The 8th Iue Asia Pacific Research Prize“Commendation” Winner: Lin Chu-Mei

This book is based on Lin Chu Mei's thesis, with which she completed her doctorate at Hitotsubashi University in September 2007. The book, which includes some corrections and additional information to the contents of her thesis, introduces the latest transformation of the nativist view, historical view, and linguistic view of Taiwanese society. Her introduction is backed by an empirical analysis of Taiwan's nativist education at school that is going in the direction of cultural pluralism, in particular.

The thesis addresses nativist education that was promoted from around 1930 during the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan, the Republic of China's patriotism education that began in 1945, and the developments of Taiwan's new nativist education that started with the democratization of Taiwan in the latter half of the 1980's. The book concludes that Taiwanese society realized the sense of values in Taiwan (i.e., Taiwan is diverse, and yet it is unified) with the coming of the new millennium. At least 10 languages are presently taught as native languages or mothertongues at elementary schools in Taiwan. Furthermore, elementary schoolchildren learn that a number of ethnic groups living in Taiwan are entirely different from one another in folk custom, culture, and mythology. The word "diversity" in his book refers to these realities.

The object of her study was Taiwan's nativist education in and after the 1990's. In order to understand the nativist education in the 1990's from a historical angle, the book harkens back to the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan. In the first section of the book, the author considers the historical development of nativist education in Taiwan to find common ground with today's nativist education. Although the nativist education in the colonial days had an aspect of teaching about Japan as the homeland, the Taiwanese people regarded Taiwan as their homeland. The book made it clear that the Republic of China's patriotism education, which began in 1945, did not attach importance to the Taiwan locality, but considered that the homeland of the people was on the Chinese continent or mainland China. The second section explains that the education that began in 1945, which taught about mainland China instead of Taiwan, made a change in the 1970s, and elucidates how the demand of the Taiwanese people and opposition parties for a Taiwan-oriented education affected the political decision of the central government on its nativist education. In the third section, the author considers the development of nativist education after the establishment of the locality studies in 1994, the start of teaching Taiwan history and culture in the schools by 2000, and a textbook change in the evaluation of the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan. Furthermore, the author analyzes language standardization problems that the promotion of Taiwan's nativist education confronted. In the fourth section, the author refers to a new course that started in 2001, in which Taiwanese elementary schools started teaching various Taiwanese native languages and showed a further change in the teaching of Taiwanese history.

The author demonstrates that the nativist view, historical view, and linguistic view of Taiwanese society that have been changing since the 1990’s through the above transition. She analyzed the transition from the viewpoint of the transformation of Taiwan's identity, and understood that the contents of Taiwan's nativist education in the 1990’s were formed through the competition between identification with Taiwan and a sustained Chinese hegemony. The intellectual's concern over the progress of Taiwan's education for Sinicization for a long period of time after the war and the government's denial of Taiwan as their homeland and learning about Taiwan locality existed behind the formation of the above. The author clarified that the Republic of China's patriotism education supported Chinese hegemony. The formation of Taiwan's nativist education in the 1990's aimed at the implementation of a Taiwan-oriented education. Freedom of speech made progress in Taiwan with the beginning of the democratization of Taiwan in the latter half of 1980's, which set the people's suppressed Taiwanese consciousness free and generated the current of the Taiwanization of education. The process of this led to the rediscovery of history. Anti-Japanese resistance overlapped with the issue of accepting the period of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan. For example, Taiwan's nativist education today refers to aspects of modernization of Taiwan that made progress in the period of Japanese rule defined as the uniqueness and particularity of Taiwan's society that are different from China's. Unlike the patriotism education given by the Republic of China, the nativist education in the period of Japanese colonial rule tended to support national identification with Taiwan, the result of which was succeeded by Taiwan's new nativist education. The movement of pursuing national identification with Taiwan was developed as a private campaign at first. The campaign was reflected in the government's education policy later, and it became the core of the educational curriculum at the end of 1990’s. Through the above transitions, Taiwan's nativist education today, which reflected the people's will in a democratic process and not under the control of the government, was driven by a sense of deepening the people's understanding of the history of Taiwan and the recognition of the existence of the various languages used in Taiwan as well as reconfirming the people's Taiwanese identities.

The last part of the thesis points out the latest movement that the focus of the identities have been shifting to the recognition and understanding of the socio-cultural pluralism of Taiwan's community that is tied to the land of Taiwan. The author eyes the fact that the competition of values among the people as a result of Taiwan's democratization created the background of understanding the socio-cultural pluralism of Taiwan affirmatively and resulted in the people's understanding that multilingualism and multiculturalism are peculiar to Taiwan. Two sides are seen in the implementation of Taiwan's present nativist education, i.e., the establishment of Taiwan's national identity and the formation of the Taiwanese people's identities in pursuit of multiculturalism. The author has clearly demonstrated that Taiwan has presently found the value of integrating the multiple identities rather than pursuing a single, homogeneous identity.