A state-intellectual partnership? Roles of key players in the development of national curriculum in China

This article exams the process of National Curriculum-making in China, with a focus on the English as a Foreign Language subject in Primary Education. The result shows that the practices of curriculum design at the national level involve a complicated State-intellectual partnership. While China’s curriculum policy-making is certainly not ‘bottom-up’, never the less there are opportunities for intellectuals to play a profoundly important part in the production process. The State remains its overarching power while in fact pressures from the side group – intellectuals (national curriculum designers and textbook editors) - are possible and becoming more evident.