University of Glasgow, School of Education

Title of course: Modern Educational Thinking (ODL) | 22-23

GUID number: 2715677Z

Title of assignment: Individual Autonomy should be One of the Aims of Education

Date of submission: 10 January 2023

Individual Autonomy should be One of the Aims of Education

Abstract
In response to the question asked at the beginning of the semester, I have referred to and
reflected on feminism and Communitarianism perspectives. After analyzing Dearden's argument
based on the paper Autonomy and Education, I believe that individual autonomy should be one of
the aims of education.
In this piece, I will explore why individual autonomy is particularly important for women,
especially those from small and medium-sized towns in China, in light of some of the prevailing
educational mentality in China, and how they should be wary of the communal 'moral abduction' in
their upbringing. The aim is to ensure that women have the autonomy to make important decisions in
their lives by pursuing a comprehensive and dialectical understanding of feminism.

Introduction
In the course of studying Communitarianism, I found that many of its theories coincide
with Confucianism, for instance, Confucius advocates that "everything will flourish in harmony with
the family", believing that only when the community is harmonious will everything go smoothly. A
happy family life rests on a delicate and well-organized family order. To keep a good order in family
is to deal with relationship between father-son, husband-wife and elder-younger. So, the core of
family values under Confucianism is to pay high attention to family morals. (Relationship Between
Family and Government Under Confucianism History Essay, 2022)
China is a Confucian society with very strong family values. The traditional concept of
"filial piety is the first priority" is still deeply rooted. Parents, teachers or close elders usually make
decisions for their children on their life events. Research has found that "rural or lower-class families
in China are more likely to adopt a permissive or authoritarian parenting style, while urban or
higher-class families are more likely to use an authoritative or democratic parenting style" (Qiao,
2021). In either case, however, the key words in the parent-child relationship are usually 'love and
obedience'.
Women are relatively more restricted than men. Many women have to be held hostage to
these social attitudes and are unable to choose their own lives.
In such a social context, it is necessary to insist on individual autonomy as an important
aim of education, because it is crucial to enable individuals to make decisions for themselves about
the major events in their lives. These include the recent emphasis on individualized learning, the
stress on learning how to learn for oneself, and the widening of scope for individual choice at all
ages（Dearden，1972）.
Wringe（2002）pointed out that each of us has but one life to live and despite the many
differences between us, there is no reason to suppose that one person should use their life to serve
the goals, interests an aspirations of another, unless they so choose.

