Innovation and Sustainable Development Pathways of Elderly Education Models in Rural China—A Qualitative Dual-Case Study from Fujian Province

1. Introduction

Under the global aging wave, the rural pension problem is experiencing an unprecedented complexity turn. According to the UN World Society Report 2023, the proportion of the elderly in rural areas of developing countries continues to rise, the traditional family pension model is rapidly disintegrated due to labor outflow and intergenerational relationship, and spiritual emptiness and lack of education have become a new form of poverty for the elderly (Cohen & Greaney, 2023). As one of the countries with the fastest aging rate, China has reached 59 million empty-nesters over the age of 60 in rural areas, creating complex challenges such as the mismatch of pension resources, cultural identity crisis and declining community cohesion (Chen & Jin, 2023). In this context, how to reconstruct the support network for the elderly through educational innovation has become a key proposition of rural revitalization and grass-roots governance modernization (Chong & Li, 2025; Formosa, 2019).

The existing studies focus on the supply of urban education for the elderly in the rural situation, on the one hand, the differentiated needs of the elderly have not been effectively distinguished; on the other hand, the “last mile” dilemma in policy implementation is often reduced to the problem of resource input, ignoring the shaping effect of local knowledge on model innovation. This makes it difficult for existing theories to explain why similar policies differ significantly in different villages. Therefore, this study puts forward the core question: what is the formation mechanism of the rural elderly education model? Is there a universal rule in its sustainable development path?

In this paper, Jinyi Village and Shaxian County of Fujian Province are a typical case and uses mixed research methods. The selection is based on the formation of a natural control group in the degree of aging, labor outflow rate, policy intervention intensity and other aspects. Through 12-month field survey, 124 questionnaires, 27 in-depth interviews and 90,000 words of policy texts were collected, and the constructivism rooted theory used three-level coding to reveal the generation logic of “social participation-driven” and “policy-driven” modes.

It is found that the effect of education for the elderly not only depends on the supply of resources, but also depends on the cultural embedded (Rogošić & Baranović, 2016), namely, the transformation efficiency of local knowledge system in curriculum design, spatial operation and intergenerational interaction. By activating the network of local talents and folk custom capital, Jinyi Village combines 78% of the course content and the inheritance of traditional skills (Cohen & Greaney, 2023), relying on the government purchase services, and the coverage rate of Leling School reaches 91% of the total administrative villages. This differentiation path provides a new perspective for understanding the “policy-community-individual” interaction mechanism, and also challenges the presupposition of the traditional theory in the binary opposition between social autonomy and government intervention.

2. Research methods and case background

2.1 Research Methodology

2.1.1 Documentary Analysis

Through a systematic review of the theoretical literature of education for the elderly, focusing on the following three aspects. First, policy text analysis: integrating 56 policy documents on the elderly issued by the state and Fujian Province from 2016 to 2023, using Nvivo12 for keyword coding, and extracting core policy guidance such as “lifelong learning” and “community participation”. The second is the summary of academic achievements. 217 articles on “rural elderly education” and “School” in Leling “were searched on CNKI (Chung, 2020), drawing the evolution map of research hot spots through CiteSpace, and found that the blank points were focused on innovation in geochemical model”. Third, learn from international experience, compare and analyze the curriculum system of Taiwan Leling Learning Center and Singapore Happy School, and refine the movable localization elements.

2.1.2 Case Study Approach

Typical cases are selected by the principle of objective sampling (Sena, 2023). Jinyi Village is the first pilot of rural Leling school in China, representing the self-organized development path. Shaxian County is a model of government-led model, and 62 schools realize the whole region coverage. The two models represent different exploration directions of rural aging education.

2.1.3 Sociological Survey Methodology

Through questionnaire surveys and structured interview, first-hand information. Questionnaires were designed and produced, distributed offline to students, teachers and principals of Leling School in Gutian Jinyi Village and Yubang Village in Shaxian County (Subedi, 2023), and recycled to analyze the participation and satisfaction of local Leling School. At the same time, government department staff and grass-roots village cadres were selected to conduct in-depth interviews to understand the development of Leling School under the guidance of Party building, as well as the opinions and ideas of relevant personnel, to provide reference for summarizing the function mechanism and social benefits.

