Purposes and Effects on English Language Learning Participants Following China's Double Reduction Policy: A Critical Discourse and Stakeholder Analysis

This study investigates China's Double Reduction Policy, exploring its rationales and effects on key stakeholders: students, state and private sector teachers, and parents. The research addressed two central questions: What are the rationales for the DRP according to official policy documents? What are the perceived effects on its main stakeholders?
For the first question, I conducted a critical discourse analysis of policy documents using thematic and lexicogrammatical analysis through NVivo. For the second question, semi-structured interviews with 30 participants representing each stakeholder group examined policy intentions and effects and triangulated with a systematic literature review. Both sets of data were analysed using the same NVivo system to ensure consistency and reliability.

Analysis revealed tensions between the Double Reduction Policy's stated goals of reducing academic burden and deeper value-based objectives, including curbing capitalist influence in education, strengthening national identity, and reasserting state control over private tutoring markets. While some participants accepted the policy's apparent surface-level aims, implementation produced unintended consequences, including a proliferation in black-market tutoring, increased parental anxiety, and significant disruption to private sector teachers' livelihoods. The research demonstrates how, despite being a central directive, power circulates through non-official channels, with interpretations imposed through everyday interactions rather than hierarchically through the governance framework. This study shows the value of combining critical discourse analysis with stakeholder interviews to bridge policy analysis with lived experience.

Findings reveal how education reform attempts to reshape societal behaviours whilst highlighting limitations of top-down approaches that fail to address underlying structural issues such as competitive exam culture. The Double Reduction Policy represents broader nation-building through education, using policy mechanisms to realign societal values with state objectives. The disconnect between official intentions and stakeholder interpretations illustrates complex negotiations between state power and social realities in contemporary China.