to read the classics.” With the help of one teacher, I was able to interview Mr. Zhong, whose son had enrolled in Boyue Academy after years of classics study at Yiqian School. Mr. Zhong pointed out that Boyue Academy did not solve the problem of finding a way forward (chulu) in Confucian studies but merely postponed the issue. He remained anxious about his son’s future education, career, and life. Mr. Zhong recalled, The most confusing issue is what kind of lives and careers students can have after they finish their studies at the Academy. Suppose they stay at the Academy for a decade, as Caigui Wang suggests. How will they integrate into the mainstream education system? How will they contribute to society? These are the questions that parents are worried about. The future mapped out by the Academy appears promising, but as parents, we are still unclear on how to get there. My greatest difficulty is that I have no direction. I feel lost and disoriented. (…) I don’t know what is going to happen if we continue on this path of reading the classics. This has been the case since the beginning of my son’s classics study.8

Mr. Zhong’s concern stemmed from the fact that as a non-mainstream educational institution, Boyue Academy lacks institutional connections with the state school system. Studies (Gilgan 2022a, b) have shown that a  Interview in June 2015.

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number of Confucian study halls (xuetang) and academies (shuyuan) have sought connections with the established educational system. Consistent with this trend, Boyue Academy recently encouraged students to earn higher education degrees by taking the self-study examination (zikao) or applying to foreign universities. However, these steps must be taken at the individual level, meaning that the individual students and their families must bear the costs, risks, and uncertainties themselves. The Academy has no statutory certification to award degrees, and therefore, its students lack a reliable path to further study. Furthermore, the issue of the relationship between mainstream and non-mainstream forms of education is a global one (Koinzer et al. 2017). For example, specialist schools in the UK, once a non-mainstream type of education, may focus on certain areas of the curriculum, such as arts, humanities, science, engineering, and sports, but they must meet the full requirements of the English national curriculum and cannot depart from it (Exley 2017). Correspondingly, the government has an obligation to allocate funds to these specialist schools to support their staff recruitment, training, and professional development. However, the situation of classical schools specializing in Confucian teaching and learning is quite different, because most have not received official approval from local governments. Even those already approved, such as Yiqian School, do not provide state-­ mandated compulsory education courses; nor do they receive funding from local authorities. In this sense, Confucian classical schools are excluded from the national education system and have no institutional connections with the mainstream schooling framework. I argue that this is why Mr. Zhong and many other parents who engage their children in learning Confucianism are uncertain about the prospect of Confucian education. Concern About Academic Qualifications Parents’ anxiety about their children’s future education was associated with their ability to earn degrees. Many parents acknowledged that going back to state schools and taking the college entrance examination were institutionally guaranteed ways to obtain a university degree. In contrast, Boyue Academy has no approved accreditation to award academic qualifications and thus cannot function as an institutional channel for students to advance to the university system. This means that even if students study

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Confucianism for many years at the Academy, they will not be awarded a state-recognized degree. To many students at Yiqian School and their parents, continuing their Confucian education without access to academic qualifications was an essential factor pushing them to consider returning to a state school. A few parents confessed that they did not care much about degrees. They argued that there were more meaningful things in education than degrees, such as one’s moral cultivation, ethical virtues, social experience, interpersonal skills, professional competence, critical thinking, and physical and mental health. In addition, those who questioned the value of academic qualifications cited the current employment difficulties of university graduates as an example to prove that university degrees have been depreciated in China. The minority view among parents—that degrees lack value—is related to the rapid expansion of higher education in China since the late 1990s (Ross and Wang 2010; Liu 2013; Q.  Wang 2016; Zhang et  al. 2016). That development is beyond the scope of this section. Suffice it to say that the massification of China’s higher education has resulted in an increasingly large undergraduate and postgraduate population and an increasingly competitive job market (Hoffman 2010; Shan and Guo 2016). Nevertheless, most of the parent informants acknowledged the value of academic qualifications, particularly university degrees. They worried that their children would lack a university degree if they continued with their Confucian education and would therefore be disadvantaged in the job market. Mrs. Yan had engaged her daughter in Confucian education as a result of her moral concerns about the state system but had returned her to a state school by the time of the interview. To explain why she had done so, Mrs. Yan stated, I hope that my child will get a job to support herself after university. My family’s financial situation cannot secure a bright future for her. Therefore, she must rely on herself to fight for her future life and career. Suppose that I restrict her to the track of Confucian education and prevent her from going to university. How will she find a job when she grows up? Nowadays, Chinese society highly values university degrees, which have become a precondition for embarking on a career and competing in the job market.9

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 Interview in August 2015.

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Many other parents of students at Yiqian School disclosed similar anxieties about the risk of their children being excluded from the job market for want of a university degree. To clarify, these parents’ preference for university degrees did not mean that they recognized the value of state education; rather, they maintained a critical attitude toward it based on an anti-instrumentalist ideology, as shown in Chap. 3. Accordingly, they still expected their children to pursue moral cultivation even though they had to return to state education for their academic degrees. In other words, these parents faced the institutional dilemma of choosing between an academic degree and a Confucian moral education. Their children had to return to state schools rather than continue their study of Confucianism to ensure that they could obtain state-certified degrees. Some students were also worried about the lack of a university degree and its impact on their future. “Finding a job requires a university degree nowadays,” a 14-year-old boy said. “Even if you graduate from Boyue Academy, you still have to hold a degree when you are looking for a decent job.” Similarly, in one class discussion, a boy stood up to refute the idea that a company would hire a person with sufficient knowledge and moral cultivation even if he did not hold a university degree. The student explained, High-level companies recruit individuals with strong educational backgrounds. They do not consider your knowledge, experience, or morality when creating their candidate shortlists; instead, having a university degree is essential. Without a degree, no matter how knowledgeable and moral you are, you have no chance of seucring an interview.10

One study revealed that young people envision well-planned rather than adventurous futures (Carabelli and Lyon 2016). Echoing this point, students at Yiqian School had a realistic, pragmatic vision for their future education, planning to return to the state school system and subsequently attend university. They regarded a state-recognized university degree as an indispensable “stepping stone” (qiaomen zhuan) or “passport” (tongxing zheng) for their future careers.

 Class discussion with students at Qibo Class in May 2015.

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Anxiety About the Marginalization of the Confucian Educational Experience The third and final aspect of parents’ choice to return their children to state schools was their anxiety that their children’s Confucian educational experience would not be recognized by the mainstream educational system and society. This aspect was also associated with the parents’ worry about the uncertain future of continuing Confucian education and the unavailability of academic degrees to validate their children’s study of the classics, as discussed earlier in this section. Many of the parent informants wanted to “re-embed” their children into mainstream state education to avoid derailing (tuogui) them. Although they spoke highly of Confucian classical education for its role in developing students’ personalities and improving their self-cultivation, the parents disclosed concerns that the public might not accept their children’s classical education experience and that their children would be marginalized in social life and unable to integrate into mainstream society. For example, in his dialogue with me, Mr. Qian repeatedly emphasized that reading the classics must be compatible with modern life. He was concerned that if students read the ancient classical texts in a remote and closed school environment for a long time, they might not only develop a homogeneous knowledge structure but also become detached from mainstream society because of their lack of exposure to the outside world. “To learn the classics is a very good thing. I totally agree with the idea of classical education,” Mr. Qian said. “However, what can we do if our children cannot adapt to social life after receiving a Confucian education? Students must obtain a wide range of knowledge. They must also integrate what they learn with society.” For this reason, he admitted that he intended to take his nine-year-old son out of the Confucian school and transfer him to a state school. Mrs. Hua outspokenly criticized the teaching methods at Yiqian School. She had resigned from her previous job to work at the school as a class headteacher so that she could accompany her eight-year-old son in learning the Confucian classics. By the time of her 2015 interview, she had already left Yiqian School. Therefore, her child returned to a state school after two years of studying Confucianism. I established contact with Mrs. Hua through WeChat. During my fieldwork, I posted a message introducing my research in the WeChat group for Yiqian School’s teaching staff. Mrs. Hua, who was still in that group, reached out to me and expressed her willingness to be interviewed. She acknowledged that like many other

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parents (as revealed in Chap. 3), she had engaged her son in classics study mainly because of her disappointment with state education and its examination orientation. However, her son’s performance and her firsthand teaching experience during the previous two years had made her aware of the problems with the school’s teaching practice and philosophy. Hence, she had begun to reflect on the positive and negative effects of classics study on her students. She admitted that she would not consider sending her child back to Yiqian School if it maintained its approach to extensively memorizing the classics. More importantly, she noted that Yiqian School’s teaching and learning process omitted mainstream state-approved compulsory courses, which would ultimately marginalize the students’ educational experience, devalue their academic performance in Confucian studies, and make them a “non-mainstream” (fei zhuliu) group. She explained, State schools teach students practical, common-sense knowledge that is necessary and useful in everyday life. If a student did not obtain this knowledge but read only the classics, they would be isolated from mainstream society and live in a separate, closed world. I am afraid that many students at Yiqian School are like this because they do not have an opportunity to take compulsory courses when learning Confucianism. I think that this school intentionally creates a small world detached from the external social environment. This situation sharply contrasts with my original image of a Confucian school, and it is not what I had expected for my child’s education. I expect my son to integrate into mainstream society instead of being excluded for being part of a non-mainstream group. (…) I don’t want my son to be thrown into a marginal form of classical education beyond the state system, because if that happens, I am not sure if he will be able to find a way to connect with mainstream society in the future.11

Mrs. Hua argued that Yiqian School adopted a minority (xiaozhong) teaching approach, which “is very difficult to combine with mainstream state education.” Furthermore, she pointed out that the school’s memorization-­ based pedagogy mainly aimed to cultivate “Confucian scholars” (rushi), who were a minority group in ancient China and will continue to be so in the future. Accordingly, she argued that the rejuvenated Confucian education in the contemporary era should embrace inclusive teaching philosophies and diversified teaching patterns and not  Interview in August 2015.

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restrict itself to training students to become Confucian scholars; otherwise, Confucian education could remain a marginalized, minority form of education. In addition, Mrs. Hua estimated that more than 1000 students had attended Yiqian School since it was established. However, very few of those students had memorized the classics as required by the school’s whole-course program. She continued, The number of students who complete the entire classics curriculum is probably fewer than 1% of the overall student population. Even if we count it as 1%, 99% of the students do not finish the program. (…) Most students, just like my son, spend one or two years reading the classics at the school before moving on to other forms of education: some of them may transfer to other Confucian schools or academies to continue their classics study, while others go to vocational and technical schools, but the majority return to the state school system to prepare for the gaokao. In light of this, I believe that Yiqian School’s educational model and teaching methods cannot be extended to the whole society, nor can they be applied to all students.12

Many of the other parent informants shared similar misgivings about their children’s educational marginalization. Mrs. Jin, the mother mentioned earlier, took the same position as Mrs. Hua, emphasizing that the study of Confucian classics should not be separated from real life. “Students cannot live a life that is completely detached from the actual world,” Mrs. Jin stated. “Otherwise, they will find that they cannot function in real life and mainstream society, and that they cannot get along with people in social interactions. They will be disconnected from mainstream life. And their personalities might even be distorted.” Hence, she thought that an appropriate, comprehensive Confucian education should not only require students to read the classics but also educate them in essential interpersonal skills. She continued, “Some students in this school do not experience reading the classics as a pleasure, but rather struggle internally, especially in such a closed school environment.” In addition to the three factors discussed in this section that may influence parents’ decision to return their children to state schools, financial pressures shaped the plans of a handful of parents for the next stage of their children’s education. One parent stated that her family’s economic  Interview in August 2015.

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situation made it difficult to pay the tuition fees (30,000 RMB per year) for her daughter’s Confucian schooling. Two other mothers confessed that relatively high tuition fees forced them to rethink their choice of a Confucian education and reconsider the possibility of returning their children to state schools (in China, public schools at the compulsory education stage are tuition-free). Except for these three parents, all of the participants reported that tuition was not a barrier to engaging their children in classics study and did not pose a hurdle when preparing for their children’s future education.13 It is possible that the parents were reluctant to expose their families’ financial concerns. Nevertheless, this finding may still indicate that the majority of the parents interviewed were from urban middle-class families and could afford the high cost of attending a private Confucian school, as revealed in the Introduction of this book. In summary, the discussion in this section shows that the state educational system still plays a crucial role in shaping the “re-embedding” approach of parents and their children at Yiqian School. The three key factors influencing the decision to return to state schools—the uncertain prospects offered by Confucian education, anxiety about acquiring an academic degree, and concern about the marginalization of the Confucian education experience in broader social and educational contexts—demonstrate the parents’ dependence on the mainstream, state-defined educational framework. Yiqian School has adopted a unique approach to teaching and learning inspired by Confucian doctrines and pedagogies, in contrast with the state’s approach to education. The parents and students struggled to establish connections with state education within an independent and unique Confucian education system. The individualization thesis can help deepen our understanding of the parents’ paradoxical attitudes and actions related to planning the next stage of their children’s education. Theorists have argued that the dynamics of individualization have deconstructed ready-made presumptions, norms, and categories and have generated not only new possibilities and choices but also increased risks and uncertainties (Beck 1992; Beck and 13  Interestingly, Yiqian School faces an ethical dilemma concerning the issue of tuition fees. On the one hand, as a private school, it charges higher tuition fees than free state-sponsored public schools. On the other hand, some Buddhist parents argued that the school has an obligation to reduce tuition for economically disadvantaged students. Indeed, Yiqian School does offer some discounts on tuition to students from low-income families, but it does not waive all fees. Moreover, this policy only applies to students who have attended for several years—the longer a student stays at the school, the greater the tuition discount.

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Beck-Gernsheim 2002). Against this general background, parents and students in China have gained a new option for an alternative form of education beyond the state system, that is, Confucian classical education, but they also have to cope with the growing insecurity and pressure that accompany it. Facing mounting uncertainties and risks, some Yiqian School parents rationally chose to “re-embed” into the state school system to recover their sense of security, safety, and stability. Parents’ inclination to return their children to state schools is a good example of “party-state managed individualization,” which, as Yan (2009) argued, implies that the process of individualization in China is controlled, guided, and managed by the socialist party-state; therefore, Chinese individuals must exercise self-management and self-direction within the boundaries established by the political authority. Accordingly, parents who give their children a Confucian education cannot plan their children’s next stage of education independent of the state school system but must rely on it to ensure a predictable personal and professional future for their offspring.

The Dilemma of Providing a State-Approved Curriculum at a Confucian School The parents’ intention to return their children to state education was directly related to the Confucian school’s failure to provide state-approved courses in its regular teaching. Yiqian School has never offered a compulsory education curriculum, despite being approved by the local government as a nine-year compulsory school focusing on teaching and learning the Confucian classics. Although the school has made several attempts to provide a comprehensive compulsory education program, all of these attempts have failed. In this section, I begin by describing a failed effort to offer compulsory education courses at Yiqian School during my fieldwork. The findings may be aligned with the broader governance discourse that combines neoliberal and authoritarian rhetoric. Next, I clarify how Yiqian School’s attempt to routinize the state-stipulated courses in its regular teaching arrangements reflects parents’ plans for their children’s future education, particularly for their “re-embedding” action of returning to state education.

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Between Independence and Obedience: Routinizing the State Curriculum at a Confucian School On the first day after the mid-term holiday at Yiqian School in 2015, Mrs. Zheng, the headteacher, announced at a staff meeting that the school would initiate the educational reform of incorporating the compulsory education curriculum into the school’s daily teaching schedule. She asked all of the teaching staff to complete a syllabus for each compulsory course within one week. There were eight courses in total: Chinese Language and Literature, Mathematics, English, Science, Moral Education, Music, Fine Arts, and Physical Education. To complete this urgent task, the teachers downloaded off-the-shelf syllabi from the Internet, made minor modifications, and submitted them. Soon afterward, the school adjusted its regular teaching schedule. The third class in the afternoon and two classes in the evening, all of which were originally designated as self-study time, were dedicated to compulsory courses. The school allowed the teachers to decide which subjects to teach in these rescheduled timeslots. This reform introduced state-stipulated courses as an additional component of the school’s existing teaching schedule. In contrast, the original framework of the classics-centered curriculum remained intact: the three morning classes in reading Chinese classics, the midday calligraphy class, and the first two afternoon classes in English classics and martial arts were unchanged. This educational “reform” aiming to routinize the compulsory curriculum came to an abrupt end after less than a month. One evening in early June, I met Miss Yang, the teacher of Qishun Class. I asked her if she would continue teaching the compulsory Chinese Language and Literature course. She immediately said “no” and then complained that she had been so busy with tedious, heavy teaching and administrative duties that she had no time left for the compulsory curriculum. This was consistent with what I observed in this class, where Miss Yang only delivered two Chinese Language and Literature lectures during the initial stage of the educational “reform” and then never did so again. In addition to the suspension of Chinese Language and Literature, English language and English classics classes stopped abruptly when Mr. Meng, the only English teacher at Yiqian School, left in early June 2015. The mathematics and science courses were not included in the regular teaching schedule. Some of the teachers informed me that prior to 2015, the school had offered regular mathematics and science courses. However, during my 2015 fieldwork, I did not see those classes included in the school’s teaching schedule.

