2022 Volume 48 Pages 82-99
This paper focuses on the professionality of schools and teachers regarding crisis management of schools in Japan.
In Japan, the series of serious events such as natural disasters and intrusions by suspicious persons since around 2000 prompted discussions on systematic crisis management of schools in terms of both policy and research. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology（MEXT）has promoted forming a framework for "crisis management in schools" and adopting a comprehensive set of policies. Simultaneously, interdisciplinary research has been accumulating in the academic community, as well as studies examining frameworks and methodologies for crisis management of schools. However, with the global epidemic of COVID-19 as a symbol, there is a growing awareness of the need to rebuild the crisis management framework and the supportive organizational/personnel conditions that are responsive to changes in the nature of the school crisis.
Based on the above concerns, the author examines Japanese policy discussions and research suggestions on the framework of crisis management, and also considers the prospects and challenges on the organizational capacity of schools and the competence and professionality of teachers, based on an overview of the characteristics of modern crises and crisis management of schools. The main findings of this paper are as follows.
1. In the academic community, along with progress in analyzing the characteristics of modern crises（acceleration of change/complexity including potential aspects）, examination of new school organizational management theories related to crisis management has been progressing. Based on the knowledge of High-Reliability Organization theory, etc., a series of studies is suggesting the importance of the organizational capacity of schools with organizational learning at the core. On the other hand, the conventional framework of crisis management in educational administration is also gradually changing to include problem-solving orientation.
2. Clarification of competence contents of faculty and staff regarding crisis management has been progressively promoted, centering on the policies and plans of MEXT. The administrative proposition tends to lean toward the broad and trivial aspects of school safety knowledge and/or skills and risk management awareness（It has weaknesses in the aspects of organizational capacity through organizational problem solving and crisis management）and lacks consistency with the new school organization that is drawing attention in terms of research and policy. Therefore, it can be pointed out that the current proposition of competence is not yet ripe for indicating the professionality of teachers in accordance with the future crisis management.
