Migration In East And Southeast Asia

Samuel C Y Ku, Kristina Kironska

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9789813141681
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

There has been an undisputed increase in the importance of migration over the past decades. It is one of the effects of an increasingly globalized world, where capitalism and free trade are gaining prominence. Migration in East and Southeast Asia aims to bring migration-related problems in Asia to the forefront. The first part of the book deals with migration in Greater China, a region influenced by Confucianism. The "three Chinas" used to have a close connection in the past, and presently share much similarity. The Hong Kongese and Taiwanese societies are based on migration from Mainland China. However, each society has endured significant social, economic, and political changes. The second part of the book offers a closer look at migration flows in Southeast Asia. Most of the intra-ASEAN migration involves low-skilled labor for construction, agriculture, and domestic work. This book hopes to offer valuable insights into various topics related to migration in the region.

Part I

Migration in East Asia

Chapter 1

Understanding Chinese Citizenship and Citizenship Education: Comparing Teachers’ Perspectives in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Pei-te Lien^1,2

Abstract

This paper reviews the flexible notion of Chinese citizenship and compares the teaching and learning of citizenship in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in recent decades. Collectively called the “three Chinas,” each of the societies has its own political history and ruling ideology, even if they all are identified as Confucius-heritage societies. Each society, however, has also endured significant social, economic, and/or political changes in the past three decades or so and they currently represent three distinct stages of democratization and corresponding phases of educational reforms. In what ways does the present-day citizenship education in each of the societies reflect her political history and identity and differ from each other in curriculum priorities and pedagogical practices? In what sense is there commonness in the conceptualization and teaching of citizenship across these Chinese societies? After a review of literature, we present preliminary findings of a primary survey conducted in December 2013 of secondary school teachers who teach the subject of political and citizenship education, as well as college students in-training to teach the subject. In the analysis, we also compare current findings to similar empirical research done in the recent past, both in China as well as in Hong Kong and Taiwan, to gauge the degree of continuity and change in the meanings of “good” citizenship, and practice of citizenship education in each society as viewed by subject teachers.

Keywords: Asian Citizenship, Citizenship Education, Teachers’ Survey in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

1. Introduction

This chapter reviews the flexible notion of Chinese citizenship and compares teachers’ perspectives on the teaching and learning of citizenship in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in recent decades. It is part of a larger study that seeks to unpack the black box of political learning in the major homelands of Chinese Americans by investigating the changing meanings and practices of citizenship education in these societies. Collectively called the “three Chinas,” these societies are divided by history and ruling ideology, even if they all are identified as Confucius-heritage societies that can be characterized by values that place emphasis on collective over independent thinking, social harmony over dissension, responsibilities over rights, and conservative over liberal social order. Each society, however, has also endured significant social, economic, and/or political changes in the past three decades or so, and they currently represent three distinct stages of democratization and corresponding phases of educational reforms. In what ways does the present-day citizenship education in each of the societies reflect her political history and identity and differ from each other in curriculum priorities and pedagogical practices? In what sense is there commonness in the conceptualization and teaching of citizenship across these Chinese societies? After a review of literature, we present preliminary findings of a primary survey conducted in December 2013 of middle school teachers who teach the subject of political and citizenship education as well as college students in-training to teach the subject. In the analysis, we also compare current findings to prior empirical research done respectively in each society to gauge the degree of continuity and change in the meanings of “good” citizenship and practice of citizenship education as viewed by subject teachers in-service and in-training.

The term civic and citizenship education (citizenship education, hereafter) may broadly refer to “the formation through the process of schooling of the knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions of citizens.”³ Political entities in the world, including those in the Asian region, have been showing a revived interest in reforming civic and/or citizenship education so as to better respond to profound social and political changes on both domestic and international fronts in recent decades. Kennedy notes that modern states have employed citizenship education as a strategy to support their values, structures, and priorities and that it cannot be “treated in isolation from the broader global environment.”⁴ Moreover, neither can citizenship education “stand by itself, independent of cultural norms, political priorities, social expectations, national economic development aspirations, geopolitical contexts and historical antecedents.”⁵ Paradoxically, citizenship education has been assigned the mission of preparing critical thinking, responsible, participating, multidimensional citizens, but it has also been used to serve the function of instilling a sense of national identity, loyalty to the nation state and patriotism.⁶ The duality of this character should nevertheless be considered a part of the definition rather than a contradiction. As a tool of governance, it has been used to bolster both democratic and antidemocratic regimes — both in the name of cultivating “good” citizenship.

