Research On The Status Quo And Governance Path Of “Two Cultures” In Universities

In the 1950 s and 1960 s,the British scientist and novelist C.P.Snow published a series of articles on the “two cultures”,which triggered a wide discussion of the debate between science and humanities.The “two cultures” refers to the division and misunderstanding between scientific culture and humanistic culture,where “science”refers to the field of natural science and “humanism” covers humanities and social sciences.The problem of “two cultures” in universities has existed for a long time,and which is not only the warning of discipline governance,but also the topic of discipline self-revolution.In recent years,the Ministry of Education has attached great importance to the interdisciplinary cooperation between natural sciences and humanities and social sciences.The dilemma of “two cultures” has been improved,but the difficult problems still need to be solved in order to fundamentally build up strength for the deep integration of “two cultures”.This study follows the logical line of “what-how-why-how to do”.Firstly,the literature research method is used to interpret C.P.Snow’s two cultural perspectives,to explore the two cultural meanings of the university,and to establish the structure of the full-text analysis by using disciplinary cultural theory.Secondly,a questionnaire survey was used to widely understand the communication and misunderstanding between students and faculty of natural sciences and humanities and social sciences in the phenomenon of “two cultures” in universities,and an interview survey was used to analyze the views and thoughts of university teachers on the phenomenon of “two cultures” in universities.Thirdly,the cause of the problem of “two cultures” in universities is analyzed in terms of the spiritual,institutional,behavioral and material cultures of the disciplinary cultural structure according to the literature and empirical findings.Finally,combining literature research,empirical findings,and analysis of causes,a governance path for the problem of “two cultures” in universities is proposed from four aspects of the disciplinary culture hierarchy.According to the results of the survey,the phenomenon of “two cultures” in the university is prominent.Not only are there few exchanges between the natural science community and the humanities and social science community,but there is also a lack of communication between members of the same discipline.In addition,there are significant differences and misconceptions between humanities and social science faculty and students about the culture of the same discipline.The main manifestations of the problem of "two cultures" in universities are as follows: the difference of disciplinary values between science and humanities,the solidification of disciplinary management standards between science and humanities,the difficulty of disciplinary communication and cooperation between science and humanities,and the accumulation of disciplinary resource gap between science and humanities.The reasons are listed below.Firstly,the influence of instrumental rationality and scientism.Secondly,the obstruction of disciplinary barriers and high walls of faculties.Then,the limitations of disciplinary stereotypes and academic evaluations.Finally,social stereotypes and the blockage of resource allocation.The study proposes the following governance paths to address the causes and problems of the “two cultures” phenomenon in universities.First of all,focus on the integration of values inside and outside the discipline,on the one hand,based on the national strategic needs,the discipline value and major issues;on the other hand,eliminate the shackles of discipline cognition,the discipline division to the concept of integration.Secondly,balancing disciplinary freedom and restrictions,on the one hand,breaking disciplinary boundaries and promoting disciplinary construction;on the other hand,reforming traditional disciplinary organizations and optimizing interdisciplinary research platforms.Then,to promote the development of disciplines,on the one hand,to cultivate a culture of compatible disciplines to promote benign exchanges among heterogeneous disciplines;on the other hand,to gather consensus on discipline construction and innovate general education with Chinese characteristics.Finally,to build a long-term cooperation guarantee mechanism at the material culture level,on the one hand,to change the mechanism of knowledge production and explore a multidisciplinary research paradigm;on the other hand,to coordinate the allocation of disciplinary resources and improve a comprehensive incentive guarantee system.In short,the problem of “two cultures” in universities needs to be solved urgently.The cooperation between natural sciences and humanities and social sciences is a key measure to cultivate innovative talents,an urgent action to promote the development of higher education,as well as a requirement to promote social and economic construction.This study is dedicated to examine the manifestations,causes and strategies of the “two cultures” phenomenon.The aim is to bring a little new voice to the academic discussion in this field,and a little new thinking about the interdisciplinary collaboration between the natural sciences and the humanities and society at the university.