Glass Politics

Colleges and universities, important places where ideological and political education happens, play an essential role in developing the ideology and morality of university students. This politics-in-class- themed study analyze the situations in which daily life of the class goes on, the election of class cadres, the allocation of class resources and the power relations among classmates. With a qualitative approach, it observes the daily life of one class of one university in Beijing, interview the classmates and apply generic and situational analysis to the data. The study find that the situation of class politics is the product of different subjects’ multiple interaction, that is to say, multiple factors like classmates, their relations and the intricate network of relationships developing in daily life of the class form the “interaction domain” of the class and according to the tension of relationships, it is divided into the fiercely competitive interaction domain and the generally competitive one. The election of class cadres and the allocation of its resources are the effects of “multiple powers”, which means that these effects are the results of interaction among classmates who employ different techniques and strategies in different interaction domains. During the functioning of the class cadres, their power shifts and so requires different strategy to continue, that is to say, the class cadres exercise power by organizing class activities, but during that process due to the improper usage of power classmates they are resisted by the classmates, which leads to the transfer of power, and maintain their power in the strategic interaction with the classmates. Class activities being able to go on illustrate both the obedience to rules of the classmates and the democracy of the class. The above give us insights that, As a micro environment, class is the “drill ground” for China to carry out democratic practice in the future and ideological and political educators should pay attention to creating a favorable class environment. They should emphasize on looking for carriers in favor of ideological and political education from the multiple interaction of class life, grasping the interaction among multiple subjects and thus achieving the goal of ideological and political education. The “joint force” effect and “mutual” function in class politics reflect the classmates’ sense of democracy, freedom and equality, which has certain impact in developing and practicing socialist core values.Besides education in class, attention should also be paid to the important role played by extracurricular activities in ideological and political education. In addition, class politics also provides new channel for “unconscious” education in colleges and universities. In a word, the study of class politics helps provide some new concrete methods to increase the effectiveness of ideological and political education.