A Comparative Study Of Family Education Between China And America From The Perspective Of Culture

Family education is the most basic education compared with school educationand social education. It plays an unchallenging role in personal growth, family peaceand happiness, and the development of the whole society. Under the influence ofhistory, economy, society and culture, et al, different countries have different featuresin family education. And the thesis carries out a comparative study on Chinese andAmerican family education notion, family education content and family educationmethod from the perspective of culture. To absorb advanced American familyeducation concepts and cultivate more talents for Chinese society, the thesis willdiscover different characteristics of family education and explore the differences.The thesis applies three dimensions of Hofstede’s Dimensions of CulturalVariability into the research, that is, individualism and collectivism, uncertaintyavoidance and power distance. The research methodologies are chiefly case study andcomparative analysis. The writer obtains typical successful and failed familyeducation in the two countries by searching numerous books, periodicals, papers andofficial websites and news reports. There are three research questions: what are thedifferences on family education between China and America, what are the reasons forthe differences and how we can improve the quality of Chinese family education.By comparing, there are three major findings. Firstly, the differences of familyeducation in China and America mainly show in three aspects: family educationnotion, family education content and family education method. Chinese familyeducation notion pays more attention to the connection between individuality and theentire family. Chinese parents concentrate on their children’s growth through studycultural knowledge or skills. American family education notion, American parentsencourage the independence and social adaptation of the children. On familyeducation content, Chinese parents give major attention to examinations and going tocollege for children’s relatively certain future. While their American counterpart domore for children’s creativity, survival skills and social practice on this aspect. Onmethod, Chinese parents play guard style. But American families play democratic style, and parents are equal to their children; the relation between the two is more likefriends. Secondly, the reasons of the differences are chiefly the differences of differentcultural backgrounds, social conditions, economic patterns and historical backgrounds.Family education notion is influenced by individuality-collectivism; family educationcontent is influenced by uncertainty avoidance. Power distance influences familyeducation method. Thirdly, on the basis of the research, the thesis proposescorresponding suggestions to solve problems of Chinese family education.