论文总字数：42255字

摘 要

家庭教育是指在家庭互动过程中父母对子女的成长发展所产生的教育影响，是家庭教育的重要组成部分。家庭是个人成长的起点，父母是孩子的第一任老师，因此家庭教育也直接影响着孩子未来的个性发展及人生方向。任何一个国家对家庭教育都十分重视，但由于各种因素的影响，产生了不同的教育结果。

本文试图以分析《家有儿女》和《成长的烦恼》两部分别描述中美家庭教育和儿童成长经历的电视剧为基础，通过两部情景剧中的一系列实例，对中美两国的家庭教育从家庭教育目的、教育内容和教育方法多方面进行对比分析，得出影响这些差异的政治、经济、文化等社会因素；同时，文章总结了中美家庭教育的比较对中国家庭教育的启示，并提出进一步改善中国家庭教育的建议。

关键词：家庭教育；差异；《家有儿女》；《成长的烦恼》

Contents

1. Introduction................................................................................1

2. Literature Review.........................................................................................2

3. The Differences between Chinese and American Family Education..........3

3.1 The Differences in Educational Purposes.......................................................4

3.2 The Differences in Educational Contents........................................................6

3.3 The Differences in Educational Ways...........................................................10

4. The Reasons for the Differences between Chinese and American Family Education............................................................................................................12

4.1 Historical Background...................................................................................12

4.2 Economic Form...........................................................................................13

4.3 Social Condition............................................................................................13

4.4 Different Traditional Cultures.......................................................................14

5. Improvements on Chinese Family Education.............................................15

6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..17

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...18

2. Introduction

Since the first Industrial Revolution, with the rise of Education Movements of all nations, improving education quality had drawn great attention in the world. Education, as the foundation of cultivating talents, has become the soft-power of flourishing countries. Yet, family education, which is regarded as the first as well as the last school of mankind, gradually proves into a fundamental, indispensable and even the most important basis for schooling education and social education. From the cradle to the grave, everyone is pursuing the education and involved in education activities consciously or unconsciously during the whole life. Hence, the education from family exerts a far-reaching influence on personnel training and turns into one of the top projects all over the world.

Owing to the influence of traditional culture, economy and politics, the distinctive characteristics of family education varies from countries to countries which can be embodied manifestly in the two TV series named Growing Pains and Home with Kids. Growing Pains, as the most popular American family sitcom with compelling audience rating from 1985 to 1992, and Home with Kids which is deemed to the Chinese version of Growing Pains, reveals the prodigious differences of family education between China and America in respect of educational concepts, educational methods, family values and so on. On the basis of the reflected differences of family education between China and America in these two TV series, this thesis is going to comparatively analyze the differences of family education between China and America in terms of educational purposes, contents and methods, and explore the causes of these differences.

This thesis consists of six parts. Part one describes the research background, purpose and meaning of this study. Part two reviews the related studies on the definition and characteristics of family education. Part three focuses on the differences between Chinese and American family education from the purposes, contents and methods, based on the analysis of Home with Kids and Growing Pains. Part four probes into the causes of the differences in family education between China and America, including the different historical backgrounds, economic patterns, social conditions and the traditional cultures. Part five summarizes the inspirations to Chinese family education from American family education. The last part is the conclusion, summarizing the major contents of this study, and reiterating the research significance.

2. Literature Review

As a country with a long history and splendid civilization, China had emerged stories about the family education since ancient times. “Early in the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties, the first series of family education monographs appeared” (Wang Dali, 2011: 135). A battery of ancient stories about family education which is filled with inspiration arise gradually and passed on from one generation to the next.

However, in China, the concept of family education was not put forward definitely until the New Culture Movement. Since then, an increasing number of scholars have started to work on this research project. Thereupon, a large quantity of works came out overwhelmingly.

Zhao Zhongxin held that the definition of family education can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. In his book he stated that “In narrow sense, it is the influence or education given by parents before the school education” and “In broad sense, it is the purposeful influence in the family, no matter the parents influence the children or the children influence the parents in turn, or the younger influence each other” (Zhao Zhongxin, 2011: 78).

