Cultural Discourse Studies Of Contemporary China Education Policy Discourse

Education policy is the basic principle and educational operative norm made by powerful government institutes in certain time and for certain education purposes and issues. Chinese education policy is a significant policy that is closely related with political and socioeconomic development, aiming to improve the overall quality of people. Thus, we should give high priority to the development of education for the purpose of strengthening our country. The educational reform drive has witnessed the appearances of the National Conference on Education that symbolizes the supreme political concern from the central governments. Meanwhile, studies on education policy issues have always been a focus in academic field. As an important policy, education policy concerns the main trend of education development. Education policy can be treated as an interactive discursive event including related talents of national education institute, government and the populace educatee. Therefore, the establishment, implement, reform and corresponding influence of education policy can also be regarded as the process of interactive discursive event.Currently, studies on education policy issues tend to adopt political economic approaches and pedagogics. In this thesis, beyond conventional political economic approaches and pedagogics, the author employs a cultural discourse research framework to analyze and assess the discursive development of Chinese education policy. This thesis mainly employs Shi-Xu’s Cultural Discourse Studies to analyze four pieces of China education policy documents extracted from Chinese national education policy documents. Through a systematic analysis of related discursive element, such as the discursive subjects, the content, communicative channels, backgrounds and the relationship between culture and education policy, the thesis points out the main development trend of China contemporary education policy is on the way of democratization, equality, diversification and life-long training. Through systematic and detailed qualitative studies, on one hand, it is shown that the number of discursive subjects of education policy has been increased, and the populace began to have a say in the decision-making process. The discursive subjects own the characteristics of democratization and diversification. On the other hand, it is shown that the content of education policy has become more diversified. And the most important part is the cultural influence on education policy. Through the analysis, we also can see the significant influence of culture on education. In conclusion, the development trend of China’s education policy is in a harmonious and democratic way.This paper adopts Cultural Discourse Studies to delve into the development trend of education since1978, the changes of policy discourse and culture implications. Besides, this paper attempts to predict the future focus and trend of education through the function and influence of discourse on education, making affordable contributions to our nation future education career and trying our best to make China become a strong powerful education country.