New Quality Productive Forces, Chinese Traditional Culture, and University Aesthetic Education: Theoretical Framework

The integration of New Quality Productive Forces with traditional culture and aesthetic education represents a critical pathway for cultural revitalization and talent cultivation in the digital age. New Quality Productive Forces, characterized by advanced technologies such as AI, big data, and VR, offer transformative mechanisms for preserving and innovating traditional cultural resources. Simultaneously, Chinese traditional culture provides profound philosophical and aesthetic foundations for university aesthetic education, enabling it to transcend technical training and emphasize value shaping. However, the theoretical links between these domains remain underexplored. This study addresses this gap by examining how universities can serve as "transformation fields" to bridge technology and culture. It proposes a theoretical framework integrating objectives, content, methodology, and evaluation to guide practice. By aligning technological empowerment with cultural education, the paper aims to foster talent equipped with cultural depth, aesthetic sensitivity, and innovative capabilities, ultimately contributing to sustainable cultural and educational development.

New Quality Productive Forces, characterized by digitalization and intelligence, provide revolutionary tools for the preservation, inheritance, and innovation of traditional culture. For instance, high-precision 3D scanning, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) technologies can transform fragile cultural heritage like the Dunhuang murals into "digital archives that never fade," achieving the "digital immortality" of cultural resources. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AIGC) and big data technologies not only facilitate the in-depth mining and recognition of ancient texts but also transform traditional culture from static display into interactive, perceptible dynamic resources through immersive experiences and digital storytelling. This technological empowerment not only addresses the difficulty of preserving traditional culture but also broadens its dissemination channels, enabling its "creative transformation and innovative development" within digital contexts popular among younger generations. Practices such as the Palace Museum's virtual exhibitions exemplify how New Quality Productive Forces make traditional culture accessible and tangible, breaking temporal and spatial constraints.

The philosophical wisdom (e.g., "harmony between human and nature"), artistic forms (e.g., poetry, calligraphy, painting, intangible cultural heritage), and ethical concepts inherent in Chinese exceptional traditional culture provide rich educational resources for university aesthetic education. When aesthetic education is rooted in traditional culture, it can transcend mere skill training and shift towards value shaping centered on "cultivating people through culture and educating them through beauty”. This process enhances students' cultural identity, refines their aesthetic perception, and strengthens cultural confidence. The concepts of harmony between nature and humanity, the unity of knowledge and action, and the perfect harmony of beauty and goodness inherently nurture innovative thinking, interdisciplinary integration skills, and humanistic literacy, which are precisely the core qualities required by New Quality Productive Forces. Thus, traditional culture moves beyond being a mere resource and becomes a vital source of spiritual motivation and value guidance for fostering new quality talent.

University aesthetic education plays a dual role as a "transformation field" and a "cultivation field" within this triad. On one hand, it transforms culturally resources, empowered by new quality productive forces, into teachable content through curriculum design and practical platforms (e.g., AIGC-based pattern design courses, VR intangible cultural heritage experience projects). On the other hand, through immersive aesthetic education, it cultivates the core literacies required by New Quality Productive Forces, such as imagination, interdisciplinary integration ability, and creative thinking, in students. By integrating excellent traditional cultural resources, aesthetic education fosters the innovative spirit and critical thinking skills needed for the new quality productivity era. It also guides students to apply new technologies for cultural innovation, effectively connecting the "cultural root" with the "technological engine" and realizing the synergistic cycle of resource empowerment and talent output.

Based on the above logic, an integrated theoretical framework is proposed to guide practice:

•   Objective Layer: Focus on cultivating talent for the new era, emphasizing the triple literacy of profound cultural heritage (traditional culture identity), noble aesthetic sentiment (aesthetic education immersion), and exceptional innovative capability (technology application skills).

•   Content Layer: Construct a curriculum system based on the essence of Chinese exceptional traditional culture and transformed using the tools of New Quality Productive Forces. For example, offer interdisciplinary courses like "Digital Humanities" and "Digital Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage," integrating resources like digital twins of cultural relics and big data on traditional culture.

•   Methodology Layer: Adopt immersive, interactive, and interdisciplinary teaching methods. For instance, organize students' digital creation of traditional culture IP through Project-Based Learning (PBL); utilize VR/AR technologies for virtual simulation experiments, enabling "learning by doing”.

•   Evaluation Layer: Establish a diverse, process-oriented evaluation system focusing on the comprehensive assessment of students' aesthetic perception, depth of cultural understanding, and innovative practical ability. Avoid single examination metrics and incorporate dimensions like work presentation, project reports, and social practice to ensure evaluation balances cultural inheritance effectiveness and talent innovation literacy.

This framework demonstrates that the integration of New Quality Productive Forces, traditional culture, and university aesthetic education is not a simple superposition but a closed loop of "technological empowerment - content rooting - educational transformation" that jointly promotes high-quality educational development. The core lies in connecting "tradition" and "future" through aesthetic education, making traditional culture a living source for cultivating new quality talent, while New Quality Productive Forces become the engine for the revitalization of traditional culture.

This systematic analysis elucidates the close symbiotic logic and bidirectional empowerment between New Quality Productive Forces, Chinese exceptional traditional culture, and university aesthetic education. The integrated "objective-content-method-evaluation" theoretical framework proposed not only provides a systematic perspective for understanding their interactions but also lays a theoretical foundation for promoting the connotative development of university aesthetic education and cultivating high-quality talent meeting the demands of the new era. Future research can build upon this foundation to conduct empirical testing and case study refinement, continuously exploring the rich manifestations and effective pathways of this theoretical model in specific educational practices, collectively contributing to the era of cultivating people through beauty and culture.

This study demonstrates that New Quality Productive Forces and traditional culture, when mediated through university aesthetic education, form a synergistic ecosystem for cultivating future talent. The proposed framework emphasizes the alignment of technological tools (e.g., digital archives, VR experiments) with cultural content to enhance students’ critical thinking, creativity, and cultural identity. Universities play a dual role: transforming traditional culture into teachable resources and nurturing the humanistic literacy required by New Quality Productive Forces. The research underscores the need for curriculum redesign, immersive pedagogical methods, and holistic evaluation to balance innovation with cultural inheritance. Future work should focus on empirical validations and case studies to refine the framework, ensuring its adaptability across diverse educational contexts. Ultimately, this integration not only advances aesthetic education but also contributes to the creative revitalization of traditional culture in the era of technological progress.