2017 Volume 13 Pages 144-154
Shigeru Nakayama was the person who continued to have an interest in higher education research as a historian of science. There were two reasons why he focused on a university. One was the attention to a university as a habitat of science. He tried to develop the history of science from the history of scientific theory to the social history of science, by the historical studies of higher education as a clue. Another was his experience of severe educational training and competitive principle in the American graduate school. His framework of research was the institutionalization process of science, based on the paradigm theory by Thomas Kuhn, in which Nakayama put the university as an intermediate structure between science and society. As his major outcomes, following books and papers were overviewed: The Impact of Modern Science upon Universities, Birth of the Imperial University in Japan, University and American Society, Struggle and Reform in University, Between Positivism and Non-positivism Learnings, and University Science and Technology Reforms since 1990. He succeeded generally in establishing the social history of science in Japan, and for the university studies, discussed hot topics such as campus dispute, university reform, and education and testing.
