2012 年 48 巻 p. 11-20
This paper examines the concept of “distance” in relation to correspondence education in adult and community education. In this paper, we focus the discussion on early days: using materials from IFEL, we focus on how policymakers and correspondence education actors are influenced by “distance” and how they define the non-simultaneous acts of teaching and learning on the basis of the “distance”. The findings of this analysis are as follows.
First, I have shown that those recognized as being at a “distance” in relation to correspondence education were perceived as having a “fatal disadvantage” or “intrinsic flaw”. Second, I have shown that those students were recognized as people for whom learning is difficult as well as being industrious. Third, I have shown that they presented a picture of the moral educator called “the correspondence student's father”. Fourth, I have shown that the discussion of their attempts to justify the “distance” failed.
As a result, I have clarified the structural problems of correspondence education in adult and community education. That is, in relation to correspondence education, the guarantee of freedom to teach and learning “distance” are at odds with one another: the problems can all be attributed to the independent education and autonomy of the learner.