高等教育机构的“麦当劳化”

Introduction:介绍
 

在后现代社会，各种服务变得越来越规范，快速，统一的。随着高等教育以及政治和经济环境的变化，传播高等教育机构被认为是商业化。它导致了机构内部各职能部门的麦当劳。在李泽尔的意见的基础上，麦当劳化可能带来危害社会。因此，李泽尔五大麦当劳化的重要组成部分将讨论以及原因，表现形式和高等教育机构的麦当劳化的结果。例如，速度和规模的追求，指标的绩效考核量化，该驱动器的结果和教师和学生在高等教育机构的非人性化都将在这篇文章进行分析。而在更高的教育机构和一些策略可以用来对付问题的麦当劳化的理性思考会被提出。According to George Ritzer, McDonaldisation is the transformation process from traditional thinking to rational thinking and scientific management. In the post-modern society, various kinds of services become more and more standardized, rapid and unified. Along with the spread of higher education and changes of political and economic environment, higher educational institutions are considered to be commercialized. And it leads to the McDonaldisation of each internal functional department in the institutions. On the basis of Ritzer’s opinion, the McDonaldisation may bring harm to the society. Therefore, the Ritzer’s five major components of McDonaldisation will be discussed as well as the reasons, manifestation and results of the McDonaldisation of higher educational institutions. For example, the pursuit of speed and scale, the quantification of indicators for performance appraisal, the drive for results and the dehumanization of teachers and students in higher educational institutions will all be analyzed in this essay. And the rational consideration on McDonaldisation of higher educational institutions and some strategies which can be used to deal with the problems will be proposed. 

 

Review of the literature:文献回顾
 

In the book <The McDonaldisation of Society>, George Ritzer brought up the concept of “McDonaldication” and made systematic demonstration. He regarded the phenomenon as the typical social and economic movement. (Ritzer, 1998) Ritzer also considered that McDonald’s could represent the landmark developments, but the process which might contribute the spread of McDonaldisation was taking possession of more and more social sectors and different regions of the world. (Ritzer, 1983) That is to say, although McDonaldisation can bring some benefits for the society, it also contains quite a number of costs and risks. To prove his points of view, Ritzer analyzed five major components of McDonaldisation. The first component is efficiency. The conditions of fast food industry, higher education and medical treatment were enumerated to explain it. In the McDonaldized systems, people simplify various kinds of processes, goods and services to realize the maximum efficiency. They even make the customers do the work which used to be done by their employees. The second component is Calculability. The McDonaldized systems emphasize the quantification, and they emphasize the quantity instead of the quality. The third component is predictability. It means that McDonaldized systems may emphasize the disciplines, systematization and conventions. Predictability can be realized in different ways. For example, McDonaldized institutions can copy the institutional framework, control the employees by text rules, stylize their employees’ behaviors and provide unified products. The forth component is control which also means the control through the substitution of non-human for human technology. At last, the irrationality of rationality is considered to be the fifth component of McDonaldisation. It means that McDonaldisation denies the basic humanity, the human reason, of the people who work within or are served by them. McDonaldisation is also a process which cannot be avoided. (Ritzer, 1983)#p#分页标题#e#

 

Findings:发现
 

McDonaldisation of higher educational institutions mainly refers to the tendency of high efficiency, accountability, predictability and controllability of higher educational institutions during their process of massification and modernization. (Quinn, 2000) According to Ritzer, higher education is one of the important fields of McDonaldisation. For example, higher educational institutions have to control their expenditure and increase efficiency under the pressure of general public, state laws and regulation in the USA. (Katherine, 1996) And different educational institutions have to compete with each other for sources of students. As a result, the relationship between McDonaldisation and higher educational institutions can be seen from two perspectives. On the one hand, elite education has been turned into popularized education. Higher educational institutions start to increase their enrollment on a large scale. Therefore, the number of students in these institutions is getting larger and larger. On the other hand, the relationship between teachers and students has been changed into the single relationship between labors and products. The students from higher educational institutions are considered to be short of creativity. More and more people are worry that they may become the marginal population of education. 

 

On the basis of above analysis, the major manifestations of higher educational institutions can be divided into four parts. Firstly, these institutions are paying more and more attention to the high efficiency. On the one hand, students with different ages, backgrounds and experiences will be divided into different classes in higher educational institutions. In order to increase the efficiency, the classes in some institutions are very big. Teachers can impart knowledge to a lot of students at the same time. However, the qualities of the lessons, the actual requirements and personality differences of students will be left in the basket. (Robin, 2002) On the other hand, the current college assessment emphasizes the scales, levels and amounts of the institutions. The institutions which are at the competitive disadvantages have less resources, fame and money for running schools. As higher education becomes more and more general due to the advocacy of rapid increase of population, equality of educational opportunity, development of human resource and increase of human capital, higher educational institutions choose to expand their scales to increase the efficiency. However, the quality of the sources of students may be declined due to the lack of resources, qualified teachers and hardware resources. Secondly, current higher educational institutions usually value the quantification of indicators for performance appraisal. In these institutions, the performances, scores and rankings are all calculable. In most cases, the curriculum is arranged on the basis of standard number of weeks and fixed periods. The quantized indicators are more emphasized than the appropriateness of the fixed arrangement. Another quantitative factor manifests as the investigation of the scientific research abilities. For example, in China, the teachers and students who publish more articles in relevant periodicals will be awarded. (Turner, 2003) On the contrary, their abilities in oral expression and communication will not be taken into consideration. Thirdly, the drive for results of higher educational institutions is one of the reflections of its McDonaldization too. Predictability is established on the basis of standardization process which has accurate details and regulations. Everybody must finish their work according to the model. When people applied this method to the management of higher educational institutions, the orders, formalization, systematization, regular patterns, persistence and operations will be emphasized. Therefore, many higher educational institutions may predict the results of the management measures before formulating them. This kind of management places extra emphasis on the evaluation indicators, economical and administrative means. Teachers and students are controlled and supervised strictly so that they have multiplicative working pressure. At last, McDonaldized higher educational institutions consider that dehumanization can make it easier for them to control things. Nowadays, advanced science and technology have been used all around these institutions. For example, the multi-media, computer and online courses have been widely used. And many courses and teaching materials can be acquired by means of television, videotape and computers and so on. Science and technology are changing the original interactive mode of education. (Matthew, 2008) In some higher educational institutions, teachers and students have less and less chances to see each other. Accordingly, the relationships between them become more and more alienated. What is more, students have to attend classes, do homework and take exams according to the preset procedures. It makes them feel that they are repeating the simple and mechanical works passively like robots. #p#分页标题#e#