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Nevertheless, a small number of students who were designated the temporary graduating class (biye ban) were required to attend daily compulsory mathematics and science courses to prepare for the examination to transition from primary school to secondary school. The only compulsory courses that continued through the end of the academic year were physical education, music, and fine arts. The school offered physical education focusing on martial arts throughout the year, even before the educational “reform,” with one teaching session per day for each class. Although Yiqian School had never previously provided music and fine arts courses, they were retained because of the relatively light workload involved in preparing them. The school assigned two teachers to deliver the two courses to all of the classes. The school scheduled one music and one fine arts lesson per week for each class. This was not the first time that Yiqian School had tried but failed to offer a compulsory curriculum. Several teachers told me that the school had attempted to routinize the state education courses several times in the past few years, but it had failed each time. Consequently, the provision of compulsory courses was suspended or  gezhi, a term used by the headteacher, Mrs. Zheng, to imply that Yiqian School had not abandoned the idea of regularly offering compulsory education courses but had been required to temporarily put the project aside due to its unsuitable timing and conditions.14 Why was this the case? Based on the fieldwork data, I identify three possible reasons for the failure of Yiqian School’s educational “reform.” First, this teaching “reform” was by its nature a contingent coping strategy in response to an inspection by the local education authority. Due to the pressure exerted by the education authority, Yiqian School was forced to hastily embark on the “reform.” A few teachers, including Mrs. Zheng, disclosed that several parents had complained to the local county education authority that Yiqian School did not provide a regular compulsory curriculum for students. Some of the parent informants also mentioned this fact. In response, the local government required the school to offer a full compulsory education curriculum within a specified period and indicated that it would conduct an unannounced inspection. The school ultimately passed the education authority’s inspection. However, as the pressure from the local 14  Another piece of evidence is that the school’s persistent efforts to provide state-stipulated courses at the compulsory education stage were explicitly described in various versions of its brochures.

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government decreased, the school seemed to lose its incentive to continue offering state-mandated courses. For these reasons, the school’s “reform” was not an in-depth, sustainable pedagogical transformation but rather a forced, stopgap measure to respond to the local education authority’s demand and pressure. In other words, this teaching “reform” was implemented when the authority intensified its inspection; otherwise, it was put on hold. The second reason for Yiqian School’s failure to provide the compulsory curriculum was that the school lacked enough teachers for the state-­ stipulated courses. Consider the mathematics course as an example. In the few years before 2015, Yiqian School had been developing a “mathematics question bank” designed to cover practice questions for all of the basic knowledge points in the six-year primary mathematics textbooks. With this “mathematics question bank,” the Confucian school hoped to enhance its students’ independent learning of mathematics and achieve the so-­ called one-on-one (yiduiyi) model in the area of teaching and learning mathematics. Mrs. Zheng described how to use this mathematics self-­ learning system. First, the students freely selected practice questions at different levels of difficulty from the exercise bank according to their stage and the materials they were studying. By completing the exercises that were appropriate to their current competence, the students were expected to gradually increase their mathematical knowledge and improve their self-­ study skills. Second, when the students completed their current level of practice and passed the quiz, they could move on to the next level. The students were given control over their learning progress and content. Mrs. Zheng likened this learning process to playing a game, believing that this would maximize the students’ intrinsic interest and motivation to learn and cater to each student’s aptitude and personality. The anticipated “mathematics bank” and independent practice system were never implemented. According to Mr. Sun, who was in charge of developing the system, the basic framework had been built, but no practice exercises had been added. Improving the system would require a substantial amount of human, material, and financial resources, all of which were lacking at Yiqian School. Mr. Sun admitted that his existing teaching and administrative workload had exhausted him. As the headteacher of Qishun Class, he was responsible for scheduling the teaching tasks for the whole class, managing all types of student matters, and coordinating his teaching team. In addition, he had been recently appointed as the headteacher of the temporary graduating class and delivered three hours of

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daily mathematics lessons to the students in that class. Moreover, the school occasionally needed to organize a group activity or rehearse a performance for a festival, and Mr. Sun had to take on the roles of planner, coordinator, and director. These tasks consumed much time and energy and made Mr. Sun extremely tired. I often heard him complain, “I don’t have any extra time to develop that mathematics bank! I am exhausted. I feel that I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown!” In addition to its issues with mathematics, Yiqian School lacked qualified and competent teachers to deliver English classes. As noted above, the school’s entire English program came to a halt when Mr. Meng left. Indeed, the school has long found it difficult to recruit qualified teachers for compulsory courses. The reason for this situation is easy to understand—public schools are more attractive to teachers because of their generous benefits and stable job positions. As a private school, Yiqian School cannot compete with public schools in attracting teaching applicants. Furthermore, because of its disadvantageous benefits package compared with that of public schools, Yiqian School has a high staff turnover rate, as revealed in the Introduction of this book. The third and final reason that Yiqian School struggled to offer the state-stipulated courses was related to the contradiction between the compulsory curriculum it attempted to establish and its Confucian educational framework. Yiqian School has established an independent teaching and learning framework based on the Confucian pedagogy of memorization, as clarified in Chaps. 4 and 5, which functions to maintain its “Confucian” uniqueness and requires students to spend most of their time reading and reciting the classics instead of taking compulsory courses. Thus, when the compulsory curriculum was added to the pre-existing educational framework, it inevitably took time away from classics studies. The school was aware of this potential incompatibility, so it scheduled the compulsory courses in the timeslots initially devoted to students’ self-study and did not take time from the main classics courses. However, this practice indirectly affected the students’ learning of the classics—they used to spend their self-study time reciting the classics that they had not yet memorized, but now they had to spend that time taking compulsory courses. In addition, some of the students in the temporary graduating class acknowledged that the compulsory courses had seriously delayed their memorization of the classics because their teachers discouraged them from learning the classics, requiring them to focus instead on the additional state courses.

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In addition to conflict in the allocation of learning time, the contradiction between the compulsory education curriculum and Confucian pedagogy at Yiqian School was reflected in the differences in educational philosophies. A typical example manifesting this clash between teaching ideas involved how to teach compulsory English classes. Mr. Meng, a male teacher in his early 40s, who was the only English teacher at the school, showed me a copy of the English teaching materials he had edited at the school’s request. The materials were gathered in a booklet of fewer than 20 pages that covered all of the basics of the state-mandated English textbooks from Year Three to Year Six in primary school. He disclosed that this English handout was rarely used at Yiqian School because it was inconsistent with the school’s established approach to studying the English classics. As noted previously, English teaching at Yiqian School was conducted following the pedagogy of memorization. Students were required to study classic English textbooks, such as Selected Works of English Masterpieces and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, compiled by Caigui Wang. Ironically, when the teaching “reform” began, the school asked Mr. Meng to use state-mandated English textbooks, not the English classics or the English handout. Although this requirement confused him, he had to obey it and teach English following the compulsory education program. In light of the above, I argue that the attempt to routinize the compulsory curriculum in Yiqian School created a dilemma between independence and obedience. The school wavered between the independence of its established teaching system for the study of Confucian classics and obeying the local authority’s demand to provide a full compulsory curriculum. This contradiction in teaching systems and philosophies was reflected in the relationship between Yiqian School and the local government. As an approved nine-year compulsory education school, Yiqian School was required to comply with the regulations of the local education department and accept its management of the curriculum, teaching activities, and student recruitment and registration. According to Mr. Cheng, the section chief of the local education bureau, Yiqian School was monitored and inspected by the local government. It was required to submit an annual self-inspection report encompassing all aspects of the school’s operation, such as teaching and learning arrangements, staff, students, and funding. Only when the education authority approved the self-inspection report was the school authorized to carry out teaching activities for the next

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academic year. Despite these institutional regulations and inspections, Yiqian School strived to maintain the independence and autonomy of its pedagogical practices. For example, the school took measures to cope with inspections by the local authority and preserve to the maximum extent the integrity of its Confucian classical curriculum, pedagogy of memorization, and whole-course classical education program. These practices were consistent with the school’s fundamental educational philosophy, which was to engage students to read the classics extensively during the prime of their memory, thereby laying a solid foundation of learning and morality for them to become great cultural talents or wenhua dacai who have cultivated virtue and wisdom and have a thorough knowledge of both Western and Chinese cultures. The local educational authority also seemed to vary in its attitude toward Yiqian School’s pedagogical autonomy and obedience. On the one hand, the authority recognized the independence of the school’s teaching and learning activities. As Mr. Cheng stated, the local education bureau approved Yiqian School to conduct its regular teaching based on Confucian classics reading courses, and the compulsory curriculum was merely a supplement. On the other hand, Mr. Cheng emphasized that the local government still expected the school to provide a full compulsory curriculum as soon as possible in compliance with administrative requirements and parents’ requests. For these reasons, I argue that the discourses of the Confucian school and the local education officer echo some researchers’ argument that Chinese governance discourse and practice are a mixture of neoliberal and authoritarian rhetoric (Sigley 2006; Crabb 2010; Hansen 2015; Goodman 2016; Sun 2017), with an emphasis on the central role of the Chinese Communist Party in governance (Liew 2005; Yan 2009). With specific reference to the context of Confucian education, the leaders and teaching staff at Yiqian School may have a strong desire to keep their distance from the compulsory curriculum and strive for independence in teaching activities. However, they still must reassert themselves within the space of the state-recognized school system (Billioud and Thoraval 2015). Implications for “Re-embedding” into State Education How did the Confucian school’s failure to provide a compulsory curriculum influence parents’ plans for their children’s next stage of education? My observation is that this failed attempt complicated parents’

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“re-­ embedding” action of returning their children to state schools. Because Yiqian School’s compulsory courses were suspended, its students had no opportunity to obtain the relevant knowledge. As a result, many of the pupils interviewed disclosed concerns about being unable to keep up if they returned to state schools. The students and their parents were most worried about the compulsory mathematics and English language courses, because these two subjects were not taught at all at Yiqian School. As a result, some of the students were worried that they would be unable to catch up in those subjects upon their return to state education.15 Mrs. Hua had firsthand experience in this regard, as by the time of her interview, her son had already returned to a public primary school after two years of full-­ time classics study at Yiqian School. She recalled her son’s academic performance after returning to state education as follows: He struggled to catch up with the state-mandated courses, and his academic performance ranked in the bottom few of his class. (…) After all, my son had experienced a two-year gap in his state education. During this two-year gap, he had not studied much mathematics, nor had he studied the state-­ mandated Chinese Language and Literature textbooks. Moreover, the teaching of English was disrupted at Yiqian School, so my son did not learn much of it.16

Mrs. Wei also expressed the concern that the excessively long time spent reading and memorizing the classics would have a negative impact on her daughter’s learning of the compulsory curriculum and indicated that this was a key element that prompted her to return her child to a state school after one year at Yiqian School. Furthermore, their children’s age played an important role in the parents’ decision on whether to return to state education. For example, Mrs. Wei’s daughter had transferred to Yiqian School after completing her primary education. Mrs. Wei acknowledged that if her daughter had been younger when she engaged in classical studies, she probably would have remained at Yiqian School for a few more years. Mrs. Wei said,

15  Compared with mathematics and English, the students and parents interviewed felt much better about the compulsory course in Chinese Language and Literature, because they believed that reading the Confucian classics would improve learners’ overall skills in Chinese. 16  Interview in August 2015.

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The lessons at the primary school level are easy, and the amount of schoolwork is relatively light. (…) However, she will have several additional subjects each semester and much more schoolwork when she gets to secondary school. For these reasons, I have to return her to the state school earlier than I would have otherwise. In addition, I am worried that she cannot catch up with the state education lessons that she missed because she was studying the Confucian classics.17

The interview with Mr. Cheng, the section chief of the local education bureau, provided further evidence of the parental anxiety described above. He narrated, Some parents have always asked for a compulsory curriculum [at Yiqian School]. When parents send their children to this school, they are eager for their children to learn the classics. However, they do not want them to fall too far behind in their study of the state education courses, especially when they plan for their children to return to the state schools within one or two years.18

In Chap. 3, I discuss my finding that many parents took their children out of state schools and transferred them to the Confucian classical school because of their poor performance in state education. However, the narratives of both Mr. Cheng and the Yiqian School parents suggested that the parents continued to worry about their children’s academic performance in the compulsory education program because they planned to return their children to state schools. This is why parents pressured the Confucian school to offer state education courses by appealing to the local education bureau after their children began to study the Confucian classics full time. Parental concerns that long-term study of the classics would delay their children’s learning of the state education curriculum contradict Caigui Wang’s educational claim, adopted by Yiqian School, that extensive recitation of the classics does not hinder but rather facilitates students’ academic performance in compulsory courses (Wang 2014). Following Wang’s theory of classical education, Yiqian School argues that children are bound to improve their memory if they successfully recite a large number of classics and that a better memory will inevitably lead to the development of  Interview in August 2015.  Interview in June 2015.

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comprehension, making it easier for students to master compulsory courses such as mathematics, Chinese Language and Literature, and English. However, this argument is inconsistent with the experiences reported by the students at Yiqian School and their parents, as set forth above. Furthermore, the schoolteachers did not believe that these claims about the effectiveness of reading the classics were borne out by their actual teaching experiences. For example, Mr. Sun, who was the leader of the school’s mathematics course and who had multiple daily conversations with me during the fieldwork, bluntly pointed out that reading the classics exclusively does not necessarily improve learners’ logical thinking skills and thus does not make it easier for them to learn mathematics. He continued, Now we see that Confucian education restricts teaching to reading the classics and omits subjects of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In this case, students who only read the classics lack logical thinking capabilities. This situation is evident when they try to solve mathematical problems. (…) Many students at this school have relatively poor thinking skills, such as analysis, planning, and reasoning.19

Mr. Sun provided more evidence to illustrate the above point, using the students in the graduating class as an example. Many of the students in the graduating class had been involved in classical studies for years. A few of them had abandoned state education for full-time classics study as early as Year One. Nevertheless, they were still experiencing great difficulty in mathematics. Based on the theory of Caigui Wang and the educational ideas adopted by Yiqian School, these long-time classics reading students would be expected to swiftly catch up with the mathematics courses that they had missed and achieve outstanding academic results. However, Mr. Sun spoke of a different reality. He pointed out that the graduating students (Year Six, mostly 11 years old) could solve some simple first- and second-grade mathematics problems with relative ease. However, they were often at a loss and encountered considerable difficulty when attempting to solve mathematics problems intended for the third grade and above. Many of them could neither follow Mr. Sun’s lessons nor complete their exercises independently. As a result, they often failed their periodic mathematics tests.  Interview in April 2015.

