An Investigation On The Current Situation Of Professional Identity Of "Special - Level Teachers" In Minority Areas

In recent decades, with further development of the teacher education research, teachers’ professional identity has become one of the research fields attracting the close attention of scholars. To a great extent, teachers’ professional identity affects the teachers’ practical teaching, work enthusiasm and profession development. In 2006, in order to further improve the construction of rural teachers and promote the balanced development of the compulsory education, the relevant national departments formulated and implemented “The Plan of the Special Post for Teachers in Rural Schools at Compulsory Education Stage”. This plan makes the special post teachers as an emerging group of teachers enter the rural primary and secondary schools, and attract the society and academia’s attention. The special post teachers are an important supplement of rural education, and their professional identity status is directly related to the smooth implementation of the national policy of “The Special Plan”. Therefore, it is very important to research on the current situation of professional identity of special post teachers.Xinjiang minority nationality region is one of the provinces implementing “the Special Plan”. Due to the influences of various factors such as history, geography, its education development is far behind. But the arising of the “Special Post Teachers” infuses a new power to the elemental education in Xinjiang area and promotes the education fairness and its balanced development. This paper attempts to study the professional identity of “Special Post Teachers” in minority nationality region by taking Xinjiang korla county and its villages and towns as the pilot site and adopting research methods such as questionnaire investigation and interviews. This research studies the current situation of the special post teachers from six dimensions including teachers’ professional values, role values, professional emotion, professional ability, professional behavior and professional social status. In order to explore the factors affecting the “Special Post Teachers”, this research also studies from the teachers’ career motivation, career expectations and attitudes, etc.. Combined with three years’ contract management policy, the study finally adjusts the management policy to special post teachers correspondingly, improves the professional identity of special post teachers and proposes some solutions for reference to ensure that “the Special Post Plan” policy plays an effective role in rural education.The results of the study show that the professional identity of “Special Post Teachers” in Xinjiang minority nationality region is relatively high. There exists significant differences at different levels such as gender, nationality, marital status, graduation school, age and teaching standing. Teachers’ professional identity is influenced by teachers’ satisfaction degrees on their salaries, professional motivation, professional expectations and attitude. Finally, in order to improve the professional identity for “Special Post Teacher”, some corresponding solution strategies are put forward.