关于留守儿童-英文论文.doc

The Analysis of Chinese Countryside Leftover Childrens Education ProblemsWritten by: Wang TaoSupervised by: Gu FaliangEnglish DepartmentSchool of Foreign StudiesAnhui Normal UniversityMarch 2012AcknowledgmentsI would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this thesis. A special acknowledgment should be shown to Professor Gu Faliang, from whose lectures I benefited greatly. I am particularly indebted to the headmaster, Qian Yelu, and the teachers in Xinhu Primary School, in the town of Guanqian, Chizhou, Anhui Province. Before I started my thesis, I taught in the primary school as a volunteer for three months. During that period, Mr. Qian and all the teachers gave me a great help to make an investigation about the situation and information of the leftover children in the school. With their help, I got lots of detailed data to prepare for the thesis.The Analysis of Chinese Countryside Leftover Childrens Education ProblemsAbstract This paper, by the way of on-the-spot investigation research, surveys the present education situation of a group of special countryside children called the Leftover Children whose parents are not at home. Based on the two aspects of society and family, an initial exploration and an analysis are done to find the influential elements of this problem. The education problem of these leftover children is a special reflection which happened in the process of the social transition in rural areas. The direct cause is that the rural labor works outside as migrant workers, which leads to the lack of family education. However, the root of these problems is that Chinas long-standing policies of the urban and rural economic development are uneven, and there exists the extreme imbalance of the development between urban and rural areas. It also leads to the overall quality of the basic education in countryside falling quite behind. These childrens education problems are just a part of the specific performance of the unbalanced development. Based on these childrens education problems, the paper finally concludes with a series of practical solution strategies.Key Words: countryside; leftover children; education problem中国农村留守儿童教育问题的分析研究摘 要本论文以实地调查研究的方式从社会和家庭两方面综合考察了农村留守儿童的教育现状，初步探索和分析了留守儿童教育问题的影响因素，并在此基础上得出结论：农村留守儿童教育问题是我国农村问题在社会转型过程中的特殊表现。农村劳动力外出务工导致家庭教育的缺失是该问题产生的直接原因，其根源在于我国长期以来城乡经济发展政策不均，城市和乡村发展的极度不平衡，也导致了乡村基础教育的整体质量不高，而农村留守儿童教育问题正是这种城乡不均衡发展的具体表现。针对农村留守儿童教育问题的实际情况，本论文在最后提出了切实可行的解决策略。关键词：农村；留守儿童；教育问题ContentsAcknowledgement . IAbstract .II摘要.IIIChapter 1 Introduction.11.1 The Concept of the Leftover Children.11.2 The Basic Information of the Leftover Children in China.1Chapter 2 The Investigation Result of the Countryside Leftover Childrens Education Problems.32.1 The General Situation of the Leftover Children in Xinhu Primary School.32.2 The Problems of the Local Leftover Children Suffering from.3Chapter 3 The Influential Factors in the Countryside Leftover Childrens Education Problems.5 3.1 Family Factors5 3.1.1 The Different Styles of Custody.5 3.1.2 The Lack of Family Education.6 3.1.3 Low Degree of the Custodians Education7 3.2 Social Factors.7 3.2.1 The Gap between Urban and Rural Education.7 3.2.2 The Unbalanced Economy Development between the Urban and Rural Areas.8Chapter 4 The Solution Strategies of the Countryside Childrens Education Problems.9 4.1 Making the Family Education Work.9 4.2 Making Full Use of the Function of School.9 4.3 Paying More Attention to the Leftover Children.10 4.4 Narrowing the Gap between Urban and Rural Economy Development11Chapter 5 Conclusion.12Notes13Works Cited.1414The Analysis of Chinese Countryside Leftover Childrens Education ProblemsChapter 1 IntroductionIn the past 30 years, Chinas reform and opening-up play a very important role in this countrys economic development. With the development of industrialization and urbanization, Chinese cities need a large number of labors to develop their economy, and the group of cheap village labor forces is able to satisfy the cities needs well. However, because of various reasons, the migrant workers cant take their children to the cities where they are working. Therefore, there come into being a special minors group-the Leftover Children. Although the leftover children are in their key period of growth, because of the lack of family education, the slow development of village school education, and the complex influence from the surrounding society, the children are facing with striking problems on life, study, and psychological health, which will make a negative influence on their value system. Chinese countryside leftover childrens education problem has been an important issue of Chinese rural education. This problem will affect the harmonious development of the society and the future of Chinese education, which has aroused the attention of the whole society.1.1 The Concept of the Leftover ChildrenThe Leftover Children, means the children, at the stage of compulsory education, one or both of whose parents go out to be migrant workers, are left alone at home to be brought up by their grandparents or relatives. They are always at the age of 6 to 18.1.2 The Basic Information of the Leftover Children in ChinaAccording to the statistics of the All China Womens Federation, the number of the leftover children all around China is about 58 million, and more than 40 million leftover children are under the age of 14. Nowadays, the leftover children account for 28.29% of the total number of Chinese rural children, which means there will be one leftover child among every 4 rural children1. According to the pertinent data of the State