Abstract
The laboratory of Educational Administration and Organization, Osaka University have produced the school guidebook for parents in a Suita municipal elementary school every year for these two years. It is the purpose of this guidebook to get parents to understand and get conscious of the school better by showing a variety of school and education information as easily as possible -what is the child's school like?-. Many graduate and undergraduate students researched, interviewed, collected writings and materials, and analize them in the school to complete the guidebook. It has dozen items of commentaries and advices-the way of various procedures, how the child's school life is, and what parents should do when they have some trouble for example-, the worksheet on which parents record their children's growth, and the holders for some different sorts of handouts distributed in the school. There has never been such case in Japan before, so this guidebook has some evaluations. Some say it will lead to have parents and teachers co-work and make efforts toward school improvement, diagnosing their school by themselves. Others say it is exceedingly unique as a conventional researcher's activity in university, including the changeover of the way of thinking. Schools in Japan today have many educational pathology, and parents and community feel discontended with public schools so much. And also, more and more people are getting to argue to make drastic reforms of schools themselves. But the most important thing today is to make sure of the actual state of public schools accurately, and to encourage them and stir up their confidence. This guidebook was produced and distributed as part of such our design. There seems to be various way in which researchers can play a part in making better cooperative relationship between school and community. But what is most important for researchers is the attitude of trying to commit themselves to one case, working together for a long time to the end. Accumulating such activities as much as possible leads to create a new methodology of "clinical approach" in educational administration, I guess.
