Local Evolution Of Citizenship Education In The Transition Of Social Culture

During the20th Century, Chinese people,in the process of saving the nation from subjugation,realized that the modernization of people became more and more important to that of our nation. Accordingly, they devoted to the practice of shaping modern personality. In a certain sense, there was no concept of either citizen or citizenship education in Chinese culture. Citizenship education originated in the West.As an external thing, citizenship education experienced a hard course of evolution in China because of the unique environment.Overall, Chinese citizenship education relied on thought as guide,and became mature in the interaction of ideological guidance and educational practice.Thought and practice constituted two key factors during the development of citizenship education. Therefore,chapter I focuses on the advancement of citizen and citizenship education from a theoretical point of view. Reviewing the evolution of theories concerning citizen and citizenship education, we should mainly pay attention to two aspects.For one thing,we should know how the civic ideal was gradually introduced into China.In other words,we must understand how people’s concept about citizen grew from nonexistence to existence as well as how it grew from fuzzy to clear. Spreading of ideas about democracy by open-minded thinkers,ambassadors and missionaries of Late Qing Dynasty,building of citizen personality by Liangqichao,Kangyouwei and Yanfu,popularizing the thought about democratic education by Caiyuanpei after the establishment of the Republic of China,enlighting people’s concept about democracy during the period of the New Culture Movementjointly generated Chinese people’s great interest in citizen personality. For another, we should know how Chinese people were engaged in introducing foreign theories,in order to shaping the appropriate personality in the unique era to adapt to social development.Theories from abroad were spred in China after the introduction and translation by intellectuals and educationists,George Kerschenstiner’s and John Dewey’s theories as two representatives.All these laid foundations for the growth of citizenship education. Fundamentally,the former focuses on how people’s attention were changed from subject-fostering to citizen-cultivating,and the latter focuses on how people explored theories about forming citizen personality.However, the former and the latter were integrative instead of separate.Chapter II mainly shows how citizenship education’s paratice developed in China.On the whole,local evolution of citizenship education was divided into3periods. Firstly, the course of morality cultivation changing to citizenship education(from Late Qing Dynasty to1922). In this period, the unique way of citizenship education’s development could be concluded as such:from bottom to up, and from the nongovernmental to the official. Secondly, the course of people discussing about as well as carring out citizenship education(from1923to1927).In this period,the folks discussed heatedly on the citizenship education’s characteristics, notion, teaching, extracurricular,etc. The Citizenship Education Movement was an important factor which propelled citizenship education to reach its climax. Thirdly, the course of citizenship education experiencing mutation(from1928to1949). The free social environment was replaced by authoritarianism, and the citizenship education entered a new period with strong Kuomintang’s influences.Curricula, textbooks,extra-curricular activities were the main topics worth discussing in citizenship education,and were also the epitome of citizenship education’s historical changes.Therefore,Chapter Ⅲ,Ⅳ,Ⅴ focuses on such problems,respectively curricula, textbooks,extra-curricular activities.Chapter Ⅲ mainly discusses the development of citizenship education in primary and secondary schools during the period of the Republic of China.The curriculum changed from Morality Cultivation to Citizen Curriculum,then to Three Principles of The People Curriculum and Kuomintang Principle Curriculum,and finally to Citizen and Citizen-training Curriculum.In a sense,change of curriculum was the main clue of citizenship education’s local evolution,and was also the epitome of transition of social culture.Course objectives,course contents and teaching methods during different periods were both diverse and inherently continual,which represented the joint action of tradition and modernity,East and West, the nongovernmental and the official in local evolution of citizenship education.Chapter Ⅳ discusses the changes of primary and secondary schools’textbooks. From the Late Qing Dynasty,editorial system, publishers and textbook types changed a lot.Meanwhile content of the textbooks changed more.Orientation, presentation, style of writing and language varied. Overall, the form were better, but undoubtedly form served for content. We could know clearly the historical transition from subject to citizen and then to "citizen" ruled by Kuomintang.Chapter V mainly discusses the development of extracurricular activities in primary and secondary schools during the period of the Republic of China. It takes Students’ Council and the Boy Scouts as examples.Students’ Council experienced a tortuous course of development, which represented the change of target in citizenship education.Therefore, Students’ Council is analysed according to time sequece.However,Boy Scouts was imported in the period of the Republic of China.Referring to the form,it changed from civilian-run to government-run,and the content from military training to political training.