The Relationship Between Civic Education And Moral Education In American Modernization Process

The dissertation explores to systematically study the relationship between civic education and moral education, with the United States being chosen as the research object. The choice is not only made out of the simple idea that it's the first nation to carry out civic education and one of the states whose civic education are perfect, and at the same time, a nation with strong moral education complex, but also out of the consideration that as an endogenous modernizational state, it can provide a relatively pure sample for the study of the relationship.The dissertation is viewed from the angle of modernization, that is to say, it exhibits the relationship between civic education and moral education from the perspective of the two hundred years integral development of human society, so it is an macroscopic social and historical perspective. The modernization perspective is mainly indicated on two aspects as follows:one is to employ the relevant theories of modernization as the theoretical basis of the research, the other is to rest the methodlogical basis on the union of historical and comparative research.The dissertation, from the perspective of modernization, examines the formation and development of the relationship between civic education and moral education, and their relationship patterns and characteristics in each period. On the one hand, the dissertation seeks to restore the trajectory of the relationship between civic education and moral education during American modernization process; On the other hand, the dissertation illuminates the inherent logic between this relationship and American modernization process.The dissertation is divided into three parts:introduction, main body and conclusion.The first part is an introduction. This part covers three key issues:to clarify the generation of research theme; to review and sort out relevant research results, then make hypothesis; to explain the research perspective, methodology and value implied, finally to specify the rationality and necessity to study from perspective of modernization.The second part consists of chapters from the first to the fifth, which is the concrete interpretation of the relationship between civic education and moral education in American modernization process.Chapter one "The Relationship between Civic Education and Moral Education from the Perspective of Modernization" is relatively independent. It aims to illustrate how to study from the perspective of modernization and how the perspective is applied in the following chapters, and to explain relevant concepts and specify the division of historical stages which is needed to study the United States. This is the theoretical framework and inherent clue of the whole dissertation. In this dissertation, the relationship between civic education and moral education is understood as the relationship of function between the two, and the development of "relationship" is understood as the development of "function". To avoid abolutization in the origin of relationship, the dissertation sidesteps the exploration of actual effect of education, but focuses on the analysis and comparison of education policy, value orientation, status, theory and practice(aim, content, curriculum and teaching material, way)and so on, which embody views of education functions.Chapter two, three and four are the vertical researches on history, which demonstrate the gestation, formation and development of the relationship between civic education and moral education in the three historical development stages. Chapter two "Chaos", from the end of the 18th century to 1900, recalls the chaotic relationship development process in the period of the first modernization in the United States when moral education was prevalent and civic education was in an embryonic stage. Chapter three "Game", from 1900 to 1960, demonstrates the ebb-flow and inter-pervasion conversion process between functions of moral education and civic education in the process of modern transformation of the former and institutionalization of the latter during the maturity period of the first modernization. Chapter four "Symbiosis", from 1960 to now, analyses the process in which civic education becomes the leader of the relationship and the formation of the positive complementarity and close cooperation relationship between the civic education and moral education. Chapter five "Which Takes the Lead:Modernization, Civic Education, Moral Education and Their Relationship" analyses the relationship between civic education and moral education in the United States in a panoramic view, and summarizes the common and specific characteristics of American pattern of relationship development from the historical and comparative perspectives. This chapter mainly involves the basic model of the relationship development, the external manifestation and the momentum for development.The last part is the conclusion. The conclusion clarifies that the relationship between civic education and moral education in America is the interaction process of continuous function conversion and division-cooperation developed between the two in the scope of social consciousness education. Modernization is the driving force for the relationship development, so the relationship development demonstrates stages which are correspondent with American modernization process. In essence, On the one hand, this relationship is the process by which civic education and moral education answers the need of modernization; on the other hand, it is also the process of bringing civic education and moral education up to modernization.