Statistics Bureau, in 2003, the migrant labors take 23 percents of the total number of the rural labor forces. The number of the migrant workers who leave home to work with all the family members is about 24.30 million. The number of the migrant children, at the age of 6 to 14, is about 6.43 million. The leftover children left alone at home takes about 37.4 percents of the total number of the students in countryside primary and high schools2.Chapter 2 The Investigation Result of the Countryside Leftover Childrens Education ProblemsIn order to research Chinese countryside leftover childrens education problem concretely, I had made an investigation in Xinhu Primary School in Chizhou, Anhui Province.2.1 The General Situation of the Leftover Children in Xinhu Primary SchoolAs an important minors group in the rural areas, the leftover children always suffer from a series of issues, such as daily life problems, education problems, emotional problems, and psychological problems. For solving these issues, it is necessary to analysis the special living environment and educational environment in rural areas. In the investigation, as the respondents, the students ages are between 6 and 12. There are 147 students totally in the school. The number of the leftover children is 77, which takes about 54.4 percents, including 32 boys. Among these leftover children, 53.2 percents of them live without parents. And those whose parent working far away from home occupy a percentage of 46.8. And about 69.6 percents of their parents work in other cities far away from home.2.2 The Problems of the Local Leftover Children Suffering fromBased on the investigation, because of the parents absence, a part of the leftover children are facing with many striking issues. First, it is the leftover childrens daily life problem. In the countryside primary school, all the students homes are far away from their school, so they dont go back home for lunch. If the family conditions permit, one of the childrens parents or grandparents will bring the lunch to school at noon. However, the survey suggests that about 26 percents of the children have to bring their lunch with a vacuum bottle in the morning. Usually, when the lunch time comes, their meals have cooled down. Because of the lack of parents care, 12 percents of the leftover children are under nourished with bad physical health.Second, it is the leftover childrens education problems. According to the investigation, more than 70% of the students feel difficult in study. Only about 12% of them can study well. About 46% of the children spend more than three fourths of their free time watching TV, or playing with friends.Third, it is the leftover childrens psychological problems. The major causes include the lack of family care, the absence of social education and the ineffectiveness of school security system. The leftover children are short of the care from emotion and psychology widely. They have no good listeners to hear their troubles or difficulties. Therefore, few of people can help them well. Some of the leftover children refuse or dislike communicating with others. Even some of them show quite negative individual mental characters, such as intrapsychical self-isolation, flattening of affect, autistic behaviors and so on. Disproportional character flaws and psychological disorder are their big problems. Fourth, it is the leftover childrens moral issues. Because of the lack of family education, the leftover children live without proper moral constraints, so that some of them havent developed a healthy lifestyle and a good moral character.Fifth, it is the leftover childrens security problems. Since childrens adaptive capacity and their capacity of self-protection are quite weak, and their custodians are always old with relatively low culture level, it is impossible for them to set up the sense of security in childrens mind.Chapter 3 The Influential Factors of the Countryside Leftover Childrens Education Problems3.1 Family Factors3.1.1 The Different Styles of CustodyThe first style of custody is that children under their grandparents custody. This style of custody refers to the children brought by their grandparents. According to the investigation, 84.85 percents of the leftover children belong to this case in Xinhu Primary School. Most of these childrens grandparents are very old and in bad health. Even some of them still need to do heavy housework. Generally speaking, there is a generation gap between the children and their grandparents. Because of the differences of the circumstances, views and values of different generations must be different and thus generation gap appears. Because of the lack of knowledge about the children, some grandparents tend to project their wishful ideas on their grandchildren, thus widening the general gap. The gap usually makes the young and their grandparents often fail to communicate with each other. Even sometimes although the children listen to their grandparents words, they do not put them into heart. By doing this, they send false messages to each other. In a word, the grandparents often fail to understand their grandchildren. However, another circumstance would be that the grandparents spoil their grandchildren overly without moral and spiritual guidance, so that they cannot educate children successfully.The second one is that children under their relatives custody. This style of custody refers to the children brought up by their relatives or their parents peers, such as aunts and uncles. However, children are more sensitive. It is easy for them to feel the sense of depending on others or being