The Last Totem: Research on Value Orientation of Chinese High School Education and School Characteristic Development

Author: Zhang Dongjiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features:
People have two common perceptions about today's Chinese schools, especially public high schools: Gaokao (the college entrance exam) is the dominant force in high education—thousands of schools face the same challenge, and tens of thousands of courses are identical; schools lack or barely possess their own individuality and characteristics. Yet in the 1920s and 1930s, Chinese education was highly distinctive, and schools were full of unique features. Why did this state not naturally continue? This book provides an in-depth analysis of the evolution of high school education's value orientation over a century and the three processes of schools losing their individuality and uniqueness, revealing that in today's increasingly prominent quality-oriented education, Gaokao will become the final totem, and the awareness of school (school characteristic development) will truly awaken, with prospects for progress.
People have two common perceptions about today's Chinese schools, especially public high schools: Gaokao (the college entrance exam) is the dominant force in high education—thousands of schools face the same challenge, and tens of thousands of courses are identical; schools lack or barely possess their own individuality and characteristics. Yet it is precisely this lack of uniqueness in schools that constitutes the era's characteristic of contemporary Chinese high education. In the 1920s and 1930s, Chinese education was highly distinctive, and schools were full of unique features. Why did this state not naturally continue? Over a century, high school education's value orientation has undergone one initial value selection, two value ruptures, and two value transformations, forming five main specific forms in different historical stages—aristocratic holisticism, administrativeism, politicalism, Gaokaoism, and quality-orientedism. These forms constitute the value genealogy of China's century-long high school education and also form a value cycle. The changes in this value curve either accompany processes of institutional innovation and revision or institutional destruction and restoration, reflecting the overall characteristics of education and the individuality and development level of school characteristics under the constraints of social value orientations in different eras. During this period, Chinese schools underwent three processes of losing their individuality and uniqueness, leading to the fate of schools' overall survival, with no significant breakthroughs or progress in school characteristic development. In today's increasingly prominent quality-oriented education, Gaokao will become the final totem, and the awareness of school (school characteristic development) will truly awaken, with prospects for progress.