Secularization, Modernity, and Belief Shaping: Night School and Livelihood Education at the Chinese YMCA in the Early Twentieth Century
In the early 20th century, influenced by evangelicals in the United States, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) launched the "Four Movements" in response to the "Four Maladies" of Chinese society. Among the four movements, "livelihood education" is used to help...
| Published in: | Religions |
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| Authors: | ; ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
MDPI
2021
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| In: |
Religions
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| Further subjects: | B
Secularization
B Evangelicals B Chinese Christianity B YMCA B livelihood education |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In the early 20th century, influenced by evangelicals in the United States, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) launched the "Four Movements" in response to the "Four Maladies" of Chinese society. Among the four movements, "livelihood education" is used to help raise productivity and save people from poverty. Research on the YMCA in modern China rarely focuses on livelihood education, and even when it does, it does not focus on educated adult civilians or explore how the YMCA has changed the course of their lives. Based on fieldwork and detailed analysis of historical documents, this paper traces the formation of three night schools that have adopted various forms of "Christianized" and "secularization" practices and sheds light on the lives of two typical students whose experiences in YMCA night school were still less known. This study will demonstrate and analyze the role of livelihood education in introducing Western civilization and Christian ideas to China’s labor class. YMCA night schools not only helped ordinary Chinese working people acquire basic livelihood skills on a secular level, which enables them to enter a higher class in society and exert influence, but also reshaped their beliefs. |
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| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel12100897 |