傳統對五胡十六國的認知，多半是戰爭頻仍、群雄割據的動亂局面，而其文化在異族的統治下，也處於荒廢落後的狀態。本篇論文嘗試整理關於氏族前秦以及拓拔鮮卑由代國至北魏時期的載述，由各種政治紀錄中抽取其文化意涵，對這兩個曾在北中國稱霸之民族，接受漢化的政策、阻力與發展遲速等境況，進行全面的勘察與和比較，並重新省思其於歷史上的定位，從而證明：氏族很早就開始吸收漢文化，前秦符氏改革之深、成績之優越，在很長的時間裹都不遜於拓拔魏，兩者的評價所以會產生落差，一則受到政權及國祚的影響，同時也因於北朝史家的操作。

Traditionally, the understanding about the Period of Five Ethnic Minorities and Sixteen-state Time is frequent wars and the situation of turmoil, and governed by another race, their cultures must be neglected. The author of this thesis tries to reorganize the description about the Di ethnic group of Qian Qin as well as Tuoba xianbei from Dai Government till North Wei Dynasty. Sampling from various political records about their cultivation of culture, the author will investigate and compare the policies resistance and the speed of the development of these two races who have dominated northern China and wholly accepted Chinese culture and will reexamine their positions in history. By this way, we can prove the Di ethnic group accepted the Chinese culture from a very eary period and the excellence to reform about Fu Jian of Quia Qin is by no means inferior to Tuoba of North Wei. Why their evaluations meet with such great difference may be due to the influence of political power as well as the operation of historians of North Wei.