如果...我们真的想要通过教育促进社会流动?|经典瞬间(双语)

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如果…我们真的想要通过教育促进社会流动?

What if… we really wanted to further social mobility through education?

时间 Time: Oct 31, 2017 05:30-06:45pm

介绍 Intro:

Boosting social mobility has been the rallying cry for Left and Right of late, with education highlighted as key to opening up life chances.

近年来英国的左派和右派在选举时都一直大声疾呼促进社会流动,而教育在其中往往被重点关注,被看作是开启人生机遇的钥匙。

It’s a cause that’s generated reams of policy wonkery, as well as a far-reachingeducation reforms – most recently the drive to provide 'powerful knowledge’ forall in schools, through to the removal of the cap on university student numbers.

这就催生了大量的政策专家解读,也使得教育改革触手越来越远-最近在学校中疾呼为了所有人“强有力的知识”就是其中之一,它不再只是关注进入大学的学生数目。

But is any of this really going to bring about the meritocracy that many say weshould aspire to, and any time soon? What if we wanted quicker results?

但这些变革是否真的会带来精英管理?有许多人说我们应该期待这一天的到来。那么如果我们想要得到更快的结果呢?

Speakers:

  • Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Health     Sciences at the University of York; co-author, 'The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone'.

  • Lord David Willetts, the Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation

  • Diane Reay, Professor of Education at Cambridge University

  • James Croft, Chair of the Centre for Education Economics (CfEE)

  • Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director of the UCL Institute of Education (IOE)

讲者:

  • Kate Pickett,约克大学健康科学系流行病学教授;与人合著《The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone》

  • Lord David Willetts, 决议基金会执行主席

  • Diane Reay,剑桥大学教育学教授

  • James Croft, 教育经济中心主席

  • 主持人:Becky Francis教授,IOE院长

源自 source:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/events-pub/oct-2017/what-if-furthering-social-mobility-through-education

在开始阅读之前请注意:

这只是一个中国学生出于兴趣的翻译练习( 本次内容主要是对其中一场辩论嘉宾发言环节的诠释)。尽管得到了学院的许可,但绝非这一系列辩论内容的官方译本,且不保证翻译精准度,更像是带有个人色彩的解读。如果你想要知道原意,请以英文官网为准:http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/events-pub/oct-2017/what-if-furthering-social-mobility-through-education

Before you go, please notice:

This is just a Chinese student’s translation practice due to her own interest (the content will be about summarising speakers' viewpoints in one of the debates). Despite of permission from IOE, but this is not the official translation of the debates, nor a 100% correct translation to the original ideas. It is more like a personal interpretation. If you would like to know theoriginal ideas, please refer to: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/events-pub/oct-2017/what-if-furthering-social-mobility-through-education


我个人当然觉得这一小时22分钟14秒完全值得全部转录。但这样显然太长,而且对眼睛的负担也会很大。本篇推送我想先从UCL IOE的推特账户推送入手,分享一些这次激烈的辩论中精彩的瞬间。

Personally I would say the 82 minutes and 14 seconds all worth transcripts but the fact I am afraid it is too long and a bit too much for your eyes focusing on the small screen. So I would like to start with some captures from @IOE_London tweet account.

本文截图均源自推特,如有疏漏请以推特为准:https://twitter.com/IOE_London

The screenshots from tweet are chosen by the author of this article, all come from but not 100% sure if it includes all from : https://twitter.com/IOE_London


IOE院长Becky Francis教授在提到这次辩论主题的时候也顺带提到了自己的研究领域和最近参加英国慈善机构萨顿信托基金会峰会(Sutton Trust Summit)的经历。她尤其提到Steve Machin、Anna Vignoles和John Goldthorpe三位教授尽管意见不一,但在教育促进社会流动这项议题上基本达成一致意见:

教育系统本身不促进社会流动,学校也并不是为了补偿社会。

Professor Becky Francis:

.... Notably, while Professors Steve Machin, Anna Vignoles,

and John Goldthorpe, debated the existence or otherwise of minimal mobility on the margins, there was general agreement on their conclusive point

that in spite of the exceptions that we know about,

the education system doesn't promote social mobility and schools don't compensate for society.

Professor Kate Pickett

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/public-debates/kate-pickett

教师下意识地会对不同背景的学生可能会给不一样的评价

作为约克大学的教授兼畅销书作家,Kate Pickett教授一上来首先纠正了一个关于自己作品的小错误,那就是有二十多种语言译本甚至还催生了一部纪录片的作品——'The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone',其实是"ALMOST Everyone" 。

Professor Kate Pickett:

I will correct one thing.

