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Deyu as moral education in modernChina: ideological functions andtransformationsLi Ping a , Zhong Minghua a , Lin Bin a & Zhang Hongjuan aa Sun Yat‐Sen University , Guangzhou, People's Republic of ChinaPublished online: 22 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Li Ping , Zhong Minghua , Lin Bin & Zhang Hongjuan (2004) Deyu as moraleducation in modern China: ideological functions and transformations, Journal of Moral Education,33:4, 449-464, DOI: 10.1080/0305724042000315581

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Deyu as moral education in modern

China: ideological functions and

transformations

Li Ping, Zhong Minghua, Lin Bin and Zhang Hongjuan*Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China

During its evolution Chinese moral education has developed pronounced ideological aspects. This

stems from traditions of ®rst equating politics with morality, phrasing them both in the same

language, and then of encouraging correct moral and political relations and behaviours through

education. This trend dates back three thousand years to Zhou Gong and continued through

Confucius and his followers. From 1949, through the Cultural Revolution and the present

transition to a market economy, a similarly uni®ed approach to political, ideological and moral

education has been effected through the organizational medium of deyu. As well as providing a

historical overview, this paper examines the ideological function and political structure of deyu and

the changes that are occurring within it. In the light of current changes in China, deyu is now

starting to shift its focus away from ideological education and towards citizenship education. This

re¯ects important changes in core values, to include individualism, economic initiative and

consumerism, all of which confront Chinese society and education with distinct challenges and

opportunities, and suggest even further reform of deyu during the 21st century.

Introduction: deyu as moral education

Deyu is a domain of education in China, and is taught throughout the education

system ± from primary school to university. While its mandate changes from time to

time, to encompass or eliminate certain content, it is all too frequently translated into

English simply as `moral education', as it derives from two words, `de' meaning

`morality' and `yu' meaning `education'. Although deyu is often understood in this way

in China as well, this interpretation (which has come to be known as `micro-deyu') is

misleadingly simplistic. Deyu has a broader meaning, which refers not just to moral

education, but also to political and ideological education, and includes courses in law,

health (both physical and mental), work-related studies and many other activities

pertaining to a student's general education. This wider sense is known as `macro-

*Corresponding author: Faculty of Education, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275,

P. R. China. Email: janechina2003@yahoo.com

ISSN 0305±7240 print/ISSN 1465±3877 online/04/040449-16

ã 2004 Journal of Moral Education Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/0305724042000315581

Journal of Moral Education,

Vol. 33, No. 4, December 2004

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deyu'. Micro-deyu signi®es only moral education, which, as we shall see, does inform

other aspects of macro-deyu, but in this paper we use `deyu' only in the macro sense, in

order to avoid confusion.1

In the syllabus for primary and secondary schools, deyu (in the context of its moral

and ideological content) is pointedly described as part of `basic (compulsory)

education'.2 From this one can see at a glance the importance that deyu is accorded, as

well as the connection drawn between social, interpersonal values (morality) and

political values (ideology).

At the university level deyu moves closer to political science. It is made up of two

series of compulsory courses. The ®rst series is concerned with Marxist theory, and

includes the following ®ve courses: Principles of Marxist Philosophy, Principles of

Marxist Politics and Economics, An Introduction to Mao Zedong's Thought, An

Introduction to Deng Xiaoping's Theory, and Contemporary World Economics and

Politics. The second series (which deals with education as applied to morality and

ideology) includes the following two courses: Introduction to Law, and The

Cultivation of Ideology and Morality (Li et al., 2000, p. 2). Of all these courses,

only the last is directly related to moral education speci®cally.3

The objective of this paper is to review the history of both traditional moral

education and deyu. The paper then considers the con¯ation of morality and ideology

as they have been taught, both before 1949 and since, highlighting the ideological

nature of deyu as it exists today. As China continues to move to a market economy and

opens up to the West, fundamental changes have been wrought in deyu and in the

basic, underlying, social values, and more are likely. We shall consider these changes

and some of their possible consequences and proffer ideas about the future of deyu in

that light.

Chinese traditions of moral education and a history of deyu

China has a highly valued, time-honoured tradition of moral education. At the

beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century ± 776 BC) the political

philosopher and statesman, Zhou Gong (the Duke of Zhou), initiated the concept of

`ruling the country by morality'. The idea gradually developed into a systematic

theory during the Spring-Autumn and Warring States Periods (775 ± 221 BC). Later,

in the Han Dynasty (206 BC ± 220 AD), the ethical and moral teachings of

Confucianism were established as orthodoxy, to rule supreme over any other ethical

system for the better part of the next two thousand years. It is possible to say,

therefore, in China, that political education, moral education and the assumed link

between the moral and the ideological, has a 3000-year-old pedigree, and that deyu, in

part, follows in this tradition.

