社会资本对美国少数民族参与高等教育的影响

On the Influence of Social Capital upon the Participation of American Ethnic Minority People in Higher Education

美国高等教育入学机会中存在明显的种族差异 ,白人的中学毕业生比黑人和西班牙裔的中学毕业生更容易进入大学。对于影响高等教育入学机会的因素 ,教育经济学集中研究家庭收入和政府财政支持对入学机会的影响 ,把高等教育看作一种投资来分析投资回报率、大学学位的收入等对学生入学选择的影响。本文以社会资本理论为框架 ,提出家庭内部及家庭与学校之间的社会关系和社会网所产生的资源 ,对美国少数民族学生高等教育入学机会产生显著影响。笔者以长期跟踪调查研究的美国两万多名学生为样本 ,运用因素分析法测定社会资本的各个指标 ,同时分别从学生和学校两个维度进行多层次分析。多层次分析结果表明 :在学生水平上 ,家庭的社会经济地位、中学的专业成绩和中学选修的课程对美国少数民族学生的高等教育入学机会产生显著影响。在学校方面 ,学校社会经济地位的平均水平、教会学校以及家庭的教育期望也深刻影响着美国少数民族学生的高等教育入学机会。

In the USA, there exists obvious ethnic inequality in the access to higher education. It is easier for those white graduates from secondary schools to enter university than the black and Hispanic graduates. As to the factors influencing the access to higher education, the educational economics concentrates on the influences of family income and government's financial support and analyzes the investment return and the income from the academic degrees by considering higher education as a kind of investment. Within the framework of social capital theory, the author believes that the inner relations in student's family, the social relations between family and school and the resources from the social network exert remarkable influences on the American ethnic minority students' access to higher education. On the basis of the long term investigation and study of more than 20,000 students, the author also adopts the method of factor analysis to test the indicators of social capital and makes a multilevel analysis from both students' level and school standard. The multilevel analysis has obtained the following conclusions: (1) As to students, the socioeconomic position of the family, the academic achievements at secondary school and the elective courses chosen at secondary school have exerted remarkable influences on the American ethnic minority students' access to higher education; and (2) As to school, the average level of a school's socioeconomic position, the Catholic private schools and parents' expectations have also had in depth effects on the American ethnic minority students' access to higher education.