论文总字数：34196字

摘 要

随着中西方经济的交流，中美两国的社会文化也在日益交融与碰撞。作为社会文化最重要的部分之一，校园文化也是如此。本课题主要从以下三个方面对两国的校园文化进行对比分析，即建筑设施方面的校园物质文化、涵盖管理和活动的校园组织文化和以教学理念为主的校园精神文化。同时对造成中美两国校园文化差异的因素进行了分析；最后在就美国校园文化能给我国校园文化建设带来的启示的基础上，对建设中国校园文化提出了一些建议，望能为我国的高等院校校园文化建设和教育工作提供值得借鉴的经验。

关键词：中美；校园文化；对比分析；启示

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 The Definition of Culture 1

1.2 The Definition of Campus Culture 1

2. The Comparison between Chinese and American Campus Culture 2

2.1 Comparison between Tangible Campus Culture 3

2.2 Comparison between Institutional Campus Culture 4

2.3 Comparison between Intangible Campus Culture 6

3. The Reasons for the Differences 9

3.1 Different Economic Systems 9

3.2 Different Social Values 10

3.3 Different Traditional Cultures 11

4. Suggestions for Chinese Campus Culture 12

4.1 The Present Situation of Chinese Campus Culture 12

4.2 Suggestions for Improving Chinese Campus Culture 13

5. Conclusion 14

Works Cited 15

1. Introduction

1.1 The Definition of Culture

The root of the word “culture” is “cultus” from Latin, which originally contains semantic meanings including planting, farming, living, as well as cultivating of animals and plants. From an etymological point of view, "culture" contains the meaning that people work in nature and get things they need from nature. However, the exact meaning of this term is hard to define. In different contexts, “culture” can be interpreted in different ways. In 1990s, statistics by some scholars had even shown that there are nearly 200 kinds of ways to interpret the concept of culture. To analyze different campus cultures, it is definitely necessary to give an acceptable definition of culture. Here, one is presented in this paper, which is the dichotomy of culture. Namely that culture can be understood in both broad and narrow senses: broad culture manifestations the extent that human physical and mental strength has reached in the process of historical development; narrow culture refers to a value system, with social ideologies like religion, politics, morality, arts, and philosophy as its main components.

1.2 The Definition of Campus Culture

The same with that of culture, the concept of campus culture is also difficult to define. But with discussions on the meaning of culture as foundation, it is much easier to interpret that of campus culture, namely: campus culture refers to the community spirit and its accompanying carriers that are developed in the campus life and practical activities of the major body of the school, including students, faculty and administrators. The community spirit means the ideologies and values that the students and teachers cultivate in their school life. As these ideologies and values are manifested by their behaviors and the languages they use, such languages, behaviors, and the system that conducts these behaviors are all the carriers of campus culture.

Campus can be compared to the sacred hall of social culture. It is an important position for the construction of spiritual civilization in the whole society. And this is why campus culture is said to be an important part of the social culture. It comes from the social culture, and is a part of it. It is the refraction and reflection of social culture. Construction of university campus culture is of vital importance in the process of constructing harmonious society. So strengthening the construction of campus culture in constructing harmonious society is of great significance. At the same time, campus culture is an important component of moral education. The main bodies of campus culture are the academic staff, and the giant space of it is the broad campus. It is characterized by a specific campus lifestyle and spirit and always affects the personal values, feelings and beliefs of each staff. With a clear oriented ideological and political education goal, campus culture is an important form of ideological and political education in colleges and universities. It is one of the most important carriers of ideological and political education in colleges and universities. Because of the different social and educational systems, the constructions of Chinese and American campus culture have different characteristics. Especially in recent years, the American higher education is growing rapidly. Fully developed market economy, inclusive system of various nationalities-hybrid cultures as well as a high degree of thinking freedom and academic freedom have not only contributed to a unique education model of the United States, but also made the American campus culture different from that of China in terms of tangible culture, institutional culture and even intangible culture.

This paper emphasizes on the analysis of the cultural differences between the university campuses in both China and the United States as well as the reflections on differences between Chinese and American culture, and hopes that the two countries could learn from each other and draw lessons as possible as they can from each other"s campus culture to strength their own construction of college campus culture and then achieve mastery through a comprehensive comparison to promote the development of university campus culture.

2. The Comparison between Chinese and American Campus Culture

Due to the differences in economy, traditional cultures and social values, there is a great gap between Chinese and American campus culture. And this part will compare the two campus cultures mainly from the following aspects: tangible campus culture, institutional campus culture and intangible campus culture.

