谁之教育?何种公平?——美国社会教育公平问题审视

Whose Education?Which’s Equity?--The Current Situation of and Reflections on the Educational Equity in the U.S.

从世界范围来看,教育公平问题始终是困扰各国教育发展的现实难题,追求公平不仅关涉教育活动本身的发展理念与现实追求,同时也涉及一国的政治稳定、经济繁荣与社会进步,实现教育公平被视为现代国家推进教育高质量发展的应然之意。美国将教育公平问题视为当前最严峻的挑战之一,认为教育不公已经成为一种社会顽疾:受限于家庭成长环境上的差异,美国儿童在受教育氛围上表现出明显的阶层差异,同时这一差异已经渗透到儿童早期的学习行为和学业表现中;性别、种族与阶层等因素与学生享受的中学后教育存在深度关联,出身高社会阶层的学生占据着远超同龄人水准的教育资源;受教育程度较高的人群有着更高的经济收入和更低的失业率,然而不同群体在相同的受教育状况下获得的现实回报仍然存在差异,性别和种族等因素都会影响学生的就业性质和经济收入。总体上看,美国教育在形式公平和实质公平之间存在着裂痕,这一现象的本质是社会不公在教育领域内的投射,当一个社会本身陷入不公平的发展样态时,其教育公平的实现必定难以达到预期设想,那种希冀通过教育公平来建立一个公平社会的假设缺乏实践经验支撑。美国在教育公平问题上的经验与教训值得我们予以重视。

From a global perspective,the issue of education equity has always been a practical problem that plagues the development of education in all countries.The pursuit of equity not only concerns with the development idea and goal of educational activities,but also involves the political stability,economic prosperity and social progress of a country,and thus,the realization of educational equity is been regarded as an important responsibility of modern countries to promote the high quality of education.The United States regards the issue of educational equity as one of the most demanding challenges at present,and believes that educational injustice has become a chronic social disease that demonstrates especially in the following aspects.Limited by the differences in the family environment,American children suffer from obvious class differences in the education atmosphere,which has impacted on early childhood learning behavior and academic performance.Factors such as gender,race,and class are deeply rooted in the post-secondary education,and students from higher social classes possess far more educational resources than their peers at the same age.People with better education backgrounds have higher incomes and lower unemployment rates,but there are still gaps in the actual returns obtained by different groups with the same educational background.Factors such as gender and race will affect the type of students’employment and economic income.Overall,there is a rift between formal and substantial equity in American education.It is the projection of social injustice in the field of education.When a society falls into a development pattern which is unfair,it is bound to be difficult to achieve educational equity.The assumption to establish a fair society via education fairness lacks evidence from practice.The experience and lessons of the United States on the issue of education equity deserve our attention.