Youth in Chinese History
A bibliography
This introductory bibliography has been curated by members of the Youth in Chinese History research group, who suggested pertinent secondary studies focusing on the central theme of our project—education and the representation of youth and children in China during the imperial and early republican periods. The project coordinators extend their sincere gratitude to all who contributed to the selection of these texts, providing a valuable resource for those exploring this subject.
Recognising its inherent partiality, the bibliography remains open to amplification. If you have additional titles or suggestions to enhance its comprehensiveness, please contact us at info@youthinchinesehistory.com.
Bai, Limin. “Children as the Youthful Hope of an Old Empire: Race, Nationalism, and Elementary Education in China, 1895–1915.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1 (2), 2008: 210–231.
Bai, Limin. “Children at Play: A Childhood beyond the Confucian Shadow.” Childhood 12 (1), 2005: 9–32.
Bai, Limin. “The 1911 Revolution and the Early-Republican Textbooks: A Historical Perspective.” China Cross Currents8 (3), 2010: 9-19.
Bai, Limin. “The Impact of the 1894–95 Sino-Japanese War on Japanese and Chinese Textbooks: A Comparative Analysis.” In Textbooks and War, edited by Eugenia Roldán Vera and Eckhardt Fuchs, 97–120. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Bai, Limin. Fusion of East and West: Children, Education, and a New China, 1902-1915. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
Bai, Limin. Shaping the Ideal Child: Children and Their Primers in Late Imperial China. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2005.
Bailey, Paul J. Gender and Education in China. Gender Discourses and Women’s Schooling in the Early Twentieth Century. Routledge, 2012.
Barnhart, Richard, and Catherine Barnhart. “Images of Children in Song Painting and Poetry.” In Children in Chinese Art, ed. by Ann Elizabeth Barrott Wicks, 31-56. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i, 2002.
Barrott Wicks, Ann (ed.) Children in Chinese Art. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002.
Borthwick, Sally. Education and Social Change in China. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1983.
Cai, Danni. “Power, Politeness, and Print: Children’s Letter Writing in Republican China.” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 13 (1), 2020: 38–62.
Chen, Hsiu-fen 陳秀芬. “Nourishing Life, Cultivation and Material Culture in the Late Ming: Some Thoughts on Zunsheng bajian 遵生八牋 (Eight Discourses on Respecting Life, 1591).” Asian Medicine 4 (2008): 29–45.
Chen, Shih-Wen Sue. Children’s Literature and Transnational Knowledge in Modern China: Education, Religion, and Childhood. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Clart, Philip. “The Mingxin Baojian 明心寶鑑 (Precious Mirror for Enlightening The Mind) and Its Transmission in The West.” Ming-Qing yilai shanshu congbian (chuji) 明清以來善書叢編: 初輯, vol. 1, edited by Wang Chien-chuan 王見川, Philip Clart 柯若樸, Hou Chong 侯沖, and Fan Chunwu 范純武, , 13-29. Taipei: Xinwenfeng, 2018: 13–29.
Cong, Xiaoping. Teachers’ Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State, 1897-1937. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011.
Deng, Kent. “Fact or Fiction? Re-examination of Chinese Premodern Population Statistics.” Economic History Working Papers 76.3. Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, 2003. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22353/1/wp76.pdf.
De Nigris, Ornella. “L’umanesimo nella rappresentazione dei bambini di Feng Zikai” (Humanism in the Representation of Children by Feng Zikai). In Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature), edited by Giulia Falato and Renata Vinci. Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021, 76–90. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/25_de_nigris_76-90.pdf
Duiker, William J. Ts’ai Yuan-P’ei: Educator of Modern China. University Park: Penn State Press, 1977.
Elman, Benjamin A, and Alexander Woodside. Education and Society in Late Imperial China, 1600-1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Englert, Siegfried. “Die Kinderreime des Lü Te-sheng und seines Sohnes Lü K’un” [The Nursery Rhymes of Lü Te-sheng and His Son Lü K‘un]. In Ganz allmählich: Aufsätze zur ostasiatischen Literatur, insbesondere zur chinesischen Lyrik, ed. Roderich Ptak and Siegfried Englert, 66-78. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Verlagsanstalt, 1986.