The title of our book is 'Equality is Better for ALMOST Everyone'.

Not everyone.

Of course, the almost exception

are those most likely to want to block radical reform

that might change the way our society is.

So it is an important distinction.

随后,她开始将在过去这些年中各类研究都在不断告诉我们机会的不平等是不可以脱离开结果来看的。最不平等的社会有着社会流动性也最低。因此她认为这其中存在因果关系。我们在每个社会中看到的要成就某项事业所需的社会要素,如果从底部开始就做得没那么好,教育成就是社会和经济不平等造成的。这不是人的天赋和能力,而是社会结构导致的。

I've been struck over the past few years by a number of studies

that keep showing us that inequality of opportunity

cannot be divorced from inequality of outcome.

The most unequal societies

have the lowest social mobility.

If you want to live the American dream,

you need to go to Denmark.

That's where you're most likely to achieve it.

Correlation between low social mobility and high economic inequality

is very, very close.

We believe it is a causal relationship.

The social gradients in attainment we see within every society,

that those at the bottom of society do less well,

in terms of their educational achievement,

is something that is created by that social, economic inequality.

It is not to do with God given differences in people’s talent or abilities.

It's shaped by the structure of our societies.

想要实现美国梦,那你得去丹麦!

随后,她援引了诺贝尔经济学奖得主Jim Heckman的研究,将话题引到了儿童成长的不同环境,尤其是儿童在幼年时期父母如何对待儿童,比如儿童听到的对话等,都会对孩子未来发展产生影响。

Nobel prize winning economist, Jim Heckman,

has drawn our attention to the very very different environments

in which children grow up.

These either inculcate them to do well educationally or not.

He points to the difference in the number of words

that children from working class backgrounds hear

in their first few years

and the ways in which parents prime children to start to do well or not.

They set them on different trajectories from a really really early age.

随后她又提到了一个教育领域中的皮格马利翁效应,那就是当学生的作业是给外部人员批改的时候,批改者不知道学生的背景或具体情况,他们给出的分数普遍比对学生知根知底的教师要高。所以,教师可能根本没有意识到自己就在反映着社会的不平等。

And our education system has an impact as well.

There's a thing called the Pygmalion effect.

This is that if children's work is marked by graders

who do not know the social class or ethnicity

of the children they are marking,

they are given higher marks than if marked by their own teachers.

This shows us that teachers reflect the inequality of society.

They are products of the society they live in.

It's not a conscious bias.

紧接着她质疑了今天辩论的主题:

Do we want social mobility?

那就是当我们在说社会流动的时候到底是在说什么呢?教育为什么能够促进社会流动呢?我们是否真的希望每个人都通过社会流动的阶梯更进一层呢?我们的社会难道不是需要各行各业都被平等对待,从而才有多样化的各种贡献吗?至少在她看来,自己对社会作出的贡献比在做游乐场助理的妹妹要小。

Do we want social mobility?

We've been asked, what do we mean by it?

What can education do to create it?

I would question the very premise that we want social mobility

in the terms that it is normally understood.

Why do we want everybody to climb that social ladder

when our society needs a variety and diversity of contributions

that should be equally valued?

We reify particular intellectual skills

and we value them accordingly.

如果我们不重视每一个人在体力和智力上的贡献,那我们就是在浪费。

在她十分钟激情澎湃的讲说中,她还提到了写书的时候一定会面临的一个假设性问题,那就是会不断问自己这样一个问题:

要是我来主宰这个世界是不是会让它变得更好?

do you think the world would be a better place if you were in charge?

在她眼中,芬兰模式是英国未来应该努力的方向,英国政府取缔所有的私校,进行一场系统的变革。如果我们认为中学需要专业的科任教师但又不够多教师的话,为什么不能在一片区域内让几所学校共享专业的科任教师?

I would ban all private education.

I would outlaw private education entirely,

because of the way it perpetuates

the intergenerational inequality that we have in this country

to such extremes.

I would randomise allocation to secondary and primary schools

within localities.

And, obviously, I would get rid of student tuition fees.

I also think most primary school children enjoy their schools

and suffer a real transition when they go to secondary school.

while if you are from a stigmatised minority,

your feelings about that become much much more heightened

because you're in a much bigger environment.

We put secondary school pupils into large schools

because we think they need to be taught specialist subjects

by specialist teachers

so why not have teachers travel to local schools

and keep school size smaller.

Our curricula should be child-development based

and it should be evidence based.

It is neither of those things at the moment.