2.1 Comparison between Tangible Campus Culture

Tangible campus culture refers to the objective things created or used by human beings, which can reflect the creators’ own certain values and beliefs. It is both a material carrier of specific cultural activities in campus, but also a material foundation of constructing campus culture. It mainly consists of various buildings in the campus, teaching and scientific research equipments, books, flowers and other plants, sculptures, murals and something like these, all of which contain both designers’ and users’ values and aesthetics as well as other social morals. A profound sculpture, complementing well with the surrounding environment, a building with a unique artistic style, or a reasonably laid-out, elegant and chic flower bed, can not only play the role of decorating the campus, but also affect students by cultivating their temperament as well as purifying their minds.

2.1.1 Comparison between American and Chinese Campus Buildings

Speaking of tangible culture, many people may think of that Chinese university campus is usually a relatively independent space, with tall walls isolating it from the outside world, all activities of the schools almost entirely enclosed within the walls. While most American universities have no walls, as their school systems: open and free. And the thoughts of American teachers and students, as their open school, are not marginal. This is the so-called "boundless college" or "university without walls".

In terms of buildings, Chinese and American college campuses each have their own style and cultural characteristics. Taking a few elite schools as examples, in front of the main teaching building of Institute of technology in Yangzhou University, a sculpture in shape of the letter “Y”, and a pool in letter “G”, suggest the two words "Yang Gong", the short for the school name. And the three sides of that marble sculpture symbolize the "three orientations" raised by Deng Xiaoping for Chinese education. That is, education should be geared to the needs of modernization, of the world and of the future. The whole buildings can be seen as a symbol of campus spirits of enterprising, endeavoring and hard working. The Stanford University campus, one of the most typical representatives of many campuses in the United States, is heartily praised by many people. The area of its campus is up to more than 3,000 hectares, with various buildings in different styles and colors standing on each side of the broad green lawn and the palm avenue, a landmark belfry erecting in the center of campus, the four sides of which write respectively "justice, wisdom, love, and service" along with the instructions for why these words are chosen as school motto. Such a campus indicates directly a typical cultural atmosphere of the United States, and shows perfectly the moral values that this university always pursues.

2.1.2 Comparison between American and Chinese Campus Facilities

In terms of the facilities for teaching and scientific research, few of Chinese schools can be comparable with the famous ones in America. In most Chinese colleges, many experiments are taught just in books. There are fewer thorough equipment for Chinese students to do research on their own than in American colleges. However, it is totally different in America. Berkeley, a divided campus of the University of California in the United States, for example, has more than 100 research institutes and a large number of laboratories, in which most of the laboratory equipment are more advanced than any other university. For instance, Lawrence Berkeley Lab has by far the best Cyclotrons, Proton Accelerator and Synchrotron in the whole world. And it is precisely these perfect and sophisticated laboratory equipments that enable this lab to have cultivated eight Nobel Prize winners since 1920.

2.2 Comparison between Institutional Campus Culture

Institutional campus culture refers to the conduction of regulating teachers and students’ behaviors with specific principles or constrained requirements laid down by the school. In addition to complying with the laws, regulations and ethical norms of society, all the academic staff should also abide by the rules and regulations set by the school. A school must have its own clear educational objectives, guiding principles, strict and integrated rules or disciplines, with which it can be efficient to develop rigorous and realistic spirit together with the practical attitude of these staff. Conversely, those incomplete systems can impossibly nurture high-quality talents. A British anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski, once said that humans are born with culture, and culture is bound to be constrained, which is a good indicator of the need for the institutional culture.

2.2.1 Differences in Regulation

The Sino-US campus cultural differences also exist in the education systems. The United States is a land of freedom, and pleasure is its national identity. Even in campus, the level of American regulation to the students is much looser and freer than that of China. Most Americans spent their school life in the most adventurous and craziest ways, and some even tried things such as drugs, sex and other taboos. With all these kinds of temptations and challenges around, those students who lack the self-control will fall into the abyss. In contrast, Chinese college students are regulated strictly. Taking one thing as an example, Chinese college students are wanted to be in their dorms before 11:00 p.m. and there is even no electricity provided after that time. It is such a kind of regulation that cultivates most Chinese a good sense of order. And such an institution can effectively prevent premature tasting the forbidden fruit, and eliminate various negative temptations.

