Zhong hua min guo bi jiao jiao yu xue hui (1987)

An overview of the book (399 English words):

Pre-school education raises confusions between pre-school institutions and early childhood daycare centres and numerous controversial discussion about setting the lower age limit of free basic education, degree of expansion of public pre-schooling learning sector and its curricula content in Taiwan.

This anthology is composed of fourteenth articles, offering comparative and international perspectives of pre-school education, in the contexts of national policy systems, curricula, pedagogy, historical evolution and psychological theories.

Chapter one describes historical stages and addresses social, educational problems of pre-school education in Taiwan with some policy and research suggestions. Chapter two concerns historical origins, institutional analysis of pre-schooling education and covers involved conflict theories and its school curricula in the United States of America with some implications to Taiwan. Chapter three analyzes development, of pre-school education, current issues and anticipates future trends in England with some comparative insights in Taiwan. Chapter four covers the development, employees, financial budgets and facilities at nursery schools in France with some policy suggestions to counterparts in Taiwan. Chapter five presents basic conceptions, historical development and current conditions of preschool education and kindergartens and school in former West Germany. Chapter six outlines the development, current conditions and teacher education of pre-school education in Switzerland. Chapter seven brings out underlying philosophy, objectives, organizational structure, teacher education and development trends and value-orientation of pre-school education in Mainland China, based on limited existing literature. Chapter eight scrutinizes developmental background, administrative system, organizational structure and the status quo of early childhood education in former Soviet Union. Chapter nine provides a cross-national study of the systems, organization methods and curricula of pre-school education in former West Germany, France and England.

Chapter ten portrays a biography of the ‘father of pre-school education? named Mr. Friedrich W. A. Froebel in establishing kindergartens in Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on Piagetian theory-oriented pre-school programs in the United States, chapter eleven introduces and evaluates five sets of such school programs. Chapter twelve investigates the ‘space’ of kindergarten classrooms, based on various theoretical perspectives of human behaviorism, and the impacts of multi-level ecological systems and materialistic conditions upon learning behavior of pre-schooling children. Chapter thirteenth examines academic thoughts and theories of early children education from the 18th to 20th century, for the reference to Taiwan’s own development. Articulating four models of pre-school education in international perspective, chapter fourteenth proposes a systematic plan for future development of pre-school education in Taiwan.

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