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Furthermore, an interview with Mr. Cheng, the abovementioned local government official, revealed that the average mathematics performance of the students graduating from Yiqian School ranked last among all of the primary schools in the county. As he put it, “The mathematics scores at this Confucian school lag far behind other local state schools.” Billioud and Thoraval (2015) identified the same paradox between reading the classics and learning compulsory subjects such as mathematics in Confucian schools in their research on the Confucian revival in contemporary China. In their analysis of the discourse in one Confucian school where they conducted fieldwork, they found that the teachers resented the centrality of mathematics in the state-approved curriculum and asserted that the compulsory mathematics courses were “both useless and difficult to understand” (p.  97). However, these teachers believed that reading classical texts would enable students to develop the intellectual agility to solve complex mathematical problems. All in all, many parents wanted to return their children to the state school system because the Confucian school did not provide a full compulsory curriculum in its regular teaching schedule. This was especially true for those students who were about to graduate from primary school— they and their parents were forced to consider interrupting their classical studies so that they could fully prepare for the examinations for the transition to secondary school. However, because these students did not study the compulsory subjects as part of their classical education, they encountered learning difficulties during the temporary intensive tutoring lessons organized by Yiqian School. Toward the end of the 2015 academic year, at least five students in the graduating class, aged 11 and above, told me that they would be returning to state schools in the following semester. Several other students confessed that they had not yet determined where their next stage of education would be. Many students asked each other a question that sounded like a farewell: “Will you be here next school year?” I want to emphasize that the return of so many students to state schools has led to a high student turnover rate at Yiqian School. At the beginning of the autumn 2014 semester, 30 students out of 119 did not return to Yiqian School: most of the non-returnees went to state schools, whereas a few transferred to other Confucian private schools, study halls, or academies. Nearly 20 students left during the autumn 2015 semester. In addition to these statistics, I have some personal experience of the high student attrition rate at Yiqian School, based on my multiple visits. I visited the school three times, in 2012, 2013, and 2015. When I visited it for the

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third time in 2015, I was surprised that most of the students whom I had met on my previous visits had disappeared. The school’s teachers informed me that nearly half of the students had arrived in 2014 or later. There may have been various reasons for the instability of the student population. One direct reason was Yiqian School’s pedagogical reform before the autumn 2014 semester, as discussed in Chap. 4. That pedagogical reform caused many students and parents who were not interested in the newly introduced pedagogy to leave the school. However, at the beginning of the 2014 academic year, Yiqian School discontinued this pedagogical reform and created an individualized approach that emphasized both extensive classics memorization and the development of students’ independent learning awareness and skills. This practice was motivated by the need to stabilize the student body and halt the loss of students, and the school’s approach to individualized memorization both strengthened the support of existing parents and attracted new ones. However, this approach did not address the fundamental crisis of many students and their parents leaving the Confucian school because of its inability to provide a comprehensive compulsory education program. In other words, students’ and parents’ requests for a state-approved curriculum never disappeared, and their concern about the Confucian school’s failure to offer such courses never diminished. In a broad sense, this high student attrition rate reflects increasing mobility in the field of Confucian education, which is a distinctive feature of the changing social structure of contemporary China (Yan 2009). Mobility is the fundamental engine that drives the transformation of Chinese society, because it makes it possible to dis-embed from the old categories and allows individuals to break away from various sorts of collectives (Yan 2010). Nevertheless, students and their parents may be uncertain about staying at a Confucian school due to institutional constraints such as the vague educational prospects offered by the Confucian education system, the precariousness of obtaining an academic degree through classics study, and the possible societal marginalization of the students’ Confucian education experience, as clarified earlier in this chapter. Consequently, students and parents must constantly look for other forms of education that are recognized by mainstream society. Returning to state education is one such option, leading to high rates of student mobility and attrition. Additionally, family factors play a key role in students’ “re-embedding” into state schools. Some parents revealed that they needed private tutors

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for their children to catch up on missed compulsory education courses because their children often encountered academic barriers upon returning to state schools. The parents referred to this process as a “transition period,” which usually lasted six months to a year or sometimes longer. The cost of private tutoring was high, and their families had to pay for it themselves. In addition, a few students indicated that they planned to obtain a university degree through the self-study higher education examination, as mentioned previously in this chapter, causing their families to incur additional expenses. Thus, when parents and students decided to leave the Confucian school, they had to rely to a considerable extent on their families to bear the high costs of “re-embedding” the students into the mainstream state education system. This point echoes Yan’s (2009: 288–289) description of the process of individualization in Chinese society: “To seek a new safety net, or to re-embed, the Chinese individual is forced to fall back on the family and personal network or guanxi.”

Summary In this chapter, I describe one of the two main approaches to future education among students and their parents at Yiqian School: returning to state education. Although many of the parents wished to return their children to state schools after a few years of full-time study of Confucianism, they did so not because state education would satisfy their desire for a moral education but because it would provide their children with their expected academic degrees and a predictable path to the next stage of education. A few parent informants acknowledged that they would allow their children to spend more time reading the classics if the Confucian school could offer institutional channels for further education and establish stable connections with the state-recognized education system. I discuss parents’ critical attitude toward state education in Chap. 3, arguing that their criticism constituted an internal motivation to “dis-­ embed” from the state school system. However, a different and even more complicated situation is presented in this chapter: these critical parents had to “re-embed” their children into state schools after years of classics study at the private Confucian school. I summarize three interconnected aspects of these parental actors’ “re-embedding” action of returning to state education—uncertainty about the prospects offered by Confucian education, concern about the obtainability of academic degrees, and anxiety about the marginalization of the Confucian education experience. Moreover, I

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discuss a crucial fact that profoundly influenced parents’ decision to return their children to state education: the Confucian school did not provide the state-mandated compulsory education curriculum in its regular teaching schedule. Consequently, many parents were forced to withdraw their children from Yiqian School and transfer them to the state education system, because they still hoped that their children would catch up with their compulsory courses, take the gaokao (national college entrance examination), and receive an academic degree. Accordingly, parental decisions were the cause of the high student turnover rate at the Confucian school. In light of the above, I argue that the students at the Confucian school and their parents were caught in an institutional dilemma between freedom and risk in their search for approaches to “re-embed” into the state education system. The institutional dilemma they encountered was the result of the dynamics of individualization in China (Yan 2009, 2010). Specifically, they were free to leave the state-maintained school system and choose the alternative form of Confucian education, as discussed in Chap. 3. However, they had to bear the risks on their own because of the lack of state-recognized educational elements such as legal registration for the school and academic degrees. Consequently, parents had to rely on the state education system and their families when they planned their children’s future education. In other words, they had to “re-embed” into these “traditional” social categories (i.e., state and family) (Yan 2009: 288–289) to realize an institutionally stable way forward (chulu) when organizing their children’s next stage of education. They had to choose between freedom and risk. This institutional dilemma experienced by parents and students in their engagement with Confucian education is a reflection of the complexities of the Chinese path to individualization in the contemporary era. Of the two options selected by the parents and students for future education, this chapter investigates the first: returning to state education. However, it does not fully expand on the second: pursuing further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy, an advanced Confucian institution. In the next chapter, I focus on the second option to continue the discussion of the “re-embedding” dimension of the Confucian education revival.

References Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Edited and translated by Mark Ritter. London: Sage Publications.

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Beck, Ulrich, and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. 2002. Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and Its Social and Political Consequences. London: Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/000169930204500212. Billioud, Sébastien, and Joël Thoraval. 2015. The Sage and The People. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof. Carabelli, Giulia, and Dawn Lyon. 2016. Young People’s Orientations to the Future: Navigating the Present and Imagining the Future. Journal of Youth Studies 19 (8): 1110–1127. Crabb, Mary W. 2010. Governing the Middle-Class Family in Urban China: Educational Reform and Questions of Choice. Economy and Society 39 (3): 385–402. Exley, Sonia. 2017. A Country on Its Way to Full Privatisation? Private Schools and School Choice in England. In Private Schools and School Choice in Compulsory Education: Global Change and National Challenge, ed. Thomas Koinzer, Rita Nikolai, and Florian Waldow, 31–47. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gilgan, Sandra. 2022a. Confucian Education and Utopianism: The Classics-­ Reading Movement and Its Potential for Social Change. China Perspectives, no. 2: 29–39. ———. 2022b. Utopia in the Revival of Confucian Education: An Ethnography of the Classics-Reading Movement in Contemporary China. Leiden: Brill. https:// doi.org/10.1163/9789004511651. Goodman, David S.G. 2016. Locating China’s Middle Classes: Social Intermediaries and the Party-State. Journal of Contemporary China 25 (97): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2015.1060757. Hansen, Mette Halskov. 2015. Educating the Chinese Individual: Life in a Rural Boarding School. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Hizi, Gil. 2019. Marketised ‘Educational Desire’ and the Impetus for Self-­ Improvement: The Shifting and Reproduced Meanings of Higher Education in Contemporary China. Asian Studies Review 43 (3): 493–511. https://doi. org/10.1080/10357823.2019.1630365. Hoffman, Lisa. 2010. Patriotic Professionalism in Urban China: Fostering Talent. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Kipnis, Andrew. 2011. Governing Educational Desire: Culture, Politics, and Schooling in China. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Koinzer, Thomas, Rita Nikolai, and Florian Waldow. 2017. Private Schools and School Choice in Compulsory Education: Global Change and National Challenge. Edited by Thomas Koinzer, Rita Nikolai, and Florian Waldow. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­658-­17104-­9.

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Liew, L. 2005. Chinas Engagement with Neo-Liberalism: Path Dependency, Geography and Party Self-Reinvention. The Journal of Developmental Studies 41 (2): 331–352. Liu, Haifeng. 2013. Reform of the College Entrance Examination. Chinese Education & Society 46 (1): 10–22. https://doi.org/10.2753/ CED1061-­1932460101. Ross, Heidi, and Yimin Wang. 2010. The College Entrance Examination in China: An Overview of Its Social-Cultural Foundations, Existing Problems, and Consequences. Chinese Education & Society 43 (4): 3–10. https://doi. org/10.2753/CED1061-­1932430400. Shan, Hongxia, and Shibao Guo. 2016. Massification of Chinese Higher Education. In Spotlight on China: Changes in Education Under China’s Market Economy, ed. Shibo Guo and Yan Guo, 215–229. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Sigley, Gary. 2006. Chinese Governmentalities: Government, Governance and the Socialist Market Economy. Economy and Society 35 (4): 487–508. https://doi. org/10.1080/03085140600960773. Sun, Wanning. 2017. Rural Migrants and Their Marital Problems: Discourses of Governing and Knowledge Production in China. Critical Policy Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2017.1369444. Wang, Caigui. 2014. Dujing Ershi Nian (Two Decades of Classics Reading Education). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. (In Chinese). Wang, Canglong. 2022. Resurgence of Confucian Education in Contemporary China: Parental Involvement, Moral Anxiety, and the Pedagogy of Memorisation. Journal of Moral Education 51 (3). https://doi.org/10.108 0/03057240.2022.2066639. Wang, Qinghua. 2016. The ‘Great Leap Forward’ in Chinese Higher Education, 1999–2005: An Analysis of the Contributing Factors. Journal of Contemporary China 25 (102): 867–880. https://doi.org/10.1080/1067056 4.2016.1184899. Yan, Yunxiang. 2009. The Individualization of Chinese Society. Oxford: Berg. ———. 2010. The Chinese Path to Individualization. The British Journal of Sociology 61 (3): 489–512. Zhang, Lei, Ruyue Dai, and Yu Kai. 2016. Chinese Higher Education since 1977: Possibilities, Challenges and Tensions. In Spotlight on China: Changes in Education Under China’s Market Economy, ed. Shibo Guo and Yan Guo, 173–189. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

CHAPTER 7

Continuing Confucian Studies? The Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority

Introduction In this chapter, I further discuss the “re-embedding” dimension of the Confucian education revival by focusing on the second of the two typical options available for students’ education after their full-time study of the classics at Yiqian School: pursuing further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy, an advanced Confucian educational institution established by Caigui Wang that is regarded by many parents as the ideal place for their children to continue studying Confucianism. According to Wang’s (2014: 81–120) proposal for the overall process of Confucian classical education, the option of studying at the Academy can be understood as a way out of the first foundation stage, that is, “reading the classics” (dujing) at preparatory Confucian schools, and a viable path to the second stage, that is, “interpreting the classics” (jiejing) at the advanced Confucian academy. The discussions throughout this chapter spotlight students who engaged in classics study at the Confucian school, a group that the recently emerging scholarship on the rejuvenation of Confucian education has overlooked. Several studies have described the teaching and learning practices in Confucian classical schools (Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Wang 2022b; Zeng 2022) and teachers’ and parents’ motivations to engage in classics-reading education (Dutournier and Wang 2018; Gilgan 2022a, b; Wang 2022a). This chapter, drawing on students’ voices about their plans © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_7

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for further Confucian studies and personal aspirations, aims to uncover their favor of individualistic values under pressure from teachers and parents. I propose that students’ perspectives are key to understanding the realities of teaching and learning Confucian classics in classrooms and the learner’s inner world. Additionally, it is important to understand students’ genuine perspectives on their educational prospects, as these may reflect the future of the Confucian education movement. As Billioud and Thoraval (2015) suggested, Confucian education revival derives meaning from the possibility that “it might produce new generations of Confucian activists” (p. 48). As such, the overarching research questions in the present chapter are: How do students understand the plans for further Confucian studies? Are their actual feelings and perspectives toward their educational future the same as, or different from, the expectations of teachers and parents? How should the consistency or incongruence among students, teachers, and parents be interpreted? In this chapter, I explore these questions arising from a specific event during my field research at Yiqian School. I argue that students involved in classics study demonstrate an individualistic outlook on their future education in forming an aversion toward further Confucian studies; these students’ individual aspirations, which are generated by the interweaving neoliberal values and Confucian virtues, contradict the expectations of teachers and parents. The complexities of shaping students’ individual self would reveal an emerging Confucian individualism in contemporary China. To explore the above questions, I draw from two sets of data that were collected during fieldwork at Yiqian School: participant observations of and interviews with older students (i.e., older than 13 years), teachers, and parents. This chapter focuses on older students because this specific age group is often perplexed by the issue of further education, particularly whether to continue Confucian studies. An analysis of the data identifies three crucial factors that jointly influence Confucian students’ plans for the next stage of their education: their sense of individual self, the imposed authoritarian sage discourse, and parental authority. First, the “individual self” refers to a social and psychological disposition to pursue one’s personal interests and development, follow one’s own will and aspirations, and guide oneself by self-­ determination and self-reliance. As the individual self includes values of individualism, it should be noted that “individualism” in the present chapter is not used as a derogatory term carrying the meaning of “egoism or

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the doctrine that an individual is an isolated, atomic being that owes society nothing but contempt” (Chen 2014: 73). Instead, “individualism” refers to values such as individuality, self-consciousness, and self-­realization (Chen 2014). Secondly, the “sage discourse” is defined as a Confucian style of authoritarian rhetoric by which individuals achieve moral cultivation, arrange their life goals according to the model of Confucian sages and saints, and dedicate themselves to being part of collective grand causes. Finally, the “parental authority” is contextualized in this chapter as a parenting power to give children orders, make decisions on their behalf, or enforce their obedience. In the landscape of Confucian classical education, parents may form an authoritarian style of parenting due to their Confucian-inspired values, such as filial piety (xiaoshun). In short, this chapter associates these three elements derived from the fieldwork data to present the contradiction between individualism and authoritarianism in the shifting discourse and practice of Confucian education. The discussions also reflect the complexities of the Chinese path to individualization in terms of subjectivity formation and the parent-child relationship. In the following sections, I first lay the theoretical foundation for discussion by clarifying Chinese individualism and its implications for the young generation involved in Confucian education. Then I demonstrate three themes that constitute the three finding sections: (1) students’ conflict between pursuing individual aspirations and seeking further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy; (2) students’ individual resistance to the authoritarian sage discourse; (3) the shifting relationship between students’ individual self and their parents’ expectations.

