The study, which is supported by the Spencer Foundation, draws on textbooks analysis and interviews with middle school students (Grades 10-12) in Shanghai and Henan. Its results would deepen our understanding of the political goals of Chinese education, and supply empirical evidence regarding the implementation process of the Chinese government's Patriotic Education campaign and its effects on the attitudes of Han Chinese youth of different backgrounds.

https://scholars.huji.ac.il/ornanaftali/home

 

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Orna Naftali – Dept. Website – Research Projects

 

New personal website

 

Current Research Projects

Education, Nationalism and Youth Militarization in the PRC (1949-present)

Drawing on Chinese-language government, media, and educational sources, the
project explores the promotion of military values and techniques in Chinese schools
of the 2010s, while highlighting the intersection between the militarization of youth
education and culture and the construction of national identity, masculinity, and
femininity in the PRC. While the focus is on contemporary China, the study
investigates breaks and continuities in the militarization of Chinese education since
1949. It further explores key similarities between PRC militarization processes and
the militarization of youth education worldwide. Drawing on the results of recent field
interviews with high school students of various socioeconomic backgrounds in China,
the project further examines youth perceptions of the messages they receive via
school and the media, and their personal attitudes toward war, peace, and the military.

 

Recent Research Projects

War and the Military in Contemporary Chinese Education

Since the 1990s, the Chinese government has implemented an extensive Patriotic
Education campaign in the military, government organizations, mass media, public
sites, and most noticeably, in the nation's schools. Launched shortly after the
Tiananmen Incident, the campaign has sought to foster the spirit of "love for the
nation" and "love for the army" among students while helping them imbibe "national
defense values" and "acquire the ability to resist foreign invasion." To date, however,
we have no systematic study on how Chinese schools present the concept of war to
students or how students respond to these school messages. The project addresses this
gap. Drawing on interviews with high school students and educators in a rural and
urban area, the study examines the effects of the Patriotic Education and National
Defense Education programs on Chinese youth notions of the military and armed
conflict.
(Sponsored by a Spencer Foundation research grant, 2016-2019)

 

Education and the Formation of National Identity in China

In the past two decades or so, China has witnessed a significant rise in public
expressions of nationalist sentiment, particularly among young people. Some studies
suggest that this phenomenon does not reflect genuine popular feelings, but rather was
orchestrated by the Chinese state through a "patriotic education” campaign waged in
schools and the mass media since the early 1990s. Drawing on an analysis of school
textbooks, official documents, and media materials, as well as data from written
surveys and in-depth interviews with students and teachers in vocational and
academic high schools in an urban and rural location in China, the study sought to
evaluate this thesis by exploring the effects of schooling and the Chinese
government's "patriotic education" campaign on the construction and interpretation of
national identities among Han Chinese youths of different locales and socioeconomic
backgrounds.
(Sponsored by Israel Science Foundation [ISF] Grant No. 405/12) 

 

Major Recent Publications

 

Journal articles & chapters in edited volumes

• Naftali, Orna. 2022. "Law Does Not Come Down From Heaven" Youth Legal Socialisation Approaches in Chinese Textbooks of the Xi Jinping Era.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 51(2): 265–291.
• Naftali, Orna. 2021. "Celebrating Violence? Children, Youth, and War Education in Maoist China (1949-76)". Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 14 (2): 254-273.
• Naftali, Orna. 2021."Being Chinese Means Becoming Cheap Labour "Education, National Belonging, and Social Positionality among Youth in Contemporary China" The China Quarterly 245: 51–71.  
• Naftali, Orna. 2020. "Youth Military Training in China: Learning to Love the Army". Journal of Youth Studies. Published Online first, pp. 1-19.
• Naftali, Orna. 2020. "Life is Wonderful because of the Military: PLA Recruitment Campaigns in Contemporary China". In Brendan Maartens and Tom Bivins (eds.). Propaganda and Public Relations in Military Recruitment: Promoting Military Service in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Pp. 178-191. London: Routledge.

 

Previous Major Publications

Books

• Naftali, Orna. 2016. Children in China (China Today Series). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Naftali, Orna. 2014. Children, Rights, and Modernity in China: Raising Self- Governing Citizens (Studies in Childhood and Youth). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan

Journal articles & chapters in edited volumes

• Naftali, Orna. 2019. "Rights of Children and Youth in China: Protection, Provision, and Participation". In Sarah Biddulph and Joshua Rosenzweig (eds.). Handbook on Human Rights in China. Pp. 273-99. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar 
• Naftali, Orna. 2018. "These War Dramas are like Cartoons: Education, Media Consumption, and Chinese Youth Attitudes towards Japan" Journal of Contemporary China 27 (113): 703-718
• Naftali, Orna. 2014. "Chinese Childhood in Conflict: Children, Gender, and Violence in China of the Cultural Revolution, Period (1966-76)." Oriens Extremus 53: 85-110
• Naftali, Orna. 2014. "Marketing War and the Military to Children and Youth in China: Little Red Soldiers in the Digital Age." China Information: A Journal on Contemporary China Studies 28 (1): 3-25