Conceptualizing a Collaborative Ecosystem for Curriculum-Based Ideological-Political Education in Higher Education: A Case of a Public Relations Course

Abstract

In the context of ongoing reforms in Chinese higher education, curriculum-based ideological and political education (CIPE) has increasingly been promoted as a systematic approach to integrating value formation into disciplinary teaching. Yet existing practices often remain fragmented, relying on episodic “add-on” integration that yields limited coherence and sustainability. Drawing on an educational ecology perspective, this paper develops a collaborative ecosystem framework for CIPE and illustrates it through a public relations course. The proposed framework specifies (a) the structural components of the ecosystem (actors, resources, platforms, governance arrangements, and evaluation infrastructures), (b) the core mechanisms through which these components interact (cross-boundary coordination, contextualized learning design, resource circulation, and feedback-based regulation), and (c) the intended educational outcomes at learner, course, and organizational levels. By theorizing how ecological synergy can be generated and sustained, the study contributes a conceptually explicit and potentially transferable framework for understanding and designing CIPE as an integrated educational ecology rather than a set of isolated pedagogical techniques.