Research On Teachers' Educational Beliefs In A Rural Minority School

People's thoughts and behaviors are dominated by their beliefs. Since people hold different beliefs, their behaviors are consequentially different. Therefore, belief is at the core of an individual's values. Specified to the education field, a teacher's educational belief influence his or her educational behaviors and educational conceptions. Concern about teachers'educational beliefs plays an important role in teachers'professional development and helps us to understand teachers'behaviors and views. China is a country with a long history. China is also a multinational community of multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-cultural components. Chinese minorities each have a unique history and culture. One wonders whether the beliefs held by teachers have impacts on the development of modern ethnic education, heritage of ethnical culture and the teachers'own development. This paper intends to explore and analyze the above issues by means of interviews, investigations and feasible experiences.After reviewing related researches at home and abroad, the author does a case study in an ordinary rural minority school by means of questionnaires, depth interviews, classroom observations, daily communication and narrative inquiry in order to explore and analyze concepts of teaching beliefs behind the teachers'practice from perspectives of teaching behaviors, teachers'living conditions and teacher-student relationships. This paper mainly includes three parts. The first part is an introduction which contains origins of the research, purposes and significance of the research, research contents and methods, literature reviews at home and abroad. The second part includes qualitative research based on teachers'beliefs about education in an ordinary rural minority primary school. After investigations, the author analyzes teachers'beliefs from different perspectives, and then makes some conclusions and characteristics of the research. In the third part, the author reflects upon completion of the research.Through the above analysis, the research has come to a conclusion that the rural teachers'educational beliefs of ethnic minority presents the following features, that is, the conflicts between educational belief and educational practice; the deficiency to think and inquire educational nature, purpose and function; the aim of school education is to enhance students'knowledge of science and culture, and to improve students'Chinese level; multi-factors influence teachers'educational beliefs; Tibet teachers'and Chinese teachers'educational beliefs come to similarity.Moreover, the paper pay due attention to the following three points. Firstly, it guides and cultivates teachers from minority rural area to reflect their personal educational beliefs. Secondly, it requires to keep pace with the times and to absorb modern educational theory for teachers. Thirdly, it is necessary to update teachers'beliefs on ethnic education.At the end of the paper, the research puts forward further considerations and suggestions on ethnic education, including: the purpose of ethnic education should be depend on children's social development needs; the mission of ethnic schools is to cultivate ethnic spirit, to inherit ethnical culture, and to spread cultural knowledge; the development of ethnic education should be based on the different ethnic unique cultural tradition; and the evaluation to the ethnic education should be laid on the diverse cultural backgrounds.