试论作为“国家工程”的价值观教育

Values Education as National Project

自20世纪80年代以来,美、英、澳等西方国家开始以"国家工程"的思路,有目的、有计划、有组织、有策略地在基础教育领域推进价值观教育。在全球化时代,这种做法对培育年轻一代的国族认同十分必要,也充分体现了现代社会理性主义的文化精神。不过,当价值观教育沿着这种自上而下、行政主导的路径走向极端时,就有可能被工具理性所绑架,将"价值引导"异化为"价值操控",成为贯彻国家意志的庞大机器。戒于多元主义者与后结构主义者的批判,英、澳等国在推行价值观教育的过程中较为谨慎地拿捏国家化与工程化的火候,为非主流价值留出生存空间,也为自下而上的价值建构辟开道路。

Since the 1980s,values education in Western countries,such as the US,the UK and Australia has been promoted as national project with purpose and plan in an organized and systematic manner in the field of basic education.In the era of globalization,this is supposed to be the key to constructing national identity of the young generation,and the reflection of the cultural spirit of rationalism in modern society.However,if values education goes to the extremes due to following the top-down and administration-dominated approach,it is likely to be “kidnapped”by instrumentalism and may distort “values guid-ance”into “values manipulation”,which may make values education powerful “machine”to implement the nation’s will.Given the criticism from multiplism and post-constructionism,countries such as the UK and Australia carefully control the level of being a national project,leaving space for values outside main stream and opening path for bottom-up value construction.