Research on Acculturation Strategies of Chinese Rural College Students ————The Background of Cultural Transformation in Developing Countries

• In Event: Large-Scale Comparative Analysis of Teaching and Learning in East Asia

Proposal

By focusing on the unique educational value of Chinese rural culture and analyzing acculturation strategies of Chinese rural college students, this study explores the survival patterns and specific choices of individuals in the context of the social era, and reflects on the challenges experienced by modern social transformation in developing countries.
The UNESCO International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education has released a report titled "Education for Rural Transformation: Towards a Policy Framework", advocating for "education serving rural social transformation". They called on relevant personnel to rethink the issue of rural education and pay more attention to the important functions of education shaping and achieving rural social transformation. Human beings are the carrier and core of educational purposes, and promoting human transformation and modernization is the key to achieving transformation in rural society.
With the help of the "holding theory" of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a French enlightenment thinker, and Donald Winnicott, a British psychoanalyst of object relations, this paper points out the educational orientation of rural culture in modern society, which provides a theoretical basis for assisting the development of rural society. Taking the three forms of education mentioned by Rousseau in Emil as the analytical framework, the study finds that the "holding" of rural culture empowers the growth of rural students through "l’éducation de la nature", "l’éducation des choses" and "l’éducation des hommes". The rural students growing in the natural situation can harvest their natural qualities, control their desires, and cherish their feelings; As a concrete culture, the village graves and ancestral temples have become the source of the accumulated experience of teenagers, bringing them stability, belonging and significance; In the process of social interaction, teenagers can continue their cultural roots and form a solid foundation for self-identity through the connection with local voice, tradition and community. Therefore, the harmony of contemporary rural education depends on the prosperity of rural culture, from which rural students gain cultural confidence.
Research has found that in the actual context of higher education, rural college students generally adopt four acculturation strategies, including integration strategy, assimilation strategy, separation strategy, and marginalization strategy. In fact, when discussing the cultural adaptation of rural college students, the more fundamental question is what is the fundamental direction of human urbanization? What is the relationship between citizens entering modern society and rural areas?
Based on 18493 survey data, it is found that by choosing separation and marginalization strategies, they give up the contact and recognition of urban culture, which is not conducive to the social integration and emotional adaptation of rural college students. Although the assimilation strategy can expand the scale and strength of the social network, it needs to bear more emotional burden and psychological stress because it has given up its recognition of its own rural culture. Finally, the study found that rural college students who choose integration strategy, while maintaining the identity of rural culture and urban culture. They have established a richer social network, as well as higher academic achievements and psychological resilience, enabling them to achieve greater development.
Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, once predicted that China's urbanization and the high-tech development of the United States would be two major topics affecting human development in the twenty-first century. With the advancement of China's urbanization process, the competition between tradition and modernity, as well as between the East and the West, is unfolding in the game of urban-rural relations; Individual destiny reflects the great historical and cultural changes. Chinese rural college students are important forces for social elites and national development. Their individual transformation is directly related to the fairness of the process of higher education and has a profound impact on the development direction of rural areas in China.

Author

• TONG XIAO, Joint training of Tsinghua University and École normale supérieure de Paris