Abstract
The central purpose of China’s modern higher education has been to combine Chinese and Western elements at all levels including institutional arrangements, research methodologies, educational ideals and cultural spirit, a combination that brings together aspects of Chinese and Western philosophical heritages. This, however, has not been achieved. There is an urgent need for critical examination of the long-term consequences of grafting American academic practices onto a Chinese base. This article examines the tensions in the interactions in higher education between the traditional Chinese and the imposed Western modes of thinking. Borrowing a definition of the structure of culture, this paper reveals the various extents to which layers of Chinese higher education have achieved any degree of success. It finds that with a strong catch-up mentality, China’s contemporary higher education policies are responsive to Western influences. These are however only applied as panic-stricken and expedient band-aid remedies, rather than as strategies based on systematic understanding of cultural contexts. Accordingly, Chinese universities are uncritical towards the European-American model and its variants. This article warns that without an infusion of traditional education values, universities in China risk losing touch with their cultural contexts in their quest for world-class status.
Résumé
Le moi et les autres dans le contexte culturel confucéen : implications de l’évolution de l’enseignement supérieur en Chine pour les études comparées – L’enseignement supérieur moderne de la Chine poursuit l’objectif premier d’associer des aspects chinois et occidentaux à tous les niveaux, dont les systèmes institutionnels, les méthodologies de recherche, les idéaux éducatifs et l’esprit culturel, association qui rassemble des éléments des héritages philosophiques de la Chine et de l’Occident. Cet objectif n’a cependant pas été atteint. Il est nécessaire de procéder d’urgence à un examen critique des conséquences à long terme d’une greffe des pratiques universitaires américaines sur une base chinoise. Cet article examine les tensions existant dans les interactions de l’enseignement supérieur entre la Chine traditionnelle et les modes de pensée occidentaux imposés. Empruntant une définition de la structure culturelle, l’auteur expose dans quelle mesure les différents niveaux de l’enseignement supérieur chinois ont obtenu des succès à divers degrés. Il constate que, fortement marquées par une mentalité de rattrapage, les politiques actuelles de l’enseignement supérieur chinois sont réceptives aux influences occidentales. Mais ces politiques sont appliquées exclusivement à titre de remèdes administrés sous l’effet de la panique et sous forme d’expédients de fortune, au lieu de stratégies fondées sur une interprétation systématique des contextes culturels. En conséquence, les universités chinoises manquent d’esprit critique à l’égard du modèle euro-américain et de ses variantes. L’auteur avertit que, à moins d’insuffler les valeurs éducatives traditionnelles, les universités chinoises courent le risque de se couper de leurs contextes culturels dans leur quête d’un statut de niveau international.
Zusammenfassung
Das Ich und das Andere im kulturellen Kontext des Konfuzianismus: Was bedeutet die Entwicklung der Hochschulausbildung in China für die Komparatistik? – Bislang besteht das zentrale Anliegen der modernen Hochschulausbildung in China in der Kombination chinesischer und westlicher Elemente auf allen Ebenen, unter anderem für institutionelle Regelungen, Forschungsmethoden, Bildungsideale und Kulturgeist, einer Kombination, die verschiedene Aspekte des philosophischen Erbes aus China und dem Westen zusammenführt. Dies ist jedoch nicht erreicht worden. Es bedarf dringend einer kritischen Untersuchung, welche langfristigen Folgen es hat, wenn wissenschaftliche Gepflogenheiten Amerikas auf chinesische Grundlagen aufgepfropft werden. In diesem Artikel wird das Spannungsfeld zwischen den traditionellen chinesischen und den aufgezwungenen westlichen Denkweisen in der Hochschulausbildung untersucht. Anhand einer entlehnten Definition von Kulturstruktur zeigt dieser Artikel auf, inwieweit die drei Schichten der chinesischen Hochschulausbildung erfolgreich sind. Ein Ergebnis ist, dass die derzeitige Hochschulpolitik Chinas von einer starken Aufholmentalität geprägt ist und auf westliche Einflüsse reagiert. In die Praxis umgesetzt wird sie jedoch nicht in Form von Strategien, die auf dem systematischen Verständnis des kulturellen Kontexts basieren, sondern lediglich als von Panik getriebene und auf einen unmittelbaren Zweck hin ausgerichtete Behelfsmaßnahmen. Dementsprechend sind chinesische Universitäten gegenüber dem europäisch-amerikanischen Modell und dessen Abwandlungen unkritisch. In diesem Artikel wird davor gewarnt, dass Universitäten in China bei ihrem Streben nach einer Position an der Weltspitze Gefahr laufen, den Kontakt mit ihrem kulturellen Kontext zu verlieren, wenn sie die traditionellen Werte der Bildung außer Acht lassen.
