A Study Of College English Curriculum Policy Changes In China From The Perspective Of Historical Institutionalism

Curriculum is the core of educational activity. As the bridge between educational theory and practical activity, while, curriculum policy regulates and controls the aims, contents and patterns of curriculum development. From the beginning of the new century, Chinese Ministry of Education started the campaign on reforming the College English education across China. Although compared with previous ones, this reform had realized some expected targets, there remained problems. In recent years, some scholars have sought to resolve those existing problems by studying the curriculum change of College English. However, most of the studies focused only on its educational aspects, neglecting the history of its policy development. Therefore, this thesis tries to retrospect the developing history of the College English curriculum policy after Reform and Opening-up and make a picture of it. Through this can we trace its developing trend and the factors which have influenced and are still influencing it. All the studies are helpful to analyze the present situations and find out a proper way to resolve the existing problems.By adopting the historical institutionalism framework, this thesis is attempting to identify the structural, historical causality of the relevant events along the change of College English curriculum policy in China.After combing the historical context of the College English curriculum policy, this thesis divides it into the selection, alienation, and stagnation stages, arguing that government has always been the dominating factor in College English curriculum policy making, revealing that College English curriculum policy can only reflect and represent the government’s interests, which then results in its Path Dependent. Finally, this thesis proposed that by adopting multiple systems could we improve the present situation.