Week14 Development and Demographic Change in Taiwan(2)

 Part 1 Discussion: Cultural and Social Change in Taiwan

 ( Summary by Huong)

Cultural and social changes in Taiwan, resulted from the increase in wealth which economic change produced. However, these changes also occurred because of changes in government policies or because of the social need to resolve tensions which arose because of economic and political changes.

Cultural Change

Cultural change in Taiwan has been seen as the result of resolving three conflicts: tradition versus modernization, national versus foreign, and local versus cosmopolitan. Beside these fundamental conflicts, there is a decided political aspect to cultural change. When the Kuomintang assumed control of Taiwan it had to replace the Japanese cultural orientation with a more Chinese one. Therefore, under KMT regime, Taiwanese were not allowed to identify themselves as Taiwanese but only as Chinese: they were forced learn Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese was forbidden. This is the main reason for cultural and social change ( change in customs, cuisine, religious life…). Furthermore, the presence of multinational service corporations such as McDonalds fostered an important social change: the population came to regard jobs in the service sector positively.

    Social Change

The most fundamental social change has occurred in the field of education. Indeed, education had four major social effects.

 First, education prepared several generations to enter the work force and as a result, both national and personal incomes grew. Increased income led to the development of a new system of social stratification and especially the development of a middle class, albeit one which was not particularly in its concerns, an easing of ethnic tensions, and the rise of ethnic identity, especially amongst the aborigines.

Second, improvements in education and incomes also led to changes in marriage and divorce. In fact, in Taiwan, the rates of marriage experienced a incerease while the rates of divorce was growing from 1945 to 2000. The major reason of this situation that the women have both the knowledge and financial independence to get out of   dyfunctional marriages.

Third, ethnic tensions have declined. In particular, residential segregation seems to have declined, and there has been a convergence of both future expectations and behavior patterns of the Taiwanese and Mainlanders.

Fourth, a well-educated population embraced the rise of social movements and a push for welfare legislation.

Key issue

1.      Why is the cultural and social change in Taiwan?

2.      How is the cultural and social change in Taiwan?

3.      How did cultural and social change impact on the demographic in Taiwan?

Taiwan Outlook -Bridges of Taiwan Culture

Part2: Issues of Education

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. <Link>