Communities of Practice and the Buddhist Education Reforms of Early-Twentieth-Century China
Over the course of only a few decades during the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, part of mainstream Buddhist education underwent a striking shift in China. From being a secluded practice within monastery walls taught by monastics for monastics with a strict focus on Buddhist scripture,...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2024
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| In: |
Approaching religion
Year: 2024, Volume: 14, Issue: 2, Pages: 152-169 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Yang, Wenhui 1837-1911
/ Taixu 1889-1947
/ Xingyun 1927-2023
/ Cheng, Yen 1937-
/ China
/ Buddhism
/ Religious education
/ Educational reform
/ Community of Practice
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| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AH Religious education BL Buddhism KBM Asia KCA Monasticism; religious orders TJ Modern history TK Recent history |
| Further subjects: | B
Etienne Wenger
B Cheng Yen B Buddhist modernization B Taixu B Hsing Yun B Buddhist Education B Yang Wenhui B Humanistic Buddhism B social theory of learning |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Over the course of only a few decades during the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, part of mainstream Buddhist education underwent a striking shift in China. From being a secluded practice within monastery walls taught by monastics for monastics with a strict focus on Buddhist scripture, it became one where monastics and laypeople study together, guided by teachers, both monastic and lay, studying a curriculum of both Buddhist and secular subjects. Although general reforms within the Buddhist community of the times received considerable scholarly attention, the topic of education development was discussed in only a few instances. Therefore, the present article sets out to explore why this radical methodological shift happened, and more concretely, how the individual learning trajectories of the reforms' leading actors, and their involvement in specific communities, influenced the way the reforms unfolded. The author analyses the work and life of three generations of Buddhist reformers, namely the layman Yang Wenhui, and the monastic masters Taixu, Hsing Yun and Cheng Yen, employing Étienne Wenger's social theory of learning. The theory's main assertion that communities of practice provide the main fora of learning for individuals, and its description of the concrete ways in which this learning takes place can provide new insights regarding the specific unfolding of late-nineteenth to early-twentieth-century Buddhist education reforms in China. |
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| ISSN: | 1799-3121 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Approaching religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.30664/ar.137817 |