Vocational Education in Japanese High Schools and Students' Images of Ability : Study on Students in an Industrial High School

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  • 職業教育と能力アイデンティティの形成 : 工業高校を事例として
  • ショクギョウ キョウイク ト ノウリョク アイデンティティ ノ ケイセイ コウギョウ コウコウ オ ジレイ ト シテ

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Abstract

Secondary school systems maintain a distinction between academic and vocational education. In most countries, the objective of academic education is to prepare students for university, whereas vocational education prepares them for entry into labor markets. Many (educational) sociologists refer to this distinction as "tracking" that differentiates social/economic status. Particularly, they demonstrate that vocational education reduces chances to enter college, and that lower class children are more likely to be placed on a vocational track. However, some sociologists insist that this perspective overlooks the positive role of vocational education. And, varied studies aiming to understand the effects of vocational education have been conducted. Recently, difficulties have been observed among high school students in "transition from school to work" in Japan. Associated with this present situation, "occupational relevance in education" has been attracting attention in recent research. However, shouldn't most previous studies on vocational education have included abilities which are formed inside of school? Previous studies on the effects of vocational education seemed to lack this perspective. The aim of this study is to probe how students' images of occupational ability is formed based on quantitative investigations (data collected from 428 industrial high school students) conducted at two industrial high schools. More precisely, the correlation between self-awareness of occupational ability among students of an industrial high school and academic records of technical subject is investigated. The findings of this paper can be summarized as follows. From the research it was demonstrated that occupational abilities are divided into two categories i.e. "ability of manufacturing" and "ability of management", and "ability of manufacturing" is influenced by academic records of technical subjects. It can be inferred that specific ability or -"ability of manufacturing"- is developed inside industrial high schools.

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