In Japan, adult learning has been considered the most distant from higher education. One of the reasons for this notion was that adult learning was viewed as mere leisure learning for the elderly people with extra time. However, a major reason was identified from the perspective of institution of higher education. Universities and other institutions of higher education in Japan have traditionally lacked the structure and function to fully meet the learning needs of such adults. From an international perspective, traditional institutions of higher education in Japan were extremely closed systems for adult learners. In recent years, however, the view of society about adult or lifelong learning has changed in various ways. In addition, the socioeconomic and technological environment surrounding institutions of higher education has significantly changed. Notably, Japanese higher education, which was traditionally closed to adult learners, is becoming increasingly open to adult learners. Thus, this study focuses on the relationship between adult learning and higher education and follows recent trends as well.

　 Discussion on providing educational opportunities for nontraditional students, including adult learners, has been abundant. However, the characteristics of the learning needs and methods of these learners lack clarification. Therefore, this study incorporates adult learning theories to examine the characteristics of adult learners in higher education institutions to support their learning.

　 The findings of the study are summarized in the following points. First, a better understanding of the characteristics of adult learners, the determinants of adult learning opportunities, and andragogy (adult education theory) can help in the identification of better methods for supporting adult students.

　 Second, this study examines adult learning theories based on constructivism, such as experiential learning theory and transformative learning theory. By reviewing these theories, several issues, such as the connection between experience and knowledge, multifaceted reflection skills, and a safe learning environment that encourages critical reflection, can be derived.

　 Third, social constructivist learning theories, such as legitimate peripheral participation theory and cultural-historical activity theory will be examined to explain the process of participation in communities of practice and the issue of community transformation. This discussion leads to issues in understanding the learning process undertaken by higher education institutions in partnership with community organizations and in improving the quality of such partnerships.

　 This study conducted an analysis of the recurrent higher education in Japan and summarized the findings as follows. 1. The number of adult students in Japan is lower compared with those of other developed countries. The main reason is that Japanese companies exist in an internal labor market and develop job skills through in-house training. 2. Corporate expenditure for education and training has been declining since the 1990s; however, the number of adult students has remained the same. According to social surveys on workers, they pose a potential demand for recurrent education but encounter three major obstacles, namely, time, cost, and poor workplace tolerance.

　 3. The Ministry of Labor launched the Education and Training Benefit Program in 1998 in response to this situation. This policy aims to focus on the labor market by job or trade; therefore, the subsidy rate is higher for courses that target vocational qualifications. 4. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology initiated the Professional Skills Brush-Up Program in 2015. This project covers a wide range of occupations, from professions with national qualification to the field of business administration without such a qualification system.

　 5. The new Kishida administration, which was launched in the fall of 2021, has announced a significant investment in recurrent education, including the development of digital talent. Toward this end, universities will be required to play a part. 6. Japan may refer to certain foreign experiences. An example is online distance learning such as Competency-Based Education in the United States. Another is the National Qualifications Framework in European countries. 7. The major issues to be discussed in the reform of the labor market are as follows: (a) utilizing an employment system for new university graduates, (b) opening the labor market across the national border, and (c) providing equal opportunity for lifelong learning.

　 Several reports for the Survey of Adult Skills(PIAAC) report that adults in Japan are less active in participating in adult education compared at the international level. Specifically, this study focuses on adults with bachelor’s or master’s degree as the highest educational qualification. It aims to elucidate the features and issues regarding their participation in adult education and training compared at the international level. The study employed data mainly from the background questions of the survey.

　 In conclusion, the results demonstrate a positive difference between the participation of bachelor- and masteral degree holders in Japan. In addition, among bachelor-level degree holders, females participate less in adult education and training compared with males, despite their high learning strategy and proficiency in key skills. These are likely to be issues particular to Japan, which differs from those of other countries with high participation rates in adult education.

　 Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Law has been in effect for nearly 40 years, the promotion of activities for women in Japan has been relatively poor according to international standards. Previous studies have investigated the background of this problem in the context of the Japanese employment system and customs.

　 However, the means for promoting career advancement is important for working individuals instead of issues with systems and practices. Among individuals seeking to improve their careers, many are attempting to learn.

　 This study aims to empirically present the actual situation of self-learning among working women in Japan. The following points were revealed through analysis of data using a questionnaire survey on 10,000 respondents, all of which are presentative as problems encountered in the self-learning of working women.

　 First, approximately half of working individuals engage in self-learning with the objective of personal growth. Moreover, approximately half of working women engage in self-learning for personal growth. However, certain differences are observed between men and women with women engaging in less self-learning than men do.

