Educational justice, educational equality, educational balance, educational equity
Educational equity is a complex concept, and it is difficult to measure what is fair and unfair by some standard. In the pursuit of social basic values, some meanings of justice, equality, balance and fairness are very similar, so many people confuse educational justice, educational equality, educational balance and educational fairness. In order to explain the connotation of educational equity more clearly, it is necessary to discriminate these concepts.
I. Education Justice and Education Equity
Justice focuses on the "basic value orientation" of society and emphasizes its legitimacy; Fairness emphasizes the "same scale" of measurement standards, which obviously helps to prevent double standards or multiple standards in social treatment. This is the most important difference between justice and fairness. [1] "Justice" means "fairness and integrity, without favoritism"; "Fairness" means "being reasonable and not taking sides". Justice pays attention to people's value, embodies people's thoughts and values in all fields and levels of social life, pursues the harmonious relationship between personal interests and others' interests, pays attention to the "should be" level, and highlights idealized and idealized fairness. Fairness means that the same situation is treated equally and different situations are treated differently. Fairness, justice and just fairness aim to show that justice contains not only the value of justice, but also the measure of fairness. In addition, the principle of justice is unanimously agreed in the original state of fairness. Just as poetry as a metaphor "does not mean that the concepts of poetry and metaphor are the same" [2], fairness focuses on the balanced distribution of interests among individuals, and justice is based on the overall interests of society. Its essence is the reflection of certain interpersonal relationships, rights and obligations. What is fair must be fair, and what is fair is not necessarily fair.
In 1980s, educational justice was put forward as an important principle of educational ethics. At that time, the scope of educational justice was limited to teachers' educational and teaching behavior, and from a narrow perspective, educational justice was teacher justice. For example, Wang Zhengping said in the book "Educational Ethics": "Educational justice means that teachers should treat and evaluate all collaborators fairly and reasonably in educational activities; Treating and evaluating every student fairly and reasonably is the most basic requirement of educational justice. " [3] After 1990s, scholars have understood educational justice from a broader perspective, such as "In modern society, educational justice is not only the ethical rules of teachers' behavior, but also the basic ethical principles of the whole education. It is necessary not only to standardize teachers, but also to involve the entire educational field, especially the educational system and process. " [4] Therefore, educational justice has become a systematic and holistic concept, involving not only the content of educational means, but also the pursuit of educational purposes, which needs to be understood from the aspects of resource allocation, individual personalized all-round development and educational system. In recent years, there are more and more academic papers on educational equity, whether from the perspective of system construction or from the perspective of reasonable and fair resource allocation. There are both educational justice of government responsibility and educational justice of educational distribution right; Educational justice is both external and internal; There are both educational justice that freedom is supreme or absolute equality, and educational justice that seeks a balance between freedom and equality. These indicate that the connotation of educational justice is expanding, and it also means that the connotation of educational justice has undergone a substantial change, that is, from the category of personal virtue to the category of institutional ethics. [5]
The core of educational justice is the justice of education system, which guarantees everyone's right to education and enjoys the educational resources they deserve, so that individuals have the opportunity to develop themselves through education. Educational justice is a kind of fairness in the distribution of rights at the level of interaction between the state and the educated [6], seeking the public will of the education system at the expense of individual will. A just education system emphasizes the legitimacy of value orientation, which is a measure to ensure educational justice. It stipulates the dignity of individuals in educational activities, marks various rights of individuals in educational activities, and guarantees the equality of individual educational opportunities. A fair education system is based on the inviolability of everyone's basic rights and obligations through fair distribution, which embodies people's beautiful pursuit of education and then gets rid of all kinds of restrictions that constrain the development of education. Then, educational justice is manifested as justice, reality and collectivity in the value orientation of educational system, educational policy and educational norms. Educational justice is not only reflected in the value pursuit of the system, but also pays attention to the justice of individual development results. Man is a unique existence in nature, his unique personality lies in freedom, and the development of freedom is the development of his personality. Educational justice cannot be abandoned and sought in vain. Education is people's education, and people are individuals who grow and develop in education. Therefore, the fairness of educational activities as the generation and development of human beings lies in following the freedom of individual physical and mental development.
