本文的主旨在於探討80年代新加坡中學儒家倫理課程的內容設計與華人傳統價值與現代多元種族社會之融合之間的關係。80年代的新加坡政府推行儒家思想，並不僅止於編寫儒家倫理課程的教材，其目標亦不只限於灌輸中學生道德教育的層面，而是一項遍及全國的儒家文化運動。新加坡是一個多元種族的移民社會，推行與華族關係密切的「儒家倫理」課程與「儒家思想」必須注意其他民族與鄰國的感受，因此新加坡政府提倡儒學必須找到一個儒家思想具備超越多元種族矛盾甚至促成族群融合條件的論述。他們首先把儒學定位為一種思想精神而非宗教，具有可以和各族文化思想共融的特質，因此推廣儒家倫理與加強華人的民族意識沒有必然的因果關係。其二：儒家倫理和基督教倫理一樣，是可以促進現代經濟繁榮發展的一種價值體系。然而，儒家思想與華人文化畢竟存有密切的關係，所以國內的其他族群與馬來西亞、印尼兩國對這項文化重構工程屢有批評，最後「儒家倫理」課程在1992年被以「五大價值觀」為主要內容之新的道德教育課程所取代。

This paper proposes to explore the relationship between the implementation of Confucian ethics courses by the Singapore government in the 80 and the integration of new oriental values in the modem multi-ethnic society. The main purpose of this paper is to view the implementation of Confucianism and Confucian ethics by the Singapore government should not only limited to the preparation of course materials, and for the purpose of providing a moral education for secondary student, but a Confucian cultural movement throughout the country. Singapore is a multiracial society of immigrants, as Confucianism is closely related with Chinese culture, the implementation of the ”Confucian ethics” courses and ”Confucianism” must pay attention to the feelings of other nations and neighboring countries. In order to promote Confucianism, the Singapore government have to find a discourse to get beyond multi-ethnic conflicts that may happened. They first positioned Confucianism as a thought and spirit rather than religion that shares common characteristics with the cultural ideas of other ethnic groups, and thus the promotion of Confucian ethics and strengthen the Chinese national consciousness is not necessarily causation. Second: Confucian ethics and Christian ethics are in common in the way that they both are the inner spirit to the promotion of economic prosperity and development of a modem value system. The main purpose of the Singapore government to promote Confucian ethics was to rebuild a common value system of all nationalities that would support Singapore's inner spirit. However, Confucianism and Chinese culture, after all, are closely related, so this policy was constantly criticized by other races in Singapore, and also the neighboring countries like Malaysia and Indonesia were also against it. Finally, ”Confucian ethics” course was replaced by ”five values” in 1992 as the main content of the new moral education curriculum.