Tradition meets pluralism: the receding Confucian values in the Taiwanese citizenship curriculum

Abstract

Confucianism, long regarded as the key philosophy on personal character-building and interpersonal relations in Chinese society, used to be pivotal to citizenship education in Taiwan, but that has changed in the last 20 years. In the wake of democratization in the late 1980s, growing liberalism and pluralism in Taiwanese society prompted the authorities to widen the scope of the school curriculum to include a diversity of cultures and thus the influence of this ancient Chinese philosophy began to fade away. The new citizenship curriculum, introduced in 2010, is no longer structured around Confucian moral guidance, but has instead embraced pluralism. Confucianism, from the perspective of those Taiwanese citizenship curriculum designers who were interviewed, hinders the formation of civil society due to its overly strong emphasis on familial kinship and “sovereign-subject” paternalism. Engulfed by Confucian moral principles, the critical and reflective competence of the individual often fails to develop. The new citizenship programme therefore attempts to counter the emphasis on fostering “obedient citizens” under monolithic Confucian doctrines and envisions a resilient civil society open to pluralistic voices.

Keywords::

• Confucianism
• Chinese culture
• moral education
• citizenship education
• Taiwanese curriculum