Title: A School in Every Village
Description: In the early 1900s, the Qing dynasty implemented a nationwide school system to buttress its power. Although the Communists, contemporary observers, and more recent scholarship have all depicted rural society as feudal and these educational reforms a failure, Elizabeth VanderVen draws on untapped archival materials to show that villagers and local officials capably integrated foreign ideas and models into a system that was at once traditional and modern, Chinese and Western. Her portrait of education reform both challenges received notions about the modernity-tradition binary in Chinese history, and addresses topics central to debates on modern China, including state-making and the impact of global ideas on local society.
Subjects: Education, china, Education, history, School management and organization, asia, Education and state, Educational change, Education, History, School management and organization, Éducation, Politique gouvernementale, Histoire, Administration scolaire, Enseignement, Reforme