2025年6月英语六级真题（第1套）

Nationally, one in six children miss 15 or more days of school in a year. Education officials have deplored all this missed instruction.

These chronically absent students suffer academically because of all the classroom instruction they miss out on. In 2015, the U.S. secretary of education responded to this crisis, urging communities to support every student to attend every day and be successful in school. His open letter stated that missing 10% of school days in a year for any reason—excused or unexcused—is a primary cause of low academic achievement.

Worrying about whether children attend school makes sense. After all, if students don't show up, teachers can't teach them.

But what if America's attendance crisis is about much more than students missing class? What if, instead, it is a reflection of family and community crises these students face—such as being ejected from the family apartment, fearing for their safety in their neighborhood or suffering an illness?

As social scientists we investigated how excused and unexcused absences relate to children's academic achievement.

We find that absences excused by a parent do little to harm children's learning. In fact, children with no unexcused absences—but 15 to 18 excused absences—have test scores equal to their peers who have no absences.

Meanwhile, the average child with even just one unexcused absence does much worse academically than peers with none.

We believe unexcused absence is a strong signal of the many challenges children and families face, including economic and medical hardships. Unexcused absences can be a powerful signal of how those out-of-school challenges affect children's academic progress.

Our evidence suggests unexcused absences are problematic, but for a different reason than people often think. Absence from school, and especially unexcused absence, matters mainly as a signal of many crises children and their families may be facing. It matters less as a cause of lower student achievement due to missed instruction.

How we choose to think of school absences matters for educational policy. School attendance policies typically hold schools and families accountable for the days children miss, regardless of whether they were excused or unexcused absences.

These policies assume that missing school for any reason harms children academically because they are missing classroom instruction. They also assume that schools will be able to effectively intervene by reducing student absences. We find neither to be the case.

As a result, these attendance policies end up disproportionately punishing families dealing with out-of-school crises in their lives and pressuring schools who serve them to get students to school more often.

We instead suggest using unexcused absence from school as a signal to channel resources to the children and families who need them most.

After earning a bachelor's degree, I was determined to do what I love. I headed straight to graduate school to pursue a doctorate.

For almost a decade, I told everyone I encountered that they should do the same. "Follow your passion," I counseled. "You can figure out the employment stuff later."

It wasn't until I began to research this widely accepted career advice that I understood how problematic it really was.

As a sociologist, I interviewed college students and professional workers to learn what it really meant to pursue their dreams, which I will refer to here as the passion principle. I was stunned by what I found out about this principle in the research for my new book.

Surveys show the American public has long held the passion principle in high regard as a career decision-making priority. And its popularity is even stronger among those facing job instability.

Advocates of the passion principle found it compelling because they believed that following one's passion can provide workers with both the motivation necessary to work hard and a place to find fulfillment.

Yet, what I found is that following one's passion does not necessarily lead to fulfillment, but is one of the most powerful cultural forces perpetuating overwork. I also found that promoting the pursuit of one's passion helps perpetuate social inequalities due to the fact that not everyone has the same economic resources to allow them to pursue their passion with ease.

While the passion principle is broadly popular, not everyone has the necessary resources to turn their passion into a stable, good-paying job. Passion-seekers from wealthy families are better able to wait until a job they are passionate about comes along without worrying about student loans in the meantime. They are also better situated to take unpaid internships to get their foot in the door while their parents pay their rent. And they often have access to parents' social networks to help them find jobs. Surveys revealed that working-class and first-generation college graduates, regardless of their career field, are more likely than their wealthier peers to end up in low-paying unskilled jobs when they pursue their passion.

Colleges, workplaces and career counselors who promote the "follow your passion" path for everyone, without leveling the playing field, help perpetuate socioeconomic inequalities among career aspirants.

It's not just well-off passion-seekers who benefit from the passion principle. Employers of passionate workers do, too. Potential employers showed greater interest in passionate applicants in part because they believed the applicants would work hard at their jobs without expecting an increase in pay. They even sacrifice a good salary, job stability and leisure time to work in a job they love.