James Croft

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/public-debates/james-croft

相比前一位讲者的激情澎湃,第二位发言的James Croft显然温和得多。他认为不存在一个“速效药”,他认为经过三十多年的努力,英国社会通过系统设计已经在促进社会流动性上,尤其是高等教育方面取得了一定的成就。在援引了英美各项研究之后,他认为未来政府首先要在资金投入上多花心思。

What do we know and what can the government learn

about what policies and practices can make a difference?

First, funding.

Evidence from international cross-sections

and across US states

suggests that social mobility is going to be higher

when public education is better funded...

Likewise, similar research in the UK has shown that a £400 increase

in primary school funding per year, just over 10%,

can improve Key Stage 2 test scores by about 10% of standard deviation,

with considerably larger effects for schools serving poorer families.

So money matters.

And it matters more for disadvantaged pupils.

其次,他提到了选择机制的重要性,以及政府如何通过提供选择和信息,让相对背景普通的父母也能够鼓励孩子选择好学校。那么,政府就要提供给这些家长更准确、可信、充足的信息帮助家长选择。

我们知道相对处于劣势的家长在为孩子做选择时不那么雄心壮志

we know that parents of less-privileged backgrounds

make fewer ambitious choices

and their children are less likely to get into good schools

than more advantaged pupils.

We also know that parents respond to information about education quality

to positive effect for test score outcomes

but accurate, credible and sufficiently intelligible information on school quality is lacking.

在如何让年轻人获得更多的资本,他认为要先从证书开始:第一是重设国家课程的标准,国家课程应该是最低标准;第二是给课程留出足够多的广度和平衡,尤其是没有考试的课程和课外学习;第三是引进美国中学的证书或学位制度,确立课程的核心素养;第四是教学督导机制专业化,应该从研究出发关注课程的质量。

So how are we to capture young people's human capital value?

I begin to feel that changing our approach to general certification

would be a good place to start.

This would involve:

1 - Resetting the National Curriculum requirement to a minimum standard.

2 - Allowing space for genuine breadth and balance in the curriculum

and so for the non-examined curriculum, and extra-curricular learning.

3 - Introduce a US style secondary school basic certification,

or diploma, certifying functional skills and core curriculum competency

to be conferred on institutional authority, with appropriate safeguards.

4 - An approach to inspection based on robust professional dialogue

about curriculum quality on the basis of what we know from evidence.

Professor Diane Reay

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/public-debates/diane-reay

第三位开始发言的是剑桥大学教授Diane Reay。她一开场就质疑通过教育真的能够促进社会流动的真实性。她认为社会流动性强是因为工党政府在公共领域内的就业政策发生了变化,而试图通过教育去实现社会流动是看错了领域。

If we really want to further social mobility through education

we would be making a long-standing, much repeated mistake.

It's not just the wrong objective.

It's looking in the wrong area.

High social mobility between 1945 and the 1970s

was due to Labour governments investing in public sector employment.

Not because of education policies.

The question biased into the widespread myth

that the main barriers to social mobility

lie in a lack of aspiration

and insufficient work among the working classes.

And inadequate teaching in state schools.

The actual causes of low social mobility lie elsewhere,

in wider systematic inequalities, neo-liberal hegemony,

and the workings of free-market capitalism.

她和第一位发言的Kate持有类似的观点,那就是一个文明社会不是只靠精英就能运转的。从工人阶级的小孩里拔几个尖子,让他们成为医生、律师和教授并不是让社会流动性变强,还有很多很多工人阶级的小孩继续在从事体力劳动,所以政府要提供的教育不能忘掉这些大多数人,这个社会真正需要的是:不论性别、种族和阶级,所有孩子都能接受出色的、全面的教育。

I can say with certainty that social mobility is a flawed solution

to social ills and educational inequalities.

Moving a few of us working classes into the middle and upper classes

is primarily a means of recycling class inequality

rather than reducing it.

That should be the focus:

the vast social and economic inequalities in UK society.

Currently, we have an oligarchy of the wealthy and economically powerful.

In order to have a social democracy,

that's fairer both economically and in terms of distribution of power,

we need to radically change social structures.

Not just the social class of a few individuals.

The emphasis has always been on moving a small number of working class people,

high-achievers,

merely converting into doctors, barristers and professors,

a small number of working class people

who would otherwise remain in manual work.

Instead, we need to concentrate our resources and energy

on supporting and valuing

the much larger group of working class students and young people

who are left behind.

To provide an excellent, well-rounded education

for all children, regardless of gender, race and class.

