China And The United States Elementary School Social Studies Textbooks Comparative Study

Textbook is the core resource to be a bearer of social and cultural knowledge; It is the most important tool that links teachers'teaching and students'learning together. It is the most important resource to enable students to achieve the goals set in curriculum standards. Social Studies textbook offers resources for school to organize social educational activities; Also, Social Studies textbook which has focused on national or regional ideologies and values is a carrier of the national consciousness and social mainstream values in school education. What's more, Social Studies textbook will not only transfer the course syllabus objectives and content into specific programs that teachers can easily operate and students can happily learn, but also by passing the mainstream ideology of the state and society, it can help students form values to satisfy national and social developing needs gradually. Therefore, the research of content and layout of the Social Studies textbook can help us understand the design concept of the textbook, meanwhile, can analyze the direction of educating students from the value of textbooks.The "Moral Character and Society" pressed in People's Education Publishing Company, in 2003 and the Social Studies in the United States Houghton Mifflin Company in 2005, which are two Social Studies textbooks that own a higher rate of adoption in their respective countries. In this thesis, the writer relays on these two versions of textbooks for primary school grades 3-6 .With the content analysis method, the writer analyzes and compares the contents of the two Social Studies textbooks in selective perspectives and layout. Then we can obtain some designing and compiling methods from Social Studies textbooks. The research consists of three parts:First, on the basis of the results at home and abroad to conduct research and organize the objects of study, the writer gives content and methods a reasonable position. This study is to clarify the key issues to be solved and to establish a framework for analysis of Social Studies textbooks, to be ready for the following analysis and comparison. Second, according to the studying objects, the writer sorts out, analyzes and compares. By using frequency statistics and content analysis method, combining with the quantitative and qualitative analysis, the writer aims to compare them in content selection, value orientation, organization, then knows the characteristics, similarities and differences between two Social Studies textbooks of China and USA. Finally, based on the above findings, the writer gains some inspirations in the content, value orientation, organizational structure and presentation. Analyzing the differences will help us better understand the textbooks'design concept, grasp functions of textbooks and to use textbooks efficiently in teaching and learning.Because of the differences of the historical background, national consciousness and social mainstream of different values between China and America, together with the designers'subjective design concept, we can see that the contents and layouts of the textbooks are different and full of characteristics. There is an old saying that "stones from other hills may serve to polish jade". The study which takes analysis and comparison of Social Studies textbooks in the two countries as a breakthrough to look into the differences of the content selection and layout of Social Studies textbooks, from which we can achieve some inspirations. We hope that it gives a reference to China's Social Studies textbook in design and layout; also we expect that it can help teachers in the forefront of teaching with textbook analysis and understanding.