From the above analysis, we can draw the following conclusions: educational justice is the distribution relationship between people reflected by any member of society, especially according to the distribution of educational resources involved in the role, rights and obligations of individuals, which shows a reasonable and fair value orientation through appropriate adjustment of the education system. However, educational equity is related to the operational level of educational activities. It is an effective supplement to the educational system to follow the same standard, that is, equal treatment under the same conditions in educational reality and emphasize the "same scale" for measuring educational interests. Understand the difference between educational equity and educational equity, avoid replacing educational equity with educational equity, and don't treat educational equity as a problem of educational equity.
Second, education equality and education equity.
In ancient China, where the small-scale peasant economy dominated, the ideas of "equality" and "equality" had far-reaching influence, but Rousseau, a famous French thinker, really put forward the concept of equality. In his educational monograph "Emile", he expounded the idea that everyone is equal regardless of race, class, gender and poverty. "People of all identities are the same ... everyone's natural needs are the same. [7] The basic meaning of equality is equality, equivalence and unity, which is a factual judgment. According to Rousseau's view, equality includes two aspects: one is natural or physiological equality, which is caused by nature, such as equality in appearance, intelligence, personality, gender, race, figure and ability. It is impossible to pursue natural or physical equality, and it is impossible to conduct moral evaluation. Second, spiritual or political equality can also be said to be social equality, which is caused by human activities. Equality in education, wealth, dignity, rights and obligations belongs to optional equality and can also be evaluated morally. " Although both natural equality and social equality are related to interests ... However, natural equality is only a matter of interests ... Social equality is not only a matter of interests, but also a matter of rights. "[8] Equality is an extremely important value concept. Since ancient times, countless sages have regarded equality as the highest pursuit of mankind. However, the concept of equality in the present sense is based on opposing the privileges granted in advance by the traditional hierarchical society, and its formation is a historical progress. From the individual level, equality emphasizes that under certain social and historical conditions, individuals in different societies need to be in the same social position, enjoy the same social rights and interests, pay attention to the equality of rights and obligations, and pay attention to the independence and subjectivity of personality. From the social point of view, individuals constitute the whole society, and the existence of society cannot be separated from the existence of individuals. All members of society are equal in human nature, and their contribution and status are equal, which means that the basic contribution of individuals to society is essential, and if individuals are equal, human nature will be more equal. Equality is not only the idea, system and principle of equal rights, but also the idea, system and principle of fulfilling the same obligations when enjoying the same rights and interests in the process of communication.
The basic meaning of educational equality is clearly analyzed in the book Contemporary Pedagogy edited by Mr. Yuan Zhenguo, which mainly includes four aspects: First, people are the goal, and the ultimate goal of human education is the free and harmonious development of individuals. Only by respecting the basic human rights and free development of each individual can we conform to the principle of educational equality. Second, the principle of equal education rights. The so-called right to education here refers to the right to education, which is an equal right to education relative to the right to political and economic equality. Third, the principle of equal educational opportunities A good education system is to let everyone have equal opportunities for admission, equal treatment and equal opportunities for academic success in the process of education. The implementation of "compulsory education" is a legal supplement to the equal right of education, but only provides a guarantee for the equal education of individuals. Fourth, the principle of differential treatment, because the effect of education will be different due to the talents, opportunities and opportunities of the educated, and equal opportunities cannot be achieved mechanically, so to achieve educational equality, we must treat each individual differently, but the basic premise of the principle of differential treatment is that the most vulnerable people in the whole society get the greatest benefits. To put it simply, education equality is an important part of education democratization, which means that people are not limited by politics, economy, culture, nationality, belief, gender and region, and enjoy the same right to education in law and the same educational opportunities in fact. [9]
Educational equality is mainly a concept that reflects the objective facts of the relationship between subjects in educational activities, while educational equity is mainly a subjective concept, which is an evaluation made by people according to their own subjective experience on the factual situation of educational equality. [10] Educational equity and educational equality are two sides of the same question, and educational equality mainly emphasizes "how" and belongs to the actual state; Educational equity mainly emphasizes "should" and belongs to the state of existence. Education equality reflects objective facts or realistic existence; Educational equity is a value judgment of this objective fact or reality. Educational equality is the premise and core of educational equity, and it is also the carrier and means to realize educational equity. If we can't guarantee the equality of educational rights and opportunities, then we can't talk about educational equity. If educational equality is removed, educational equity will become a castle in the air. Educational equity is the realistic goal and eternal ideal pursued by educational development, the unity of educational equity and educational efficiency, and the effective guarantee for their mutual promotion and continuous improvement of educational development level. The key to educational fairness is the fairness of implementing educational principles, including the fairness of standards and requirements for receiving education, the fairness of standards and operating procedures for evaluating and selecting educatees, the fairness of educational methods and attitudes towards educatees, the fairness of conditions such as equipment and environment for engaging in education, the fairness of goals and results achieved by education, and the fairness of the promotion, degree and level of education to personal development and social development.
