Study On The Public Rituals In Kindergarten Based On The Educational Anthropology

Rituals are a supplement of the daily life, actually a part of it. They are different from the daily life,because they can beautify life, extend life and, as a kind of function, satisfy the society and individual. For a long time, anthropologists, sociologists and theologians have great interest in researching on rituals. In recent years, educators have also begun to turn their attention to ritual studies. But there are still wide ranges of ritual studies which are to be explored,especially in the aspect of early childhood education. The paper aims at studying on the public rituals in kindergarten.Based on the theory of educational anthropology, it will clarify the internal relations among ritual, children and education. Using the educational ethnography, it will describe the situation of specific ritual in detail, aiming to reveal the state of children, s lives. At the end of the paper, it will construct the ideal prospect for public rituals in kindergarten.The main content of this paper is divided into four parts:The first part interprets the relations between public rituals in kindergarten and the theory of educational anthropology. How ritual studies become education issues is the theoretical basis of this study. The paper explores rituals in the natural state, educational field and kindergarten, also combs the expositions of children and education in different theoretical orientation of educational anthropology. At the theoretical point of culture, individual and education, the paper concludes that the relation between individual and culture is in accord with the relation between education and individual on the logical starting point. As a cultural type,the relation between ritual and education is interwoven, and they both act on a common object, which is individual.Kindergarten provides space for continuation, change and development of ritual, whereas the rituals in kindergarten should be closely related to children,s lives.The second part designs the investigation of public rituals in kindergarten. Choosing the educational ethnography research method is an important task of this study. This method provides a large amount of descriptive information for understanding the diversity and subtlety of public rituals in kindergarten. After discussing the relevance of using this method, the author chooses four kindergartens as the main places of field work,selects class-teaching ritual, flag-raising ceremony and graduation ceremony as the main research contents, and specifies the process of participant observation.The third part concerning entering kindergarten, observing the public rituals, writing education field notes and explaining the observations is the main content of this study.From July, 2015 to October,2015,the author has participated and observed teaching rituals eight classes from four kindergartens, a few flag-raising ceremonies and eight graduation ceremonies from seven kindergartens. The paper has a detailed description of the three kinds of rituals, including the functional personnel, space layout and expressive type of class-teaching ritual, the process form, incorporating practice and language expression of flag-raising ceremony, and the space structure,discourse design and performing form of graduation ceremony.On the basis of the above description, the paper analyzes the specific situations of rituals from the angel of children, s life, in order to have insight into the realistic picture of the current public rituals in kindergarten.On the above basis, the fourth part of this paper constructs an ideal prospect in educational anthropology domain for public rituals in kindergarten, from how to reveal cultural value, enrich children, s life experience, reorganize educational relations and so on.If using educational method to observe or conduct ritual issues is to value and reveal the educational value of ritual,then putting public rituals in kindergarten into the view of educational anthropology is a kind of observation and attention about how the ritual is influencing the children, s lives. Public rituals are an important part of life in kindergarten, also a breakthrough of the everyday life.Studies on the public rituals based on the educational anthropology not only reflect the diversion of research about early childhood education, but also embodies the concern for children, s life, especially the state of life. The author advocates public rituals which can promote the development of children, s lives in kindergarten, and also expects children, s lives to be happier and richer.