Using Culture as a Foundation to Launch the Identity Voyage of Middle-Class Children: An Exploration of Strategies to Enhance the Cultural Identity of Kindergartens in Beijing

Abstract

In this study, 60 middle-grade children in Kindergarten K in Beijing, China, were quantitatively assessed using the Cultural Identity Scale for Preschoolers (with good reliability and validity), and two teachers were interviewed in depth to construct an analytical framework of “experience-symbol-meaning.” The study analyses the three-dimensional dilemmas of cultural identity: the break between symbolic decoding and meaning association in the cognitive dimension, the game between local preference and Western attraction in the emotional dimension, and the break between family transmission and kindergarten education in the practical dimension. Based on the theory of embodied cognition, this study proposes a layered intervention strategy, aiming at cracking the problem of “formalization” and “fragmentation” of kindergarten cultural education, providing theoretical and practical references for cultural identity education in the preschool stage, and helping young children to build up the cognitive and emotional foundation of local culture .The aim is to solve the problem of “formalization” and “fragmentation” of cultural education in kindergartens, provide a theoretical and practical reference for cultural identity education in the preschool stage, and help young children to establish the cognitive and emotional foundation of local culture and to implement the goal of educating people with culture.