Third, education balance and education equity.
Equilibrium is the core concept of game theory, which refers to a stable state reached by the game. The discussion about equilibrium mainly focuses on the field of economics. Nowadays, the concept of balance has been implanted in the field of education, and the main focus of its research is the regional education balance in the compulsory education stage.
The essence of educational balance is to achieve equal treatment of all elements of educational activities such as educatees and educational institutions under the control of the principle of equality. Its most basic requirement is the equal distribution of public educational resources among educational groups, so as to realize the relative balance between educational supply and educational demand, and finally to realize people's control and use of educational resources. [1 1] Educational balance has multi-level connotations, and different angles and objects have different requirements for educational balance. From a personal point of view, educational balance is manifested in the equality of rights and opportunities of the educated. It needs to ensure that everyone has the same rights and obligations to receive education through laws and regulations, provide educational opportunities and conditions in relatively equal by relying on the formulation of relevant national education policies and the rational allocation of educational resources, and achieve relatively balanced educational effects and success opportunities with an objective and fair attitude and scientific and effective methods. In the view of schools and other educational institutions, educational balance refers to the reasonable and balanced allocation of educational resources between regions, between urban and rural areas, between schools and between educational levels; From the perspective of the whole social development, educational balance refers to the relative balance between the total amount and structure of labor force trained by various educational institutions and the needs of local economic and social development. With the requirement of balanced education, the disadvantaged groups in the field of education can also enjoy high-quality educational resources, thus changing their social status and social identity.
Education balance is put forward in view of the imbalance between supply and demand of education in reality, so it first means the balanced distribution of educational resources, including the distribution of total social resources to education, as well as the distribution of educational resources among all levels and types of education, schools at all levels and regions. Specifically, it includes the allocation balance of per capita education funds, school buildings, teaching and experimental instruments and equipment, and the "software" of education includes the allocation balance of teachers and school internal management. Generally speaking, the educational balance is mainly manifested in three aspects: pursuing a relatively balanced allocation of high-quality resources on the material level, thus providing the educated with educational opportunities and conditions in relatively equal and getting equal treatment and support in the process of schooling; At the institutional level, we should ensure the realization of equal right to education and equal opportunities for admission and schooling; Pay attention to the maximum development of each child's potential at the level of consciousness and provide them with the most suitable environment and conditions.
To some extent, the theory of balanced development of education is an important way to promote educational equity and democratization. [12] However, the balanced development of education is only a way to promote the development of education and provide quality education for the whole people. It is neither the goal of educational development nor the pursuit of educational value. The purpose of balanced development is to narrow the educational gap between urban and rural areas, regions, schools and classes, so as to improve the conditions for running schools and improve the quality of education.
In short, educational equity emphasizes justice, educational equality emphasizes objective facts, and educational balance pays attention to the balance of resource allocation. Educational equity includes the elements of value judgment and value choice. It is a normative concept, which integrates various internal and external factors of education, judges the actual situation of education and chooses educational strategies according to certain fairness principles. Educational equity not only includes the equity of the right to education, the equality of educational opportunities and the rational allocation of educational resources, but also reflects the differential equity in educational development. Educational fairness is not only a kind of institutional fairness, but also reflects the fairness of educational choice objects. Educational equity is a kind of value concept, which also reflects people's realistic state and ideal pursuit in the field of education.
(Author: College of Education Science, Yangtze Normal University, Fuling, Chongqing, 408 100)
References:
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[Note: This paper is one of the series of research results of the national social science fund project "Research on Education Equity and the Development of Ethnic Education in Wujiang River Basin" (project number 07XMZ030). ]