Abstract: Virtually every adult we met in China was a parent with a child in school. Thus, while the number of households we visited was small, we had many conversations centering on parenthood, the role of elders, and the problems associated with raising children. Although our discussions revealed that parents, grandparents, and members of the community all play a large part in the overall education of China's children, we were interested in the fact that these same individuals do not have a significant influence on the formal education their children receive inside the classroom. That is to say that members of families and communities govern students' informal, social education as it occurs whenever children are away from school; but their influence on such matters as curriculum, textbook and material selections, and teaching methodology is minimal. Our observations in the areas we toured and of the people we met led us to conclude that parental and community involvement is enlisted by the school system only to the extent this involvement supports the political and moral objectives of the system and that it is not allowed to present suggestions that contradict or attempt to modify what actually goes on in the classroom.
Publication Year: 1978
Publication Date: 1978-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 4
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