The Transformation of the Educational Semantic within a Changing Society: A Study of the Westernization of Modern Chinese Education1

Abstract

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the process of westernization of Chinese education – of the Chinese educational “system”– was marked by ongoing conflicts between traditional Chinese and modern western culture. This paper looks at the process by which, within the larger context of the “world-society,” educational thought was constituted or reconstituted (regenerated) in modern China, thus taking on a more hybrid form. My analysis is guided by a Luhmannian approach which focuses on the distinction between the educational system and its environment, and on the changing concept of “education” throughout an important period in the history of modern China. I will try to analyze the historical description of the distinction between traditional Chinese and modern Western educational ideas.