The Emergence of Regulated Individualism: Case Study of an Educational Journal in China.

Based on the theory of pedagogic discourse developed by Basil Bernstein, this paper discusses the relationship between the production of intellectual discourse and the Chinese State which emerged after the Cultural Revolution. The paper identifies three dominant ideological positions in China between 1949 and 1993: traditional collectivism (before the Cultural Revolution), radical collectivism (during the Cultural Revolution), and regulated individualism (after the Cultural Revolution). The empirical work is a study of "Jiaoyu Yanjiao" ("Educational Research"), the most important Chinese education journal, published by the Central Institute of Educational Research. The journal was created in 1978 by the Institute to support the new education reform in China. The paper's major empirical analysis is on the papers published by the journal on moral education. The reform policy in China introduced by the Chinese government in 1978 had necessitated a fundamental shift in what constituted the core elements of the dominant ideological positions of the State, involving certain elements of autonomy introduced to the intellectual field. But the exercise of the newly granted freedom was conditional, leading to a shift in the modality of controlling the intellectual field exercised by the State and an effect on the ways educational theories are produced and reported in the journal. Contains a figure, 7 tables, and 19 references. (Author/BT)