한국과 일본의 초등학교 과학교과서 생명영역 비교

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this research is to provide useful reference materials in compiling textbooks for newly revising education courses by comparing the biology sections of science textbooks in countries of Korea and Japan.
In this research, the exterior characteristics as well as the differences in composition of contents for Korea's and Japan's science textbooks have been compare., For analysis of the contents, content compositions of Korea's and Japan's elementary science textbooks have been extracted by unit titles as well as core study subjects. These have been then classified as the ‘continuity in life’, ‘diversity of living organisms’, ‘structure and functions of living organisms’, and ‘ecosystem and the environment’ areas for detailed comparison.
The principal conclusions may be summarized as follow.
First, the size of science textbooks in Korea have adopted the modified 4x6 print format; that is 7mm shorter and 22mm wider than other subjects’ textbooks and the size is designed to maximize the effect of visual materials. Japan have adopt the standard 4x6 print format and each grade has one book. There is no additional textbook for conducting experiments.
Second, textbooks of Korea mechanically processed the contents, unit counts, and the page numbers among the 4 areas of the subject. Differently, Japan’s textbooks give more weight on biology which are 40.2% out of total.
Third, Korea’s textbooks have assigned separate and independent units to various disciplines including animals, plants, and the ecosystem. Compare to that, Japan’s science textbooks have more units handling animals and plants at the same time with flexible composition to consider usage of activity time rather composition by field.
Fourth, textbooks of Korea have independent composition by units and each grades have less connections. However, Japan’s textbooks have more relationship; for example, units and contents in the previous grade are placed in the beginning of the next graders’ textbook.
And finally, Korea’s textbooks include much more concepts across all the disciplines, and tend to introduce comparable study subjects during lower grades.

Key words : Japan, elementary school, science textbooks, biology section