http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
modernizing childhood for cosmopolitan nationalists and liberated comrades, 1920s-1950s
Focuses on how childhood was reconstructed in China, and how children were cared for in new ways, from the early Republican period through the first decade of the PRC. During this time, reformers tried to "modernize" childhood, using a scientific rationale to justify increased intervention in family life, and leverage it as a fulcrum for social and political change in the country. The Chinese state eventually usurped the authority of these reformers and increased government involvement in child welfare and family life. While some opposed the state using childhood as a tool for economic modernization and political control, child advocates saw China's national salvation project as consistent with their efforts to safeguard children's "happiness." The book therefore shows that this "sentimentalization" of childhood could serve multiple purposes, academic scholarship, economic modernization and political diplomacy.
Introduction -- Child study in Chinese kindergartens : Chen Heqin's approach to "family education" -- Cherishing children : The National Child Welfare Association in the Nanjing decade, 1928-1937 -- The calculus of child welfare : the democratizing fundraising for Shanghai, 1937-1942 -- Wartime paternalisms : mobilizing child advocacy for the state -- Contested service : building a national social welfare program in the Civil War, 1945-1949 -- The reeducation of child experts : Chen Heqin as a model of self-criticism -- Women's mobilization and childcare for the masses : new visions for collective childcare in the 1950s -- Conclusion.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University