The Higher Education In Different Culture

In the wake of the history of educational evolution, its impact left a deep imprint on cultures worldwide. Generally speaking, culture restricts education and determines the orientation of educational values. In order to achieve its goals and communicate the contents, education inherits and transforms traditional culture as a "propagation" of the culture. Hence, this process essentially reflects cultural values in education.This doctoral thesis on "the Higher Education in Different Culture" aims to find out about the relationship between diverse educational conceptions and the people having been educated by different educational concepts, and investigate the concepts and theories so as to adapt into the educational development for the People's Republic of China.Since it is a library research, this paper focuses on the cultural aspects based on the perspective of existential culture which describes the existence of a person or group living in nature, history, and age groups, and culture. This cognitive method emphasizes on behaviors, thinking and consciousness of a person while in existence. In theory, it also views that education is not just a single concept but a complex, multifaceted and multilayered system. In a broad sense, education is a social activity intending "to influence people's physical and mental development". So this doctoral thesis studies the main interrelation among culture, education and human-beings through the revelation of the intrinsic link of the philosophy of education from diverse cultural contexts, and find out the connection between technicality applied in different educational conceptualization and the solid impacts on the educated from different academic backgrounds. By exploring the above-mentioned concepts and theories, it is expected that this will be adapted into the educational reform for the People's Republic of China in the near future.The thesis consists of four main chapters. Chapter one discusses the sources of educational provision since the historical origins as a by-product of culture.From the Chinese history, the coexistence of the public and private schools in Spring, Autumn and Warring states in China, created a large number of people with ideology and integrity. These groups of people were knowledgeable and well-off who evidently later formed up a new social class. In spite of being educated from the different schools of thought, the new social group had shared the same purpose of spreading culture and developing the new generation of academia. They were regarded as "philosophers" by posterity from the various academies and their fellow supporters during the period from pre-Qin era to the early years of the Han Dynasty. Confucianism and music culture gradually became the main ideological thoughts and culture of the Chinese culture by absorbing and integrating various thoughts from the "philosophers" in a long time. The teachings of Confucius are the source of wisdom of the traditional Chinese education, and it has profoundly influenced China's education in the following thousands of years. Confucianism takes ethics as a core principle of education, emphasizing the unity of the morality and self-cultivation, teaching people how to "be a good person" to achieve the secular ideology of "governing the country, and building the peaceful country." As a result, the core values of Chinese traditional education were founded, which stressed "self-cultivation","regulating the family","governing the country", and "building the peaceful country"Then from western history, ancient Greece is the cradle of modern western civilization, and the birthplace of modern western education. Morality and rationality are the main features of the ancient Greek culture, and rationality and freedom are the backbone of philosophical thinking and creativity. Contract culture is considered as an important part of ancient Greek culture for its appearance derived from the urban civilization which took Athenian as a representative, and the commercial civilization which was gradually given birth by the urban civilization. The concept of freedom is one of the characteristics of ancient Greek culture; it is also the core of the contract culture. The main features of the ancient Greece's traditional thinking can be summarized as follows: emphasizing state-controlled education, advocating rational education, and initiating the harmony of body and mind. The culture and philosophers existed side by side and played a part together in the Greek history. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are great Greek philosophers and educators, and they are known as "the three greatest ancient Greek philosophers" in the world educational history. Not only the Greek wisdom constituted the foundation of European educational ideology for the subsequent development, but also provided a rich source of perspectives and directions for national education reform in the modern world.There was inextricably link between early mediaeval education and Church Culture in Europe. The mediaeval universities were established under the background of Church culture and rational culture; and their belief of "liberalization" also became the traditional concepts of modern university.Chapter two analyzes the relationship of educational ideology and the people who are nurtured and educated by diverse educational system. Various educational ideas and thoughts under different national cultures' background leaded to diversity of personal traits.British culture established the sprit of nobleness and elite education which fostered the British genteelness in the British society. While the concept of education in Germany embraces the education of rationality that fostered German idealism and culture. American liberalism puts a great emphasis on educational system with open-mindedness that emerged from the multi-cultural phenomena in the US. Chinese Confucian culture established the "Ren (Humanity" and "De (Virtue)" values in the Chinese educational system; therefore it fostered "The Gentlemen"(Jun Zi) in China. When taking almost every culture of the same origins in western countries into account, the main characteristics of education in the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United State all presented the concept of "liberalization", as a result of which greatly impact on the western liberal education.Chapter three demonstrates the harmony of western ideologies and its adaptation into China's modern education.The multi-culture is one of the main characters in today's social and cultural development."Multiversity" is set up under the multi-cultural education, which responded to the evolution of multiculturalism in the United States. Nowadays, along with the establishment of the market economic system, China is unavoidably integrating into the economic globalization. In this circumstance, there are many different cultures is inevitably flowing into our country.The last chapter provided the answers to the thesis question and synthesized the results of this research study.Contract culture gives the birth of the new type of educational system, called harmonious education, and this kind of education will be pursued as time goes by. This type of educational system strengthened a full and free-of-cost development of a person."Liberalization" is the core concept of Contract Culture and Rational education which is advocated by harmonious education. There is an intrinsic link between them, which shared the same nature of pursuit. The contract culture seeks for the social relation contract and "independent personality" of individual person, to ensure the "Liberalization" development of individual person. The persons who learn liberal knowledge from harmonious education will be more free in their lives, because the liberal knowledge let them can do whatever they like. This kind of person supporting the development of human and society, and the unity of opposites between contract culture and harmonious education promotes the social development and the developments of nurturing people.