Cite this article: Wang, T.-K. (2025). Institutionalizing “Experimental Education”: The Tension Between Alternative Education and State-Led Educational Experiments. Bulletin of Educational Research, 71(3), 123-167. https://doi.org/10.6910/BER.202509_71(3).0002
Taiwan has enacted the three laws of experimental education in 2014. These laws regulate two main forms of experimental education– school-based and nonschool-based– which are further subdivided into six types: public, charter, and private experimental schools, as well as individual, group, and institution-based non-school formats. This legislation has established a legal framework for diverse educational practices that differ from the conventional system and has been celebrated as a milestone in fostering educational innovation. However, beneath the surface of this flourishing development, concerns have arisen over uneven development across different types and ongoing debates about the authenticity of certain practices. This uneven development is reflected in the fact that although experimental education originated from alternative education practices outside the formal system, it is the public experimental schools within the system that have experienced rapid growth since the laws’ passage, now outnumbering private experimental schools by more than tenfold. This developmental gap has cast doubt on the “experimental” nature of such education, fueling disputes over what truly constitutes experimental education. As the three laws approach their second decade, this study examines the process of institutionalizing experimental education, aiming to trace the origins of these concerns and debates and to offer reflections on future directions.
This study posits that to understand the formation of the three laws of experimental education, one cannot overlook the institutional framework for educational experiments that has existed within the formal system since the 1950s, particularly how this framework influenced the legalization process of alternative education practices that emerged outside the system in the 1990s. To this end, this study adopts the perspective of historical institutionalism and applies the concept of path dependence to reconstruct the relationships among educational experiments, alternative education, and experimental education. This framework, in turn, addresses two key research questions: Why was alternative education legalized under the name of “experimental education”? And why does experimental education adopt a classification of three laws, two forms, and six types?
This study employs text analysis, drawing on three primary sources: news reports, government documents, and the discourse of key actors. These are supplemented with academic literature, including dissertations, journal articles, and scholarly books.
In the 1990s, alternative education practices emerged outside the formal system, taking two main forms: ideal-based schools and homeschooling. To secure initial legal recognition, both aligned themselves with the legal framework for educational experiments that had existed within the formal system since the 1950s. However, tension existed between the two traditions: whereas archetypal educational experiments were initiated in a top-down manner, designed in the image of scientific experiments, and aimed at scalability, the new wave of alternative education was initiated from the bottom up, rooted in humanistic values, and tailored to specific needs. Consequently, when these two distinct traditions converged, they unexpectedly gave rise to a new institutional framework for “experimental education” that regulated both homeschooling and ideal-based schools under the designation of “non-school-based.” The subsequent process– whereby ideal-based schools were categorized as “institutions” within the non-school form, coupled with the extension of experimental education from non-school to school-based forms to include public schools– ultimately led to the complex classification of three laws and six types, sparking the intractable dispute over what truly counts as “experimental.”
Drawing on more than sixty years of data, this study builds on previous research to offer an integrated analytical framework for understanding the interrelations and chronological development of educational experiments, alternative education, and experimental education. This framework provides insights and guidance for future research and practice in the field of education.
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