The Study of Freedom and Regulation in the Open Textbook Policy－Taking the Senior Civics and Society Textbook Review Process as an Example

[[abstract]]This study was designed to compare the ideal of the open textbook policy and the actual implementation situation. The author took senior Civics and Society textbook review process as an example for analysis. By applying the discourse analysis approach, this study aims to understand how the textbook editors and review committee members have their influences on textbook formation, and to examine how the freedom and regulations be exercised in the textbook review process. To achieve the research goals, methods applied in this study include: (1)literature review－to understand the relationship between regulated structure and autonomy of action; (2) document analysis－to analysis policy statements, meeting minutes, official documents, scholarly reports, newspaper articles, editorials, and etc., to grasp an over all picture of the contextual background and the review process; (3)interviews－to understand the opinions and thoughts of the related issues from the textbook review committee members and textbook editors. The arguments of the open Textbooks policy are composed of two main axis, one of political aspect (authoritarian - democracy) and the other of economic aspect (market).According to the analytical results, it turns out that textbook review is actually a dialectical process of regulated structure and autonomous action. In the process, both review committee members and textbook editors exercise their discursive power and actual responsive action to make the change of the textbook structure as well as the context. Based on research findings, this study provides recommendations not only for the enactment /improvement of the new textbook policy, but also for future studies.