Cultural values reflected within Chinese children's stories

Abstract

A total of 145 Chinese children's stories published from the 1980s to the present were examined to explore the changes in Chinese culture as a result of modernization and globalization in Chinese society. The selected stories were rated assessing the reflection of Chinese, Western and social moral values. Western cultural values were found increasingly in children's stories over the past 20 years. Some Chinese traditional values were consistently reflected in stories across all decades, while some of traditional values were occurring less. Chinese children's stories were also used as a tool to teach moral education. The genres of children's stories also impact the reflection of cultural values in the stories. These results suggest the influence of Western culture, as well as the continuity of Chinese traditional culture in Chinese children's stories.