Textbook learning : the representation of knowledge and power relationships in English learning textbooks in China

Few empirical studies have been conducted on the role of textbooks in learning. Textbooks are significant media representing curriculum knowledge and guidance for both teaching and learning in many countries. This PhD thesis discusses the representation of knowledge-power relationships in secondary English textbooks used in China and their pedagogical usage in different types of schools including a private school, a normal urban state school, a school for migrant workers' children and a rural school. This is achieved by analysing four sets of secondary official English textbooks used in China and researching textbook users' real experiences of learning English and using English textbooks in the four schools through questionnaires, interviews and observations. By analysing knowledge-power relationships in four main ways: the knowledge-power relationship between protagonists described in textbooks in terms of their names, ways of addressing, social class and gender, the knowledge-power relationship represented through spatial contexts, cultural contexts and English language contexts, the knowledge-power relationship between textbook writers and textbook users and the knowledge-power relationship between teachers and students as different textbook users, this research reveals the mismatch between textbook design and pedagogical uses in real practices and argues for the importance of textbook quality and textbook pedagogy in textbook learning, and for the positive and active mutual empowerment between different parties such as teachers, students and textbook writers to achieve a better education. The positive side of power should be activated to work with learners and enable textbooks to be impellers of promoting effective learning and equity and equality of educational resources distribution, rather than tools for social control.