Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I locate the government-led experimental education scheme within the framework of Han-Chinese relations with indigenous peoples such as the Atayal in Taiwan and explore Atayal parental participation in the implementation of experimental education in an Atayal elementary school.

Paper long abstract:

The growth of experimental education implemented at primary level in Taiwan has recently been identified as a crucial step in the country's future multicultural development, particularly following the lifting of martial law in 1989 and the ensuing educational reform of the new period of political liberation. The growing body of literature on indigenous education has led to Taiwan becoming a reference point for global studies of indigenous education, and an influential role has been played by these studies through the development of empirical case-studies supporting the contemporary theorisation of experimental education. In this paper, I locate the government-led experimental education scheme within the framework of Han-Chinese relations with indigenous peoples such as the Atayal in Taiwan. I explore Atayal parental participation in the implementation of experimental education in P'uma elementary school, which serves an Atayal community located in a mountainous area of central Taiwan. Through an ethnographic description of the birth and development of experimental education in the wider contemporary context, I argue that Atayal parents construct 'Atayal education' as a moral category to problematise state-funded formal education and transform ethnicity-oriented reform into a moral project. I show that parental and community intervention creates certain innovative and pedagogical practices, which appear to appeal to a number of local Atayal, the school staff, teachers and students. I then advance to a more widely theoretical consideration by discussing how such state-supported schemes became a force enabling stakeholders to reflect on educational reform in the context of the education system in Taiwan.