On 1 October, 1949, the People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded and

brought into being a socialist country led by the Communist Party of China (CPC).

This had implications for education in general and for deyu in particular. Prior to the

revolution, education was the domain of the privileged few, but with `the founding of

the People's Republic, China granted universal access to education across the

450 Li Ping et al.

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country. This was an immensely signi®cant turning point in Chinese educational

history¼' (Mao & Shen, 1989, pp. 1±2). At this point, too, deyu became part of the

basic education of all people, with the same moral and ideological message being

given to everyone.

As this revolution progressed in China, deyu underwent three periods of

development: 1949±1966 saw the ®rst restructuring of education following the

foundation of the PRC; 1966±1976 witnessed the upheavals of the factional struggles

known as the Cultural Revolution; 1976 to the present has been the period of the

reform and opening up policy, with its emphasis on consumer-driven economic

liberalization.

1949±1966

During this 17-year period China's main task was to construct a socialist government,

and, as part of this effort, the old educational system was overhauled. At The

Common Program for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, in

1949, Mao Zedong laid out the mission statement for the new educational system.

First, it was to serve the revolution and the new `democracy'. Secondly, it was to be a

national, scienti®c and people's culture and education. Finally, it was to cultivate

people capable of building a nation, who could combat and defeat the remnants of

feudalism, imperialism and fascism, and who would seek to serve the People with their

heart and soul (Collection of the classic documents of People's Republic of China Editorial

Committee, 1994, p. 49). Under the principle that education should serve farmers

and workers, a major effort was made to renew the organization and curriculum of

existing schools, develop solidarity with China's intellectuals, and readjust all

educational systems across the nation.

In line with these political objectives, the primary task of deyu at that time was to

eradicate feudal and semi-feudal in¯uences, using both Marxism-Leninism and the

thoughts of Mao Zedong as guidelines. To this end, in 1952, the Ministry of

Education issued A directive for establishing the curricula of Marxism-Leninism and Mao

Zedong's thought in institutions of higher education (China Education Yearbook Editorial

Committee, 1984, p. 422). This directive ruled that colleges and universities were

required to offer three courses in political theory: On the New Democracy, Marxist

Political Economics and Dialectical and Historical Materialism.4 These three courses,

with politics and ideology as the main content, represented an initial step in

establishing the deyu system in its `macro' sense, moving beyond a narrowly `moral'

education. They also served to reinforce the overall focus of the Party on abstract

ideological considerations, rather than on practical economic concerns.

It is important to remember that during this period China was confronted by a

largely hostile world. Relations with its early ally, the Soviet Union, became

increasingly cold, to say nothing of the open antagonism expressed by the United

States and those powers co-operating with it. One result of this was economic isolation

from centres of capital, which forced China to ®nd ways to develop on its own. From

the late 1950s the Great Leap Forward (1958±1960) was one of the more infamous of

Deyu as moral education in China 451

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these efforts to increase industrial and agricultural output, paradoxically producing

greater hardships because of the pressure the producers felt to exaggerate their output

to satisfy the expectations of the leadership. A pivotal mistake made during this time

was the Party's focus on ideology ± on the contradictions between socialism and

capitalism, between an acknowledged proletariat and a largely residual bourgeoisie ±

rather than on the need to organize effective economic activity. From 1961±1965

decision-makers in China were beginning to acknowledge the failures of the Great

Leap Forward, and trying to assess the situation in pragmatic terms. This period of

adjustment did not last long, however, as it was soon overtaken by political events.

While the central government initially based its educational policies mainly on the

accumulated experience of the Soviet Union, it also began to explore other

approaches distinctive to China. During that period many educational movements

were launched, all of which helped to establish the policy of socialist education, and all

of which incorporated deyu as an important vehicle for politics, culture and education,

according to the political aims of the time. Of these many movements, one, the

Socialist Education Movement, was extremely important. Beginning in the country-

side, in 1965±66 it swept into the cities in a paroxysm of ideological fervour, and

became known as the Cultural Revolution. It brought to an end the period of

pragmatic re¯ection on earlier policies, and further entrenched the ideological aspects

of deyu in the educational project.

1966±1976

While the Cultural Revolution threw the whole country into a decade-long state of

upheaval, China's education was particularly hard-hit. Schooling was virtually

suspended for the sake of `revolution'; teachers and administrators were persecuted;

and the `great criticism', an orgy of public confessions, ended up blurring the line

between truth and falsehood. It would not be an overstatement to suggest that the

Cultural Revolution succeeded in undermining the previous 17 years of educational

development. Indeed, `education suffered from serious abuse and af¯iction. Such a

severe trauma was rare in China's educational history' (Mao & Shen, 1989, p. 197).

