Reconstructing a School Chemistry Curriculum in the Era of Core Competencies: A Case from China

Abstract

In China, the latest version of the Senior High School Chemistry Curriculum (SHSCC) has been developed in response to social changes. This paper provides an account of the process and the product of the official document of this curriculum, The Chemistry Curriculum Standards of Senior High School, with the purpose of exploring the way that this new chemistry curriculum has been reconstructed in the era of core competencies. A rationale has been derived from the literature, suggesting five aspects of curriculum analysis: (1) social context, (2) sources, (3) curriculum goals, (4) structure and content, and (5) teaching objectives. Guided by this rationale, the accounting of the 2018 SHSCC proceeds with the analysis of various types of curriculum documents, which fall into four categories: (1) the 2017 curriculum standards, (2) related national education visions and curriculum policies, (3) illustrations of the new SHSCC provided by the curriculum designers, and (4) discussions concerning science and chemistry curricula within or beyond the chemistry-education community in China. On the basis of the analysis, three issues relevant to science- and chemistry-curriculum development are discussed: (1) the curriculum idea and discourses in the view of core competence, (2) the construction of the subject matter of chemistry, and (3) the globalization and localization of chemistry curricula.

Manifestation of Three Visions of Scientific Literacy in a Senior High School Chemistry Curriculum: A Content Analysis Study

“…Concerning the potential audience of this series, “Chemistry & Society” was taken as a representative of the third type of chemistry courses in this study. As reported earlier, influenced by standards-based curriculum reforms, students’ expected learning outcomes (academic performances) have been highlighted in the Chinese curriculum system in recent years . Given the high status of “Performance Requirements” (PRs) in the 2018 SHSCC, which contain both expected performances and subject matter knowledge of chemistry, they are the focus of this study.…”

“…Social demands for chemistry education are another factor that promoted the 2018 SHSCC to adopt more subject matter under Visions II and III. As reported earlier, the 2018 SHSCC was designed in a social context where curriculum reform was aimed to help students cope with the challenges of the new times . Particularly, with the rapid economic growth in recent decades, more and more social problems have emerged, such as lack of energy, destruction of natural resources, and environmental pollution.…”

“…The curriculum document of the 2018 SHSCC is composed of six sections, covering 105 pages: (1) the nature of the curriculum and basic ideas; (2) subject core competencies and curriculum goals; (3) curriculum structure; (4) curriculum content; (5) academic quality; and (6) suggestions for implementation. , The section “curriculum content” is the main section presented by three types of chemistry courses: “required course” (RC), “optional required” (OR), and “selective course” (SC). Within each of the three types of chemistry courses, there are several “Topics”, “Modules”, or “Series”, which contain the columns of “Required Content”, “Teaching Recommendations”, and “Performance Requirements”.…”

“…Thus, chemistry is offered as three types of chemistry courses in the senior high school chemistry curriculum (SHSCC) in order to provide more options for students: required (for all students), optional required (for those interested in chemistry and planning to study chemistry or chemistry related programs in higher education), and selective (various series for students with different needs and aspirations) with scientific literacy as its central goal. On the basis of the conjunction of the three visions of scientific literacy and the subject matter of chemistry, we are interested in exploring the manifestation of the idea of scientific literacy in The Chemistry Curriculum Standards of General Senior High School (identified as the 2018 SHSCC for brevity in this article) officially released by the Ministry of Education (MoE) of China in January 2018 . Specifically, we are inclined to explore how the three visions of scientific literacy are manifested in the whole curriculum document and the three types of chemistry courses incorporated in it.…”

Marginal Topics in the Research of Science Education

“…Another common topic presented in scientific educational journals are curricular articles regarding the whole subject, where the reform activities are described, and also authors presented impact of reforms on the education, on society, and also positive and negative sides are shown of the curricular reform on policy (e.g. Caramaschi et al, 2022;Wei, 2019). In some cases, curricular aspects of some topics are presented.…”