discriminated. They will become more withdrawn and more dissociable, which will make a negative influence on their study. In this case, the childrens custodians are changeable, so that they cannot learn in a steady environment. According to the investigation, 9.96 percents of the leftover children belong to this situation in Xinhu Primary School.The last one is that children under their teachers custody. This situation just appears in the recent several years. Some rich families entrust their children to their teachers or their head teachers. In Xinhu Primary School, 5.19 percents of the leftover children belong to this situation. According to the investigation, a teacher would take care of five or six leftover children. The disadvantage of this style of custody is that the teachers have no enough time to look after these leftover children, because the number of the children which the teacher need to take care is big, and the teachers are always busy with their own work and daily life.3.1.2 The Lack of Family EducationAccording to the result of the investigation, in the local leftover childrens families, 63.2 percents of their parents return home three to four times a year, and 30.6 percents of them only go back home once or twice a year. Unfortunately, most of them cannot stay at home for a longer time. Low frequency of returning home and little communication with the leftover children will result in the lack of family education, which can also make children suffer from a variety of psychological problems.First of all, the leftover childrens world views, outlook on life and value system are influenced by materials deeply without proper education and guidance. Since their parents always work far away from home for a long time, there is little communication between parents and children. Therefore, they often use money to keep the relationship with their children. This situation will make children develop the worship of golden calf, which may weaken the links between parents and children. When the children suffer from troubles or difficulties, they dont want to communicate with parents, or talk with their teachers in school, so that they often abandon themselves, and live with pessimistic feelings. And they will feel the sense of loneliness, because of the lack of trust and the sense of security.Second, in their emotion life, the leftover children are short of complete care and communication. It is easy for them to suffer from psychological disorder. The long-time separation with parents makes the leftover children can not feel their parents love in the daily life. And it makes them cannot receive the spiritual support from parents when they fall in trouble. Their mistakes also can not be guided or corrected in time. As time passes, they will come into being obvious psychological troubles. For instance, they own inferiority mentality universally. They are bad at communication with others. They have great pressure on their mind. They have a strong sense of self-preservation and even have acute behaviors.3.1.3 Low Degree of the Guardians Education84.85 percents of the leftover children are under their grandparents custody. According to the investigation, more than 82.6 percents of the grandparents havent accepted any education, and even some of them can not write down their names. Therefore, it is impossible for them to help the childrens study after school.3.2 Social Factors3.2.1 The Gap between Urban and Rural EducationThe gap between urban and rural education is an important factor which motivates the appearance of the leftover children. Education has remained top priority during Chinese modernization development. In China, the number of rural school students is very large and about three fourths of the whole students who are receiving the basic education are in the rural schools. In order to improve the rural schools teaching conditions, our country have invested large sums of money to help countryside school build teaching buildings. Popularization of compulsory nine-year schooling is the key goal of Chinas elementary education program. Nowadays, much achievement has been made. Nine-year compulsory education almost is carried out all over our country to make children enjoy free education. However, the countryside schools always pay little attention to the importance of solving the leftover childrens psychological issues. In fact, the confusion and problems developing in the leftover childrens mind need schools to find and help to guide or correct timely. Unfortunately, because of poor general conditions, countryside schools cannot afford psychologists to give children necessary physical education and psychological education. Therefore, it will lead to the leftover childrens lack of moral consciousness and incorrect learning attitude, even playing truant and making troubles.3.2.2 The Unbalanced Economy Development between the Urban and Rural AreasWith the development of Chinese modernization, China will suffer from terrible gap between rich and poor, and the gap between urban and rural areas, which motivates the appearance of the phenomenon of leftover children. Because of the influence of different historical circumstances, natural conditions and series of other factors, the income gap between the urban and rural areas has widened greatly in China. Therefore, it is impossible to only depend on improving the yield of land to improve peasants income. Therefore, in order to improve their own income and the living standard, the peasants have to go outside to look for a temporary job when the slack farming season is coming. At the same time, the gap b