A Comparative Study Of Chinese And Western Cultural Elements In Senior High School English Textbooks From The Perspective Of Curriculum Ideology

The educational goal of “strengthening moral education and fostering talents”proposed by President Xi Jinping and the educational objective of cultivating socialist builders and successors with national identity and international vision prescribed in Curriculum Standard（2017 Version）both attach importance to Curriculum Ideology in English teaching in the new era.Given that studying High School English Textbooks from the perspective of Curriculum Ideology is a relatively new field.This study is guided by Cortazzi ＆ Jin’s（1999）cultural classification principle,and the research method is qualitative analysis,supplemented by quantitative analysis.This study aims to explore the categories,proportions,distributions and features of Chinese and Western cultural elements in Senior High School English Textbooks（Book 1 to Book 3）from the perspective of Curriculum Ideology to check whether the arrangement of Chinese and Western cultural elements is conducive to the accomplishment of the ideological and political goal of cultivating socialist builders and successors with national identity and international vision in Curriculum Standard（2017 Version）.This research attempts to study the questions below:（1）What are the categories and proportions of Chinese and Western cultural elements in Senior High School English Textbooks（Book 1 to Book 3）?（2）How are the Chinese and Western cultural elements distributed in Senior High School English Textbooks（Book 1 to Book 3）?（3）What are the features of the Chinese and Western cultural elements in Senior High School English Textbooks（Book 1 to Book 3）?The study finds that among the 16 cultural categories stipulated in Curriculum Standard（2017 Version）,Chinese cultural elements involve 8 categories;Western cultural elements involve 9 categories.Further study finds that there are 93 cultural elements in Book 1 to Book 3,of which 42（45.16%）are Chinese cultural elements and 51（54.84%）are Western cultural elements.The study also finds that Chinese and Western cultural elements are mainly distributed in the part of Listening and Speaking.A longitudinal comparison of the categories and numbers of Chinese and Western cultural elements reveals that with the growth of students’ grades,the categories of Chinese cultural elements show an increasing trend,while the categories of Western cultural elements present an inverted “V” shape;the number of Chinese and Western cultural elements both show an upward trend.Based on the above findings,this study holds that Senior High School English Textbooks（Book 1 to Book 3）published by People’s Education Press in2019 broadly achieve the ideological and political teaching goal,which is to cultivate socialist builders and successors with national identity and international vision.However,it is necessary to increase the number of Chinese cultural elements and other cultural categories that are not involved in the textbooks to further enhance students’ cultural self-confidence and deepen their understanding of other countries’ cultures.This study is enlightening for high school English teachers and textbook compilers.