The Boisterous But Lonely Rural Edification

Rural Education plays a vanguard and fundamental role and has an overall bearing on the construction of a moderately prosperous society in all respects in China. Having directly effects on the vital interests of over eight hundred million farmers, the development of rural social education is a major event for meeting the learning needs of the vast rural population. Rural China has a uniqueness resulting from some factors such as the national character, historical traditions and contemporary political influence, so the experience and theory on social education abroad in the rural community is hard to act an ideal role. Therefore, it is essential to look back to history to learn from experience, and looked forward to the future. In this study, a small village called Shi located in the central part of Jiangsu province was selected as a representative and typical field. Field investigation of anthropology was introduced, and methods of oral history, educational narrative and the classic literature analysis in educational history study were integrated to research the evolution of social education in Shi village since 1949 systematically and deeply. On this basis, learning from related research results at home and abroad, reflecting current demands of rural edification, the direction of urbanization process was explored tentatively.The structure and content of this study are introduced hereinafter.The first part is instruction. Antecedent questions such as the background and literature review of the study, as well as aims, significance, approach and methods, were discussed. The two core concepts, rural social education, rural edification, were defined as premise for future research.The second part is chapter I of this paper. A brief survey of the geography and customs of Shi village, with an analysis of political history and economic history after the founding of the PRC was given. A perspective panorama of this village was present to clarify the background of social education.The third part, chapter II, III, IV and V of this paper, is the investigation on 60 years'evolution of social education in Shi village divided into four phases from 1949 to 2009. The first stage started from the founding of the state to the beginning of the Great Cultural Revolution. The main forms of social education in this period were the winter school, anti-illiteracy in private schools and ideological education; with flexible forms of slogans, films and Yang operas containing education in addition. The second stage is the period of Cultural Revolution. Social education of Shi village carried out by national studying Chairman Mao and publicized through "model operas" in an emotionally charged atmosphere relative to the society and history background. But there were also some quiet characters different from the enthusiastic era, such as the normal production and living, weak voice of class struggle. Social education in the eighties and nineties was expounded in chapter IV. With rapid economic development and greatly rising living standards, dramatically changes of public consciousness across the country, the performance of social education in Shi village held out a stillness prospect out of keeping with the times. The fourth stage was the period from 1998 to 2009. Having been assigned to industrial park, Shi village experienced a large-scale relocation during this period; most farmers left to the resettlement of local rural communities and lived in town. The social education showed the supersession of the old by the new in such dramatic changes.The fourth part is chapter VI of the paper. Based on the historical analysis of 60 years'evolution of social education in Shi village, combining with domestic research results and relevant theories, the reasons why rural social education was not sound enough to carry out its function were explored. Through comparison among different historical periods, reflecting the demands of the rural edification from such aspects as subjects, forms of existence of that, the final diagnosis on the sticking point of the rural edification was given.The last part is the conclusion. Based on the research above, current trends and the demands of society and people, the direction of rural edification which is rooting in the local culture and in the unavoidable process of urbanization process was explored tentatively. Meanwhile, the important value of the methods of oral history applied in research on history of education was summarized.