ABSTRACT
Generally, the influence of a foreign theory or school to a nation is represented via two levels. One is the academic domain, which means the scholars translate, introduce, and comment on the foreign theoretical works. The other is the political and practical level; that is, by virtue of the scholars’ impulse, the theoretical resource is gradually attached importance to by the administration of education and the educators in class, and it then becomes their philosophy or even the method and criterion in practice. Obviously, these two levels represent the two linking phases of a continuous seedtime. The former is the primary phase, while the latter is the advanced phase. According to the example of a Western theory being imported, assimilated, absorbed, and syncretized in China, there are always several necessary conditions for the theory or school moving from the primary level to the advanced. First, this theory should be able to explain the reality in China to a certain degree. Second, the ordinary people feel sympathy with this theory, making it possible to spread and disperse. Third, this theory does not contradict the dominant ideology or, at least, only to a certain extent. Having these three qualifications at the same time, the theory will get a chance to move from the ideological realm to the terrain of policy and practice. Thanks to the collective effort of the scholars, practitioners, and officeholders, it will spread out and operate in a larger scope, even turn into the Prominent approach. Of course, rigorously, here the Prominent approach has already surpassed the original foreign theory itself. Instead, based on the original form, the foreign theory is combined with some selected traditions of the target nation, and develops a number of innovations still. To investigate the influence of critical educational studies in China according to the logic above, which phase is it in now? While the nation is in great change, how are the condition and the possibility of critical educational studies being accepted or even integrated? Considering that critical educational studies have appeared as a leftist Western educational trend of thought, we highlight the importance of its relation with the radical history and tradition of the leftist in China. Also, we will discuss the bewilderment and problems when people transplant, accept, and syncretize these studies in the current social context of China, especially when the mainstream is engaged in critically reflecting the Leftist thought.
