Curriculum Reform and Education Policy Borrowing in China: Towards a Hybrid Model of Teaching

This chapter critically discusses the development and application of a model of education in China by focussing on recent curriculum reform in the country. Since the 1980s, Mainland China has launched a series of ambitious education reforms in its effort to revamp its basic education and prepare its graduates for the challenges of the twenty-first century. Major changes are evident in the school management, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment in Shanghai schools. Drawing upon Phillips and Ochs (2003)’ four stages of education policy borrowing, this article analyses the curriculum reform in China and argues that a hybrid model of education exists in China that combines foreign and local ideas and practices. Rather than wholesale policy borrowing from the West, the foreign ideas and practices are being internalised and indigenised in China as they interact with local traditions, values, ways of doing and actors.