Educating the Chinese Individual

"Educating the Chinese Individual is an ethnographically rich and stimulating study. It enriches our knowledge about a relatively under-studied grouprural youth and young teachersin a marginal setting. It challenges some common assumptions of the changing landscape of school education and everyday cultural practice of the younger generations in post-socialist China. . . . This book will attract a wide readership in educational studies but will also appeal to audiences in sociology and anthropology who are interested in social change and youth culture in contemporary China." -- Xuan Dong * The China Quarterly * "[E]xcellent. . . . [T]his ethnography is a fine depiction of a slice of life in China today. The important issues it handles show the value of having more ethnographies of Chinese secondary schools, including studies of first-tier, vocational, and urban high schools from many parts of the country." -- Andrew B. Kipnis * The China Journal *

Mette Halskov Hansen is professor of China studies at the University of Oslo. She is the author of Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China and coeditor of iChina: The Rise of the Individual in Modern Chinese Society.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Chinese Education and Processes of Individualization 1. Discipline and Agency: Quests for Individual Space 2. Text and Truth: Visions of the Learned Person and Good Citizen 3. Hierarchy and Democracy: Controlled Rise of the Individual 4. Motivation and Examination: The Making and Breaking of the Individual 5. Dreams and Dedications: Teachers Views and the Construction of a Generation Gap Conclusion: Authoritarian Individualization Notes Glossary of Chinese Names and Terms Bibliography Index