Chinese Individualism and Its Relevance for the Youth in Confucian Education An increasing number of studies have examined the emerging varieties of individualism within the context of China’s modernization, marketization, individualization, and globalization (see Hansen 2015; Liu 2011; Yan 2009, 2010, 2021). As noted by Yan (2011), the profound dynamics of individualization have led post-Mao China (1976 to present) to experience an extensive shift in popular discourse and moral practice “from an authoritarian, collective ethics of responsibilities and self-sacrifice towards a new, optional, and individualistic ethics of rights and self-development” (p. 37). Concomitantly, China has witnessed the rise of an individualistic

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ethos in both the private and public domains. This is succinctly reflected in the fact that people speak and act as the first person (“I”) rather than as a representative of a collective—whether the family or clan in ancient China or the nation-state in the socialist regime (Yan 2009: 280). Individualistic values, such as the striving spirit, personal autonomy and independence, and the pursuit of individual interest and wealth, are increasingly recognized as common ethics among Chinese people (Hansen and Pang 2008; Yan 2012). Several scholars (e.g., Cheung and Pan 2006; Liu 2011) have argued that this increasing desire to act individually and autonomously has weakened the previous dominant Communist values of altruism, selflessness, and collectivism. While acknowledging the proliferation of individualism in a reform-era China, it should be noted that individualistic values formed a significant but marginal ideology in ancient China (De Bary 1970) and during China’s Maoist era (1949–1976) (Yan 2010), when kin-focused and state-focused collectivisms, respectively, dominated the value system (Kim et al. 2017). Researchers have explored young people’s relationships to different forms of Chinese individualism in post-Mao China. In their study on middle-­class students’ childrearing aspirations for the next generation, Kim et al. (2017) discovered a hybrid form of “soft” and “hard” individualism, wherein “soft individualism” is characterized by values such as freedom, autonomy, the pursuit of individual interests, and the desire for self-development. This contrasts “hard individualism,” which emphasizes strict rules, disciplined study habits, and a clear authoritarian hierarchy between adults and children. Furthermore, Liu (2011) argued that the concept of individualism among urban youth in China “has a double emphasis on individual freedom and material achievement,” incorporating “both an eager pursuit of individualistic self-expression and an entrepreneurial spirit with a heavy dose of materialism” (p. 67). Liu also clarified that both expressive individualism and economic/utilitarian individualism “are simultaneously and equally forcefully displayed by the cultural identity being forged by the younger generation” in China (Liu 2011: 68). Additionally, the salience of various types of individualism has generated negative and positive influences. On the one hand, Yan (2003: 226) stressed that the utilitarian individualism penetrating Chinese society has generated the “uncivil individual,” that is, a person who is lacking in civility or a sense of responsibility for public goods or the well-being of their elders. On the other hand, in his investigation of China’s millennial youths, Moore (2005) emphasized the positive implications of individualism,

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which is represented by the “ku (cool)-generation,” who rebels against old cultural values and demonstrates “an openly and enthusiastically individualistic approach to life that values the bold and the innovative” (p. 374). The emergence of various forms of individualism functions to shape new Chinese subjectivities. Researchers have indicated that the cultivation of Chinese subjects in present-day China involves two contradictory ideologies: the individualistic/neoliberal and the authoritarian/collective (Kipnis 2011). As stated by Liu (2011: 29), on the one hand, the neoliberal rhetoric is characterized by the discourse on autonomy, the freedom to choose, self-development, and self-enterprise aimed at producing a responsible and self-reliant neoliberal subject. On the other hand, the authoritarian values imposed by the socialist regime of China on the people call for one to subsume or even sacrifice one’s lesser self (xiaowo) to the greater self (dawo) of the nation-state. Accordingly, Cheung and Pan (2006) coined the term “regulated individualism” to reflect the contradictory nature of Chinese subjectivities; this term also refers to how the socialist regime addresses “the tension between the newly acquired personal autonomy and the bottom line of the socialist collectivism” (p. 37). Education offers a meaningful lens through which one can understand the complexities of Chinese individualism. For instance, in her fieldwork in a Chinese rural high school, Hansen (2013) discovered contradictions “between the teaching of an idealized view of the self-cultivating and self-­ reliant individual” as well as a demand for individual students to submit to their disciplines (p. 63). Students are therefore educated to become neosocialist individuals who are “submissive to Party rule and accept dominant behavioural norms” and “capable of innovating and creating economic value through self-assertive behaviour” (Hansen 2013: 75). In addition, contemporary Chinese pedagogical paradigms for children are characterized by an ambivalent combination of neoliberal ideology, authoritarian discourse, global or Western models, neosocialist goals, nationalistic ethos, and Confucian rhetoric (Naftali 2016: 17). Of particular relevance to the present research is that Confucian ethics may be regarded as one source of the authoritarian rhetoric that represses the growth of Chinese individualism (Billioud and Thoraval 2015). A number of Confucian philosophical studies have portrayed Confucianism as an authoritarian value system that prioritizes one’s imposed collective responsibilities and obligations but downplays individual entitlements and rights

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(Nuyen 2002; Wang 2021). On the other hand, several scholars (De Bary 1983; Chen 2014; Sun 2017; Chen 2021) have indicated that the individual orientation of Confucianism has been largely overlooked in the literature. For instance, De Bary (1983: 45–46) described “Neo-Confucian individualism” as being constituted of interlinked notions such as ziren (“taking it upon oneself” or “bearing the responsibility oneself”) and zide (“getting it by or for oneself” or “learning to one’s satisfaction”). According to Chen (2014), Confucian ethics relating to the concept of the self focus on “how to realise a self as fully self-conscious being-for-­ itself of definite character, substance, and personality” (p. 67). Notably, despite accumulated philosophical explications, there is a striking dearth of relevant research from an evidence-based perspective. Given this, the present chapter adopts an empirical approach to exploring Confucian students’ demonstrations of individualistic values in their aversion to classic reading, arguing that their individual identity is formed and consolidated through reacting to the authoritarian style of the Confucian sage discourse and the imposition of parental authority.

Developing Soft Individualism in Confucian Studies: To Pursue Individual Aspirations or Boyue Academy? In this section, I demonstrate students’ development of soft individualism (Kim et al. 2017) regarding personal aspirations in their study of Confucian classics. I argue that students at Yiqian School exhibit soft individualism similar to Chinese youth in general (Liu 2008), but they have developed this in criticism of one Confucian academy, Boyue Academy. Moreover, shaping students’ soft individualism is related to an authoritarian sage discourse (to be addressed in the next section), which focuses on perfection through memorization, places pressure on the students, and intensifies their individualistic values. The salience of students’ individualistic outlook on aspirations is relevant to an incident that happened during the fieldwork. One day in the first half of 2015, Yiqian School organized a group of students (n = 24) to visit Boyue Academy. Founded in the early 2010s, Boyue Academy has been deemed by many practitioners of Confucian education, including parents, teachers, and students, as an ideal place to seek further Confucian studies after one completes the initial years of memorizing the classics in other private Confucian schools (sishu). This one-day visit had a distinct

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purpose, which, as the headteacher, Mrs. Zheng, explained, was to motivate students to set this Confucian academy as their goal for the next stage of their education. She also expected this visit to enhance the students’ motivation to recite Confucian classics because one essential admission criterion to Boyue Academy is to memorize a minimum of 300,000 characters of classics. All students had heard of Boyue Academy before, but most of them had never visited it. The school selected the best students for this visit, most of whom were over 13 years old and had studied the classics for a minimum of three years. Yiqian School permitted me to accompany the students and teaching staff on this short visit. The visit comprised two parts: first, Caigui Wang, who stayed in Boyue Academy then, delivered a brief lecture to all of the visiting students and answered their prepared questions; second, all visitors had a chance to meet students who were attending the Academy and to engage in discussions with them freely. The Academy’s students, many of whom were of similar ages to the visiting students from Yiqian School, were widely recognized by Confucian education practitioners as excellent role models to demonstrate the achievements of Confucian classical education developed by Caigui Wang. Several mature students were from the earliest cohorts, which had begun Confucian education since childhood and changed a few Confucian schools until coming to the Academy for full-time study. In the week following the visit, Yiqian School invited three student representatives to share their thoughts and feelings about their visit to Boyue Academy with all students and teaching staff during the regular morning assembly on Monday. In the speeches by these three students, Boyue Academy was described as the “cultural shrine” (wenhua shengdi) they had dreamed of for furthering their Confucian studies. They also expressed their admiration and gratitude for Caigui Wang’s persistent efforts to promote Confucian education for decades. They claimed that as students, they should make every effort to memorize every sentence of the classic books so as to be well prepared to shoulder the great mission of revitalizing Chinese traditional culture in the future. Thus far, the students’ impressions of Boyue Academy seemed promising, delightful, and encouraging. After the morning assembly, however, my multiple conversations with students who had visited Boyue Academy revealed a different story. Lanxin, a 14-year-old girl, was one of the visiting students and one of the three who had made a speech that morning. In a private conversation with me, Lanxin told me in a weak but firm tone that what she said in the

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speech was not her real impression of her visit. “I was telling a lie,” she indicated, “the homeroom teacher asked me to say those words. I feel ashamed of myself!” Given the teachers’ high praise of her academic performance and the impression I gained of her as a diligent student, her revelation caught me by surprise. Lanxin had begun studying the Confucian classics when she was seven years old. She was educated in several Confucian schools and never spent a day at a state school. Her mother was a firm believer in Caigui Wang’s theory of classical education and thus yearned for Lanxin to persist in studying Confucian classics, ultimately pursuing advanced studies at Boyue Academy. My presumption of Lanxin as a well-behaved girl who would obediently follow her mother’s educational plan was not baseless because such an educational background meant that, from the perspective of some teachers and parents at Yiqian School, she was not heavily  influenced by the state school and general society, and thus, as “her heart and mind are still simple and pure” (her class teacher’s words), she could be disciplined and shaped more easily by the pedagogy of Confucian education. Despite her “simple and pure” education experience, Lanxin confessed that the visit to Boyue Academy did not stimulate her aspiration to study there. Even worse, it left her feeling disappointed about this advanced Confucian institution. That disappointment stemmed partly from her direct impression of students at the Academy, some of whom she had known for years. As Lanxin explained, Well, I just feel that the dream is full, but the reality is empty. They [students of the Academy] have already stayed in the Academy for one year or two, but I cannot see any progress they have made. (…) Take Qinqin (Lanxin’s friend who once studied classics at Yiqian School) for example. She has studied at Boyue Academy for two years. But I did not see any improvement in her during the visit. Thus, I have become a bit skeptical of my reasons to study at the Academy.1

Many other students whom I interviewed shared similar sentiments, for instance, those in Lanxin’s Qili Class. This class was made up of 17 girls over the age of 13, half of whom were selected to visit Boyue Academy. In multiple interviews and group discussions, all but two students (n = 15) expressed their disinterest in furthering their education at the Academy. 1

 Interview in June 2015.

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For instance, some expressed the following: “I had no plans to go to the Academy before, and now I dislike it even more”; “I would rather die than go to the Academy”; “It is useless for me to study in the Academy”; “I was rather disappointed after attending Professor Wang’s lecture on that day”;2 and “I just feel as if the dream has been disillusioned.” Nevertheless, it is necessary to point out that most of the interviewed students had no aversion to Confucian classics per se, but rather recognized the value of Confucian studies for moral cultivation; they were disgruntled with the learning requirements and teaching organization at the Academy. From the interviews with the students, I identified two specific reasons that explained their concerns about the Academy. First, almost all the students had felt frustrated by the rigid admission criterion of Boyue Academy, that is, to memorize 300,000 characters of classics. They felt that this was a nearly impossible task to complete. “My hair would have turned grey when I finished reciting all of the books!” One student exclaimed in a group discussion, “I would rather die than memorize 300,000 characters of classics!” A few other students criticized this admission standard as being too one-sided and unsuitable for talented students with multiple aptitudes. One student argued with a rhetorical question, “Should not those who are excellent in various capabilities be admitted to the Academy?” The second and more meaningful reason was that the students believed that Boyue Academy did not align with their individual aspirations in terms of the academic environment and curriculum. Liyan, a student of Qili Class, confessed that she had no intention of continuing with Confucian classical education in the future and thus was not interested in studying at the Academy. She stated, I think attending university is a more pragmatic choice than going to the Academy for future education. It would be best if I could study abroad. Admittedly, many people waste their time at university, but many others work hard to obtain knowledge. I feel that studying at the Academy is not consistent with my own aspirations. Well, different people have different aspirations. Anyway, I am not interested in pursuing Confucian research in the future, so the Academy is not my cup of tea.3 2  Many Confucian education practitioners, including the older students at Yiqian School, referred to Caigui Wang as “Professor Wang” because he is a professor emeritus from a university in Taiwan. 3  Interview in May 2015.

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In the same vein, Jingjing, who claimed no interest in the Academy’s curriculum, said, I look forward to acquiring different kinds of knowledge. When I met the students at the Academy, they informed me that they would learn five languages, two musical instruments, and other skills in the future. This sounds intriguing to me. However, the only courses currently provided are classics memorization and interpretation, plus a bit of Chinese philosophy and German language. They start learning the Chinese zither (guqin) very late and have no calligraphy class. I am very disappointed and feel I may not be suited to study at the Academy.4

Many other students in Qili Class held the same views as Liyan and Jingjing. They argued that universities could provide students with a wide range of courses and that university students were able to select their favorite modules according to their personal interests. They also envisioned that university students could make friends from all over the country and seek advice from respected professors. They, therefore, yearned for the free academic atmosphere of a university. They understood that Boyue Academy lacked all of these benefits. The male students interviewed at Yiqian School expressed similar sentiments to their female counterparts. These sentiments reflected the students’ conflicts between pursuing their personal aspirations and attending Boyue Academy. Chenchen, a 14-year-old boy, explicitly stated that Boyue Academy did not fit his life plan. During the fieldwork, I often heard him complain, “I don’t understand the value of memorizing classics all day long!” He clarified that when he had initially transferred to Yiqian School two years ago, he was full of longing for the Academy and regarded it as the “dream place” to pursue an advanced Confucian education. However, over the past two years, Chenchen said he was always suffering from the boredom of learning classics by rote. In many instances, I saw him sitting at his desk, staring blankly and occasionally reading classics but apparently not memorizing them. In a daily conversation with me, he said, “Reading classics is not at all suitable for my life aspirations. I feel no value in doing it.” He explained that his life goal was to become a musician or a writer. He hoped to attend university to study his major of interest, make

4

 Interview in June 2015.

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preparations to pursue his career ambitions, and participate in activities he genuinely enjoyed. Many other boys shared Chenchen’s view that attending Boyue Academy did not align with their personal life aspirations. The opinions of Ge Ren were perhaps the most unexpected among these. For context, this 13-year-old boy studied extremely hard and achieved excellent performance in memorizing the classics. He was the only student in the school who had succeeded in reciting three entire classic books in one semester. Yiqian School even identified Ge Ren as a role model for other pupils. However, on the day following the visit to Boyue Academy, Ge Ren informed me that he had no interest in studying at the Academy. Interestingly, he criticized four well-known sentences of Zhang Zai, a Confucian philosopher who lived in the Northern Song Dynasty (1020–1077): “To set the mind for heaven and earth; to set life for ordinary people; to inherit the sage’s knowledge, and to initiate peace and security for all ages.” Confucian intellectuals have long used these four sentences to articulate their cultural and political undertakings and regarded them as the perfect interpretations for the pursuit of the sage realm. By devoting oneself to achieving the four indicated aspects, Confucians argue to endow their lives with greatness, sacredness, and values. Teachers at Yiqian School sometimes quoted the four sentences to stimulate students’ motivation for learning Confucianism. But Ge Ren expressed his confusion about the four sentences, confessing that he did not want to dedicate his life to these lofty pursuits. Rather, he aspired to do what he personally liked, seek his own ambitions, and create his own life journey. He shared that he would partake in the cause of promoting Confucian education and strive to raise people’s awareness of reading Confucian classics someday but was not ready to make this his lifelong career. Thus, he rejected Boyue Academy as an option for his next stage of education. To sum up, the findings in this section demonstrate that older students at Yiqian School, both girls and boys, had concerns about furthering their studies in Confucianism at Boyue Academy.5 The interviewed students 5  It is worth noting that Boyue Academy was not the only place mentioned by students, their teachers, or parents. In my fieldwork, some participants mentioned alternative Confucian schools or academies as potential destinations for future study. Even so, they did not negate the authoritative status of Boyue Academy in the domain of Confucian classical education. Moreover, some parents disclosed their ultimate expectation that their children would study at Boyue Academy after a couple of years of classics study in other institutions.

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rejected the Academy because this particular Confucian institution did not align with their personal interests or life aspirations. I argue that the students exhibited a soft version of an individualistic outlook characterized by personal aspirations, self-determination, and self-pursuit (Kim et al. 2017). Their salient “individual self” also reflects the arguments by Liu (2008) that young Chinese people in contemporary society have adopted an individualized approach to planning their lives and “a form of the self that is consistent with the autonomous, self-authoring and individualistic neoliberal subject” (p. 193). Moreover, these students’ focus on the individual self in their personal aspirations implies a connection with Confucianism, as Confucian teaching attaches great importance to the role of a firm aspiration (zhixiang) to shape one’s authentic self (Chen 2014, 2015). In the following two sections, I will further clarify the concept of the student’s individual self.

“I don’t want to become a great cultural talent.” Students’ Individual Self Against the Sage Discourse The students’ concept of the “individual self” is further cemented by two distinct elements in their experience of learning Confucianism: the authoritarian fashion of sage discourse and parental authority. The two elements demand students to develop hard individualism featuring disciplined study conduct and a strict parent-child hierarchy (Kim et al. 2017). However, students’ resistance to them, in turn, reinforces their pursuit of soft individualistic values of autonomy and self-development. I discuss the first element in this section and leave the second for the next section. Resistance to the authoritarian sage discourse generated by the Confucian school intensified the shaping of students’ identity of the individual self. One typical example of such sage discourse is the four sentences of Zhang Zai quoted in the preceding section. As I previously revealed from the discussion with Ge Ren, this student did not exclude the possibility of pursuing Confucian education in the future but emphasized that he would only do it at a time when he genuinely desired to do so; he was eager to create his own life and to seek what he loved to do. Unfortunately, when sharing these thoughts during a class meeting, Ge Ren was interrupted by the teacher who was present. I resort to the following notes from my observations to illustrate what happened.

