Human Rights Education in China (eBook)

Weihong Liang has been a visiting researcher at the Department of Education and Psychology, Free University of Berlin, Germany, funded by the DAAD research grants. Previously, she received master's degree in moral and citizenship education from the Beijing Normal University, and a PhD in policy, administration, and social sciences education from the University of Hong Kong. Her main research areas include education and social change, moral and citizenship education, as well as human rights education from global and comparative perspectives. She has rich experience in collecting and analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data. Her work has been published in the peer-reviewed journals, such as Theory and Research of Social Education, Journal of Moral Education, Prospects, and as book chapters. Recently, she is working on the topic of economic citizenship and education in a global framework. 

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The book provides new research highlighting perspectives, perceptions, and practices regarding human rights and human rights education in China. It traces the emergence and evolution of the human rights conception and human rights education from comparative perspectives. China's deeply embedded philosophical and cultural traditions shed light on its ideas of human rights and human rights education. The efforts to construct an independent and strong nation-state since the mid-to-late nineteenth century fashioned the Chinese thinking of rights and citizenship, and the reciprocal relation between the individual and community/state.With the help of collected data, the book unpacks that the goal-making and content-selection of human rights education in China rely heavily on the provisions given by central authorities; however, the practices have different facets depends on how the people perceive and respond those requirements in the school and classroom contexts. The book concludes by explaining the human rights education in China as a socialization project for citizenship-making, and suggests that China's doctrine on human rights and human rights education is closely associated with cultural relativization and social construction.Though China is just beginning to develop human rights education in its education systems, this study suggests possible direction for future research. How to live with human rights should be included further in schooling, especially how to infuse human rights education into all aspects of school day-to-day life.