内卷化:一个跨学科理论话语的教育领域误用与反思

Involution:Misuse and Reflection on an Interdisciplinary Theoretical Discourse in the Field of Education

内卷化最初是由美国人类学家戈登·威泽在解释文化到达一定阶段后不能实现新发展只会内部不断复杂化的模式时提出的概念。这一概念后经格尔茨、杜赞奇等人的发展与再阐释,以及与经济学、政治学等各学科命题相结合,概念本身认识论层面的意义不断丰富,成为一种被广泛使用的理论话语。但是,当前国内研究者引入这一理论话语分析教育问题的时候,存在滥用和误用的问题。具体表现为:忽视了内卷化发生的制度环境、教育事业本身的工具性、教育追求的同质化倾向,缺乏针对概念的理性反思,批判性倾向鲜明。这种不恰当的引用无益于问题的分析,也会导致理论话语的无效。迈向理性的“教育内卷化”研究需要在他学科与我学科之间寻得共通的逻辑,在概念本义和理论泛化之间寻得适度的平衡,打通理论和实践之间的关节。

Involution was first put forward by American anthropologist Gordon Weiser when he explained that culture cannot achieve new development after reaching a certain stage but will only become more and more complex internally.After the development and reinterpretation of this concept by Clifford Geertz and Prasenjit Duara, and combined with the propositions of economics, political science and other disciplines, the significance of the epistemological level of the concept itself has been enriched and has become a widely used theoretical discourse.However, when domestic researchers introduce this theoretical discourse to analyze educational problems, there are problems of abuse and misuse, which are embodied in the following aspects: ignoring the institutional environment of involution, the instrumentality of education itself, the tendency of homogenization pursued by education, the lack of rational reflection on the concept, and the distinct tendency of criticism.This inappropriate quotation is not conducive to the analysis of problems but also leads to the invalidity of theoretical discourse.The study of “education involution” towards rationality warrants the need to seek common logic between education and other disciplines, to find an approach balance between the original meaning of the concept and the generalization of the theory, and to open up the joint between theory and practice.