Recent Trends and Issues Related to Articulation between Higher Education and Upper Secondary Education

Abstract

　 The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative survey of the eight papers concerned with articulation in this special issue entitled “Articulation between Higher Education and Upper Secondary Education.” Specifically, the paper will identify the problems, examine the underlying reasons for them, and discuss the educational policies that have been employed to deal with them as they have occurred in recent years in Japan, Europe, the U.S., and East Asia.

　 The most important issue in the articulation process linking higher education and upper secondary education is the selection of students. I locate the selection systems (admission systems) within the societies constituting the quadrants of a matrix formed by two axes: criteria (academic ability or non-academic skills) and organizational environment (higher education or late secondary education).

　 As a result of the comparison, it can be clearly stated that in every society, student selection systems have not worked sufficiently well recently as a result of the increase in the rate of advancement to higher education, and that various selection systems based on multi-dimensional criteria have been introduced. In terms of the articulation agenda, educational policies targeted at the articulation process not only at the selection stage, but also within the educational curricula of higher education and upper secondary education.

　 Furthermore, in Europe or in the U.S. the problem of articulation between higher education and upper secondary education has been treated as a problem of social inequality in the context of equal opportunity in education. As a result, given the emergence of articulation in educational curricula as an issue, a new research area focusing on social inequality in learning outcomes has developed, and I suggest in this paper that consideration should be given to this new research topic.