The Dalton Plan in modern China

In China, the Dalton Plan came to the attention of educators in 1921 and enjoyed its heyday in both educational discourse and practice from 1922 to 1925. Thereafter its popularity declined significantly while criticism dramatically increased. When examining the causes for this rapid growth and precipitous decline, previous research has taken the progressivity of the Plan for granted, as if this destined it to mirror the wax and wane of the Chinese New Education Movement. Scholars have failed to notice that less progressive educators impelled its rise and that educators taking sides with both pedagogical and administrative progressives contributed much to its fall. This article revisits the trajectory of the Dalton Plan in modern China and offers new insights explaining its rise and fall, by untangling the complex relationships among its advocates and their connections with foreign educational circles. It will be shown (1) that the Dalton Plan was introduced in a spirit of eclecticism rather than as a fixed system, (2) that it was undermined by attacks from both pedagogical and administrative progressives, and (3) that its eclecticism had much to do with both its rise and fall

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