A Comparative Study Of Chinese And Japanese Community Primary School Curriculum Standards

As the main way of moral education in primary and secondary schools, the development of social programs has been paid more attention by people all over the world. As a state with more perfect development of social curriculum, Japan is not only the neighboring country of China, but also has exchange and interaction about culture with China.This paper select "Chinese Compulsory Education Morality and Society Curriculum Standards (2011)"(hereinafter referred to as "curriculum standard"), which was promulgated by the Ministry of Education of China2011, and "Japanese Primary Social Studies Study Guide Essentials"(hereinafter referred to as the "essentials"), which was put into effect in the beginning of2011. The comparative analysis of the upper grades social studies standards in primary schools in the two countries will deepen the understanding of the concept of curriculum, curriculum goals, course content, curriculum methods and curriculum implementation. Understanding the differences of moral education and civic education in the two countries will promote the development of our country’s moral and social programs as well as moral education.There are many similarities and differences in the existing social curriculum standards between China and Japan. The development of social programs in China is based on the basic education curriculum reform, while Japanese evolution of the social studies is based on its own national conditions after the Meiji Restoration. For the curriculum standards, comparing the social curriculum standards framework first, which was based on the Chinese theme framework, including curriculum goals, course content, curriculum implementation of the recommendations and curriculum implementation. For the part of curriculum goals, basing on the description of the curriculum goals, the author find that there are many similarities between China and Japan in terms of curriculum goals, no matter the "target" or "targets", which have stressed the students’ emotional and social development and give much more attention about the qualities as a qualified citizens should possess. For the part of the course content, Chinese social studies introduce and explain the content from six themes, while Japanese divide the society curriculum content from different academic year, because of the different dividing basis, the social course content shows different characteristics. For the last part of course implementation, the author select the course implementation in China "curriculum standard" and the "content selection" and"content processing" in Japan "essentials", and get some conclusions about teaching proposal, teaching evaluation, and textbooks.