This article uses curriculum-making frameworks to analyse and reconstruct the Chinese curriculum-making model and unpack the dynamics, complexity and constraints of China's curriculum reform since the early 1990s. It argues that curriculum reform is China's main human capital development strategy for coping with the challenges of the 21st century,…

Identifies three assumptions underlying the emphasis on good instructional practice as a way to improve education and the curriculum. Discusses how to determine good practice and endorses a research approach to look at good teaching. Notes that the logic of basing curriculum on good instructional practice is not unproblematic. (KO)