Rootless Community, Suspended School

Under the slogan" Building New Socialist Countryside", the issue of rural community development has once again been given unprecedented importance in China. As this has become the direct means of reshaping rural society, rural education is now a hot social concern, and there have been great advances in rural education study in China. however, vary in the eastern, central, and western parts of China. As a result, they will inevitably face different problems and predicaments. Great changes have taken place in rural community in central China in the recent 20 years. The increasing mobility of rural workers between urban and rural areas, those traditional farming communities in the extensive rural areas, changed into semi-farming ones. Although there has been some study of rural education in central China from the perspective of educational anthropology, there is still more to be done. So the author here has chosen Dajin Village in Hunan Province as the field of research and analysis.Over the past 100 years, the education in Dajin went from "Clan-run free community school"during the Republic of China(1912-1949),toward the end of Qing Dynasty, to"popularize primary school."This popularized education aimed to "leave the countryside" and "compulsory education" after the reform and opening-up policy, until the current "free compulsory education".Speaking of "Clan-run free community school",it actually emerged with the support of then local landlords and elites, although the government at that time was also an advocate of it.Our research finds that initially Li Family did not start within, but with the influences from that government and ulterior external conditions. However, since having established the Clan-run free school, the Dajin Li family has closely related the education to the interest of the family. Eventually, the Li family's ancestral hall became a powerful instrument of safeguarding and strengthening the Li clan's power. That is, before 1949, the previous government had not administered the village and left its own social supervision function to the village elites and the elders of the Li clan. The ancestral hall was not only a public place, but also the "Division of Enforcement" to solve their internal disputes and adjust their internal relations. Li family's ancestral hall and the village elites together built and strengthened the authority of "Li family's clan ancestral hall"."The ancestral hall of Li clan "was regarded as representing the villagers'basic interests, so all of the villages were willing to entrust the Li clan's ancestral hall with authority.Since the new China was founded, the traditional clan elites have been overthrown in the wake of the political and economic movements, and a new relation among the villagers formed under the new government. In addition, during the era of collective economy, which was 1949-1978,Chinese society could be called an "Almighty Society". In such an "Almighty Society",political,economical,and ideological authorities centralized, thereby, the survival and development of village school depended on national power and political environments.Under the concentration of powers, after the founding of new China, the national educational guideline was to cater education to benefit the masses of workers and peasants and to popularize primary education in rural areas. Accordingly, rural schools managed to meet the needs of rural communities in the aspects of education objective, teaching contents, and teaching resources.During the 1980s, implementation of the household contract responsibility system weakened the political power of the people's commune. Even though Chinese government set up township government, it's administrative function decreased in the countryside. Absence of legal authority in the rural area was a challenge forThe administration of government in rural areas. In this context, school became the "symbol "of the authority of the government which has an irreplaceable role of bridging the gap between the government and rural areas. According to Li Shulei's view, primary school is the only national institution rooted in rural areas. Moreover, the government formulated a series of policy, improved school environments, enhanced the quality of teaching, strengthened the position of school and teachers. In terms of the relations between school and rural community, the position of school had been strengthened while that of community had been weakened.In the past decade or more, along with the increasing mobility of rural labor force between urban and rural areas, most of the young and middle-aged rural laborers have been leading wandering lives.This threatens the stability of their family life and marriage. The number of single parent families," empty nest" families, and skipped generation families increased considerably. Meanwhile, with the changes in social economical structure and family structure in the rural areas, interaction between relatives and clan members exists only in name and interpersonal interaction among family, kinship members, clan members, and in community face many obstacles. Those changes caused damage to the traditional structure of the social realtional system.Furthermore, the cultural roots of the rural society were shaken. The traditional values that had been sustaining society collapsed, but new values system were not yet built. Rural culture and farmer have been socially and culturally marginalized.In other words, the subjectivity of farmers have been gradually weakening. As a result, in general,farmers feel weak, homeless, and anxious. Likewise, contemporary rural education also faces some new questions as below:Should school management be county-oriented or rural-oriented? Should the distribution of primary and secondary school be "proximity enrollment" or "concentrating admission"? Should schools open education resources or carry out closed-end management for communities? And how do the rural schools push ahead with education for all-around development. Therefore, it suggest that, firstly, we should redefine the nature and function with accordance in the development of rural communities; secondly, we should re-examine the educational management system, which avoids presenting power vacuum in the rural school management; at last, we should re-build curriculum model under the background of multi-culture theory.