This study aims to examine how educational elites established 'technical professionalism' and utilized it to intervene in educational policy-making processes under the intensified authoritarian control of the Nanjing Nationalist Government since 1927....
This study aims to examine how educational elites established 'technical professionalism' and utilized it to intervene in educational policy-making processes under the intensified authoritarian control of the Nanjing Nationalist Government since 1927. Existing scholarship has largely viewed this period through a dichotomous framework of unilateral 'control' by the party-state versus 'resistance' by students and intellectuals. However, this study redefines the education sector not as a passive object but as an active political agent that negotiated with state power and secured an autonomous domain through the medium of 'technical professionalism.'
To demonstrate this, this study conducted a complete enumeration survey of articles in major educational media of the 1920s and 30s, specifically The Educational Review(敎育雜誌) and The Chinese Educational Review(中華敎育界). By employing Social Network Analysis(SNA) and contextual text analysis, this study empirically verified the discursive strategies and behavioral patterns of the educational community.
The key arguments of this study are as follows. First, following the collapse of representative organizations such as the Federation of Education Associations(全國敎育會聯合會) during the National Revolution, the center of the education sector shifted to a 'discourse network.' University professors and professional researchers, connected by regional and academic ties as well as overseas study experiences, coalesced around professional media from major publishing houses. This led to the hierarchization of expert groups where a small elite minority dominated the discourse, thereby establishing a structure for the exclusive production of professional knowledge.
Second, after the establishment of the Nanjing Government, the party-state strengthened control over education through policies of 'Party-ification of Education' (or Three Principles of the People Education) and 'Party-run Education.' Rather than rejecting this pressure outright, educational elites adopted a strategy of translating the party-state's political slogans into technical language to secure jurisdiction over educational content and methods. Specifically, they redescribed political slogans like 'Three Principles of the People Education' and 'Education of Productivity' into modern discourses of 'Vocational Education' and 'Science Education.' By doing so, they appeared to accept political demands while securing substantive leadership. In this process, elites utilized economic statistics and data to critique the unrealistic nature of policies, while maintaining 'strategic silence' on ideological education such as 'Party Doctrine'(Dangyi, 黨義) or Civic Education, focusing instead on 'discipline' as a technique of guidance to perform high-level 'boundary-work.'
Third, the technical professionalism accumulated by the discourse network exerted substantial policy influence during the controversy over the Graduation Examination(Biye Huikao, 畢業會考) in 1932. While the party-state expanded the exam nationwide to strengthen control based on local experiments, it faced administrative failures such as leaked papers, errors in questions, and student protests(Xuechao, 學潮). Major daily newspapers also formed a controversy by gathering public opinion on the exam and news of student unrest.
At this juncture, educational elites, having rebuilt their organizational base under the name of the Chinese Society of Education(中國敎育學會), led the controversy over the Graduation Examination using their accumulated technical professionalism. They adopted a dual strategy: aligning politically with teachers' opposition movements while simultaneously presenting objective data, such as survey results and statistical analyses, to point out the limitations of the state's administrative capacity. They utilized these scientific evidences as tools for negotiation to induce policy modifications. Recognizing its own limitations in governance costs and administrative capacity, the party-state showed a receptive attitude towards the elites' proposals, such as significantly revising the system in 1935 and reducing the number of subjects in 1936. This case demonstrates that when state power could not unilaterally enforce institutions under an authoritarian regime, problems were resolved through negotiation with expert groups.
In conclusion, educational elites during the Nanjing decade secured autonomy not by confronting political power but by strategically utilizing and transforming 'technical professionalism' in response to the political environment. They formed a 'negotiating relationship' with the regime. This study is significant in that it moves beyond the 'control vs. resistance' dichotomy to empirically demonstrate the dynamics of 'negotiated authoritarianism,' where expert groups secure leadership in the public sphere by navigating the interstices of state power through knowledge and technology.