During those ten years, deyu came to exemplify doctrinaire extremism, grossly

distorting its founding principles, and becoming little more than a tool for

rationalizing and glorifying political con¯icts and factional struggles within the

CPC. Because of the chaos it wrought on the country, the Cultural Revolution is now

held in general disdain, and because of deyu's close association with those events, the

public evaluation of the content of deyu teaching has become increasingly dismissive,

an evaluation that can be described in three words: jia, da, kong (false, grandiose, and

hollow). Given that loss of credibility, teaching deyu has become more dif®cult.

1976 to the present

After the Cultural Revolution, in The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central

Committee of the CPC, in December, 1978, strategic policy turned away from

452 Li Ping et al.

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politics and towards economic reconstruction and China's educational system shifted

its focus accordingly (Communist Party of China (CPC), 1992, pp. 98±112). Since

then, a great effort has been made to stabilize education, reforming it, and opening it

up to the outside world. Given these objectives, deyu was to re-examine all aspects of

traditional moral education, to wean itself from its earlier political ends, and to

encourage greater diversity with respect to how it was to be interpreted and

implemented. As we shall see, this was, and is, not without contradiction, as ideology

remains a core component, and the central government continues its efforts to oversee

and standardize the pedagogy and curriculum used.

The ideological function of deyu

At its simplest deyu has Marxism as its theoretical base (PRC National Educational

Committee Department of Ideological and Political Education, 1996, pp. 52±78).

Marx analytically integrated political and economic questions. Of relevance is his

theory pertaining to the development both of individuals and of society, with its

argument that `human nature' emerges as a consequence of the particular system of

political and economic relations that a society establishes for itself. Thus, according to

Marx, an individual human cannot be said to exist in an abstracted state, independent

of society and of the productive forces and relations that surround him or her. Marx

argued that we cannot study individual human development outside the context of

social development, which is re¯ected in deyu's inclusion of both moral and

ideological education. Furthermore, deyu incorporates Marx's idea that socialist

consciousness must be cultivated and various forms of false consciousness combated.

This accounts for deyu's centrality within the educational system, as a means of

cultivating that consciousness, and of the centrality of ideology within deyu.

This ideological education has two functions. The ®rst of these ± the political

cultivation of the next generation, or `successors for the proletariat' ± has been critical

at least since Mao Zedong's 1957 statement, `We should educate people morally,

intellectually and physically, so that they become working people possessed of a

socialist consciousness and literate minds.' (Mao & Shen, 1989, p. 134). In 1958 the

Central Committee of the CPC, together with the State Council, issued An

appropriate directive concerning the work of education,

¼ education should serve proletarian politics; education should be combined with

production and labour; the work of education must be led by the Party in order to

implement this guideline. (PRCMOEDPR, 1991, p. 1072; emphasis added)

In February 1993, the CPC Central Committee, again in conjunction with the State

Council, distributed the Essentials of reform and development of China's education. Item

28 states that,

The basic task of deyu in school, i.e., the basic task of education in ideological politics and

morality, is to educate students in Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong's Thought, and in

the Theory of Constructing a Distinctive, Characteristically Chinese, Socialism; to

uphold the correct political orientation, and to cultivate a new socialist generation with lofty

Deyu as moral education in China 453

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ideals, moral integrity and a sense of discipline. (PRCMOEDPR, 1998, p. 33; emphasis

added)

Although the two statements were made 35 years apart, they are almost paraphrases,

both stressing the cultivation of new socialist generations.

The second ideological function of deyu is to indoctrinate students in the Party's

ideology through course content, setting ideals and communicating proper ways of

behaviour. Such content consistently stresses the principles of Marxism-Leninism,

the thoughts of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and focuses on the `Three Loves' of

education ± love of the motherland, love of the Communist Party of China, and love

of socialism.5 Deyu teaching materials are all formulated and promulgated by the

Central Committee of the CPC, and the guiding principles of deyu are set out to be

consistent with CPC ideology.6

To illustrate the continuing centrality of politics and ideology, we cite here a study

of approved deyu teaching materials for elementary and secondary students (Lee,

2001, pp. 225±227). This analysis showed that political content represented over half

of the total content: 17.1 per cent eulogized the CPC and its political leaders; 13.8 per

cent propagated Party policies; 12.1 per cent emphasized the principles of Marxism-

Leninism, communist ideals, and the socialist legal system; and, ®nally, 11.6 per cent

advocated patriotism and socialism. Clearly, this re¯ected the continuing importance

of deyu for the CCP and the ongoing importance of ideological education in the deyu

curriculum. It also suggests that, despite changes in economic policy, the Party

continues to privilege the ideological over the pragmatic.

The political structure of deyu

Owing to the importance of deyu for the reproduction of political ideology, a good deal

of effort is expended to insure relative uniformity of its content and practice. Several

institutional structures are involved in directing this top down standardization, from

the national Ministry of Education to the provincial level and to the schools

themselves. The higher the level the broader and more abstract are the policies,

becoming more detailed and speci®c as they get closer to the individual classroom.

