Exploring The Essence Of Ideological And Political Education

Ideological and political education (IPE), as a scientific discipline, has a long history of development in its theories, and, up to now, its theoretical system has become quite complete. However, with time passing by, the fundamental principles and primary theories need some further exploration in some aspects, one of which is the essence of IPE. The findings may lead to a better understanding of the features and missions of IPE and enhance the guidance of the theories for IPE practice.This paper researches on IPE's essence by means of literature review, logic definition, comparison and factor analysis. It offers detailed analyses of its related comcepts, theoretical foundations and its features. It elaborates the theoretical and pragmatic significance of the investigation on IPE's essence, reports its current situation and existing problems, and points out the new perspectives of the present study. It investigates the origin and development of IPE in terms of philosophy, history, and discipline. It summarizes the IPE's theoretical foundations in terms of Marxist theories on human nature, human need, and comprehensive human development and reviews the developments of IPE's essence from the four dimentions: past and present, home and abroad. By investigating the relations between IPE and such sciences as politics, education, ethics, sociology, and behavior, it defines essence, education and IPE, essence of education and essence of IPE, which are premises for the study on IPE's essence. By analyzing the individual's need to survivel and develop in society, the ruler's need to govern the state, and the sociey's need to sustain and develop, it draws the conclusion that IPE essence is dialectical unification of social needs and individual needs. It has four features: politicalism, scientificness, practicalism and directiveness.