Private Education in Modern China

(Hardback)

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Drawing on an abundance of primary sources as well as on the author's extensive personal experience in the Chinese school system, this book examines the evolution of non-governmental schools in China between 1895 and 1995. The author begins with an overview of private education in pre-modern China, and discusses the growth of modern private schools in the past century as part of the Chinese people's struggle for national survival. He argues that even though the government since the Late Qing period has placed a premium on education, the government never had enough resources, and private schools filled the gap. The author maintains that the disappearance of private schools in China in the 1950s was a casualty of the Chinese revolution. In the post-Mao era, private schools re-emerged when the nation underwent some very fundamental social and economic transformations. Being part of China's burgeoning market economy, private education has not been immune to various problems. Nevertheless, the author argues that it is private education in the 1950s that has spearheaded China's educational reform.

Reviews

[I]t not only greatly contributes to the research on the history of Chinese education and culture but it will also be very helpful to both Western and Chinese readers in their effort to understand one another better. All in all, Deng's book is of great value to those who are interested in the educational and cultural history of China, especially as it has been written by a native Chinese scholar who had been educated in the West for many years and who wrote this book from a comparative perspective on education, history, and culture on the basis of what he has experienced in practice in private schooling in modern China.-Paedagogica Historica
A useful volume for upper-division undergraduates and above.-Choice
It provides a useful overview of contemporary developments in private education, set within a discussion of private education over the past century of modern educational development, and a summary consideration of such traditional private institutions as the sishu (traditional private school) and shuyuan (academy).-Pacific Affairs
Peng Deng presents a particularly interesting examination of the socio-political changes that have occurred in modern China through the eyes of its private schools. The privatization of Chinese schools is indicative of China's current market reform movement. These schools, so many of them proprietary in nature, also symbolized the inherent dichotomies that the current economic reforms are producing in China; rural and urban educational inequities, the emergence of social class and regional divisions, and the creation of an educated elite catering to a Western cultural outlook amidst the mass of Chinese still tied to centuries of tradition. Dr. Deng's book provides its readers with an important historical context to understand these emerging dichotomies...the book is well documented, interesting, and highly readable. In short, Dr. Deng's study is quite valuable and fills an important void in the scholarship of modern China.-Asian Thought and Society
Peng Deng's new book on the history of private education in China provides a very useful overview at a time when the subject has begun to attract a good deal of attention in the West....It does indeed read like a labor of love....What is most impressive is the author's ability to put developments in post-1949 China into a well-researched historical perspective....The book is also enhanced greatly by Deng's use of Chinese language sources and by careful editing.-Journal of Third World Studies
"It not only greatly contributes to the research on the history of Chinese education and culture but it will also be very helpful to both Western and Chinese readers in their effort to understand one another better. All in all, Deng's book is of great value to those who are interested in the educational and cultural history of China, especially as it has been written by a native Chinese scholar who had been educated in the West for many years and who wrote this book from a comparative perspective on education, history, and culture on the basis of what he has experienced in practice in private schooling in modern China."-Paedagogica Historica
"[I]t not only greatly contributes to the research on the history of Chinese education and culture but it will also be very helpful to both Western and Chinese readers in their effort to understand one another better. All in all, Deng's book is of great value to those who are interested in the educational and cultural history of China, especially as it has been written by a native Chinese scholar who had been educated in the West for many years and who wrote this book from a comparative perspective on education, history, and culture on the basis of what he has experienced in practice in private schooling in modern China."-Paedagogica Historica
"A useful volume for upper-division undergraduates and above."-Choice
"It provides a useful overview of contemporary developments in private education, set within a discussion of private education over the past century of modern educational development, and a summary consideration of such traditional private institutions as the sishu (traditional private school) and shuyuan (academy)."-Pacific Affairs
"Peng Deng's new book on the history of private education in China provides a very useful overview at a time when the subject has begun to attract a good deal of attention in the West....It does indeed read like a labor of love....What is most impressive is the author's ability to put developments in post-1949 China into a well-researched historical perspective....The book is also enhanced greatly by Deng's use of Chinese language sources and by careful editing."-Journal of Third World Studies
"Peng Deng presents a particularly interesting examination of the socio-political changes that have occurred in modern China through the eyes of its private schools. The privatization of Chinese schools is indicative of China's current market reform movement. These schools, so many of them proprietary in nature, also symbolized the inherent dichotomies that the current economic reforms are producing in China; rural and urban educational inequities, the emergence of social class and regional divisions, and the creation of an educated elite catering to a Western cultural outlook amidst the mass of Chinese still tied to centuries of tradition. Dr. Deng's book provides its readers with an important historical context to understand these emerging dichotomies...the book is well documented, interesting, and highly readable. In short, Dr. Deng's study is quite valuable and fills an important void in the scholarship of modern China."-Asian Thought and Society

Author Bio

PENG DENG, a native of China, is Associate Professor of History at High Point University in North Carolina.