This chapter describes the founding of the ancient Zhou Dynasty and its early articulation of Mandate of Heaven theory, which legitimated changes of Chinese dynasties. The loosely centralized Zhou eventually disintegrated into fully independent kingdoms called the Warring States. This became a time of cultural and intellectual ferment that gave birth to the Hundred Schools of classical Chinese thought, including Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. Confucianism eventually became a defining feature of all East Asia. More immediately, Legalism helped transform the Qin kingdom into the most powerful of the Warring States, conquer all its rivals, and forge the first Chinese imperial dynasty. Qin excesses led to its rapid collapse, but Qin was succeeded by a more enduring Han Dynasty based on similar, though more moderate, imperial institutions. After four centuries of Han imperial unity, it too collapsed into warlordism, followed by the famous Three Kingdoms period.

The Introduction explains what East Asia is and how it is defined here: which is culturally, primarily in terms of shared use of the Chinese writing system, shared institutional models, Confucianism, and common forms of Buddhism. It argues that East Asia has changed greatly over time and is internally diverse, but that there are also important commonalities and continuities. The relatively recent origins of some traditions are also discussed. East Asias global importance and continued relevance are emphasized.

Chapter 5 queries how cultural and community identities legally intersect with issues of race. Here readers explore how the law wrestles with the relationship between laws and cultural customs and norms within racialized communities. The text asks the reader to determine if the law should treat discrimination against cultural expressions frequently connected to race, such as hair style or language, with the same scrutiny as racial discrimination. Scholars and the courts have disagree about the relationship between the two and the text engages this debate by presenting different scholarly attempts to resolve this conflict. In this chapter students will explore the statutorily protected capacity of Native communities to privilege the adoption of children of indigenous descent into Native families over White families. Another significant question emerges from the excerpted cases of whether Native tribal communities in the United States are racial or political entities. The answer to this question impacts core questions of political autonomy and sovereignty, as well as the social constructions of other racial identities.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, China’s weakness provoked crisis, and new Western-inspired ideas of nationalism were taking root in East Asia. A Nationalist Revolution in 1911–1912 replaced the Qing Empire with a new Republic of China, and rejection of Chinese tradition was promoted by the “New Youth” of the May Fourth Movement. After the first president of the republic died, China dissolved into warlordism. Under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Party struggled to reunify China. In 1905 the Japanese defeated Russia in war and acquired Russian facilities in Manchuria. Korea became a Japanese colony, which the Japanese attempted to assimilate. But Japanese rule in Korea was harsh and discriminatory, and a spirit of Korean nationalism was brewing. In the Japanese home islands, universal adult male suffrage was implemented in 1925, and Japan had become a multi-party democracy. In French colonial Vietnam, the 1920s brought accelerating French investment, and Western influences, ranging from Hollywood movies to Marxism. But, despite the appeal of the ideals of the French Revolution, many Vietnamese people felt excluded.

The formation of “gunpowder empires,” extensive international maritime trade, and the emergence of commercialized consumer culture in parts of East Asia all mark the beginnings of an Early Modern age in roughly the sixteenth century. By the seventeenth century, products native to the Americas such as chili peppers, peanuts, and tobacco were already present in East Asia, and silver from the Americas flowed into China to pay for Chinese exports. But China, after 1644, fell under the rule of the Manchu Banner People from beyond the Great Wall in the northeast, who then expanded the empire to include Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Korea, meanwhile, had only limited foreign contacts during this period, and became pervasively Confucianized. Japan was reunified in the late sixteenth century following a period of division, and the great reunifier Tokugawa Ieyasu founded Japan’s last Shogunate in 1603. The Tokugawa Shogunate became a time of prolonged peace and relative isolation, during which significant economic developments helped prepare Japan for later industrialization and undermined the old hereditary socio-political order.

China was plunged into four centuries of almost continuous division following the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Most of the empires and kingdoms in north China during this period, moreover, had ethnically non-Han Chinese rulers. Despite the remarkably multiethnic character of the era, however, there was also considerable institutional and cultural continuity. A cosmopolitan elite culture took shape, which notably included originally South Asian Buddhism but also many Chinese political traditions and literacy in the written Chinese language, that was shared now throughout East Asia. While Korea during this period was neither unified nor uniform, and Japan was also just in the process of unifying, organized and fully historical states in both Korea and Japan first emerged in this period. Meanwhile, the nucleus of what would become Vietnam remained loosely part of empires based in China during these years.

