Mixed-age Education To Promote Children's Social Development

In China, most families have a child, so the problem of the only child's being self-centered is a bit serious. They don't know how to express themselves with appropriate languages, cannot solve the problems by talking to the other party, aren't considerate of the others and are low in the ability of cooperating and taking care of themselves. The mixed-group education, as a special form of education, is helpful to make compensations for the development of the children. The mixed-group education forms the children of different ages into the same learning community. In this community the pre-school children have a large number of opportunities of communicating and interacting with the other children, the children can find the learning materials and ways suitable to themselves. Therefore, their recognition will be improved greatly and the development of their social skills will be enhanced.In this thesis, I, by reading the researches in this field, read the literature, talk to the parents and teachers, watching the children's activities in the kindergarten, divide it into these parts:In the introduction, I elaborate on the reason for my choosing of this subject, the meaning of this research, the literature of the relevant research and the methods of this research.In the first chapter, I give the concept of the mixed-group education and its characteristics; the contents and characteristics of the children's social development. Furthermore, I elaborate on the meaning of the mixed-group education on the children's social development, especially in the aspects of social recognition, social feelings, social conducts.In the second chapter, based on the other scholars'research and my own research in several kindergartens, I analyze the mixed-group education's effects on the pre-school children's social development, and propose and elaborate on the physical and social factors, the former includes the time and space, the latter includes the interaction between the children themselves and that between the teachers and the children.In the third chapter, I give my own viewpoints on the strategies (i.e. the realization of the educational object, the instructions of the teachers and the cooperation of the kindergarten and the families,) and practices (i.e. the applications of Montessori's educational thought, Neutrosophic Castle.) of mixed-group education. In the end, I emphasize the problems that we should pay special attention to and the relations we should deal with while carrying out the mixed-group education.