　 Second, the low rate of self-learning among women can be explained by factors beyond the individual, such as employment status, education, and family. For example, individuals who work as part-time workers tend to disengage from self-learning, where many women work part-time. In addition, the study found the negative impact of having young children on self-learning efforts only among women.

　 Third, although self-learning among women was found to exert a positive effect on income, women who work full-time need to engage in more than one type of learning to perceive the effect, in contrast to men. If the second finding is considered a constraint on learning for working women, then the third point can be viewed as one that promotes reluctance to learn among working women.

　 This study aims to review publications and discuss the newly expected roles and functions of higher education for adults in the context of the international trends of adult education. In the last 50 years, there has been a transformation of international universities based on the concept of lifelong education. Given this background and the historical perspective of the provision of university education, this study examines the following points:

　 First, the study illustrates changes in the philosophy of the provision of education opportunities for adults. Second, it compares the different types of adult education in the context of each country’s social structure, overall student body composition (traditional vs nontraditional students), and the proportion of adult students attending various types of educational institutions. Third, the study re-examines the provision of education opportunities in the context of change according to objective: from that of an equity model that relies on equality and social justice to that based on the human capital model, which involves the purpose of employability.

　 The homogenous composition of students, which mainly targets the young generation, has shifted to a diversified, heterogeneous one that includes adult students in the process of the massification of university education. Currently, university education is stratified and performs multiple functions.

　 In conclusion, examples from the United States, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, demonstrate a global convergence toward an economically-oriented purpose of education and decreased emphasis on adult education-based policy.

　 This study elucidates the embodiment of the plan for the Law Governing for National Universities and Public Universities from 1947 to 1951 under occupation under the opposition and cooperation of the CI&E Education Division, the Ministry of Education, and the Japan Education Reform Committee.

　 The majority of studies on university governance reform in occupied Japan is insufficient for analyzing the documents of the GHQ/SCAP. Thus, they did not clarify the complicated circumstances during this period.

　 The plan for the Law Governing for National Universities and Public Universities was initiated through external pressure from W.C. Eells, an Adviser of the Higher Education Unit, the Education Division of the Civil Information and Education Section. Japanese education policy-makers, senior officials of the Ministry of Education, and members of the Japan Education Reform Committee prevented the enactment of the university board system in cooperation with leaders of the Education Division. After the withdrawal of Eelles’ plan, the bill was drafted through a rare process in the postwar reform of the Council for Drafting University Governance Law, which was democratically organized and involved union officials.

　 The bill was scrapped through objection from academics, unions, and left-wing movement in the Diet. Nevertheless, it was an epoch-making content in terms of establishing autonomy in universities. It intended to establish the authority of the academic senate and the faculty association, the authority of the president and dean as an executive body, and the responsibility of the local community. A saying goes that “what if” does not exist in history. However, if this bill were enacted, scholars propose that university autonomy after the war would have exhibited a different pattern.

　 This exploratory research aims to provide an overview of the concept of public good in higher education research. Research and discussion on this topic have been limited in the field of higher education research in Japan, although publicness has been a popular subject of academic discourse in other fields of education and public philosophy.

　 This article outlines and analyzes the use and discussion of the concept of public good among researchers in Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research since the 1970s. The comprehensive survey demonstrates the shift in the focus from the analysis of public goods as an economic concept in educational planning to the promotion of normative and social values of higher education against marketization and academic capitalism. Moreover, the concept has been renewed and expanded to incorporate public roles of universities toward social justice. At the same time, the economic concept of public goods has faced increased difficulty due to the further blending of private and public domains across dimensions, such as policies, resources, and stakeholders. Recently, some reseachers explored the concept of common good as an attempt to overcome such limitations and to reconceptualize education as a responsibility shared by both private and public actors.

　 Based on the overview of the literature, the article discusses implications for the field of higher education research in Japan, which include the significance of discussing normative values of higher education and the need for more empirical research that may be applied to teaching, research, policies, and management toward the public good.

　 The Japanese government has formulated a policy that controls faculty power on university governance. An apprehension exists about the weakening of presidential leadership due to faculty power. However, collegiality or decentralized governance based on agreement between professions may lead to the creation of a community with a cordial atmosphere.

　 This study then considered the merit and demerit of faculty participation in university governance. The expected merit was the creation of the abovementioned community, whereas the demerit was the rigidity of institutional management due to excessive participation. This study conducted questionnaire-based surveys on the deans and department heads of national universities and private ones. The main findings are as follows.