At the national level deyu policy is under the direction of speci®c departments within

the Ministry of Education.7 At the provincial level, establishing general guidelines for

deyu falls to the Propaganda and Education Of®ce (alternatively known as the Moral

Education Of®ce).8 Locally, deyu at the university level is directed by the Social

Science (or Marxism and Leninism) Of®ce and the Committee of the Communist

Youth League. The Moral Education Of®ce and the Organization of the Young

Pioneers provide guidance at the primary and secondary levels.9 Surprisingly, the

result is often a signi®cant range of ¯exibility `on the ground' ± within approved

parameters.

As far as the practice of deyu is concerned, these of®ces of the state designate

curriculum syllabus guidelines and content, establish standards for evaluation and

oversee the development of all teaching materials. All schools and colleges are obliged

454 Li Ping et al.

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to operate under the above-mentioned directives. Through such uniform indoctrin-

ation deyu seeks to ensure that the People share a common political understanding,

that they refrain from getting `off-track' in their thinking, and that the national socio-

political environment remains stable.

There is little doubt that the CPC both directs and monitors the activities of all

Deyu teachers, insisting that they work for the Party above all else. Thus, anyone who

becomes a Deyu teacher must at least appear to conform to that ideology, otherwise

his or her political legitimacy is likely to become suspect.

The ideological aims of deyu are to uphold the guiding role of Marxism, to cultivate

patriotism, collectivism and socialism in the young; to help them develop a proper

political worldview (e.g., of historical and dialectical materialism), a proper moral life

(e.g. against hedonism and materialism), and proper ideological values (e.g. of the

`Five Loves'10 and `The Three Represents'11). These components overlap a good

deal. For example, while the renunciation of hedonism and materialism may be a

moral position, this also has ideological and political rami®cations within socialism.

This ambiguity serves to highlight the integrated nature of deyu and its constituent

parts.

Deyu is currently assigned the tasks of reinforcing student con®dence in the reform

and opening up, stressing the need to modernize; to strengthen their trust in the Party

and the government; to cultivate a pioneering and innovative spirit, to increase their

awareness of the importance of self-reliance, competition, ef®ciency, democracy, the

rule of law, and, ®nally, the need to promote progress in socialist culture and ideology

through vigorous effort.

In summary, deyu's fundamental task in developing a socialist culture lies in

exhorting China's citizens, from generation to generation, to hold lofty ideals, to

behave with moral integrity, to achieve high levels of education, and to exemplify a

strong commitment to social order. Since 1949 socialism has indeed been dominant

in China in social, economic, and political terms. To that extent its successful

reproduction may, in part, be attributable to the relation between the Party and deyu.

An explanation of Chinese traditions of morality and ideology in education

If much of the political structure of deyu sounds cumbersome, even sinister, to the

Western reader, one needs to understand the pre-Revolutionary attitudes and ideas

that inform the distinctly ideological function of moral education in China. From the

very beginning of her civilization China followed what the historian Hou Wailu

describes as the oriental pattern, wherein the nation develops from clans, but stays in

clans (Hou et al., 1957, pp. 6±12). That is to say, that while the clan is the founding

unit of the nation, and the nation is the expansion of clans, the clan is not superseded

or eliminated as a functioning social collectivity; it continues to offer the individual

warmth and protection. Chinese people have long been dependent on the mutuality

inherent in clan relations, and their philosophy and morality have thus been inclined

to reinforce this basic social system.

This is consonant with the traditional structure of the peasant economy. Rather

Deyu as moral education in China 455

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than constituting independent economic agents, peasants belonged to the clan/family,

the patriarch of which bore the obligations and duties for all members, even while he

enjoyed considerable authority over them. Enjoying the bene®ts of group labour,

then, necessitated blood relations. If this society had, instead, emphasized the

individual, conferring on him or her the `right' to hold productive property privately,

and if socioeconomic relations had been in consequence more atomized, then it would

have been impossible for that society to have operated in even the most rudimentary

fashion (Xia, 1992, pp.177±186).

Chinese ethics, then, developed around the right behaviour within a relational

framework which gave rise to analogies between the family and the state (see also the

paper by Wang in this special issue).

