Educational Modernisation Across the Taiwan Straits: Pedagogical Transformation in Primary School Moral Education Textbooks in the PRC and Taiwan

Abstract

Chinese education was for millennia been based on memorization of texts and teacher- centered instruction. However, new primary school moral education texts produced in the past decade in both the PRC and Taiwan are based on a radically different pedagogy with students as the focus and as personally involved in their education through research, analysis of findings, and active classroom participation. Moreover, their education extends beyond acquiring knowledge and includes confidence building, social skills and emotional problem solving. The major questions are the extent to which this new pedagogy will be followed and be extended to other subjects and into middle school.