The Study Of The Relationship Between The Imperial Examination And The Level Of Scholars In Northern Song Dynasty

Northern Song Dynasty is a vital changing era in Chinese history, which paper takes as the background. The paper adopts the method of double testimony, thoroughly going deep into the level of scholars under the influence of the Imperial Examination, getting a confirmed conclusion of the Northern Song society from another profile. The relationship between the Imperial Examination and social capital is studied from the perspective of the social capital theory. Since there are many ways to connect religious studies with social capital theory, this article attempts to start from systemic definition of social capital theory,premising religion social capital position, The characteristics of the Imperial Examination as one kind of social capital are discussed on the basis of a theoretical analysis of the Imperial Examination.This paper consists of the preface, the body and the extension.The preface introduces the purpose and the significance of this paper topic.The body consists of four chapters.The 1st chapter makes a brief introduction to the previous Imperial Examination system and the development of scholars. Meanwhile, the main changes of the Imperial Examination as well as the political request of the scholars are focused. It aims to offer the constitutional basis for further arguments.The 2nd chapter discusses the occurrence and development of the Imperial Examinations, and its interchanging relation with the inner change in the level of scholars under the theory of social strata. The conclusion is that the occurrence of the Imperial Examinations was the result of the inner change in the level of scholars during the Northern Song Dynasties. The occurrence of the Imperial Examinations also met the need of this change. The development of the Imperial Examinations again pushes the accomplishment of this change.The 3rd chapter goes into the gains and loss of the scholars'social status in the Northern Song after they became official through the Imperial Examinations. This had actually accelerated the combination of scholars with the despotic constitution. Under the push of the Imperial Examinations, a polity with the emperor being the nucleus and the scholars being the body was established.The 4th chapter goes into the influence exerted by the Imperial Examinations on the scholars from the profile of evaluation attitude. The principle of "fair chance" of the Imperial Examinations had not changed the strata of the Northern Song Dynasty, on the contrary, it strengthened the idea of strata among the scholars. The aim of inducing research by the Examinations had not spurred the intellectual education; on the contrary, it swelled the utilitarianism of the scholars, making the morals be debased. With the improvement of the Imperial Examinations and the disappearance of the gap between the nobles and the plebeians, the attitude towards matrimony had changed from "looking up to the noble" to "looking up to the official ranks"The 5th chapter this article applied social capital theory to analyses Imperial Examinations. First of all, this article have stated the fact there are various and complicated concepts about social capital and no final conclusion. In addition, this article have arranged these researchers who had discoursed the social capital theory and their classical theories, then adopted the systemic definition of social capital as the theoretical starting point. On this basis, the author proposed the theoretical premise of this article, which is Imperial Examination, could be located as social capital itself. Secondly, the discussion about Imperial Examination's social capital connotation started from systematic analysis and revealed the connotation of religion as social capital in macro, mid-scale and micro levels. Lastly, the paper discovers the characteristics of the Imperial Examination as one kind of social capital.The extension synthesizes the whole dissertation. It probes superficially into the interchange between the Imperial Examinations, the scholars and the society. It also stresses and explains the key issues in each chapter.