Childhood in China

This perceptive volume gives a detailed account of Chinese children at home and at school. Recently, thirteen American experts in child development visited China under the sponsorship of the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China (supported by the National Academy of Sciences, the Social Science Research Council, and the American Council of Learned Societies). They observed and interviewed children, teachers, educational administrators, and parents in twenty-eight schools throughout China. William Kessen, chairman of the delegation, has organized the notes and reports into one cohesive account. This comprehensive volume establishes a foundation on which future research about children in contemporary China can be built.

The book traces the development of children in the family, in nurseries, in kindergartens, in primary schools, and in middle schools. The authors report their observations on formal curriculum, social and personality development, teaching practices, and on patterns of the child’s interactions with peers and adults.

The mosaic that emerges from this book is filled with the kind of detail that only people who are trained in observing children can offer. The contributors are successful in understanding and communicating what it must be like to be a child growing up in the People’s Republic of China.