A Comparative Study On Multicultural Education In The Elementary Social

In the globalization society in the21st century, multicultural has a profound impact on school education activities. How to carry out multicultural education in school becomes increasingly urgent. This paper research it from textbooks, and three sets of elementary social studies textbooks which are being respectively used in Guangzhou, Taiwan and Hong Kong are selected as studied objects. Based on such basic theories as the global multicultural education, the diversity and unity of the Chinese nation, the cultural awareness, and etc., and the content analysis method, multicultural education contents in the curriculum standards and textbooks in the three regions were statically analyzed, and their differences, similarities, and characteristics were extracted. By questionnaire survey and interviews in three regions, the teaching effectiveness of multicultural contents in the textbooks was dynamically analysized. The strategies were proposed to optimize multicultural education content in the elementary social studies textbooks for coastal developed cities based on the above researches in the end.The main work and conclusions are summarized as follows:Firstly, based on James Lynch’s global multicultural education ideas, items of multicultural education topic and role were built, which are constituted by such three levels as the nation, country (or region), the global, and such four dimensions as culture, society, economy and environment. These provided quantitative basis for content analysis of elementary social studies curriculum standards and textbooks.Secondly, according to items of multicultural education, multicultural education content in the curriculum standards in the three regions were quantitativly and qualitativly analyzed. The results show that:Taiwan’s curriculum standard clearly presents the objective of multicultural education, but Guangzhou and Hong Kong not; in the level analysis, Guangzhou and Taiwan focus on nation, but Hong Kong focuses on country (or region); in the dimensions analysis, all the three regions focus on culture.Thirdly, according to items of multicultural education, multicultural education content in the elementary social studies textbooks in the three regions were quantitativly analyzed. The similarities among three regions are, all of them stress on culture level, but ignore on the global level and economic level, furthermore, they all neglect on cross-cultural content. Their characteristics (or differeces) are, Guangzhou stress on patriotism and the Chinese National Identity, and Hong Kong stress on regional identity and taking into account the global education, and Taiwan stress on the Chinese National Identity and taking into account the global education. Moreever, all of the textbooks were qualitatively analyzed, and the results show that they all have disappearance and stereotype on multicultural education in different degree, and the textbooks are consistent with relative curriculum standards in the level and dimension.Forthly, integrated the items of multicultural education with global multicultural knowledge, attitude and skill, questionnaires to evaluate pupils’ multicultural literacy were designed. Ten primary schools in the three regions were interviewed and tested. Results show that, the pupils’ average multicultural literacies grouped by the three regions are basically qualified, and those in Guangzhou and Taiwan are a little higher than Hong Kong. Furthermore, the pupils’ multicultural characteristics are about half consistent with relative textbooks, and it show that the textbooks have significant impact on the pupils’ multicultural multicultural.Fifthly, according to such respects about multicultural education as understand topic, percentage, and missing contents, questionnaires and interview outlines were designed for primary school principals, textbooks editors and experts on multicultural eduction. Questionnaires and interviews results show that, all the interviewees believe that the multicultural content in textbooks exist such shortcomings as lack of theme reflects on nation, country (or region) and the global, too light content, and Han culture tendency. Finally, based on the shorcomings of pupils’multicultural literacy and multicultural contents in social studies textbooks textbooks in Guangzhou, and the experiences in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the strategies were proposed to optimize multicultural education content in the elementary social studies textbooks for coastal developed cities, as following:(1) The goal of multicultural education should be explicitly put forward, and the multicultural education contents at all levels and dimensions should be balanced in elementary social studies curriculum standards.(2) In elementary social studies textbooks, multicultural education contents in the global level, in environmental and economic dimensions and interact themes should be added, and the minority cultures, foreign countries (regions) and global events should be equally distributed in different grades; such negative phenomena on multicultural education as disappearances, imbalance, stereotypes, untrue stories, and etc. should be decreasesed.