Falato, Giulia. Alfonso Vagnone’s Tongyou Jiaoyu (On the Education of Children, C. 1632): The Earliest Encounter Between Chinese and European Pedagogy. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
Falato, Giulia. “Spazi, ruoli e precetti dell’istruzione giovanile nella Cina del primo periodo imperiale” (Spaces, roles and precepts of youth education in early imperial China). In Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature), edited by Giulia Falato and Renata Vinci. Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021, 8–18. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/25_falato_8-18.pdf.
Falato, Giulia and Renata Vinci (eds.). Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature). Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/catai_25_x_sito.pdf.
Farquhar, Mary Ann. Children’s Literature in China. From Lu Xun to Mao Zedong. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.
Franz, Rainer von. “Tang-Epitaphe über Jugendliche” [Tang Epitaphs on Youths]. Saeculum (Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte) 55.2 (2004), 225-235.
Frei, Elisa. “La gioventù nella Cina di Daniello Bartoli (1663)” (Youth in the China of Daniello Bartoli (1663)). In Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature), edited by Giulia Falato and Renata Vinci. Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021, 31–42. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/25_frei_31-42.pdf.
Gao Fan 高帆. “Zhongguo gudai ertong shi qiantan” 中國古代兒童詩淺探. Dongbei shida xuebao 東北師大學報 3 (1996), 66-71.
Hayhoe, Ruth. Education and Modernization: The Chinese Experience. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1992.
Hecht, Tobias. Minor Omissions: Children in Latin American History and Society. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
Horn, Pamela. Children’s Work and Welfare, 1780-1890. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Hsiung, Ping-chen. “Erh-t’ung wen-hsüeh 兒童文學.” In The Indiana Companion to Chinese Traditional Literature, Vol. 2, ed. William H. Nienhauser, 31-38. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1998 [NTaibei: Nantian, 2003].
Hsiung, Ping-chen, Heike Frick (transl.). “Konzepte von Kindheit im traditionellen China” [Concepts of Childhood in Traditional China]. In „Die Befreiung der Kinder“: Konzepte von Kindheit im China der Republikzeit, eds. Heike Frick, Mechtild Leutner and Nicola Spakowski, 21-34. Berliner China-Studien; 34. Hamburg: Lit, 1999.
Hsiung, Ping-chen. A Tender Voyage: Children and Childhood in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University, 2005.
Hu Wenting 胡文婷, Zhang Xiping 张西平. “Mengxue jingdian Mingxin baojian de Ladingyu yiben chutan” 蒙学经典《明心宝鉴》的拉丁语译本初探, (A Preliminary Study on the Latin Translation of the Mongolian School Classic “Ming Xin Bao Jian”). Zhongguo fanyi 中国翻译 (Chinese Translators Journal) 4, 2022: 38–44.
Hunt, David. Parents and Children in History: The Psychology of Family Life in Early Modern France. New York: Basic Books, 1970.
Jones, Andrew F. Developmental Fairy Tales. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies 2 (Youth), 2021, https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/jeacs/issue/view/546/176.
Lettere, Laura. “L’infanzia come discorso controculturale: dal Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra al Chan” (Childhood as a counter-cultural discourse: from the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra to Chan). In Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature), edited by Giulia Falato and Renata Vinci. Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021, 19–30. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/25_lettere_19-30.pdf.
Kenney, Anne B. (ed.). Chinese Views of Childhood. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.
Lee, Thomas. H.C. Education in Traditional China: A History. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Lee, Wong Yin. “Women’s Education in Traditional and Modern China.” Women’s History Review 4 (3): 345–67.
Leung, Angela Ki Che. “Elementary Education in the Lower Yangtze Region in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”. Education and Society in Late Imperial China, 1600–1900, Ed. by Benjamin A. Elman and Alexander Woodside, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994: 381–416.