在她眼中,当今这个时代精英主义已经逐渐销声匿迹。那么,教育本身就是目的,而不再是促进社会流动性的解决方案。孩子们接受教育不是因为他们要成为其他什么人,而是因为他们本身就是目的。

In austere, post-Brexit, neo-liberal times,

a strong sense of common interest and a conviction that society is not

the business of an elite alone

has largely disappeared.

Consequently, any vision of a fair and just society

needs to be much bolder and brighter

than one that sees social mobility as a solution.

As Tawney argued,

education should also be seen as an end in itself.

A space that people seek out.

Not that they may become something else,

but because they are what they are.

Lord David Willetts

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news-events/public-debates/lord-david-willets

第四位发言的David Willet爵士在开始论述自己的观点之前,先回应了之前Diane Reay教授的观点:

But I should just comment upon what Diane said.

I understand the point that Diane is making.

Indeed, if you look at the debate prompted 60s year ago

by Michael Young's 'The Rise of the Meritocracy’,

that itself was a concept about which he was ambivalent,

you will find one of the most humane reactions

in Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty, which he wrote a couple of years afterwards,

where he said market returns in which a pop singer earns more than a doctor

who earns more than a nurse,

are not moral judgements on people's relative worth

and a society where market returns

equalled all other rewards to status

and were taken as some judgement of moral worth,

would be one that he would find deeply unpalatable.

I understand at least some of what you're trying to say,

but I have to say, taking it to the position you reach,

you almost get a strange alliance of the far left and far right.

You don't want to change anything.

Because it could get quite close to saying people should stay where they are.

They shouldn't have the opportunity of moving on to something different.

Let's face it, setting aside one's exact views about the political system,

part of the deal in a modern society

is we want round pegs in round holes.

他认为不可以搁置“社会流动性”的讨论,因为仅靠市场是不够的,这会让人们生活在一个“静音”时代,原本可以做一些改变,实现对某个专业的抱负,但现在“留在这里也挺好的”。他希望所有最适合做某个行业的人,在现在的这个社会里,都有机会实现自己的职业理想。

他随后也提出了自己对目前各大高校都很在意的排名问题:

By and large, people that emerge from higher education seem to show higher levels of interest,

higher levels of social tolerance, for example,

and higher levels of political participation.

Giving everybody the opportunity of getting into university,

who could benefit from it, is very important.

It is, getting into university should not seem to be a reward for good A-levels.

And universities absolutely need to take account of people's future potential,

not just their prior achievement.

It would be great if

the newspapers that rank universities

didn't just automatically rank them by the prior attainment

of the people that they are recruiting.

在英国如果高校降低要求录取学生会对他们的排名有不好的影响,但在他看来其实大学不是被过去所定义的,而是要看它的毕业生未来能够做出什么贡献。所以在招生录取的时候,大学应该更全面地考察学生,尤其是学生的潜力。

随后他回应了Kate Pickett教授关于学费的观点,他认为如果没有了学费的限制,那么同时也会影响到大学的招生数量。

Now Kate, in passing, said we should obviously get rid of fees.

We could have the whole evening on getting rid of fees,

but if you get rid of fees and finance higher education another way,

you will be lucky if it's as progressive at financing higher education

by the more affluent graduates paying for its cost,

most of the alternatives are regressive compared to that.

One of the prizes you get from taking higher education out of public spending is you get rid of number controls.

Removal of number controls is one of the crucial factors

in broadening access to education.

Cuz the kids that miss out, when you have a rationing system,

are those from more disadvantaged backgrounds.

That's why more kids from disadvantaged backgrounds go to university

in England than in Scotland.

同时相比关注儿童早期教育的Kate Pickett教授,他觉得如果自己大权在握,比如多出几百亿的教育经费,一定会优先发展成人教育和高等教育。

In terms of the rigour of this debate,

I think a way of formulating it so we know what we're saying

is imagine you had £ x billion extra to spend on education.

What would you do with it?

Clearly there is not infinite resource.

I understand that there should be more resources than there is.

All policy and politics is ultimately about priorities,

about what you do with limited resource.

If someone gave me a check with £5 billion or whatever,

adult education would be one of my priorities.

A further expansion of higher education would be a priority.

以上就是我根据推特内容以及从Youbube视频的英文字幕转录出来的片段回顾,嘉宾与观众的问答环节将于明天推出。

These are the summary I made from the tweet and Youtube video transcripts, the Q&A will be posted tomorrow.


——最后开个脑洞——

你要是大权在握的教育部长,手里多个几百亿的教育经费,你要怎么花?

Let's we change a way to interpret this debate, these speakers are reminding us of this question: 

If you are in charge, if you have extra xx billion to spend on education,  how would you do with it?

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