School Life Of Rural Minority Children: An Ethnographic Study Of Basic Education In Minority Rural Areas In Gansu

As a united multi-ethnic country, China has been paying long-time and high attention on ethnic education, especially those among western rural area. With several years'development, primary education there has gained great success on promoting development in ethnic regions and improving the quality of minority populations. At the same time, research on ethnic education has also gotten rich achievements; however, existing research is lack of micro-examination on the school lives of minority children and other relative problems.This article is a fieldwork ethnography focusing on the current situation of children's school lives in western ethnic villages. My research chooses the primary education as the research field, and describes children's living situations in modern schools through fieldwork, and analyzes modern schools' cultural meaning toward minority children who lives in rural areas, by all which I would investigate the education problems of this region.Gansu is one of the poorest provinces in China and also a multi-ethnic province locates in inner western land, with the co-existence among different ethnic cultures as a significant cultural character. People in this land have created and is still creating the rich regional culture together. Nationalities living in Gansu today inherit a tradition culture which has religious background. People there are mainly believers of Islam and Tibetan Buddhism, which two religions occupy the core place in their believers'daily lives. This ethnic cultural character causes the child in ethnic villages become a "young believer" before he/she entering school.With the promoting of country's free primary education, children in this area have the chance and obligation to accept the modern school education. On one hand, modern schools, by setting a space isolation, abstract those children from their social environment. Symbols of China nation-state in schools make, when the children entering there, they would feel school equals the "state" in their villages. On the other hand, modern schools set a precise time schedule which could help kids get used to the rhythm of modern society when they finish their long-time school lives. The exchanging between "acquaintance-society" and "stranger-society" these school children would experience is, in substance, a cultural exchange. To the minority children living in rural places, school is the first regular modern field they would face. thus the space exchange experience of school children could also reflect the process that a rural society moves toward to the so called modern society.As an important state-setting in ethnic villages, school is not simple social existence but the very place mainstream culture of this multi-ethnic communism country is delivered. It plays a significant role in inheriting mainstream cultures especially among the ethnic country world which has rich traditional culture. Concretely, it is through carrying out a united state standard, a united state ceremony, and a common discipline that school achieves the goal of primary education. This kind of united modern state education model set the minority children a training scent of modern society and a space where China nation-state exists, by which values, ideologies, and acting principles of a social identity of a united multi-ethnic country could be planted in those children's minds and then they could also share the identity to be individuals of this country. In substance, the implementation of state standard and ceremony is patriotism education, with the Marxism and socialism as the core, to those children, which could combine the school life with the broad social life and the abstract state concept for children and make them understand the meaning of "China nation" on the basis of a single nation identity. This is a cultural meaning that minority children in rural areas could grow up to citizens in a modern state.Learning the knowledge in textbook is the main task those children should bear, however, from the analysis on their current school lives there are still many problems should be deal with and the education quality still need to be improved. With passing the examinations as the final goal, school has become the place where part of those children hope to change their peasant identity and achieve social mobility. This kind of education characterized by elitism, extroverted type, and urban-directed could satisfy some children and their parents'wishes however at the same time causes the phenomenon that there is still large amount of drop-outs although primary education is free now. Dropping out from schools is not merely happening on girls, which has drawn a lot of attentions, but a common phenomenon to all minority children living in rural places. The key to this problem is the goal setting by the schools nowadays. The conflicts among the division of labor by gender, traditional economic style and the extroverted type of education are not only the main reasons that girls choose to drop out from schools but also could explain why many children who could not do well in study and thus could not go out would leave schools. This problem reflects the conflicts and bargains between modern schools and regional cultures. From the view of balance development and to enhance the overall nation quality, the high percentage of drop-out, low level of education harm more to the sustainable development of western ethnic villages. Although there are two voices about ethnic education strategy:"absent from people" and "for people", but neither could solve the problem. That's why this topic needs further discussion.The value of describing the daily school life of minority children in this research is to inspire more attentions to normal people's daily lives, as daily life is where cultural identity grows and could decide people's choice. Thus, research on daily life should be an important strategy people know the society.