Lidén, Johanna. “Charitable Schools as a Social Welfare Project in the Ming Dynasty.” Ming Qing Yanjiu 26 (1), 2022: 1-29.
Linck, Gudula. “Der Jadestein, der noch geschliffen werden muss – Zur Sozialgeschichte des Kindes in der chinesischen Kaiserzeit” [The Jade Stone That Still Has To Be Cut – On the Social History of the Child in the Chinese Imperial Era]. In Zur Sozialgeschichte der Kindheit, ed. Jochen Martin and August Nitschke, 75-111. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Historische Anthropologie; 4: Kindheit, Jugend, Familie; 2. Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1986.
Linck-Kesting, Gudula. “Alt und Jung im Vormodernen China” [Young and Old in Premodern China]. Saeculum (Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte) 32 (1981), 374-408.
Liu Zhengwei, Shui Xinyi, and Geng Ting. Compilation of Textbooks for Primary and Secondary Schools in Modern China: Volume of the late Qing Dynasty (Chinese), Shanghai: Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House, 2021.
Liu, Xiaoyi. “The Rise of Women’s Modern Schooling in Late Qing China.” Education Journal教育學報 37 (1-2): 89–117.
Magdalena Mironesko, Alexandra. “La Educación Militar En La China Imperial de La Última Dinastía.” Boletín de La Sociedad Castellonense de Cultura 96, 2020: 9–27.
Magdalena Mironesko, Alexandra. “Misión Y Educación: Influencia Occidental Y Cristiana En La China de Los Últimos Años de La Dinastía Qing Y Durante La República China (1912-1949)”. Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 17, 2020: 117–50.
Magdalena Mironesko, Alexandra. Desarrollo Del Sistema Educativo En La República de China (1912-1949): De La Tradición a La Modernidad. Thesis, University of Granada, 2020.
Makeham, John (ed.). The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi’s Philosophical Thought. New York: Oxford University Press: 2018.
Marciniak, Katarzyna (ed). Our Mythical Childhood: The Classics and Literature for Children and Young Adults. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Menegon, Eugenio. “The Catholic Four-Character Classic (Tianzhu Shengjiao Sizi Jingwen 天主聖教四字經文): A Confucian Pattern to Spread a Foreign Faith in Late Ming China.” L’Idomeneo 30 (2020): 157–170.
Moore, Aaron William. “Growing Up in Nationalist China: Self-Representation in the Personal Documents of Children and Youth, 1927-1949.” Modern China 42 (1), 2016: 73–110.
Nelson, Claudia, Rebecca Morris. Representing Children in Chinese and U.S. Children’s Literature. London: Taylor & Francis, 2016.
Neubauer, Jack. “Save the Adults: The Little Teacher System and the Politics of Childhood in Modern China.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 16 (2), 2023: 266-286.
Plum, M. Colette. “Lost Childhoods in a New China: Child-Citizen-Workers at War, 1937—1945.” European Journal of East Asian Studies 11 (2), 2012: 237–58.
Ridgely, Susan B. (ed.). The Study of Children in Religion: A Methods Handbook. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
Roldán Vera, Eugenia, and Eckhardt Fuchs (eds.). Textbooks and War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Sakai, Tadao 酒井忠夫. “Mindai no Nichiyō Ruisho to Shomin Kyōiku” 明代の日用類書と庶民教育 (Daily-use Encyclopedias of the Ming Dynasty and Popular Education). Kinsei Chūgoku Kyōikushi Kenkyū 近世中国教育史研究, ed. Hayashi Tomoharu 林友春. Tokyo: Kokudosha, 1958, 62–74.
Sasson, Vanessa R. Little Buddhas: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Texts and Traditions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Schneewind, Sarah. Community Schools and the State in Ming China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.
Smithrosser, Elizabeth. Un-learning the Stratagems: Qing Pedagogical Efforts against Poisonous Warring States Legacies. In Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature), edited by Giulia Falato and Renata Vinci. Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021, 43–52. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/25_smithrosser_43-52.pdf.
