In Search of Meaningful Integration: The experiences of developing integrated science curricula in junior secondary schools in China

Abstract

This paper is about the process of developing integrated science curricula at junior secondary schools in the Peoples’ Republic of China in the past 20 years. The history has witnessed two stages of developing integrated science curricula during this period in China: one was at the provincial level in the 1980s/1990s, while the other was at the national level in the new millennium. Using the concept of curriculum emphases, this paper purported to investigate the advocated forms of integration and the reasons and causes behind them in integrated science curriculum during the period under study. Data were collected from two sources: curriculum documents related to the integrated science curricula, and interviews with key informants who were involved in designing the official documents of this kind of science curriculum. Two models of integration have been identified from the two stages respectively: one is ‘integration within science subjects’, while the other ‘integration beyond science subjects’. The social–political roots of the two models of integration have been traced. To meet the goal of scientific literacy, it is suggested in the final part of this paper that the model of ‘integration within science subjects’ should be abandoned while the model of ‘integration beyond science subjects’ should be advocated in the process of developing integrated science curriculum.

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank Dr Phyllis Baudoin Griffard, who reviewed drafts of this paper and gave helpful suggestions. This paper is conducted within the project ‘The Effects of Integrated Science Curriculum in Comparison with Those of Compartmentalized Science Curricula’, funded by the Ministry of Education of P. R. China (grant number EHA050209).

Notes

1. Owing to this feature, Chinese science curricula during the Cultural Revolution have been appreciated by some western scholars (such as Price, 1981), who took them as good examples of popularizing science to the masses. As a Chinese scholar, however, I would take it as an absurd political movement rather than a meaningful educational innovation.

2. In China, the Ministry of Education has the highest authority in relation to planning and designing school curricula. In the official sense, the school curricula usually comprise three hierarchical curriculum documents—‘teaching program’ (jiaoxue jihua), ‘teaching syllabus,’ (jiaoxue dagang) and ‘textbook’ (jiaokeshu) (Wu, Chen, & Lu, 1992). Once the overall teaching programme, which specifies the overall curriculum organization and the timetable arrangement for school subjects, is finalized, the teaching syllabus of each subject curriculum is detailed, and the textbooks are produced.

3. In the ancient Chinese philosophy, the relation between Tian (the sky, broadly referred to nature) and Ren (the human) is highlighted. For example, Tian dao (the rules of nature) and Ren dao (the rules of the human) are two categories in many Chinese ancient classic books. And many ancient philosophers put stresses on the harmony between Tian dao and Ren dao, which are usually expressed as Tian Ren Heyi (harmonious unity of nature and human).