Old Tradition and New Civilization:the Modern Change of Children's Toy Concept in the Period of the Republic of China
Toys and tools are not new things,but the identification of toys as tools for children's learning and development is a relatively modern concept.In the period of the Republic of China,with the innovation of the concept of children,the concept of toys quickly changed from the old traditional view of mere playthings to the tool view of the new modern civilization.Accordingly,traditional natural toys and folk toys were abandoned,and modern educational and politically-oriented toys were popular.The theory of Recapitulation used to discover children did not provide a theoretical defense for the old traditional toys.The developmentalism based on instinct and nature brought about by the theory of evolution contributed to the educationalization and instrumentalization of toys,and the concept of the same fate of children and nation states promoted toys to become a political tool for saving the national crises.The modernization process of toy concept is also a process of rejecting the"traditional other"and using the"modern other"as the resource to construct the"modern self"identity.The"traditional us"constituted by children's enjoyment of toys was lost outside the vision of scholars in the period of the Republic of China,and failed to become the childhood resource for people to establish a modern concept of toys.Toy instrumentalization has its positive historical significance,but if children are ignored as the real subject of defining toys,then even the modern new civilization will sti ll become the old tradition that restricts children's enjoyment and development.
toy instrumentalizationeducational toysrecapitulationdevelopmentalismthe period of the Republic of China
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