Research On Middle School History Curriculum Among Britain, America And China Since The 1980'S

The new curriculum reform of foundation education begins in China at the end of 20th century. The middle school history curriculum is included and is one of reform keystones on account of much objective factors and itself limitations. It' s needed for China to learn reform experience of the middle school history curriculum from other countries in order to go out the present difficulties. This study compares the situations and reform measures of the middle school history curriculum since the eighties of twentieth century among Britain, America and China. By contrast, it discovers our advantages and shortages in the middle school history curriculum as well as other countries, obtains many available inspirations from the advanced experiences of other countries. Based on these, some suggestions are put forward to mend shortages and limitations of Chinese middle school history curriculum. The study is expected to promote the history curriculum reform of foundation education in our country.The study makes comparison mainly through the following aspects: Part one: The comparison of the middle school history curriculum goalThe study introduces, compares and comments the curriculum goal on three facts that include knowledge mastering, ability training and value education among three counties. It can be found that the history curriculum goals in three countries have different feature by contrast. For example, in China, it emphasizes on the foundational knowledge and basic skills, which is favorable for students to master the basic history knowledge and train the basic history skills. But it too pays attention to the subject system of history knowledge so that it ignores to cultivate the history thinking ability. Moreover, it puts such stress on social education function of history curriculum as to neglect the function of history education to benefit student' individual develop. The history curriculum goal of middle school in Britain tries to seek the balance between students' ability cultivating and historical knowledge mastering, so both are paid attention to. The history curriculum goal of middle school in America emphasizes too on cultivating students' thinking ability and regards knowledge learning as base of ability cultivating, so it pays little attention to historical knowledge learning. By comparison, against the shortage of Chinese history curriculum goal and the available experiences of Britain and America, the author considers : to establish the curriculum goal, firstly, it should build up the new education idea that the students'develop is foundational. Secondly, the curriculum goal should pay attention to students' integration stuff to be improved and selfhood developing. Thirdly, it should emphasize to train student' s history thinking ability.Part two: The comparison of the middle school history curriculum settingBy comparison, aiming at the middle school history curriculum setting limitation of China, the study suggests that history curriculum structure should be proportional, integrative and selective, at the same time the history curriculum types should be various. The author thinks that it should think about not only education require of country' s, but also oneself situation condition for the middle school history curriculum setting.Part three: The comparison of the middle school history curriculum contentBased on the comparison about the selective standard of content, the proportion of content knowledge and historical idea of content, the study finds out the questions of Chinese history curriculum content, such as the question which it emphasizes too the subject system of history knowledge. The study thinks, for the middle school history curriculum content of China, it should be paid attention to knowledge integration and increase the content proportion of civilization history and society history so as to reflect the whole human history. The content should be contacted with students' life and society and benefit to cultivate students' interest and selfhood. Based on these, the...