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[When Ge Ren was speaking,] the class headteacher Miss Cai wrote a sentence on the blackboard: “The high covers the low.” [When Ge Ren finished speaking], Miss Cai explained to all students that Professor Caigui Wang had proposed the ambition “to set the mind for heaven and earth,” which is a grand goal, but he did not ask everyone to realize it. However, targeting such a grand goal as one’s life aspiration allowed one to achieve other smaller goals. In this way, even if a person failed to reach the grand goal, he or she could still achieve a relatively higher one than that of merely pursuing a small goal. Miss Cai spoke slightly emotionally, confessing that it had taken her a long time to grasp this point and that she hoped Ge Ren could understand it someday. When Ge Ren raised his hand to remind the teacher that he had wanted to provide more comments, Miss Cai made a “stop” gesture and said, “We had better not spend any more time discussing this issue. Let’s talk about it in private instead.”6

I assume that my presence could have been one reason why Miss Cai prevented Ge Ren from continuing to express his opinion. However, Miss Cai’s statements plunged Ge Ren into even deeper confusion about his plans for his future education and life. In private conversations with me, Ge Ren acknowledged that such a grand aspiration as “to set the mind for heaven and earth” was too abstract, high, and distant. He said, “Only the saints can achieve it. But I am merely an ordinary person and want to live a mediocre life.” Similarly, Yangyang felt frustrated with the implications of such a sage discourse. In a daily conversation with me, this 12-year-old boy, who had begun studying the Confucian classics in a nursery, commented critically on a point that Caigui Wang had made during the students’ visit to Boyue Academy. In the meeting with all of the visiting students, Wang had urged them not to become a “stingy and narrow-minded” (xiaoli xiaoqi) person but rather to strive to become a sage-like person and a qualified successor of Confucianism, who was capable of shouldering the responsibility for rejuvenating Chinese traditional culture. In response to this point, Yangyang stated, Frankly, I do not possess such a high goal for my life; neither do I possess a lofty aspiration such as this. I just want to live a simple and happy life. It is true that “everyone has a certain responsibility for the rise and fall of the country” (tianxia xingwang pifu youze). But is it possible to achieve the 6

 Fieldnotes in May 2015.

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revival of Confucian culture merely with a few of us pupils? A cultural renaissance takes a long time and requires the efforts of several generations. But I don’t want to be one of them. I am a petty person who is always concerned about trivial matters—for example, finishing the demanded memorization tasks, receiving a letter from home, or enjoying a delicious dinner. I don’t think I have the qualities to become a sage or a gentleman (shengren junzi). A cultural revival is an extremely honorable and selfless enterprise. But I am merely a stingy and narrow-minded person, just as Professor [Caigui] Wang said. I always live for today, even if I have desperately finished reciting the entire Book of Changes this month.7

Notably, the members of the teaching staff at Yiqian School who identified with Caigui Wang’s principles of Confucian classical education—especially the proposed method of extensive memorization of the classics—were driven by a sense that they were on a cultural mission to cultivate “great cultural talents” (wenhua dacai). The Confucian school defines a “great cultural talent” as a person who is profoundly learned and capable (manfu jinglun) through the extensive study of Confucian classics. As the headteacher, Mrs. Zheng explained in multiple interviews that the interruption of Confucian culture in China throughout the twentieth century had led modern Chinese people to become alienated from the Confucian classics; thus, it was only by nurturing the “great cultural talents” who had profound moral cultivation and cultural capacity in Confucian studies that it would be possible to make up for these past disruptions to China’s cultural development. The authoritarian sage discourse is embedded in the ethos of an emerging cultural nationalism held by Confucian education practitioners. In his speech to the students at Yiqian School, Caigui Wang shared that he expected them to follow the exemplary models of ancient Confucian sages: to take the memorization of Confucian classics as a fundamental approach to achieving moral improvement, to cultivate a Confucian “junzi-hood” (the selfhood of becoming a virtuous person), and to make preparations to contribute to the great mission of Confucian revival. I understand the sage discourse from the logic of exemplarity, which, according to Bakken (2000), states that a human cultivates moral ethics and proper conduct through recitation, repetition, and imitation of the wisdom of the sage, as embodied by the classical texts (p. 169). However, 7

 Interview in June 2015.

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here it presents a different picture in terms of the subjectivity of the Confucian students, who—as exemplified by Ge Ren and Yangyang—did not support this authoritarian form of sage discourse but instead challenged its legitimacy. In other words, the students’ resistance to the sage discourse that requires hard individualism consolidated their soft individualistic values of self-pursuit, self-reliance, personal interest, and individual aspirations (Kim et  al. 2017). This applied to both boys and girls. For example, Yingying, a 13-year-old female student, disagreed that reading the classics was a great cause (as often stated by Confucian education practitioners) but merely interpreted it from a utilitarian perspective. She indicated, It is said that reading the classics is equivalent to inheriting the sage’s knowledge and initiating peace and security for all ages. Well, if I believe this point, I am just deceiving myself because I am a nobody, and I don’t want to be a great or superior person either. I am actually not sure how long it will take to revive Confucianism through reading the classics. Social development would not cease just for a small number of people like us. (…) I don’t think reading the classics is something great or special, nor is it an education that promises a bright future.8

The passage above demonstrates Confucian students’ feelings of self-­ deprecation due to their perceived failure to measure up to the high standards imposed by the Confucian school. Interestingly, this practice of retreating inwards enhanced the students’ sense of utilitarian individualism (Liu 2011), as it offered them a practical but individualistic means to deal with what they perceived to be the impossibility of the task set before them as part of a collective national project. To sum up, this section reveals the incongruence of students’ individual selves with the authoritarian sage discourse circulating in the field of Confucian classical education. The sage discourse stresses an ideal Confucian personality that the students regarded as too abstract to achieve realistically. Furthermore, the students’ resistance to the sage discourse reinforced their values of soft individualism.

8

 Interview in July 2015.

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“I don’t want to let my parents down.” Students’ Individual Self and Parental Authority The preceding section explores how students’ objections to the authoritarian sage discourse stimulated their individual awareness. This section focuses on a second element—parental authority—and discusses how the students’ approaches to addressing their parents’ educational desires for further Confucian studies intensified their individual selves. There was obvious tension between the students’ individual aspirations and their parents’ expectations of their engagement in advanced Confucian studies. I explain above the students’ various personal aspirations for their lives and education. In contrast, the parents whom I interviewed acknowledged the advantages of enrolling in further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy; some strongly hoped that their children would attend the Academy someday. This conflict was reflected in the case of Mrs. Fan and her 14-year-old daughter, Keke. Mrs. Fan had been determined to send Keke to Boyue Academy ever since Keke left a state school to pursue a Confucian education. However, Keke did not fully agree with the educational blueprint laid out by her mother. Mrs. Fan attempted to change Keke’s mind, but the two had numerous arguments. Mrs. Fan said, I often try to talk with my daughter about Boyue Academy. But every time, she becomes slightly angry, saying, “I don’t want to go there at all!” She visited the Academy some time ago. Unfortunately, the conditions at the Academy are not as good as she expected. (…) Her mind is always filled with unrealistic fantasies, such as going on a free trip or traveling to her dream destination.9

Nevertheless, Mrs. Fan refused to give up. She believed that if she had a firm faith in Confucian education, she would ultimately convince Keke to attend the Academy. Mrs. Fan told Keke that she would not make any concessions in insisting on her daughter’s learning of the Confucian classics: One day my daughter asked me how long she would have to continue reading the classics. I just told her to carry on and not to ask again. She immediately burst into tears. (…) She knows how determined I am to engage her in classics study. She knows that nothing can shake me from this belief. She 9

 Interview in August 2015.

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has been aware of this since she was very young. (…) She knows that no matter how much she cries, I will not make any concessions on her Confucian education.10

Faced with her mother’s unyielding position, Keke had no choice but to follow what was demanded of her. However, this led Keke into a difficult situation. Although she was not willing to go to the Academy, she had to obediently remain in the Confucian school to memorize the classics every day “in order to avoid disappointing my mom.” In a group discussion, Keke confessed that she had no plans for herself except to complete the recitation of 300,000-character classics as soon as possible and to enroll in Boyue Academy subsequently. This was because her mother had promised her that as long as she was admitted to the Academy and studied there for two years, she would be rewarded with the freedom to choose her own future career and do whatever she wanted. Similarly, Mr. Li and his son Yangyang suffered the same argument. As a staunch supporter of Confucian classical education, Mr. Li articulated his expectation for his son, using the term “mission” (shiming). He said, I believe my son was born into this world for a certain great mission. Can he achieve the realm of “setting the mind for heaven and earth?” I don’t know. But if you were to ask me whether I maintain such an expectation for him, I would say yes! (…) It may be true that 90 percent of people in this world do not believe they have life missions. But there are still 10 percent who take on their life missions. Perhaps my son is one of these people in the 10 percent. I believe he has a mission.11

Accordingly, Mr. Li conveyed his hope for his son to pursue further Confucian studies at Boyue Academy because he regarded the Academy as the optimal place for Yangyang to fulfill his great mission and become a great cultural talent. However, as discussed previously, this contradicted Yangyang’s personal aspirations. Many older students experienced a similar conflicting situation. This is from the group discussions with the students in Qili Class (n = 17). Here, Lanxin, Keke’s classmate, indicated that while she had no desire to attend Boyue Academy, she confined herself to reading the classics in the Confucian school simply to meet her mother’s expectations. “I do not  Interview in August 2015.  Interview in May 2015.

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want to disappoint my mother,” said Lanxin, using almost the same words as Keke. This personal conflict was not an experience that was limited to the girls. In a daily conversation, Jie Wu, a 16-year-old male student, recounted that his father had not compelled him to attend the Academy but required him to prioritize the completion of memorizing the classics before doing what he personally aspired to do. Like many other students, Jie Wu felt bored about learning the classics but had to force himself to continue to do it so as not to let his father down. “I don’t want to let my parents down” was a common sentiment shared by the Confucian students in attempting to rationalize the difficult situation they faced, that is, to keep reading classics at Yiqian School while maintaining no interest in attending Boyue Academy. I emphasize here that the students’ obedience to parental authority reflects their internalization of hard individualism (Kim et  al. 2017), which, however, conflicts with their individual aspirations. On the one hand, in struggling to live up to their parents’ expectations, the students displayed a connection of hard individualism with the Confucian virtue of filial piety. Being filial in the Chinese context refers to children’s obligation to follow their parents’ orders and maintain their parents’ honor or “face” (mianzi) (Kipnis 2009: 215; Zhang 2016). On the other hand, however, for students at Yiqian School, prioritizing their parents’ expectations conflicted with the students’ self-pursuits. Consequently, the students shared that they often quarreled with their parents in attempts to resist such parental authority. The students’ resistance to parental authority was often in vain, as demonstrated in the case of Keke. However, a few students reported that their efforts at resistance appeared to make some space for negotiations about their personal choices regarding future education. This situation in Confucian education families is not different from other families because they are all reflections of the general shifting parent-child relationship in contemporary China (Naftali 2016: 120). Additionally, students’ persistent negotiations with their parents demonstrate the development of expressive individualism (Liu 2011). In discussions with the girls in Qili Class, several students admitted that the uncompromising attitudes of their parents eventually diminished because of their repeated objections to attending Boyue Academy. “When I was at home, my mom persuaded me by saying, ‘You must go to the Academy, or you’ll be letting me down,’” a girl recounted, “I then cried, shouting, ‘I don’t want to go there! I don’t want to go there!’ We then had a big quarrel. After several occurrences like

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this, my mom finally said, ‘Do whatever you want, as you wish.’” Another girl shared a similar story: My mother expects me to attend Boyue Academy. (…) On one occasion, I told her that I did not want to go there but looked forward to studying in Japan. She then began to spell out the disadvantages of studying in Japan. (…) We fought many times about this until one day, she said, “Do whatever you want, as you wish.” Well, nowadays, she still yearns for me to study at the Academy but does not impose her views on me as strongly as before.12

Resistance from their children also caused the parents to acknowledge the necessity of respecting their children’s expressive values of individualism. One parent, Mrs. Song, expressed her strong expectations for her 14-year-old son Jianjian to continue his Confucian studies at Boyue Academy. She had had countless quarrels with Jianjian about her plans for him to study at the Academy until she later realized that her overhasty persuasion had placed too much pressure on her son. Ultimately, Mrs. Song changed her approach and attitude toward her son. She said, I no longer compel him to do anything because he has grown up. I hope to give him some space to think independently about his own future. Perhaps it is not yet the appropriate time for him to think about this issue [of going to the Academy]. (…) I am happy to allow him to decide on his own whether or not to study at the Academy in the future. But for now, he must recite the classics.13

Through self-reflection, several parents became more tolerant of their children’s self-choices and pursuit of their personal interests. In a conversation about the future education of her ten-year-old son, Mrs. Wu argued that a boy at this age was “still vague in thinking about his life plans.” Like Mrs. Song, Mrs. Wu had learned to stop coercing her son to attend Boyue Academy. She indicated, [I inform my son that] it is well enough that he does whatever he wants as long as he makes full efforts. (…) If I forced him to attend Boyue Academy, he would be very stressed. Well, studying at the Academy should not be something that happens by coercion. Nowadays, I avoid exerting too much  Group discussion in May 2015.  Interview in July 2015.

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pressure on him. This is my true personal experience, that is, to respect the child.14

Many parents whom I interviewed emphasized their children’s independence in making personal decisions. When discussing the next stage in her nine-year-old son’s education, Mrs. Zhu shared, “I will follow his decision and respect his choice. Whatever he wishes to do, I am happy to support it.” This reflected the sentiments of Mrs. Lan, who said, If my son is willing to go to the Academy, I will absolutely support him. If not, I will still respect his choice. Well, he is now 13 years old and is becoming increasingly mature and sensible. He knows many things, including what he really wants.15

From a general perspective, the complexity of the shifting parent-child relationship, as revealed in these families of Confucian education, is no exception to other Chinese families. It corresponds to the argument by Naftali (2016) that Chinese parents nowadays are “in the rather difficult position of having to reconcile these contradictory themes of obedience and autonomy in their everyday interactions with their children” (p. 120). On the one hand, children’s formation of their individual self and parents’ orientation to respect their children’s autonomy reflect the broad social process of “the growing empowerment and individualization of Chinese children within the family and society” (Naftali 2016: 118). But on the other hand, Chinese children are still obliged to obey the authority of their parents, owing to the implicit influence of Confucian ethics such as filial piety (Kipnis 2009: 214). Furthermore, the paradoxical relationship between the child’s individuality and the parent’s authority reflects a general change in the Chinese parenting style. The traditional parenting style in China is controlling, restrictive, and authoritarian (Chao 1994). In describing the nature of Chinese parenting, some scholars (C. Li et al. 2017) have suggested the term guan (training), which refers to a form that integrates care with discipline and love with governing. This is evidenced in the above stories of the families of Confucian education, where parents put pressure on their children and forced them to go to the Academy out of consideration for  Interview in July 2015.  Interview in June 2015.

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their future education and life. However, the profound process of individualization in Chinese society (Yan 2009, 2010) has caused Chinese parenting to increasingly embrace a child-centered approach and value open communication with the child. As a result, contemporary Chinese parents allow their children to make their own decisions, improve their children’s independence and autonomy, and decrease the power differential between them and their children (Li et al. 2017). This new trend is in accordance with the findings in this section.

