Inhertance And Transmutation:Academic Pedigree Of Tao Xingzhi Study

As "a great educator of the people", Tao Xingzhi’s educational thought and practice have always been focused by the overseas scholars.1980s and1990s, Tao Xingzhi Study became an eminent study due to a great many of scholars promoting it, and a lot of research results published. But there’s still had many problems behind the prosperity of Tao Study, such as repetitive research, fragmented results, decentralized research team. All of the problems became a fetter which hinders Tao Study developing in new century. So, to solve these problems and help others enter this study field, it is necessary and important to research predecessors thought, generality, individuality, and the schools of Tao study.In the history of Tao Study, there formed some academic community which has similar research orientation, discourse structure, knowledge system and value concept. These schools has explicit research program, distinguished leader, which has been formed peculiar academic pedigree. This academic pedigree not only has the function to inherit the core academic concept but also change and develop the core idea to spread the pedigree. With the traditional Chinese methodology of historical studies which named scholar case study (Xue An-ti) and oral history, we can research the academic pedigree in Tao Study, which would help us find out the orientation of the thought and the course of the development. So we not only can achieve the goal of academic history, but also find out the effect of social structure to the academic research. Analyze with the genealogy and knowledge sociology we can find that social environment, academic literacy, knowledge school and individual value have a great influence in Tao Study. Main scholars in this field have formed different academic community. In a word, perceive the effect of social reflect on knowledge is the goal of research on Tao Study pedigree.There are five chapters besides introduction and conclusion.The first chapter named understands of academic pedigree in advance. It explains the relationship between pedigree and academic pedigree, academic history and academic pedigree. This chapter would lead us to find out the outline of academic pedigree in complicated Tao study.The second chapter focused on the scholars who were Tao’s disciple or have historical origin relationships with Tao. These scholars also divided into two groups, one is compact with Tao, the other one is loose group. By the research it would find out, the compact group loved their teacher so most of their finds were positive. The loose group’s study finds were more objective than compact group, and they took some interdisciplinary theory into Tao Study, to make sure the study back to the academic routine. The third chapter talk about the scholar group from east of China which pays attention on the practice of Tao’s thought. These people follow with the interest in how to practice Tao’s theory into education reform. Because of the relative culture and region, scholars in this area have some same academic interesting such as summary research in Tao Study history; apply Tao education thought to education practice. The results of their study show the time’s demand and research tension.The fourth chapter pays close attention to the school of Central of China Normal University in Tao Study field. This school has three generations, more20scholars. The origination of this school is only attracted by Tao’s charisma. Because of the disciple, this school’s research finds always have blood relation. They emphasize the logical system in academic research, progressive layer in research results. They also broke the old paradigm in Tao Study that they apply new research method in the research which from the perspective of culturology, sociology, psychohistory, comparative historiography.The fifth chapter discusses influential overseas scholars in Tao Study. By the case study of six scholars from Japan, Germany, America, Taiwan, Hong Kong, we find that their study influenced by the social environment, growing path and personal values. The Japanese emphasize the subjectivity, western countries focused on democracy, Taiwan and Hong Kong pay attention to teachers’ education and religion thought. All the results show the diversification trend in overseas Tao Study.The conclusion analyzes the reason why there are different schools in Tao Study. Based on the sociology knowledge, it finds that besides the knowledge origination of genealogy, social environment and developing history; struggle in academic area also have a great influence in pedigree of Tao Study. Discussed on the case of Tao Study pedigree, it not only helps us understand the academic history of Tao Study, but also reveal the relation between society and knowledge.