中華民國時期 兒童公育論의 變化- 아나키즘, 국가주의, 여성문제 -

Abstract

Reformers and revolutionaries in early twentieth century China advocated for a system of “communal child rearing”(儿童公育) that assigned primary responsibility for child rearing to society and community rather than individual parents. This article discusses the idea of communal child rearing, how it changed over time, and how these debates have reverberated in post-1949 policy debates. Revolutionary anarchists in the 1900s believed communal child rearing could dismantle the hierarchical relationship between parent and child and thus would play a crucial role in their project to overthrow the existing social order and create of a more egalitarian society. In the 1920s, starting from 1919 to be exact, communal child rearing became a focal point of debate for social reform. Those who advocated for the program were radicals who also supported women’s liberation and criticized private property and family as an embodiment of traditional values. Newspaper articles published around and after this time show how their contemporaries understood communal child rearing as a necessary condition for women’s economic independence. However, the debates in the 1910s and 20s differed from those in the 1900s in terms of their utilization of scientific knowledge. Whereas radicals in the 1900s advanced their ideas based on revolutionary idealism, the 1910s and 20s groups (on both sides of the debate) grounded their arguments in the social scientific discourses of early child education and psychology. In the 1930s, nationalists gained more ground and argued for communal child rearing for the sake of the nation. While nationalists’ views on child rearing drastically differed from the anarchists and other radicals of earlier periods, they continued to support the feminist claim that communal child rearing was crucial for women’s economic activities and social participation. The wartime conditions in China from the mid-1930s also contributed to the increase of public child rearing facilities for war orphans. Public child care in wartime China owed much to the desperate material conditions of women and children. These policies prioritizing the needs of working women and children continued after 1949 and served as the basis of institutionalized child care facilities in the early years of the People’s Republic of China.