System, Identity And Choice Behavior: A Study On The Dilemma Of The Development Of Private Secondary Schools

In the new period, with the increasingly demand for education market and privatization, private schools have gradually recovered in China. They experienced vigorous development. However, at this stage, the development of private schools are not all plain sailing, they showed the characteristics of"Fast rising, rapid development, high speed for closure". Many private schools especially in rural areas find it difficult to maintain their own advantages on development .They crushed in the market competition . It must arouse the concern of the academic community.Now researches on this problem of private schools are mostly confined to its rise factors, the mode of development and the development of process. To the dilemma of current private schools, they mainly concern the managers of private schools and the management of local government. Obviously, they lack the depth of theoretical explanation. This paper attempts to expand the academic perspective on the issue, it mainly research it from the Micro-identity Theory and the Rational Choice Theory. The dilemma of current private schools can be expressed the Crisis of Legitimacy of private schools. In this paper, it based on the Internal Crisis of Legitimacy and the External Crisis of Legitimacy to analyze the dilemma of current private schools. It can identify and solve problem much better.This study mainly selected J area on Shandong Province as research area .And this paper take M Private Secondary School and B Public Secondary School as a case, in order to analyze the different development path of the two schools. Through the two schools'comparison, it can be found that there are different Organizational Identity between high and low in the two schools. And the Private Secondary Schools are showing a state of lacking Organizational Identity, which form the internal crisis of legitimacy of the Private Secondary Schools. The Organizational Identity plays an important role in the development of the Private Secondary Schools. First of all, it will enable members beyond all possible or practical difference of significance and interest. It can act as a gathering power to maintain the schools'benign development. Secondly, the Organizational Identity affect the formation of significance of members in the school, so that more school members are willing to accept integration, it can further integrate into a team. Considering the positive function of the Organizational Identity on the Private Secondary Schools, the lacking of Organizational Identity has become a big obstacle on the development of Private Secondary Schools. It will lead to the suspicion of members to the school, they have no sense of trust. The organization members may confined in a small room , lacking motivation and enthusiasm. They are unable to make personal self-concept, self-worth and the goal of Organizational Development consistent. Thereby, it restrict the benign development of Private Secondary Schools. At present, in China's education system, there are two parallel systems operating mechanism, the difference between the two caused the members form different psychological experience, they will agree that the public education system and are eager to become "system" members. Thus, it leads to the dilemma of the development of Private Secondary Schools.For Private Secondary Schools'External Crisis of Legitimacy, we think that the change of parents'behavior is the primary aspect. Parents'choice behavior for educational opportunities, in essence, is an investment in human capital, it followed a certain degree of rational principles, it is a realistic choice based on the expectation. Choice behavior is not fixed, with time and social situation changes, it also changes dynamically. Since the modern society, under the pressure of "diploma society" and the reality of its own "face" concept, in the stage of basic education for the children to make the choice of educational opportunities, their behavior have changed from the usual principles of choosing the nearest school to pursuing the quality of educational products, which gives Private Secondary Schools a turning point for the development, because they rely on the provision of quality education products . However, the author found that the impact of system changes further affect parents'choice behavior. At present, China is experiencing Compulsory education system reform, many parents of rural areas have abandoned Private Secondary Schools , they choose Public Secondary Schools, which gives private schools a blow on the development. Through analysis, the author found that the choice of parents is not entirely rational act, but a limited rational behavior, that is, most parents'choice behavior is follow the principle of satisfaction, rather than optimal principle. Parents'limited choice behavior mainly manifested in two aspects: First, parents faced the social environment ,it is complex and changeable; and the second is the capacity to understand themselves and computing capacity are also limited. Overall, the system changes caused parents'choice behavior changing. It can be better reveal the underlying logic behind the acts. Changes in the system have a negative latent function on the rejuvenation of the private schools .It is the deep-seated reason for the dilemma of the development of Private Secondary Schools.In this study, the system and the system changes runs through the paper, the system will not only exist as a macro-social background .At the same time ,it acts as a factor which affects the private schools. Institutional factors are the key factors that cause the lacking of Organizational Identity of private schools, system changes caused parents'choice behavior changes. In the background of social transformation and the fact that system changes, the supply of system is inadequate and the protection mechanism is not sound , it is the key factors that lead to the dilemma of the development of Private Secondary Schools. This is the main findings in this study. In this paper, the Micro-identity Theory and the Rational Choice Theory, to a certain extent, compensate for the lack of research on the issue and widened the field of vision . Of course, with the social transition and the deepening of system changes, the issues of the Private Secondary Schools also need further research.