A Research On The American Developmental Education In Multicultural Context

In this paper, the developmental education in American higher education is the main focus. First of all, the author introduces concepts related to developmental education; based on the American political, economic and historical background, the history of developmental education process is divided into six phases. And then the author takes General college, University of Minnesota as an study case, discusses the formation, content and running model of developmental education. According to the content above, the experience, problems as well as the inspiration to Chinese higher education was summarized.This paper is divided into six parts:Chapter I:This chapter introduces the six major phases of higher developmental education in the United States since17th century, meanwhile, descripts the organization, content and serve objects about developmental education in each phase.Chapter Ⅱ:This chapter deals with the ideological and theoretical basis and conditions contributed to the foundation of General College, University of Minnesota; interpretes the function of developmental education in the process of building a democratic society and the innovation of teaching methods in General college; introduces psychology reasearch achievements of General College and demonstrate the role of the developmental education played in achieving the General College.Chapter III:This chapter describes the construction of multi-cultural research and activities in GC, and discusses the relationship between multicultural education and the developmental education, and students’ understanding of the multicultural environment in GC.Chapter Ⅳ:This chapter focuses on the history of the Student Service Programs in GC, analyzes the structure and running model of these projects and the role of Student Service programs in the developmental education.Chapter V:The chapter introduces the security system of the developmental education in GC, research and teaching combined model and the Criterion Model.Chapter VI:The last chapter sums up the experience and problems of the developmental education and proposes suggestions for Chinese higher education.