ABSTRACT
All nations target children for the ideological formation and social engineering purposes. This is none other the case than in China which over the past century has seen drastic sociopolitical changes. The social ideals of the times are thus manifested in the teaching materials Chinese children consume. This chapter analyses the Chinese language and literature textbooks for primary school students issued in 2019 by the People’s Education Press (PEP) from three aspects, revealing that the textbooks have been revised to do three things: revive nationalism, entrust great people with missions corresponding with the unsolved social problems in the Reform Era, and, lastly, assert the dominance of Han Chinese ethnicity while exoticising China’s minorities as a group of peoples to be admired within the context of the natural world. The findings further call for independent critique and periodic evaluation of children’s textbooks in China.