Mainstream traditional attitudes do not favor individual autonomy and restrict women's
freedom
In many Chinese families, when children disagree or argue with their parents, the parents
often refer to the children's expression of their opinions as " contradicting their parents", "rebellion",
etc. It is believed that the parents must establish authority within a family. Very similar to the
Communitarian approach, Chinese families place a lot of emphasis on roles, believing that a person
is a parent, child, student, etc. first and an individual second. Whereas in whatever role one is, one
should follow the moral requirements of that role. For example, the moral requirements that children
should follow include, but are not limited to, obeying their parents and fulfilling their duty to care
for them. Parents, in turn, are expected to discipline their children and ensure that they follow the
right path in life. This is also reflected in the fact that parents usually intervene or control their
children's choices in major life events.
The China University Media Alliance conducted a questionnaire survey among students
who had taken the College Entrance Examination among 741 college across China, the results of
which showed that 42.65% of respondents followed their parents' opinions in choosing their majors,
while 55.74% of respondents said that their choice of majors after the college entrance examination
was influenced by parental advice, advice from seniors and media reports (What Influences College
Majors? Forty Percent of Respondents Followed Their Parents' Opinions, 2017).
In addition, there is also a significant proportion of parents who are keen to "force marriage". Once
their children have graduated and worked for a few years without a move, Chinese parents usually
automatically switch to forced marriage mode, some pushing for a blind date, some insinuating,
some using the filial piety card... This has become one of the most common phenomena in parent-
child relationships in contemporary urban China.
 Among them, women are more likely to be forced into marriage by their parents compared
to men. In the data of the "Survey Report on the Status of Forced Marriage in China", the rate of
being forced into marriage has jumped 70% in various cities in China. Among the respondents, most
young people aged 25 to 35 said that they were under great pressure after being urged into marriage,
and the rate of being forced into marriage was as high as 86%, while the rate of women being forced
into marriage was even 6% higher( The Survey Shows that the Forced Marriage Rate in China is as
High as 70%, and Women are More Likely to be "Forced Marriage" than Men, 2021).
In such a social environment, it is difficult for young women to find a balance between the
pursuit of freedom and traditional filial piety.
In addition to the pressure from parents and family to 'force marriage', women also face
inequalities in the workplace, including 'unequal pay for the same job' and 'career separation'.
Research has shown that human capital, labour market structures and political capital are the main
factors contributing to these phenomena. The labour market has been interpreted as two labour
markets, senior and secondary. Female workers have unstable and discontinuous jobs and they move
in and out of the labour market very frequently, so female workers are more likely to stay in the
secondary market. The secondary market is characterised by systematic discrimination against
women by employers and by the passive selectivity of women in the labour market. The crowding
hypothesis suggests that women earn less than men because their employment is restricted to a
narrow range of occupations and supply is greater than demand, so they can only earn lower wages.
(Hu and Li, 2014)
Given the above situation, women are inherently vulnerable to systemic constraints in the
labour market, and if they are still unable to follow their own wishes when faced with choosing a
university major that they are truly interested in, not only will they be unable to choose more
occupations, but these inequalities in the labour market will be even more difficult to reduce.
The 2019 Women's Employment Index suggests that closing the gender pay gap could
generate gains of over US$2 trillion, and that increasing female participation in the labour force
would generate gains of US$7.5 trillion, more than the total increase in OECD earnings (PwC,
2019).
In summary, if we don't place a high value on individual autonomy in education, and if
traditional attitudes become more entrenched, it will do more harm than good, not only for
individuals but also for the development of society. For instance, the traditional view that it is
difficult to accept life choices other than marriage, that the value of a single woman will diminish as
she gets older, and thus criticize groups of women who put their careers or other life goals first, is
likely to further restrict women's freedom of choice and hinder the development of pluralistic values
in society. The mere prepositional knowledge that ways of life different from that pursued in the
local community or restricted cultural sub-class in which the individuals found themselves would do
little to raise the aspirations of our pupils（Wringe, 2002）.
And if pluralistic values in society are not developed, some of the opportunities that could
have brought innovation with a female perspective to certain industries will be lost, in
Gilligan(1982) 's research paper on maturity, she notes that the lives of women, in pointing to an
uncharted path of human growth and one that leads to a less violent mode of life, are particularly
compelling at this time in history and thus deserve particular attention.
On the other hand, the term feminism is still new and unfamiliar in China, although it has
been appearing frequently in recent years. For example, many films and TV productions have begun
to promote themselves under the banner of feminism, and some comments about gender injustice in
talk shows, a newly popular industry in China, have caused a stir. One stand-up comedienne's
ridicule at men has led to a long period of online violence, even though she clearly meant to express
that women and men are subject to different levels of social ‘scrutiny’, such as the fact that men are
never required to wear make-up in the workplace, or that men suffer less from age anxiety, and that
men enjoy these privileges without realizing it. It is easy to misunderstand feminism as creating or
stirring up gender antagonism, but in fact feminism has always been about gender equality.
It is important to note that in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou,
women are under relatively less pressure to 'force marriage' and face less inequality in the
workplace. The data shows that although there are currently more males than females in the country
(over 30 million more men than women), the household registration population in China's finest big
cities is more female than male. From this we can draw a general conclusion: women tend to stay in
big cities more than men, or rather, big cities are better suited to women's well-being(Cheng,
2021）.

How to achieve the cultivation of individual autonomy in education, as well as a comprehensive

