Confucian Education and Utopianism: The Classics-reading Movement and its Potential for Social Change

ABSTRACT: China’s contemporary classics-reading movement (dujing yundong) has grown significantly since its emergence in the 2000s but remains little researched and is so far only known as part of the revival of Confucianism on the popular level. This study, based on ethnographic field research in ten Chinese cities, discusses the movement’s character under the lens of the grounded utopian movement theory and combines this with the civil sphere theory to exhibit the movement’s potential for social change under China’s specific sociopolitical conditions. While activists hope that reciting and memorising Confucian classics will cultivate virtuous individuals (junzi) who will change Chinese society from the bottom up, this study shows that involved parents, teachers, and headmasters have greater potential to bring about social change. The space to induce change, however, is fragile. KEYWORDS: civil sphere theory, Confucian education, classics-reading education, classics-reading movement, grounded utopian movements, utopianism, social change.