| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立台北師範學院 === 課程與教學研究所 === 90 === A Study of the Decision-Making Process
for the Multicultural Curriculum Development
-- An Example from the Activity Curriculum of an Elementary School
Abstract
The researches on the multicultural curricula have been always mainly focusing on the educational problems and the gender issues for the aborigines and the Han culture. Basing on the comprehension and experiences towards different culture, and setting the goals of internationalization, we look forward to expanding the multicultural curriculum design embedded in the local culture education with the one with world view, and further to inspect how the process is for deciding the multicultural curriculum. Moreover, the researcher tried to develop the multicultural curriculum at a public elementary school located in a multicultural community, so as to build a complete concept of multiculture for the students. Combining with the competency indicator of the third stage of “cultural learning and international comprehension” of Grade 1-9 integrated activity curriculum, the multicultural curriculum that the researcher developed was following the model of the school-based curriculum.
Therefore, this study, first of all, investigated the available documents and essays, analyzed existing and related multicultural curriculum and school-based curriculum or material, found out the developing pattern of school-based curriculum, which considered multicultural curriculum as its main concept. Secondly adapted participant-observation, non-participant observation and interview to conduct an investigation of the process of decision-making of multicultural curriculum at a school-base level. Finally, provided suggestions to schools for developing multicultural curriculum. Educational researchers should examine the development of school-based multicultural curriculum to reflect the one of the school-located community, so can meet the requirements of the community and further to establish a pattern of school-based curriculum, which considers multi-cultural curriculum as its main concept and lead to developing multicultural curriculum. As a result, this study basing on the exploring to the educational theory of mult-culture is to discuss the process of decision-making for the multicultural curriculum development. The main purposes of this study are:
1. to explore the process of determining the development of multicultural curriculum in Lin-Lin Elementary School.
2. to be a suggestion to Lin-Lin Elementary School for the future development on multicultural curriculum.
In order to meet these purposes, the committee of multi-cultural curriculum research is presented in this thesis through qualitative case study and participant- observation, non-participantion observation, interview and document analysis are conducted to collect datum, so as to study the general curriculum and the process of decision-making for the multicultural curriculum development made by the committee of multi-cultural curriculum research of Japanese school. The following were concluded from this study:
1. The multicultural curriculum should be designed differently according to student’s age difference prior t0 their knowledge and schema. On top of that, when designing a foreign cultural curriculum, the contributing and/or increasing way of design are suggested for the initial stage.
2. The curiosity and criticism towards foreign cultures are issues revealing the reflection of multicultural education. However, the cultural despite and racial discrimination caused by the inferiority of races and cultures often become the obstacles for promoting the multicultural education.
3. The general goal of multicultural activity curriculum is “learning different cultures and sharing the awareness of multiculture”. The multicultural curriculum can be planned including holidays, festivals, manners, food, history, geography; stories of celebrities, religion, folklore, language, songs and music.
4. Designers of the multicultural curriculum should have a full understanding of the mainstream culture and give consideration for the criteria of selecting and collecting materials. Moreover, the hidden meaning and the cultural cognition of the multi-cultural teaching materials should be also stressed.
5. A crucial factor of whether the curriculum will work as expected or not really depends on the teacher’s adequate cognition and knowledge background. The conflict during the process of decision-making is not only caused by the teacher’s personality but also the awareness of the culture.
6. Although the teachers are interested in designing new curricula, they lack confidence and often doubt their questioning abilities. When they are designing American or Japanese cultural activities, the obstruction of language and literature is causing them enormous pressure and various difficulties.
7. Team-teaching, liberating the kingdom of homeroom, and the evaluation of the curriculum are the keys to the success of teaching activities suggested by the Grade1-9 National Coherent Curriculum. Integrated activity curriculum integrates many learning domains. Students are the ones who dominate and initiate learning. Teachers are playing the role of consultants standing by.
8. In the early stage, the procedures of developing multicultural curriculum are upside down, the contents and the learning pattern were set up before the objectives. The rationale of curriculum design of the researches, the difference of the personalities of the participants and the knowledge of the subject area are the main factors of the conflict when make the curriculum decision-making.
9. A serious problem to teachers is lacking time for professional growth, curricular preparation and doing researches.
According to the above-mentioned conclusion, this study is providing some suggestions to elementary schools for process of decision-making of multicultural curriculum development and the further researches.
Keywords : multicultural curriculum, decision-making of curriculum, integrated activity
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