Storm, Kerstin. Kindheit in der Dichtung des Bai Juyi (772–846) [Childhood in the Poetry of Bai Juyi]. Deutsche Ostasienstudien; 14. Gossenberg: Ostasienverlag, 2014.
Storm, Kerstin. “‘Wer auf der ganzen Welt weinte nicht um ein Kind?’ – Kindertotenlieder in der Lyrik von Bai Juyi (772–846)” [‘Who in the Whole World Would Not Cry For a Child?’ – Songs on the Death of Children in the Poetry of Bai Juyi]. In Sprache und Wirklichkeit in China, ed. C. Soffel et al., 63-78. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien; 7. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011.
Storm, Kerstin. “Zum Bad des Kindes in der Tang-Zeit und zu seinen Ursprüngen” [On the Child‘s Bath in the Tang Dynasty and on its Origins]. Oriens Extremus 53 (2014), S. 1-45.
Tay, Wei Leong. Building a Heavenly Kingdom on Earth: A Study on Taiping Primers. In Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature), edited by Giulia Falato and Renata Vinci. Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021, 53–64. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/25_tay_wei_leong_53-64.pdf.
Tillman, Margaret Mih (2015). “Engendering Children of the Resistance: Models of Gender and Scouting in China, 1919–1937.” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 4 (1): 364–404.
Vinci, Renata. “Teorie e pratiche per un’educazione moderna dei giovani nella stampa per ragazzi tra XIX e XX secolo” (Theories and Practices for a Modern Education of Young People in Children’s Press between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). In Giovani virtuosi e dove trovarli: Percorsi formativi e rappresentazioni dell’età giovanile nella tradizione pedagogica e letteraria cinese (Virtuous Youngsters and Where to Find Them: Education and Representations of Young People in Chinese Pedagogical Tradition and Literature), edited by Giulia Falato and Renata Vinci. Sulla Via del Catai 14 (25) 2021, 65–75. https://www.martinomartinicenter.org/uploads/2/2/8/5/22856686/25_vinci_65-75.pdf.
Vuolanto, Ville. Children and Asceticism in Late Antiquity: Continuity, Family Dynamics and the Rise of Christianity. London: Routledge, 2016.
Wang, Jessica Ching-Sze. John Dewey in China: To Teach and to Learn. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Wang Xulin 王許林. “Gudai ertong shi chutuan” 古代兒童詩初探, Jianghui luntan 江 匯論壇 6 (1991), 75-81, 32 [expanded version of an article published under the same title in Fuyang shiyuan xuebao 阜陽師院學報 1 (1988), 107-112].
Wei, Zhiyuan 魏志远. “Mingdai Riyong Leishu yu Rujia Tongmeng Jiaoyu” 明代日用类书与儒家童蒙教育 [Confucian Children’s Enlightenment Education in Encyclopedias for Daily Use in Ming Dynasty]. Anhui Shifan Daxue Xuebao (Renwen Shehui Kexue Ban) 安徽师范大学学报(人文社会科学版), 43(02), 2015: 178–184.
Wilhelm, Hellmut (1905–1990). “The Image of Youth and Age in Chinese Communist Literature.” The China Quarterly 13 (1963), 180-194.
Yue Fang 岳芳. “Mingdai de Sishu yu Shushi” 明代的私塾与塾师 (Private Schools and Their Teachers in Ming Dynasty). Jinri Zhongguo Luntan 今日中国论坛 15, 2013: 292–293.
Zarrow, Peter. Educating China: Knowledge, Society and Textbooks in a Modernizing World, 1902–1937. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Zhu Xi, Transl. and Ed. by Joseph Alan Adler. The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on The Scripture of Change. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
Ziolkowski, Eric. Evil Children in Religion, Literature, and Art. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.
Zocca, Elena. Infanzia e santità: un difficile incontro alle origini del cristianesimo. Roma: Viella, 2020.