2.2.2 Differences in Extracurricular Activities

Various basketball games, all-around academic competitions, musical performances and other activities in American school are drawing a great deal of attention. These competitions are not only related to personal honor, but also linked with the glory of the whole school. So they play a pivotal role. In these activities, students have a lot of free space. They can use their natural talents to make the games or performances they joined in be the best. Such education institution can significantly develop the potential ability of students, and instill in them the capability to resolve things independently. While in China, students’ life is limited in a small environment, being urged every day to do everything they are required to. The extracurricular activities they have are fewer in number, which are generally under the guidance of the teachers or organized by communities. They are always well planned and organized and students can select some of them to participate in. However, most of the students will not take part in these activities, because they think that even in college learning is still of top priority. So a lot of students just bury themselves in the books, and are indifferent to any other knowledge about social life and social practice, which is the direct cause of the result that Chinese campus culture produces a lot of students who can get high scores but have few abilities.

Comparatively speaking, there are both advantages and disadvantages in each campus culture. Learning from each other and exchanging their advantages are the most conducive solutions to the common development of the two campus cultures.

2.3 Comparison between Intangible Campus Culture

Intangible campus culture is the core of campus culture. It consists mainly of school spirit, academic atmosphere, personal values, and so on. Professor Hu Xianzhang in Tsinghua University holds the view that intangible campus culture can intensively reflect the essence and function of a campus along with its own managerial patterns and the value it pursues. He also believes that intangible campus culture is a production of the school by absorbing historical culture traditions into its world outlook, values and methodology which are explored and accumulated through a long period of practice. The intangible campus culture is not only the highest goal, but also the essential foundation of the construction of campus culture. A kind of harmony and easing cultural environment can imperceptibly internalize those external requirements into students’ their intrinsic ones, stimulate their craving for knowledge, and gradually help them establish a positive outlook on life, cultivate correct values, and even shape a good personality. So, the state of intangible culture is closely related to the effectiveness of the construction of campus culture.

2.3.1 Differences in Classroom Teaching

The United States is a melting pot of cultures and religions, advocating freedom, equality, independence, and self-centered individualism value. Because of this, in the United States, the relationship between students and teachers are equal. Students can freely express their views in panel discussions. They can even suspect the teachers’ ideas, and contest with the teachers. Classroom atmosphere is freedom. Students can raise their hands at any time and discuss in any forms: they may work in several groups or just stand surrounding their teacher. After all, the number of students in each class is quite small. Schools have to obey the principle that the number of students per teacher will be small enough to allow ample time to plan each child’s programs (Reed, Bergemann and Olson 1998:33). However, in Chinese schools, a large number of students have to study in one classroom. They must sit at their desks quietly in class. Only those who are obedient and submissive are likely to be seen as "good students". When teachers are assessing students" conduct, loyalty and honesty are often listed as a kind of virtue. While students who has his own views and dares to make statements, will be seen as naughty students who keep no disciplines or rules in minds. One of the most important reasons of this phenomenon is that Chinese campus values are based on collectivism. For a long time, both students and teachers have been subject to the influence of traditional cultural values that collective interests are above individual interests. So, when dealing with teacher-student relationship, Chinese students are all supposed to take the attitude of obedience, and try to maintain consensus with teachers and school leaders. But in fact, this can hardly make students really convinced, which may lead to a lack of communication and mutual understanding between teachers and students. In the long term, it is not conducive to the construction and heritage of college campus culture.

2.3.2 General Education and Special Education

The United States is well known for the tradition of general education. The American universities emphasized on strengthening professional learning as cultivating students" inner morals and ethics, and at the same time they also focus on fostering students" communication skills, organizational skills and leadership abilities. In aspect of course selection, American education is mainly concerned with students’ interest. Students are free to choose a wide range of academic or literary club activities. They are provided with many opportunities to relax. Taking Harvard University as example, on the issue that what kind of talent should be cultivated in universities, one of its principals, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, once advocated creating a liberal education, and fostering comprehensive developing talents. He believed that the essence of liberal education is to equip students with the right attitudes, to help them master the method of thinking, and to make them capable of dealing with information, but not to cultivate students who can just memorize the facts taught in their books. Nowadays, in such a complex world, the most optimal goal of liberal education is to foster competent people who not only cover a lot of ground but also have a deep understanding in one area. He further stated that institutes should be devoted to developing all-round students who must have compassion and judgment rather than lame experts.

