Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority: Why Do Confucian Students Reject Further Confucian Studies as Their Educational Future?

Wang, Canglong

Abstract

Throughout the twenty-first century, Confucian education has rapidly expanded among the grassroots in China. This study focuses on the most influential style of Confucian education, dujing (classics reading) education, and on a very understudied group, the students, in the Confucian education system. Using data collected at a Confucian school, this study aims to elucidate dujing students’ genuine thoughts and feelings toward their plans for future education. The findings suggest that dujing students exhibit an individualistic outlook, which is characterized by their personal aspirations, self-determination, independence, and self-pursuit, as well as a reluctance to pursue further Confucian studies. Their self-identity is further strengthened by resistance to the authoritarian discourse circulating in the domain of dujing education and by a shifting relationship with imposed parental expectations. This study argues that the development of Confucian individualism in students’ dujing experience must be understood within the broader social contexts shaping Chinese individualisms and subjectivities.

Citation

Wang, C. (2022). Individual Self, Sage Discourse, and Parental Authority: Why Do Confucian Students Reject Further Confucian Studies as Their Educational Future?. Religions, 13(2), Article 154. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020154

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 7, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 10, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-02
• Deposit Date: Apr 4, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 4, 2022
• Journal: Religions
• Electronic ISSN: 2077-1444
• Publisher: MDPI
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 154
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020154
• Keywords: Individualism; Authoritarianism; Confucian revival; Chinese education; Chinese parenting
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3936713