The Study On Coilege Students’ Legal Education From The Perspective Of Civil Consciousness Cultivation

With the progress of the modernization of China, the value and importance of civil consciousness is becoming increasingly important.Strengthening the civil consciousness of college students is not only a basic project during the new period of the construction of socialist democratic politics, but also the important content of College Students’ legal education. In the Report of the Seventeenth Party Congress on the socialist democratic politics,"strengthening civic education, setting up the ideas of the democratic rule of law of socialism,, freedom and equality, equity and justice" is put forward clearly for the first time. The citizen consciousness reaches an unprecedented height.This dissertation, systematically analyzes the theoretical basis of legal education of univeristy students from the perspective of civil consciousness, and explores the importance of the legal education to the cultivation of civic awareness as a goal. Through conducting a comprehensive, systematic, historical and comparative investigation on the relationship between university students’legal education and civic consciousness, this dissertation made an in-depth study on the subject construction, content and approaches of the legal education on the basis of borrowing experiences of application of legal education to civic consciousness in foreign countries.Firstly, this dissertation focus on the origins, importance and methods on the issues of university students’legal education from the angle of cultivating citizen awareness, which providea direction for this research. The research has several goals:to meet the students’needs in contemporary educational system; to help establish socialist country under the rule of law; to enhance "ideological and moral cultivation and legal basis" for effective teaching; to improve the quality of university students; and to maintain a hamonious campus.The body includes the following aspects:The basic issues of legal education and the cultivation of citizen consciousness. Defining legal education and the cultivation of citizen consciousness are important. Legal education for university students in this dissertation refers to educational activities provided for non law-majored university students with basic knowledge of national laws and regulations, school rules and regulations as the main content in order to improve the legal quality of university students, which is a board view of ideological and political education. Through analyzing the concept of citizenship and civil consciousness, cultivating civil consciousness is defined as teaching citizens civil consciousness, that is, to train citizens to adapt to the development of democratic politics and legal society and to be well-educated. The cultivation of citizen awareness is focused on university student. Defining the concept of univeristy students’ legal education and civic consciousness, and the relationship between the two and related concepts laid foundation for further study on the relationship and to clear the importance of legal education in the cultivation of university students’ civil awareness.The relationship between university students’ legal education and civic awareness. This dissertation discusses the philosophical, legal and political basis on the relationship between legal education and civic consciousness of university students. University students should have citizen consciousness, which is to meet the requirement of socialist market economy, the development of democratic politics and spiritual civilization construction. Civil consciousness, rights and obligation consciousness, social morality consciousness, democracy and the-rule-of-law consciousness and so on are all included in university students legal education. The cultivation of civic awareness is to make legal education more close to students’ life as our goal and more conducive to university students in practice. The two are closely related, that is, consistency on the goals, content and approaches theory of cultivation of legal education and civic awareness.Historical investigation on legal education and cultivation of citizen consciousness. The development of legal education and the cultivation of citizen consciousness in our country was not smooth, and compared with western developed country under the rule of law, the legal construction in China started late. The true legal education and cultivation of civic awareness actually started after the reform and opening up. After the reform, the construction of legal system had a significant turn, to confirm the important position of law in the society and nation. In the meantime legal education has entered a new stage of development since1949, which generally can be divided into four stages: legal education decline; legal common knowledge education; legal consciousness education; and legal quality-oriented education. Along with the four stages of legal education, civic awareness has experienced from declining,awakening to deepening..The analysis of issues and causes of legal education for university students from the angle of civic awareness. At present, the developing legal education for university students is in line with the trend of social development, and the universities can fully realize the importance of legal education for university students and cultivation of civic awareness. However, due to various influence, there are many issues in the current legal education ranging from the cultivaiton of civic awareness to teaching contents and methodology, making the citizen awareness in the legal education not well implemented. The reasons are:narrow concept of education, the conservative factors in traditional culture, administrative system of education and not much attention on the cultivation of civic education in the stage of basic education.The experience of legal education in the cultivation of civic consciousness. Through comparing legal education for university students and approaches of civic awareness cultivation in USA, Britain, Germany, Japan and Singapore five countries, we identify that western citizen awareness is not only the words in books, but through their daily life. Religious activities and volunteering activities have direct and important role in the cultivation of civic awareness of university students. In contrast, the citizen consciousness education in China is mainly conducted in the moral category, with more teaching knowledge and value, and less practic and activities. The cultivation of citizen consciousness is not only the legal form of citizenship, but requires citizens to have sufficient capacity actively participating in social management.The subject construction legal education for university students on the purpose for cultivating citizen consciousness. Through quality-oriented construction on legal education for university students, cultivation of ideas as legal subject and introducing excellent legal instructors, we think that the instructors are teaching subject and only instructors could meet students’needs for legal education.. The legal education on the purpose of cultivation of civic consciousness for university students is determined by that legal educators spread legal spirits and cultive students’civic consciousness. This determines that legal educators need to meet the requirements of qualified legal education such as strengthen self-construction and confront new challenges.The content of legal education for university students from the perspective of civic awareness. Constitution education, legal awareness education, discipline education and practical education are proposed to add in legal education. The content of legal education for university students various according to the target of legal education, which determines the effect of the implementation of legal education to guarantee the complishment of the goals and tasks of legal education. Legal education is extensive and specific, changing over the time, social requirements and the specific objects.The approaches and means of legal education from the perspective of cultivation of civic awareness for university students. In university legal education, all the updates of educational content ultimately rely on approaches and means of legal education to be implemented. Scientific and effective approaches and means could enhance civic awareness of university students greatly, achieving the goal of educating people in tertiary education. As to university which relates to society as certain characteristics of the environment, the approaches and means of legal education can be divided in two ways, inside and outside the classroom.Finally, the overall description of the dissertation make the main conclusions and the next research direction clear. The innovation of this dissertation lies in three aspects: First, new research perspective. At present there is few that the theorists analyze the research results of legal education and the cultivation of civic awareness from the perspective of citizen consciousness. This dissertation mainly discusses "legal education based on the cultivation of citizen awareness for university students", and try to make a breakthrough. Second, innovation in research content. This study aims at difficulties that legal education is facing, from the cultivation of citizen awareness to provide new horizon for legal education, achieving a win-win result of the two. The focus is on the legal education for university students and the social historical conditions of civic awareness. We compared and refered a number of situation in other countries and that modern technology and globalization play roles in developing civic awareness of university students, and the latest combined with legal education.Third, innovation in conclusion of the study. This study is based on the historical experience and realistic evidence of legal education and civic awareness, discriminating and defining the legal education and cultivation of citizen consciousness. In the meantime, this dissertation puts forward the subject construction, content, approaches and means in legal education from the angle of civic awareness. The legal education not only requires to improve the quality of teachers, but also to expand the education subject bringing the experts in the field of legal practice into legal education system for university students, in order to improve the reality, vividness and timeliness of legal education.