Lee, Tai Jung’s academic interest began with the visit and collection of folklore of Taiwan's indigenous people. During my Substitute military service of Education, I was assigned to serve in Tabang Elementary School in Alishan Township, which gave me the most direct experience and observation of the education of indigenous people in remote villages.
Taiwan's indigenous culture has diverse features, but it has been marginalized for a long time, and the relevant laws and regulations are incomplete. Their traditional culture is not taken seriously, and the patterns are often misused. Therefore, I participated in the Protection Act for the traditional intellectual creations of indigenous peoples project and Taiwan Indigenous Civil Traditional Customs Investigation Project to think about contemporary indigenous people issues from a legal perspective.
While working as a Chinese language teacher at the U.S. Military Academy, I paid attention to the country’s policy planning for minority language teaching, which also greatly inspired my thinking on the issue of indigenous language education.
When I was working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Indigenous Peoples Education of NAER, I started to research on indigenous historical justice and transitional justice, as well as the field of experimental education of indigenous peoples. In order to understand the challenges faced by teachers in teaching indigenous issues, I have developed several research projects and proposed specific policy recommendations for the reference of education authorities.