Abstract
This article provided a comprehensive review of the most recent mathematics curriculum reform in the early 21st century in China. Three components of curriculum reform were identified. The developmental process, the content and implementation of Chinese mathematics curriculum standards, constituted the most important second level of description of a curriculum reform which could reflect the first level (overall societal level) and decide the third level (classroom practice level). It could be the first fundamental step to provided helpful insight to understand the curriculum reform within a certain culture. At last, the future direction of mathematics curriculum reform in China was introduced.
Highlights
China is a country with an ancient history and continuous civilization, and is very different from most other cultures in the world, especially from Western cultures (Wang, Li & Li, 2014)
The current study examined the developmental process, the content and implementation of Chinese mathematics curriculum standards in the most recent round of curriculum reform during the early 21st century
The national policy document of education: The 21st Century Revival Action Plan in Education called for the “implementation of cross-century project of quality education, promotion of education to improve the national education quality and students’ innovation capability” and noted the need to “spend about 10 years experimenting with a nation-wide curriculum for basic education in the 21st century, we need to reform the curriculum system and the evaluation system based on the experiences we gain.” (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 1999)
Summary
China is a country with an ancient history and continuous civilization, and is very different from most other cultures in the world, especially from Western cultures (Wang, Li & Li, 2014). It has been suggested that students in East-Asia, e.g. China, outperformed their counterparts in the West in large-scale international studies of mathematics achievement (Wang & Lin, 2009). The mathematics education practice in China has attracted much attention from educational communities, and the entire society. Curriculum reform is a fundamental factor in pushing forward educational development and reform. The People’s Republic of China has undertaken several rounds of curriculum reform for basic education since the late 1970s
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