Multicultural And Early Childhood Education - Macau Early Childhood Curriculum Development Model

Eariy childhood education (ECE) is the start point of the first and foremoSt Stag inone's education. It is thus very impotri to understand how ECE promOtes the whole-childdevelopment of learners in order to help them to develop the knowedge, attitudes and sIdllsneeded to function effectively in our raPidly changing and multicultural society and beyond.WthoUt doubt, there is an urgellt need for us to design a multicultural cutriculum for earlychildhood education (MCECE) in Macao. Then, what is multicultural education? What is thevalue of multicultural cAnculum? Why, and how should we constrUCt the MCECE? Inaddition, what are the charederistics of Macao's multicultural cutriculum? What factors thectMacao's cutriculum? AIe there any special features and disparities of Macao's MCECE incomparison wih that in other countries? How can we aPproach and analyze these queshonsfrom different perspeCtives, theorCtically and pndically? All these issues are worth an effertof exPloration and contemPlation.It was whh considerable meditaion and refleCtion uPon all the above-mentionedquestions that Ans doCtoral stUdy was undertaken. Using data gathered by means of a) surveywAn aPproximately 400 hundred people, b) individual interviews, c) c1assroom observations,and d) school visits, I have confirmed the need for the MCECE develoPment as pointed outabove. I have also provided a theore'tical basis for understanding the nature of multiculturaleducation in Macao society. More imPoatly, draWing insights from the literatUre ofSkilbeck's (l983) sAnational analytic model and Banks' (l989) concePt of school as a socialsystem. I have worked out a conceptUal framework which consists of five components f a)sitUational analyses, b) cutriculum plaxming, c) organization and imPlementaion, d)evaluaton, and e) reconStruCtion. The framework was used as a gUideline for this research,and I believe tha it can also be used for the MCECE development. On the basis of anempirical and theoretical analysis and a comParaive StUdy between the reality of Macao andthe achievements of some other countries (e.g., Australia, Britain, Canada and United States),it is found tha although the nature of the multiculturalism is indeed refieCted in the ECE inMacao, the school operation and praCtice lack theoretical orientation and gUidance. Clearlythese are the problems which deserve our serious research attention and effbrt in search offeaSible solutions.Conclusions are offered in the final chapter of the thesis and some suggestions are putforwar on how to fuAner develop the MCECE in Macao and how to solve the exiningproblems.