Summary This chapter has identified three factors that jointly shape students’ mentality regarding their Confucian educational prospects: their rising awareness of individualism, the authoritarian sage discourse, and parental authority. First, students at Yiqian School encountered an either-or dilemma when planning their future education—either to pursue advanced Confucian studies, ideally at Boyue Academy, or to pursue their individual aspirations elsewhere. Most of the interviewed students demonstrated an explicit individual-oriented attitude toward their education, hoping to pursue personal interests, attend university, study abroad, or follow their own aspirations. However, the students’ individual selves were challenged by two types of authoritarian rhetoric—the sage discourse generated by the Confucian school and the parental expectations imposed upon them. The students’ resistance to both sources of authoritarian rhetoric consolidated their individualism. Given these findings, I demonstrate a complicated landscape in the ongoing revival of Confucian education that features individualism among students, which counteracts the authoritarianism of teachers and parents. Nonetheless, I wish to clarify that not all students at Yiqian School fully rejected the thought of attending Boyue Academy. For example, 2 out of 17 students in Qili Class and 1 out of 17 students in Qibo Class disclosed their yearning to attend the Academy. In addition, some teachers and parents expressed that they respected the children’s wishes for their future education. Thus, despite the conflict between the students’ individualism and the teachers’ and parents’ authoritarianism, I acknowledge that there may be space for both sides to mutually influence, negotiate, and coordinate. I argue that Confucian students’ preferences for the individualistic values of autonomy, freedom, self-reliance, and personal interest are in line

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with the concept of soft individualism (Kim et al. 2017). However, this does not mean that the ethics of hard individualism did not apply to the students at Yiqian School. Rather, almost all students recognized to some extent the essentiality of hard individualistic learning virtues, such as discipline, pressure, and endurance of hardship in their long-term learning of Confucian classics (see also Li 2012: Chapter 4). Accordingly, the disciplined schooling environment emphasized the cultivation of students’ hard individual virtues and skills. Additionally, students’ resistance to authoritarian ideologies did not necessarily exclude their internalization of these “hard” virtues of individual learning. Furthermore, the students exhibited both a desire for individual self-­ expression and a utilitarian concern in planning their future education. This provides new evidence for the argument put forth by Liu (2011: 68) that the younger generation in China displays both expressive and utilitarian individualism simultaneously against the dramatic social transformation that is taking place in present-day China. Similarly, scholars (Carabelli and Lyon 2016) have indicated that the propensity of young people to imagine a rationally calculated future instead of an adventurous future is a global trend that is unfolding beyond China. More importantly, this study has revealed the complicated nature of the emerging Confucian individualism among students. On the one hand, the students have embraced the virtue of individual aspiration, which is a feature of Confucian individualism (Chen 2015). They have developed personal aspirations with innovative implications by highlighting the soft individualistic values of self-determination, self-pursuit, and self-reliance. On the other hand, Confucian individualism does not negate the hard individualistic values such as respect for the seniors, abidance by parental authority, and disciplined study habits. Therefore, the nascent Confucian individualism arising from the contemporary revival of Confucianism and Confucian education can be understood as an ideology accommodating both soft and hard individualistic values. Additionally, Confucian individualism should also share common values with expressive and utilitarian individualisms, as clarified above, but articulate them more with the fundamental virtues in Confucian doctrines. Contextualizing the Confucian individualism in students’ experience of Confucian study, I argue that the rise of Confucian individualism is due to a mixture of elements, including neoliberal values, Confucian virtues, (aversion to) the sage discourse and Confucian idealism, and (rebellion against) the parental authority. In view of this, I clarify two points. First,

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the students’ eagerness to pursue self-defined aspirations indeed weakens the hegemony of authoritarian ideologies. Second, one should avoid interpreting the students’ reluctance to follow the authoritarian sage discourse and parental authority as a completely neoliberal phenomenon because the students still adhere to certain Confucian virtues, such as filial piety. Thus, I argue that the development of students’ Confucian individualism must be understood within a broader context beyond the scope of Confucianism. Only through this general, hybrid perspective can we understand why students, as Confucian individuals, would reject further Confucian studies. Moreover, Confucian individualism is most likely linked to the complex shaping of Chinese subjectivities, which involves a mixture of neoliberal and authoritarian values, as well as individualistic and collective values (Kipnis 2011; Liu 2011: 29). Finally, the students’ individual selves, as shown through their genuine thoughts and feelings about studying Confucianism, are important for reflecting on the movement of Confucian education. Many academics and the general public in China are currently engaged in a widespread debate over the pros and cons of reading the classics; this debate has covered a variety of topics, such as the mechanical memorization method, learning materials, legitimate status of private Confucian schools, and uncertainties surrounding the acquisition of an academic degree (see Wang 2018). In particular, several influential Confucian education campaigners, including Caigui Wang himself, have emphasized the authoritarian side of Confucianism but downplayed its individualistic nature (see Ke 2017). This is reflected well in the recent emergence of new learning methods such as baoben (reciting a whole book of classics in one go) and “double tens” (reading classics for ten hours per day, for ten years) (Wang 2016a, b). However, the students’ voices are largely missing in the ongoing disputes. Given the students’ salient identity of the individual self as presented in this chapter, I argue that Confucian education should take into account students’ desires for individual values during its pedagogical evolvement and thus attempt to achieve a balance between respecting students’ autonomy and independence and encouraging them to participate in the national revival of Confucianism.

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CHAPTER 8

Conclusion: Individualization with Confucianism

Drawing on the individualization thesis and its implications for the revival of Confucian education, this book has explored the complexities of cultivating Confucian individuals through the study of the classics in contemporary China. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a Confucian classical school, three interconnected topics have been investigated: (1) parents’ narratives and actions related to “dis-embedding” their children from mainstream state education and transferring them to Confucian education as an alternative; (2) the specific discourses and practices of teaching and learning the classics in everyday school life, guided by the aim of training students to become autonomous learners; and (3) the institutional and subjective dilemmas that arise when parents and students seek to “re-embed” themselves in either the mainstream state education system or further Confucian studies at an advanced academy for their next stage of education. The findings of this research contribute to the understanding of the hidden dynamics of the Confucian education revival in present-­ day China, the complications and contradictions in the process of Chinese individualization, and the intricacies of subject-making through Confucian teaching and learning in the socialist state of China. In this final chapter, I summarize three major arguments arising from the findings presented in earlier chapters. I expand on each of them in the next three sections. First, this book has described the rise of parents who have a critical mindset and make the choice of a Confucian education for © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9_8

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their children within constrained socio-political circumstances that have been profoundly shaped by the dynamics of Chinese individualization. It has also revealed the ambivalent attitudes of parents and students toward both state education and advanced Confucian studies when planning for future education. Second, this book has provided detailed descriptions of how disciplinary power and self-formation techniques were translated at the Confucian school into a hybrid pedagogy of “individualized memorization,” with the aim of cultivating students to become autonomous, learned Confucian individuals. Third, the book has shown that the Confucian education revival is closely intertwined with the process of individualization in present-day Chinese society. In particular, Confucian-­ inspired values of individuality have regained their vitality to provide spiritual and moral encouragement for the development of Confucian individuals. With these insights, the book enriches the literature on the subjective aspects of Chinese individualization. In addition to summarizing these arguments, this chapter describes some research limitations and identifies promising avenues for further studies.

Desire for Confucian Education: Choice, Dependency, and Hierarchy Echoing the individualization thesis and its application to Chinese society, this book explores how parents become critical individuals in their involvement with the re-emergence of Confucian education. It demonstrates parents’ struggle to “dis-embed” from the state school system and the dilemma over whether to return their child to this securely institutionalized system. I point out that parents act as individuals when they choose to engage their children in Confucian classical education and reveal the complexities involved in the planning of parents and their children for their future education. In presenting these findings, I emphasize that the engagement of children by their parents in Confucian education as an alternative to the state education system is simultaneously shaped or even constrained by relations to the state (Hoffman 2010). Furthermore, the parents’ apparently independent planning for their children’s next stage of education, whether it involves returning to the state school system or pursuing further studies at a Confucian academy, manifests a sense of responsibility for their offspring, family, and nation. In light of this, I argue that

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these parents display an ambivalent disposition toward the state education system, being at once critical of it and reliant upon it. The parents who decided to dis-embed their children from the state school system adopted a critical stance based on the ideology of anti-­ instrumentalism to challenge state education and its examination orientation. I argue that from this critical perspective, the parents questioned the legitimacy of the state education system and developed an intensified spirit of individuality to break away from the fixed path of education through state schools and embark on the alternative approach of Confucian education. This argument also sheds light on the expectations of some parents that their children would proceed to further Confucian studies at a private Confucian academy established by Caigui Wang and sitting outside of the state school system. Although this Confucian academy does not have the official approval to award academic degrees, there were a few parents who acknowledged that they cared little for formal schooling documents and insisted that they would send their children to the academy to continue their classical studies in the future. Given the above, I further indicate that the practice of criticism, which emerges from and responds to circumstantial socio-political conditions, encourages parents to think, speak, and act as critical individuals. According to Foucault (1997), critique is the art “(of not being governed) like that, by that, in the name of those principles, with such an objective in mind and by means of such procedures, not like that, not for that, not by them” (p. 28, original italics). This point implies that although the modern subject cannot use critique to completely eliminate power relations, it can still actualize a certain degree of freedom in a constraining context by navigating power relations in ways that mediate against and attempt to minimize constraints (Taylor 2011). Based on this, I argue that parents involved in Confucian education use criticism to reflect upon how not to follow conventional state education but instead take up the alternative form of Confucian education. The liberation of the individual is not only an essential part of the modernization process in Western Europe (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002) but also the reflexive outcome of the individualization of Chinese society (Yan 2009). As Yan (2009: 3) pointed out, the rising individuals of today’s China place more value on their self-development, happiness, and security. This point is reflected in the scholarship on Chinese parenting and childrearing (Naftali 2016; Yang 2018), wherein researchers argue for the emergence of “soft individualism” among young Chinese parents and

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their children; this term refers to the pursuit of freedom, autonomy, and individual interests (see Kim et  al. 2017; Kuan 2015; Wang 2022). Moreover, the claim for parents’ intense commitment to their children’s education also echoes the broad cultural shift of parenting toward “intensive parenting,” which means requiring the enactment of parenting behaviors at the individual level and which “is often presented as a conscious/ willing adoption, whereby parents choose to parent in a particular way” (Smyth and Craig 2017: 107). Consequently, parents who enrolled their children in the Confucian school were fighting against the orthodox route of state education and turned to an alternative Confucian style of schooling that they believed could relieve the negative effects of individualism and selfishness. Acting and speaking as an emic first person “I,” these parental activists became involved in Confucian education, criticized the examination-oriented regular schools, and claimed the freedom to exercise their choice and self-interest regarding their children’s education. The emergence of critical parents in the field of Confucian education can also be understood as a manifestation of a broader shift in the moral landscape due to the dynamics of individualization. The parents’ challenges to state education were enmeshed with their deep desire for their children’s moral cultivation. They wanted their children to learn Confucian virtues and proper conduct by repetitively reading and memorizing the classics and hoped to protect their children from the negative effects of uncontrolled individualism (Yan 2009, 2011, 2021b). This point explains why the Yiqian School’s parents adhered to Confucian education ideals but rejected other non-mainstream forms of education. However, critique did not entail a complete break from the state education system; instead, state power continued to haunt parents even after they had abandoned this system. For example, many of the parents interviewed for this study were worried about their children’s student status and having their academic qualifications recognized by the state education system and wider society. For many parents, these concerns were serious enough that they hoped to return their children to a state school after a few years of full-time classics study at Yiqian School or were hesitant to send their children to seek further classical studies at Caigui Wang’s Confucian academy. This being said, parents involved in Confucian education were ultimately forced to return their children to the state education system due to the lack of stable institutional “re-embedding” channels for further Confucian studies. They still had to rely on the state-defined educational trajectory to pave the way for their children’s further education. I

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argue that this is a good example of “party-state managed individualization,” which implies that the party-state directs Chinese individuals to exercise self-management, self-direction, and self-control within the boundaries set up by it (Yan 2009: 290). Additionally, despite their criticism of Chinese state education and examination-oriented schooling practices, parents did not evince skepticism about the authority of the Communist government; instead, they appreciated the socialist regime’s support for the Confucian revival and its tolerance of the new Confucian institutions. I argue that the parents’ equivocal attitude reflects the notion of the “divided self” (Kleinman 2011), which suggests that ordinary people in contemporary China take dual actions of resistance and accommodation simultaneously in their negotiating with China’s social reality (p.  232). Moreover, this finding confirms one central argument that the relationship between the individual and the state, rather than that between the individual and society as in Western countries, is predominant in the process of individualization of Chinese society; thus, the rising Chinese individuals have to deal with the state in one way or another (Yan 2010). This study also suggests that Chinese parents’ desire for their children to learn classical literature is associated with their national identity and sense of civic responsibility. In this book, I describe some parents’ regret over the interruption of Confucian culture in the twentieth century and their feelings of cultural shame associated with their lack of personal experience with the Confucian classics. I interpret these complex emotions as a manifestation of the ethos of cultural nationalism, featuring the paradoxical feelings of cultural inferiority and national pride in modern China (Wang 2023, 2024). Notably, parents’ cultural shame implies their condemnation of being deprived of access to Confucian education, which they thought should be their birthright, during their own schooling time. They were determined not to impose the same deprivation on their children. Thus, following Caigui Wang’s educational principles, parents believed they must shoulder the responsibility for their children’s education by transferring them from the state system to Confucian schools. Accordingly, I argue that a nationalistic sentiment worked to shape the parents’ sense of urgency for their children to study Confucianism. They urged their children to read and memorize the classics extensively—ideally before they reached the age of 13, which is considered the golden period for memory—in the belief that this approach would lay a solid intellectual and

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moral foundation for their children to become great cultural talents (wenhua dacai) through the process of Confucian education. In short, the parental informants’ sense of cultural nationalism, along with the condemnation of deprivation, seems to be a strong driving force behind their decision to enroll their children in the Confucian school. Despite such parents being in a small number compared to those represented in state schools and those who send their children abroad, their sentiments, reflections, and actions still need to be acknowledged. Additionally, parents’ firm belief in the educational efficacy of the method of memorization contributes to the scholarship about Chinese learners’ cultural beliefs and learning processes by showing that Confucian memorization is used as the first step to achieving moral enhancement and self-perfection (Li 2012: 73–75). Moreover, the urgency felt by the parents for their children’s engagement in Confucian education was influenced by their cultural shame and Caigui Wang’s classical education theory, which provides an insight into the (re)production of social hierarchies in contemporary China. Most of the interviewed parents were from urban middle-class families, and their call for the inculcation of the Confucian virtue of zuoren (to become human or to conduct oneself) can be further interpreted as an attempt by this emerging middle-class group to distinguish their offspring from those of other social groups. In this process, narratives and practices are (re)produced around the original Confucian-inspired distinctions between good and bad manners, high and low qualities (suzhi), and superior and inferior civilities (wenming) (see Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Rocca 2015, 2017). Last but not least, the parents interviewed had to address the opposition of family members to removing children from state schools. In this study, family relationships played a role in individual parents’ actions (Hansen and Pang 2008; Yan 2013, 2021a). Facing objections, the parents attempted to convince family members by clarifying the benefits of reading the classics and showing them the actual improvement in their children’s moral cultivation since they began studying classical literature. Many parents reported that they had successfully changed the minds of disgruntled family members, who now supported their choice of Confucian education for their children. This suggests that the functioning of family relationships has been redefined from an individualistic perspective insofar as parents resort to their family networks to pursue their own interests or what they claim to be in their children’s interests. This finding echoes the theory of Chinese individualization, which holds that family relationships become practical resources for individuals to reshape their identities (Yan

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2009). The agency of the parent, who acts as an individual rather than a family representative, has recently gained momentum in educational practice in China.1

Memorization-based Confucian Pedagogy: Moral Anxiety, Power, and Selfhood This book provides a detailed discussion of the memorization-based Confucian pedagogy and the relevant debates, reforms, and practices at Yiqian School. I demonstrate that parents’ recognition of the benefits of the memorization-based approach to classics study motivated them to engage their children in Confucian classical education. The parent informants’ preference for having their children memorize the classics extensively was associated with their moral anxiety and desire for their children to develop Confucian virtues. This point can further the understanding of the parents’ educational dis-embedding action of taking their children out of state education and transferring them to full-time Confucian studies. Moreover, I reveal how the Confucian school implemented the reform of pedagogical individualization and formed a hybrid approach of the “individualized memorization” of classical literature under the name of Confucianism. This pedagogy combines the individualized teaching and learning principle with the goal of requiring students to memorize the classics extensively. I describe the specific teaching and learning practices in the students’ classics study using the individualized memorization method, which involves the technologies of disciplinary power and of the self and serves the aim to cultivate students to become autonomous, learned Confucian individuals and, ideally, to become great cultural talents. Due to their deep concern about moral suzhi (qualities), the parents interviewed formed a critical attitude toward state education. They criticized state schooling for its over-emphasis on examinations and practical knowledge. In the meantime, the parental desire to inculcate Confucian virtues in their children involves a re-appreciation of the method of memorization. Valuing the recovery of this particular method, the parents regarded it as a fundamental approach to improving their children’s moral cultivation. They regarded Confucianism as a source of moral education 1  One recent, intriguing study (Yang 2018) provides evidence of this aspect by discussing the adaptive changes of Chinese motherhood toward an “educational agent” role in the context of China’s market-oriented education.

