This chapter explores the role of education processes in the construction of youth collective identities in 21st-century mainland China. Drawing on the results of a growing body of anthropological work and on data from two field studies among Han (Chinese) high school students conducted over the past decade or so, the discussion highlights the key role of ethnographic research in uncovering contemporary tensions within China’s educational agendas, and the conflicting forces shaping youth nationalism and global outlook. In particular, the chapter underscores the intersection between Chinese youth social positioning and perceived life chances, their attitudes toward official narratives of the “nation,” and their readiness to align themselves with the national collectivity.

 

Drawing on a wide variety of Chinese-language publications and in-depth interviews with high-school students, Mobilising China's One-Child Generation provides systematic evidence of the spread of martial logic and techniques into Chinese schools. The book explores how China has implemented Patriotic Education and National Defence Education programmes to foster love for the nation and the Party-state, mobilise the population to fight modern wars in the information age, and encourage youth to join the army. It studies how these programmes present the tropes of war and the military to youth, and how they are related to shifting constructions of gender and the national collectivity. It also documents students' varied perceptions–and notably contestations–of this militarised ethos, complicating our understanding of popular nationalism and militarisation processes in this authoritarian global power.

 

Young people’s gender practices and the function of the school in shaping these practices have become a contentious issue in Chinese public discussions over the past decade. This article explores an emergent strain of thinking within this debate: that schools should promote the notion of gender equality. Focusing on the case of Daode yu fazhi (Morality and legal rule) textbooks currently used in all junior high schools (Grades 7-9) across the country, the article employs qualitative textual analysis to examine whether and how the gender equality principle is presented to youth in the Xi Jinping era (2012-). The study finds that the Xi-era textbooks promote the principle of equality between men and women and urge young people to fight for the implementation of this principle. In a notable break from the past, the books also acknowledge the existence of diverse gender practices among contemporary youth. At the same time, the textbooks endorse the notion of “natural” gender difference and “harmonious” gender complementarity. The books also censor gender/sexuality expressions that do not conform with hegemonic binary gender norms. Reflecting patriarchal and heteronormative ideologies reinforced by nationalist politics and a growing moral anxiety about the blurring of boundaries between masculinity and femininity, the Xi era curriculum ultimately leaves little space for flexible gender formulations.

The most well-known and widely cited literature in the multidisciplinary field of childhood studies has been undertaken by scholars based in the Global North, who have produced theoretical frameworks and conceptualisations about childhood frequently deployed by Northern and Southern scholars alike. These are often based on priorities developed in Northern academic institutions, sometimes in response to funding calls by grant-making agencies also based in the North. As a result, when Southern scholars contribute to the dominant childhood studies literature, a field of study in which the majority of well-known articles tend to be published in Northern-based Anglophone journals, their contributions stand mainly as empirical variations of mainstream Northern theories whose scholarship foregrounds theoretical and methodological frameworks designed with particular childhoods in mind. The resulting outcome is that Global South childhoods – in their plurality and diversity – do not contribute epistemically to the construction of a transnational childhood scientific discourse. This ultimately limits the quality of global childhood studies and hinders the development of more conceptually sophisticated, eventually divergent, theoretical frameworks that can account for multiplicity and diversity in childhoods. Therefore, this volume sought to explore locally driven perspectives of childhoods in diverse contexts in the South for the purpose of gaining insights into the knowledge that can be produced about Southern childhoods when research is driven by priorities, demands, and needs of locales in the Global South.

