China Social Science Review

No.2, 2025

 

 

Wang Zheng

 

Over the past 40 years,the ideological and political education studies in China have made remarkable progress with scholars actively exploring the relevant categories and building categorical systems. However, such research still fails to meet the emphasis and demands for the disciplinary construction from both the state and society. This is mainly reflected in the lack of disciplinary distinctiveness in category selection, insufficient conceptual refinement, and the absence of internal logical coherence among the proposed categories. In other words, a refined categorical system for the ideological and political education studies has yet to be fully established. To develop the field into an independent, scientific, and mature discipline, it is imperative to formulate precise criteria for category identification, select them in a proper manner, and, based on their respective status, function and logical relationships, distinguish among foundational, basic and ordinary types of categories.