Margaret Mih Tillman's Raising China's Revolutionaries covers the establishment of child welfare ideas, practices, and institutions during the Republican era, many of which persisted in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Whereas many scholars of modern China have shown the competitive, survivalist motivation of Chinese modernization projects within an international context of social Darwinism and global imperialism, Tillman also seeks to demonstrate the cooperative nature of efforts to create a modern childhood in China. In particular, she focuses on two transnational, intermediary examples: the Columbia University–educated child psychologist Chen Heqin and the National Child Welfare Association (NCWA), a Protestant charitable organization with American origins.
Chen Heqin, a child psychology expert who studied with John Dewey, argued that Chinese childhood was a specific and unique childhood worthy of its own research. Chen viewed the use of foreign ideas and practices, including English, Christianity, and Western educational ideas, as compatible with creating...
