統合型一般教育の新しい試み : アメリカ・ポートランド州立大学の事例

Abstract

In this paper, I will report on an effort by a public university in the United States to construct a new model of general education. It is more than half a century since general education, with the idea of "liberal education" as the basis, became an integral part of higher education in the United States. However, the popularization of higher education, entailing "specialization, " has led a large number of American colleges and universities to undervalue general education. This report discusses the case of Portland State University, which, abandoning the prevailing distributional model of general education, has adopted a new program. The program that is named "University Studies" is composed of clusters of courses with an interdisciplinary thematic approach. It is designed to offer students integrated learning experiences which eventually enable them to acquire the appropriate attitudes and skills needed to pursue lifelong learning.