
'Unruly' Children
Historical Fieldnotes and Learning Morality in a Taiwan Village
Jing Xu(Author)
Cambridge University Press
Published on 14. November 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
290 pages
978-1-009-41625-2 (ISBN)
Description
How do we become moral persons? What about children's active learning in contrast to parenting? What can children teach us about knowledge-making more broadly? Answer these questions by delving into the groundbreaking ethnographic fieldwork conducted by anthropologists Arthur and Margery Wolf in a martial law era Taiwanese village (1958-60), marking the first-ever study of ethnic Han children. Jing Xu skillfully reinterprets the Wolfs' extensive fieldnotes, employing a unique blend of humanistic interpretation, natural language processing, and machine-learning techniques. Through a lens of social cognition, this book unravels the complexities of children's moral growth, exposing instances of disobedience, negotiation, and peer dynamics. Writing through and about fieldnotes, the author connects the two themes, learning morality and making ethnography, in light of social cognition, and invites all of us to take children seriously. This book is ideal for graduate and undergraduate students of anthropology and educational studies.
Reviews / Votes
'A unique book where Jing Xu gains access to a vast collection of observations concerning children's behavior in Taiwan. As a renowned specialist in childhood and morality, she is uniquely qualified to explore this treasure trove of evidence and document the historical and psychological processes that inform young children's moral behavior.' Pascal Boyer, Washington University in St. Louis 'In Unruly Children Xu Jing masterfully takes on the formidable task of analyzing the voluminous Wolf Archive data. After digitizing the Archive and building a database, Xu used an array of techniques to analyze the textual data, including topic modeling and social network analysis. The richest data was found in the extended interaction sequences in the child observation episodes, and Xu artfully uses these peer play dramas to illustrate children's active role in constructing moral rules to guide and manipulate their play, deal with conflicts, and subvert parental control. Xu transcends older frameworks emphasizing the top-down perspectives of child-rearing and socialization to enter the sometimes rough and tumble world of children learning to cope with siblings, playmates, parents and neighbors. Unruly Children is a landmark work of anthropology, China studies, and child moral development.' John R. Shepherd, University of VirginiaMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
424 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-009-41625-2 (9781009416252)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
11/2024
Cambridge University Press
€88.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Jing Xu is an anthropologist at the University of Washington and the author of The Good Child: Moral Development in a Chinese Preschool (Stanford University Press, 2017). She pursues interdisciplinary research, bringing together humanistic and scientific perspectives to study how humans become moral persons.
Content
Introduction: learning morality in a Taiwan village; 1. Fieldwork beyond fieldwork: reconstructing an ethnography of children through historical fieldnotes; 2. Crime and punishment: parenting and the disobedient child; 3. Playful creatures: learning morality in peer play; 4. Gendered morality: naughty boys and fierce girls; 5. Care and rivalry: an untold tale of a sibling dyad; Epilogue: taking children seriously; Afterword.