On Cultural Conflict Of Teaching Reform In Rural Primary And Middle Schools

From the perspective of culturology, this dissertation shows the present state of the teaching reform in rural primary and middle schools under the background of new curriculum reform and describes the living state and lifestyle of these rural teachers and students in the teaching reform by a case study of the teaching reform in a comparatively representative rural primary and middle school. The main purpose is to interpret the cultural conflict and its roots of the teaching reform in rural primary and middle schools and to suggest the adjustment strategies. The main contents are as follows:First, the thesis gives a general description of the definition, characteristics and components of culture and summarizes the connotation, roots and types of cultural conflict, which are used as the theoretical support of this research. In this research, culture refers to the development level of society and people in a certain historical period which shows the types and modes of people's production and life, and culture is a combination of material and spiritual wealth. According to this broad definition, culture is made up of material culture, system culture and spiritual culture. Cultural conflict refers to the phenomenon and process of cultural collision which happens between various cultural forms, or the phenomenon and process of cultural collision which happens from one stage to another in one cultural form based on the differences among values, ways of thinking and code of conduct. According to time and space, cultural conflict can be divided into vertical cultural conflict and horizontal cultural conflict. Based on the cause, cultural conflict includes endogenous cultural conflict and exogenous cultural conflict.Second, the thesis, taking S Town Yongjia County, Zhejiang Province as a case, presents a survey of cultural conflict in teaching reform of the rural primary and middle schools. They include: 1) the survey explores the cultural conflict in system level from the perspective of the values and cultural pursuit of teaching management system; 2) the survey describes the teachers'cultural conflict in teaching reform of the rural primary and middle schools. For teachers, new curriculum teaching puts forward higher and newer requirements in quantity and quality, but many rural school-teachers think there is a big gap between their personal qualities and new curriculum teaching requirements, which makes the rural school-teachers in an awkward position. On the other hand, there exists an imbalance phenomenon between teachers'enthusiasm and their action in teaching reform. Some teachers are active and some are passive; 3) the survey describes the cultural conflict of the classroom teaching in teaching reform. In the space layout of classroom, there is a remarkable contrast between the uniform concept of the classroom in rural primary and middle schools and the cultural concepts of individual subject and individual values and dignity. In the teaching content, the classroom teaching of traditional rural schools cannot make good adaptation to training objectives of comprehensive and harmonious development put forward by social development of new countryside and new curriculum. In the teaching methods, there is a long distance between the traditional classroom culture in rural schools which is characterized with knowledge-based and teacher-centered cultural values and teaching philosophy and requirements proposed by new curriculum.Third, the thesis makes a theoretical interpretation of the types and roots of cultural conflict of the teaching reform in rural primary and middle schools. The teaching reform, as an important manifestation of cultural changes, will lead to cultural conflict. The cultural conflict of teaching reform in rural primary and middle schools has many kinds of representations: the conflict between traditional culture and modern culture, the conflict between mainstream culture and sub-culture and the conflict between local culture and foreign culture. From the perspective of culturology, the thesis proposes the Chinese traditional culture with the ethical, humanistic, harmonistic and mean nature, the dualistic culture with the polarization between urban and rural areas, the traditional rural culture with the local, closed, conservative and leisured nature, will directly or indirectly bring the teaching reform of rural schools resistance, thus cause the cultural conflict of teaching reform in rural schools.Fourth, the thesis proposes the adjustment strategy toward cultural conflict of teaching reform in rural primary and middle schools. On the one hand, one culture form with its inherent cultural heritage and cultural inertia has the tendency of confrontation and exclusion of another culture form; On the other hand, any cultural form for its development has the tendency of absorbing various cultural forms, thus makes cultural integration. In the present rural areas, the conflict between traditional culture and modern culture, the conflict between mainstream culture and sub-culture and the conflict between local culture and foreign culture, will not disappear and exist for a long time. In view of this, we should adopt a positive, beneficial, reasonable manner to realize the effective integration of culture. Meanwhile, we should construct new teaching culture to meet the needs of reform. In the teaching reform of rural schools, we should have a cultural awareness, i.e. the cultural spirit of teaching. Specifically, according to the demands of teaching reform, we need to construct material culture of teaching by allocating teaching resources in balance; we need to construct teaching system culture by reforming teaching management organization and system; we need to construct spiritual culture with the feature of cooperation, openness, democracy and creation by reforming closed, rigid and traditional teaching cultural form.In short, teaching reform cannot separate from the specific cultural background and is deeply rooted in historical and cultural tradition of the nation and region, so it is difficult to understand the teaching reform without socio-cultural background in which teaching reform exists. The problems exposed in teaching reform are not only involved in technical level, but more concerned with cultural level. As far as the teaching reform in rural schools is concerned, cultural roots should be discussed and more attention should be paid on the formulation of the corresponding cultural policy and promoting the teaching reform of the rural schools healthy and orderly.