Confucius stands on the London eye- an auto-ethnographic study

ABSTRACT

Confucianism has had a profound influence on Chinese learners’ academic achievements, moral education and education for citizenship. It is often suggested that the influence of Confucianism leads to educational success. Situating the Confucian ideology in a Western educational setting in so far as how those involved in teaching and learning according to Chinese Confucian-based education. This paper is based on a BBC documentary that leads me to reflect on Chinese education. The documentary sought to investigate what would occur when Western learners undertake Chinese Confucian-based learning. In this article, my personal reflections on the content and messages of the documentary are interwoven with reflections of the teachers and others involved in the documentary. I begin this auto-ethnographic account by reflecting on my cultural upbringing in China and the influence that Confucianism had on my own early learning experiences. Selected diary entries show my identities within a unique Confucian cultural framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Auto-ethnography
• Confucianism
• cultural conflict
• diary entries
• education

Acknowledgements

I should give sincere thanks to my writing mentor Dr Sally Denshire who is an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Community Health at Charles Sturt University. Writing this paper would not be possible without Sally’s guidance, support and encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Jinjin Lu http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8193-4160