2.2 Case Selection Rationale

2.2.1 Case Study I: Jinyi Village

Jinyi Village, Huangtian Town, Gutian County, Ningde City, Fujian Province, is located on the southeast bank of the middle reaches of the Minjiang River. It is the former residence of Lin Yaohua, a famous anthropologist, ethnologist and sociologist in China (Cheng QiuWang & Lin WenHe, 2018). It is also the prototype of Huang Village in the sociological work of Jinyi. The land area of the village is 15,838 mu, with a total population of 1,670 people, among which more than 380 people are over 60 years old, accounting for about a quarter of the total population. In addition to traditional agriculture, more than 1,000 people in the village went out to work, resulting in a large outflow of labor force and left-behind elderly alone at home.

Jinyi Village, as an innovative experimental field for rural education for the elderly, was founded in 2016 by social organizations and Taiwan academia. Through the activation of Lin Yaohua’s former residence and other cultural resources, the three-party model of “learning, eating and accompanying” was established. The course design focuses on the inheritance of local culture, with special features such as family instruction study and farming skills, 52 activities annually, and the number of students increased from 12 to 130, serving a total of 35,000 people. The operation adopts the mechanism of “social organization empowerment + community self-management”: Fujian Provincial Association for Lifelong Education for All provides 90% of the teachers and trains 58 local teachers, and the village committees are responsible for facility maintenance and student organization (Chen et al., 2024). This model stimulated the endogenous impetus of the community, and the derivative enzyme planting cooperatives realized the transformation of economic benefits, and the participation rate of education for the elderly increased to 63%. In 2023, it was selected as a rural pension innovation case of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, becoming a typical paradigm of cultural capital-driven education for the elderly.

2.2.2 Case Study II: Shaxian County

Shaxian County of Sanming City is located in the central part of Fujian Province. According to the seventh National Population census of Sanming City, Fujian Province, the permanent population of Shaxian County is 250,503, of which 60 and above accounts for 18.8%, and 13.45%, and the elderly population accounts for nearly one fifth of the total population. Shaxian County is the birthplace of Shaxian snacks. With the vigorous development of Shaxian snack industry, a large number of young people choose to open snack bars in other places, which leads to the outflow of local rural labor force and the increase of the proportion of the elderly, and the increase of social pension burden (Juxing, 2018).

Shaxian County has established a government-led inclusive education system for the elderly. In 2017, it issued the first special policy document in China, and realized the overall layout of 62 schools through the three stages of “pilot, promotion and coverage”. Innovate the path of “existing facilities renovation + policy resources integration”: 87% of the teaching sites were rebuilt from rural happiness homes and other places, with an average annual financial investment of 2.8 million yuan to cultivate 216 local teachers (including 23% retired Party members). The course highlights practicality, 72% of which are digital skills, health management and other modules, and develops snack skills learning courses to link to the real estate industry. Results data showed that the use rate of students’ smartphones increased from 12 percent to 89 percent, and the participation rate of village affairs increased from 18 percent to 41 percent. This model was selected as an aging innovation case of the National Development and Reform Commission, and its mechanism of “financial guarantee + coordination between government and social organizations” provides a system model for the large-scale development of education for the elderly at the county level.

3. Empirical Findings

3.1 Reliability and Validity Test

3.1.1 Data Collection and Study Methods

This study used stratified random sampling method to distribute structured questionnaires to elderly students (n=72), teachers (n=15) and managers (n=7) in Jinyi Village and Yubang Village, Gutian County (Charmaz, 2006), Fujian Province. The questionnaire was designed based on the Likert Level 5 scale, covering 32 observed variables of organizational management efficiency and educational service quality. In the preliminary test, 124 questionnaires were issued, and 94 valid questionnaires were retained after eliminating invalid samples. The data were independently entered by two people and cleaned by SPSS 24.0.

3.1.2 Reliability Test

The internal consistency of the scale was assessed by Cronbach’s α coefficient, showing the overall α coefficient of 0.965 and the α -values above the 0.85 threshold, indicating an excellent reliability level of the scale.

Table 3.1 Reliability Analysis

3.1.3 Validity Test

KMO and Bartlett test: KMO value is 0.693 (> 0.6 reference standard), Bartlett chi-square value of spherical test χ²=3806.91 (degree of freedom =276, p <0.001), the test results are significant, and the data is suitable for factor analysis.

