A Study On The Cultural Choice In The Course Of Compulsory Education

“Cultural selection of curriculum” in the traditional vision of “curriculum development” is a question of “choosing what”, but in the vision of “course understanding”, “the effect of its release” must be considered as well. From the external environment, the interchange and integration between civilizations is becoming increasingly important. Our current development and cultural environment made us think about encountering of different cultures, inheriting traditional culture as well as the responsibilities for world of the Chinese culture at a curricular lever more than at a social cultural level. In this context, cultural selection should go beyond the level of knowledge and have to consider the possibility and the creativity of interaction between human and culture.Consequently, with such theories as knowledge sociology, educational sociology and sociology of curriculum, this study focuses on analyzing cultural selection of Chinese curriculum in compulsory education theoretically and practically. In the process of research, the dissertation has always centered on analyzing cultural selection of curriculum and its outcomes from selectors’ perspectives as well as the empirical study on interpretation of teachers and students. And what’s more, by inquiring into the history of cultural selection of Chinese and foreign curriculum and reality in cultural selection of curriculum in our country and so on, what is concluded from the reflection on its problem must have certain reference to making policy and cultural selection of curriculum.As far as methodology, the dissertation ponders over and deals with some problems existed in our educational theory and practice in view of social structure and social institutions and so on, by studying not only macro-level national educational policy and syllabus, but also micro-level textbooks. As to specific methods, so many have been used, such as literature review, text-analysis, investigation, and so on. Furthermore, the frequency, such as list of articles, themes, protagonists in textbooks, and so on, is counted.By analyzing culture composition of Chinese textbooks in our compulsory education, the study finds that its cultural selection overly attaches importance to our domestic culture, ancient civilization and great men. Meanwhile, it regards mainstream culture as dominant. In view of discourse way of cultural selection presented in textbooks, it is expressed as macro-narrative, outspoken and pie style mainstream culture. On the perspective of curriculum culture composed of cultural selection in textbooks, it is overly presented as nationalization, political and ideological nature, positive and simple, urbanization, instrumental and knowledgeable. Therefore, the culture selected and inherited of Chinese textbooks in our compulsory education is mainstream, which is reflected on national ideology, but curriculum or textbook knowledge rationalized and legalized, teachers’ personal knowledge screened and donated, which is used to reform and remold students’ life world. Moreover, inherited culture of curriculum can be realized by disciplining and modeling students.In China, tremendous changes have taken place about people’s value and life style because of the over-thirty years’ reform and opening policy and the development of market economy. How to guide students to form the ideas that the society requires, which is becoming an urgent need and it is also a social driver for curriculum reform in compulsory education at present. Theoretically speaking, teaching material is an important course content. An issue of separation of curriculum and teaching illustrates that educational culture itself must be continuous more than an unbroken “meaning chain”, which needs to provide explanations for the behaviors within the field of education. A fractured or heterogeneous educational culture is not sufficient to explain the effect. This succession is dynamic and interactive which generates the new educational meanings in the interactive mechanisms in curriculum and teaching. Consequently, by virtue of Dewey’s “Experience Course” and Weade’s “Curriculum Instruction”, we can see the direction of development of education and culture with integration of curriculum and teaching, which is from the entity to the relationship, from the symbol to the life, from the spirit to the culture, from the transmission to the construction and from closing to opening.