The Interaction Among The Extended Family Left Behind In Rural Areas And The Path For Social Work Intervening

Since China's reform and opening up,with the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization,a large number of prime rural labors transfer.These lead to the problem of family left behind in rural areas,and it has attracted the social concern and attention.The past surveys on the problem mostly focused on single sample,particularly on the children left behind in rural areas.However,they did not integrate with the related groups or issues to investigate.Moreover,the possibilities of social work intervening in the family left behind have not been discussed.In order to make an in-depth and detailed insight into the problem of family left behind in rural areas,the big family left behind in rural areas which extend from single group are investigated.Via detailed description of the daily lives of the extended family left behind,the essence of these special family is explained.Then on this basis the path of social work intervening is discussed.Using qualitative methods,this paper develops the experience and understanding of the real daily life.This research takes the extended family left behind in rural areas as objects of study,namely the special extended family whose prime son generations leave the aged great-grandparents,middle-age grandparents and young grandchildren behind in rural areas for out-migrating working.The problems among these include the family pension,rural female problems and rural children.Moreover,the outmigrating the movement of population are concerned indirectly.The intersection of these problems make this research obtain unique meanings.The methods of case interview and participant observation are used for data collection.This research is aimed to describe the essence of the special extended family by interaction relationship from the perspective of social transformation and social structure and discuss preliminarily the path for social work intervening.Research conclusions: firstly,this research started with the interaction in microcosmic daily life.It was found that the interactions in three generations left behind are like sandwich biscuit: the interaction between great-grandparents and grandparents is polite,and the interaction between grandparents and grandchildren is intimate,but great-grandparents and grandchildren are familiar strangers.Secondly,combined with culture transformation and social structure,the interaction relationship is interpreted from the aspects of family members and the whole family.The interaction relationship can be attributed to the concept “keep watch” and the mutual “keep watch” in the family is key to decide interactive ways.Thirdly,by the conversation with macroscopic social background and traditional culture,the concept “keep watch” is extended to individuals and groups left behind in rural areas.Thus a comprehensive concept is proposed for the life condition of rural groups.Fourthly,SWOT analytic method was used for the research.Based on the project of Serve for China and green village project hosted by Professor Gu Xuebin,social work should be started with the strength perspective by zone development pattern and intervened into rural community by the core of villager power and local resources.