Integrating Rural Schools and Societal Modernization： The Example of Heterogeneous Villages in China

Abstract

In China, rural schools often have to deal with the complex realities of the village. It is very important to understand why rural students and their parents value rural school education. Two villages, namely Utoprague village and Karasu village, in Xinjiang, China, were selected for this study. And two schools ,namely Utoprague Village Central Primary School and Karasu Village Central School, were selected. The study is a qualitative study. Textual data were collected mainly through interviews and questionnaires. 38 teachers were interviewed, 381 questionnaires were collected from primary students and 30 parents were interviewed. The analysis took grounded theory as the analysis method, and the analysis process was completed through the software Nvivo 12. Results show that the majority of parents and students in rural areas have a positive attitude toward school education consider schooling important, and accept it. The main reason for the positive attitude is the changes in production and lifestyle in the villages, which make fundamental changes in the knowledge and skills students need and the ways they can acquire them. In the past, students primarily learned the knowledge and skills of farming and herding with their parents so that they could do the same work in the future instead of gaining knowledge from schools. Moreover, knowledge changes destiny is a belief held by rural students and parents. They believe that schooling is the path to a better life, which means living in the city, having a decent job, and earning more money, in the future.