Confucianism Reconsidered

Description

This is one of the first books to explicitly address twenty-first-century education from a Confucian perspective. The contributors focus on why Confucianism is relevant to both American and Chinese education, how Confucian pedagogical principles can be applied to diverse sociocultural settings, and what the social and moral functions of a Confucianism-based education are. Prominent scholars explore a wide-range of research areas and methods, such as K–12 and college teaching; conceptual comparisons; case studies; and discourse analysis, that reflect the depth and breadth of Confucian ideas, and the divergent contexts in which Confucian principles and practices may be applied. This book not only enriches the research literature on Confucianism from an interdisciplinary perspective, but also offers fresh insights into Confucianism's continuing relevance and its compatibility with the latest research-based pedagogical practices.
Foreword
Guofang Li

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Why Is Confucianism Still Relevant in the Globalized Twenty-First Century?
Xiufeng Liu and Wen Ma

Part I. Relevance of Confucianism to American and Chinese Education

1. Becoming Confucian in America Today
Pamela G. Herron

2. Teaching Deliberation: Abandoning Aristotelian Persuasion and Embracing Confucian Remonstration
Arabella Lyon

3. Confucian Educational Thought: Enlightenment and Value for Contemporary Education in China
Fangping Cheng

4. Confucian Rituals and Science in Modern Chinese Education
Xiaoqing Diana Lin

Part II. Confucian Insights on Teaching and Learning

5. Neo-Confucianism as a Guide for Contemporary Confucian Education
Yair Lior

6. Learning as Public Reasoning (gongyi): A Paradigmatic Shift of the Late-Imperial Confucian Educational Tradition in 17th-Century China
Yang Wei

7. The Confucian Philosophy of Education in Hexagram Meng (Shrouded) of the Yijing
Bin Song

8. Facilitating Critical Thinking of Chinese Students: A Confucian Perspective
Yin Wu

Part III. Confucianism and the Social and Moral Functions of Education

9. From Self-Cultivation to Social Transformation: The Confucian Embodied Pathway and Educational Implications
Jing Lin

10. Confucian Selfhood and the Idea of Multicultural Education
Chenyu Wang

11. Confucian Philosophical Foundations for Moral Education in an Era of Advanced Technology
Vincent Shen

12. Rethinking Confucian Values in a Global Age
Huey-Li Li

List of Contributors
Index

Sujets

• Education
• Confucianism

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438470030
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 31 Mo

Extrait

Confucianism Reconsidered
A volume in the SUNY series in Asian Studies Development

Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock, editors
Confucianism Reconsidered
Insights for American and Chinese Education in the Twenty-first Century
Edited by
XIUFENG LIU AND WEN MA
Cover calligraphy / “scholar” or “Confucianism” / iStock by Getty Images
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Liu, Xiufeng, 1962– editor. | Ma, Wen, editor.
Title: Confucianism reconsidered : insights for American and Chinese education in the twenty-first century / edited by Xiufeng Liu and Wen Ma.
Description: Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, Albany, [2018] | Series: SUNY series in Asian Studies Development | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017032628 | ISBN 9781438470016 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438470030 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Education—Philosophy. | Education—Aims and objectives—United States. | Education—Aims and objectives—China. | Confucianism and education. | Philosophy, Confucian.
Classification: LCC LB14.7 .C65248 2018 | DDC 370.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032628
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
F OREWORD
Guofang Li
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I NTRODUCTION
Why Is Confucianism Still Relevant in the Globalized Twenty-First Century?
Xiufeng Liu and Wen Ma
Part 1 Relevance of Confucianism to American and Chinese Education
C HAPTER 1
Becoming Confucian in America Today
Pamela G. Herron
C HAPTER 2
Teaching Deliberation: Abandoning Aristotelian Persuasion and Embracing Confucian Remonstration
Arabella Lyon
C HAPTER 3
Confucian Educational Thought: Enlightenment and Value for Contemporary Education in China
Fangping Cheng
C HAPTER 4
Confucian Rituals and Science in Modern Chinese Education
Xiaoqing Diana Lin
Part 2 Confucian Insights on Teaching and Learning
C HAPTER 5
Neo-Confucianism as a Guide for Contemporary Confucian Education
Yair Lior
C HAPTER 6
Learning as Public Reasoning ( gongyi ): A Paradigmatic Shift of the Late-Imperial Confucian Educational Tradition in 17th-Century China
Yang Wei
C HAPTER 7
The Confucian Philosophy of Education in Hexagram Meng (Shrouded) of the Yijing
Bin Song
C HAPTER 8
Facilitating Critical Thinking of Chinese Students: A Confucian Perspective
Yin Wu
Part 3 Confucianism and the Social and Moral Functions of Education
C HAPTER 9
From Self-Cultivation to Social Transformation: The Confucian Embodied Pathway and Educational Implications
Jing Lin
C HAPTER 10
Confucian Selfhood and the Idea of Multicultural Education
Chenyu Wang
C HAPTER 11
Confucian Philosophical Foundations for Moral Education in an Era of Advanced Technology
Vincent Shen
C HAPTER 12
Rethinking Confucian Values in a Global Age
Huey-Li Li
L IST OF C ONTRIBUTORS
I NDEX
Foreword
The American presidential election in 2016 has exposed the direst state of social division in the United States and around the world, particularly along racial, class, and gender lines. These climaxes of social divisiveness are not a one-time occurrence but are the culminating effects of a long-term failure of institutional, civic, and cultural building that cultivates social, economic, and political cohesion and justice-oriented mind-sets. The social division has had important impact on education. Look at the following statistics on the condition of American education in 2016:
• The immediate college enrollment rate for high school completers in 2014 for those from high-income families (81%) was nearly 29 percentage points higher than the rate for those from low-income families (52%). The 2014 gap between those from high- and low-income families did not measurably differ from the corresponding gap in 1990.
• In 2015, the percentage of young adults aged 18 to 19 neither enrolled in school nor working was higher for those from poor families (26%) than for their peers from nonpoor families (10%).
• In 2015, the percentage of White 25- to 29-year-olds who had attained a bachelor’s or higher degree increased from 1995 to 2015, as the size of the White-Black gap widened from 13 to 22 percentage points and the size of the White-Hispanic gap widened from 20 to 27 percentage points.
• Differences in employment outcomes of all young adults aged 25 to 34 with a bachelor’s or higher degree were observed by sex and race/ethnicity. For example, female full-time, year-round workers earned less than their male colleagues in nearly all of the occupation groups examined and for every employment sector (e.g., private for-profit, private nonprofit, government). Black young adults who worked full time, year round also earned less than their White peers in a majority of the occupations analyzed. (NECS, 2016)
Similarly, in China, there is a growing education gap between rural and city/urban schools, between the rich and the poor, and between the ethnic majority and minorities. More than 60 million students in rural schools are “left-behind” children, cared for by their grandparents as their parents seek work in faraway cities, and taught by underqualified teachers in underresourced schools (Gao, 2014). It is, therefore, not surprising that fewer than 5% of China’s rural students make it to college while more than 84% of their peers in the major cities such as Shanghai go to university (Stout, 2013). A recent study reveals that from 2007 to 2013, almost half the students in poor areas (also ethnic minority–concentrated areas) in the central and western parts of the country in China had left school by grade nine, and by grade 12, nearly two-thirds dropped out (Sheng, 2016).
In addition to the persistent class gap in Chinese education, gender and ethnic inequality in educational attainment also persists, especially in rural areas. While nearly no significant gender inequality was found in urban/city areas, rural girls, especially when they reach high school, still face inequality in educational access and achievement (Zeng, Pang, Zhang, Medina, Rozelle, 2014). There is also growing disparity in educational attainment between ethnic minorities and Han Chinese created by China’s transformation to the market economy; and the gap has extended from that in basic education before 2000 to that in higher education after 2000 (Chen, 2016).
While the two countries differ in their policies and contexts, similar core social values, such as those of profit-driven competition and self-interest (over public good) that govern these policies and processes, are believed to lead to these parallel educational inequalities. In the United States, an example of such workings is the recent confirmation of Elizabeth DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist who does not believe in public education, as secretary of Education in February 2017. In China, the recent “growth at all cost” market-driven economic policies have engendered the sole focus on “money acquisition” and public “moral decay” (He, 2015) that has contributed to the high dropout rates among poor rural students and the inequalities described above. In both societies, such self-interest and profit-driven ideologies on the part of the rich, the powerful, and the dominant racial groups dominate our political, economic, and social discourse and have bred “a culture of extreme individualism and profit-seeking, which is undermining our social relationships and moral values” (Y. Kim J. Kim, 2013, p. 13).
There is an urgent need for both societies to restore both public and individual morality, reverse the moral decline, and awaken ethical consciousness to achieve an equal, harmonious society where persistent achievement gaps across class, race, and gender lines can be eliminated. For both countries, reconstructing such a justice-oriented moral order means that each can leverage its own strengths and supplement with those powerful lessons and teachings from other cultures and societies. Confucianism, a system of social and ethical philosophy that promotes governing and living by the dao of “ren/ 仁 ” (humaneness, love, and kindness) and “li/ 礼 ” (respect) with the goal of achieving “da tong/ 大同 ” (the great equal society), is an ideal tool for both societies to achieve the urgently needed social restoration and transformation for the public good.
Xiufeng Liu and Wen Ma’s volume on the application of Confucianism in K–12 and higher education in both U.S. and Chinese contexts is a timely response to this urgent need to reverse the trend. The thoughtful collection of high-quality, interdisciplinary, multimethod articles powerfully demonstrates that Confucianism is not only relevant to the 21st-century educational aspirations and demands globally, but also a compelling alternative to the current ideologies that fail to provide equal education for the disadvantaged. I urge readers to read on and learn about the various ways that Confucianism can be reconsidered in