2. Concepts of “Good” Citizenship in Confucius-heritage Societies

What is “good” citizenship in a Confucius-heritage society in the East? According to Lee and Fouts, the traditional Chinese culture is ethic-centered and moral-oriented.⁷ It values four ethical principles (courtesy, righteousness, incorruptibility, and shame) and eight cardinal virtues (loyalty, filial piety, kindness, love, honesty, righteousness, harmony, and peacefulness). In the example of Communist China, its conception of citizenship emphasizes collectivity, responsibilities, and social cohesion. It also places a strong emphasis on national identity, nationalism, and patriotism. However, with the advent of the market economy, Lee observes that “there is an implicit version of liberal citizenship being developed.”⁸ Increasingly, to help curb the perceived moral decay associated with capitalism, China’s education stresses the significance of respecting the individual, self-care, and personal psychological health. It reflects the state’s effort to reintegrate Confucianism into Chinese society and schools.⁹ Some also maintain that the core values for a Western democracy such as equality, justice, and rule of law are not necessarily foreign or new to China, and that a virgin form of citizenship education can be found in as early as the late 19th century.¹⁰ However, in a highly nationalistic setting, the development of national consciousness and patriotism may take precedence over the development of individual personality and morality in the teaching and learning of citizenship.

Looking beyond the Chinese setting, Lee notes in an overview of the conceptions of citizenship and citizenship education in Asia that “[t]he concept of Asian citizenship is emergent rather than fixed, with some degree of fluidity, unpredictability, and eclecticism.”¹¹ He notes that “rather than a dichotomy, Asians see the relationship between the individual and the collectivity as two sides of a coin in terms of citizenship.”¹² Further, he points out that “[w]hile the West discussed individualism in terms of individual rights, individuation and individual responsibility in the course of its political development, the East may have focused upon the development of individuality” or “self-enrichment which may or may not lead to political ends.”¹³ Thus, citizenship education in the East focuses on morality and the development of individuality as well as the role of culture in the process. This relatively apolitical orientation is said to have explained the acceptance and persistence of soft authoritarianism and soft democracy in Asia.

3. Divergent Conceptualizations of Citizenship and Evolution of Citizenship Education in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Nevertheless, even in Confucius-heritage societies in East Asia, education is largely shaped by political forces and the curriculum content, core values, and pedagogies of citizenship education in each society have been found to reflect social changes and the prevailing political ideology.¹⁴ In particular, the discursive field of citizenship education is influenced by the discourse of nationalism, which may be content-specific and constantly in flux.¹⁵ For example, China’s official ideology is observed to not be as static as depicted in the conventional “totalitarian” model.¹⁶ Commenting on the changing faces of Chinese nationalism, Yahuda notes that, although the PRC government officially defines nationalism in terms of ethnic nationalities, it adopted the concept of patriotism (or state nationalism) to elicit devotion to the state, its institutions, and its leaders during the 1990s. This ideological approach was a break from the past when the Chinese Communist Party (CPP) appealed to public nationalism to defeat the Nationalists.¹⁷

Keane (2001) argues that China’s idea of the citizen (gongmin) “was viewed as antithetical to the socialist goal of mass mobilization, class struggle, and collectivism” and that a distinctive feature of China’s citizenship is its embeddedness “within an authoritarian mode of governance and a collectivist understanding of rights.”¹⁸ He observes a redefinition of China’s citizenship under market economy whereby citizens’ rights are represented primarily as socioeconomic benefits delivered by the state’s economic reform agenda. This strateg...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: Migration in East Asia
• Part II: Migration in Southeast Asia
• Conclusion
• Index