A Comparative Study Of Mathematics Textbooks For Primary And Secondary Schools In Mainland China And Hong Kong

Serving as educational tools and educational data as well as carriers of curriculum implementation, textbooks are playing an important role in the whole educational system. Since the mid 1980s, the mainland has developed from "national policy" - "one teaching program, one textbook" into "validation criteria"- "one teaching program, many textbooks". Multiple versions of primary school mathematics textbooks have entered the market and thus push ahead the research on the use of textbooks of different versions accordingly.It is known to all that the mainland and Hong Kong SAR are of the same root. Because of historical reasons, textbooks compilation in Hong Kong areas has absorbed a lot of from British educational system and it create a blind spot for the mainland’s research on the use of textbooks of Hong Kong SAR. Therefore, this paper conducts a comparative study on frequently utilized textbooks of Jiangsu education version used in the mainland and popular ones of Modern version used in Hong Kong. Through comparison, this paper aims to discover each respective characteristic of primary school mathematic textbooks of the two places, thus will enable the mainland to learn from Hong Kong, providing reference for the primary school mathematic textbooks compilation’s further development and improvement in the mainland.This paper mainly adopts textual analysis method, documentary method and comparative method, contrasting so-called macroscopic aspects such as curriculum standard with examination of teaching material between the mainland and Hong Kong, making comparison among three values orientation inherited in the textbooks, namely, cultural element, moral element and scientific element. In the meanwhile, this paper compares different aspects such as content design, compilation style and presentation format between concrete teaching content of grade 5 to 6 of the two versions, combining with specific content of teaching.From the comparison, we can draw a conclusion that notion of course (including curriculum) is of great significance to the utilization of textbook. Comparing to Modern version, Su education version is rich in content design, compilation and presentation format. On the content selection and internal logic arrangement of knowledge, Su education version is superior as well. Nevertheless, there is room for Su education learning from Modern version on the layout design and development of instructional software of textbooks.