Changes In The Image Of Primary And Secondary School Teachers In China Since Rerorm And Opening Up

The teacher image refers to the society's expectations for the ideal teaching career.It is the synthesis of teachers' internal characteristics,external representations and social expectations.Since the reform and opening-up,the rapid development of the Chinese economy has improved people's lives and a large number of new things have been pouring into the current social life,resulting in the change of people's values.In this process,the image of teachers is also inevitably impacted and changed.What has happened to the teacher image? What about the process of this change?From the perspective of media text,this study uses the textual research method and Nvivo software to analyze the image of elementary and secondary school teachers in People's Daily since the reform and opening-up in order to present the teacher image built by the leading medias and its evolution as a whole,providing some references for the future teacher image in successive news medias.Through the extract of the coverage about teachers in elementary and secondary schools in People's Daily since the reform and opening-up,this study divides the course of the evolution of elementary and secondary school teachers' image since the reform and opening-up into three periods:the first period is the "teachers with wonderful teaching skills" period from 1978 to 1991;the second period is the "selfless devotees" period from 1992 to 2000;the third period is the "teachers who cherish their posts and devote wholeheartedly to work" period from 2001 to 2018.It is found that during the first period,the teacher image tends to teachers being happy to learn and teach;during the second period,it tends to teachers being a model for others;during the third period,it tends to teachers loving and dedicating themselves to their own job.Through the analysis of the elements evolution in the image composition of elementary and secondary school teachers in People's Daily since the reform and opening-up,it is found that there existing connotation evolution in the image elements of "as a teacher to setting up a model","caring for students","being happy to learnand teach","researches and innovation","cherishing posts and devoting wholeheartedly to work",and "social responsibilities".For example,the connotation of "as a teacher to setting up a model" changed from "a good example serving as the best sermon" to "teaching honestly" again into "giving up one's body to take justice ";the connotation of "caring for students" changed from "ideological guidance" to "individual attention" and then to " physical and mental co-education";the connotation of "being happy to learn and teach" changed from " learning to teach well " to "prominent results" and into " various ways";the connotation of "researches and innovation" changed from "innovative teachings" to "perfect teachings" and into "curriculum developments";the connotation of "cherishing posts and devoting wholeheartedly to work" changed from "being cautious and conscientious" to "collective consciousnesses" again into "guarding villages";the connotation of "social responsibilities" changed from " loving China and the Chinese Communist Party" to "encouraging learning and building schools" into "welfare involvements".From three angles of social backgrounds,educational policies and media characteristics,this study makes use of the performance attribution to analyze the evolution in the image of teachers in elementary and secondary schools in People's Daily,pointing that in terms of the social backgrounds,the image of teachers is closely related to the social background,and it is the cultural symbol of an era,which reflects the changes of the society and the times;when it comes to the educational policies,the teacher image is consistent with the educational policies direction,propagandizing the policy ideal images;in terms of the media characteristics,the teacher image has been shrouded in secrecy for a long time,but it gradually becomes commonplace.Therefore,in order to better build the image of elementary and secondary school teachers,it is suggested that the People's Daily should feedback the image that the social background requires and shape the image of teachers as the cultural symbol of the times;transform the function of purely propagandizing educational policies and enhance the two-way interaction between the medias and educational policies;learn the advantages of similar medias' reports so that the teacher image can avoid being sanctified and stereotyped.