 

It can be seen from the above discussions that some strategies are needed to be put forward to deal with the problems those caused by McDonaldisation of higher educational institutions. Firstly, it is necessary for the managers to upgrade their management philosophy. The qualities of the managers should be promoted a lot so that the harmonious development of education can be realized. In the special field of education, many things cannot be measured by indicators. For example, the morality, compassion, abilities of students, levels of teachers, qualities of scientific research and leadership skills of managers and so on cannot be measured simply. As a result, the unreasonable indicators which are set for high efficiency must be reappraised. Secondly, the diversified outlook on talents in the management of higher educational institutions should be developed. Different people have different abilities, interests and requirements. On the one hand it is significant for the educational institutions to care for people, put people at suitable posts, avoid weaknesses and advocate the diversified development. And it is also significant for them to provide personalized learning and working environment for students and teachers so that they can exert their maximal potential. For students, besides the compulsory courses, higher educational institutions should establish other courses to teach them the knowledge and skills those they may need in future. And students can be allowed to change their majors, choose the courses and teachers according to their interests and social needs. For teachers, higher educational institutions should respect their professional autonomy and allow them to choose the teaching materials and methods independently. On the other hand the scientific assessment of higher educational institutions on teachers and students play the guiding role in managements. Therefore the unified assessment and quantitative evaluation criterion should be changed as they are bad for the development of people. For students, their morality, knowledge, ability, psychological quality, physical fitness, behavior and living habits and so on should all be evaluated. For teachers, their paper presentation, professional ethics, scientific research ability, social service provision, team spirit and interpersonal relationship and so on should be comprehensively evaluated to improve their qualities. Thirdly, it is necessary to highlight the humanities properties in higher educational institutions. Managers can motivate the students’ and teachers’ enthusiasm by creating a united, harmonious and friendly group. It is also helpful for the managers to improve the design and construction of the cultural environment in their institutions. For example, the art sculptures, lawns and galleries can cultivate teachers’ and students’ sentiments.

 

Although the McDonaldisation may bring a lot of troubles for higher educational institutions, it cannot be denied altogether. McDonaldisation is a double-edged sword and its two-sidedness should not be ignored. (Thomas, 1998) Therefore, it is important for people to treat the McDonaldisation of higher educational institutions rationally. On the one hand, it should be noticed that there will be irrationality behind the rationality. The high efficiency, predictability, calculability and controllability which McDonaldisation reflects are the basic elements of the rational systems. However, the irrationality is also unavoidable in rational society. For example, McDonaldisation may cause a series of negative problems like poor efficiency, high cost, false kindness and dehumanization and so on. And all of these problems will impose restrictions on the development of McDonaldisation in return. For higher educational institutions, these problems will alert them to avoid the over-McDonaldisation. And then, the dispositional individuals and organizations can find out, create or apply more methods to evade over-McDonaldisation. On the other hand, it should be remembered that education cannot be completely copied. McDonaldisation includes many different implications. As a kind of globalization or a new perspective of local globalization, McDonaldisation can be copied. However, for the McDonaldisation of higher education institution, it cannot be copied as it is different from business or finance. It means that educational institutions can stick to their own philosophy, features and directions when copying or using the management styles and educational patterns of other institutions for reference. That is to say, higher educational institutions have independence and they should keep an appropriate distance with the society. As a result, the utilitarian and marketization of higher educational institutions can be avoided to a certain degree. And the over-McDonaldisation of them can be restricted. #p#分页标题#e#

 

Conclusion:总结
 

The McDonaldisation is an inevitable outcome of social development. It can bring enormous convenience and efficiency for people. However, it may also bring many potential risks. Products and services have been increasingly standardized because of McDonaldisation. Accordingly, the differences among different higher educational institutions become much smaller. As the senses of competition in the field of higher education are enhanced, the market demand should be taken into consideration. Higher educational institutions have to reduce the tendency of McDonaldisation and handle the problems in time just like the other companies in the world. 

References文献
 

Katherine, W. (1996). Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture. New York: W. W. Norton.

Matthew, E. (2008). “e-learning pedagogy in the primary school classroom: The McDonaldization of education.” Australian Journal of Teacher Education, pp. 29 – 54.

Quinn, B. (2000). The McDonaldization of Academic Libraries. College & Research Libraries.

Ritzer, G. (1998). McDonaldization Thesis: Exploration and Extensions. London: Sage.

Ritzer, G. (1983). “The McDonaldization of Society.” The Journal of American Culture, p. 100 – 107

Robin, W. (2002). The McDonaldization of higher education. Bergin & Garvey.

Thomas, W. (1998). Rationality and Irrationality: New Directions in Weberian Theory, Critiqne, and Research. Sociological Spectrum.

Turner, B. (2003). “McDonaldization: Linearity and Liquidity in Consumer Cultures.” American Behavioral Scientist, pp. 137 – 153