民族学刊

胎教作为一种在中国绵延千年的民俗观念,最初是为培养天子而创设,后历数代发展而逐渐成为寻常百姓家庭教育中至关重要的一环。近代以来,在西学浪潮的冲击之下,近代知识人也以报刊为阵地,对传统礼俗进行"理性调适"。笔者立足于民国时期的报刊材料,以传统民俗——"胎教"的嬗变过程为切入点,呈现转型时期文化浑融对于产育知识的影响,厘清近代知识人传统文化的重构,并对中国的"现代性"问题做出反思。

Prenatal education is a folk custom which has endured for thousands of years in China.It was first created to foster the son of heaven( Tianzi),and gradually became a very important part of family education for ordinary people. Since the modern times,and with the impact of knowledge from the West,modern Chinese intellectuals started to use the press as their base to “rationally adjust”traditional etiquette and customs. Taking Japanese works introduced into China since modern times and the Chinese press during the Republic of China as the main focus,this paper gives a “deep description”to the content of prenatal customs and education contained in these materials. With the modern evolution of the traditional concept on prenatal education as a starting point,it reappears in the reconstruction process of folk traditional customs in modern press,and discusses the rich connotations of the times behind it.Folk customs are kinds of stylized behavior patterns and living habits gradually formed by certain groups to adapt to modes of production and social life within the process of the development of human history. With the ethnic groups as the carriers,and the psychological structure of the group as the basis,these are manifested in various aspects of social production and life. They are a kind of collective cultural accumulation,and form the most basic component of human material and spiritual culture. By reviewing the modern evolution of traditional prenatal customs,we can see that the differentiation between traditional knowledge and the establishment of new knowledge is formed through mutual integration and influence． “Convergence”between cultures cannot avoid“cultural conflicts”.However,the role of local factors is not only reflected in the acceptance of knowledge from foreign countries based on “traditional invention”,but is also reflected in the continuous reflection on this.When citing knowledge gives birth to a variety of“new terms”and “new concepts”,or even “reshapes”Chinese society and Chinese history,many voices of introspection were aroused. The process of reshaping prenatal education and customs is actually a process of cultural integration and communication between the East and the West,along with the objections eugenicists repeatedly inquiried on the rationality of its content.In today's society,the effectiveness of prenatal education is strongly supported by scientific evidence,and it has become a “required course”for many pregnant women. Looking back at the time of the Republic of China,the discussions of intellectuals in the press not only helped to dispel the superstitions in traditional prenatal customs,but also enabled the discourse of “science ” to enter folk culture more universally. Nonetheless,through the modern evolution of traditional prenatal education,we can see the vigorous vitality of traditional folk customs. This kind of collective culture formed through historical accumulation will also be continued and transmitted with the development of society,thereby becoming our precious spiritual and cultural heritage.