Distinguish the Aspirations of the Youth: A Qualitative Study on Moral Education Based on Chinese Traditional Culture

• In Event: Chinese roundtable II (Sponsored by SIG: East Asia)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Identity and moral education

Proposal

“Zhi”, aspiration or resolve in English, is not only a vital aspect of individual’s values, but an important notion in Confucian moral philosophy. Moreover, the education aimed at helping students to get aspired is also regularly emphasized by moral educators in China nowadays. However, in the fields both of moral education and education of philosophy in China, detailed discussions, especially empirical studies focusing on “Zhi” are not sufficient. Confucius and Confucian philosophers after him, regarded the only legitimate “Zhi”, or the ultimate aspiration, should be set on “Dao” as the external criteria, and becoming “Shengxian” (sage) as the internal personality ideal. Furthermore, Confucianism believes a person who hopes to build a noble personality and cultivate his virtues should have the resolve to reach “Dao” first. In the Book of Rites (“Liji” in Chinese), one ancient sacred book of Confucianism, the article Record on the Subject of Education (“Xueji” in Chinese) proposes an educational framework to cultivate a noble person and suggest students’ aspirations should be assessed at the first year of the nine-year course; this assessment was called “Bianzhi”, “distinguish the aspiration” in English. Therefore, this explorative qualitative study focuses on the question: how do the contemporary Chinese youth grasp the ideas conveyed by aspiration education process? What aspirations and wills do they choose?

The qualitative study focuses on a summer camp, which aimed at helping the youth with their resolve by conveying the moral opinions of the Confucianism and other Chinese traditional culture. The fieldwork was conducted in the summer camp with six participants from the age of 18-22. They were interviewed at the end of the camp by asking questions about their wills or aspirations pre- and post-the camp and how they had been changed during the camp. Meanwhile, behavior of interviewees, structure and culture of the faculty and other details were collected by participant observation. Data was analyzed by contextualization and categorization, while analytic memos were written carefully.

The study found that most of the participating youth regarded and chose their aspiration, or “Zhi” as: 1) a goal about academic achievement, 2) becoming unique in terms of personality, 3) to make great contributions to the society. However, there are two students who refused or hadn’t confirmed a specific aspiration yet because they believed further explorations were needed. Characters of parents, reflections about life experiences, self-inquiry and sometimes even self-criticize, knowledge of the society, camp-wide culture would influence their choice of aspirations or goals in addition to the cognition of the aspiration education.

Further discussion is based on the forgoing empirical findings, combining the Confucianism theory of “Zhi” and Aristotle’s opinion: Confucianism considers the legitimate aspiration requires the pursuit of a noble personality (Analects), while Aristotle suggested that one activity is to be preferred only if its aim and end are not apart from it (The Nicomachean Ethics). Whether the pursuit is focusing on internal personality and whether it is worthwhile to be approved for its own sake can be the criteria of “distinguish the aspiration”. Although taking into consideration that students’ interests and choices of wills are more diversified in modern society, the Confucianism scheme of “Zhi” and “distinguish the aspiration” has its value in moral education.

Author

• Kunzhao Kou, Graduate School of Education, Peking University