Research On The Ethnic Values And Its Inheritance In Southwestern Ethnic Groups

Ethnic values are people's most basic views on the ethnic groups and ethnic issues, affecting the attitude and the way that people take to settle specific ethnic problems. The essence of ethnic values is to maintain and improve the interests and status of their own ethnic group. On the basis of article review and by ways of an open-ended questionnaire and individual interviews, this paper firstly put forward the theoretical hypothesis of the ethnic values in southwestern ethnic groups, and then designed the ethnic values questionnaire and finally developed the formal questionnaire after the analysis and revise of the informal questionnaire. With the help of this questionnaire, 1,400 members of different minorities in Southwestern of China were investigated and the effects of nationality, gender, age, and educational level, religion etc. are also analyzed to explore the characteristic of the ethnic values in Southwestern ethnic groups. Subsequently, the researchers actually visited Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Huaping County, exploring the ethnic values heritage model of Dai, Hani, Lisu nationalities, summerizing the inheritance law of ethnic values groups in Southwestern ethnic groups.The results of the research showed:(1) The questionnaire of ethic values in southwestern ethnic groups had a good reliability and validity. By means of exploring factor analysis, the research found that the ethnic values in southwestern ethnic groups were constructed with four dimensions:nationality consciousness, inter-nationalities relations, nationality-state relations, and nationality development.(2) Generally speaking, each nationality of Southwestern ethnic groups in the four dimensions of ethnic values showed a positive trend. The order of scores in each dimension was as following:nationality development, nationality-state relations, inter-nationalities relations, nationality consciousness.(3) In the four dimensions of ethnic values, different ethnic groups had significant differences to each other. In the dimension of nationality consciousness,Dai nationality had significantly difference from others; In the dimension of inter-nationalities relations, Yi nationality had significant difference from Tujia, Zhuang, Dong, Buyi nationalities; In the dimension of nationality development, Yi nationality had significant difference from Zang, Hani, Zhuang, Dong, Dai, Buyi nationalities; In the dimension of inter-nationalities relations, Tujia nationality had significant difference from Hani, Bai, Miao, Dong, Dai, Buyi nationalities.(4) In the dimension of inter-nationalities relations, there were statistically significant differences in gender. And men scored significantly higher than female.(5) In the four dimensions of ethnic values, there were significantly different in age.18-28 age group and over 55 years of age group showed greatly differences in three dimensions:inter-nationalities relations, nationality-state relations, and nationality development; 29-54 age group and over 55 age group showed significant difference in all dimensions.(6) In the dimensions of nationality consciousness, inter-nationalities relations, nationality-state relations, there were significantly different on education level. Illiterate group showed significant differences from secondary education group and over-college education group.(7) In the dimensions of nationality-state relations, religious beliefs showed significantly difference, the group experience religion within 5 years scored significantly higher than those over 10 years.(8) There was significant interaction between nationality and age in the dimension of nationality-state relations. There was significant interaction between nationality and religion in the dimension of nationality development. There was significant interaction between age and education level in the dimension of nationality-state relations.(9) The common characteristic of ethnic values in southwestern ethnic groups was:generally optimistic, positive and healthy. There were significant differences in statistics, affected by many factors. If the influencing factors were different, the appearance in different dimensions would be different. It is worth noting that the factor of educational level affected ethnic values deeply.(10) The inheritance of ethnic values in southwestern ethnic groups showed some certain regular pattern.