Nevertheless, American owns disparate viewpoints in definition of family education from Chinese. Kang Yanli once introduced two kinds of interpretations from American Dictionary of Education in Family Education. One regards “family education as the formal preparation including the curriculum in school, religious organizations and welfare groups”. Its aim is to achieve better relationship between children and parents. Another explanation is that “as an informal way of learning, family education refers to the inculcation which proceeds in family with focus on acquiring knowledge and skills of family life” (Kang Yanli, 2010: 206-207).

Similarities in the definition of family education between these two countries also can be founded. For instance, according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, home-schooling refers to “the practice of educating children at home, not in schools”. Therefore, we can see that the cognition of the educating site between the scholars from America and China is similar in a way.

Many foreign scholars have researched this subject of family education. McMillan points out that family education includes home-based parental involvement, such as listening to children and supervision of homework, as well as schooled-based parental involvement, such as attending parent education workshops and parent-teacher meeting. It is the first step of children’s education, so it is extremely significant. Obviously, a good and scientific family education pattern stimulates children to develop positively (McMillan, 2000: 32). According to John, family education is that parents, in a family, train, educate and impact their children in order to make them grow up and become a member of society (John, 2007: 80-91). Actually, the aims of family education are not only learning to deal with family relations and grasping living skills, but also comprehending the physiology, psychology and all-round development of every family member_.

Family education to be discussed refers to the education that is given to children by parents in a family. Parents influence their children with their own thinking, behaviors, habits and characters and try to enlighten and nurture them through taking purposeful and planned patterns, making them form ideas, habits, personality, interests, etc. Combined what have mentioned above, the family education which this thesis will be covered is the education or influence given by parents in the family.

3. The Differences between Chinese and American Family Education

Growing Pains is an American television sitcom about a middle class family in New York, with a working mother, Maggie, and a stay-at-home psychiatrist father, Jason, raising three children, troublemaker Mike, honors student Carol, and rambunctious Ben together, which was aired on ABC from September 24, 1985 to April 25, 1992. In this TV sitcom, various and typical parenting philosophies and techniques of American family are fully embodied. Home with Kids is a Chinese television sitcom which represents stories of a remarried family. After the divorce, Xia Donghai returned to China along with his seven-year-old son named Xia Yu and then reunited with his daughter Xia Xue who grows up in China. Later, he got married with a nurse, Liu Mei, who also has a failed marriage and has a son named Liu Xing.

Making full use of humorous language, the two teleplays unfold family education respectively with Chinese and American characteristics. Family educations are closely linked to the cultural traditions, customs and historical backgrounds of a nation. Due to the differences in the factors mentioned above, the differences of family education between the America and China are formed.

3.1 The Differences in Educational Purposes

Family education objectives, as the key factor of the family education, are the primary causes of differences of family education between China and America. “In America, competitive spirits permeate in the whole society even in every family. The one who are eager to win triumph must equip with an ability of struggling to live in this turbid society” (Wang Jing, 2011: 78). By comparison, Chinese education always concern whether the children can have a bright future, whether he can find a good job and whether he can spend his life in good times when they grow up.

3.1.1 Livelihood Education in America and Academic Education in China

“The object of American family education is cultivating the children into a social man who has the capacity of adapting to the serious surroundings” (Yang Zhihua, 2007: 236). Thus, we can realize that Americans are inclined to employ livelihood education which is not visionary but practical.

According to Growing Pains, there’re mainly three abilities American parents expect their children to possess.

First, American parents expect their children to be independent. In order to educate children to be the strong who can accommodate the violent social competition, American parents not only never coddle their children but also encourage them to develop sense of independence. Guided by this object, they train children to sleep alone, have meals alone, take off and put on clothes by themselves. As a result, children become more independent in thought and action.

