公共教育体制改革中的伦理问题

世界范围内的公共教育重建运动使公共教育体制发生了极大的变化。各国都制定了一系列市场化、民营化的措施改造传统的公共教育体制,试图重构国家与教育、政府与学校之间的关系。我国公共教育体制在改革中也出现了若干典型的市场化运作形式,不同程度地把教育与市场结合起来。然而这场改革带给教育的除了正面效应外,还有许多负面影响,从而引发一系列改革伦理问题。这些问题如不能妥善解决,就有可能限制我国教育改革的发展空间,甚至对我国社会的进程产生消极影响。深入理解教育活动的基本价值,准确把握教育改革的复杂性,才能最终提升教育改革的道德水准和改革决策的伦理质量。     

Levinas,Ethics and the People: A reply to Soyoung Lee and Paul Standish

Soyoung Lee and Paul Standish have criticised my article ‘Levinas: Ethics or Mystification?’ for misunderstanding and misrepresenting the phenomenological subtleties of Levinas's formulation of ethics. However, although their arguments are cogent and persuasive, I still cannot see how Levinas's ‘ethics of the Other’, regardless of its merits qua phenomenology or ethical philosophy, translates into the practical ethical and moral understanding that would transform people's everyday lives—which was the underlying theme of my original article. In this article, I shall develop this theme further with specific reference to the following difficulties, as I see them, relating to the practicality of Levinas's ethics: (1) it is unclear how ordinary people would gain an understanding of Levinas's ethical vision, or how, once gained, this understanding would change their behaviour; (2) the rejection of personal relations and attachments in favour of pre‐ontological abstractions and metaphorical images (as the ground for the possibility of ethical understanding) renders Levinas's ethical vision powerless to motivate individuals in their everyday lives; (3) conceived as a political project to transform society, Levinas's vision cannot be realised, not even in the commune; (4) the presumption that real human understanding can be gained through the study of Levinas, or any other philosopher, is a highly dubious one.     

Imaginative Engagement with Religious Diversity in Public School Classrooms

Helping students learn how to engage thoughtfully with religious diversity is a vital component of democratic citizenship. This article argues for the importance of such a curriculum and considers the challenges and potential inherent in fostering “imaginative engagement” with religion in public school classrooms. It first explores conceptual issues such as our capacity for empathic understanding and whether it is appropriate to use students as sources of “insider understanding” of religious perspectives. It then evaluates three common curricular choices for stirring the ethical imagination in students: role plays, field experiences, and the use of art and literature.     

教育人工智能伦理问题与伦理原则探讨

文章旨在揭示智能化时代的教育将面临哪些新的伦理问题,并在人工智能伦理和教育伦理的基础上,探讨教育人工智能的伦理原则。运用文献研究和逻辑推理方法,系统梳理了教育人工智能应用的特点和优势,及其可能引发的新的伦理问题:(1)角色层面,系统创建者、教师、学生和监测员等利益相关者将面临更加复杂的伦理困境;(2)技术层面,涉及自动化决策伦理问责、算法伦理和数据伦理等方面的问题;(3)社会层面,可能转变就业市场、改变人际关系和引发新的社会不公平。因此,需要对教育人工智能伦理问题的复杂性有充分的认识,同时需要遵循一般的人工智能伦理原则和教育伦理原则,其中,最核心的内容为二者之间的交集,具体包括:(1)福祉;(2)是非善恶;(3)公平正义;(4)人权和尊严;(5)自由自治;(6)责任和问责。     

Threats to the professional understanding of assessment error

A case study investigation was undertaken to identify threats to the professional understanding of assessment error which arise from accounts presented within the education press. Through a predominantly qualitative analysis of articles published in a leading education newspaper, during 2002 and 2003, it explored how assessment agencies in England were represented as responding to allegations of error. A number of threats to professional understanding were identified; in particular, the overarching threat that media reports may help to construct, and to maintain, a mythical image of assessment as a process which can and ought to be free from both measurement inaccuracy and human error. The results highlighted an underlying tension between the need to increase public understanding (of assessment error) and the need to retain public confidence (in our assessment systems). It was concluded that assessment agencies need to develop approaches to enhancing the public and professional understanding of assessment error, to counteract potentially misleading images from media reports.     

Extending participation in standard setting: an online judging proposal

In order for standard setting to retain public confidence, it will be argued there are two important requirements. One is that the judges’ allocation of students to performance bands would yield results broadly consistent with the expectation of the wider educational community. Secondly, in the absence of any change in educational performance, that the percentages in the corresponding bands should be stable over time. It is argued that the use of a small team of judges makes it more difficult to satisfy these conditions. However the cost and logistics of organizing a larger number of judges in the time-pressured atmosphere of public examining can lead to sub-optimal standard setting. Two parallel systems of awarding performance bands are empirically compared, one based on teams of six judges, the other based on a population of teachers. It is shown that the latter system gives more stable results over time for the same large student population. A proposal is outlined for extending participation in standard setting through the web-based presentation of materials and the capturing of cutscores from a population of teachers.     

