Transcript 幻灯片 1 - SJTU

World-Class University Building
in China: Culture Matters
Hongshia Zhang1, Shu Gao2
1: Institute of Education
2: School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences
Nanjing University, China, 210093
2010,10,19
• In terms of the issue, most of domestic literatures
have paid much attention to the statistic data, such as
publications in SCI journals, so the conclusions are
normally very optimistic. Very few take cultural
factors into account, even less concerned with the
academic traditions of the culture, which underpins all
activities of a university.
• This study, then, focuses on the impact of Chinese
epistemological traditions on the activities of present
Chinese top universities.
Early Modern China West
Philosophy of
Education
Schools of
Confucianism
and Daoism
Realism,
Empiricism, and
Pragmatism
Institution
Functions
Shuyuan
University
Discipline
Classification
Jin, Shi, Zi, and Ji
Humanities，
Natural sciences，
and Social sciences
The two systems as showed in the two triangles and the
the table are consistent by oneself, but they are
incompatible with each other; this has caused many
conflicts in the campuses of Chinese top universities
today.
So, this study will elucidate the current conflicts by
focusing on three aspects of university:
• Knowledge Creation Processes
• Knowledge Evaluation Process
• Knowledge Dissemination Methods
I．Knowledge Creation
Processes
1. Concept of Science
Take archaeology as an example. As Dr. Tang (2010)
appointed, the most striking problem in Chinese archaeology is
the belief and attitude of the archaeologists to “the Ancient”.
There are two tracks of conceptions of “the Ancient” here; one
is in the normal reality domain, and the other is in the Chinese
ideological domain. So some of the researchers are inclined to
search the merit side of the ancients regardless of the truth,
which is against the scientific principle of modern
archaeology.
2. Concept of Discipline Construction
• In order to cope with the requirement of WCU standard, Chinese
universities are busy in “discipline construction” work without
serious consideration on the issues raised by Dr. Tang.
• One of the “discipline construction” program is called “Key
Discipline Bases” initiated by the central government. In order to
make their disciplines to be selected as one of the “bases” and
then get extra resources from the government, many deans of
departments/schools spend tremendous time and energy running
between their campuses and government offices to “making
relationships” which largely connotes corruption actually.
• One of the reason of this situation is that research
fields in China are divided into a national hierarchical
system, rather than the taxonomic one in the Western
system. So the most important task for Chinese deans
is to promote their disciplines as many as possible
into the “Key Disciplines Bases” regardless of the
nature of the discipline and their relationships with
others.
• Another reason is that the understanding of Chinese
officials and some professors about “basic fields”,
“professional fields”, “cross-disciplinary cooperation”
and their precise roles in university development is not
congruent with those by WCU faculties. For instance,
most Chinese professors like to call their research
interests as “disciplines” rather than “fields”, because
the latter is regarded as too trivial by their academic
community.
3. Uniqueness of Social Science
• In the West, natural sciences and social sciences are related
intrinsically to each other; science principle has logically and
historically led to democratic beliefs and market-based social
systems which reversely produced modern social sciences. But it
was/is not the case in China.
• Thus, given that the faculty in social sciences and humanities have
limited sense of modern theory of liberty, democracy and scientific
way of reasoning, can their counterparts in natural sciences work
with them effectively in cross-disciplinary research, setting up
research evaluation standard and procedures, and working out
general education aims and curriculum in university-wide, etc.?
Some Chinese scholars in social science fields
encounter many practical dilemmas between, e.g.
Social responsibility and the sense of duty for the
country;
Academic integrity and surviving in their academic
community;
Internationalism and patriotism.
These conflicts are reflected in the whole
process of research including topic selection, method
adoption, results communication etc (Zhang, 2010b).
II．Knowledge Evaluation
Process
• At many student oral examination meetings you may
often hear such critics as: “Your idea is wrong”;
“Since your viewpoint is wrong, you couldn’t have a
correct result”; “Why don’t you read the book written
by [someone important]?”; “Your conclusion is onesided and incomprehensive.” Very few care about
new findings, new methods, or new data, even in
some natural science fields. Similarly, very few care
about the standard of reference citation.