An ancient civilization emerged in the Red River delta of what is today northern Vietnam which, by about 500 BCE, was characterized by the production of magnificent bronze drums. The region fully entered recorded history, however, only after Chinese imperial conquests extended into the area beginning in 214 BCE. Soon afterwards the area became part of an independent kingdom called Southern Yue (Nam Viet). In 111 BCE, it was absorbed into the Han Dynasty. The Red River delta then remained loosely part of empires based in China until 938 CE, when a Cantonese invasion fleet was defeated, and the Red River area became an independent state called Dai Viet. In the thirteenth century Dai Viet heroically repulsed three Mongol invasions, and in the fifteenth century Dai Viet began to expand south into the land of Champa (today’s central Vietnam). By the eighteenth century, Viet rule extended to the far southern Mekong delta. Meanwhile, from the sixteenth century Vietnam was divided between northern and southern strongmen. A major rebellion that began in 1771 ended with the unification of the whole of Vietnam under the Nguyen dynasty in 1802.

The Conclusion to the book introduces two new metaphors that force readers to consider their own personal and collective responsibility in addressing the relationship between race and the law in the United States. Students should leave the text with a clearer personal understanding of the national dynamics around racial discourse in the United States and, ideally, a better understanding of both the potential and limitations of the law in solving societal problems within a democratic system.

Assessment is a key aspect of teaching and fundamental to student and teacher learning. As a teacher, you will use syllabuses, Australian Curriculum content and the local cultural knowledge that is valued in your community to develop tasks and provide classroom experiences that foster quality learning. You will need to understand that there are a range of assessment types, with different purposes and tools available that you can use to assess student learning and progress. As you grow in your career, you will continue to develop the skills and knowledge required to activate a collaborative classroom culture that promotes student ownership of learning and enables students to foster each other’s learning through classroom assessment. You will work in partnerships with students, colleagues and parents/caregivers to curate authentic evidence of learning. In this chapter, we examine forms of assessment, the most effective types of feedback and how teachers use assessment data in teaching, planning and reporting practices.

When we think about ‘becoming’ or ‘being’ a teacher, we often reflect on experiences that positively impacted our learning, or those that reduced our enthusiasm or motivation. The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership emphasises teachers’ significant role and responsibility in preparing children and young people to lead successful and productive lives. Building on Chapter 1, this chapter introduces core skills for the profession of teaching, highlighting communication, organisation, reflective practice and leadership for aspiring teachers. Acknowledging that teaching is a human endeavour, you will explore personal attributes, including confidence, resilience and self-care, and the process of managing, building and sustaining a career, while upholding professional standards.

Once you have finished university and are ready to teach in a classroom, have you finished learning? While you probably have immediate things to learn about – your new school or casual teaching, the syllabuses that you will be working with, the students you will be teaching, your colleagues and the realities of day-to-day behaviour management – there are other ways in which your learning does not stop once you have graduated. The expectation that teachers will not stop learning is realistic, as there will always be changes (social, economic, political and technological) that have to be accommodated. Developing technologies have led to changes not only in what teachers have to learn, but also in how they learn. Formal pathways for professional learning have been supplemented by informal methods. You now begin your journey from graduate to proficient, according to the roadmap through the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) provided by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. You have embarked on an exciting career that offers numerous options for development.

A fundamental task for you, as a teacher, is to get to know and understand the students you teach in the broad context of the school, community and society in which they live. By doing this, you will increase your awareness of the diverse backgrounds, experiences and needs of your students and their families. Knowledge and understanding will shape your teaching philosophy, influence your views and attitudes, and guide you in effectively teaching and supporting your students. This chapter aims to support you in answering the question: Who are my students? We will examine several theories to help you explore ways of viewing, understanding and thinking about teaching for diversity. Australian data and statistics, and teacher and student narratives, will provide you with a snapshot of today’s student cohort. This includes students from diverse family, religious, cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds, and those with a range of abilities, disabilities and orientations. You will gain insight into some of the impacts of mental health and complex trauma on children and young people and consider your role in fostering positive school experiences for all students.