Compiling Life-Oriented Moral Education Textbooks for Elementary Schools in China: The Mimetic Approach in Morality and Law

Abstract

Purpose: This study explores a novel approach to compiling life-oriented moral textbooks for elementary schools in China, specifically focusing on Morality and Law. Design/Approach/Methods: Adopting Aristotle’s Poetics as its theoretical perspective, this study illustrates and analyzes the mimetic approach used in compiling the life-oriented moral education textbook, Morality and Law. Findings: The mimetic approach involves imitating children's real activities, thoughts, and feelings in textbooks. The mimetic approach to compiling life-oriented moral textbooks comprises three strategies: constructing children's life events as building blocks for textbook compilation, designing an intricate textual device exposing the wholeness of children's life actions, and designing inward learning activities leading to children's inner worlds. Originality/Value: From the perspective of Aristotle's Poetics, the approach to compilation in Morality and Law can be defined as mimetic. And the compilation activity in the life-oriented moral education textbook also can be described as a processes of mimesis. So this article presents a new approach to compile moral education textbooks, and  an innovative way to understand the nature of one compiling activity.