ABSTRACT
Work is an honourable duty for every citizen able to work. As the Chinese student progresses upward through the grades, symbolic or ritualized exposure to the concept of the centrality of work continues. At the middle-school level the relationship between work and study is essentially similar to that which obtains in China's primary schools. In fact, some middle schools utilized what to people seemed a rather unique approach to unifying work and study. The Nanking Technical Power School typified this method. Near the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1966, the Chinese began a program of resettling urban lower-and upper-middle-school graduates on the country' s rural and suburban communes. In effect, the cultural gap between city and countryside would be narrowed. College and university entrance requirements were being reevaluated, and in Hangchow people were told that this would result in a modification of the two-year work requirement.
