The purpose of this course is to summarize new directions in Chinese history and social science produced by the creation and analysis of big historical datasets based on newly opened Chinese archival holdings, and to organize this knowledge in a framework that encourages learning about China in comparative perspective. Our course demonstrates how a new scholarship of discovery is redefining what is singular about modern China and modern Chinese history. Current understandings of human history and social theory are based largely on Western experience or on non-Western experience seen through a Western lens. This course offers alternative perspectives derived from Chinese experience over the last three centuries. We present specific case studies of this new scholarship of discovery divided into two stand-alone parts, which means that students can take any part without prior or subsequent attendance of the other part. Part 1 (this course) focuses on comparative inequality and opportunity and addresses two related questions ‘Who rises to the top?’ and ‘Who gets what?’. Part 2 (https://www.coursera.org/learn/understanding-china-history-part-2) turns to an arguably even more important question ‘Who are we?’ as seen through the framework of comparative population behavior - mortality, marriage, and reproduction – and their interaction with economic conditions and human values. We do so because mortality and reproduction are fundamental and universal, because they differ historically just as radically between China and the West as patterns of inequality and opportunity, and because these differences demonstrate the mutability of human behavior and values. Course Overview video: https://youtu.be/dzUPRyJ4ETk
1.4: Cultural Reproduction and Education in Late Imperial and Contemporary China
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Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach, Part 1
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The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
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Orientation and Module 1: Social Structure and Education in Late Imperial China
Before you start with the content for Module 1, please watch the Course Overview, review the Assignments and Grading page, and introduce yourself to other learners who will be studying this course with you.
與講師見面
James Z. LeeDean and Chair Professor of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Well, what about the other function of education as identified by Vaber?
As being the host showed and as [INAUDIBLE] further elaborated education
and the system of examinations to which it, it was linked and later, real China
was clearly an important path of social mobility.
Because 1/2 of the government positions want people who did well on the
examinations and those people came from relatively humble backgrounds.
More futile societies and of those humbled people as [UNKNOWN] identified
ability is one of the reasons why they were able to break through the ceiling of
of futile status of past accomplishment. The other dimension that Vaber emphasized
was the importance of education in the examination system in terms of producing
a system of cultural reproduction where Vaber and this has been further
elaborated by work by Benjamin Elman at Princeton, by Liu Hifung at the Shaaman
University that the Chinese educational systems was also particularly good in
identifying and transmitting a certain kind of elite knowledge that defined a
sort of, the upper, upper bounds of society.
So, it's worth ending this lecture on educational and sociability.
By looking at the education and such cultural reproduction in the past, and
comparing it with today. Especially because the world is changing
very rapidly. While Chinese may become the global
language of the future, at the moment it is English.
And because, the whereas in the past The globally text that comprised Asian
civilization or Western Civilization are relatively fixed now there is a we're in
a period of transition, where there is no common agreement on what are the global
canonical texts. Of the 21st century, but we know that
there will probably be a mix of Western and Asian classics, which is show so
symbolically by the course enrollments last year of Harvard undergraduates,
where the most popular class last year at Harvard was not Michael Sandel's well
know online class on social justice But Michael Puett''s class on Classical
Chinese Ethical and Political Theory. In other words, the most popular teacher
at Harvard right now is a teacher of Chinese Philosophy from the last
millenium largely B.C. Now the, the irony here is that while the
transition from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy has increased the
need for cognitive skills. While the transition from a national
economy to a multinational economy has increased the need for language skills.
that contemporary education in fact does not do as good a job as education in the
past on this kind of cultural reproduction on helping us define and
transmitting the the global canon of the 21st Century.
And so while public education has replaced private education so, education
now no longer represents the, the best of the most able individuals of 10% of the
population but rather a 50, 60, 70, 80% of the population and many developed
societies. The focus of this education ironically
increasingly Is only about tests, because of the tremendous success of the Chinese
testing system, not about texts. Which are the, which define the cultural
elite. So, in the past The knowledge of
characters was the primary constituent of classical literacy.
And the knowledge of classical texts was the the primary constituent of elite
culture. So you had to read or write some all
together at least 10,000 such Chinese graphs or classics in order to qualify as
being examination literate. You had to memorize the four books and
parts of the five classics. And again, to achieve this kind of
knowledge. And so education was, was, was focused,
although it's around testing was focused therefore on not just sort of The,
testing, it was focused on language and texts.
The, the language was largely instilled before in primary school education.
Then from approximately eight to 14 or 15 years of age You focused largely on
reading original texts that defined elite culture.
The four books and the five classics. And you didn't start reading about
commentaries or sort of about examination sort of preparation texts based on the.
The Classics, until after you're age 14 or 15.
So, the the Four Books, the Analects, Mencius, the Great Learning, the
Zhongyong, was altogether required about 50,000 graphs.