Table 3.2 Validity Analysis

3.2 Participation of the Rural Left-Behind Elderly People

A total of 94 participants were included in the study, showing significant gender differences: 23.4% male, 76.6% female, and the sex ratio reached 1:3.27, which was consistent with the gender structure of the rural left-behind population. The age distribution was bimodal: 51.1% (n=48), and 48.9% under 59 (n = 46), indicating that the education model also attracted the participation of quasi-elderly groups. The participation duration data showed that new participants (1 year) accounted for 29.7%, medium-and long-term participants (2-4 years) accounted for 31.9%, and continuous participants (5 years) accounted for 29.8%, indicating the continuous attractiveness of the institution.

Table 3.3 Statistics of Participation

The roles of the participants showed structured differentiation characteristics, with 45% being students, 2% having the dual status of “student-teacher”, and 27% having both teaching and administrative coordination roles. Chi-square test showed a significant correlation between age and role. 73.3% of the group under 59 years participated in organizational management, while 72.9% of those over 60 years were pure trainee status, in line with the expectation of age stratification of role theory.

Table 3.4 Cross-analysis of participants’ age and participating roles

3.3 School Service Satisfaction

School old man for ling school learning progress, teaching, teaching time, site equipment, learning content, and in the elderly crisis, planning old life, practice, old and new experience of basic are more than 85% very satisfied, ling school not only good for the old man (Findsen & Wei, 2023), can effectively solve the problem of rural endowment, also to promote rural revitalization. In addition, 96% of the elderly are willing to recommend others to study in Leling School, and 81% of the elderly are willing to be able to become lecturers or volunteers, which can be seen that Leling School provides a strong sense of belonging to the elderly, and has great specific promotion value and significance (Zhang & Zhang, 2023).

In terms of satisfaction with school teaching effect, the mean sample was above 4.819, indicating that school participants have high satisfaction with the school teaching effect; the standard deviation was between 0.421 and 0.507, and the sample fluctuation is relatively small. Nearly 90% of the participants of Leling School are satisfied with applying what it has learned to real life, improving the practical ability of elderly career planning, and combining the old and new experiences. While highlighting the humanistic care of the curriculum service, it will help boost the spirit of the elderly left behind in rural areas, and boost the construction of rural civilization and rural revitalization.

Table 3.5 Satisfaction analysis of teaching effectiveness

Pattern comparison and operation mechanism

4.1 Pattern Characteristic Analysis

Based on the difference between power source and resource integration logic, the two places form a comparative practical paradigm:

Table 4.1 Pattern characteristics analysis

4.2 Key Mechanisms

4.2.1 Space Reconstruction: the sociological significance of functional transformation in idle places

Through the reconstruction of physical space to achieve social space production, Jinyi Village has transformed the folk museum with a vacancy rate of 82% into teaching places, activating the utilization rate of the places to 91% through 52 activities per month. Sha county integrate 87% of the rural happiness with 28% of the ancestral temple as a compound space, utilization rate from 19% to 76%, the space of triple effect: one is the symbol disenchantment, such as ancestral temple from worship to public learning space, dissolve the sacred metaphor of traditional space (Zhang et al., 2021), the second is interactive reconstruction, participants weeks meeting from 0.7 to 3.2 times, through course arrangement form stable frequency. Third, the capital is manifested, transforming the architectural heritage into cultural and educational capital. The annual reception of research groups in Jinyi Village has increased to 120 groups.

4.2.2 Intergenerational Feedback: the role construction of elderly volunteer teachers

Elderly group experience “students-ta-teachers-managers” four stage role transition, gold wing village 58 local teachers, 89% through 120 hours of standardized training certification, sha county 23% of retired party members and cadres into curriculum supervision, contribution per capita 482 hours of volunteer service, the mechanism to break the traditional aging “rely on narrative”, form knowledge feedback flow: old teachers original teaching material accounted for 64%, constantly optimize the iterative course. The turnover rate of teachers was only 8.7%, significantly lower than the 31% turnover rate of young volunteers. The organizational resilience was significantly strengthened. 72% of teachers reported “improved self-efficacy”, which reflected the value reconstruction of aging.

4.2.3 Cultural Identity: the embedding of local knowledge in curriculum design

The dual integration through the local characteristic culture embedding model, generating significant effects and effectively improving the participation stickiness (Fan et al., 2025; Lu et al., 2024). The attendance rate of courses with cultural elements reached 89%, and that of courses without cultural elements reached 61%. Students independently develop 12 categories of cultural derivatives, such as solar term ledger, dialect story collection, etc., and spontaneously innovate and spread. 56% of the students drive family members to participate in cultural reproduction activities to realize the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and emotion.

