儿童承载着一个国家和民族未来的希望，如何让他们在健康、良好的环境下生活成长，是国家和社会应该高度重视的问题，尤其是那些失去家庭照顾、面临生活困境的儿童。2005年民政部救灾救济司和北京师范大学社会发展与公共政策研究所共同展开了建国以来首次对全国孤儿状况的摸底调查。调查结果显示：我国孤儿总数为57.3万，占全国人口的万分之4.43。其中农村户口的孤儿占总数的86.3％。农村孤儿群体是国家长期忽视的一个弱势群体，他们分散在广大农村地区的家庭之中，生活状态很少受到关注。本文主要采用文献法、政策分析和个案访谈法，首先描述儿童福利理论的定义和发展趋势，其次分析中国的儿童福利发展历程和中国现有的儿童保护政策和制度，再次在实地调查的基础上对孤儿群体的生活状态做描述和分析，对孤儿保护制度的作用和局限进行深入分析，并进一步探究这些问题的症结所在，为国家制定相关政策提供实证基础。本文的研究方法以实证调查为主，采用深度访谈的调查方式，通过在山东、河北、四川和新疆等13个省份农村的实地调查资料总结分析而得出结论。通过分析发现，五保供养、特困救助制度和低保制度未能发挥应有作用，十五部委联合下发的关于加强孤儿救助工作的意见的作用还未能充分显现，基层民政部门没有针对《意见》采取具体行动，民政部门救助政策实施力度不到位，医疗救助难以落实，教育救助难以到位，抚养家庭生活艰难。同时，我们发现，由于受到传统道德责任和思想的影响，亲属家庭抚养仍然发挥着重要的作用，甚至在短期内都不会改变，孤儿在亲属家庭内获得了基本的生活条件，基于亲属家庭的国家政策更能发挥作用。

Child is the future of the country, the country and the society should pay great attention to how to bring up children, especially the orphans. The first survey on orphans in whole china, conducted by ISDPP(Institute Of Social Development And Public policy) of Beijing Normal University and Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, indicate that there are 573 thousand orphans in china, 86.3％ of which is in rural area. Orphans in rural China form a social vulnerable group that the government ignored in long term. They live scattered in families in wide rural china. There are few people who pay close attention to the group.The goal of this thesis is to describe the sate of the group, to analyze shortcomings of the policies, and to make policy suggestions that how protect orphans in rural china. The thesis describes the tendency of child welfare in the world and the development of orphan policies in rural china; analyze the shortcomings of the policies and the reason based on on-the spot investigation, and make policy suggestions that how protect orphans in rural china.The main research approach of this thesis is on-the-spot investigation. The existing policies in rural china have not come into effect. The orphans’ economy condition is too bad.Otherwise, we found that the orphans’ relatives play a important role in orphans’ protecting, they satisfied the basic needs of the orphans. The policies based on the orphans’ relatives may come into effect much more effectively.