教育问题在科学网上常常是讨论或辨论的热点，各种观点五花八门。 我自己虽然曾经忝为人师，但于教育的理论并不通晓。再者，我不是那种善于“明辨是非”的人，摆起理来估计会让人打瞌睡或者让人倒牙。 但是，我是一个知冷知暖感觉还算灵敏的人，尤其是天南地北跑了不少地方，自己的孩子和身边亲朋好友的孩子的成长历程在我看来都是教育问题的好例子，其共同点和差异有时候也会促使我想一下这方面的问题。 想起一句貌似谚语的话来： 一个好的例子胜过千言万语。 五年前举家移居哥本哈根，新的生活对我们来说是个巨大的挑战，对高中即将毕业的女儿更是如此。因为一切都是那么突然，没有毕业证，没有考托福雅思，女儿在丹麦无法上大学，于是我们决定给女儿找个中学，让她再上一遍高中，就当学语言吧。 丹麦语教学的肯定不行，一点基础都没有。找来找去找到了一所英语教学的国际高中（International Baccalarate ）。于是女儿在那里完成了她的中等教育。 当然，即使英语在国内学校还算不错的女儿到了英语授课的环境也是困难重重，她付出了艰辛是不言而喻的。在这里我不表女儿如何熬过这辛苦的IB岁月，只想让大家看看她的作业。通过作业，大家可以思考一下 中西方中学教育有什么不同 —— 重点不在于文章的内容和质量，而在于授课和训练方式的不同以及考核方式的不同。 本来我想分几次贴出几门功课的作业，包括数学、生物、TOK(Theory of Knowledge)和心理（因为这几门功课她都得了最高分，我想可看性好一点）。但不知反响如何，就先贴一份引用参考文献较多的心理课的作业吧。这篇所谓的“Extended Essay”是作为加分用的，和TOK作业一起，满分3分（其他所有功课总分45分，平均每门功课满分7分）。别小看这3分，它是IB体系里考察学生综合能力的一个指标，不少名牌大学在录取IB毕业生时要参考这个。据女儿讲，她这篇文章从选题到完成大概花了3个月时间，选题、读文献和写作都是自己完成，老师给予构架的指导和文章文法的适当修改。女儿选了 儒家思想对中国人应对压力之影响 这样一个对中学生来讲还是相当有挑战性的题目，其中有一篇参考文献是香港大学一位教授尚未发表的论文，是通过她的心理课老师私人联系获取的。 这篇文章实在太长，共16页3万多字，其中参考文献就有45篇之多（间接引用和直接引用各20多篇）。我想不会有人有时间通览全篇，也无必要，看个大概就行。于是我省略了脚标和中间许多段落。 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An Investigation into Chinese Coping From Confucian Perspective IB Extended Essay Psychology Abstract In recent years, growing efforts have been made to investigate the cultural variation in stress and coping pattern. Specifically, influenced by the Confucian traditions, Chinese were found displaying many special ways of coping when they encounter problems, which are valuable to investigate. Thus the research question of this essay is “Are th ere unique ways of coping among Chinese influenced by Confucianism?” A glimpse of Confucianism is offered, followed by the concept of collectivism as to sketch its cultural influences and identify its characteristics. The argument is based on available empirical studies and coping theories, including both western constructs and indigenous concepts, for analyzing how Chinese adopt Confucianism to handle problems. Conceptual and methodological issues are also discussed. Empirical studies present evidence that: Firstly, Chinese tend to endure the adversities and show less perceived control, therefore Chinese may be more likely to adopt passive coping strategies; secondly, contrary to Western assumption, passive coping may be beneficial to Chinese; thirdly, active coping is also applied by Chinese and endurance can be regarded as both problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping; fourthly, as a result of face concern, Chinese tend to seek support mostly from in-group members and use collective coping rather than seek help from outsiders. This paper concluded that Chinese do exhibit a distinctive preference for certain coping strategies. Particularly the Confucianism not only influences the use of coping strategies, but also has an impact on the effectiveness of a certain coping strategy among Chinese, which indicates the importance of developing culturally sensitive research paradigms. Moreover, some indigenous patterns of coping behaviours were found which may be particular relevant to collectivistic countries. Table of contents Abstract -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 Table of contents-----------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Introduction----------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 The Confucian heritage and collectivism-------------------------------------------------------5 Emotion-focused Coping and Endurance----------------------------------------------------------6 Less Perceived Control and The belief in yuan-------------------------------------------------7 Another Aspect of Confucianism----------------------------------------------------------------9 Social Support and Face Concern--------------------------------------------------------------11 Situational Selection and Family Support-----------------------------------------------------12 Collective Coping----------------------------------------------------------------------------13 Conclusion-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------14 References-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------16 Introduction Coping, defined as the cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage the internal and external demands that are perceived as stressful, has become a major topic of interest within various areas of psychology since the 1970s . The study of coping is considered important as the ability to adapt to life situations and ever-changing environment is essential to human existence and survival. However, research on stress and coping has been criticized for lacking of focus on the cultural context in which stressful events occur Most theoretical and methodological frameworks of stress and coping are limited to the Western values, which may not always be applicable in other cultures, As it has been suggested that culture have enormous impact on cognitive and behavioural processes. Therefore in recent years, many empirical studies have been conducted cross-culturally for validating the cultural difference and numerous cultural features have been identified to differentiate various cultures, among which individualism and collectivism (Hofstede 1980) are most accepted theoretical construct. Also, stress and coping models have placed varying degree of emphasis on the cultural contexts in shaping behaviour. 。。。。。。