The Five Classics, which were much longer, the book of Changes, the book of
Documents, the book of. Songs and Poetry.
The ah, [UNKNOWN] Spring and Autumn analects was much larger by 470,000
graphs altogether. These plus the other major Chinese
classics comprised in total of actually almost 640,000 Character text that you
had to read and familiarize yourself with.
Some of which, such as the Analects or the Mencius or the Great Learning or the
Zhongyong, you sort of committed to memory.
So in other words, education in the past was not just about preparing for tests.
Although tests were very important. It was about conveying assumed kind of a
lead culture. And implicated in that culture, not just
to the people who did well on the test, but the people were [UNKNOWN] who
prepared for the test. And you have to remember while they may
have been only 40,000 [UNKNOWN] at any given time.
By the late 19th century as many as 2,000,000 people sat for that test, every
time it was offered. So so education is not just about testing
but it's also about texting. Not texting on your phone but learning
the texts that defined the classics in the past.
How does this compare with contemporary education?
Because every education of course is extremely good with the rise of science
and engineering and conveying numerously, but what's quite surprising is that it no
longer comprises any texts whatsoever and then hardly conveys much language.
So, in the past. so the education literacy was 10,000
graphs. Now in Hong Kong and China, it's 4,000 or
less. It as far as English kids concerned,
similarly, where as in the U.K. or North America you're assumed to know
15 to 20,000 words, which you can see here, the average American or
Remember the UK but basically acquires from the ages of 12 and 18.
most students in China or in Hong Kong are only educated to a language level of
that of about a 12 year old. And as we've said how they've learned to
do well in tests, they don't learn any texts.
So the irony is that actually we compare education to late imperial China to the
past, to the education today, while it may continue to do a good job and we'll
look at this next week, in terms of social mobility.
it does not do as good a job in terms of cultural reproduction and that means
without this transmission of Elite Global Culture, the contemporary Chinese
eduction restricts educated Chinese elites largely to a local, not a global
stage. In contrast, of course, We have to
recognize that it's not necessarily so great in the West either because in the
West although the, the Western educational examination systems created
indirect or direct copies of the Chinese examination system, no Western country
which may be achieving tremendous success In conveying cultural reproduction.
No Western culture achieves the same rates of social mobility.
not the United States, not the site of the the rights of Man or the first famous
revolution, the French Revolution. So as the French baccalaureate began in
1808, the German arbitur in the early 19th Century.
The US College Board in the very early 20th Century, and where as civil service
exams began in France as early as 1791, in Germany in 1800, in the UK in 1870, in
the USA in 1873, So so in spite of the implementation of these kinds of testing
systems, the soc, the, the impact on social mobility has hardly had the same
kind of opening up that has had in China. I conclude with two tables in this sort
of presentation of quantitative evidence. So we can compare sort of the impact of
Chinese educational social mobility with the impact of Western education on
Western elites. These are both from the [FOREIGN] in
France. The most prestigious perhaps of all the
Western systems from one of the earliest of higher education.
And I showed you two graphs, one of which shows the social origins and access to
Ecole Normale from 1868 to 1941, and the other which show you the social origins
of successful candidates to the Ecole Normale d'Adminstration from 1945 to
1951. So the one of the the Ecole Normale is
considered to be the most prestigious sort of non-specialized elite school in
France. And what you can see here is that while
owners of of businesses, while higher officials while university professors
were able to get their children into such a prestigious university which you can
see that unskilled labor, farmers, agricultural workers, these true so
called humble background people. And in fact, from price roughly zero.
And what you can see is that this is true, not just for the Ecoles [UNKNOWN],
which is more academic. But it's equally true for the Ecoles
Nationale d'Administration, which changes the, which trains the highest civil
servants. Of France.
Whereas higher, children of higher civil servants, managers, engineers
professionals, comprise almost 2 3rds, 60% of the total successful candidates.
The number of candidates who come from unskilled workers from true blue collar,
from agricultural workers, is 0. And even from artisans, from skilled and
semi-skilled workers, the total is 3%. So the, the contrast is striking.
education is extremely important in the West maybe, for cultural reproduction.
It's not so important for social mobility.
Education in China in the past was important for social mobility and for the
transmission of [UNKNOWN] culture, but as the definition of [UNKNOWN] culture has
changed, the context and cirriculum education in China has not been able to
keep up... So the short answer to the question
raised at the beginning of this lecture, why do some people rise to the top when
others do not? Is education.
In week two we will see how education in China today compares to education in
China's imperial past and also to contemporary Western education at
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other elite American universities.
We will also explore in week three and week four, new answers to the other
question raised at the beginning of this lecture, why is the wealth distributed
unequally more in some societies than others?
And discuss the ramifications of such inequality on regime change, and for
understanding of comparative social stratification for the world as a whole.
Thank you.
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