Curriculum policy-making for an emerging profession: The structure, process, and outcome of creating a graduate institute for translation and interpretation studies in the Republic of China of Taiwan

The purpose of this dissertation is to add to our knowledge of educational policy-making in an emerging profession and of the interconnectedness of the educational bureaucracy. The study examines how a graduate institute of translation and interpretation (T&I) studies was established in a private, Catholic university within a centralized system of higher education in a non-Western country. It explores how the creation of the GITIS reflects the culture in which it was created and how T&I's status as an emerging academic field conditions GITIS characteristics.;The control mechanisms and constraints that act upon a curricular platform, or curricular ideal, are examined. The study examines where policy-makers negotiate political accommodations and what control mechanisms operate at different levels of a highly structured, multi-level, rule-bound, institutional policy-making system.;The research extends prior studies of the political character of curriculum decision-making by examining the character of negotiation and accommodation when a new discipline is introduced in a highly-structured, institutionalized environment. An ethnographic approach was chosen as the research strategy. The researcher was involved in the project as participant observer during most stages of GITIS creation, as consultant, curriculum designer, and as its first director.;This study of the political nature of the curriculum development process in a private, Catholic, non-Western, rule-bound, institutional structure indicates that societal and institutional cultures constitute principal factors framing action. The type of governance used played a determining role on how political action took place. The curriculum development process was constrained by a multi-layered network of institutional interactions that emerged in the federated system of institutional management studied. The interconnectedness of the educational system manifested itself in the broad range of impact that any given rule could have.;The quasi-professional status of T&I was found to influence its acceptance as an independent field of study within higher education and a college of foreign languages and literatures. Traditional perceptions of "translation" as a language exercise and a method for second language teaching were also found to hamper the curriculum development process for a program of study aiming to train professional translators and interpreters.