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and expected their children to learn how to become virtuous persons (junzi) and how to conduct themselves in social life through continuous, extensive study of classical texts. The parents’ pursuit of Confucian virtues and associated moral anxiety can be better understood with reference to widespread public perceptions of the moral shift in present-day China. Since the late 1970s, Chinese society has experienced an ethical shift from a collective value system to a more individual-oriented one (Yan 2011: 72). As a result, it has suffered adverse consequences due to the tension in reading individualism as utilitarianism or simply selfishness (Yan 2009: 289). I argue that this background has intensified parents’ anxiety about their children’s moral suzhi, leading to a renewed emphasis on Confucian virtues to ease the widespread sense of moral crisis. The process of globalization also bears the potential to generate this dialectical consolidation of local Confucian values, which, in turn, pushes parents back against the negative effects of individualism inherent in globalization (Hermans and Dimaggio 2007; McKenzie 2020). Confucian philosophy prioritizes learning about proper interpersonal relationships, emphasizing that “true goodness exists only as it is manifested in relation to others and in the treatment of others” (Gardner 2014: 22). While the vitality of Confucian teaching lies in its deep understanding of human relationality, for example, mutual support, respect, and responsibility, the globally circulated notion of individualism from the West tends to prioritize the values of independence, self-reliance, and self-responsibility. The preference for Confucian ethics is epitomized in this study by the parent informants’ yearning for the virtue of zuoren (to become human or conduct oneself) and their attachment to the approach of classics memorization. Particularly, they expected classics memorization would help their children gain knowledge of how to conduct themselves properly in social life and develop their fortitude and empathy to counteract the effects of negative individualism (see also Billioud and Thoraval 2015: 11). Furthermore, the theory of classical education proposed by Caigui Wang strengthened the parent informants’ confidence in the Confucian pedagogy of memorization. I interpret Caigui Wang’s appeal for the extensive memorization of Confucian classics as the reincarnation of Chinese governing practices through exemplary models (Bakken 2000), in which a moral subject is formed by the techniques of imitation, repetition, and memorization (p.  131). The adherence of parents to Wang’s Confucian education theory therefore implies their approval of the

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memorization-based pedagogy for classics study as a method for cultivating students to become Confucian-style moral persons. The parents regarded the process of reading and memorizing the classics as a channel for learners to get close to the wisdom of Confucian sages, follow the models of virtuous persons, develop a stable disposition toward external and internal norms, and finally guarantee a constant and predictable social order (Bakken 2000). Furthermore, I highlight the compatibility of this argument with the rhetoric surrounding suzhi, which Kipnis (2006) described as being profoundly rooted in the Confucian tradition of cultivation (jiaohua) (see also Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Lin 2017; Wu and Devine 2018). However, there is an apparent contradiction surrounding the memorization-­based pedagogy for classics study. On the one hand, as shown above, the fact that parents dis-embedded their children from state education and transferred them to Confucian education suggests that they believed classics study would free their children from the negative effects of examination-oriented state schooling and engage them in authentic suzhi education. On the other hand, when taking a closer look at students’ practices of learning Confucianism at Yiqian School, the Confucian memorization-­based pedagogy that the parents wanted their children to experience shared more than they might have expected with the state education system they criticized, such as extensive memorization, rote learning, repetition, and imitation. Indeed, these pedagogical contradictions were embodied in the actual practices of Yiqian School. I demonstrate how autonomous, learned individuals were cultivated in the Confucian school through the hybrid approach of “individualized memorization.” However, this approach was characterized by didactic ambiguity. The Confucian school claimed to have implemented the reform of pedagogical individualization and innovated teaching and learning methods under the umbrella principle of individualized education, or yincai shijiao, which would entail teaching students in accordance with their individual differences in memorization capacity. However, the school coerced learners even in the context of their self-directed study and required them to recite as many characters from the classics as possible or entire classic books. Accordingly, the students of Confucian education were expected to constitute themselves as autonomous learners through the extensive memorization of the classics but were also subject to the authoritarianism of the memorization-based pedagogy,

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which demanded students’ obedience to the authority of the teacher and classical literature. I, therefore, argue that the complexities of cultivating autonomous, learned individuals in the Confucian school disclose two conflicting sides of the memorization-based pedagogy: the authoritarian and the individualistic (see also Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Gilgan 2022a, b; Tan 2017; Wang 2022; Wu 2014; Zeng 2022). On the one hand, Yiqian School implemented the reform of pedagogical individualization and applied teaching and learning practices that were centered on cultivating students’ learning autonomy. On the other hand, as I reveal, it adopted concrete techniques of classics study that involved disciplinary power and self-­ formation, including minimum memorization, making self-study schedules, examinations, competitions, and mutual monitoring in groups. Moreover, I clarify that the coercive practices of the individualized memorization method for classics study are rooted in the deep anxieties of Confucian education practitioners—parents and teachers alike—about the interruption of the passage of Confucianism in modern Chinese history. In other words, these disciplinary activities in students’ learning of the classics were assumed by the Confucian school to be an ideal and effective approach to training students to become great cultural talents who would shoulder the national responsibility of the Confucian revival. Facing the teachers’ enforcement and coercion, the students acted to resist the authoritarian dimension of the memorization-based pedagogy but did not defy the cultivation regime directly; rather, they challenged it in subtle, smart, and covert ways to avoid getting into trouble (see also Hansen 2015). In brief, this book provides insights into current debates on the memorization-­based pedagogy in the Confucian education revival. The fieldwork study at Yiqian School suggests that disputes about classical education result from a “Confucian” pedagogy fluctuating between autonomy and obedience, independence and coercion, and individualism and authoritarianism.

Confucianism and Chinese Individualization: Individualism, Freedom, and Risk This book addresses a gap in the literature on Chinese individualization by taking an empirical approach to exploring the relationship between the revival of Confucian education and the Chinese path to individualization.

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Surprisingly, the nexus between Confucianism and individualization in present-day China has not received sufficient attention from scholars. Underlying this lack of scholarly attention is a long-standing and dominant presupposition that Confucianism as an ideology has affinities with authoritarian, collectivist, and hierarchical values (Wang 2015, 2020, 2021, 2024) and is therefore an old “traditional” category that must be dissolved by the dynamics of individualization (Yan 2009, 2010, 2021b). Furthermore, this taken-for-granted notion of Confucianism is part of the broader anti-traditionalism, which includes anti-Confucianism, of China’s pursuit of national renewal and modern nation-state building (Culp 2021; Guo 2014; Lin 2000). However, it is time for a critical rethinking of the above presuppositions about Confucianism. In this book, I argue that Confucianism, as embodied in the contemporary revival of Confucian education, can foster individualistic values and is rooted in the process of individualization in the Chinese context. I demonstrate an individualistic side of Confucianism in this case study of Confucian classical education that may serve as a new ideological source for the process of individualization in today’s China: seen, for example, in the emerging Confucian individualism, the Confucian school’s pedagogical individualization guided by the individualized education principle or yincai shijiao, the cultivation of students to become autonomous, learned individuals through extensive memorization of the classics, and the shaping of the individual self by students. These individualistic elements of Confucian education notwithstanding, I indicate other apparently anti-individualistic elements of the Confucian education revival that complicate the process of Chinese individualization, such as the production of new distinctions and hierarchies based on Confucian virtues when emerging urban middle-class families engage their children in learning Confucian classics for moral cultivation, the parents’ ultimate dependence on the state school system, the coercion and punishment involved in implementing the hybrid pedagogy of individualized memorization of the classics in everyday school life, the authoritarian sage discourse, and the imposition of expectations by parents on their children. There are a number of reasons for Confucian individuals being unable to completely eliminate traditional categories of family relations, social class, and state. First, many of the parents confessed to having long-term disputes with family members, especially their children’s grandparents, over whether to take their children out of the state school system and transfer them to the full-time study of Confucian classics. Accordingly, I

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argue that while the opinions and actions of parents as individuals did play a crucial role in their children making the shift to learning Confucianism, they could not shake off the influence of other family members when making decisions about their children’s education. Second, parents’ commitment to engaging their children in the alternative form of Confucian education beyond the state school system is a reflection of Chinese parenting moving toward intensive parenting (Naftali 2016; Smyth and Craig 2017; Yang 2018), a change that is considered echoing middle-class values (see, e.g., Klett-Davies 2010; Vincent and Ball 2007; Vincent et al. 2004, 2017; Shirani et al. 2012). As Vincent (2017) pointed out, middle-class parents are “commonly assumed to be powerful and effective in the field of schooling,” whereas working-class parents are presumed to be powerless and ineffective (p. 541). Relevant to the parents involved in the Confucian school, most of them come from middle-class families. These parents are encouraged by the theory of Confucian education, as proposed by Caigui Wang, to assume an irreplaceable responsibility in the matter of children’s education. Wang even exhorted that whether their children have the luck to read the classics or how many classics they happen to read depends on whether these middle-class parents have the courage and belief to stick with classical education. Third, as discussed here in the case of Yiqian School, state power plays a significant role in the dis-embedding and re-embedding processes of parents and students. Due to the indeterminacy of the prospects offered by Confucian education, anxiety about not acquiring official academic degrees, and concern about the marginalization of their children’s Confucian education experience, the parent informants remained dependent on the state-approved elements of their children’s education and formed an ambivalent attitude toward state power as they sought to have their children return to public schools after a few years of classics study at the Confucian school. The adhesion of state power is also reflected in the ambivalent relationship between the private Confucian school and the local authority. In describing the institutional dilemma of Yiqian School routinizing the state-stipulated curriculum in its everyday teaching arrangements, I point out that this Confucian school was in a quandary over insisting on its autonomy with the existing classics memorization system or submitting to the national compulsory education framework. Furthermore, I argue that the simultaneous demonstrations of pre-­ modern, modern, and post-modern conditions in the Chinese path to individualization (Yan 2009, 2010) are reflected in the complex narratives

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of parents and students regarding their plans for the next stage of education. First, some of the students manifested a pre-modern dimension of selfhood in that they confessed to staying in the Confucian school to continue their extensive memorization of the classics to live up to their parents’ expectations and not let them down. Because they recognized the “hard” individualistic values of filial piety and following the orders of their parents and teachers, they felt obligated to respect their parents’ authority in family life and obey their teachers’ demands that they memorize a large number of classics. A few of the students were even subjected to an educational blueprint drawn up by their parents to seek further studies at the Confucian academy established by Caigui Wang, despite this blueprint contradicting their personal interests and aspirations. Nonetheless, many students turned against the authoritarian style of sage discourse that aimed to cultivate them to become great cultural talents through the extensive memorization of the classics. They also disagreed with their parents’ and schoolteachers’ expectations that they would proceed to the academy to pursue advanced studies of Confucianism. They argued that to become a great cultural talent or to study in the Confucian academy was incompatible with their personal aspirations,  and that they were eager to decide on their own life and future, follow their inner voice to arrange their next stage of education, and strive to become independent and self-determined individuals. I emphasize that this individualistic outlook on the self reflects a post-modern dimension of students’ subject-making, featuring “soft” individualistic values such as individual choice or preference, self-determination, self-pursuit, and self-­reliance (see also Hansen 2015: 171). In addition, other students who pursued self-development and personal interests had to find a way out of Confucian education through the state education system. They returned to state schools to prepare for the gaokao (national college entrance examination) out of a belief that this was the only viable way to obtain a university degree and secure employment in the competitive labor market. I argue that this move displays the students’ modern dimension of selfhood. Given the above, I propose that what the parents, teachers, and students experienced at Yiqian School echoes the conceptual implications of “party-state managed individualization” (Yan 2009, 2010) and “authoritarian individualization” (Hansen 2015). Influenced by the complex processes of individualization, the participants of the Confucian school were caught up in a profound dilemma between freedom and security when

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choosing Confucian education as an alternative to the state system and planning for the next stage of education. The parents were apparently free to criticize state education, break away from the state school system, and engage their children in the full-time study of Confucian classics, but by exercising this freedom, they faced risks due to uncertainties surrounding their children’s student status and achievement of academic degrees in the Confucian school and the marginalization of the Confucian schooling experience. Consequently, they had to rely on the state-defined education track and family support to pursue future education, which implies that these Confucian individuals re-embedded themselves in “traditional” social categories (Yan 2009). This dilemma between freedom and security experienced by parents, teachers, and students at the Confucian school highlights the more general complexities of Chinese individualization in the contemporary era. Additionally, the study results of this book demonstrate the intensified desire of parents and teachers for their children and students to cultivate Confucian individual-oriented values. This offers an excellent chance to revisit the unbalanced understanding of individualism in Chinese context (Yan 2021b). Confucian-inspired individual values differ from neoliberalism, which, despite the apparent common emphasis on free choice, self-governance, and self-responsibility, involves the sanctification of market competition and the pursuit of self-interest (Ball 2016; McGuigan 2014). Neoliberalism has resulted in the unchecked spread of selfish individualism, as can be observed in present-day China (Yan 2013). My study found that parents, students, and teachers at Yiqian School conceived of Confucian individual values as an alternative spiritual resource to counteract the negative effects of selfish individualism associated with neoliberal marketization. In light of this, I cannot entirely agree with the argument that China must undergo “individualization without individualism” (Yan 2009: xxxii), which has led to the appearance of “uncivil individuals” (Yan 2003: 226).2 At least, the rejuvenated Confucian individual values, as crystalized in the rise of critical parents, students’ shaping of the individual self, and teachers’ pursuit of pedagogical individualization, draw our attention to indigenous cultural resources that may enrich the underdeveloped understanding of 2  My point can be further supported by Rolandsen’s (2008) study on the volunteerism of Chinese youth. This research indicates that “the reaction to the process of individualization does not necessarily take the form of increased self-centredness and atomization of the individual” (p. 105).

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individualism that has held sway since the early twentieth century. I acknowledge that this is a complex, meaningful issue that deserves an exclusive exploration, despite the space limitation to expand it in the present study. However, recent literature by Yan (2017) reveals that Confucianism is still regarded as a moral resource to deny and oppress individual desires and selfinterests and serves to achieve a higher goal for the collectives (family, kinship, or nation-state). This revelation reflects part of the truth of Confucianism but simultaneously overlooks the positive side of Confucian values to stimulate individuals’ social actions to create new spaces for Confucian initiatives. In particular, post-Mao China has seen a rapid decline in the power of totalizing morality, and several value systems may compete with each other in a changing society (Yan 2014). This tears an opening for Confucianism to contend for moral authority. Therefore, the fate of Confucianism as a moral resource has to be observed and studied in the larger context of the Chinese moral landscape, which is undergoing a process of multi-layered and multi-­directional changes rather than linear development (Yan 2009, 2010). In light of this, it would help to link the findings of this book with the reflexive conditions of modernity. The process of individualization emphasizes the agency of individualized actors in actualizing social initiatives. In this way, it serves to corroborate the situation of modernity, which is marked by institutional differentiation and cultural diversification. The dynamics of modernity have resulted in the disintegration of comprehensive Confucianism (Ren 2018) into a patchwork of scattered and fragmented activities (Billioud 2010). Against this background, the revival of Confucian education since the early 2000s, which is part of the broader picture of popular Confucianism, is no more than one domain where the wandering soul of Confucianism may return for re-institutionalizing. Recent educational projects that claim the inheritance of Confucianism vary considerably, and some even contradict each other in terms of curriculum, methodology, the composition of students and staff, organizational size, and legitimacy. For example, some Confucian schools have abandoned the mechanical memorization method and have adopted an alternative pedagogy that blends memorization and comprehension for teaching and learning the classics (Gilgan 2022a, b; Wang 2018). Moreover, under the socialist regime’s campaign to inherit and develop China’s excellent traditional culture, Confucian classics are institutionalized as part of the official curriculum but work as a tool to strengthen the moral and patriotic education defined by the socialist state. Therefore, it is

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almost impossible to depict the general landscape of Confucian revival with reference to only one specific domain, given the many distinct logics involved in various divisions. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the profound process of individualization as a force of modernity continues to influence the revival of Confucian education. I clarify that Confucian classical education in today’s China has presented a conspicuous trend of pedagogical individualization, diversification, and differentiation. That is, it is gradually splitting from the previously overarching identification with Caigui Wang’s dujing (reading the classics) education into the coexistence of various forms of classical education. There is no longer one educational model that can be widely recognized as representing the generic category. I argue that the diversification of classical education is a fundamental feature of rejuvenated Confucian education in today’s China. It is interesting to note that the new forms of Confucian classical education emerge directly from their practitioners’ dissatisfaction with Caigui Wang’s original dujing theory. They criticize Wang’s authoritarian fashion of classics study for forcing children to memorize classics mechanically and extensively while inhibiting the enhancement of their learning autonomy, moral independence, and other capabilities such as reading and writing. Thanks to the endeavors of emerging critical practitioners, classical education nowadays has been able to get rid of Wang’s authoritarian framework and embrace more individual-oriented styles. Given this, I point out that continuous differentiation and diversification of Confucian classical education can be expected in the future. Concomitantly, Confucian education is no longer merely a philosophical issue among scholars but has become a practical matter in society. Many grassroots practitioners of Confucian education (i.e., Confucian school founders, teachers, parents, and students) may hold different opinions about the method of teaching and learning the classics. In contrast, others outside the domain of Confucian education remain skeptical of the necessity and accessibility of learning Confucian classics. Be that as it may, these grassroots practitioners share the consensus of the cultivation value of Confucian classical literature, which serves as the common ground for diverse pedagogical debates and reforms, no matter how different the types of classical education they engage in, and regardless of how much they disagree over teaching methods. Finally, provided that Confucian classical education is no longer taken for granted as having a self-evident definition, the notion of “Confucianess”

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or “Chineseness” has become a debatable issue in the domain of classical education due to the dynamics of pedagogical individualization and diversification. For example, going against Caigui Wang’s argument that extensive memorization of classics is consistent with traditional Chinese pedagogy, Yiqian School contended that the authentic Chinese method of learning the classics should be yinsong (singing), which could facilitate learners to produce emotional resonance with classical texts and achieve a certain understanding of them. Furthermore, this Confucian school challenged the stereotype that ancient Chinese education was considered rigid, authoritarian, and repressive; instead, they outlined an alternative picture of child-centeredness that follows the principle of individualized teaching and focuses on student autonomy in the learning process. In brief, so-called Chinese or Confucian education has become a mixture of various pedagogic patterns, some of which are contradictory in principle and method, even though their practitioners may be able to find evidence from ancient Chinese education experience to prove the historical legitimacy of these forms.

