Why do Chinese postgraduates struggle with critical thinking? Some clues from the higher education curriculum in China

Abstract

There has been a good deal of research into the problems Chinese postgraduate students studying in English-speaking universities face with regard to critical thinking. This project is an attempt to tackle this issue from a new perspective. It aims to explore how a unique aspect of the university curriculum in China – the so-called ‘four treasures’ (four compulsory modules of political thought taken by all Chinese undergraduate students: ‘The Fundamentals of Marxism’; ‘Maoism and Chinese Characteristic Socialism’; ‘The Outline of Modern Chinese History’; and ‘Moral Thoughts, Legal and Civic Education’) – influence Chinese students in terms of their political and cultural values. It will trace the emergence of this programme and offer a content analysis of the curriculum. The study also uses focus groups to investigate how the Chinese postgraduate students regard their undergraduate courses in China. This article will argue that the higher education curriculum in China, which is heavily regulated by the state, has become one of the main obstacles preventing Chinese undergraduate students from developing independent and critical thinking, particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Keywords:

• China
• higher education
• critical thinking

Notes

1. The essence of Watkins and Biggs’s so-called ‘paradox of the Chinese learner’ is: Why do Confucian-heritage cultures (CHC) students out-perform Western students, at least in science and mathematics and achieve high levels of understanding despite the fact that they are taught in classroom conditions and methods (passive rote learning) that, from a Western perspective, cannot be deemed as productive and inspiring?

2. All these modifications were initiated under the order of the highest leadership, carried out by the State Ministry of Propaganda and the Ministry of Education.

3. In the environment of a general relaxation of political control in the 1980s economic reform era, ideological teachings in universities were weakened as many liberal Western political and philosophical thoughts entered China and gained rapid popularity among academics and students. However, the liberal trend suffered a major setback following the activities of the student movement in 1989. After that, the Chinese regime retightened manipulation of the university curriculum and re-emphasised the importance of ideological control.

4. ‘Three Representatives’ is shorthand for the call for the Communist Party of China (CPC) to provide insight and leadership for economic and cultural progress, and commit itself to the public good. Former CPC General Secretary Jiang Zemin, who was credited with its creation, literally admonished his comrades to ‘represent the development trend of China’s most advanced productive forces, the orientation of China’s most advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people’. The theory is the result of deliberations on the part of the CPC’s third-generation leaders on legitimacy and Party-building. At the sixteenth CPC National Congress in 2002, it was formally written into the Party Constitution (http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/2008-03/11/content_6526794.htm).

5. As Guo (2013, 112) summarises, ‘The framework of communist ideology is frequently classified by political scientists into two components: Seliger’s ‘fundamental’ and ‘operative’ ideology, Moore’s ‘ideology of ends’ and ‘ideology of means’, Schurmann’s ‘pure’ and ‘practical’ ideology and Lowenthal’s ‘utopia versus development’