Researching English language textbooks: A systematic review in the Chinese context (1964–2021)

A new wave of developing English textbooks for compulsory education in China demands for more attention on the integration of textbook research and practice. While increasing research has investigated the design and implementation of English textbooks for Chinese learners, there is a lack of a systematic review on the structural development of this field, leaving prominent research areas, research methods, and enlightening findings unclear. This paper addresses the above issues by systematically reviewing 530 research concerning English textbooks in the Chinese context. As a data-driven study, we applied content analysis and developed a coding scheme, manually annotated all data and cross-checked our annotations. Findings from descriptive statistics and content analysis showed increasing attention on textbooks research from Chinese researchers, inadequate empirical studies, insufficient effort on English textbooks for compulsory education, and three research themes, i.e. textbooks production, textbooks implementation, and textbooks evaluation. Future directions and implications are further discussed.