Documents selected for analysis

The Ministry of Education Website functions as a portal to all the important seminal policy documentation, educational laws and regulations, goals and plans, news on progress of various initiative, statistics and reports.

According to Earl Babbie (2005, p. 328), "content analysis is the study of recorded human communications." he notes that "content analysis is particularly well suited... to answering the classic question of communications research: "Who says what, to whom, why, how, and with what effect?" web pages, policy rhetoric, laws and constitutions etc. are all worthy subjects for a content analysis.

I employ content analysis in my study of Chinese education policy documentation in order to study what the highest education officials are saying in order to guide the nation's educators in the curriculum reforms. what are their goals (i.e. why are they saying these things) and how are they saying it? The questin of "with what effect?" is harder to answer using just content analysis but I attempt to answer this question in other parts of my research by investigating the extent to which policy ideals stated in the policy documentation are reflected in actual practice.

The hypothesis I wish to test has four elements:
1. I hypothesize that the main rationale behind the need for the new curriculum reforms is to foster greater economic development.
2. the main strategy suggested is a transformation in teaching methods and approaches: which include greater relevance, greater attention to creativity and inquiry, greater attention to learning to apply knowledge in practice. etc.
3. at the same time that this greater openness in teaching methodology is encouraged there is a corresponding emphasis on moral-political education in order to ensure national stability and unity.
4. the two goals of economic development and social and polticial stability are seamlessly woven together with internationally institutionalized progressive ideologies and are captured under the concept of suzhi jiaoyu.

I take all the documentation available on the MOE website as a sampling frame. I first select a purposeful sample of three types of documents: decisions of the state council about basic education reform and curriculum reform, guidelines from the ministry of education, and speeches by the president, the minister of education as well as other important leaders in the minsitry of education. Specific criteria for selection were that the documents refer to basic education, and are relevant to the curriculum reforms of 2001-2005. All seminal guiding documents for the new reforms are included.

The initial selected documents are as follows:

Decisions and frameworks devised by the State Council and the MOE

1. towards a plan for action for the revitalization of education in the 21st century
面向21世纪教育振兴行动计划 http://www.cau.edu.cn/jwc/wenjian/006.htm
2. decision of the state council regarding the deepening of education reform, comprehensively advance suzhi jiaoyu 中共中央国务院关于深化教育改革，全面推进素质教育的决定[1999/06/13] 3. suggestions from the office of the state council regarding the use of new methods to strenghthn and improve moral education in primary and middle schools
中共中央办公厅　国务院办公厅关于适应新形势进一步加强和改进中小学德育工作的意见[2001/06/01]
4. Decisions of the state council regarding basic education reform and development
国务院关于基础教育改革与发展的决定[2001/05/29]
5. Framework for the basic education curriculum reforms (MOE document)
基础教育课程改革纲要（试行）[2001/06/07]
6.China's educucational development and reform (1990-2000). http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/static/115plan/wenjian_01.htm
7. "The plan for the national educational cause of the ninth five year plan and the goals for development by 2010."http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/static/115plan/wenjian_02.htm
8. "the tenth five year plan for the national educational cause"http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/static/115plan/wenjian_03.htm
[for preliminary comments and analysis of documents 6-8 see the november 29 post entitled "documentation on Chinese curriculum reform"

Speeches

9. speech by deputy minister of education, Wang Zhan about the new curriculum reforms (2001) http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7459.htm
10. speech by jiang zemin given in 2000 on education issues in general.http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7450.htm
11. the importance of education in the develop the west campaign http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7442.htm
12. talk by the deputy party secretary of the moe entitled deepen educational reform, comprehensively promote suzhi jiaoyu...this was presented at a conference on the thought education of young people.
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7595.htm
13. another talk by lu fuyuan on the same topic as that abovehttp://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7446.htm
14. talk on the reform of teachign methods
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7444.htm
15. monitoring of education in the new millenium, talk given by the minister of education
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info6050.htm
16. talk by minister of education at start of fiscal year 2001
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7447.htm
17. 2001 talk by vice premier li gangqing on the deepening of education reform
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7465.htm
18. talk by premier zhu rongji at same meeting above regardign the deepenign of education reform
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7466.htm
19. the following appears to have been an article in a journal. it is entitled suzhijiaoyu, the banner of education reform for the 21st century. it is by yuan guiren
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info5771.htm
20. start of 2002 fiscal year talk by minister of education
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7463.htm
21. talk by the minister of education regarding the expansion of the new curriculum reform experiment.
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info5740.htm
22. start of fiscal year 2003 talk by minister of education
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7546.htm
23. minister of education on moral education 2003
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7545.htm
24. 2003 education monitoring
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info6048.htm
25. 2003 speed up development, deepen reforms, usher in the new face of rural education work
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7541.htm
26. more on education monitoring 2003
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info5782.htm
27. start of fiscal year 2004 talk by minister of education
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info3380.htm
28. moral education 2004
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info6542.htm
29. another on moral ed 2004
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7534.htm
30. more on curriculum reforms, zhou ji, 2004 http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info7529.htm
31. 2004 talk on the expansion of the curriculum reform experiment
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info6472.htm
32. zhou ji on education reform in 2005
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info8302.htm
33. high quality teacher work force 2005
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info10410.htm
34. new curriculum training for teachers 2005
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info13557.htm

[Just want to create a note here for another document that may be valuable for background information but not necessarily detailed analysis: 国务院关于进一步加强农村教育工作的决定][2003/09/17] ]