How to deal with the relationship between tradition and modernity has become a global concern under the impact of pluralism. This book explores the relationship between traditional Dai culture and modern school education through a field study in the Dai region of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China.
Hui Chen, PhD in Education, Associate Professor, is a full- time researcher at the Center for Studies of Education and Psychology of Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China of Southwest University, a key research base of humanities and social sciences of the Ministry of Education. She used to be a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Education of Beijing Normal University. Her main research areas are ethnic education issues and basic education theory. She has published nearly fifty academic papers and three academic books; She has presided over two projects of the National Social Science Foundation of China, one project of the Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, and three research projects funded by the provincial government.
"This book identifies cultural and pedagical issues that emerge in the gradual integration of a Chinese minority into modernization. The reader is treated to a detailed description of the Buddhist Dai people juggling indigenous, honored, culture, religion, and pedagogy with the implacable movement of modernization. This transition and its difficulties is pertinent to all the countries of the world which address multiculturalism."
Carl Ratner, Adjunct professor of psychology in the doctoral program, Autonomous University of Morelos, Mexico.
"A pair of cultural contradictions: tradition and modernity, lies in front of all humans. How to solve it is not only a theoretical but also a practical issue. Chen Hui's book has laid a solid cultural foundation for the development of the Xishuangbanna Dai people by studying on their tradition through monastic education and their modernity through school education, thus forming a symbiotic and complementary structure."
Zhang Shiya, Center for Studies of Education and Psychology of Ethnic Minorities In Southwest China, Southwest University, China