Education modernization in rural China: exploring temporality in education policy

Figures & data

Table 1. The summary of history.

Time	Context & needs	Education policy	The understanding of ‘tradition’	The understanding of ‘modern’	The rural
The 1890s Imperial China Late Qing dynasty	Defeated in wars	Established the modern schooling system (Japanese-style)	Imperial regime Traditional culture represented by Confucian culture	Japanese-style school and curriculum	The rural problem
The 1930s The Republican China	The end of First World war. The threat of Japanese imperialism	Rural education reforms as part of rural construction projects	Imperial legacy The fixation on western culture	The rural modern versus an urban modern	The rural modern
The 1960s The revolution era The CPC government	The cold war	The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution (Up to mountain down to village)	Republican legacy Confucianism	Communism Rapid industrialization (Steel production)	The rural modern
The 2000s The reform era The CPC government	The open-up reform	School consolidation policy	Revolutionary era legacy The Planned economy regime	Urbanization Market economy reform	The rural problem

Notes: The last column is to highlight the newly emerging thread, but it does not mean that each period only has one way of viewing the rural, rather, the two ways of seeing the rural co-exist throughout the last century.