Parents as Critical Individuals: Confucian Education Revival from the Perspective of Chinese Individualisation

This article uses the theory of Chinese individualisation to understand the Confucian education revival by focusing on the rise of parents as critical individuals and a case study of one Confucian private school. Drawing on interview data from parental activists who enrol their children in the study of Confucian classics, this article presents the disembedding actions taken to break attachments to state schools and the paradoxical return to institutional safety. It finds that these parents exhibit ambivalence towards the state education system, and that family relationships affect individual parents’ decisions about Confucian education. Furthermore, this study discusses the implications of the individualisation dynamics for Confucian revival in reference to the reflexive conditions of modernity.