A Study Of Preschool Curriculum At The Joint Of The Late Qing Dynasty And The Republic Of China

Curriculum is a social, historical phenomenon. Preschool education has a long history in China,but as a specialized field, the history of preschool education curriculum is not long. Since the invasion of imperialistic countries in 1840, the nature of society degenerated into semi-colonial and semi-feudal from the full-feudal society. With the alternation of politics and economics, fluctuation of ideology and culture, educational reforms were push forward.In the 1860s, a new-type school in modern times appeared along with Westernization Movement and the Hundred Days'Reform. In 1903, the first kindergarten run by the government in China was set up. In 1904, Kui-Mou Educational System was formally implemented. According to it, the preschool education was carried out through kindergarten system. Since then, preschool education, having got rid of the fundamental type of home education, had established specialized preschool education curriculum in the socialized preschool educational organization as the new milestone in China.The thesis including five parts investigated the reasons of preschool education curriculum in late Qing Dynasty and early Republican Period, curriculum situations, current states, features and implications for contemporary preschool education development through the historical research, literature review and contrastive research methods In the first part, the author comprehensively analyzed the reasons for the appearance of preschool education curriculum in late Qing Dynasty and early Republic Period obtained from two factors, that is, the need of political-economical development and the influence of ideological-cultural.The second part studied goal, subjects, teaching methods, and status of implementation of pre-school education curriculum, from the two stages of first creation in the late Qing Dynasty and development in early Republican Period on preschool education curriculum. In the third part, based on the historical evidence, the author made the further study on the implementation of the preschool curriculum of four typical kindergartens: Wuchang Kindergarten in Hubei, Hunan Kindergarten Yanshi Kindergarten and Minde Kindergarten in Huzhou.In part four, taken from the previous analysis, the author elaborated the characteristics of the preschool education curriculum in late Qing Dynasty and early Republican Period from four main aspects of the guiding ideology, teaching methods and value orientation.Part Five learned from the history, the author provided the implications for contemporary preschool education reforms combined with preschool education curriculum in late Qing Dynasty and early Republic Period. To solve the main problems existed in contemporary preschool curriculum by seeking the historical fact, the author will expect the benefits for the future reforms and development of pre-school education curriculum.