Inequality in modern education: a world-system approach
A. A. Izgarskaya1, E. A. Gordeychik2
1Institute of Philosophy and Law, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
2Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: world system, global inequality, educational inequality, universalization of education, commercialization of education, informatization of education
Abstract
Introduction. The paper is devoted to the analysis of the problems of inequality in modern education from the standpoint of a world-system approach. The connection of educational inequality with the inequality of societies, in the structure of “core - semiperiphery - periphery”, is revealed on the basis of the characteristics of educational inequality and the strategy of overcoming inequality in education within the framework of the world-system paradigm of critical pedagogy. Methodology. As a theoretical and methodological basis of the study, the concept of the rise and decline of hegemony in the world system was used. Wallerstein, as well as the ideas of representatives of the world-system paradigm in comparative education and critical pedagogy (R. F. Arnova, M. M. Clements, T. Griffiths, L. Knezhevich, M. Demeter, K. T. Haines). On the basis of a world-system approach, the ideas about educational inequality by a number of representatives of comparative education were systematized, namely, the ideas of such authors as F. Altbach, M. Karnoya, E. Welcha, R. Flacha, H. Zinna, D. Macedo. Discussion. Changes in the education system of a society integrated into the world system through the specialization of its economy correspond to the specific transformations that the innovation propagated by the global hegemon causes in this society. As the world system expands, contradictions accumulate and centers capable of challenging the existing order in the struggle for equality of positions appear in the semi-peripheral area. The geopolitical opposition of the state to the order prevailing in the world system leads to qualitative changes in the education system of the society controlled by it. Conclusion. Values and the nature of relations in the education system correspond to the nature of the political regime and the level of inclusion of society in the world system. At the present stage, educational inequality reveals connections with the processes of universalization, commercialization, informatization of education, as well as with the problems of introducing the ideology of equality of “minorities” declared by the core into the cultures of peripheral societies. The results of the study can become a theoretical basis for the interpretation of the processes that cause educational inequality in modern Russia.
|
