Research On The Evolution Of Social Function Of China’s Higher Education Under The Scale Expansion

Since the large-scale enrollment expansion in 1999,China’s higher education has played an increasingly significant role in the society during the continuous scale expansion,and is facing the dilemma of function evolution,which limits the exertion of its social functions.A scientific understanding of the change in the social function of China’s higher education under the scale expansion is of epoch-making and strategic significance for the rational use of the social function of higher education and the realization of the high-quality development between China’s society and higher education in the universal access.Aiming at the evolution phenomenon of social function of higher education in China under the scale expansion since1999 and based on the social function theory of education,system theory and the stage theory of higher education development,this study focused on examining the characteristics of the evolution of social function of higher education,constructing a logical framework of the evolution,analyzing the positive and negative impacts of the evolution,predicting the direction of the evolution in the universal access,and providing suggestions for guiding the formation of a benign evolution,which tended to provide help for decision makers and researchers to carry out research and optimize the play of the social function.It appears that under the continuous scale expansion since 1999,the connotations of China’s higher education’s economic,political and cultural functions have been extended in depth and breadth,which indicates that the function results of higher education in the economic,political and cultural fields show two major evolution characteristics including internal deepening and external expanding,and gradually evolve from passively adapting to social needs in the past to actively leading social development.The evolution follows the "extensive type" logic of higher education system in the process of bearing function expectations,generating function actions and generating function results.Inside the system,scale expansion promotes the common effect of environment,components and structure of higher education system,expanding and optimizing its social function action;Outside the system,variables such as scale have promoted the coordination between higher education and social subsystems such as economy,politics and culture,and driven its social function to develop in an orderly direction.Under the joint action of internal and external factors,the social function of higher education forms a positive feedback effect,which tends to the direction of be deepening and expanding.The evolution has produced positive and negative impacts: it promotes the evolution of the higher education system and enhanced people’s willingness to receive higher education,but also continues the disharmony of the function results,leads to a conflict with the noumenon function of educating people,and causes a tendency to hinder social mobility under the "credential society".The social function of universal higher education will probably continue to show the evolution characteristics of internal deepening and external expansion,and further lead the social development in the direction of becoming the core support of economic transformation,continuously maintaining political stability and leading the promotion of national cultural soft power.The social function in different fields may also merge.In order to guide the social function of higher education to achieve a benign evolution and reduce the negative impact of the evolution,the study puts forward some suggestions,such as implementing the basic functional view of "educating people first",driving the logic of functional evolution from "extensive type" to " connotative type" and paying attention to the coordinated development of social functions.