Students’ Citizenship Competence Learning in China’s Yangzhong City

ABSTRACT

With specific reference to Yangzhong city in China, this study investigates students’ citizenship competence learning – political identity, scientific spirit, legal awareness and public participation. The study uses a mixed methodology of questionnaires, classroom observations, document analyses and interviews to collect data and identifies three patterns of students’ citizenship competence learning. This study provides empirical data that supplements the existing literature on citizenship-as-practice in the context of China.

Keywords:

• citizenship competence
• learning
• students
• China
• Yangzhong

8. Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dr. Fei Ye for his comments and advice, and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments. The writer alone is responsible for any remaining errors.

9. Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ In China, formal schooling incorporates citizenship education in its repertoire, appearing in localized versions as moral education or moral-political education.

² Since, at the time of this study, China still followed the ‘one guideline, multiple textbooks’ policy, several versions of moral education textbooks were used in Grades 1–9. Some terms in the questionnaire were slightly changed to reflect terms appearing in local textbooks, to ensure better student understanding.

³ In the Chinese education system, the jiao yan yuan is the area teaching supervisor for a specific subject. In some areas, they are educational bureau officers, selected from experienced frontline teachers. In this study, the moral-political education subject jiao yan yuan in Yangzhong city worked for both the Yangzhong Education Bureau teacher development center and a high school.

⁴ WeChat is a mobile text and voice messaging communication service developed by Tencent.

⁵ QQ is an instant messaging software developed by Tencent.

⁶ There is only one moral-political education teaching and research officer in Yangzhong. She participated in all class observation and interviews in this study.

⁷ A guiding curriculum theory popular after the late 1970s in China.

⁸ A curriculum theory promoted in the most recent curriculum reform since 2001.

⁹ The promotion of citizenship competence in curricula first appeared in 2016, while students involved in this study still use textbooks that followed previous curriculum standards.

¹⁰ National college entrance examination in Yangzhong included four subjects (Chinese, Maths, English) totaling 480 points. High school students were also required to take several achievement tests, on which they were graded as having attained Level A, B, C, or D.

¹¹ China’s education has long been urban-centered, with little consideration being given to the needs of rural areas. China’s unified curriculum, textbooks and pedagogies did not meet rural students’ basic education needs.

Additional information

Funding

The article is funded by China’s 12th Five-Year Plan National Education Fund (CEA130143, Experiment of Interactive Pedagogy for Moral Education in Middle Schools).