THE RHETORIC AND REALITY OF MASS EDUCATION IN MAO’S CHINA

This text compiles exhaustive, newly acquired evidence from multiple sources and evaluates its reliability in order to draw a picture of education as experienced by the people, benefiting from direct observations by contemporaries and participants, triangulating national with provincial data, and enriched by qualitative historical material. A strength of this work lies in its ability to move through a variety of conceptual frameworks including international development theory, rational choice theory, Chinese politics and history, educational reproduction and organizational theory. The text draws out the relationship between ideology, policy, implementation, socio-economic incentives, and the demand for education among the people. The differences experienced by rural versus urban populations and under the radical-egalitarian and moderate labor resources policies are highlighted. After decades of struggle around ideology, structures, intellectuals and the content of education, some years to the point of violence, overall literacy among the masses increased only a little. These findings point to the necessity to question official claims for mass basic education in Mao’s China, and to review the role of culture and socio-economic context in international development education.