Thesis

"When I was little, I had dreamed about attending junior high school....Junior high schools seemed to be wonderful and mysterious palaces. Now that I had entered the palace, I was disappointed." Ji-li Jiang shares her personal experiences with the reformed secondary education system of China in Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution. Significant changes that she notes are: 1) the modification of class curriculum to reflect Chairman Mao's teachings, 2) the formation of revolutionary social groups, such as the Red Guards, and 3) the sending of students to work in the countryside or factories as opposed to academic assignments.