A Decade of Activities of the Japanese Association of Higher Education Research

Focusing on Its Organization and Knowledge

Abstract

　 It has been 10 years since the Japanese Association of Higher Education Research (JAHER) was established in 1997. There is no doubt that over this long period of time, JAHER has had a decisive impact on the study of higher education. Then what kind of “knowledge” did this Association accumulate, elaborate and legitimate in order to carry out the study of higher education as a discipline during these 10 years? How did it organize researchers, graduate students and administrators into an academic group? In this paper, I examine the activities and role of JAHER in these 10 years and present my findings as outlined below.

　 At the present time, the total number of the members of this Association has reached the 500 mark, and 60% of them are faculty members of universities and colleges. Since 2000, a number of Higher Education Centers have been established all over Japan and the number of members drawn from the teaching staff of these centers has increased remarkably. The number of young graduate members has also been increasing, but the percentage is still low. This means that systematizing the training young scholars in the study of higher education is still in the initial stages. Also the number of members drawn from the administrative staff of higher education institutions is increasing significantly. Members are not drawn from specific universities or sectors, but from a variety of institutions and from all over Japan. This Association does not have strong ties with the other two societies concerned with the study of higher education, but does have strong ties with other societies, especially the Japan Society of Educational Sociology and the Japan Society for the Study of Education. But on the basis of an analysis of the themes of presentations in conferences, I have been able to identify a functionally progression among societies in terms of classifying knowledge. This society has concentrated specifically on the field of “university evaluation.” From an analysis of the keywords in the titles of presentations at this Association’s conferences, not only the traditional research style, but also a problem-solving approach can be found. This means that not only an academic but also a practical orientation vis-avis research can be confirmed.