A HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRANSITION FROM “NORMAL EDUCATION” TO “TEACHER EDUCATION”: A FOUCAULDIAN PERSPECTIVE
A HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRANSITION FROM “NORMAL EDUCATION” TO “TEACHER EDUCATION”: A FOUCAULDIAN PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: Since the start of China’s “reform and opening-up” period in the late 1970s, it has gradually undergone the transition from “normal education” (“shifan” education in Chinese) to “teacher education” and the Chinese Modern Teacher Education System has been established. Foucault’s “discipline” perspective gives a historical explanation of how human society operates through the basic logic of “knowledge-power” and provides a critical perspective to study the issues and phenomena involved in education. Based on a policy text on the evolution of the Chinese teacher education system over the past 40 years, this article will explore why and how the teacher education system has changed, whether it is more open and how it can be beneficial to education, from the viewpoint of Foucault’s “discipline”.

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