Calligraphy Curation Pedagogy for Children’s Aesthetic Development: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Chinese school calligraphy often privileges technique and repetition over cultural engagement. The significance of this study lies in responding to the “social turn” in art education and UNESCO’s call to embed intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in schooling. This review proposes a pedagogy that cultivates children’s aesthetic literacy through socially situated practice. Aim to explore how curation-inspired pedagogy can reframe children’s calligraphy learning from skill drills to socially embedded aesthetic cultivation. The research objectives are to identify core pedagogical moves that operationalize a curation lens in calligraphy education; To determine how these moves enhance aesthetic literacy and cultural participation; To establish a practical design and assessment rubric for educators. A narrative review synthesizing theoretical literature on relational aesthetics, national education policy, and artist-led field practices in China. Purposive sampling and iterative coding were used to map concepts and practices; documented projects by contemporary artist and curators (notably Qiu Zhijie’s public/community work) provide illustrative cases. Sample size: applicable to human or animal participants; the corpus comprises published texts, policy documents, and documented practice reports. As a narrative (non-systematic) synthesis, findings are subject to selection and interpretive bias, uneven documentation quality across cases, and limited generalizability beyond Chinese contexts. Causal inference is not possible, and coverage of regional practices may be incomplete. Three interrelated pedagogical moves emerged: place-based embodiment is relocating writing into everyday public sites to foreground social interaction and embodied learning; techno-cultural mediation is responsible integration of digital and generative tools within craft traditions while fostering ethical AI literacy; and participatory exhibition design is positioning children as co-curators and cultural producers. Across cases, these moves are associated with gains in aesthetic sensitivity, cultural awareness, communicative clarity, reflective competence, and civic participation. A practical rubric is proposed aligning learning objectives, activity structures, and multidimensional assessment of technique, contextual fit, narrative/communicative intent, reflective depth, and community impact. The review offers an actionable, theory-informed framework for curriculum designers, teachers, and policymakers seeking to bridge classroom skill training with culturally situated practice. It outlines an agenda for empirical validation—mixed-methods classroom trials combining developmental assessment, community evaluation, and ethics-of-AI learning outcomes to strengthen evidence for curation-inspired calligraphy education.