There are different ranks of relationship: the relationship between father and son in the

family extending to that between the monarch and his subjects in politics; the `®lial piety'

in the family extending to the ®delity to the monarch in politics; the human relationship,

based on consanguinity, extending to different ranks of relationship between the rulers

and the ruled on the basis of class. (Ma, 1994, p. 10)

Rulers were morally required to rule the country paternalistically, for the immediate

bene®t of the People, and to preserve the system of familial mutual obligation

necessary for political stability. Rulers were to set themselves the highest standards of

personal morality ± the ideal of the wise king ± virtuously administering a country of

virtuous people, who, for their part, were to demonstrate ®lial piety, courteousness,

trustworthiness and righteousness. In this tradition, the stabilizing unity of the

monarch, family and nation are elevated to ethical principles, while the analogies of

monarch and patriarch, liege and son, are rei®ed, and the analogous virtues extend

seamlessly from the father±son relationship to that of monarch±subject. The ruler/

parent must provide and the ruled/children must serve and obey. In this way, Chinese

political sensibility has seen morality as the foundation of politics, drawing little, if

any, distinction between moral and political principles. Conversely, it followed that,

when political stability faltered, the fault could be, and often was, laid at the door of

moral failure, either on the part of the previously faithful people, or on the part of the

once-loving monarch.

It will occasion little surprise, then, that this fusion of the moral and the ideological

has been re¯ected in education. This began with the development of an educational

system espoused by Confucius and Mencius. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC ± 220

AD), Confucianism attained the supreme position in ideology through the cultural

movement known, in its abbreviated form, as, Remove All the Other Schools and

Exclusively Advocate Confucian Principles and continued to dominate Chinese

thinking about moral education for most of the intervening two millennia. Confucian

moral education regarded understanding human relations as the fundamental

principle by which to `strengthen the nation' and subsequently to `rule the world'.

Such was the basic goal of education, and it provided China with a stable value system

and political structure.

The integration of Confucian thinking with an authoritarian political system

imbued Chinese moral education with the following characteristics. First, moral

456 Li Ping et al.

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education served to indoctrinate those with access to that education: the adminis-

trative classes. Secondly, such education served the political interests of the ruling

class, rendering them immune to critical, dissident viewpoints. Who in their `right

mind' for instance, would question a father's love or doubt a son's obligation of

obedience? Third, moral education presented a standardized, universal ethic, which

one only had to learn, rather than devise, and which was shared by all participants in

intellectual and political discourse. In other words, the content of moral education

would always be prescribed, and conformity to its universal precepts would obviate

the need for intellectual and political innovation. From this perspective deyu's fusion

of moral and ideological education is not novel, and is quite consistent with China's

pre-revolutionary past.

Chinese feudal society was exceptionally homogeneous and stable, based, as we

have seen, on a small-scale peasant economy, premised on real and analogous

relationships of patriarchal consanguinity. The founding of the People's Republic of

China sought to allow the labouring majority of the country to become `masters' of

their own affairs, through both politics and law. However, because the inef®cient

feudal economy still existed, the central government had to take control in order to re-

organize productive labour. This contradiction, between the desire to liberate and the

need to control, determined the choices confronting the state at its founding.

Following the revolution of 1949, one early organizational attempt to socialize

labour and move away from feudal relationships was the instigation of the village

communes. It was intended that these would maintain the traditional stability of the

peasantry, while incorporating them into the socialist political-economic structure.

Although the commune or collective replaced the patriarchal clan with its concen-

tration of authority in the family head, the new organization was still an association

where the welfare of the individual visibly depended upon that of the larger collectivity.

The `work unit', the group in which a person labours, is central to a person's identity

and provides one with a salary, medical care, housing and other social welfare. Until 1

October, 2003, people even had to seek permission from their `work unit' in order to

marry.12 Furthermore, although socialist values were different from those of the

paternalistic feudal society, an effort was made to promote the same unity between the

ethical and the ideological that had characterized the Confucian moral order.

As a passing note, it might be said that the dichotomy, mentioned above, which the

Party faced at the dawn of the revolution ± that between the desire to liberate and the

need to control ± may not recede as China changes economic and political directions.

Current economic liberalization may, in fact, exacerbate that contradiction. As

collective forms (analogous to traditional village organization) disappear, the need for

state control may be increased to ensure stability, even as the direction of economic

matters is partially ceded to a business elite. How the Party threads this needle (in

terms of both ideological theory and practice) will have a direct bearing on deyu.

Citizenship Education: the reform and transformation of deyu

During the past 20 or so years China has generally tried to become open to the West

Deyu as moral education in China 457

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economically, culturally and diplomatically. This `opening up' and the advent of a

socialist market economy have shattered the base of the traditional rural society,

making it possible and necessary to transform deyu in fundamental ways. Lu Jie, a

leading contemporary scholar of moral education, has analysed the social changes,

which have arisen as a consequence of the introduction of a consumer-driven market

economy, for a people used to both a planned economy, and to the natural,

mechanical interdependence of the agricultural village.

