Understanding Life-Practice Pedagogics—A Distinctively Educational Way of Thinking and Theorizing With Chinese Characteristics

Abstract

This article provides an interpretation of the construction of Life-Practice pedagogics by locating it within the Chinese pedagogic tradition and within the context of China's social and economic transition at the turn of the 21st century. As a theoretical essay, the article focuses on interpreting Lan Ye’s Return and Breakthrough: The Outline of Life-Practice Pedagogics, with reference to her other related writings. It draws on theoretical sources from continental Pädagogik and Anglo-American educational theory. Squarely in the tradition of Pädagogik, Life-Practice pedagogics exhibits a distinctively educational way of thinking and theorizing—in terms of education as self-formation ( Bildung), education as purposeful activities or practice ( Erziehung), and the dignity of practice. It is also a distinctive Chinese construction rooted in the reality of China and nourished by Chinese educational traditions, with its own unique research methodology. The construction of Life-Practice pedagogics provides a powerful case of how education can be established as distinctive discipline in the 21st century and of how pedagogics in China can be revitalized in today's context. This article calls for a rediscovery of the essence of education in the current context of the “learnification” of educational discourse and a multiplicity of educational fads.