Ceremony Of The Cultural Heritage In The Education Space And Education

Culture study has become the hotspot of humanities, including education. This dissertation is an attempt to study the cultural context of education and therefore belongs to the scope of educational anthropology.Basing on the relationship between cultural inheritage and education, the study mainly uses the theoretical paradigm of interpretive anthropology created by Clifford·Geertz (1926-) and also borrows some of his concept. By interpreting the ancient Chinese Confucius Temple School education, the dissertation develops and defines two core concepts:educational space and educational ritual. Then it demonstrates the spiritual essence of Chinese ancient Confucius Temple School education:Through the establishment of Confucius Temple, the core cultural symbol, in the campus and performances of relative rituals for commemorating Confucius and his famous followers, the Confucius Temple school education passes down the national core value, builds common ideals and establishes the unified faith so as to achieve Chinese cultural inheritage and individual character-shaping. Ancient Confucius Temple school education is the perfect combination of educational space and educational rituals and also an effective way to realize the cultural inheritage and individual character-shaping.Then, the dissertation takes a comparative perspective to compare and analysis western religion, especially education (focuses on western university education) with Confucius Temple school education and then deduces the concept of generalized Temple School. After this, it demonstrates that the "Temple School" Education is the important form of education in the world education history, which is an important form of education to pass down the human value, to shape the common ideal and faith. It is a perfect mix of educational space and educational ritual.There are two different trends accompanied the civilization and the social development process. On is the secularization of the cultural development and the other is the modernization. Presently it is hard to comment on the two trends critically and objectively, but as far as modern education, especially school education is concerned, under the dominance of instrumental rationality, the individuals who are cultivated in them turns more and more imperfect and their characters goes more and more malformed. Education turns out to be a means to achieve scientific knowledge and skills with its vital functions losing, namely the function of descending core values and lofty beliefs of the society. During such an education process, the broad sense of "Temple School" is disintegrated.When education goes without the cultural inheritance of a nation's value, ideals and faiths, the cultivation of its people is just like a big tree without root, and in other word, we loose the root of education. In this sense, to realize the cultural inheritage and individual character-shaping, education space and educational ritual must be constructed based on core cultural symbols, which is the key idea of Temple School education and also the main argument of this dissertation.This dissertation is constructed by the following seven chapters:Chapter one:introduction. This part introduces the research origin, core concepts and significance of the research. It expounds the overview of related study about Chinese ancient Confucius Temple School education and sets up its own research map. This chapter introduces the backup theories, research methods and the frame of the dissertation as well.Chapter two:the history development, nature and characteristics of Chinese ancient Confucius Temple School education. After sorting out the basic theme of historical development of Chinese ancient Confucius Temple School education, this chapter explains that historical facts are the base of argument; the nationwide Confucius Temple which had been criticized from "May Fourth" to "Cultural Revolution" was local government-run school in history. Confucius Temple was a part of school campus and an important part actually. School education was unity of sacrifice (or believes) and teaching centered on Confucius Temple.Chapter three:educational space and educational ritual of Chinese ancient Confucius Temple School education. The educational ideology the Confucius Temple School campus reflects is profound. From the perspective of traditional Chinese culture, and the standpoint of the relationship between cultural inheritance and education, this chapter mainly elaborates the cultural symbols and spiritual essence of the Confucius Temple School, the types of educational rituals and its relationship with traditional Chinese culture, and the main functions of Confucius Temple School. In the end of this chapter, taken Deyangwen Temple in Sichuan and Jianshuiwen Temple in Yunnan as examples, it expounds the great importance Temple School plays in promoting Chinese multiple nationality integration pattern. This part discusses that Chinese national culture as a whole is the outcome of the interaction between Confucianism's Temple School education which served as the grand tradition of nation and little tradition of ethnic minorities.Chapter four:a comparative perspective----Temple School in a broad sense. Adopting Clifford·Geertz's concept of religion, this dissertation compares religion with education. It deduces that western religious education and later its national school education (focuses on Western university education) has similarities with Chinese Temple School in nature. Symbol-centered educational space is built up in the process of cultural inheritance in western school education as well. Various educational rituals carried around it is also the main educational activity. Even though the outward manifestation is quite different with Chinese ancient Confucius Temple School education, their function as national cultural inheritance is the same, hence the concept of Temple School is deduced.Chapter five:culture changes and the disintegration of broad sense's Temple School. By analyzing different anthropology theoretical schools'ideas on culture changes and seeking the inner mechanism of social development, the rout and direction of human civilization is made clear. Modernization and secularization are the general characters of human social evolution, and this idea must get manifested in education. The disintegration of Temple School in broad sense is the manifestation and consequence of the characters.Chapter six:Taking some Chinese universities as our study cases, comparing them with Temple School education, this part elaborates the existing problems Chinese universities have considering educational space and educational ritual. It points out the individuals Chinese universities cultivated are malformed in characters. This chapter takes school mottoes and uniforms as examples to illustrate the contradiction amongst value directions and cultural symbols.Chapter seven:the education and implies of Temple School from the perspective of educational anthropology. Analyzing the relationship of culture and education from the perspective of anthropology, it explains that Temple School education is an effective way of perfect- character-shaping. Culture inheritance is a grand human mission, but the perfect-character-shaping process of individuals can only be achieved during the process of cultural inheritance of their own nations. This is the inner logic of educational space and educational ritual construction, which is centered by national core cultural symbols.Adopting symbolic and metaphor method, the conclusion part takes Beijing 2008 Olympic building Bird Nest as an example, it interprets its implications to the future school education.