Social Sciences in modern China are transformed from purely academic disciplines
into strategic studies of manipulated change. In this transformation, social scientists are no
longer professionally trained elites but voluntary workers engaged in the 'sacred' task of
implementing Maoist policies and programmes. The process of change involves substantive
restructuring of curricula, research methodology and goals of social science education. In
its totality, it is neither a Marxist-Leninist experiment nor a Soviet-type socialistic reform.
The Maoist approach has to be understood strictly in terms of its Chinese context. It
reveals dilemmas of continuity and change, relative to the higher-order structure of Chinese
values. These dilemmas persist in the current 'revolutionary reforms" of social sciences.
This paper is part of a larger research project on Higher Education in China.
