China’s Education of New Era Citizenry: Forging a Cultural Understanding of Citizenship

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Citizenship Education Policies From a Global Perspective (Table 13)

Abstract

Led by Xi Jinping, China has reformed its way of nurturing a generation of citizens for the ‘New Era’. In 2022, the goal of cultivating a new generation as New People for the New Era was formally included in the national curriculum at the primary and secondary levels. This study aims to explore how the educational practice of cultivating New People in the Xi era has constructed an understanding of citizenship. Drawing data from different sources, the findings of this study indicate how the Xi era reframes citizenship in China’s historical, political, and cultural specificities and how the nation’s cultural roots may also pose challenges to the construction of a new discourse on Chinese citizenship.

Author

• Zhenzhou Zhao, Education University of Hong Kong