A Comparative Study On The HPS Contents Of Geography Textbooks In Chinese And American High Schools

In the context of the international science curriculum reform,educators have gradually realized the importance of improving students' literacy,and the cultivation of scientific literacy has become the core content of the science curriculum reform.HPS(History,Philosophy and Sociology of Science)mainly includes the history of science,philosophy of science and sociology of science,and it is a hot topic in international science education research.Incorporating HPS education content into science teaching helps students better understand the nature of science and is an effective way to improve students' scientific literacy.There is a certain gap between the scientific literacy level of Chinese students and western developed countries.The lower level of citizens' overall scientific literacy will inevitably have an impact on my country's economic development and social progress,and is not conducive to the improvement of my country's comprehensive national strength.Geography is a science with geographical environment and man-land relationship as the main research object.As an indispensable branch of the science curriculum,it has an important responsibility for cultivating students' scientific literacy.As the main tool for teachers' teaching and students' learning,geography textbooks are an important carrier that reflects the objectives and content of geography courses,and they play an irreplaceable role in daily teaching.Especially under the implementation and guidance of the "General High School Geography Curriculum Standards(2017)",the 2019 version of the high school geography textbook has been published and put into use.By comparing the integration of HPS content in the new version of my country's high school geography textbooks with mainstream high school geography textbooks in the United States,we can see the differences in the scientific literacy training of students between my country and Western countries,and provide some reference for the compilation and teaching of my country's high school geography textbooks,In order to more effectively improve the level of scientific literacy of our students,it is of great significance to the integration of HPS education in the subject of geography and the expansion of the theory of geography education.This article sorts out the current research status at home and abroad through literature search and collation.Based on the HPS education concept,the new version of the high school geography textbook,the mainstream science textbook "Science Discoverer" in the United States is used as the analysis sample,and the content analysis method is selected as the main part of this article.In the research method,firstly divide the HPS content categories,determine the operational definitions of various objectives,and then perform coding statistics on the HPS content involved in the physical geography part of the textbook.According to the statistical results,it is mainly based on the number of HPS content and the completeness of the content.Quantitative analysis is carried out on four dimensions of,presentation method and space size,and then a specific qualitative analysis is carried out on the integration of HPS content in the two editions of textbooks with specific examples.Finally,the research conclusions of this article are as follows: In terms of quantity,the overall quantity of HPS content integrated into the textbooks of the People's Education Edition of my country is far less than that of the textbooks of the US version;in terms of content integrity,the geography textbooks for Sino-US high schools cover HPS content has all 5 main categories,but not all sub-categories are covered,and there is a clear gap in the proportion of various purposes of HPS content.As far as the main categories are concerned,both Chinese and American textbooks focus on the presentation of the history of science content,ignoring the presentation of the social impact on science and technology;in terms of presentation methods,there are obvious differences in the presentation of HPS content in Chinese and American textbooks.The textbooks of the People's Education edition of our country mostly present the HPS content in the form of auxiliary columns,and seldom present the HPS content in the form of body text and diagrams,while the US version textbooks mostly present the HPS content in the form of body text,and there are many texts or auxiliary columns and diagrams.The combined presentation form makes the presentation more intuitive;in terms of size,the HPS content in the textbooks published by the People's Educational of China is mostly short“sentences” and moderately “pages”,and rarely appears more than one page.The page length is used to describe the HPS content.Compared with Chinese textbooks,the US version of textbooks presents more HPS content in the size of "pages",but the overall proportion is still small.