As Weiping Yang (2010) , the party secretary of
the Institute of Beijing Gene Group pointed out that,
“The peer review system in China is not conducted
properly, since too many power-holders from the
academic, administrative and political sectors
manipulate the process. For instance, the Chinese
academician system does not play a good role for
constructing a democratic and fair research
community.”
The current crisis of scientific integrity is another
prominent problem. In consequence of the Confucius’s
saying, as stated previously in the triangle, there is a
modern version of Chinese saying: “Stealing books is
not categorically stealing”. Stealing knowledge is
perceived largely as showing admiration to knowledge
and the author. So it must be difficult for Chinese
students and even many scholars to understand why
plagiarism is so wrong.
III．Knowledge
Dissemination Methods
In WCU, the processes of research, learning, and
teaching, as well as social services, are conducted in a
holistic manner (Levin, et.al, 2006). The underline
rationale is what we just showed in the Dewey’s
philosophy triangle. So it has become a convention
that knowledge creation process involves students to
participate, which is referred to as “research-teaching
integration model”. In addition, teaching is also
supposed to have some appropriate concerns with
social needs.
• The holistic process in WCU makes the educational
aim of cultivating student critical thinking conforms
to the spirit of scientific finding of the faculty, so that
they can be efficiently fulfilled in the same process.
• It is not the case in China however. Many researches
on Chinese student learning styles have revealed that
the absorbing style is the dominated one, which is
congruent with the instilling teaching style and the
lack-of-creation research paradigm of the faculties.
• There are a series of educational contradictions on
Chinese campuses, such as those between the
traditional moral education and modern citizenship
theories, between scientific principles and traditional
Chinese humanities. In addition, the curricula of
natural sciences are encouraged to be structured in
line with the Western standard, while humanities and
social sciences stay very Chinese.
• Apart from education, another major knowledge
dissemination activity considered here is publication.
There is a unique system of publication regulation in
China. The most striking one is the “edited
monograph” which implies that it is legalized to copy
or re-organize the ideas, sentences and even
paragraphs in other’s books as long as the referenced
literatures are listed at the back of the book in the
form of bibliography.
Conclusion
The concept of knowledge for a significant number of
university faculty are still affected by the Confucius tradition.
This results in the problematic situation in research processes,
educational aims and methods etc. This implies that it will
takes a long time for a Chinese university to “grow” into the
league of WCU. The term “grow” here means that the
Renaissance gap in Chinese history has to be filled up in some
forms, because only if the scientific beliefs of knowledge,
rather than merely the factual knowledge and technologies,
have been “adopted”, can the knowledge creation enterprise be
nationalized in China.
“Believe in the ancients’ saying;
disseminate them with loyalty.”
Learning for being
appointed as officials
Hierarchical
social strata
Traditional Chinese Philosophy of Edu.
Science-based
contingent-upon knowledge
Natural-grow
needs of students
Democratic
society
Dewey’s Philosophy of Education
Back
• The main function of Shuyuans was to prepare
students for the Chinese civil service examination
(1300s -1905) which consisted of essay questions
testing candidate's understanding of the Confucius
teaching. The examination determined whether the
candidates could be appointed as feudal officials.
• The whole process of knowledge creation, as well as
the assessment and dissemination in Shuyuans was
totally different from that in the universities of past
and present.
Back
• The central ideology of Daoism is: “To be adaptive to
Nature”, then “Doing nothing is the best way for
governing”.
• The main difference between Daoism and
Confucianism is that the latter does encourage people
to do something instead of nothing, but none interested
in Nature, caring little beyond the internal
relationships of people. Thus, whenever encountered
with disasters, Chinese tend to find solutions through
adjusting the relationship instead of targeting the
Nature.
Back
Chinese knowledge were divided into four
categories in the Qing Dynasty:
• Jin, Confucius Teaching;
• Shi, History;
• Zi, Books by other Ancients and
• Ji, Literature.
The western counterpart was/is sciences, social
sciences and humanity.
• This means modern disciplines have been introduced
to and operated in Chinese universities for only about
a hundred years. The natural development or
evolution of Chinese epistemology was stopped by
the Opium War and then skipped into the stage of the
modern time without waiting for the appearance of the
book like “The Novum Organum” which constitutes
the basis of the modern scientific research paradigm
in WCU today.
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