knowledge and critical thinking about feminism

The first point to make clear is that autonomy does not mean stepping outside of all
criteria. Dearden (1972) makes it very clear that Autonomy neither does nor could require the
stepping outside of all criteria to engage in some supposedly criterion-less choosing. Therefore,
students do not throw away all social norms and morals by achieving individual autonomy, but can
learn to think more critically. For instance, instead of trusting outside voices, students try to analyse
their own interests, the market prospects of their major and the educational resources of their school
in order to decide what is best for them, and they can even explain their analysis to their parents in a
reasoned manner. If a student lacks individual autonomy, he or she is likely to follow the advice of
parents and the school, even though it may be based on 'hearsay', and the student may not always be
aware of it. Parents may not realize that their advice is likely to be partial.
Finance and economics majors are seen as the traditional "golden jobs" by the parents'
generation. According to a survey conducted by New Fortune magazine in 2021, there are more than
one million finance and economics graduates in China each year, while the incremental employment
in banking, securities and funds may be less than 150,000. Although there is no definitive data on
how many of the over one million finance and economics graduates chose this profession because
they followed the advice of their parents or schools, it is possible to assume that the percentage is not
small when combined with the aforementioned data (With More Than 1 Million Graduates Studying
Finance and Economics, Where Does the Next "Golden Rice Bowl" Lead, 2021).
There are many other phenomena such as these, but just by looking at the "imbalance
between supply and demand in the job market" mentioned above, it is clear that achieving individual
autonomy is not only a positive step towards self-respect and the realization of values for the
individual, but also towards the development of society.
As mentioned above, when choosing a university major, students with autonomy are more
likely to analyse their own interests, the market demands and the educational resources of the
university to make their decision, rather than just blindly trusting their parents or teachers, or other
external voices. In this way, the choice of university majors will be less crowded, and the
phenomenon of "imbalance between supply and demand in the job market" will be moderated to
some extent.
So how should students achieve individual autonomy?
Dearden (1972) argues that individual autonomy should be achieved through educational
agency, stating that something more positive than that needs to be said if autonomy is indeed to be
set up as an aim, and not just as something that may or may not be allowed to develop by default.
I agree with him, but he do not further specify how this should be achieved through educational
agency.
I believe that in China, given the current educational environment where the curriculum
and assessment methods are completely restricted by authority, educational agency should break
through in terms of pedagogy. In other words, educators should also have the autonomy to think
about what pedagogy is more conducive to students' development, rather than just following what is
prescribed.
An easily overlooked aspect of pedagogy is "listening" to students. A teacher needs to go
inside a learner’s mind and see the world from his/her perspective in order to understand and care
about him/her（David, 2005）.
In addition, females are more likely to be restricted in such an environment compared to
males. In the Chinese education system, the current system starts in the first year of high school
when students are faced with the decision of whether to choose arts or science subjects, a choice that
will largely influence their choice of university majors and career options. Although research has
shown that gender differences in high school students are not significantly correlated with
performance in arts and science subjects, verifying that male and female students have
approximately the same potential to learn in both arts and science subjects (Yong et al, 2011). Still,
the status quo is that there is an imbalance in the gender ratio in both arts and science classes,
meaning that most girls still choose arts, even though some of them may not necessarily want to
choose arts. In addition to the belief that girls are not good at science subjects, parents and teachers
also think about their future career choices, as science majors generally require more time and
energy for their careers, but traditionally, women are expected to "return to the family" at a certain
age, which means they should focus on getting married and having children.
But not all women agree with this idea, and not all women should be forced to accept it.
We need more teachers in schools to be aware of this, to encourage and support girls to develop their
individual autonomy, and to think about how to encourage and support this. Thinking with students
about "What is feminism?" could be a good entry point. Because, as I explained earlier, feminism is
still not well known in China and it is still only used as a synonym for Western cultural claptrap or
misunderstood as a way of stirring up gender antagonism. But this is not the case. Feminism is
challenging. It constantly demands a consideration of who we are and how we got to be this way. It
forces us to ask who we have left out and to uncover the spoken and unspoken reasons
why（Gravett, 2018).
Teachers and students can start discussions based on this, for example, "what is the current
position of women in society and what are the dilemmas they face" and "what factors contribute to
this". In such discussions, everyone is better able to gradually realise that when it comes to social
inequality, people’s lives and the organization of power in a given society are better understood as
being shaped not by a single axis of social division, be it race or gender or class but by many axes
that work together and influence each other（Gravett, 2018）.
In the course of such a series of reflections and discussions, the individual autonomy of
both the teacher and the students will be enhanced.

Conclusion
Although currently in China female independence is increasing in large cities and
individual autonomy can be nurtured, developed and respected, for example, in Shenzhen, a major
first-class city, women are much less financially dependent on men, women have a stronger sense of
autonomy and most women work for their independent personality (Zhang and Wang, 2002);
however, in small and medium-sized towns, the vast majority of women are still subject to
interference and restrictions by various external voices when faced with some of the more important
life decisions, such as the choice of profession and occupation, which in turn affects the further
development of society. Although traditional constraints are not the only factors contributing to the
social inequality, however, the traditional notion, similar to Communitarianism, that each person's
role, as well as their moral values, should be given in existing society/community, has a negative
impact on the role of each individual and cannot be ignored. It is therefore necessary to nurture and
develop individual autonomy in our education so that we can look at traditional notions critically and
be able to understand the difference between external and internal voices when making important
choices and make the best decision for ourselves.
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