Neoliberal personhood as exception: A critical analysis of textbooks of China’s moral education

ABSTRACT

Existing literature has noticed two competing ideas about the state-citizen relationship promoted in China’s moral education curriculum: protecting one’s freedom and rights, and contributing to and even sacrificing for the country. To reconcile this contradiction, this study uses the framework of ‘neoliberalism as exception’ to analyze the textbooks of Morality and Laws, the primary teaching and learning materials in China’s moral education. Defining neoliberalism as a focus on individual conduct, including self-reliance, self-entrepreneurship, and individual rights and freedom, this study shows how these textbooks selectively employ neoliberal ideas to promote an understanding of personhood where students are expected to not only practice self-reliance but also prioritize collective and national interests over their rights and freedom. This selective adoption of neoliberal tenets contributes to China’s economic development and national cohesion, but it risks perpetuating systemic inequity since all students are posited as coming from the same socioeconomic background.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• nationalism
• collectivism
• moral education
• civic education

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Dr. Li-Ching Ho for her invaluable guidance and support. I also appreciate Dr. Kristján Kristjánsson’s constructive feedback and the two anonymous reviewers’ helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yubing Liu

Yubing Liu (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on civic and moral education, history education, and education and migration.