The International Comparative Study On Technology Education

This paper is aimed at investigating and comparing the circumstances of technology education among the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Taiwan and USA, and exploring the holistic current and characteristics of international technology education, then reflecting the status quo of technology education in our country. Some conclusions have been made to suggest the development tendency and prospect of such technology education in China.The paper is divided into six parts.The preface introduces the background and status quo of the research on technology education and points out the significance of this paper.The second part especially discusses the rationale of technology education. Through enumerating a range of representative definitions and theories, we have explained the scientific definitions and connotations of "technology", "technological literacy" and "technology education", and then put forward the final goals, characteristics, necessities and implementation approaches of technology education, as well as its relationship with science education.The third part investigates and describes the social, economic and educational backgrounds, the evolvement of technology curriculum, and the implementation status of technology education respectively in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Taiwan and USA; emphatically expounding the design and content of technology curriculum in these countries and regions.The fourth part based on the outcomes of investigation, synthetically compares the technology education among the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Taiwan and USA, analyzing the similarities and differences in national background, curriculum evolvement, curriculum designing, curriculum outlines, and achievement goals; and then concludes the holistic current and characteristics of international technology education.The fifth part reflecting the status quo of technology education in our country, puts forward the obstacles and feasible approaches as to the extensive actualization of technology education in China, and gives some suggestions and expectations for the prospective innovation of such technology education in China. Based on the outcome of comparative study, some preliminary practices in our country have also been tried to demonstrate our discussion further.The ending part summarizes the essential conclusions and viewpoints of this paper from all discussed above.