Practicing Citizenship in Contemporary China by Sophia Woodman Zhonghua Guo

Author:Sophia Woodman, Zhonghua Guo [Sophia Woodman, Zhonghua Guo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367587055
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2020-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Citizenship education at Changban: building new citizens

As defined by Cogan and Kubow (1997, 2), citizenship education refers to ‘the contribution of education to the development of those characteristics of being a citizen.’ Through explicit educational programmes and implicit practices, students learn to evaluate their increasingly overlapping and multifaceted identities in a rapidly changing society. The citizenship education incorporated into formal schooling in many countries displays an ‘unduly passive and conformist’ aspect through indoctrinating students with top-down values and nurturing them to perform ‘passive citizenship’ in conformity with hegemonic narratives and purported collective viewpoints (ibid.). During the fieldwork at Changban, a volunteer named Zhou Mujun commented on the inappropriateness of curriculum content on moral and ideological education in school – widely representative of the views of other volunteers – as follows:

Today’s moral education is very strange. The title is that ‘there are three hundred and sixty trades, and every trade has its master.’ I agree with this, and then, I read through the text. Comrade Liu Shaoqi firmly holds Worker Shi Chuanxiang’s hand, saying: ‘I am the state president, working to serve people. You are a night-soil collector, also serving people. We are the same, just working in different jobs.’ … Obviously, children know about the social prestige associated with every occupation. Today, some students told me that they aspire to become TV program hosts, reporters, scientists, and lawyers. No one wants to be nannies or janitors. No one even wants to work as mailmen, drivers or workers. I don’t know why those textbook writers naively think young children barely know anything or even more naively believe that, upon telling them stories of night-soil collectors, they would change their stereotypical thoughts and expectations toward certain occupations … Because of this treatment, students now disbelieve the education they receive. (Blog Article entitled ‘I Get Into Trouble Today,’ 25th July 2016)

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