Cultural Transformation of Educational Discourse in China: Perspectives of Multiculturalism/Interculturalism

Abstract

A better understanding of multiculturalism in the Chinese education should at least involve three levels of investigation: the indigenous tradition and particularity of Chinese education; the history of the present as the result of cultural interaction and transformation; and the discursive currents where contemporary educational policies and practices are located. This paper explores the three issues of multiculturalism both in contemporary China, and in its indigenous tradition. By presenting the unique way of understanding multiculturalism in Chinese educational tradition, particularly, Confucian pedagogy, we attempt to evoke a Chinese way of understanding multiculturalism in education. Meanwhile we will investigate how this tradition has been culturally transformed ever since China encountered the western modernity. The theme of multiculturalism presented and developed in this chapter is over two major concerns: the intercultural relations between China and the globalized world (mainly the West), and the promotion of cultural diversity and plurality within China, both in the context of education. Foucault (1970, 1972) articulates the episteme as a model for a way inquiry or learning of knowledge is ordered, and ties different models of episteme to different epochs of language use in term of discourse. In this chapter, different visions of multicultural education in China will be presented in the analysis of its discourse periodically emerged in terms of multicultural episteme. By doing so, we meanwhile offer a discourse approach to the inquiry of multicultural pedagogy.