"noble" And "lowly" Distance

Characteristic of our own age, the mass society as a societal concept is usually defined by the three-fold manifestation: the high-scale industrialization of the productive process, the high-scale urbanization of the living process, and the high-scale popularization of the cultural process. In previous education studies, rare interests have been given to the problems of the mass society, and the cultural features with the mass culture at the center. To change this situation and to fill in the above-mentioned gap is the goal that the present dissertation tries to reach. Borrowing the perspective first used in the sociology of culture, the dissertation adopts the approach applied in the analysis of the "social text". With the mass society as the main studying field, and the school culture as the central target of research, the dissertation tries to disclose the cultural links between school and the society outside, thus the links between school and the mass culture being made the analysis of the substantial contents of the present dissertation.The core theory of the dissertation is the so-called "social control" theory. By studying the school culture, the dissertation brings into foreground such a thesis: Culture is means of social control. Considering the confusion now hi the definition and the application of the concept "the mass", the present dissertation adopts two new concepts: the formal mass vs. the significant mass. The former concept signifies to the mass linked by outward materiality, while the latter signifies to the mass linked by the inward spirituality. Based on these two concepts, the dissertation puts forward the theoretical hypothesis that the school in the mass society is an important method for the realization of social control, and it does so by converting the formal mass into the significant mass. Another pair of concept adopted in the dissertation is the loftiness vs. the lowliness, with the purpose to metaphorisize the antithetical situation in culture via the antithesis as can be found in the two concepts themselves. Put in other words, the dissertation tries to provide an answer for the following two questions: how antithesis is produced in the school culture, and how it is utilized for the realization of social control.Methodologically, the present dissertation adopts the inter-disciplinary perspective now popular in the current cultural studies. Going beyond the simple education care of previous similar studies, the dissertation raises its own value above the interests for pure education problem to the reflection of existential situations. The final purpose of any educational study has to be the ultimate care for human existence. Directed by such value ,the dissertation doesn't plan to describe an "objectized" school culture, but tries to explore into the education problems hidden behind the various phenomena as shown in the school culture. Through the exposition of those problems, an existential thesis is built up: Why are we so as we today?...