 Since the 1990s, the Chinese party-state has attempted to teach its youth how to think and speak about the nation through a “patriotic education” campaign waged in schools, the media and on public sites. The reception of these messages by youth of different social backgrounds remains a disputed issue, however. Drawing on a multi-sited field study conducted among rural and urban Han Chinese youth attending different types of schools, this article explores the effects of the patriotic education campaign on youth conceptions of the nation by examining the rhetoric high-school students employ when asked to reflect upon their nation. The study reveals that a majority of youth statements conform to the language and contents of the patriotic education campaign; however, there are significant differences in the discursive stances of urban youth and rural youth and of those attending academic and non-academic, vocational schools. These findings call into question the party-state’s current vision of China as a “unified” national collectivity. They highlight the existence of variances in the sense of collective belonging and national identity of Chinese youth, while underscoring the importance of social positioning and perceived life chances in producing these variances.自上世纪90年代以来，中国共产党一直试图通过在学校、媒体和公共场所开展的“爱国主义教育”活动，教育青少年如何思考和谈论国家。然而，不同社会背景的青年对这些信息的接受仍然是一个有争议的问题。本文对来自不同地域和在不同类型学校就读的城乡汉族青年进行了实地调研，通过考察中学生对国家概念的反思，探讨了 “爱国主义教育” 运动对青年观念的影响。研究表明，大多数青年言论符合 “爱国主义教育” 运动的语言和内容。然而，城市和农村青年以及学术和非学术职业学校学生的态度存在显著差异。这些发现凸显了当代中国青年集体归属感和国家认同感的差异，同时强调了社会地位和所感知的生活机会在产生这些差异方面的重要性。他们进一步质疑党国目前对中国作为 “统一” 的国家集体的看法。 

This chapter examines recruitment campaigns for the Chinese military under the current leadership of Xi Jinping (2012-) in the context of China’s attempts to modernize and professionalize its army. The discussion reviews the conscription challenges the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) faces in the 2000s and the steps undertaken to address these challenges, particularly in the media. Drawing on the analysis of conscription videos produced in 2013-18, and of government, military and media publications in China, the chapter explores the forms and content of PLA video ads, with a focus on the messages they use to attract the military’s target population. The analysis shows that alongside traditional appeals to recruits’ sense of patriotism and collective duty, the PLA’s contemporary ads also promote military service as a vehicle for self-fulfilment and personal development. Disseminated through social media sites, this new marketing message attests to the PLA’s ability to adapt and innovate. However, it also carries considerable risks for its recruitment goals as well as its public standing in China.

Schools worldwide have long engaged in various forms of ‘war education’. In China, an extensive ‘Patriotic Education’ campaign and an expanded ‘National Defense Education’ curriculum have led to an increase in youth-oriented military programs in the 2000s. Previous work on the implementation of these programs in Chinese schools has mostly focused on urban elite youth, while overlooking the reception of these programs by non-urban, non-elite populations. The present study addresses this issue by examining youth perceptions and experiences of military training courses in urban and rural high schools. Drawing on the analysis of Chinese publications in the 2000s and on data from field interviews with students of different backgrounds, the study finds that youth military training constitutes a contentious program. Although the Chinese government promotes the program as crucial for military strengthening and the fostering of a patriotic spirit, PRC academic and media writers provide alternative rationales for the program, which at times undermine the logic of government articulations. Meanwhile, interviews with youth document divergent attitudes and even resentment towards the program, especially among city youth. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that military-training courses necessarily contribute to the increased ‘militarization’ of Chinese youth and education.Schools worldwide have long engaged in various forms of ‘war education.’ In China, an extensive ‘Patriotic Education’ campaign and an expanded ‘National Defense Education’ curriculum have led to an increase in youth-oriented military programs in the 2000s. Previous work on the implementation of these programs in Chinese schools has mostly focused on urban elite youth, while overlooking the reception of these programs by non-urban, non-elite populations. The present study addresses this issue by examining youth perceptions and experiences of military training courses in urban and rural high schools. Drawing on the analysis of Chinese publications in the 2000s and on data from field interviews with students of different backgrounds, the study finds that youth military training constitutes a contentious program. Although the Chinese government promotes the program as crucial for military strengthening and the fostering of a patriotic spirit, PRC academic and media writers provide alternative rationales for the program, which at times undermine the logic of government articulations. Meanwhile, interviews with youth document divergent attitudes and even resentment towards the program, especially among city youth. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that military-training courses necessarily contribute to the increased ‘militarization’ of Chinese youth and education. 

