Confucianism, Modernities and Knowledge: China, South Korea and Japan

Abstract

This chapter offers a critique of the Confucian legacies in East Asian modernities, knowledge and pedagogies. Specifi c examples are drawn from China, Korea and Japan for comparative analysis. The three countries in East Asia have all experienced the historical repetitions of discarding and then reviving the Confucian legacy at different times of modernisation. However, they all have kept the strong Confucian pedagogic culture, which frames the ways in which knowledge is transmitted and applied to defi ne modernities in East Asia. Confucianism has a huge continuity – although it has been travelling widely and rewritten over time. There have been various East Asian historiographies, writing and rewriting the Confucian legacy in East Asian modernisation since the late nineteenth century. Scholars attributed the lack of development in East Asia to that tradition initially, before more recently attributing the success of these countries to the same tradition (Bellah, 1957, 1968; Eisenstadt, 1968; Morishima, 1982; Weede, 1996; Bell & Hahm, 2003). In other words, Confucianism has been used to account for both the failure and suc-cess of modernisations in East Asia over time. Confucianism used to be condemned as a major cause for the economic stagnation of East Asian countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and then started to be praised as a major constituent in the belated but rapid economic take-off and sustained industrialisation process in Japan fi rst, whose path was followed by Overall, Confucianism has been a frame of reference to explain East Asia as if the legacy of Confucianism is the key to understand the commonality of the East Asian enigma of late development and fast modernisation. The Confucian paternal-istic modalities of family and social relations (Bell & Hahm, 2003), and the public signifi cance of educational credentials in training and selecting the governing elite, Mandarin cadre (Zeng, 1999; Wilkinson, 1964, 1969) have been acknowledged as a chronic attribute to both the retardation and remarkable success in economic develop-ment in East Asia (Woo-Cumings, 1999). Although interpretations of Confucianism have been written at different times in both positive and negative ways, it is argued that what has not changed is the acknowledgement of Confucian " pedagogic " attributes to East Asian education and societies. The pedagogic 857 R. Cowen and A. M. Kazamias (eds.), International Handbook of Comparative Education, 857–872. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009 858 Kim attributes of Confucianism such as fi lial piety and patriarchal authority can be identifi ed broadly in the characteristics of Confucian political and social relations sustained in the extended family-like " network institutionalism " (Ansell, 2006), which generates inter-dependence, mutual obligation and reciprocity, and strictly hierarchical social relations according to age, gender and status. However, these characteristics may be identifi ed also as the common attributes of non-Western, and/or 'traditional' societies. What is regarded as uniquely Confucian is the East Asian 'secularism' and 'meri-tocracy' epitomised in the tradition of exam-oriented schooling and the exam-based selection of the civil servants in East Asia. The state's control over school curriculum and other facets of schooling and selection processes in East Asian countries in order to guarantee the merit-based equality of educational opportunity, in principle, can be regarded as a particular attribute of the Confucian pedagogic tradition. Whether this proposition is true or not in practice, and how the Confucian pedagogic elements are sustained or distorted in the contemporary real-life contexts in China, South Korea and Japan will be examined. Accordingly, the chapter is organised in the following thematic order: (i) Confucian concept of modernity; (ii) the nature of knowledge and education in Confucianism; (iii) East Asian modernisation and the attributes of Confucianism; (iv) East Asian pedagogic commonality as the attribute of Confucianism; (v) Confucian impact on educational mobility in the twenty-fi rst-century global knowledge economy and migration. The conclusion of the chapter will discuss a way forward by discussing Confucian pedagogy as dogma in the postcolonial discourse of Orientalism. A very basic question is raised fi rst: what is 'Confucian'?