高校の個性化・多様化政策と生徒の進路意識の変容-新たな選抜・配分メカニズムの誕生-  [in Japanese] The Educational Reform Movement and Changes in the Career Path Consciousness ofStudents in Japanese Senior High Schools: The Emergence of New Selection andDistribution Mechanisms  [in Japanese]

The objective of this paper is to explore changes in selection and distribution mechanisms, using data collected through questionnaire surveys conducted in two prefectures in 1997 and 1999. Many studies have pointed out that Japanese senior high schools have functioned as mechanisms for selecting and distributing students according to their academic achievements, measured by single criterion. Under these circumstances, the current educational reform movement, which emphasizes diversification and individualization in upper secondary education, aims at the following four objectives : (1) to provide students with a wide range of options, enabling them to study in accordance with their interests, concerns and career paths, in order to diversify the criterions on which their judgements of school quality are based ; (2) to diversify the content of education in accordance with students' interests, concerns and career paths in order to enhance their incentives to study ; (3) to recommend that student determine their career paths in accordance with their own interests and concerns, lest their post-school plans should be determined by "school rankings" ; and (4) to eliminate evaluations that vertically rank post-school plans or occupational careers. While this educational reform movement raises many questions which must be scrutinized, among them, great importance must be placed on evaluating its influence upon the selection and distribution functions of senior high school education. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore whether senior high school students experience the reorganized schooling irrespective of their school rankings and how the reorganization affects their attitudes toward studying and their post-school plans. The major findings are as follows : (1) it is the students attending lower-middle-ranking and low-ranking schools who are most influenced by the recent reorganization and reform of secondary schooling ; (2) the reorganized schooling at the lower-middle-ranking and lower-ranking schools or courses provides students with satisfying learning experiences ; and (3) while recent curricular changes at upper-ranking and upper-middle-ranking schools or courses seem to enhance the aspirations of their students, those at lower-middle-ranking and lower-ranking schools lower them. This paper hypothesizes that these changes imply the emergence of segregated selection and distribution mechanisms which are characterized by the institutionalization of a "Cooling-Out" mechanism in the public educational system.