教育中的民主概念：一种批判性考察

A Critical Survey of the Concept of Democracy in Education

促进教育的民主化被看做是现代教育变革的一项重要任务。教育民主化包涵非常丰富的内容，既包括教育机会的扩大和均等，也包括教育组织、或动和关系本身的民主化。在教育民主化理念的支配下，民主成为适用于支配学校事务的一项基本价值原则。然而，人们仔细审视民主概念在教育场域中的应用情况，也发现存在不少直得严肃讨论的具体问题。这些具体问题指向一个更为基本的问题：学校是一个可以”被民主化”的场所吗？本文提出，由于学校组织的教育性特征，诞生于政治领域中的民主原则并不能完全无条件地适用于教育场域；在教育事务的处理上，民主原则的应用应该考虑与教育性原则以及传统、权威、道德、自主性等诸多影响因素相协调，从而建构更为良好的教育关系或教育秩序，防止现代社会以一种单一的民主逻辑来改造学校，防止现代教育陷入”民主的迷思”。这可以看做是对我国教育学界一直以来所倡导的教育民主化理论的一个补充或修正。

Democratization of education has been recognized as a symbol of modernization of education as well as an important part of the process. Modernization of education has plentiful meanings， including expansion of education opportunities， equity， and democratization of educational organizations， educational activities and educational relations. Guided by the idea of democratization， the concept of democracy has gradually become a foundamental value which actually dominated school issues. However， when people reexamine concrete applications of democracy in education， they could find some dilemmas that need to be discussed carefully and in depth. All of these dilemmas point to a foundamental problem， that is “could schools be democratized places?” based on some cases and theoretical analyses， this paper concludes that the principles of a democracy couldn’t be applied to educational practice unconditionally， given the educative nature of school organization and the political origin of a democracy. It suggests that the application of democracy in education should assort with educativeness， tradition， authority， morality， autonomy and other educational elements， so as to build good education relationship or educational order. This suggestion could prevent school reform from being driven simply by democratic logic and modern education from being trapped into “the myth of democracy”.