Proceedings of The 2nd International Conference on Research in Education, Teaching and Learning
Year: 2019
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/2nd-icetl.2019.04.233
Reconstructing School Chemistry Curriculum in the Era of Core Competencies: A Case from China
Bing Wei
ABSTRACT:
In China, the new Senior High School Chemistry Curriculum (SHSCC) has been developed in the era of core competencies as response to social changes. This paper provides an account of the official document of this curriculum, the Chemistry Curriculum Standards of Senior High School (the 2017 version) with the aim of examining the mechanism of embedding the notion of core competencies in the new chemistry curriculum. An internalist perspective was adopted to analyze its process and product. Data were mainly collected from two sources: curriculum documents related with the new SHSCC and interviews with two key informants who were involved in designing the new curriculum. A narrative analysis was conducted to produce five themes, they are: (1) social context; (2) sources; and (3) conceptualization of chemistry core competencies; (4) structure and content; and (5) teaching requirements. In the last part of this article, the discussion is focused on three issues: (1) the curriculum idea and discourses in the view of core competence; (2) the construction of subject matter of chemistry in the internalist views; and (3) the globalization and localization of chemistry curriculum.
KeyWords: Chemistry Curriculum; Core Competencies; Curriculum Change; Senior High School.