Current Situation, Hot Spots and Review of International Research on Differentiated Instruction : —— Analysis Literature Based on WOS Database

In the context of Western multiculturalism and the increasing demand of inclusive education, there is a growing interest in differentiated instruction (DI) that meets the learning needs of students with different characteristics. This paper uses CiteSpace software to analyze the international journal literature on DI from the
core database of Web of Science and draws the knowledge maps. The results showed that existing researches focused on student diversity, DI theories, classroom organization strategies, DI implementation effects, influencing factors
and so on. From 2018 on, researchers began to focus on teachers' understanding of DI, enriching their professional training, and enhancing their ability to DI. Analyzing the hot spots in the field over the recent six decades, we found that DI has been pursuing the intrinsic values of harmony and holistic development of everyone and it advocates the role of students as learning subjects and teachers as teaching leaders. However, in the future, research on DI needs to be strengthened in the term of analyzing students' understanding and perceptions of DI.