Control, Conformity and Contradiction: Changes in Chinese Language and Literacy (Yuwen) Curriculum from 1980-2010 in China Min Tao A thesis submitted to the University of Sydney in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney August 2016 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I need to sincerely thank a great many people for their wonderful support and encouragement. Without them, this project would not have been completed at all or finished on time. First and foremost, I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to my primary supervisor Dr Wei Wang. Looking back, it was hard to imagine or estimate how heavy the workload for the supervision work is: it is not just reading and commenting on your drafts which already involves a huge amount of time and energy. It is more an epistemological training or mind-shaping process, particularly in my case: equipping a literature-mind teacher of Chinese language and literature who had been trained and taught in China with the perspectives and methodologies of social sciences necessary for a researcher. My supervisor gave me invaluable learning and training experience. I am also appreciative of his insightful advice concerning writing in academic English. I thank my co-supervisor Associate Professor Linda Tsung. Linda was concerned with my thesis from the time when the thesis proposal was put forward as early as in 2009. As an expert scholar in language teaching and learning and Chinese education, Linda provided insightful comments and guidance for the structure of the thesis, the data collection and data analysis. My gratitude also goes to Professor Yingjie Guo, the Chair of the Department of Chinese studies, who trusted me and offered me teaching duties in the last year of my PhD candidature, which was not just vital encouragement for me to continue writing at the final stage, but also to keep providing for my family at the same time. I thank Professor Wenche Ommundsen and Professor Kerry Dunne who supported me by funding my fieldwork during my appointment as a lecturer of Chinese at the University of Wollongong in 2013. I also express my gratitude to Professor Wu Jiemin, Professor Yiyang Wang, Professor Barbara Hatley, Professor Mobo Gao, Dr Derek Herforth, Dr Zheng Yi and many other academics who generously supported and encouraged me to complete my PhD project. Profound gratitude goes to my former colleague and mentor Dr Maria Flutsch at the University of Tasmania; I am particularly indebted to Maria who offered to help me with my II editing and proofreading. Beyond that, her advice as a retired senior academic has been highly valued and appreciated. Lastly but not least, I thank my family for their support and encouragement over all these years: my father Tao Weiping, my mother Cui Zhen in China and my wife Cecily Wu, my son Moshi and daughter Laura. One important motivation for this long journey was to be an example to my children of completing a task as planned is very important to me. III ABSTRACT Inspired by the researcher’s observations of and queries in the language curriculum as a practicing teacher for the past 20 years, this thesis addresses how the high school Chinese language and literacy (Yuwen) curriculum in China is controlled and directed by the social and political dominations from 1980 to 2010 and how the teachers and schools respond to the top-down curriculum change in their teaching practice. This research project fills a research gap of the lack of a systematic study of the Chinese language and literacy curriculum in Western scholarship by conducting an in-depth analysis of the relevant syllabuses, textbooks and teachers’ responses to the curriculum change in China. In doing so, this thesis attempts to achieve two theoretical implications: 1) A test of applicability of the existing literacy and other social theories originated in the Western developed countries to the Chinese context; 2) An empirical study that examines the data obtained in China with a view to enriching and complementing the existing literacy theories. This project is also expected to have impact on the policy makers in China and beyond, like in Australia and the USA where Chinese migrants and international students constitute a substantial learning population. IV STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged. Signature: Name: Min Tao Date: 31 August 2016 V TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................. 13 1.1 Motivation and my personal experience in education ........................................................ 13 1.2 Clarification of the key terms: Yuwen, syllabus, curriculum and textbooks ................ 15 1.3 Issues, problems and research questions ................................................................................ 19 1.4 Periodization ...................................................................................................................................... 21 1.5 Social change and Yuwen education ........................................................................................... 21 1.6 Significance of the study ................................................................................................................. 23 1.7 Outline of each chapter ................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 2: Literacy Studies in the Western Context .............................................................. 27 2.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 27 2.2 Social approaches to literacy studies ........................................................................................ 27 2.2.1 Various understandings and definitions of literacy ................................................................... 28 2.2.2 Literacy thesis: Jack Goody, David Olson and the psychological and anthropological approaches ............................................................................................................................................................. 30 2.2.3 Literacies and New Literacy Studies (NLS): the socio-cultural approach ........................ 32 2.2.4 Critical literacy as a social approach: its theory and educational implications ............. 34 2.2.5 Theoretical foundation of critical literacy ..................................................................................... 36 2.2.6 How the critical literacy approach is implemented and practiced in the classroom ... 40 2.2.7 Reflection, self-reflection and possible limitations of critical literacy ............................... 41 2.3 Language and literacy curriculum in Australia and beyond ............................................. 42 2.3.1 Major approaches of language and literacy teaching in the Australian context ............ 43 2.3.2 Institutional constraints – the effect of end of schooling examinations on the language and literacy curriculum .................................................................................................................................... 44 2.3.3 Aims, boundary and identity – literacy, personal development and civic capacity ...... 45 2.3.4 Three subsets of language and literacy through three sets of relationships ................... 47 2.4. Discussion and summary .............................................................................................................. 50 Chapter 3: Major Debates on Yuwen Education in China after 1949 ................................. 53 3.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 53 3.2 Control and resistance in Yuwen education ............................................................................ 54 3.2.1 Control .......................................................................................................................................................... 54 VI 3.2.2 Resistance ................................................................................................................................................... 60 3.3 Instrumentalism (functionalism) ............................................................................................... 63 3.4 Humanism ........................................................................................................................................... 66 3.5 Yuwen for life ...................................................................................................................................... 68 3.6 Discussion and summary ............................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 4: Scope and Methods .................................................................................................... 74 4.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................