成人參與繼續教育之社會結構障礙研究

The Study of Social Structural Barriers of Adult Participation in Continuing Education

教育機會增加，不足以擴大成人參與繼續教育的人口基礎。空中大學是專為我國成人所設立的，然而根據統計數字顯示，空大參與者大部分來自中上社經階級。因此，繼續教育領域中，有的團體之參與比例並不相當。低社經階級者為何不參與？為了社會的整體利益，避免團體間之差距繼續加大，這是值得重視的問題。本文的重要性，主要是它應用社會學理論研究成人參與繼續教育問題，取代以往多數研究所採用的心理學觀點。本研究假設低社經階級者參與繼續教育的障礙，固存於不均等的社會制度中，如社經背景和教育經驗，它們通常可決定個人參與繼續教育與否。為達此目的，研究者利用質的研究法，深入晤談「參與者」團體和「非參與者」團體兩樣本，所蒐集的個案資料，均經過錄音、傾聽、劃記和比較分析等步驟完成。為形成理論，復根據研究發現，將上述研究假設做適度修正。研究結果顯示，我國成人參與繼續教育有社會結構障礙存在；但也同時發現，以「心理學分析」解釋個人的參與行為，也是必要的。這些結論將有助於成人教育者訂定均等參與的策略。最後並提出具體建議。

Increasing educational chances may not bring the broadar segmants of the population of adult participation in continuing education. The Open Universty of R.O.C was especially established to serve the adults in Taiwan. However, the participants according to the statistics published by O.U. mostly came form upper-middle class, there was unrepresented group in continuing education. Why don't adults of lower class participate? For the benefit of whole society, this question deserves attention.The significance of this study is that a theoritcal paradigm from sociology was used to study the problem of participation instead of using a psychological one, which was mostly used in prior studies. This study hypothesizes the barriers to the participation of lower class in continuing education was built in the unequal socity where the socioeconomic status and educational experience determined one's participation. To this end, the most adequate method must be a qualitive study, which can treat the attitudes and beliefs properly. Nonstuctural interview method, therefore, was used to gather the data about two samples: the participant group and the nonparticipant one. The data was recorded, listened, coded and analyzed comparatively. To theorize, the findings has been used to amend the hypothesis. Although sociological analysis is correct in studying nonparticipants, the psychological one is necessary to explain participation patterns for any individual. These help to guide policy toward equating participation. Finally, the recommendations were discussed.