- 著者
-
佐藤 智子
- 出版者
- 日本教育行政学会
- 雑誌
- 日本教育行政学会年報 (ISSN:09198393)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.36, pp.176-192, 2010-10-01 (Released:2018-01-09)
The question is whether we should promote and practice adult education at public expense. This problem about the necessity of public adult education has been accounted for by the promotion of decentralization. We can assume two choices for putting the autonomy of citizens into practice. One is a view that we can reduce the responsibility for informal adult education because it is enough for them to learn on a voluntary basis. The other is an idea that it should be necessary for adults to have the opportunity for continuous or complementary education for the sake of democratic governance. Wide differences exist among individuals in educational achievements ; therefore, it is important for them to have enough chances to learn at any one given point in time. This paper examines empirically whether and how adult education has any possible effects for people's psychological involvement in politics as active citizenship, and then considers some policy proposals. A logistic regression analysis to confirm any effects of formal and informal education and non-formal lifelong learning on people's political engagements was made which especially focused on the degree of psychological involvement, which can be strongly affected by education. Dependent variables dealt with as cognitive variables of political engagement include the sense of political efficacy and political obligation. Independent variables are schooling, informal adult education and non-formal lifelong learning, with certain variables added about individual attribution and other social factors for control. The analysis is based on the integrated data of JGSS-2000 and JGSS-2001. The findings of this analysis are as follows : 1) The higher the level of schooling achievement, controlling for other demographic variables, the more they feel political efficacy and political obligation. 2) In addition, their experience of informal adult education courses and reading books have positive effects on psychological involvement in politics. 3) Political obligation is affected by people's participation in hobby groups and hobby-oriented educational courses besides belonging to voluntary groups. These findings demonstrate the relationship between psychological involvement in politics and participation in lifelong learning besides schooling. While the sense of political efficacy is enhanced with pragmatic and technical knowledge, the sense of political obligation is improved with academic knowledge and social networks based on various group activities. Therefore, policy proposals might be as follows : First, courses, including lectures on pragmatic and technical contents, should be instituted to lend intensive support to people who have not experienced higher education. Second, governments and public agencies should not only allow the market to provide multiple programs and courses of adult education but also to promote and support people's participation in informal educational courses and non-formal learning networks.