The Hidden Curriculum of an English for Academic Purposes Reform in Chinese Universities

Abstract

The fundamental challenge in China’s higher education is its bureaucratic governance system; however, it remains untouched after several reforms. The recent Shanghai EAP policy does nothing to challenge the system, but rather, it blames the general English curriculum for failing to prepare students academically. By critically reflect on data from some previous studies, this study discovered that the new EAP curriculum and the policy proposed to replace the general English curriculum harbored a hidden curriculum that tightened the control of knowledge, legitimizing the existing higher education system, and reproducing future academic subalterns. This Shanghai EAP policy is the result of the policymakers’ social mobility struggle as members of a new middle class, together with their accomplices: neoliberalism and neoconservatives. However, resistance and conflict exist in every working context, including the context of Shanghai EAP as justified in the study, despite some of the students’ and the teacher’s resistance being counter-productive.