著者

広田 照幸 Teruyuki HIROTA 日本大学 Nihon University

出版者

東洋館出版社

雑誌

教育社会学研究 = The journal of educational sociology (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.80, pp.7-22, 2007-05-31

---

Recently, there has been a great deal of talk about widening social disparities in Japan. A number of books have been published declaring that Japan is now on the threshold of being transformed into a "society of disparities."This paper discusses some of the methodological difficulties that must be taken into account when considering widening disparities between the haves and have-nots, seen from the standpoint of the sociological study of education. Firstly, the recently published works, with their declaration that social disparities are widening, are making an assertion about an uncertain future. The same point can be made about studies that examine the actual state of the social disparities on the basis of empirical data. This means, in other words, that any discussion of the effects of various current phenomena characterizing education on future social disparities always contain an element of uncertainty. Secondly, the extent to which social disparities are likely to grow in the future will be significantly affected by our current and future political choices. In determining, for example, the extent to which the ongoing process of globalization will transform economic and educational systems, it is utterly useless to make guesses based on simple forecasts. Rather, considering the combined effects of people's political choices and the social influence of experts at present and in the future, it is extremely difficult to predict the direction of change. Considering the foregoing factors, it is far from easy to carry out studies on how to reform the existing educational system and help alleviate the problems of inequalities that now beset the system, in ways that are acceptable to everybody. This paper calls attention to two crucial points. First, researchers studying the relationship between social inequality and education cannot remain indifferent to the question of political choices or choices among competing values. In other words, they must endeavor to analyze the issues of inequalities in education and formulate, on the basis of their analyses, concrete political visions or political programs. Another important point is that once the social disparities and their extent have been identified through academic investigations, it is necessary to call upon citizens, who have the competence to make political decisions, to decide whether they find the gaps acceptable or not. In order to make this possible, it is essential for school education to perform the function of helping children to develop the ability to make political decisions. And the question of what should be done to reinforce this function of school education needs to be studied in a sincere manner.

著者

吉田 美穂 Miho YOSHIDA 神奈川県立田奈高等学校 Kanagawa Prefectural Tana Senior High School

出版者

東洋館出版社

雑誌

教育社会学研究 = The journal of educational sociology (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.77, pp.47-67, 2005-11-15

---

The purpose of this study is to clarify the internal structure and dynamism of teachers' culture and its interactions with the outside world, by analyzing a survey of teachers' attitudes towards teaching evaluations by students, carried out for all public high school teachers in Kochi Prefecture in 2004. Previous studies in the field of educational sociology have pointed out the following properties of teachers as a group, which demonstrate an introverted and pro-status quo nature : exclusiveness, conservatism, nonintervention, and the prioritization of harmony with colleagues. On the other hand, some recent studies in the field of educational administration argue that collaboration between teachers can contribute to the improvement of schools. However these various properties are only described independently, and there has not been sufficient clarification of the relations among them within the reality of teachers as a group. For example, what is the relationship between collaboration and placing priority on harmony? Recent policies for educational reform have aimed at changing the conservative culture of teachers. Unless we have an adequate understanding of the internal structure and dynamism of teachers' culture, however, we cannot decide which strategy is better. There is a need to clarify its internal structure and dynamism. To elucidate the problem mentioned above, firstly, this paper presents the results of an attitude survey conducted by questionnaire targeting all teachers in public high schools in Kochi prefecture. The reason I chose Kochi is that it is one of Japan's most advanced prefectures in the area of teaching evaluations by students, which have been introduced during the past several years in Japan. Secondly, from these surveys, I extract six factors of school organizational culture by factors analysis, and search for causal relationships between these factors and teachers' attitudes towards teaching evaluation by multivariate analysis. Thirdly, based on these findings, I discuss the internal structure of teachers' culture. The paper reaches the following conclusions : (1) The organizational culture of a school has a greater effect on each teacher's awareness or attitudes toward educational reforms than their individual attributes. (2) Collaboration by teachers' groups needs to be divided into two properties : democratic collaboration and collaboration for improvement. (3) Democratic collaboration is the basis for collaboration for improvement, which make it possible for teachers to transform themselves; on the other hand, there is some possibility of it leading to exclusiveness, conservatism and nonintervention. (4) In order to foster collaboration for improvement on the basis of democratic collaboration, there is a need to escape from nonintervention through the building of friendly relationships and promotion of the redundancy of information, and to avoid conservatism and exclusiveness by the achievement of open management with adequate communications between administrators and ordinary teachers. (5) The properties of teachers as a group that have been mentioned in the past, such as exclusiveness, conservatism and nonintervention, should be understood within a variety of dimensions, based on the factors of organizational culture mentioned above, and on this basis, different appropriate strategies should be devised for solutions.

著者

久保田 真功 Makoto KUBOTA 広島大学大学院 Graduate School Hiroshima University

出版者

東洋館出版社

雑誌

教育社会学研究 = The journal of educational sociology (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.74, pp.249-268, 2004-05-20

---

This paper examines whether the coping behaviors of bullied children can provide effective alternatives to bullying. In addition, the coping behaviors of bullied children are considered to be attempts to modify the stigmatic labels given by gangs of bullies. The subjects are 625 pupils in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. The findings are as follows : (1) The majority of bullied children take actions to cope with bullying in some way, such as consulting with others or trying to solve things themselves. This result suggests that bullied children are not simply nonresistant and passive existence to bullying. (2) There is a close relationship between the coping behaviors of bullied children and the reasons why the bullying ends. This result suggests that the coping behaviors of bullied children can become an opportunity for putting an end to bullying. (3) The number of supporters of bullying and the kinds of bullying affect the duration of bullying, but the coping behaviors of bullied children do not affect the period of bullying. The coping behaviors of bullied children can become an opportunity to end bullying, but do not contribute to an early solution to bullying. These results show that even if bullied children attempt to modify the stigmatic labels given by gangs of bullies, the success or failure is not decided by their coping behaviors but rather by the reaction to these coping behaviors of the children in the area surrounding the bullying. This paper reconfirmed the importance of providing instruction to children in the area surrounding the bullying.

著者

安藤 理 Satoru ANDO 東京大学大学院 Graduate School University of Tokyo

出版者

東洋館出版社

雑誌

教育社会学研究 = The journal of educational sociology (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.79, pp.47-65, 2006-12-10

---

Studies in the sociology of education have not paid sufficient attention to the social effects of intergenerational academic background mobility. Intergenerational academic background mobility means the change between an individual's academic background and that of his/her father. This paper examines support for redistribution to clarify the effect. Using the integrated data of JGSS-2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, the author finds that college graduates whose fathers are also college graduates tend to not support redistribution compared to college graduates whose fathers are graduates from compulsory education alone. This means that intergenerational academic background mobility has a gap-widening effect. People who receive an advantage by the fact that their own fathers are college graduates tend to not support redistribution, implying that the gap will continuously expand. The policy implication of this paper is that as the percent of students pursuing higher education increases, people who tend to not support redistribution will also increase. It is possible, thus, that it will become more difficult for policy makers to implement redistribution policies.