A Study On The Education Thoughts Of The Educational Cinema Movement During The Period Of The Republic Of China

This dissertation involves a systematic study of the education thoughts reflected in the Educational Cinema Movement during the period of Guomingtang Regime in China, which is an undiscovered and ignored historical and cultural issue.The Educational Cinema Movement, lasting for more than ten years from the pre-war to the war period during the period of Guomingtang Regime in China, had many controversial external aspects and complicated internal structure. The present dissertation is intended to disclose why the Movement happened, how and what educational thoughts it had brought about. And this dissertation also explains the influence and significance it has exerted on the current cinema education.Owing to the lack of the historical documents concerning the educational cinema, the dissertation will first explore the historical background of the Movement and clarifies the historical and cultural context of its happening. And then the educational thoughts reflected in the Movement will be classified into three dynamic structural types: the political and cultural (educational) concept of "imagined community" as historically societal strata and phase; the task-oriented educational thoughts; the concepts of educational cinema and the concepts of specialized education.Then these three structural types will be analyzed by applying the scientific and realistic research methodology. The social, political and educational ideas of cinema as the "imagined community" is the basis of the educational thoughts reflected in the Movement. And this idea, as a common recognition of the intellectuals of that period, has its firm groundwork, which expressed the nationalistic hope of adopting new knowledge and educating the new citizen, aiming at modernizing the country (including the national education). As cinema was the most advanced technology and the most informative mass medium of spreading the "new knowledge", it naturally became the focus of the attention. But, its nature of commercialism and secularism doomed its failure of living up to the imagined responsibility and this paradox led to the continuous anxiety which eventually, under the unity of China and the drive of one-party regime, was resolved by the reform of the educational cinema and resulted in the Educational Cinema Movement.Based on the "imagined community", many very influential educational thoughts and opinions such as the universal education, the rural education, the rural construction education, the scientific education and the democratic education, were widely spread and formed the new "method-function-oriented" educational cinema thought. During the process, the putting forward and interpretation of the philosophy of educational cinema was theoretically advanced and formed a partial historical inter-contextuality with the research findings of modern visual philosophy, providing a joint point for us to rethink, to advocate and to construct the modern visual educational thoughts on a realistic level.The thoughts and practices of the Educational Cinema Movement during the period of Guomingtang Regime in China are the precious legacy of China's educational and cultural history. Whether we consider it from the perspective of cognition or methodology, the Movement itself has its own unique academic value and inspirational significance. Although the current visual education has many qualitative differences within the modern media context, the educational cinema is and will be the basis of tradition itself. In the light of this, the study of the education thoughts of the Educational Cinema Movement during the Guomingtang Regime can be regarded as the prelude to the subsequent researches on modern visual education.