Japanese Solutions to the Equity and Efficiency Dilemma? Secondary Schools, Inequity and the Arrival of "Universal" Higher Education

Autor/in	Kariya, Takehiko
Titel	Japanese Solutions to the Equity and Efficiency Dilemma? Secondary Schools, Inequity and the Arrival of "Universal" Higher Education
Quelle	In: Oxford Review of Education, 37 (2011) 2, S.241-266 (26 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0305-4985
Schlagwörter	Higher Education; Equal Education; Educational Quality; Foreign Countries; Educational Policy; Efficiency; Secondary Education; Social Differences; Access to Education; Privatization; Japan + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Quality of education; Bildungsqualität; Ausland; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Effectiveness; Effektivität; Wirkungsgrad; Sekundarbereich; Sozialer Unterschied; Education; Access; Bildung; Zugang; Bildungszugang; Privatisation; Privatisierung
Abstract	Any moves towards substantive equality in education must negotiate the contradictions between equality and efficiency. Equality of education comes about through both the widening of opportunity and the maintenance of educational quality, but in the context of limited resources, educational policy rarely serves both ends simultaneously. Regardless of imperatives involved in making particular policy choices, if the resulting outcomes are either too visible or the system is deemed to be too rigid, social inequality emerges as an intractable, highly salient issue. The critical questions for research thus become: How do various approaches to negotiating this central tension differ? How does the choice of strategies produce different results across different education systems? To explore these questions, this paper examines the function and outcomes of educational differentiation in Japan, both at the secondary and tertiary levels, in relation to social inequality. Given that Japan entered an era of "universal" access to higher education ahead of other high-income countries, it presents an ideal case to reflect on policy choices currently being considered or implemented elsewhere. Through cross-sectional analyses of three cohorts of Japanese graduates, it reveals that social equality in accessing elite secondary and higher education institutions deteriorates as privatisation of education advances. It concludes that hierarchical structure of secondary and higher education institutions, when coupled with policies advancing privatisation and universalisation, result in negative or inconsequential effects on social equality. (Contains 9 notes, 1 figure, and 6 tables.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10