著者

菊地 栄治

出版者

日本教育社会学会

雑誌

教育社会学研究 (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, pp.136-150, 1986-10-15

被引用文献数

9

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Some complicated factors are causing many Japan's high schools to homogenize classroom composition. Under the circumstances, tracking is regarded as one of the most useful concepts. Having widened its range of application, tracking remains to be used as a "metaphor". Thus, this paper has three interrelated matters as follows. First of all, the conceptual refinement of "tracking" and "differentiation" leads us to redefine the former as a sub-category of the latter. Then, many kinds of tracking can be understood in light of some "anatomical" features, which are comprised of criteria of selection, locus of decision-making, scope, visibility, and so forth. Secondly, the intervening processes are examined. Tracking is followed by two different processes before and after track placement. Each of them is summarized as anticipatory socialization and sequences of some tracks, and as differential distribution of three major "resources" ......instruction, peers, and label (expectation). Finally, what we call "grass-roots" research is conducted. Using intensive data from two high schools, we examine the differentiation processes of educational expectations. Our findings suggest that institutionalized internal tracking per se (eg. "banding" in "A" High School) can be operated as a "sorting machine", and that such a function is fulfilled mainly through the differential distribution of various "resources", although not automatically caused. Hereafter, an attempt to grasp the dynamics of tracking-construction could help us to have a proper understanding of such a practice.