Dropping Out Of Rural Junior Schools:A Sociological Analysis In The Perspective Of Rational Choice

The problem of rising dropout rates in rural areas has been highly concerned by the community in recent years.Indeed,today's implementation of compulsory education is universal,but the phenomenon of dropout in rural junior schools has not diminished,some students choose to work with their parents after graduating from junior school,and some even choose to leave school without a junior school diploma.The common choice of many rural junior school students to give up their studies indicates that rural education is showing a watershed with junior schools as the obvious boundary.What kind of dynamic mechanism and logic is hidden behind seemingly ordinary individual dropout behavior?The attribution and cognition of this phenomenon must not be simplified,one-sided and superficial.Using the method of semi-structured interview and observation,the author carried out a study on the phenomenon of dropping out of junior schools in rural education field through the perspective of social rational choice theory.The study found that the phenomenon is not accidental:Persona's abandonment and inducement from social environment are the primary motivation and attraction of dropout behavior,making it an active withdrawal;The drawbacks of school education as repulsive force,exclude students form the education field gradually;Parents can not see the hope of moving upward when their children are hopeless at reading,then they will make a series of weighing measures on the cost,benefit and risk of education,at this time,a boost is formed,which make the dropout behavior a passive escape.Therefore,the dropout behavior is a rational choice under the effect of various forces and multiple factors.Through the rational choice,the students who drop out of school and their parents receive the cultural,emotional and economic benefits.According to the theoretical perspective of research,the author makes rational and irrational reconsideration of the dropout behavior.The results show that the rational choice behavior reflects a bounded rationality because actors have limitation in cognitive ability,computational ability and ability to grasp information,etc.For actors,dropout behavior is a obedience to the rational principle and rebellion against the ills of modern education,it is reasonable in form.From the perspective of bystanders,however,due to the existence of bounded rationality,the irrational consequences of the dropout behavior have not been seen,and therefore,it is essentially irrational.In a word,the dropout behavior of rural junior school students shows a intertwined logic of active and passive,which manifests itself as an active escape and forced evacuation from the education field.From the micro level to the macro level,it can be seen that the root of individual dropout behavior still lies in the macro institutional structure and the problem of resource allocation,and it will eventually cause a fallacy of composition at the macro level,namely collective irrational.The essence of control lies in the transformation of governance ideas.