<論文>現代日本における「欧米型」フリースクールの変容に関する社会学的考察 : 京都市における事例Zをとおして

Abstract

Free schools in Japan have been regarded as "alternative schools" of the existing public education system since the 1980s. According to the reference literature in the field of sociology, free schools in Japan are classified into two types: 1) Western type and 2) Japanese type. Sociologists generally believe that the Western type is superior to the Japanese one, because the former's potentiality can reform the current education system by abolishing the hierarchy between teachers and students. In contrast, the latter is regarded only as a supplement of power of the oppressive public education system in the sense that it always accepts "futoko" children (students who refuse to affend school) and seems to be conservative. However, these arguments have completely overlooked how the Western type of free schools has been so far changed to Japanese contexts. Therefore, through participation-observation and interviews in a free school in Kyoto City, this study examines the changing process of the Western-type free school. The survey objective is to reconsider the possibility and limitation of free schools in Japan as an alternative of the existing standardized public education system. This results suggest that Western-type free schools have gradually declined, because Japanese society has not actually accepted the strong faith of teachers and students in reforming the Japanese education system. Moreover, another reason is that the Japanese government has begun to support Japanese-type free schools financially and politically since the number of "futoko" children started to increase in the early 1990s.