• Orna Naftali is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Asian Studies and Director of the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies at HU. Her research focuses on childhood, youth, and education; gender, sexuality, and the family; science and subjectivity; citizenship, national identity, militarisation and the nation-state in modern and contemporary China. 

    Dr. Naftali obtained a BA in East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; an MA in Culture Research at Tel Aviv University; and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She has published extensively on issues such as the globalization of Chinese education; nationalism and militarisation in PRC schools and popular culture; the emergence of new conceptualizations of privacy and subjectivity in China; the rise of child psychology in contemporary urban China; and the development of a new Chinese discourse on children's rights and children's citizenship, a topic which was also the focus of her first book, Children, Rights, and Modernity in China: Raising Self-Governing Citizens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

    Naftali's second book, Children in China (China Today series, Polity Press, 2016), provides an extensive overview of the momentous changes that have taken place in the lives of both rural and urban Chinese children since the launch of economic reforms in 1978. Covering schooling, consumption, identity formation processes, family and peer relations among other aspects of children’s lives, the book explores the rise of new ideas of child-care, child-vulnerability and child-agency; the impact of the One-Child Policy; and the emergence of Chinese children as independent consumers in the new market economy.

    Her current research draws on qualitative fieldwork to explore the interface between education, militarization, and the construction of national, class, and gender identities among youth in contemporary China. Additional ongoing projects explore the construction of youth gender consciousness and youth legal awarness in the PRC.

    Dr. Naftali welcomes enquiries from prospective MA and doctoral students interested in the following topics:

    • Anthropology of contemporary China
    • Children, childhood, and youth in the PRC (1949 to present)
    • Schooling and education in the PRC 
    • Anthropology of gender and sexuality in the PRC
    • Family and kinship in the PRC
    • Popular nationalism and militrarization in contemporary China
    • State-society relations in contemporary China
    • Youth legal consciousness & legal education in China

     

Recent Publications

2022. “‘Law Does Not Come Down From Heaven’: Youth Legal Socialisation Approaches in Chinese Textbooks of the Xi Jinping Era.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 1-27. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Schools constitute key sites for legal socialisation, the process whereby youth develop
their relationship with the law. Yet, what does legal socialisation entail in the context
of an authoritarian party-state such as China? The article examines this question by analysing Chinese citizenship education textbooks of the Xi era. The study finds that China’s current textbooks contain elements associated with both a coercive and a consensual approach to legal education. Nonetheless, it is the consensual orientation that receives greater stress, as the books highlight the positive benefits of legal compliance and
endorse the idea that youth should advance beyond the external supervisory stage to
the self-discipline level of legal consciousness. Reflecting the attempt of the Chinese
Communist Party leadership to draw on legality as a key source of legitimacy, this
approach is nonetheless undermined by the propagandist tone of the textbooks and
their ambiguous messages regarding citizens’ ability to challenge China’s existing laws.

Naftali, Orna. 2020. “Youth Military Training in China: Learning to ‘Love the Army’.” Journal of Youth Studies 24 (9). Publisher's VersionAbstract

Schools worldwide have long engaged in various forms of ‘war education’. In China, an extensive ‘Patriotic Education’ campaign and an expanded ‘National Defense Education’ curriculum have led to an increase in youth-oriented military programs in the 2000s. Previous work on the implementation of these programs in Chinese schools has mostly focused on urban elite youth, while overlooking the reception of these programs by non-urban, non-elite populations. The present study addresses this issue by examining youth perceptions and experiences of military training courses in urban and rural high schools. Drawing on the analysis of Chinese publications in the 2000s and on data from field interviews with students of different backgrounds, the study finds that youth military training constitutes a contentious program. Although the Chinese government promotes the program as crucial for military strengthening and the fostering of a patriotic spirit, PRC academic and media writers provide alternative rationales for the program, which at times undermine the logic of government articulations. Meanwhile, interviews with youth document divergent attitudes and even resentment towards the program, especially among city youth. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that military-training courses necessarily contribute to the increased ‘militarization’ of Chinese youth and education.

Schools worldwide have long engaged in various forms of ‘war education.’ In China, an extensive ‘Patriotic Education’ campaign and an expanded ‘National Defense Education’ curriculum have led to an increase in youth-oriented military programs in the 2000s. Previous work on the implementation of these programs in Chinese schools has mostly focused on urban elite youth, while overlooking the reception of these programs by non-urban, non-elite populations. The present study addresses this issue by examining youth perceptions and experiences of military training courses in urban and rural high schools. Drawing on the analysis of Chinese publications in the 2000s and on data from field interviews with students of different backgrounds, the study finds that youth military training constitutes a contentious program. Although the Chinese government promotes the program as crucial for military strengthening and the fostering of a patriotic spirit, PRC academic and media writers provide alternative rationales for the program, which at times undermine the logic of government articulations. Meanwhile, interviews with youth document divergent attitudes and even resentment towards the program, especially among city youth. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that military-training courses necessarily contribute to the increased ‘militarization’ of Chinese youth and education.

 

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