Resumen
En sí mismo y en los demás, en el contexto cultural confuciano: implicaciones del desarrollo de la educación superior de China para estudios comparativos – El objetivo central de la educación superior moderna de China ha sido combinar elementos chinos y occidentales en todos los niveles, incluyendo estructuras institucionales, metodologías de investigación, ideales educativos y espíritu cultural, en una combinación que reúna los legados filosóficos de China y de Occidente. Sin embargo, este objetivo no se ha alcanzado. Es urgentemente necesario someter a un examen crítico las consecuencias que, a largo plazo, producen los injertos de prácticas académicas norteamericanas en una base china. En este trabajo, el autor examina las tensiones que se producen en la educación superior con la interacción entre modos de pensar tradicionales chinos y aquellos impuestos, occidentales. Sirviéndose de una definición de la estructura cultural, este trabajo revela los diferentes grados de éxito que han logrado los legisladores de la educación superior china. El autor comprueba que, por una marcada tendencia de buscar la actualidad, las políticas contemporáneas chinas para la educación superior son muy permeables a las influencias occidentales. Sin embargo, estas solo se aplican como parches y soluciones de emergencia, más que como estrategias basadas en una comprensión sistemática de contextos culturales. Así, las universidades chinas no son críticas frente al modelo europeo-norteamericano y sus variantes. El autor advierte en este trabajo que, si no se infunden en ellas valores educativos tradicionales, las universidades en China corren peligro de perder el contacto con su contexto cultural en el afán por conseguir una categoría de clase mundial.
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Notes
The Book of Changes, also known as the Classic of Changes or I Ching, is one of the oldest Chinese classic texts. It contains a divination system comparable to Western geomancy. Its earliest extant version was written on bamboo slips, and dates from the latter half of the Warring States period (mid-4th to early 3rd century BC. The text was later reinterpreted as a system of cosmology and philosophy that subsequently became intrinsic to Chinese culture. It centred on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process and acceptance of the inevitability of change.
The imperial examination system began to take shape around AD 400 and reached its full institutional development in the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907). During the Song dynasty (AD 960–1279), it crystallised into patterns that were to last right up to 1911. For more information, see Ruth Hayhoe’s (1996) China’s Universities 1895–1995, especially page 10.
The academies or shuyuan took their definitive shapes in the Song dynasty, as what had originally been libraries or centres for scholarly discussion developed into academies that provided a structured learning environment separate from, yet interacting with, state institutions associated with the civil service examination system. For more information see Hayhoe (1996, p. 11).
The Hundred Schools of Thought (literally all philosophers and a hundred schools) flourished from 770 to 221 BC in an era of China’s great cultural and intellectual expansion. Although the period was fraught with chaos and bloody battles, it is also known as the Golden Age of Chinese philosophy because a broad range of thoughts and ideas were developed and discussed freely, a phenomenon later coined the Contention of a Hundred Schools of Thought. The thoughts and ideas discussed and refined during this period have profoundly influenced lifestyles and social consciousness up to the present day in East Asian countries. The intellectual society of this era was characterised by itinerant scholars, often employed by various state rulers as advisers on the methods of government, war and diplomacy. The period ended with the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the subsequent purge of dissent.
The aim of this process is to spread the authoritative Confucian ideology among the populace and to ensure a dominant position for the ideology. Some scholars also refer to it as Confucianism edification. According to Confucianism, the ultimate aim of education is to penetrate Confucian morals to the grass roots. To achieve this, schools at different levels were naturally the main channel with the Confucian ideology as the only teaching content.
Scholar-officials or scholar-bureaucrats were civil servants appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day governance from the Sui Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, China’s last imperial dynasty. They were mostly well-educated men known as the scholar-gentry, who earned their academic degrees by passing the rigorous Imperial examinations. They were schooled in calligraphy and Confucian texts, and dominated Chinese politics at the time.
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Yang, R. Self and the other in the Confucian cultural context: Implications of China’s higher education development for comparative studies. Int Rev Educ 57, 337–355 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-011-9208-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-011-9208-x