2017 Volume 14 Pages 121-143
This article discusses the activities in “free schools” (unauthorized schools for
long-term absentee children) and the recent attempt of institutionalization of
free schools, and examines the pros and cons of such institutionalization, as
well as the mechanism of social exclusion / inclusion processes with free
schools.
The findings are as follows: regarding the mechanism of social exclusion / inclusion,
free schools, in the name of child-centered approach, attempts to flexibly
include non-attendee children, both as a place for learning and as a place
for approval, while those schools remain outside the regular school system. At
the same time, in current states, free schools do not provide regular school diplomas.
Also, children from low income households are often excluded from
these free schools.
As for the pros and cons of institutionalization, as reviewed in this article, the
supporters of free schools have actively been lobbying for a new bill to enforce
diversify of learning opportunities since 2015. Through reporting their personal
learning plans, non-attendee children will be offered regular school diplomas in
compulsory education as well as certain amount of public subsidy, regardless of
their age or nationality. Therefore, their citizenship regarding the right to enter
school (the right to learn) will be enhanced in its range and contents. However,
both the promoters and opponents of this bill are disregarding the risk of increase
in benefit gap for different social classes. Therefore, an emphasis on
measures to correct such gap will be important, when we discuss multiple-layers
of school inclusion.
The article suggests the potential of pluralistic social inclusion process, which
have been overlooked in the existing researches on transition or on social policy,
that is, the importance of “a place one can belong to (ibasho)” to guarantee
the right to rest and relativize the values of meritocracy.
