In this study China's “Hitory and Society” textbooks of junior high school were analyzed in order to explore multicultural education suitable for the era of globalization. Analytic scheme of this study on cultural diversity consists of seven categ...
In this study China's “Hitory and Society” textbooks of junior high school were analyzed in order to explore multicultural education suitable for the era of globalization. Analytic scheme of this study on cultural diversity consists of seven categories: country, race (including ethnic), religion, social strata, age, gender, and disability. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis are used. Analytic range is subjects of culture where multicultural education contents are mainly dealt with. The analysis are focussed on types of cultural diversities and the perspective of multicultural education.
The results are as follows: Multicultural education in China was not mentioned explicitly. Although it had focused on national and ethnic diversities, but because national culture and ethnic culture had the same meaning, so that multicultural education in China actually only paid attention to the cultural diversities of countries. It was oriented towards the education for international understanding on the basis of the concept of the “garden of world culture”, while not concerned about China's domestic multi-ethnic education and multicultural education. Such Multicultural education in China have tended to the perspective of global multicultural education to some extent. However, it failed to go beyond the dimension of education for international understanding. So the level of multicultural education in China seams to be far behind from the global multicultural education.
Based on the results of this study, some suggestions can be made for the future of multicultural education of China: First, multicultural education should reflect cultural diversities covering race, ethnicity, religion, social strata, age, gender, disability in a broad sense. Second, multicultural education should go beyond the education for international understanding, and make progress towards the view of global multicultural education that pursues coexistence, equality and justice on the basis of multicultural understanding. Third, multicultural education should move towards transformation approach and social action approach, rather than contribution approach and additive approach where multicultural education is dealt with in addition to the specific section or subject. Fourth, the reality of multi-ethnic education in both local curriculum and school curriculum is to be reflected, and multicultural education programme for foreign residents in China is also to be provided.