A Study on Instructional Improvement and its Factors under Class Size Reduction in Primary School Level : Focusing on Implementation of the Policy in the Municipal Level
2007 Volume 49 Pages 83-98
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2007 Volume 49 Pages 83-98
The purpose of this paper is to consider how the municipal policy for class size reduction in primary school level effects the instructional improvement and what factors influence the progress. I would like to emphasize that municipality should be the subject to support the school's continual and developmental reform in terms of the instructional organization. But there has been few comparative analysis studies dealing with the implementation of the policy in the municipal level. And to attain my aim, I made both questionnaire survey and interviews in some cities in Fukushima prefecture. From the survey, I point out the situation of the instructional improvement at each school is different and uneven according to the extent of the variations of the activities. And these difference and unevenness are caused by not only at each school-level, but also at municipal level. And from the interviews, this paper clarifies the following things; 1) The city that assigns supervisors has a higher direction in its qualities and quantities for schools compared to the one without supervisors. 2) Municipality has been accumulating and developing knowledge. The ways include 1) accumulation of knowledge through practice analysis, 2) knowledge supply by supervisors' interactions, 3) development of knowledge through study groups, and 4) knowledge supply by prefecture. As a whole, some cities are very active in knowledge accumulation and development, but some are not. The study concludes that the differences of the activities for the instructional improvement at each school reflects three things. Namely, 1) whether or not the municipality has the administrative system showing professional leadership, 2) whether or not the municipality has the system to accumulate and develop professional and organizational knowledge, and 3) difference in aim concerning instructional improvement at municipal level.
