{"product_id":"being-modern-in-china-a-western-cultural-analysis-of-modernity-tradition-and-schooling-in-china-today-hardback-9781509538300","title":"Being Modern in China; A Western Cultural Analysis of Modernity, Tradition and Schooling in China Today (Hardback) 9781509538300","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eBeing Modern in China\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eA Western Cultural Analysis of Modernity, Tradition and Schooling in China Today\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003ePaul Willis (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781509538300, Polity Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 4 October 2019\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e240 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.454 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Written in a lucid and witty style, Paul Willis’s book provides a uniquely penetrating lens to scrutinize the deeply held meanings and cultural nuances in China’s relentless pursuit of modernity. A landmark contribution to China studies as well as the sociology of education.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eYunxiang Yan, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, and author of \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Individualization of Chinese Society\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Paul Willis is a wonderful guide in surveying China’s jarring juxtapositions. His analysis of the ideological imbrication of communism, consumerism and Confucianism, and his close attention to the feelings of shame, stress and guilt experienced by the losers of China’s new rat race, are particularly insightful.’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eShehzad Nadeem, City University of New York\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e“definitely worth reading”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMichael W. Apple, Beijing Normal University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Experimenting to break the boundary between academic and popular writing, Willis’ account of his China experience, with its poetic and forceful prose, is a great pleasure to read.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eChina Review International\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Willis has produced a work which deserves the wide readership that he was aiming for.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eJournal of International and Comparative Education\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"The book is riveting and bristles with profound insights about contemporary China that leaves the reader in awe of Willis’s brilliant scholarship.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAmerican Journal of Sociology\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book analyses modernity and tradition in China today and how they combine in striking ways in the Chinese school. Paul Willis – the leading ethnographer and author of \u003ci\u003eLearning to Labour\u003c\/i\u003e – shows how China has undergone an internal migration not only of masses of workers but also of a mental and ideological kind to new cultural landscapes of meaning, which include worship of the glorified city, devotion to consumerism, and fixation upon the smartphone and the internet. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMassive educational expansion has been a precondition for explosive economic growth and technical development, but at the same time the school provides a cultural stage for personal and collective experience. In its closed walls and the inescapability of its ‘scores’, an astonishing drama plays out between the new and the old, with a tapestry of intricate human meanings woven of small tragedies and triumphs, secret promises and felt betrayals, helping to produce not only exam results but cultural orientations and occupational destinies. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBy exploring the cultural dimension of everyday experience as it is lived out in the school, this book sheds new light on the enormous transformations that have swept through China and created the kind of society that it is today: a society that is obsessed with the future and at the same time structured by and in continuous dialogue with its past.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eAcknowledgements\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Preface\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Introduction and Theoretical Groundings\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The Chinese Scene\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Part I    Modernity’s Symbolic Order\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 1          Country Bad\/City Good\u003cbr\u003e 2          Consuming Consumerism\u003cbr\u003e 3          The Internet as Deus Ex Machina\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Part II Education’s Symbolic Order\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 4          The GaoKao Regime\u003cbr\u003e 5          The Three Arrows and Experience\u003cbr\u003e 6          ‘People is the Fish’\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Part III The View from the Saved\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 7          Passing GaoKao\u003cbr\u003e 8          Not Passing GaoKao\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Part IV Closing Portraits\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 9          ‘Chen’\u003cbr\u003e 10        ‘My Own Song’\u003cbr\u003e 11        A Country Trip\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Orders of Experience\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eSubject Areas: Society \u0026amp; culture: general [\u003ca title=\"See our other books on Society \u0026amp; culture: general\" href=\"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/search?q=%22Society%20\u0026amp;%20culture:%20general%20%5BJF%5D%22\"\u003eJF\u003c\/a\u003e]\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Polity","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52441801392408,"sku":"9781509538300","price":45.78,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/2037\/5320\/files\/9781509538300.jpg?v=1785026109","url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/being-modern-in-china-a-western-cultural-analysis-of-modernity-tradition-and-schooling-in-china-today-hardback-9781509538300","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}