A Study On Individual Socialization Functions Of Miao’s Guzang Ritual In The Moon Mountain

The fundamental purpose of education is to realize the individual socialization, and promote the individual all-round development, which contains knowledge and culture, modernity and nationality. In the national regions, the school education plays an important role in the process of individual socialization, and it teaches individual scientific knowledge systematically and logically. But because the individual has many possibilities of development, especially the unlimited development of spirit, the school’s limited amount of information can’t reflect the national spirit by the limitations of time and space, and can’t meet the needs of the individual all-round development. Therefore, the realization of the individual socialization can’t be born by the school education alone; the school education is only part of the means and ways to promote individual development rather than the only. Thus the research hypothesis is that the national education outside the school also has the socialization functions on individual, and can achieve complementary symbiosis with school. On the basis of this the On-the-spot investigation is launched.Based on the investigation to Miao’s Guzang ritual, this study finds that as the long-standing ancestor-worship ritual, Guzang ritual is the most important and grand activities of all the custom culture in the Miao nationality, which has an important position in people’s lives, and is the most important culture that affects individual development. It contains rich national culture of Miao nationality, and displays the ways of people’s life vividly. It also embodies the civilization and nationalism of the educational connotation, through the function of system of symbols, including implements, words and deeds, on individual, and has an important value to the individual development. So does Guzang ritual have socialization functions on individual? What socialization functions does it have?Since the study needs to start by describing the process of Guzang Ritual, thereby analyzing the constitution of Guzang ritual, the researcher conducted fieldwork in Jiamian Town, which located in Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, eastern Guizhou Province. The researcher first investigated the external cultural and ecological environment of Guzang Ritual. Second, the researcher investigated the origin, the categories, and the traits, particularly analyzes personal relationship, and explores the implication of the ritual symbols. Further, starting with the structure and content of Guzang ritual, the certain axis of individual socialization, and the point of symbolic people, this study follows the approach of integrating subjective and objective point of views and utilizes the literature review and quality research methods. Based on the theories of structural functionalism and socialization, the researcher deeply analyzes the structure and socialization functions of Guzang ritual and concludes:1. Guzang ritual process of the Miao nationality is featured by communitas and has transferring functions, therefore adapting individuals to the social life. The study utilizes Turner’s theory of ritual procedure to analyze Guzang ritual, and finds that the ritual procedure can be broken down into three stages,"Separation-Limen-Aggregation". When people return to the social structure through liminal phase, due to the ritual impact, people can adapt themselves with real life value, moral, and order, therefore adapt themselves into the re-polymerized social life.2. Guzang ritual has socialization functions to family members, and realizes individual’s role socialization, moral socialization as well as the identification with their own ethnical group.3. Guzang ritual realizes human socialization through interacts of "Education-Assimilation-Practice". In Guzang ritual, when the cognition develops to a certain level and forms a certain cognitive schemata, through which the external education assimilates knowledge into their own savings, and guides the individual to practice and strengthen the cognition in it.4. Guzang ritual realizes family integration through human socialization. First, through role socialization, individuals learn certain role’s behavior norms and social expectation. They play roles thereby participating in the social group life. And then, through ethical moral socialization, Guzang ritual regulates individual behavior, mediate interpersonal relationships thereby adapting individuals to the group life. Finally, rely on the worship faith to the ancestors, Guzang ritual facilitates individuals develop collective consciousness and a sense of belonging. Further, people identify and participate in the ethnical group, therefore strengthen the cohesion of the community.5. In the socialization processes of Miao’s Guzang ritual, the relationship between the individual and society is neither the mandatory relationship as what social determinism said, nor autonomy relationship as what individual initiative theory said, but rather an interactive relationship as what the interaction theory said. First, the social’s impacts on the individual make individuals become a social person. Second, the socialization processes promote individual to participate in the ritual, which promotes ethnic cohesion and integration. Therefore, the socialization process of Guzang constructs the individual, and integrates the social at the same time.Through analyzing the process, structure and function of Guzang ritual, this study proves that the national culture outside the school also has functions on individual. This function is not only the individual’s needs of developing the national character, but also the educational needs of developing and perfecting, which makes it exist valuably and necessarily. Nationality is the general personality that a social person should have, is the soil for developing the national education, and is the beneficial supplement to the national school education which mainly imparts nature knowledge. While the development of modernization in an unstoppable trend in the national regions, which makes the functions of the school in ethnic areas not ignored, and the negative factors also need the school to guide correctly. Therefore the relationship between Guzang ritual’s socialization functions and school education is not antagonistic, but complementary. On this basis, namely on the premise of respected and adapted mutually, they can realize the harmonious development, so as to promote the socialization functions on individual in national regions.Compares with the socializing process of Guzang ritual, the study discovers the risks of the socialization process of school system in minority areas. During school socialization, the socialization goal is deviated as it ignores ethnical cultural ecological environment; the socialization contents are not applicable to the ethnical living environment; and the socialization strategy is oneness which is featured by sermonizing. Using Guzang ritual socialization process as a source of reference, the researcher proposes following suggestions that in minority areas, school education should:concern and go back to life world of minority areas:pay attention to humanity development and cultivate students’morality; integrate educational cultural resources; change its one-way education pattern.All in all, the expected goal of this study has been completed. On the one hand, the study on the socialization functions of Guzang ritual provides domestic material for the Chinese academic study on socialization, and provides a new perspective to understand the path of inheritancing the culture and the individual growth process. On the other hand, the demonstration of national culture’s function on the individual, and its existence with school complementary and symbiotic provide certain reference to other similar ethnic areas. But because different nationalities have different background and cultural ecological environment, the targeted philosophy of complementary symbiosis has certain limitations, and its adaptability to other areas needs for further argument. At the same time, as the Miao long-standing ancestor-worship ritual, Guzang ritual implies rich cultural connotation. But due to the limited time, this study investigates the ritual several times. Although this study can understand the meaning of the ritual and answer the question, it still can’t understand its connotation deeply. So further investigation and research should be done.