The Establishment And Influence Of Primary And Secondary School Textbook System In New China (1949-1954)

Modern textbooks, the most essential carrier of the elementary and secondary educations, play an important role in publicizing the nation's or the central government's ideology. The establishment of a corresponding system of textbooks' editing and publishing is no doubt the fundamental guarantee for the realization of such ideology publicity. These systems in the modern world could be divided into two modes:Censoring System and Regimenting System. During the period from the late Qing Dynasty to the establishment of New China, the Regimenting System was the favorable one that all the Chinese Governments tried to implement, but failed, due to various reasons. After 1949, the Communist Party of China(CPC) took the system of textbooks adopted in the Revolutionary Base Areas as the guidance, centralized the rights of textbooks'editing, printing and publishing throughout the country via a preliminary Mechanism Design and removed the possibility that the civil society groups compiled the textbooks during the movement of socialist transformation. Based on this, the new government put all the staff off in the central organization of compilation, eliminated the residue of Republic of China and stipulated the compiled content in the principle of Extreme Politicalization which satisfied the government's need. Through this overall reform in form and content, the new government set up a truly impeccable Regimenting System of textbooks. Under this system, the ideology and the political thoughts of People's Republic of China at the initial stage were timely transfused in abundance to the textbooks. This change helped the new regime to achieve many kinds of the realistic goals, but it overstressed the political function, which affected the other functions of the textbooks, thus bringing about negative effects.This dissertation consists of six parts, namely the Introduction, four chapters and the Conclusion.The first chapter discusses the development of the textbook system during the period from the late Qing Dynasty to 1949, focusing on the governmental choice between Censoring System and the Regimenting System. Emphasis is laid on the Nanking National Government's efforts to establish the Regimenting System but failed to realize it, working as a vivid comparison with the development after 1949.The second chapter discusses the development of the textbook system in the transition period after the foundation of People's Republic of China. Dissertating the history of this period enables the author to expound the cause and course of the establishment of the transition system, and to reveal the various circumstances within the system. It also discusses the reconstruction of the social environment related to textbooks because it will be the key that the New China's government established the Regimenting System.The third chapter researches the causes and procedures of the Regimenting System establishment by New China after the end of transition period. This chapter focuses on the foundation and development of People's Education Press, combined with the discussion of external structure and internal changes. It is through this process that the new government truly established its ideal textbook system. And the new educational concept was also realized through this new system.The forth chapter discusses the influence of the implementation of the Regimenting System through the content of the textbooks. This chapter includes three case studies, which are the fate of Zhu Ziqing's famous article "Figure Viewed from behind", the variance of the image of the Soviet Union and the devious change of development of the Literary Chinese. The profound study of these three cases reveals the change of the educational goal in New China and the effect it exerts under the Regimenting System.In the conclusion, there is a reflection on the history of the quick establishment of the Regimenting System at the initial stage of New China. It is a valuable question whether the centralized system of the textbooks is compatible with the Chinese society. Under the circumstance of the beginning of a new government, the Regimenting System promoted the intensification of the political function in the content of the textbooks, but impacted the other functions of them. Its negative aftermath exerted definite influence on the subsequent development of New China.