此处省略2段 This essay will focus on the Chinese coping behaviour particularly from Confucian perspective with an attempt to answer the following research question “Are there unique ways of coping among Chinese influenced by Confucianism?” Confucian Heritage and Collectivism The predominant influences of Confucianism in China can be traced back to 2000 years ago in the Han dynasty when the emperors implemented Confucianism as the political philosophy and official moral norms of society. Confucianism assumed that humans are relational being and socially situated, the essential Confucian ideal is to build up a harmonious society through complying with proper behaviour and maintaining the relationship with others. The Cardinal relations doctrine (五倫) was proposed to establish social orders and provide guidelines of social interaction. Each individual has to fulfill their role in these prescribed relationships. On the other hand, to achieve a harmonious society, people have responsibility to cultivate themselves by restraining oneself from impulsive behaviour and conducting suitable propriety. (克己復禮) 。。。。。。（省略） Emotion-focused Coping and Endurance The most well-known classification of coping strategies is proposed by Folkman Lazarus (1984), who distinguish between problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping focuses directly on changing the sources of stressful situations, whereas emotion-focused coping focuses more on modifying internal emotion to adjust to the stressful situation. In general, it is hypothesized that active coping that reflects a desire to confront the external environment such as problem-focused coping are expected to be dominant in individualistic cultures, whereas passive coping that avoids external stressors and instead modifies internal states such as emotion-focused coping are expected to be widespread in collectivistic cultures. 。。。。。。省略 Less Perceived Control and Belief in yuan Apart from the influences of cultural value of forbearance, the reason for Chinese tend to adopt more emotion-focused coping can also be explained in terms of locus of control, which was found to largely influence coping style. Chinese were found to have a weaker sense of personal control than individuals from western countries do. It can be deduced that Chinese have less perceived control because they usually embrace a holistic worldview and believe that there are external forces or powers beyond human capacity. Accordingly, it is more reasonable for Chinese 。。。。。。 。。。。。。 省略 Conclusion Taken together, the above theories and studies were gathered for analyzing how Chinese adopt the traditional Confucian beliefs for handling life events in the ever-changing environment. As seen from above, Chinese not only showed a different preference for certain coping strategies compared with those from individualistic cultures, some indigenous pattern of coping behaviours were also found in the research consulted. The Confucian virtue of endurance has emerged as a salient cultural coping strategy for Chinese. As a result of endurance and less perceived control, Chinese coping strategies were found to involve more emotion-focused coping and acceptance of problems. On the hand, the Confucian idea of self-cultivation also addresses the importance of active coping such as effort in the face of difficulty. Additionally, as current categorization of coping strategies is theoretically confused, this paper suggested that endurance can also be used as a problem-focused coping which is relevant to the strategy of persistence. On the one hand, the face-concern and the effort of maintaining harmonious relationships discourage Chinese from seeking social-support; on the other hand, due to the collectivistic orientation, Chinese tend to seek support mostly from in-groups members and use collective coping rather than solely solicit help from outsiders. Hence it can be argued that the conceptualization of social support has dissimilar meaning in Chinese society. Moreover, Confucianism not only influences the coping strategies among Chinese, but also has an impact on the effectiveness of a certain coping strategy. As mentioned before, using emotion-focused coping and having less perceived control do not necessarily result in negative consequences, and social support can serve as an extra cause of distress. While some studies fail to reveal such a link and show a lack in cross-cultural validity, specific indigenous concepts such as face concern and collective coping were found to be crucial when analyzing Chinese coping behaviour from a multicultural perspective. For future research orientation, more systematic indigenous constructs need to be developed in order to understand coping behaviour within cultural context. It is also worth noting that although this essay attempted to only focus on the Confucian perspective, other traditions were also found to influence the way Chinese cope (e.g. the concept of yuan is originated from Buddhism) as Chinese culture is merged by many other philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism, and often those philosophies overlap in ideas (e.g. these three philosophies all instruct individuals coping with adversity by a mean of change one’s mental state. ) Future research could also explore how other philosophies interact with Confucianism in affecting Chinese coping pattern. Bibliography Boey,K.W (1999) Help-seeking preference of college students in urban China after the implementation of the “open door” policy. International Journal of social psychiatry,45,104-116 Bolger,N; Zuckeman,A Kessler,R.C (2000) Invisible support and adjustment to stress. Journal of personality and social psychology,79,953-961 Bond,M.H Hwang,K.K (1986) The social psychology of Chinese people . In M.H.Bond (Eds.) The psychology of the Chinese people (pp.213-266) Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Carver, C.C; Scheier, A.F Weintraub, J.K (1989) Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach . Journal of personality and social psychology 56(2),267-283 。。。。。。省略 后记：这篇博文的缘起 （1）前面发过2篇略有标题党嫌疑的“秀秀”博文，这篇秀个正经的，为“秀秀”系列凑个小三。 （2）昨儿在陈安博士的博文《 王宝山教学模式与学生指导教授怎么教课 》那里留言如下： 答应的事情还是要做的。
标签: 丹麦
