Taiwan Junior High Schools In The 21st Century Implementation Of The Social Studies Curriculum Integration Appropriateness

Approaching 21st century, under a global atmosphere of reformation trend, the Taiwan society has been placing strong attention on educational reform. After years of research and planning, the Taiwan Educational Department promulgated the "1 -9 Social Study Curriculum Program" as an outline of the education reform in 1988. In addition to emphasizing on the dovetail of primary and secondary curriculum, another focus of the program is the replacement of the subject-based mode of curriculum planning with the integrative mode. According to the relations of different subjects, the integration results in 7 learning domains : language, social studies, arts & humanity, mathematics, science & technology, and synthetic activity. Among these domains, Social Studies is an integration of Geography, History and Civic Education. This integration smashes the traditional subject-based mode, and also reflects the worldwide trend of curriculum integration. However, it also brought about a violent blow to the traditional educational conception; hence brought about profound controversy.With the methods of literature review and comparison, this study analyzes Taiwan's Educational Reform, and explores the possibility and suitability of integrating social subjects in Taiwan public secondary schools. With the findings, this study is purposed to serve as a reference to the Social Studies curriculum development of junior secondary level in Macau. This study contains 6 parts. Firstly, it is a review of the background and origin of Taiwan's education reform, and the state of reformation concerning Social Studies. Meanwhile, the characteristic of Taiwan education reform is introduced. These characteristics are about a reformation from the traditional subject-based mode to and integrative mode, an emphasis ofschool-based curriculum and an evaluation system based on fundamental-ability. Following these is an exploration from varies psychological and theoretical point of views on the suitability of integrating Social Studies curriculum. Findings show that the curriculum integrative mode corresponds with the student-centered and knowledge developmental concepts. Besides, this integrative mode is also well supported by the theories of multi-intelligence and brain-based. The researcher then explore if curriculum integration is the best mode for the Social Studies curriculum planning through comparing the curriculum development and curriculum integration history in the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States. The comparison shows that the curriculum in these countries is an equilibrium between the subject-based and integrative mode in accordance with each country's state of affairs and her educational objectives. Due to this fact, the integration of social subjects is proved not being the best mode of curriculum planning. Along with this, an analysis on the present Taiwan education and curriculum development statue shows that the hasty education reform failed to replace the traditional subject-based curriculum which has been established firmly in the past. Adding to improper equipment, profound public anxiety is aroused. Therefore, the researcher believes that Taiwan's national implement of educational reform is never an easy task, and this reformation should encounter heavy obstacles. Last of all, the researcher concludes all findings and proposes recommendations for the Macau Social Studies curriculum development.