A Study On The Problems And Strategies To Informal Groups Of Secondary Vocational School Students

The existence of the informal groups of vocational school students is a common phenomenon in secondary vocational schools. For various reasons, secondary vocational education hasn’t got high evaluation from the public. As a result, most of the junior middle school students with excellent academic performance are willing to enter the high schools after graduation, where they are more likely to competing in the college entrance examination. Besides, the number of junior middle school graduates is declining because of the lowering baby birth rate in our country these years. Therefore,the secondary vocational schools will continue to reduce the admission requirements in order to expand the number of students, resulting in the qualities of the students in secondary vocational schools are reducing. These students are more likely to form a variety of different informal groups after they enter the secondary vocational schools because of the similarities in their physical, psychological aspects and their similar experiences as well as the influences from their families, the school and other areas.And the number of the groups is increasing. On the one hand, these informal groups can cater to the needs of vocational students at different levels, and promote the development of the student’s personality, which laying the foundation for the students’ social development.On the other hand, most of the informal groups are spontaneous, thus some problems exist inevitably in such informal groups because of the complex of the members and their other characteristics, and because even some activities of such informal groups have broken the school rules. The problems existing in the informal groups have affected secondary vocational school education. Therefore, the researchers and teachers are trying to analyze the problems existing in the informal groups of the vocational school students and put forward appropriate conducting strategies, which is practical and significant for achieving the eventual educational goals and improving the overall qualities of the students.In this paper, literature review and empirical research are combined. By consulting concerned literatures, the researcher finds that the studies on informal groups mainly concentrate on those informal groups among the workers in corporations and there arefew studies on the informal groups of secondary vocational school students. This thesis applies questionnaires, interviews and other methods to analyses the groups’ formation,scale, activities and the groups’ characteristics. According to the different influences on school, class and the development of the individual students themselves, the styles of informal groups can be divided into four types: positive type, intermediate type,negative type, damage type. At the same time, this paper analyses the causes of the informal groups’ formation from the variety of aspects, such as the students’ living areas, their psychological requirements, and the influences from the families and the society.Then, based on the results of the investigate and the questionnaires as well as the author’s working experiences in secondary vocational schools, the author illustrates the incidents of violating discipline caused by informal groups of secondary vocational school students, “depersonalization” phenomenon of group members, the adverse impacts on individual students’ views about life and values, as well as the impacts on the class work. Finally, in order to promote students to grow more healthily, the author puts forwards some effective conducting strategies, including helping the students form positive outlook on life and positive values, publicizing the rules of law and regulations, counseling the students’ psychological conflicts, and strengthening the functions of the formal groups.