¼ gradually breaking away from the dependent relationships between people that are

formed by kinship, terrain and the mutually dependent sub-group, they begin to

participate in the market economy ¼ as ¼ independent agents. This is proof that the

market economy gives rise to new kind of human relationship, and carves out a new space

for the development of independent character ¼ Moreover, it is the space for carrying

out contemporary moral education, in which a generation with independent personalities

may be developed. It provides the possibility of cultivating self-determined, liberal,

democratic, equal and fair individuals. (Lu, 2004, p. 74; translated by the authors;

emphasis added)

By focusing on the psycho-social transformations wrought by economic change, Lu

introduces some important points into the discussion. It is, indeed, a noted

characteristic of commodity based exchange (a market economy) that social relations

are minimized (Gregory, 1982). As one pays for an item the relationship between the

vendor and the consumer is ended; it does not carry on in a chain of continued

interaction that would characterize other social formats or exchange systems. Where

one wishes to enhance income by increasing the number of such transactions, the

absence of any residual relationship and the obligations that it might carry are

desirable end results of such a commercial orientation.

On the other hand, as social bonds are weakened the individual can become isolated

and alienated. S/he can fail to see the social links that constitute the very essence of

moral and political questions, as s/he continues to live in a social and political society.

It is at this point that deyu may have a continuing role to play, in assisting the

individual to articulate the nature of personal ties to other people, in order to avoid an

atomization of society, even while permitting and encouraging a greater individuation

in other spheres. What directions have been laid out to this end so far?

In October, 2001 the Central Committee of the CPC issued Program for

Improving Civic Morality (CPC, 2001). This marked the introduction of the concept

of `citizenship' into Chinese political and educational discourse. The Program divided

morality into three categories ± public morality, family virtue and professional ethics ±

supplanting previous considerations of `socialist' or `communist morality'. (These

latter forms of morality, however, are still included in citizenship education as the

highest stage of morality.) As the soul of the educational system and a powerful

ideological tool of the CPC, deyu is being encouraged to shift from ideological

education to citizenship education in order to respond to the challenges of social

change, especially the establishment of a market economy. This is a historical

transformation for deyu, for while deyu has traditionally been charged with a narrow,

limited political education and ideological indoctrination as its main tasks, citizenship

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education aims to emphasize a citizen's independent social position and personality (Li

& Zhong, 2002, p. 68; emphasis added). How this will be played out `on the ground'

largely remains to be seen.

Previous teaching in deyu paid exclusive attention to the obligations that the

individual should carry out for the good of the state and the society, advocating that

individuals should be sel¯ess and loyally willing to serve the People and the Party,

even to the extent of sacri®cing one's life in the line of duty. A good example is the

valorization of the revolutionary martyr, Lei Feng,13 who has been used as a role

model since Chairman Mao Zedong exhorted the nation to `learn from comrade Lei

Feng' on March 5, 1963. Even now, on March 5, designated as the Day of Learning

from Lei Feng, many Chinese, especially students and soldiers, do good deeds, such

as helping older people across the street or repairing bicycles for free, in order to show

their willingness to serve the People.

Citizenship education, on the other hand, aims at balancing these duties by

introducing `rights', obligations owed in turn to the individual citizen. This will also

differ from earlier deyu teaching in that `citizenship' applies to everyone, whereas,

before, those who could live out socialist ideals were accorded privileged moral status.

Though citizenship education still advocates the pursuit of noble communist ideals, it

primarily stresses a more practical, basic, moral code ± for example, the need for

honesty and respect for others. Such changes in the concept of moral education may

signi®cantly weaken the past emphasis on ideology and fundamentally revise the

function, content, and teaching methods of deyu.

However, as a citizen is unavoidably imbued with a sense of responsibility for the

nation, the ideological and political element still exists in citizenship education,

especially when being a citizen means dealing with the relation between the individual

and the state. This will be considered in our concluding discussion below.

Concluding discussion

On the one hand, we can acknowledge that the ideological function of deyu has

historical roots in Chinese intellectual traditions, that it has re¯ected particular

contradictions during certain periods, and that it illuminates a relationship between

politics and education, morality and ideology. We can also concede that the

ideological aspect of deyu has played an important role in preserving the stability of

Chinese society by recognizing the value of the Chinese moral heritage. Yet we also

need to see, ®rst and foremost, that ethics is more than a subdivision of ideology, and

that the personal ought not to be subsumed into or dominated by the political. If we

accept that morality and ideology can be teased apart then it would follow that moral

education ought not to be a simple offshoot of political and cultural indoctrination. If

we are to succeed in Lu's project of creating people who are `self-determined, liberal,

democratic, equal and fair' then we shall need to teach students how to deal with

political and moral issues, rather than giving them pre-set answers to all problems.

We are not saying that the development and propagation of moral and ideological

values occurs in hermetically sealed mental compartments, but there is surely, at least,

Deyu as moral education in China 459

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a difference of scale between interpersonal actions and political actions, which

morality and ideology respectively seek to in¯uence. What we would argue is that

morality must have an increasingly separate space within deyu in which it can develop.

It would not be wholly bad if sometimes morality took the lead, with ideological values

stemming from what is right or wrong on an interpersonal level. Ethics cannot always

be just the small-scale manifestation of the larger, assumedly more important, political

value system.

