Most of the material in this unit came from lectures given at Beijing Normal University by Professors Shen Shi-han and Gao Qi and from notes I took during the brief introductions given at some of the ten schools and institutions I visited in China.
Probably the most comprehensive and readable book about China is John K. Fairbank’s
The United States and China
, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Fourth Revised Ed., 1979.
B. Michael Frolic.
Mao’s People: Sixteen Portraits of Life in Revolutionary China
, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. Very nice for both students and teachers—16 short vignettes, gives reader some insights into what life is like in China now and some concerns of individuals interviewed.
William Kessen, ed.
Childhood in China
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974. Based on interviews with children, teachers, administrators and parents conducted in 1973.
Ministry of Education,
Education in China
. Education in China Group, Beijing, 1981. A book given to me by the Ministry of Education, filled with charts, tables and beautiful photographs of the students in Chinese schools.
There are many magazine articles that students and teachers may enjoy. Two in particular are
National Geographic
’s June 1981 issue “Two Years Teaching in China,” and the
New Yorker
series beginning on May 10, 1982 by John Hersey.
Both the audio-visual department in the City of New Haven and the East Asian Resources Center at Yale University on Trumbull Street have films and filmstrip sets on China.