イギリスの大学ダンス教育に関するインタビュー調査 (original) (raw)

小学校英語の政策過程(1) : 外国語活動必修化をめぐる中教審関係部会の議論の分析

2019

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Foreign Language Activities (FLA), a primary English-teaching programme implemented in 2011, was formulated by the Central Council for Education (CCE) under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Previous work examined factors that promoted compulsory FLA, employing a macro framework, in which several socio-political factors (e.g., globalisation, public sentiment, and pressure from business leaders) contributed to the implementation of FLA. Although this framework can explain general trends in recent English-teaching reforms, however, it still remains unclear how FLA was chosen from many other possible options and embodied as a specific programme. To examine the formation process of the programme, this paper analyses the minutes of CCE and other subcommittees that discussed the implementation of FLA from 2004 to 2008 and reveals the factors affecting the decision-making process. The results thus show the following findings. First, the introduction of a mandatory English language programme was positively welcomed by most of the members of the Special Committee on Foreign Languages (SCFL), implying MEXT's 'entry control', under which supportive members were exclusively invited into the committee. Second, the School Curriculum Committee (SCC) members, unlike the SCFL members, did not always agree with the introduction, which created considerable conflicts within the committee. Third, both SCFL and SCC failed to reach consensus on other crucial issues, including curriculum design (e.g., whether it should be a formal subject), aims and goals, and instructors, complicating the policy process. Fourth, despite this tension, the introduction of the programme was finally acknowledged in 2008; this outcome can be attributed to MEXT's 'latent' initiative, which indirectly controlled the general direction by implicitly making a tentative proposal and reconciling different opinions within and across the committees.