著者

大田 直子

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.72, pp.21-36, 2003-05-25

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The recent educational reform in developed countries is not an isolated phenomenon. Education reform is pursued as a part of a broader reform, which attempts to transform the welfare state into a post welfare state. The term, New Public Management (NPM), seems to be a keyword here and is used by the OECD, IMF, WB, etc., as if it is a universal standard. However we should not overlook the fact that NPM was developed as a part of the strategies of the Quality Assurance State (QAS) that emerged from Thatcherism in the UK. The strategies of the QAS in the UK are hybrid. There are old-fashioned regulations, direct state interventions and funding system as well as NPM. It is dangerous to understand a whole reform in terms of NPM alone. It is also dangerous to ignore the historical and cultural as well as political and social contexts of the English situation from which the QAS was born. Under the QAS, the main features of reforms are the use of market mechanisms, standards and evaluations (especially evaluations of performance), and the State has the power to set them at the first place. However, if we look back at the facts in 1860s in England, we note that there are two useful examples of a quasi-market in education. One is so-called "Payment by results" in the Revised Code of 1862, at the level of compulsory education. The market mechanism there has two effects : maintaining educational standards and giving incentives for schools and teachers. Another example is the strategies adopted by the Headmaster Conference (HMC). In order to prevent state intervention, it introduced its own quality assurance mechanisms : external examinations held by universities, along with its own inspection system. Under the QAS, civil society also has opportunities to challenge the dominant discourses of standards and evaluation, because they are "open." In other words, the QAS is a state that questions the power of civil society.