A Study On The Textbook Of South African Senior High School History Under The Perspective Of "Outcomes-Based Education"

The curriculum reform of the "Outcomes-based Education" initiated after South Africa's abolition of the apartheid system has received much attention.The academic circles in China tend to have a deeper research on this educational reform and they just study curriculum policies,educational theories or a single subject under the pedagogic category.However,the analysis of history subject in high schools in South Africa under the guidance of Outcome-based concept is still weak..Therefore,this article attempts to use the high school history textbooks of this curriculum reform as a starting point to tease out the social backgrounds before and after the curriculum reform,clarify the curriculum standards behind the compilation of textbooks,and explore the general situation of high school history education in South Africa.Thus,it can provide another perspective on the history curriculum reforms in our country under the current period of social change.In this article,we will try to present a complete picture of South Africa's high school history textbook from five parts.The first part focuses on the research status,significance,ideas,methods,and innovations of academic circles.The second part analyzes social background of South Africa when the curriculum reform was carried out in it.The third part evaluates the formulation principles and specific content of curriculum standards for history disciplines.The fourth part introduces and analyzes the South African high school history student books and teacher's books.The fifth part selects one of the chapters in the textbook "Globalization" as an example to evaluate the South Africa high school history education under the Outcomes-based concept from three aspects:the arrangement of textbooks,content selection,and curriculum implementation.The result is that the South African high school history textbook aims at pursuing social democracy in terms of curricular goals and promoting learners' ability to make choices.It has a wide selection of content in the compilation of teaching materials,and has a distinctly oriented learning outcome.It is multidimensional in the implementation of teaching materials and teaching activities are set up with clear objectives and learning outcomes.In the meantime,the textbooks have also shown that the contents of the textbooks are too heavy and it also puts more emphasis on the dominant role of teachers.Besides,the strong anti-colonial and anti-discrimination colors are included in it.