著者

本田 由紀 堤 孝晃

出版者

政治経済学・経済史学会

雑誌

歴史と経済 (ISSN:13479660)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.56, no.3, pp.23-33, 2014-04-30

---

Since the 1970s, Japan's high-school system has been characterized by a lack of institutional diversity, or in other words by an oversupply of general studies programs and undersupply of vocational programs. This paper reexamines the social context of the 1970s policy shift and proposes an alternative to the dominant view that the striking decline of high-school vocational courses in the 1970s and '80s was the inevitable result of their dysfunctions. In the 1960s, Japan's educational policy-makers pursued the institutional diversification of high schools in response both to the high demand for trained manpower in developing industries and to the increase in the proportion of students advancing to high school. Around 1970, however, educational policy made an about-face, depreciating vocational programs and promoting the flexible and individualized approach of general coursework. One possible explanation for this abrupt change in policy is that just when the Japanese government was facing serious financial challenges following the oil shock in 1973, it was also confronted with the need to establish more and more high schools, especially in metropolitan areas which had seen significant population increases during the high-growth years of the '60s. The only way to reconcile these conflicting circumstances was to establish general studies programs, the construction and operation of which were far cheaper than those of vocational courses. Another possible factor was the demand for general-studies high schools by members of the upper and middle classes, including government officials, teachers and academics, who most highly valued the path to university and white-collar careers. These factors together served to counteract and overwhelm the demand for vocational education that persisted from small and medium-size enterprises and from families that expected their children to take stable jobs after graduating high school. The result was the establishment of vertical diversification among schools and among students within general courses and the steady decline of the relevance of high-school education to occupational training. This study suggests the need for a thorough reconsideration of Japan's high-school policies, both past and present.