中學生次文化——反智主義乎？

Reconsidering the Anti-intellectualism of High School Students' Subculture

過去許多研究指出中學生有不重視學業的反智主義的傾向，也有許多研究持相反的看法。本文由研究方法與技術的觀點，檢討美國、英國、臺灣的各項研究之後，認為中 學生是否有反智主義固然可能因為地區、對象的不同而有差異，更重要的原因是各個研究所描述的文化偏向內在的理念或外顯行為，導致研究結果的不一致。臺灣的許多研究發現中學生相當肯定教育的價值，只顯示內在理念沒有反智主義。某些特殊的研究案例 顯示，許多中學生雖然認為教育很重要，卻預見自己己然命定的未來，在學校裡逃避學習、追求玩樂。這類成人所謂的反智的行為，其實是中學生對未來的無力感的一種反應。教育人員宜站在學生的觀點瞭解學生，才能避免誤解，並努力讓學生對未來懷抱希望，引導學生達成教育目的。

Some researchers argue that anti-intellectualism is a major theme of high school student subcultures. Others contend that high school students still confirm the value of learning and schooling. This article tries to analyze the rationale underlying the conflicting results in terms of methodologies and research techniques.. The author reviews past research and finds that the investigative targets of most survey research are focused on high school students’ expectations, attitudes, and values, that is, the pattern for behavior aspect of culture. But it seems that these researchers ignore students' behavior performance, that is, the pattern of behavior aspect of culture. If research focuses on either aspect of culture, the derived conclusions may be biased to some degree. In fact, a few researchers indicate that high school students may confirm the value of studying, while perform anti-studying behavior. From an etic perspective, educators and parents, or even researchers, may concern very much about studying. From an emic perspective, perspective of high school students, the students may not care what those adults think important. For them, it is very practical to play for fun and to escape from studying, once they think it is impossible to improve their academic achievement no matter how hard they try. It seems more appropriate to describe these high school students as pragmatists instead of anti-intellectualists. It is suggested that future research should investigate both students’ conceptual and behavioral aspects of culture. More importantly, if researchers find conflicting results between the two aspects, they should try to collect more data for more complete interpretation. Some other suggestions are proposed for future research and educators.