学校知識の編成に関する社会学的試論

M. ヤング「知識成層論」を越えて

抄録

M.F.D. Young, in his theory on knowledge stratification, has tried to grasp the inter-relationship between the organization of school knowledge and the social structure through making knowledge as an important problem to inquire, paying attention to the relation betweenthe learning in the school and the particular character of the knowledge. This theory is very remarkable for its theoretical framework which, from the stand point of control, relates cyclically the micro level of education such as success or failure of the children in their learning to the macro level of society such as economical-political structure and historical context. Young's theory based on phenomenological sociology of knowledge, which isunder the influence of Marxist theory and Weberian theory, is very suggestive. However, itis not enough to clarify the dynamic inter-relationship among the factors concerned in theorganization process of the knowledge, because of the negative attitude to the f unctionaist approach. And moreover, it lacks the critical view point which makes it possible to analyze the character of school knowledge, because of ignoring Manheim's sociology of knowledge.
This paper intends to formulate a theoretical framework for a sociological inquiry into the organization of school knowledge, through trying to overcome the incompleteness of Young's theory with keeping its important suggestions, reinstating the functional approach and Manheim's viewpoint which Young has turned down, and introducing the concept of “social dynamics”.
According to this framework, the factors of school knowledgeare divided into the following four categories that is, the action factor as the initiative and promotive function, the structure factor as the regulative function, the idea factoras the directing function, the situation factor as the inductive function, and the knowledge system factor as the conditioning function. We must give attention to the action factoroccupying the central position in the organization process of school knowledge as the initiative and promotive function, which is composed of the central authorities, local authorities, teacher class, and cultural elite. The focus of that process is how the above four elements, each of which has the definite social position, role, and capability, interact with one another for the formation of school knowledge.