On Civil Education In China

Civil education has been a hot research topic since the 1980's in the field of ideological and political education. However, agreement has not been reached theoretically on many of the basic issues concerned with the civil education. In terms of practice, civil education has not been fully developed in China, which not only can not adapt to the changing political situation and the development of economy, but also is unfavorable to the development of ideological and political education itself. Therefore, it is necessary to further the study of civil education theoretically.In this thesis, the author is objective while exploring civil education in the following aspects: what is civil education? what's the relationship between civil education and the traditional ideological education in China? what's the essential content and the basic value orientation of civil education? The issues mentioned above are analyzed from a particular perspective :the relationship between nation and society, which is a basic theoretical issue and a premise that civil education has to face.The layout of this thesis is in four parts. The first part focuses on the concepts of citizen and civil education. It also reviews and summarizes the development of the civil education in China. The second part analyzes and generalizes the views of western countries and Maxism on the relationship between nation and society and has also come to the conclusion that society is superior and prior to nation. The third part analyzes the necessity of strengthening the civil education in China, which is the necessary requirement of times and the necessary result of the transformation of society as well. The fourth part presents reflections on some of the basic theoretical issues concerned with the civil education in China. The first one is the relationship between civil education and ideological and political education. The author has reached the following conclusion: on the one hand, civil education and ideologicaland political education are of the same nature and unified; on the other hand, civil education results from the fundamentally transforming of ideological education. The second one is the basic content of the civil education in China. The author holds the view that democracy and law is the common value pursued by the modern society and is also the basic content of the civil education in China. Besides, the democracy and law in China has the special content of its own. The third one is the value orientation of the civil education in China that not only reflects the needs of human beings and the development of times but also corrects the deviations in the civil education in China.