Textbook Construction In Educational Reform

In the practice of educational reform, the results were always deviating from the original purpose of initiators of the reforms, which we called Curriculum Alteration. It is nightmare of many reformers and researchers, which is hindering the process of the educational reform. With the Second-Round School Curriculum Reform in Shanghai as the study object, this thesis focuses on analyzing of Structures and Agents in the construction of textbook as well as resources and regulations, which have effects on the structures' transitions or on the agents' actions. It aims at revealing the internal mechanism and influencing factors of textbook construction, verifying the cause of curriculum alteration and accordingly finding out the practical strategy of controlling and eliminating the alteration.The thesis consists of 6 chapters:Chapter 1 is mainly analysis of textbook construct system of the Second-round Curriculum Reform in Shanghai with the purpose of revealing the basic framework of textbook construction. Within the complex curriculum reform system, as the junction of curriculum development and implement, textbook is the most important influencing factor of curriculum alteration. The construct system of textbook involves lots of agents. Taking Shanghai as examples, it mainly involves Shanghai Primary & Secondary Schools (Kindergartens) Curriculum Reform Committee and Office, the Teaching and Research Room of Shanghai Education Commission, the Teaching Materials Writing Group, the Textbook Censorship Group, publishing companies, printing houses, Xinhua bookstores, news media, teacher trainers, teachers,parents and students, and etc. There are 3 fields in the textbook construct system—Power Supply Field of curriculum reform, Constructed Field of textbook and Applied Field of textbook. Agents always act in line with the regulations established by the government.Chapter 2 focuses on analysis of the decision making process of both course proposal and curriculum standards with the purpose of revealing the top regulation of textbook construction: mechanism of course proposal and curriculum standards. As the programmatic document of official knowledge, course proposal and curriculum standards is the "highest regulation" of Education Knowledge. In the practice of the Second-round Curriculum Reform in Shanghai, the decision-making process of both is homogenous and always of synchronized interaction. Due to the different value orientation of reform initiators and decision makers of the proposals or standards, e.g.: former's task orientation and latter's value orientation, the two kinds of value orientation plays games interactively in practice and leads to the somewhat departure of final texts from the original intention of reformers. The designated expert teams usually will make use of educational theories and complete the educational transformation of the government's intentions by way of theoretical construction of course proposal and curriculum standards, which however will often be misunderstood when applied as guidance of practices.Chapter 3 is mainly analysis of the writing and censoring process of textbook aiming at disclosing the fundamental rules of textbook knowledge choosing and organizing. As the products of tailor-made educational system of the government, textbook are marked by "institutional culture" and "authorized knowledge", the production processes of which is with dual characteristic of both culture growth and technology. Take the case of the Second-round Curriculum Reform in Shanghai, at the present stage, the writing of teaching material of our country is under the influence of three kinds of forces: textbook writing team, textbook censoring team and textbook editors. Taking lead in the 3 sections of the whole process, they develop their action rules based on their own experiences and try to construct. Therefore the content of textbook, with the forms of "institutional culture" and "authorized knowledge", is likely with non-institutional and non-authorized nature in practice, which is namely curriculum alteration of textbook.Chapter 4 is analysis on the textbook's selection process and mechanism with the purpose of revealing the whole selection process as well as its relevant influence factors. It is one of the important sections in the realization of textbook' values, which will back act on the construct system of textbook. Who and how to select textbook? In terms of Sociology Analysis, this two in our curriculum reform process is actually two in one: whose preference will be of more value? Students, parents, teachers, schools, education researchers, publishing house, Ministry of Education, local educational administrative departments or local interest group? The government designed a set of agent choice system and tried to make various policies attempting to balance relationships of all different interest groups. However, the result is that students lose the right of selecting high-quality textbook in actual and the inequity in education was intensified. This is a typical counterargue on textbook selection.Chapter 5 focuses on analysis of textbook events in the media interactions with attempt to reveal the media mechanism in the textbook construct system and social system interaction. Textbook construct system is an open one: one the one hand, agents of textbook hope to publicize their reform ideas and textbook' characteristics and seek for Social Forces' recognition and support by way of media; and on the other hand, such social forces also want to express their position and opinion by media with the hope of exert influence on textbook construction. With intervene of media, textbook becomes the product of social construction and the outcome of the combined actions of various social forces. In the process of the Second-round Curriculum Reform in Shanghai, textbook agents and social forces have interactive influence on each other and exert effect on the textbook construction with the form of media. The second-round curriculum reform, under the influence of media, will swing and even deviate from the original intention of reformers. Chapter 6 is analysis on curriculum alteration in terms of teacher mobilization and tries to reveal the way and strategy of teachers' participation in textbook construction. In this chapter, teacher mobilization is divided into s types: communication mobilization, competition mobilization and participation mobilization. Communication mobilization refers to transform the experts' ideal curriculum into teachers' practical curriculum using the administrative force and by way of communication media; competition mobilization refers to, by way of establishment of value standards for curriculum reform, foster competitive environment, set competitive rules, implement value judgment and therefore realize the win-win situation between continuous development of teachers' professional capability and continuous innovation of curriculum. Hereby the thesis investigates variables which have influences on teachers' participation in textbook practice and curriculum reform and bring forwards a cooperative dynamic path of teacher mobilization in order to control or even eliminate curriculum alteration to an extreme in the practice of textbook.Through the investigation on the textbook construct system, the thesis makes a conclusion that curriculum alteration is mainly the result of interaction of different agents with their structure in the curriculum reform system. In different fields and. sections of textbook construct, the various preferences of different agents is the intrinsic reason of curriculum alteration. Accordingly it holds that the essential way to control and eliminate curriculum alteration is to set protocol and regulation on the activity of agents and to make reasonable arrangement and adjustment on the structures agents located, e.g.: resources and rules of the fields agents located.