天赋、教育与国家:美国英才教育正当性争议

Gift,Education,and State:The Controversy over Gifted Education in the U.S.

在教育大规模普及的现代国家,仅面向少数才能者的英才教育以何种形式存在,既能获得充分支持以实现教育目标,又与教育体制与社会生态相融无碍,是拔尖创新人才培养的基础理论问题。英才教育既强化分配差异,又注重培养成效,驾驭此类问题需借助关于教育的政治哲学讨论。在美国,自然贵族论、国家功利主义、罗尔斯平等主义、新自由主义构成了讨论英才教育正当性的谱系。在分别解读不同政治哲学对天赋、教育与国家相关问题迥异的处理思路并揭示美国英才教育的生存空间后可以发现,美国英才教育呈现出“自然贵族”萎缩为优绩主义、罗尔斯平等主义和新自由主义共同约束国家功利主义、才能教育私事化等特征。

How to offer gifted education to an exclusive minority of gifted students in a massified nation-state education system,is the fundamental theoretical problem over the cultivation of top-notch innovative talents.Gifted education not only strengthens distribution differences,but also focuses on cultivation effectiveness,which is discussed from the perspective of political philosophy.In the U.S.,discussions over the justification of gifted education have encompassed Thomas Jefferson’s natural aristocracy theory,state utilitarianism,the Rawlsian egalitarianism,and neoliberalism.By interpreting these different political philosophies with regard to their distinct approaches to‘gift’as well as the relationship between education and the state,it reveals the living space of gifted education in the U.S..There’re such characteristics,including the shrinking of natural aristocracy into meritocracy,limited state utilitarianism constrained by both Rawlsian egalitarianism and neoliberalism,and the privatization of gifted education.