This paper tackles the issue of education as the process of person-making and attempts to redefine the ideal and unique Chinese person—the Chinese soul—based on a civilizational dialogue and synthesis that would transform modern education and enable education to play a central role in “redeeming modernity” and revitalizing Chinese civilization. The paper briefly analyzes the historical efforts, and failures, to reform the Chinese soul and argues that the 150-year effort to revitalize Chinese culture and transform the Chinese people by way of adopting certain aspects of Western civilization has mostly failed because a sufficiently coherent and meaningful synthesis of the two civilizations was lacking.

This paper examines how the definition and interpretation of the concept gewu zhizhi 格物致知 (investigating things and extending knowledge), evolved along with Chinese intellectual efforts to construct the framework for Chinese learning which, in turn, had a profound impact on the development of educational curricula in different historical periods. In Confucian philosophy, “practicality” appears ambivalent, as it can refer to moral cultivation in daily life or knowledge in the material world. Such ambivalence, embodied in the evolution of the concept of gewu zhizhi, can be interpreted as a Chinese search for a well-rounded curriculum in education. Within this framework, this paper traces the origin of the concept in The Great Learning, and investigates how it was developed to refer specifically to natural studies and then to scientific knowledge introduced into China in the late Qing period. This historical reflection on Chinese education points to the shared humanistic values in the Confucian approach to education and in the Renaissance ideal of a liberal education. It calls for a search for a common humanity in rethinking the content and aim of a modern Chinese education.

This article identifies the problem that an instrumentalist mode of thinking dominates China’s contemporary education practice and suggests that the dichotomy between the “small self and big self,” a notion that has been present throughout modern Chinese history, exacerbates this instrumentalism. It parallels the loss of China’s tradition of self-cultivation in the modern education system. This paper proposes that cultivating the inner self by releasing talent unique to each individual as well as energy for creatively making meaningful connections with others may represent a new means of moving past the dichotomy of the “small self and big self.” The paper examines this issue through a comparative analysis of Hu Shi and Liang Shuming’s thoughts on individuality.

Over the last century, the development of didactics (教学论) in China has been profoundly influenced by Kairov’s theory of pedagogics. The German Didaktik tradition, which can date back to Comenius and Herbart, remains largely unknown to educational scholars in China while they possess basic knowledge of Comenius and Herbart. This article expounds three basic tenets of the German Didaktik tradition—(1) the concept of Bildung, (2) a theory of educational content, and (3) the idea of teaching as a learner-content encounter—and discusses the implications for developing Chinese didactics. It argues for a rethinking of the purposes, content, and practice of teaching with respect to the subjectification aim of education (i.e., the becoming of unique individuals, with autonomy, critical thinking, and creativity).

Since the 1980s, China has entered an era of transformation which has extended its reach to education and school reforms. The “New Basic Education” (NBE) was born in this era and implemented by the East China Normal University together with schools around the country. NBE aims at nurturing the active, healthy development of a new generation of Chinese people, focusing on classroom teaching and reform, and life practice within the classroom, as well as a reconstruction of school management. A breakthrough has been made with the development of a system that is suitable for the practice of education in China.

Since the early 20th century, numerous scholars have proposed theories and models describing, interpreting, and suggesting the development paths countries have taken or should take. None of these, however, can fully explain China’s efforts, mainly through education and citizenship education, to modernize itself and foster a modern citizenry since the late 19th century. This article traces and examines these efforts through a reflective and critical analysis of such public texts as official policy documents, curriculum standards, and related commentaries, and reveals three major findings. First, China’s leaders have advanced different views of and approaches to development and citizenship in response to changing domestic and global contexts. Second, the Chinese state determines China’s development course, defines its national identity and citizenry, and selects its nation-building curricula. Third, the Chinese state’s growing desire for national rejuvenation in an increasingly competitive, globalized world in the 21st century mandates an important education mission that its citizenship education be politically and ideologically open and accommodative, and help students develop global, national and local identities and function as active, responsible citizens of a multileveled, multicultural world. This article furthers academic understanding of how China’s education responds to economic, political, and social demands and shapes students’ multiple identities in a global age.