The Research On Gutmann's Theory Of Democratic Education

Deliberative democracy is an important form in the development of the democratic theory.The democratic education with the characteristics of "deliberation" and "conversation"occupies a pivotal position in the development of the deliberative democracy.As we all know,deliberative democracy is a feature of the contemporary Chinese democratic politics.The democratic education with the aim of nurturing the quality of deliberative democracy is of significance for the construction of Chinese democratic politics.Therefore,how to implement the socialist democratic education with adjustment to the development of the deliberative democracy in the era of globalization has become an important task for the construction of the ideological and political education.Amy Gutmann is the well-known contemporary American political scientist and educational philosopher.She introduces the western political circle's popular notion of deliberative democracy into the educational field,constructs the theory of democratic education with the purpose of fostering citizens' deliberative ability and virtues,receiving enthusiastic responses in the western academics,and is evaluated as the most influential scholar with achievement after John Dewey in the field of democratic education.With the objective of pursuing "democracy" in the socialist core values system and the purpose of advancing the construction of the socialist deliberative democracy,this dissertation has thoroughly combed and analyzed Gutmann's theory of democratic education in depth,mining its reference value for ideological and political education so as to strengthen nurturing the contemporary college students' quality of the socialist deliberative democracy.Gutmann defines the core of democratic education as the democratic countries'"conscious reproduction of the society",which trains the members of the democratic society to participate in the conscious shaping of its future.The "conscious social reproduction" is not the copy and transplantation of the present society,but the realization of the superior political democratic civilization by the ways of rational reflection and democratic deliberation.In Gutmann's opinion,the distribution of the educational power is the basic issue for the democratic education.On criticism of the traditional western theories of political education represented by Plato,Locke and Mill,Gutmann holds that the educational power should be shared by the state,parents and the professional educators,and she advocates implementing the nonrepression and nondiscrimination principles of democratic education to avoid the abuse of the educational power.To realize the educational ideals of the deliberative democracy,Gutmann proposes to foster citizens' quality of deliberative democracy by setting up the objective system of the democratic education in schools and strengthening the construction of education democratization.In her opinion,in the stage of elementary education,the democratic education should be concentrated on fostering the virtues of deliberative democracy,such as mutual respect,civic integrity and civic magnanimity.In the stage of higher education,the democratic education should be focused on fostering the political quality of deliberative democracy by means of respecting the academic freedom and freedom of academy,acting as educators of officeholders rather than mere gatekeepers,and promoting the freedom of association.At present,strengthening the construction of the socialist deliberative democracy is the major content for thoroughly implementing the spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress and deepening the reform of the political system in China.As the participating,governing and supervising subject for the socialist deliberative democracy,our citizens' quality of deliberative democracy influences the quality of the socialist deliberative democracy.The contemporary college students play a vital role in advancing the construction of the socialist democratic civilization.Therefore,how to enhance their quality of deliberative democracy in an effective way has become an urgent issue of the ideological and political education in universities and colleges.At present,the research concerning how to enhance citizens' quality of deliberative democracy by education is not rich.For this reason,the socialist democratic education could take some beneficial mentality and methods in Gutmann's theory of democratic education for reference,enriching the ideological and political education by adding the dimension of "deliberative democracy" so as to promote the college students'quality of the socialist deliberative democracy.This dissertation makes a systematic study of "Gutmann's theory of democratic education" by adopting the methods of literature study,comparative study and empirical study.First of all,through tracing back to Jefferson and Dewey's thoughts of democratic education,the source of Gutmann's theory of democratic education is explored in the historical context.Then,the realistic background of Gutmann's theory of democratic education is probed from the angles of the rising and challenge of multiculturalism,the educational strategy of Value Clarification theory and its limitation,and the "deliberative"turning in the western democratic theory.By reading and combing the large amount of literature materials,the basic ideas of Gutmann's theory of democratic education are demonstrated,including its core,function,the basic issue and principles of democratic education.Subsequently,the institutional design of the democratic educational system is investigated from the two levels of setting up the objectives of school democratic education and strengthening the systematic construction of education democratization,and the value and limitation of Gutmann's theory of democratic education are explored.At last,the enlightenment of Gutmann's theory of democratic education on enhancing college students'quality of deliberative democracy is discussed.Through analyzing the concept of "the socialist deliberative democracy",the meaning and composition of the quality of the socialist deliberative democracy are defined.The measures of enhancing college students' quality deliberative democracy are proposed on the basis of empirical study of the current situation of college students' quality of deliberative democracy.Gutmann's theory of democratic education represents the latest direction of the development for the contemporary western democratic education,which is of higher reference value.Although Gutmann has already raised concern from some domestic scholars for her identity of the prestigious scholar and the university president,the systematic research achievement on her theory of democratic education is quite rare.This dissertation takes Gutmann's theory of democratic education as the object of study with the expectation of filling in the research gap of the theory of deliberative democratic education in China.For the countermeasure study of enhancing college students' quality of deliberative democracy,this dissertation breaks through the research model of comprehensive measuring the democratic quality without subdividing the concepts of democracy,makes a targeted investigation of college students' quality of deliberative democracy according to the characteristics of the deliberative democracy,and proposes some feasible methods with a reference to Gutmann's theory of democratic education.The major feature of Gutmann's theory of democratic education is to organize the political educational activities by the criterion of deliberative democracy,which cultivates citizens' quality of deliberative democracy by guiding citizens to realize self-education by participating in the democratic decision-making process.It inspires us to provide college students with multiple channels of practicing democratic deliberation in the aspects of decision-making mechanism,academic community,course mode,autonomous management platform,and community organization.Meanwhile,we should enrich the dimension of"deliberative democracy" in the ideological and political education class by combination of the Chinese characteristics of the socialist deliberative democracy,and strengthen the publicity and education of the traditional deliberative culture of the Chinese people so as to promote the new disciplinary development of the Ideological and Political Education.