The growing prevalence of foreign media consumption, including from Japan, among young Chinese has received considerable notice in recent work on PRC youth culture. To date however, few studies have considered how youth of different social backgrounds perceive their consumption of Japanese popular culture in the context of the Party-state’s ’patriotic education’ campaign waged in schools and in the mass media since the 1990s. Studies have also overlooked the question of how rural and urban youth in China currently juxtapose the images and themes conveyed in the Japanese popular culture that they consume with school and domestic media messages about Japan. Drawing on interviews among senior middle school students in China, the present study addresses this issue. It finds that a majority of youth of different backgrounds profess animosity towards Japan, but readily separate these feelings from their passion for Japanese media. In some cases, consumption of Japanese popular culture allows youth to feel that they ’know’ - or even appreciate - the other country better. Amid the anti-Japanese messages youth currently receive at school and through domestic media, consumption of Japanese popular culture products therefore manifests a form of ’expressive individualism’ on the part of some Chinese youth, who creatively construct their own notions of patriotism, national memory, and Sino-Japanese relations.The growing prevalence of foreign media consumption, including from Japan, among young Chinese has received considerable notice in recent work on PRC youth culture. To date however, few studies have considered how youth of different social backgrounds perceive their consumption of Japanese popular culture in the context of the Party-state’s ’patriotic education’ campaign waged in schools and in the mass media since the 1990s. Studies have also overlooked the question of how rural and urban youth in China currently juxtapose the images and themes conveyed in the Japanese popular culture that they consume with school and domestic media messages about Japan. Drawing on interviews among senior middle school students in China, the present study addresses this issue. It finds that a majority of youth of different backgrounds profess animosity towards Japan, but readily separate these feelings from their passion for Japanese media. In some cases, consumption of Japanese popular culture allows youth to feel that they ’know’ - or even appreciate - the other country better. Amid the anti-Japanese messages youth currently receive at school and through domestic media, consumption of Japanese popular culture products therefore manifests a form of ’expressive individualism’ on the part of some Chinese youth, who creatively construct their own notions of patriotism, national memory, and Sino-Japanese relations.  

This book explores the dramatic transformation of Chinese childhood in the post-socialist era. It examines how government policies introduced in China over the last few decades and processes of social and economic change are reshaping the lives of individual children and the conceptions of Chinese childhood in complex, contradictory ways. Drawing on a broad range of literature and original ethnographic research, Naftali discusses the rise of new ideas of child-care, child-vulnerability and child-agency; the impact of the One-Child Policy; and the emergence of children as independent consumers in the new market economy. She shows that Chinese boys and increasingly girls too are enjoying a new empowerment, a development that has met with ambiguity from both caregivers and the state. She also demonstrates how economic restructuring and the recent waves of rural/urban migration have produced starkly unequal conditions for children’s education and development both in the countryside and in the cities. Children in China is essential reading for students and scholars seeking a deeper understanding of what it means to be a child in contemporary China, as well as for those concerned with the changing relationship between children, the state and the family in the global era.

Children, Rights, and Modernity in China is an ethnographic study of the emergence of a new type of thinking about children and their entitlements in contemporary urban China. Drawing on participant observation and interviews in primary schools and homes in the city of Shanghai, and on diverse evidence from government, academic, media, and pedagogic publications, the book debunks many popular and scholarly stereotypes about the predominance of Confucian ideas of parental authority in China or about the indifference to individual human rights in the political and public culture of the PRC. The author also recognizes the conflicts that exist in Chinese discourses about and practices toward children, as older ideas of filiality, neoliberal ideologies, and the new awareness of children’s right to privacy, to expressing their views, and to protection against violence compete and collude in complicated, often contradictory ways.