产业特征、社会结构与教育困境——经济社会学视角下美国职业教育改革分析

Industrial Characteristics,Social Structure and Educational Dilemma:Analysis of Contemporary American Vocational Education Reform from the Perspective of Economic Sociology

20世纪80年代以来,美国职业教育为提升质量、改善形象,采取了改变就业属性、构建贯通渠道、加强与劳动力市场的相关性等多项举措,但仍面临社会认可度低、经济回报相对有限、学生中断学业比例较高和企业参与积极性不高等诸多困难。这背后有经济、社会和教育三方面的原因。经济方面,去技能化的产业发展渊源和金融化的经济发展路径使得美国的产业对多数劳动者的知识技能要求不高,因而参与职业教育的积极性不足。社会方面,中等收入阶层萎缩、社会不平等加剧和阶级结构固化使得适合职业教育毕业生的工作岗位减少,职业教育的实际收益以及人们选择职业教育的意愿因而降低。教育方面,受制于基础教育的问题,高等职业教育的许多学生面临严重的学习困难,难以完成学业,在毕业后又背负起沉重的经济负担,进一步影响了职业教育的收益。三方面因素的相互作用共同带来了美国职业教育乃至社会变革的困境。

Since the 1980s,American vocational education has taken a variety of reform measures in a bid to improve its quality and image by changing its orientation toward employment,building articulation channels among different stages of education,and enhancing its labor market relevance.However,it still faces many difficulties,such as low social recognition,the relatively limited economic returns,high proportion of students interrupting their studies and the low enthusiasm of enterprises to get involved in vocational education.There are economic,social and educational reasons behind this.On the economic dimension,the low-skill dependence of industrial development and the financialized economic development make the competence requirements of American industries for most of the workers not very high,and hence they are not motivated to participate in vocational education.On the social dimension,the shrinking middle-income class,the rising social inequality,and the solidification of the class structure have reduced the number of jobs suitable for vocational education graduates,decreasing the actual benefits of vocational education and people's willingness to choose vocational education.On the educational dimension,due to the problems of basic education,many students in higher vocational education face serious difficulties in learning and completing their studies;they bear a heavy economic burden after graduation,which further affects the benefits of vocational education.The interaction of the three factors brings together the dilemma of American vocational education and even social changes.