Abstract

Info

Title:: An Atypical Top-down Pattern: Three Recurrences in the Establishment of an Integral System of Modern Schools in China

Keywords:: integral system of modern school; top-down pattern; bottom-up pattern; atypical top-down pattern; modernization of Chinese education

Abstract:: As a rule, the establishment of the integral system of modern schools follows two routes: the top-down and the bottom-up ones. The top-down pattern means that the higher education system is established prior to that of secondary schools, which in return, is set up before the primary school system, as is exemplified by the practice of European countries. Meanwhile, the bottom-up pattern is in a reverse order of the top-down one, which is illustrated by the pattern of the United States. However, the establishment of Chinese modern school system follows neither the top-down pattern nor the bottom-up one, but belongs to an atypical top-down one, which means that the school system of higher education is established in advance of the primary one and the latter in priority to that of the secondary school. The process of establishing Chinese modern integral school system in this way lasted for about one hundred and forty years, that is, from the foundation of the Imperial Tung Wen College to the end of the twentieth century, during which the atypical top-down pattern recurred three times: the first was between the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican Period, the second in the 1950s and 60s and the last one in the 1980s and 90s, and the integral system of Chinese modern school was not completely established until the last recurrence in the late 20th century.