So, while allowing for overlap, inasmuch as ideology can be distinguished from

morality, so, too, can politics be separated intrinsically from education. At their

simplest, education is there to serve and develop the student, whereas politics serves

and develops the state. Furthermore, politics is characterized by expedient actions,

which are erroneously seen as pragmatic, value-free, and rational. Education, on the

other hand, tends to stress abstractions and the recognition, formation and criticism

of value systems. To take the example of war: while educators may extol the long-term

value of peace, political decision-makers look to effect immediate advantages by

means of military action. To the educator, the political leader in this case looks short-

sighted, while the politician sees the academic as useless and too caught up in high-

minded generalities.

Therefore, while ideology, morality, politics and education may blur into each

other, to disregard the differences between them will potentially result in the sorts of

misfortune that China has seen before. As the uneven course of the history of deyu

indicates, it is, and has been, a formal, instrumental tool for cultivating the con¯ation

of the ideological with the moral in succeeding generations; its curriculum has been

one-sided, and its connections to the CPC overt. During the ten years of the Cultural

Revolution, the Party insisted on clinging dogmatically to certain principles and

programs of action, originally formulated by the authors of classical Marxism for

speci®c situations and sets of historical conditions. As a result of the discrepancy

between the ideology of a too idealistic state and reality, many serious mistakes were

made which caused China to suffer serious setbacks. For the sake of politics,

education and indeed much of national activity, economic and otherwise, was thrown

into turmoil in the Cultural Revolution. During this period, because of its close

connection with the Party (it was virtually `the voice' of the Party), deyu came to be

seen in a negative light. As Zhou (1999) points out, deyu actually found itself in a

position of opposition to education and intellectual activity. Furthermore, political

education, which, as was indicated earlier, was but one of the three original

components of deyu, came to be accorded greater emphasis than the other two.

Consequently, the value of intellectual education came to be acknowledged only in

relation to the degree to which it served politics. In other words, in the terms we have

introduced immediately above, ideology came ®rst and morality was seen to stem

from it.

The Party may be expected to argue that education must serve politics (politics,

after all, is the central task of the Party), but the manner in which the two link up with

each other must remain consistent with fundamental, long-term principles of

education, not the short-term expediencies of political factions. In the Cultural

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Revolution this precondition, unfortunately, was not met (Zhou, 1999, p. 436).

Given that education ground to a halt, as teachers and classes were suspended, it

suggests that those politics were not consistent with any plausible principles of

education.

It is not necessarily a wholly bad thing to present students with ideology in a frank

and direct manner. It ought to be possible, though, to present the logic of a given

ideology or morality in such a way that creative tensions exist between of®cial

positions and other political or moral alternatives. Nor need this tension be

oppositional. If we recall our contention above that deyu can be positioned to help

students develop a sense of social connection in the face of an individualising

consumerism, then many points of view can be incorporated. Students can develop

creative, complementary ideas while remaining fully aware of of®cial ideological and

ethical norms. The resulting synthesis would be theirs, in a personal and meaningful

way, directing their thoughts and actions in the future. On the other hand, continuing

to impose ideas from above may lead to a blanket rejection of any moral or political

code, and the end result could well be an increase in anti-social behaviour, such as

crime and corruption.

Considering all this, deyu must deal cautiously with its relationship to ideology,

the Party and the state. It is vital to place politics, ethics and education in

constructive relationships to each other, enhancing the creative tensions between

them. On the one hand, we should resist further politicizing deyu, thus repeating

the errors of the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand, it might also be a

mistake to unilaterally reduce the established political function of deyu, over-

emphasizing deyu's already relatively independent status. At the same time, we

can certainly exploit the multifunctional nature of deyu and the impact it could have

on the full range of an individual student's development, and allow each person to

explore the interrelated questions of morality and ideology. We can most certainly

urge the further reform of deyu, spurning the one-way indoctrination that provides

Chinese young people with ready-made conclusions, while favouring instead

multilateral communication aimed at offering critical, creative tools to enable

those same young people to live intelligent, feeling and vigorous lives. If deyu can

make this transition, it may prove to be an important component of Chinese

education well into the 21st century.

Notes

1. In Zhongguo putong gaodeng xuexiao deyu dagang (shixing) [Guidelines for deyu in the higher

education system (for trial implementation)] in: People's Republic of China Ministry of

Education Department of Policy Regulations (PRCMOEDPR) (1998), p. 1521, deyu refers

to all of moral, political and ideological education. In Zhongxiaoxue deyu gongzuo guicheng [The

regulation of deyu in primary and secondary schools] in: Liu, 1998, p.1, mental health education is

included in deyu, however, the core of macro-deyu is still moral, political and ideological

education (Huang, 2002, pp. 6±7).

