北京市四、八年级学生课后补习的代价与收益

A Descriptive Analysis on After-school Tutoring in Beijing:Its Costs and Benefits

"补习"作为家庭为子女课后学习做出的安排,逐渐由个人行为演变为社会现象,并对公共教育产生了深远的影响。和国际上对补习教育的系统研究相比,我国大城市补习现象普遍但调查研究缺乏。针对北京市城区四、八年级课后"补习"的抽样调查说明,小学生课后兴趣班学习的比例高于初中生,但获得相对竞争优势是小学生和初中生课后补习的主要目的。家长对补习教育的热衷来自人类决策行为的缺陷。尽管只有初中生每周一次的数学补习显示了显著效果,但补习仍成为普遍现象,家庭平均每月花费千元用于补习。政策干预家庭补习行为虽然有一定空间,但政策在应对有深厚社会文化基础的家庭行为时有其自身的缺陷,期望以突变的方式更改公众选择不具备合理性。

Tutoring arranged by parents for their children＇s after-school learning becomes an increas- ingly popular phenomenon in China and has significant influence on public education. However, compared with the systematic research into after-school tutoring in other countries, there is scant investigation in such phenomenon in China where private tutoring is very popular in big cities. Based on a survey on the af- ter-school tutoring of fourth- and eighth-grade students in Beijing, this study found that （1） there were more primary school students attending interest-based after-school classes than junior high school students; but the main intention for after-school classes were to improve children＇s competitiveness; （2） the popularity of after-school tutoring showed the defect in decision making among parents. Although im- provement was only found among junior high students who attended after-school math classes once per week, after-school tutoring was popular and cost each family more than one thousand yuan per month on average. Even though public policy could play a role in interfering the after-school tutoring, it has disad- vantage in coping with family behaviors deeply rooted in the social traditions. It is unreasonable to expect to change parents~ behaviors in a sudden way.