Nevertheless, depending on the demand of market, China emphasizes on the professional and refined model of education in the universities and relatively focuses on delivering specialized education to students. People always consider more about realistic problems, for example, employment. Although, to some extent, it can guarantee some students to be employed, it ignores the significance of quality-oriented education as well as college students" interest and inherent psychological needs. As educator John Holt arguing that “an imposed curriculum damages the individual and usurps a basic human right to select one’s own path of development” (James 2006:18). Under such a kind of education, students are inclined to take perfunctory attitude to the elective courses on humanities, which directly results in that the humanities are increasingly marginalized. Such utilitarian concept of education also arouses a great fever on obtaining certificates on English and Computer Science in campus of universities, which has reflected the imbalance of current development in university campus culture in China.

2.3.3 Emphasis on Innovation and Knowledge Accumulation

One characteristic of the construction of the American campus culture in universities is that it attaches great importance to the cultivation of students" innovative consciousness and abilities. What’s more, it advocates the spirit of querying as well as the application of knowledge. Students are encouraged to challenge themselves, and to practice on scientific, artistic and technical aspects. On one hand, the innovation spirit of students is supported by parents, schools and the community. And on the other hand, the United States campuses give students highly affirmation for their innovation and spirit of actively exploring. While colleges and universities in China still cannot get rid of the examination-oriented education mode, and emphasizes on the inculcation and accumulation of knowledge, as well as the test scores students get, but neglects the application of knowledge. A lot of practice has been just a form, and has no substantive effects. Such exam-oriented education model in a large extent will hinder the development of campus culture.

3. The Reasons for the Differences

The differences between Chinese and American campus cultures are caused by many factors, but this paper will just analyze the three important ones that have decisive effects on campus culture. The three are different economic systems, social values and traditional cultures.

3.1 Different Economic Systems

Certain kind of economic systems determines certain kind of culture. So the fact that America carries out capitalistic economy while China socialist market economy is one of the most important reasons for the differences between their campus cultures.

3.1.1 Socialist Market Economy

With the establishment and continuous improvement of Chinese market economic system, some major changes in the economic system has had a significant and far-reaching impact on various aspects. And as an important part of the superstructure that served for the economic base, campus culture has been strongly influenced by it in all the aspects, including: its educational resources, institutions, teaching philosophy and so on. For example, the market economy broke with the highly concentrated mechanism of school education which was under the planned one, and there have been autonomies in schools. However, with the development of economic construction, the supply of professionals needed is not adequate to the demand. The basic disciplines that play no direct role in the construction of market economy are tending to be ignored and even declined. The socialist market economy can be said to be one of the major reasons for the formation of professional education in China.

3.1.2 Capitalistic Economy

In the late 19th century, American capitalist economy made a spurt of progress and the State"s role in school education was also growing. Schools at various levels sprang up and showed to flourish. The contents and forms of campus culture were more and more colorful. Providing urgently needed talents for the development of capitalist economy has become the primary mission of American schools. However, the pursuit of utilitarianism and pragmatism, together with the extreme egoism thoughts, which is aroused by capitalist economy, is flooded in each campus, and makes people have to pay special attention to the negative sides of the modern, fresh and lively campus culture in American universities.

3.2 Different Social Values

China is a country with more than five thousands years’ history, having gone through periods of feudalism, revolution and reformation. However, America is a country whose history is just of hundreds years. It is made up of migrants from all over the world. The two completely different societies cultivate Chinese and Americans quite different social values.

3.2.1 American Individualism and Chinese Collectivism

In China, people advocate that collective, social and national interests should be more important than anything else, and personal interest must comply with collective interests. While dealing with all kinds of relationships, people must keep on the rails and comply with the collective or the leader. This orientation makes Chinese introverted, reserved, quiet, and humble and try to make themselves compatible with the environment. American culture extremely praises individualistic orientation. The United States is a country with many races, religions and cultural traditions. It advocates the spirit of freedom, equality, heroism, personal struggling and pragmatism. Americans tend to pursue individual enjoyment and freedom, including not only the pursuit and satisfaction of personal material interest, but also that of personal will and self realization.

3.2.2 Pursuit of Stability and Changes

Under the influence of Confucian thought, either personal growth or social development pursues the quality of being steady. An idiom saying "The laws of forefathers should be immutable" is the best subscript to that. People are accustomed to the concept that a contented mind is a perpetual feast, so when they do everything, stability should be the premise. For instance, when administrating a school, all managers incline to pursue a stability of order and the ideal condition of school administration is all of the work being sleek. However, the obsessive attention to that will inevitably lead to a conservative school management. However, the essence of American culture is the word ‘change’ and the idea that ‘nothing remains unchanged’. They believe that no progress will be made without changes or innovation. They like to do something unconventional or unorthodox, whether it is good or bad. They always believed in that they can change their destiny by their own hands. Therefore, schools in the United States are keen on reform and innovation, and can mostly conform to the trend of the times.

