A Comparative Study On The Value Orientation Of Chinese Textbooks For Junior High Schools In Mainland China And Hong Kong

Chinese textbooks are an important carrier of social mainstream values.An in-depth and systematic analysis and comparison of the similarities and differences of the value orientations of Chinese textbooks in the mainland China and Hong Kong is greatly significant to the development of Chinese textbooks,as well as to the interaction and improvement of values education between the mainland China and Hong Kong.The mainland China’s and Hong Kong’s official education documents,including"the Compulsory Education Chinese Language Curriculum Standard"(2011),"Core Competencies and Values for Chinese Student Development"(2016),Hong Kong’s"Secondary Education Curriculum Guide"(2017),"Chinese Language Education Curriculum Guide(P 1-S6)"(2017)and"Secondary Chinese Language Learning Points"(2007),etc.,has the direct stipulation and influence on the current Chinese textbooks and values education in the mainland China and Hong Kong.These documents also represent the social leading values.The research on the values elements contained in these important documents can be extracted and integrated into three dimensions of"Individual and self,Individual and society,Individual and nature" and the corresponding 30 categories,which can be used as the basic framework to analyze the value orientation of junior high school Chinese textbooks in mainland China and Hong Kong.By studying the analytical framework,together with coding,calculating and analysing the texts of the Unified Version and Qisi Version Chinese textbooks,we can find that:first,the value orientation of the mainland China’s and Hong Kong’s education documents share the same categories in the majority,but the mainland China’s education documents have particular categories including "Be creative,Labor consciousness,Professional dedication and Selfless devotion,Advocate freedom and equality",Hong Kong’s education documents have particular categories including "Be serious and responsible,Be modest and open-minded,Respect others,Care and empathy,Honestly perform ones official duties".Second,the two versions of textbooks basically meet the values education requirements of official documents,but both lack the categories of "Observe laws and disciplines,Cooperative spirit,Self-respect and self-discipline",and the distribution of all categories is uneven,and there is some deviation in the meanings of "International understanding,Scientific spirit".Third,the two versions have different characteristics in the value orientation:the Unified Version has a distinct political orientation.Qisi Version reflects both the traditional moral orientation with "Benevolence" as the core and the modern value orientation.The Unified Version emphasizes the classic texts education and the good use of heroes as models.Qisi Version selects diversified texts and is close to the perspective of ordinary people.According to the above conclusions,the research on the value orientation of junior high school Chinese textbooks also need more in-depth thinking and discussion from three aspects:updating the content of the value orientation,paying attention to infiltrating the values education from the perspective of students’ recognition,and effectively giving play to the function of the assignment system to promote values reflection.