教育政策伦理:一个新的研究领域

教育政策伦理是指国家政府部门为实现特定教育目标,在调节与分配有限教育利益资源的过程中所遵循的伦理价值原则.教育政策作为政府部门解决教育问题的重要手段,必须具备相应的伦理精神和道德关怀,这不仅是政府行为合道德性的需要,更是教育活动自身的内在伦理要求.一般来说,教育政策应该坚持公平,人本化与效率等基本伦理原则.     

In defence of anonymity: Rejoining the criticism

This article is a response to the growing criticisms of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) ethical guidelines on anonymity and pseudonymity as default positions for participants in qualitative educational research. It discusses and responds to those criticisms under four headings—illusion, impossibility and undesirability, access and quality—and extends the explication of difficulties to quantitative approaches using an example from value‐added effectiveness research. The article discusses potential flaws in the arguments made against anonymous and pseudonymous research, and presents some issues for the research community to take forward. Finally, some suggestions are offered for a modified code of practice regarding anonymity and pseudonymity, which attempts a more subtle capture of difficulties in the field and qualifies the existing rationale to take account of previously unconsidered technical concerns.     

Dare we know the nation? Considering the nexus of discursive leveraging and identity

The public history museum holds an inherent pedagogical purpose to define the nation through a history considered collectively supported by its citizenry. Widely acknowledged criticism often accompanies such exhibits and prompts calls for a more critical examination of the narratives advanced through the affirmed educational intent held by museums. How scholars are engaging the question of how – and even whether – history can succeed in interrogating the strategies utilized by the public history museum means reconsidering what role social education holds in advancing a critical sensibility about how nation is defined. This article offers a theoretical analysis that reviews the inherent nationalist purpose advanced by the public museum, and the tensions educators could face when seeking to better understand how it affirms a particular understanding of history and of the nation. This article suggests that social education needs to address its role to engage critically the complicity the public history museum holds in defining and guarding the nation, and in confronting the museum authority of history and exhibition practices.     

"公共性"视角下政府行政人员的角色定位

公共性是政府得以产生、运行的内在依据和合法性来源,是政府的根本属性。政府公共性决定了行政人员的“公共性”,行政人员在公共行政过程中只能扮演“公共人”的角色。为了确保政府行政人员的公共性,伦理化的行政制度安排,公开、规范化的公共行政过程以及全方位、多渠道的行政权力制约机制等都将是有效的路径选择。     

Lessons From Rental Cars: The Struggle to Create Seeing Communities

This article takes the ordinary workings of colorblindness—overlooking distinguishing factors and characteristics that mark what it is to be—and problematizes the impact of being blind to the human conditions students and families of color bring to the educational setting. Hicks argues that, even among actors committed to lessening its power, the negative tenets of colorblindness sneak into our practices and policies. Using Appiah and Gutmann's (1996) notion of "color consciousness"—a conception of noticing and learning from our inherent differences—Hicks posits how being conscious of difference not only enriches cross-cultural relationships, but opens spaces for deeper learning. He supports his argument by revisiting an experience of documenting a multicultural public school that successfully employs color-conscious pedagogical strategies. He closes by challenging theorists and practitioners to be intentional in creating conditions for consciousness to thrive in schools.     

Alternative schools and the crisis of education in developed countries

One of the growing concerns of educationists is the rigidity of traditional educational systems and their apparent inability to respond to social change, much less to stimulate it. Out of this concern with the inadaptation, in particular of schools, to contemporary demands, have come a number of different responses, from the theoretical to the concrete, both reformist and revolutionary.Prospects has given considerable space to discussion of the inadequacy of formal schooling in many parts of the world; deschooling, ‘conscientization’, alternative models have been discussed in theory and practice in the pages of the journal. The following article by Dwight Allen describes one type of response to disenchantment with formal school schooling, spontaneous and increasingly widespread, by the clients—pupils and parents—of the school system in one highly developed country. It could be argued that the very existence of ‘alternative’ schools indicates an economic system advanced and healthy enough to absorb the products of a ‘non-traditional’ school, and that therefore the experiences sketched below are irrelevant to developing countries. It seems to us, on the contrary, that the issues raised are fundamental, relating to the very concept of educational systems. The style of the article is not controversial, but the implication of its arguments is very much so: the system and the experiences described by the author, although they are set in a specific social and educational system, are none the less interesting as indicators, reference points, for highly centralized systems and even more so for all those systems which are in the process of moulding themselves in the likeness of one or the other model. We hope our readers will express their opinions and thus carry the discussion farther afield, into the developing world.     

