Cross-cultural Study Of Chinese And American Family Education

Since the Reform and Opening-up, the worldwide concerning with education has been up to an unprecedented level. As the primary stage of education, family education has been greatly developed both in practice and theory. The increasing practice of family education offers the rich experience to its theoretical study and puts forward higher requirements as well. Under the society with rapidly economic development and a large scale of only-child-families, in China many problems about family education have been emerging. Meanwhile exploring the educational theories, many educators attempt to solve these problems by referring to the family education systems of developed countries. The one of American families is an appropriate reference. Sine 1980s, the comparisons between the family educations of two countries from the aspects of economy, politics, history, culture and religion are coming in the endless stream. However, the most fractions of them are inclined to the otherness research.The thesis begins with a brief introduction to the research significance and method. Chapter I is concerned with some theoretical issues, such as terms and concepts relevant to the culture, family education and cross-cultural communication, emphasizing the relationships between culture and family education. Chapter II is the research significance and research methodology. Chapter III is the comparison of the differences between Chinese and American family education on the historical background, economic pattern aspects, laying special emphasis on the cultural differences. As Hu Wenzhong has remarked "Culture is learned and transmitted from generation to generation. Although in different areas, belonging to different nations, the cultural groundwork of human beings is essentially similar. " (1988; 210) So Chapter IV, the original parts of this thesis, tries to compare the family education similarities of both countries. Finally, Chapter VI draws the conclusion that similarity is the foundation of cross-cultural study and offers some suggestions to improve Chinese family education.