　 First, the more the influence of faculty on personnel and curricular aspects through faculty meetings at each school, the more the sense of community and belonging to the institution was fostered. Alternatively, the more the faculty exerted influence on institutional management through such meetings, the lesser the enterprising spirit of the institutions. Moreover, the influence of faculty on management through the all-campus senate exerted a positive relationship with the enterprising spirit.

　 Second, presidential leadership better explained nearly all dependent variables much more than the influence of faculty did. Additionally, the study found that the interaction term between the influence of faculty and presidential leadership displayed a significant relationship using several dependent variables.

　 Based on these findings, the study presents a few implications. For example, faculty meeting should exert an influence on personnel and curricular aspects to compensate for weaknesses in leadership. Alternatively, faculty participation in institutional management should not be made effective through faculty meetings at each school.

　 Although top universities in China are transitioning into world-class ones, tier-two universities are also making great progress. To discuss the background of this phenomenon, the university support scheme, which focus on discipline, may be one of the factors. This study introduces the policy of the discipline support scheme in China and uses data analysis and case study to support the following findings.

　 Given the smaller package funds compared with top universities, tier-two universities continue to succeed in cultivating several excellent disciplines that are producing considerable outcomes. The factor is centralizing resources on promising disciplines. By recruiting or training researchers and improving equipment, the disciplines in tier-two universities elevate soft and hard power for competing with top universities.

　 The success of cultivating distinguished disciplines to narrow the gap between tier-two and top universities provides hints to national universities in Japan.

　 This study aims to clarify the factors that altered sex segregation by field of study, which pertains a difference in the field of study selected by gender. Developed countries, including Japan, have interpreted this concept as decreasing. Therefore, gender bias in majors has also been decreasing. In reality; however, changes in gender segregation are known to depend not only on gender differences within majors but also on various other factors. A well-known fact is that changes in the gender separation of majors is dependent on various factors apart from gender difference in the field of study. If gender difference in the abovementioned concept is not decreasing, and sex segregation by field of study is decreasing due to other factors, then interpreting that the fields of study selected by women are becoming more diverse would be misleading.

　 Therefore, this study decomposed the change in sex segregation by field of study into five factors and elucidated which factors caused the change in sex segregation. The result led to two conclusions. First, changes in the size of each major increased sex segregation by field of study, where the two effects were conflicting. Second, the contribution of each major field of study was found to be different, and the direction and magnitude of the effect differed according to time point.

　 Evidence-based policy making (EBPM) has become an important research issue in the research on higher education. However, skepticism continues about randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which is the main methodology of EBPM. In addition, recent EBPM research has raised epistemological doubts; the evidence built by RCTs lacked the evidential capacity to illustrate the effectiveness of policies. Therefore, this study intends to elucidate the characteristics of evidence required by EBPM and its construction by conducting a theoretical study from the perspective of scientific epistemology.

　 This study focuses on EBPM theory, that is, the theory of evidence for use, which advocates a research design that ensures external validity. RCTs are excellent in terms of internal validity but exhibit limitations in terms of external validity. The objective of this theory is to construct usable evidence for the effective prediction of policies. Behind these arguments, we find insights into scientific epistemology, especially the contemporary scientific realism debate.

　 This process clarifies that insight into scientific realism debate can be applied to the natural sciences and the social sciences, especially to higher education research. Moreover, we present two propositions. The first is that EBPM requires a hierarchically structured theory, is composed of concepts at varying levels of abstraction, and requires empirical evidence across contexts combined with the hierarchically structured theory. The second is that testing the validity of the theory in contexts that were not envisioned during its development is necessary.

　 Based on these findings, this study concludes with a discussion of the challenges in developing EBPM in higher education research and the solutions for such challenges.

　 The objectives of this paper is to empirically understand changes in student activities by comparing students in the 1990s (at a time when university education began to re-expand) with students in the 1980s (prior to the expansion). As a result of analysis using the typological approach with reference to student research in the United States, the following three points became clear. First, three subgroups were extracted on the basis of enthusiasm for various activities in university life, namely, the school-oriented, inactive, and leisure land groups. Second, the increase in the school-oriented group and the decrease in the inactive and leisure land groups explained the distribution of students after the 1990s. Third, the study confirmed these changes in distribution were confirmed even after controlling for differences in majors, type of university, and gender. Finally, a possibility exists that identifying and approaching the inactive group will improve the outcomes of university education.