Depicting Experiences

This paper argues that photography is a helpful tool in understanding the ways people experience the world. Five arguments are presented in order to support this statement, each built on the methodological idea that respondents are asked to take, or produce, their own pictures related to a particular phenomenon under investigation. The arguments are: new unconventional methods enhance educational inquiry; photos can serve as communication bridges between strangers; photography makes it easier to represent a situation; photos can be regarded as complex expressions of the photographer's relation to the world; finally, photos enhance the expressing of feelings. These arguments are further discussed in the context of outcomes of a study, which used photography to probe ecological understanding. It is concluded that a deliberate use of the methodology will enhance not only the way photos might be used in research but also enrich educational research aiming at capturing the way people experience and relate to the world surrounding them.     

Modernizing leadership through private participation: a marriage of inconvenience with public ethos?

What distinctive leadership changes does the private sector bring to the running of public sector educational services? This paper contributes to an understanding of the issues raised by this question by studying the senior management of a private company running services for an English local education authority. The paper explores evidence of modernizing leadership, as well as the extent to which a traditional public ethos is sustained or re‐interpreted within modernization. Analysis is based principally on interviews with senior management, but is also informed by the larger data set collected as part of the case study of this public‐private partnership. The paper suggests that modernizing leadership, as understood in terms of the dominant policy discourse, is not found in its pure form, but is modified by a continuing orientation to an older public ethos. A model is proposed—an adaptive public service model of leadership—which reflects the style of leadership forged by senior management. Issues, dangers, paradoxes, and contradictions inherent in the model and the practice it represents are highlighted. The model is not put forward as an ideal to follow, but as a means of highlighting the issues that arise where modernization and older ideals of public service encounter each other.     

混沌系统控制中正定矩阵的一种简单应用

基于稳定性理论,设计了超混沌Lorenze系统的同步方案,实现超混沌系统同结构同步。并理论证明所设计控制器能够使受控误差系统全局渐进稳定到同步误差系统的零点,表明该方案的可行性。数值仿真,所设计方案可以快速实现混沌同步,所设计方案具有有效性。     

The Media and Educational Testing: In Pursuit of the Truth or in Pursuit of a Good Story?

The measurement community needs to better understand how to interact with the media to effectively disseminate important findings from educational testing efforts. To this end, the current paper will review media coverage of educational testing and related issues and elaborate on areas of concern and opportunities for improved communication between measurement professionals and the media. Common misinterpretations of test results and measurement concepts will be discussed and suggestions for the clearer presentation and explanation of such information will be offered. Also, practical advice and strategies for handling different types of interactions with the media will be provided. The implications of focusing on this topic in the measurement profession and the inherent public value of this focus are highlighted throughout the paper.     

论伦理视角下社会主义和谐社会的构建

作为一种价值体系,和谐社会的构建已经从认识和理论层面推进到实践层面,因此,在实然和应然的层面解决好和谐社会构建中的伦理关照问题,是一个紧迫而又重大的现实课题。基于此,文章从公平正义、权益共享、共生共在的三个层面详细探讨了社会主义和谐社会构建中的伦理关照问题。     

Neuroscience and Education: Blind Spots in a Strange Relationship

This article—mainly referring to the situation in Germany—consists of three parts. In a first section the current presence of neurosciences in the public discourse will be described in order to illuminate the background which is relevant for contemporary educational thinking. The prefix ‘neuro‐’ is ubiquitous today and therefore concepts like ‘neuropedagogy’ or ‘neurodidactics’ seem to be in the mainstream of modern thinking. In the second part of the article the perspective changes from the public discourse to the disciplinary discourse; a brief excursus into developmental psychiatry, neuropsychology and modern psychoanalysis will be made in order to demonstrate how the results of neuroscientific research are integrated in their theoretical frameworks. These three disciplines have no difficulty in integrating neuroscientific findings because each of them possesses a systematic core composed of ‘native concepts’. In contrast to them, educational theory has much more difficulty with such integration, as will be shown in the third part of the essay. On the one hand, neuroscientific thinking seems to be able to dominate education rather easily and without great resistance, especially in the fields of early childhood education, instruction and learning—mainly by simplifying educational processes and by reducing the complexity of the educational task to a mere ‘relationship problem’. On the other hand, this attraction of neuroscience in education might be understood as the reflection of a theoretical deficit in educational theory itself, with the significance of affect and emotion not receiving proper attention.