On Educational Identity

In contemporary society, the identity did not disappear, but is redefined and constructed. Topic regarding identity becomes a little bit hot issue of academic circles. But the research on the relationship between identity question and education is then little and little. This is exactly what I want to try to discuss in the thesis. Studying educational problems from the perspective of "identity", we could focus on educational reality more closely and even construct theory more deeply. When anybody attends school and is educated, he is meanwhile constructing and understanding his identity continuously. In fact, people who are interested in education and bent on gaining diploma pursue status; giving credential to the people who have completed education, education essentially plays a part of bestowing status; the dynamics of educational development comes from its function of bestowing status; dominant class consents to credentialized education and pushes for helping it, exactly for credentialized education hides the function of maintaining social order and control.From the perspective of sociology of education, considering the phenomenon of credential society, focusing on the key concept of "educational identity", this thesis reveals the internal cause of people's acceptance of education, and afresh explores how to rightly fix the position of educational function. The text includes two main ideas: first, from the individual position, people receive their schooling in the interest of obtaining a diploma which symbolizes educational identity, because educational identity have got a important meaning in the arrangement of a social position of individual. People is placed in different social stratum according to different educational identity, and also lead to upward social mobility on account of the changing of their educational identity. People run after educational identity, substantially hoping to promote personal social economic status. Secondly, from the educational angle, bestowing identity and changing the social status of people is one of very important educational functions. Essentially, educational function of bestowing status is a kind of function that Influences people' s social mobility and social stratification. Education becomes a kind of new determinant of social stratification. Because of this, education extend and develop more rapidly. Compared with the education of Western nation, as a result of the cultural tradition and the social reality, the educational function of bestowing status in China swells more badly.Educational function of bestowing status contains certain rationality, because it is historically progressive that the social stratification of people is determined by their schooling and credential instead of their family origin. Social status based on education is more open than on heredity. But when people over-worship credential, still for diploma but "diploma", educational identity will restrict seriously the freedom of person and damage the dignity of person. When educational function of bestowing status excessively inflate, higher meaning of education will be distorted and lost. The relationship between educational identity and educational equity in actuality is always in contradiction and conflict: education not only "produce" out the new educational identity that changes original social status of individual, but also "reproduce" social status to continue duplicating original social relation; education helps people break through the barrier of social stratum, but itself has become a new shield of social stratification; education is beneficial to realize social equity, but intensify social inequality again.