Citizenization: A Perspective In Educational Reform In Chinese Rural Areas

In recent years, with the development of economy, China is stepping up its pace of urbanization, and more and more people from rural areas entered cities by means other than selective examination and became constructors and residents of them. On the other hand, the policy of building new socialist rural areas requires more of the farming workforce. Research shows that this is not simply a matter of population flow or the change of profession. It involves the reorientation of national policy and a change of social psychology of peasants. To achieve these, it is necessary that peasants be granted the identity and rights of citizens, and it is more so that peasants be transferred on the cultural and psychological level to meet the requirements of social development. This dissertation aims at, through an observation on the status quo of peasants' citizenization and the barriers to this process, an analysis of the barriers to the process of peasants' citizenization on cultural and psychological level. And it tries to put forward a perspective for reference to further the reform in education in Chinese rural areas. This dissertation is made up of three parts.Part One, beginning with the new requirements for the quality of peasants by urbanization and building of new rural areas, analyzes the status quo and barriers to the realization of peasants' citizenization in China, with an emphasis on the analysis of the psychological confusion encountered by them in this process, and brings out a reflection on the role of education in this process.Part Two probes, on the basis of a recognition of peasants'citizenization as a form of peasants' socialization and in combination with the theory of socialization of human, into the role education plays in the process of peasants ' citizenization from a theoretical perspective. Then, through a comparison between efforts in China and other countries in terms of education to realize peasants' citizenizaiton, it seeks to make clear the role education should play in this process from the practical perspective.Part Three, on the basis of the above analysis, deals with the ongoing educational reform in Chinese rural areas from the perspective of citizenization. It analyzes the misconceptions and difficulties existing in the educational reform in rural areas and further clarifies the concept and functions of education in rural areas. Therefore, it recognizes what can be done and what should be done in rural education in the process of citizenization, thus providing a perspective for the furthering of the reform in rural education.