2. For example, in June, 2001, the PRCMOE issued Jichu jiaoyu kecheng gaige gangyao (shixing)

[Guidelines for curricular reforms in basic education (for trial implementation)] in: China Education

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Yearbook Editorial Committee, 2002, p. 781, in which deyu is included as basic, compulsory

education.

3. In the authors' university, the textbook, Sixiang Daode Xiuyang [Cultivation of Ideology and

Morality] (Li, et al., (Eds), 2000), includes seven chapters, plus an introduction. Chapter One,

On Others and Myself, is mainly about human nature, human relations and the principle of

getting along with people. Chapter Two, On Responsibility, discusses the meaning of

responsibility, both in the family and one's career. Chapter Three, On Morality, discusses the

development of moral behaviour, which is the combined result of moral cognition, feeling, will

and belief. `Moral cognition', which provides the ideological base of morality, refers to one's

understanding and mastery of what is moral. `Moral feeling', refers to one's psychological

experience and orientation toward good and evil. `Moral will' refers to one's ability to make

moral judgements when facing moral situations. `Moral belief' refers to one's belief in moral

principles, moral regulations, moral ideals and moral character. Chapter Four, On the Ideal,

addresses the relation between ideals and reality. Chapter Five, On Values, deals with the

de®nition, content and the principles of life values. Chapter Six, On Quality, deals with the

de®nition, structure and the development of human competencies. Chapter Seven, On

Personality, deals with the features of the personality, the structure of a healthy personality

and the development of an ideal personality.

4. The curriculum of political theory has been altered from time to time. In 1980 it was changed

to the `three new courses' (Marxist Philosophy, Political Economy and the History of the

Communist Party of China). In 1998 it was changed to `two principles' and `two

introductions' (The Principles of Marxist Philosophy, The Principles of Marxist Political

Economy, Introduction to Mao Zedong's Thoughts, Introduction to Deng Xiaoping's

Theories).

5. `Three Loves': ®rst, Love for the Motherland refers to being patriotic; secondly, Love for the

Communist Party of China refers to trusting and following the leadership of the CPC; and

thirdly, Love for Socialism, refers to being in agreement with and having con®dence in the

realization of socialism and communism.

6. Such as Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu gaige xuexiao Sixiang Pinde he Zhengzhi Lilun kecheng

jiaoxue de tongzhi [Notice on the reform of the course of Ideology Morality and Political Theory in

schools] in: PRCMOEDPR, 1991, pp. 460±469; Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu gaige he jiaqiang

zhongxiaoxue deyu gongzuo tongzhi [Notice on the reform and enhancement of the work of deyu in

primary and junior high schools] in: ibid, pp. 469±473; and Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu jinyibu

jiaqiang he gaijin xuexiao deyu gongzuo de ruogan yijian [Several notions on further enhancing and

improving the work of deyu in schools] in: PRCMOEDPR, 1998, pp. 1496±1497.

7. Department of Social Science and Political Ideology and the Moral Education Of®ce of the

Department of Primary/Secondary Education.

8. This of®ce is answerable to both the provincial Department of Education (which has an

academic function) and the Party Committee and Administration (which has a political

function).

9. The Committee of the Communist Youth League applies to secondary education (junior high

school and senior high school) and the Organization of the Youth Pioneers applies to primary

schools.

10. `The Five Loves' are articulated in this quote, from the Constitution, `The state advocates the

civic virtues of love of the motherland, of the people, of labour, of science and socialism. It

conducts education among the people in patriotism and collectivism, in internationalism and

communism and in dialectical and historical materialism, to combat capitalist, feudal and

other decadent ideas.' (PRC, 2001, p. 28).

11. The phrase `The Three Represents' refers to representation in the sense of advocacy, as in

legal or political representation. `Evaluating the 70 years of the CPC, one can conclude that

the party won popular support because it has always represented three things: the

developmental demands of China's advanced stage of productivity, the forward movement

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of the advanced stage of Chinese culture, and the interests of the broadest segment of China's

population. Through revolution, construction and reforms, the Party has worked for the

fundamental interests of the country and the people ¼' (Jiang, 2001, p.1, translated by the

authors).

12. On 11 November, 1980, the Department of Civil Administration issued Marriage

Registration Procedures, saying that individuals were obliged to obtain a certi®cate for

marriage from the `work unit' (PRC. Department of Civil Administration, 2003, p. 145).

That rule remained in force until October 1, 2003, when the State Department issued

Marriage Registration By-laws (PRC. State Department, 2003, p.16).

13. Lei Feng was a nine-year-old orphan when his province was liberated by communist forces.

The Communist Party fed, clothed and educated him, as his family could not. He returned

the favour by offering unquestioning loyalty to the Party and by becoming diligent, hard-

working, self-effacing, and willing to serve the People and the Party, even to the point of

sacri®cing his life in the line of duty (see Reed, 1995, 1996).

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