Table 4.2 Culture-Nested Model

Practical effect and social impact

5.1 Individual Level: the improved well-being of the elderly group

Through the practice of Leling schools in both places, it is found that the mental health improvement of the elderly students has achieved remarkable results. The questionnaire survey data showed that the overall satisfaction of the students with the school services reached more than 85%, among which 87.2% of the elderly said that “their happiness has improved significantly”, and 93.4% of the students thought that “their spiritual life is no longer empty”. An elderly student from Jinyi Village mentioned in the interview: “ I used to quarrel with my neighbors every day, but now I play waist drum and do handcrafts together. My heart is bright!”

In terms of rebuilding social capital, the school strengthens the sense of community belonging through the “co-association” mode. In the interview text, high-frequency words such as “family members will come to lectures” and “fewer disputes in the village” reflect the elderly group rebuilding social networks through joint learning and activities. The case of Yangyuan Village in Shaxian County shows that 80% of the students take the initiative to participate in the neighborhood mutual assistance, and the elderly volunteer team covers 30% of the mediation of family conflicts in the village. This process of transforming from an acquaintance society to a learning community effectively alleviates the loneliness and marginalization of the left-behind elderly.

5.2 Community Level: the synergistic effect of rural revitalization

Leling School shows its unique value in its cultural inheritance. Jinyi Village integrates Lin Yaohua’s “Golden Wing” family epic with local courses and develops “Folk Customs and Ancient Lecture”. Students spontaneously organized more than 300 old photos and 50 farming utensils, building the first village-level folk custom exhibition hall in eastern Fujian. Statistics show that the elderly who participated in intangible cultural heritage paper cutting and drama learning have 42% higher sense of community responsibility than other students, and the extravagance rate of red and white affairs in the village decreased by 68% year-on-year.

Environmental governance has formed a “silver hair ecosystem” effect. Forty-two elderly students from Jianghou Village, Fukou Town, Shaxian County, set up a “green classroom”, developed environmental enzyme technology, driving more than 600 households in the village to use kitchen waste to make fertilizer (Vo & Fong, 2025), and achieved zero use of chemical fertilizer in 25 mu of pilot rice fields. Through the mechanism of “student proposal- -branch claim”, a total of 47 health dead corners have been renovated and 3.2 kilometers of fitness trails have been built. Among the 96,000 yuan renovation fund donated by villagers, 82% are from the children of students in Leling School.

5.3 Policy Level: Sustainability challenges

Financial dependence presents pattern differences: in the Shaxian model, government investment accounted for 76.4% (2022 financial annual report), although the mechanism of “government purchase + expert introduction” guaranteed initial large-scale promotion, but the average cost of a single school is 85,000 yuan (including teacher training), financial sustainable pressure; the Jinyi model of social organization financing accounted for 58.2%, relying on the “Party branch + promotion association”, but there is a risk of “node supply break”, such as the interruption of corporate sponsorship in 2020 has led to the suspension of courses for 3 months.

Social organizations still face institutional barriers: according to two cases, 68% of non-profit organizations report that “multi-management” causes the limit of the approval period, and the social organization filing category lacks subdivision of “education service for the elderly”; “introduction of Taiwan teachers” faces the problem of cross-strait policies, and the maximum service time of Taiwan experts is only 90 days / year. There is a subsidy standard deviation in the 2019 Shaxian Leling Policy document and the 2020 Provincial Health System guidance, and social organizations need to meet the five types of assessment standards at the same time, resulting in an increase of 21% in operating costs.

Conclusion and revelation

6.1 Study Conclusion

Based on the qualitative analysis of two cases in Jinyi Village and Shaxian County, this study reveals the core logic and potential law of rural elderly education mode innovation. The main conclusions are as follows:

First, the efficiency of rural education for the elderly is deeply related to the “cultural embedding”. In the practice of the two places, the institutional supply cannot be directly transformed into the sense of educational gain (Xiaoxia, 2024). The key to the success of the real driving model lies in the transformation efficiency of the local knowledge system. By activating the “cultural capital”, Jinyi Village integrated 78% of the courses with local knowledge such as local ethics and farming skills, and the average annual retention rate of students reached 89%. Shaxian District built a cross-departmental cooperation network through system embedding, realized the whole coverage of 62 schools through policy pressure transmission, and the digital skills courses increased the utilization rate of smart phones for the elderly by 77%. This confirms Ostrom’s multiple governance theory: in an aging society, educational innovation needs to break through the linear logic of “resource input-effect output”, and instead focus on the adaptation of local cultural framework and governance network.