3.3 Different Traditional Cultures

Campus culture has been greatly influenced by the national traditional culture. Differences between the two countries’ traditional cultures are deeply affecting all aspects of contemporary students, including their thinking, learning, life and so on. They are the sources of cultural differences in campus. The theories of good and evil are respectively exist in China and the US. “The original nature of man is good” is a Chinese fundamental view of human nature. In other words, people are all good. People should just stick to this good nature. This point of view results in the principle of taking things as they are and behaving themselves. The American culture, on the contrary, is under the influence of Christianity, revering saying of “original sin”, holding that all men are guilty, which stems from the story of Adam and Eve who were finally expulsed from the Garden of Eden to suffer in Midgard for their guilt of the original sin by eating the forbidden fruit. To change the original sin, people have to continue to toil.

4. Suggestions for Chinese Campus Culture

According to the analyses of Chinese and American campus culture, it is not difficult to find out that the two campus cultures both have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is expected that Chinese campus culture could overcome such disadvantages to make itself much better. So here, this paper provides several suggestions for Chinese campus culture on the basis of analyzing its present situation, hoping that it is useful for the construction of a better campus culture.

4.1 The Present Situation of Chinese Campus Culture

In China, education has appeared in as early as the Xia dynasty. Over thousands of years, it has been constantly reformed, and now, Chinese education has been improved to a great extent, which even can be described with prosperity. Nevertheless, the education in our country is still not that perfect, the most salient one of which is the prevalence of examination-oriented education. In Chinese universities, level examinations attract almost the full energy of the students. Schools focus on education of knowledge only but often neglect that of morality. Teaching methods and teaching contents are a little bit single and dogmatic, lacking in creativity and flexibility. When dealing with some problems, students only care about what it is rather than ask why or how it happens. They would seldom involve themselves into the thinking of lives, humanity, ideals, beliefs and so on. Perhaps that is why Chinese education rarely makes a science master like Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison or makes high-tech giants of the world like Microsoft, Intel, and Nokia.

4.2 Suggestions for Improving Chinese Campus Culture

The American campus cultural patterns are not the best in the world, because it overemphasizes on students" independent and liberal personality and excessively encourages the “individualistic heroism", and ignores the value of group culture and the existence of campus violence. But it still has many advanced points to learn. So, to develop Chinese education better, China should properly make its own choice based on the above analyses of the Sino-US campus culture. It should absorb outstanding achievements in American campus culture actively but critically.

Firstly, construction of campus culture in China should take example by that in the US and refer to the American “people-oriented” educational ideology. All works in school should be student-centered. That is to say, everything had better be oriented to students" growth and meet the needs of students, providing independent and relaxed learning environment for students. Teachers and students should have equal status. Teachers must focus on guiding students to develop habits of thinking independently, analyzing calmly and making decision themselves, and on cultivating students" innovative consciousness as well as capabilities.

Secondly, Chinese campuses have to create a favorable academic atmosphere and enhance students" abilities of doing scientific researches. Focusing on academic and illustrating the ideas are the most important philosophy in modern universities. College education in China mainly focuses on the reserve and accumulation of knowledge, but ignores the cultivation of students" abilities of innovating and researching on science. When students enter the campus, the teachers should teach students how to conduct scientific researches. In addition, the campus can hold all kinds of academic reports to enable students to experience the magic of learning and thinking, to enrich their knowledge and even to raise their interest in academic.

Finally, there should be an open course system and diversified teaching models. All colleges and universities should make suitable curriculum systems for themselves according to the characteristics and needs of each region and allow different courses to be applied in the same major and in different universities.

5. Conclusion

Campus culture is a representative one in the context of culture. The comparison and exploration of the differences between the campus culture in both China and the US is helpful for creating a healthy campus culture. Due to the differences in traditional cultures, social values, the construction of campus culture are also different in aspects of buildings, institutions and ideas. So the construction of Chinese campus culture should be based on its excellent traditional culture, and at the same time involve the reasonable, progressive and essential part of the American campus culture, to create a better atmosphere for the development of campus culture in Chinese modern universities and to cultivate more integrated talents.

Works Cited

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