Limitations and Implications for Future Research One common criticism of qualitative work, and possibly also of this book, is doubt over the generalizability of the findings. The fieldwork for this book was conducted at a single Confucian classical school, and the book focuses on the relevant practitioners, including teachers, parents, and students, their narratives and activities in their engagement in classical education, and the specific practices of this school. The findings presented in the book might not be representative of other Confucian practitioners beyond those involved with Yiqian School, and other classical schools may have different approaches to teaching and learning the classics. However, the rich findings presented here are indicative of the broad landscape of emerging Confucian education and offer insights into the making of the Confucian individual through classics study, thus furthering our understanding of the changes in and paradoxes of the Confucian education revival in contemporary China. The field research for this book adopted the approach of school ethnography. As Pykett (2009) explained, this approach can shed light on how people relate to an educational site and how they understand and constitute themselves through this relationship. School ethnography can also help the researcher to avoid imposing external categories and

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definitions when interpreting people’s actions and to offer a fresh, rich, and full story (Pykett 2009). This book makes use of fieldwork data collected at Yiqian School using the school ethnography method and presents variations in Confucian schooling, the complexities of the participants’ narratives and actions, and the nuances of their experience of becoming Confucian individuals through learning Confucian classics. I therefore argue that this book, as one of the first school ethnographic studies of the revival of Confucian classical education in contemporary China, makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating the heterogeneous pedagogical activities of a Confucian school, documenting the discourses and practices of various practitioners, revealing the contradictions involved in cultivating students to become Confucian-inspired moral individuals, and linking the findings to the broader socio-political circumstances of present-­ day China. Moreover, this book addresses three theoretical gaps in the literature on Chinese individualization by revisiting the relationship between the rejuvenated Confucianism and the socialist party-state. First, the book contributes to deepening our understanding of a Chinese education landscape in which people’s dissatisfaction with state education and its examination orientation is growing, and their desire for a properly humanistic education beyond the ideologies of instrumentalism and pure knowledge indoctrination is strengthening. Against this background, the seeds of diverse educational forms that place greater emphasis on learners’ moral enhancement, such as the Confucian classical education discussed in this book, sprout and grow in the social space of China. Second, this book shows the variability of the parent–child relationship in the context of Chinese education: although parents’ authority is substantial in enacting their responsibility for their children’s education, their children’s embrace of the individual-based values of autonomy and independence is becoming more powerful and evident (Naftali 2016; Wang 2022). Third, readers may have been alerted through this book to complications in the teacher– student relationship in contemporary Confucian education. With the teacher’s authority intensified by the authoritarian sage discourse, the students of this Confucian school were subject to disciplinary power in the process of learning the classics. In addition to the above methodological and theoretical contributions, this book has practical implications for the current debates surrounding memorization-based pedagogy. Concerns over this pedagogy have been widespread in the public domain of mass media, education, and civil

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society, but the issue remains understudied in social sciences. My research contributes to this field by introducing empirical data from a school ethnographic study conducted at a Confucian school to supplement the philosophical discussions of Confucian pedagogy. Regarding future research, I suggest two promising and viable directions: expanding the breadth of case studies and expanding the research to other topics. First, it is necessary to explore the different types of Confucian schools reappearing in contemporary China. There are many Confucian-­ inspired educational institutions, and they differ in their teaching methods, educational principles, and the size and age of their student populations; the case reported on in this book, Yiqian School, is but one of these. A thorough understanding of the general revival of Confucian education in the process of individualization in contemporary China requires case studies of a variety of Confucian schools. Second, the topics of interest can be expanded to further develop studies of the Confucian education revival. This book is devoted to the issues of Confucianism, individualization, subjectification, and governmentality in socialist China, which are promising research areas but are still in their infancy. I recognize the necessity for a considerable amount of future work to make sense of these theoretical themes in the context of Confucian classical schools. For example, the perspective of cultural citizenship may serve as an inspiring alternative approach to explore the potential emergence of Confucian citizens in contemporary China by associating studies of the cultivation of Confucian individuals with the literature on Chinese citizenship. Taking the body as the focus also promises to provide a fruitful trajectory for future studies in this field. Through this lens, researchers can discuss how modern Chinese subjects are reshaping the self by disciplining and civilizing the body through learning Confucian classics. Another approach that demands more empirical and theoretical work is drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural reproduction and arguments about various forms of capital to reveal how the emerging urban middle-class families in China intentionally engineer Confucian education to reproduce new elites and create new social hierarchies and forms of discrimination. These extended topics all have the potential to enhance the literature on Confucian classical education and thus deserve continued exploration. This book throws light on the subject, and I await the emergence of subsequent studies.

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Index1

A Academic qualification, 14, 19, 177, 180–182, 232 Anti-instrumentalist ideology, 64, 83, 89, 138n2, 175, 182 Authoritarian individualization, 30, 42, 88, 241 Authoritarianism, 19, 42, 128, 139, 167, 205, 223, 238 Authoritarian pedagogy, 111, 112, 122–123, 126, 129, 136, 160, 167 Autonomous learner, 122, 128, 135–167, 171, 229, 237 Autonomy, 19, 43, 44, 88, 97, 109, 123, 124, 127, 128, 130, 136–139, 148, 151, 153–163, 166, 167, 193, 206, 207, 214, 222, 223, 225, 232, 238, 240, 244–246

B Baoben, 118n26, 147, 154, 225 C Chinese education reform, 71, 72 Chinese education system, 31–34, 44, 87, 113–114 Chinese governmentality, 37, 38, 41–43 Chinese individualism, 205–208 Chinese individualization, 1–20, 27–30, 36, 37, 42, 44, 45, 88, 136, 229, 230, 234, 238–246 Chineseness, 98, 107–121, 245 Chinese subjectivity, 31, 34–37, 62, 207, 225

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wang, Cultivating the Confucian Individual, Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27669-9

253

254 

INDEX

Classical education, 4, 5, 14, 68, 77, 85, 88, 98, 99, 104–121, 128, 129, 135, 158–160, 173, 178, 183, 184, 193, 195, 197, 210, 236, 238, 240, 244, 245 Classics memorization, 44, 123, 127, 143, 146, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154–163, 198, 212, 236, 240 Classics reading, 10, 66, 80, 106, 193, 203 Coercion, 19, 128, 139, 143, 153–167, 221, 238, 239 Compulsory education, 4, 13, 62, 72, 75, 80, 104, 173, 174, 180, 186–189, 189n14, 192, 195, 198–200, 240 Compulsory school, 11, 64, 110, 173, 187 Confucian academy, 19, 111, 112, 158, 159, 159n12, 163, 166, 173, 203, 208, 209, 230–232, 241 Confucian citizen, 10, 247 Confucian classical education, 4, 6, 11, 14, 34, 62, 67, 79, 97, 101, 103–106, 105n7, 108, 111, 112, 115, 116, 121, 122, 128, 171, 175, 176, 183, 187, 203, 205, 209, 211, 213n5, 216, 217, 219, 230, 235, 239, 244, 246, 247 Confucian classical school, 10, 13, 37, 45, 61, 81n13, 108, 180, 195, 203, 229, 245, 247 Confucian classics, 3, 3n2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18, 19, 40, 45, 61–63, 66–68, 70, 72, 76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 83n14, 85, 88, 90, 91, 97, 98, 100, 103, 104, 106, 122, 125, 138, 150, 171–174, 183, 185, 187, 192, 193, 194n15, 195, 204, 208–211, 213, 215, 216, 218, 224, 233, 236, 239, 242–244, 246, 247

Confucian education practitioner, 5, 10, 27, 129, 209, 211n2, 216, 217, 238 Confucian education revival, 1–20, 27–37, 62, 200, 203, 204, 229, 230, 238, 239, 245, 247 Confucian individual, 10, 17, 19, 27, 41, 70, 88–91, 139, 149, 158, 167, 225, 229, 230, 235, 239, 242, 245–247 Confucian individualism, 18, 20, 79, 88, 204, 224, 225, 239 Confucianism, 1–4, 1n1, 5n6, 6, 8–10, 8n7, 13, 17n9, 20, 28, 33, 33n2, 35, 36, 45, 61, 62, 67–69, 76, 77, 80, 84, 89, 90, 98, 99, 100n3, 101, 102, 102n6, 105, 108, 111, 121, 123, 124, 129, 135, 136, 158, 164, 171, 172, 176–184, 199, 203, 207, 208, 213–215, 217, 224, 225, 229–247 Confucian pedagogy, 20, 61, 62, 76–83, 88, 102, 107–122, 129, 165, 167, 191, 192, 235–238, 247 Confucian scholar, 80, 179, 184, 185 Confucian studies, 4, 10, 12, 19, 83n14, 84, 85, 104, 122, 123, 158, 159, 172, 173, 176–180, 184, 200, 203–225, 229–232, 235 Confucian virtue, 3, 37, 63–71, 83, 204, 220, 224, 225, 232, 234–236, 239 Confucius, 2, 99, 119, 120, 124, 135, 140, 141 Critical individual, 62, 63, 129, 230, 231 Critical parents, 61–91, 175, 199, 232, 242

 INDEX 

D Disciplinary power, 40, 135–167, 230, 235, 238, 246 Dis-embedding, 18, 28, 62, 83–88, 229, 235, 240 Divided self, 34, 87, 166, 233 Dujing, 4, 5, 10, 11, 18, 65, 97–107, 109–118, 120–122, 125, 128, 129, 147, 173, 203, 244 E Examination-oriented education, 6–8, 62, 63, 71–75, 107, 110, 114, 138 Extensive memorization, 19, 66, 79, 107, 111, 121, 122, 124, 126, 130, 138, 157–164, 167, 173, 216, 236, 237, 239, 241, 245 F Filial piety, 3, 205, 220, 222, 225, 241 G Gaokao, 81n13, 175, 185, 200, 241 Governmentality, 18, 20, 27, 37–45, 137, 139, 247 Great cultural talent or wenhua dacai, 79, 111, 122, 153–167, 193, 214–217, 219, 234, 235, 238, 241 H Historical legitimacy, 98, 108, 112–116, 129, 245 I Imperial examination system, 3, 3n2, 6, 98, 114

255

Individualism, 19, 28, 29, 35–37, 70, 90, 91, 128, 139, 167, 204–207, 214, 217, 220, 221, 223, 224, 232, 236, 238–245 Individualistic pedagogy, 124–126, 130, 160 Individualistic value, 20, 34, 35, 90, 204, 206, 208, 214, 217, 223, 224, 239, 241 Individualization thesis, 18, 19, 27–30, 44, 62, 83, 88, 171, 175, 186, 229, 230 Individualized memorization, 18, 19, 98, 111, 121–128, 130, 136, 138, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147, 153, 154, 156–159, 162, 166, 167, 198, 230, 235, 237–239 Individualized teaching principle, 98, 117, 129, 130, 136, 139, 157, 166 Individual self, 30, 89, 203–225, 239, 242 Institutional dilemma, 171–200, 240 J Jjiaohua, 8, 10, 37, 64, 64n2, 101, 127, 148, 237 M Marginalization, 19, 175–177, 183–187, 198, 199, 240, 242 Memorization-based pedagogy, 39, 66, 70n6, 75, 76, 80, 162, 184, 237, 238, 246 Middle-class families, 32, 34, 71, 76–82, 88, 90, 186, 234, 239, 240, 247 Modernity, 28, 29, 36, 40, 243, 244 Modernization, 30, 43, 98, 99, 101, 102, 205, 231

256 

INDEX

Monitoring, 19, 140, 151–154, 163n18, 166, 238 Moral anxiety, 62–71, 90, 235–238 Moral cultivation, 6, 9, 64, 70, 71, 90, 118, 128, 137, 149, 158, 160, 163, 181, 182, 205, 211, 216, 232, 234, 235, 239 Moral shift, 31, 34–37, 90, 236 Moral suzhi, 18, 62, 71, 88, 89, 235, 236 N Nationalism, 29, 43, 76–82, 171, 216, 233, 234 National studies, 2, 80, 81n13, 82 Neoliberal, 9, 29, 39, 41–45, 41n5, 79, 187, 193, 204, 207, 214, 224, 225, 242 P Parental authority, 68, 203–225 Pedagogical dilemma, 19, 135–167 Pedagogical individualism, 153 Pedagogical individualization, 10, 18, 97, 98, 103, 105–107, 111, 121, 122, 124–130, 136, 145, 147, 235, 237–239, 242, 244, 245 Pedagogical reform, 12, 76, 98, 118n26, 121–128, 130, 137–139, 164, 198, 225 Personal aspiration, 20, 204, 208, 212, 214, 218, 219, 224, 241 Popular Confucianism, 2, 13, 36, 243 Power, 1, 2, 34, 35, 37–40, 40n3, 40n4, 42, 74, 86–90, 140, 148, 150, 152, 153, 162, 205, 223, 231, 232, 235–238, 240, 243

R Re-embedding, 19, 29, 167, 171–200, 203, 232, 240 Resistance, 9, 19, 34, 40, 41, 74, 139, 153–167, 205, 214, 217, 220, 221, 223, 224, 233 S Sage discourse, 20, 203–225, 239, 241, 246 Self-cultivation, 3, 8, 70, 90, 148, 183 Self-formation, 27, 62, 167, 230, 238 Selfish individualism, 36, 91, 242 Sishu, 3, 5, 6, 33, 99, 99n1, 104–108, 106n8, 112–116, 116n22, 118, 120, 124, 125, 129, 174n3, 208, 225 Soft individualism, 206, 208–214, 217, 224, 231 State education system, 5, 11, 18, 19, 27, 62, 63, 68, 77, 78, 83, 87–90, 128, 138, 138n2, 156, 175, 177, 199, 200, 229–232, 237, 241 State school system, 242 Study hall, 4, 83, 104, 105, 180, 197 Subjectification, 18, 20, 27–45, 137, 139, 146, 153, 247 Subjectivity, 28, 34–38, 43, 44, 205, 217 Subject-making, 10, 27, 39, 139, 140, 165, 166, 229, 241 Suzhi education, 7–9, 43, 44, 71, 72, 237 T Technologies of power, 19, 39, 139 Technologies of the self, 19, 38, 39, 137, 139, 166, 167

 INDEX 

V Virtuous person, 3, 64, 69, 70, 79, 104, 129, 236, 237 W Wang, Caigui, 4, 5, 5n5, 5n6, 9, 11, 12, 65, 66, 77–80, 89, 98, 103–107, 110–118, 110n15, 111n17, 120–123, 125, 126, 128–130, 136, 147, 153, 158, 159, 163, 166, 172, 173, 178, 179, 192, 195, 196, 203, 209–211, 211n2, 215, 216, 225, 231–234, 236, 240, 241, 244, 245

257

X Xi Jinping, 2, 8, 80 Y Yiduiyi, 109, 109n13, 124, 138, 190 Yincai shijiao, 108, 109n13, 121, 124, 130, 135, 136, 138, 139, 237, 239 Yinsong, 66, 116, 245 Z Zuoren, 66, 67, 69, 71, 90, 234, 236