Second, the social reproduction function of educational space has become the key catalyst for community revitalization. Through the functional transformation of idle places (the transformation rate of ancestral temple and happiness courtyard is 82% and 87% respectively), the two places have realized the three-level reconstruction of “physical space-social relationship-cultural identity”. Data show that after the transformation, the utilization rate of teaching space increased from 19% to 76%, the average weekly social frequency of students increased to 3.2 times, and the cases of cultural capital transformed into economic value accounted for 34% (for example, the annual output value of Jinyi Village Enzyme Cooperative exceeded 250,000 yuan). This process not only verifies Lifebvre’s theory of “space production”, but also reveals the spillover effect of education for the elderly: when education space becomes the hub of community relationship reconstruction, it can simultaneously promote the iterative upgrading of cultural inheritance, environmental governance and grass-roots consultation ability.

Thirdly, the intergenerational feeding mechanism shapes the human foundation of sustainable development. The role transition of elderly volunteer teachers (student teaching assistant teacher manager) has become a key feature of the two places. In Shaxian County, 23% of retired Party members are transformed into course supervisors, and the annual service time is 482 hours / person, and the attrition rate of teachers is only 8.7% ; The original rate of local textbooks in Jinyi Village is 64%, and the self-efficacy score of elderly teachers is 41% higher than that of ordinary students. This shows that the elderly group is not the “object” to passively accept the service but can realize the value re-creation through the “knowledge feedback chain”. Its stability and innovation provide a new idea for solving the hollowing out of rural talents.

6.2 Implications for Sustainable Development

Based on the research discovery and dilemma analysis, this paper proposes the optimization path of the elderly education in rural China:

6.2.1 Construct the Triangular Coupling Mechanism of “Demand-Capital-Policy”

On the demand side, dynamic evaluation tools are designed to accurately identify the hidden needs through students, portraits, and to build a hierarchical supply system of basic courses plus characteristic modules (Dol et al., 2023; Liu, 2024a, 2024b). At the capital side, we will promote the social enterprise certification system, incorporate the education achievements for the elderly into the ESG evaluation framework, and guide enterprises to participate through the mode of resource donation-value sharing. At the end, it is suggested to revise the Development Plan for Education for the Elderly, which clearly includes the efficiency of local cultural transformation, such as the localization rate of courses and the cultural identity of students, into the assessment indicators of local governments for the aged.

6.2.2 Innovate the “Asset-Light” Sustainable Operation Paradigm

In view of the financial dependence dilemma, three types of lightweight strategies in Shaxian experience can be promoted: the first is the establishment of “government purchase service list” to achieve cost control through competitive consultation (Munodei & Sibindi, 2023) ; the second is the development of education service “time bank” to exchange medical and pension rights and stimulate continuous participation; the third is the development of cultural IP derivatives, such as Jinyi Village solar term account and Shaxian snack course package, to realize revenue feedback through the e-commerce platform.

6.2.3 Build a Grassroots Governance Interface of “System Flexibility”

It is suggested to set up ‘education policy pilot area for the elderly’ at the provincial level to implement three types of systems: firstly, simplify the filing procedures for non-profit organizations and add a special approval channel for ‘cultural and educational social services’; second, to set up special classes for cross-strait education cooperation to break the visa and practice barriers introduced by Taiwan teachers; third, to create ‘policy adaptation index’, dynamically evaluate the implementation deviation, and establish the feedback mechanism for central and local policy calibration.

6.2.4 Promote the Integration Mode of “Technology Empowerment + Cultural Innovation”

Drawing on the experience of “science and technology for the elderly”, develop dialect voice interaction course system (Guo, 2024; Yang & Lin, 2025); use blockchain technology to establish learning achievement certification system to realize cross-regional credit mutual recognition. At the same time, strengthen cultural innovation, embed local oral history in the curriculum design, and build virtual cultural communities through digital twin technology, so as to realize the digital inheritance of rural cultural genes under the background of aging. This path will not only help break the gap between urban and rural education resources but also provide China’s solutions for southern countries to cope with the aging crisis.