In Do You Belive in Magic – Season 2, Episode 207 of Growing Pains, there is a dialogue between Mike and Jason.

Mike: Ah Dad, I know it’s a school night but I have to go to Boner’s to check some research for my speech, ok?

Jason: Sure, Mike.

Mike: But Dad I …sure?

Jason: Yeah, you can go just as soon as you clean up your room.

Mike: Dad, I thought my room was my space.

Jason: Your space is so smelly!

From the example, it can be found that in American parents’ consideration, children have responsibilities on the cleaning of their own room. Hence, they encourage children to clean their own room independently. However, the parents in China pay more attention to their children’s academic performance. In Home with Kids, parents always monopolize everything of their children, and arrange almost all the daily life for them.

Secondly, American parents lay emphasis on cultivating their children’s self-selection ability. In America, children are trained to select whatever they want by themselves. They hold their own rights to choose their interests, vocations and marriage and suffer the consequences vice versa. In this case, children’s capability of judgment and choice can be enhanced greatly in their future life. In contrast, in Home with Kids, Xia Donghai and Liu Mei are deemed to be enlightened parents, and the family atmosphere is relatively liberal and democratic, in which children also have a right to speak. However, they still always involve in their children’s daily life and study, hoping their children behave in accordance with their ideas.

Thirdly, American parents lay emphasize on cultivating their children’s self-performance ability. Self-performance is an essential ability in this fierce competition. In America, most parents look upon that their children are the best. Usually, they inspire their children to show off themselves valiantly.

Different from American, under the influence of tradition thoughts like “Officialdom is the natural outlet for good scholars”, Chinese parents prefer choosing academic education rather than livelihood education.

As teaching children to master cultural knowledge is always the primary objective in Chinese family education, Chinese parents are keen for their children to get on, have a good job and live in a bed of roses. It follows that the award-winning Chinese children in global knowledge contests are inseparable from the emphasis on children’s literacy education Chinese family lay.

In Home with Kids, Liu Mei has invited tutors separately for Liu Xing, Xia Xue and Xia Yu which arouse their discontent very much. But it perfectly reflects the overemphasis on academic education in ordinary Chinese family. We have to permit that academic education can improve children’s cultural knowledge and learning skills in a way. Whereas, it will suppress children’s interest of studying even burden their pressure.

3.1.2 Individual-based Education and Family-based Education

Out of individualism, American parents employ individual-based education as one of family educational objectives. In America, parents commonly respect children and will not make decisions for them just because they are young and needing care, love, and teaching; on the other hand, they believe they are individuals with individual wills and characteristics ever since they were born. That is why Dr. Jason Seaver and Maggie often pay much attention to the views of their children and never repress their hobbies or ideas which they even do not favored.

In China, social position and value of an individual depend to large extent on the social position and value of his family. Then, family-based education becomes the significant tool of maintaining social political position and promoting culture of a family. “光宗耀祖”, an idiom once Xia Donghai mentioned when he was educating Xia Yu to work hard in Home with Kids is a great example of family-based education. “光宗耀祖” means making one’s ancestors illustrious. From this Chinese idiom, we can know that Chinese parents focus much attention to the impacts of children’s future on family interests.

3.2 The Differences in Educational Contents

What are the contents of family education? According to many professors’ researches, it is found that the tasks and contents of family education are extensive. In the meantime, we can realize that the emphasis on the contents of family education are various from country to country for different historical factors and cultural background.

Firstly, the differences in Chinese and American educational contents are shown as competence-oriented education and intellectual-oriented education.

“American family education is rich in content that attaches importance to the children’s harmony development of physical practice, cognition, sociality, language and emotion, which is called competence-oriented education” (Yang Zhihua, 2007: 236). Under this context, American family place particular emphasis on abilities of social practice and viability.

Here is a faith of Americans: success depends on hard working and self-struggles. Thereupon, it is an important subject to train children’s abilities of social practice and viability in America. They deem these abilities should be cultivated if children want to struggle in this fierce competition.

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