The issue of technology in education has been thought to be solely in the realm of educational technology. There is a disciplinary gap between the study of education and educational technology. The most emblematic example of this is media literacy studies. Internationally, media literacy is a study subject that belongs to the field of education, which is mainly based on cultural studies. However, in Japan, media literacy research is often considered to be part of applied informatics or educational technology.

 The Japanese education academic community has not been sufficiently responsive to the diversification and development of global media literacy education research triggered by the globalization of the "fake news" issue since 2017. Contrary to media expectations, Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election due to the influence of "fake news," and the Oxford English Dictionary chose "post-truth" as its word of the year for 2016. The term is an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief'. In the "post-truth" era, there is an urgent need to restore critical pedagogy.

 In the gap between these two disciplines are media literacy and the digital citizenship concept that has been gaining attention lately. These two concepts have been increasingly integrated and discussed in the United States and Europe through American education movements in recent years. They are considered to be the educational principles of the "post-truth" era.

 In this paper, I will examine the situation surrounding these two concepts and show that they are not just one area of education, but are related to the foundation of a new era of education called "post-truth." In particular, I will examine the impact of the media literacy and digital citizenship legal movements in the United States and outline the media literacy policy of the European Commission and the digital citizenship policy of the Council of Europe. Finally, I will consider a new form of digital citizenship education that goes beyond the dystopia of the digital and real worlds.

 In order to respond to the voices that cannot be heard in conventional party politics, this paper reconsiders political education through “Moral Perfectionism” in the American philosophy of Stanley Cavell (1926-2018). Cavell regards it as a dimension which, although usually missed within left-right political arguments, is essential for democracy. In this sense, it is presented as a new “politics.”

 Moral Perfectionism, a thought of self-perfection from the sense of self-obscurity to self-intelligibility, tends to be criticized as apolitical for its individualism. Such criticisms, however, are made from left-wing political views oriented toward social reform, which falls into the arena of party politics. On the other hand, advocates for its political implications also share the same political views, as their interpretations result in social reform. To understand its politics without reducing it to social reform, this review of previous studies shows that we need to be released from aspiration for the better, as seen in Deweyan pragmatism, of which Cavell is consistently critical.

 This paper proposes the “politics of hope.” Cavellian hope is not a prospect for a better future but the mood that springs up when each of us has become able to take a step forward again to go on living in this world. Without this moment of hope, there will be no lives of the demos, and democracy will never exist. Hope, as an ontological condition of democracy, embodies existentialist politics in a different dimension from social reform. Party politics has been unable to respond to problems wherein hope does not come from inside.

 How, then, self-perfection awakens hope is revealed in Cavell's discussion of the film Philadelphia Story. There are three moments of “education” therein: (1) “Accepting finitude”: Releasing myself from the aspiration for a better world; (2) “Making public matters private”: We, who live in the public world, encounter things and people constituting the world in the general form that is shared by others. Regarding them, however, further questions should be open as to what/who are important to myself. In opening my eyes to the existence of this individual dimension and discovering my own voice, or self-perfection, I reassume this world, surrounded by my important things and people, as the place for myself to live in, and come to entertain hope and start walking here again; (3) “Aspiration to the human”: When acknowledging each person sharing the world as a human being who has an individual voice, I, as a fellow human being, can also find my voice.

 The “politics of hope” thus solves philosophical problems about life, unlike pragmatist “problem-solving” via the politics of social reform. When the discourse of political education lacks the dimension of hope, all political discussions may be reduced to those oriented toward social reform, where we will have to continue constant social criticism until the complete problem-solution. To save us from this confusion, the above education for the “politics of hope” will teach us the possibility that problems can be solved philosophically.

 This paper aims to reposition “erziehender Unterricht (educative instruction)” at the pivotal center of Prussian educational reform, toward contributing to the understanding of the composition of educational reform. While a tremendous amount of literature discusses what should be reformed, it never addresses what reform is. Prussian educational reform serves as a good example providing reflective insight on what educational reform is. Nevertheless, there is considerable room for reconsideration of Prussian educational reform, especially as all the discourse around efforts on educational reform has been regarded as that of Herbart and Herbartians. Rather, it is important to reveal that Prussian educational reform enjoyed the full bloom of the educational conceptions and practices at the base of the pivotal concept of “erziehender Unterricht (educative instruction).”.

 To do so, after grasping the concept of “erziehender Unterricht” as Herbart's core critical concept on school education, this paper points out the generative context of this concept through examining Trapp and Niemeyer. This consideration shows that this concept was originally formulated as a general principle for education, and then re-formulated as a critique of school education. In 1806, Herbart's claim that school education never reaches its purpose of “education” due to its nature as school education became a turning point. This idea had a great impact on thinkers and educationalists in Prussian educational reform. Graff and Humboldt explored polar opposite arguments on school reform based on “erziehender Unterricht” or the connection between “Erziehung (education)” and “Unterricht (instruction).”

 Through examining Graff and Humboldt's insights, the character of educational reform was revealed as self-made self-performance: that is, educationalists had settled on the ideal of “educating” children through instructions and lessons in the least educative place, making reform sustainable and semi-permanent. This clarification makes it evident why educational reform has not ceased and has successfully paraphrased various slogans with regard to the same content. The paper also found that, contrarily to the former finding indicating the universal structure of educational reform, Prussian educational reform maintained a unique character distinct from discussions of the structure of current educational reform. Educational reform has been understood as a diachronic structure that educationists have pursued for a better solution, but Prussian educational reform placed a greater emphasis on a synchronic structure in which educationists sought uniqueness and diversity of their educational ideas in order to re-form the image of education.

 This paper investigates the concept of energy in the philosophy of theatre education of Viola Spolin, an American actress, director, and educator of the 20^th century. It explores what has not been elucidated in detail in the practice and theory of education based on the performance and philosophy of modern improvisational theater: the significance of the concept of energy, its relation to other key concepts, and the role of energy in theater games. This study indicates that Spolin's concept of energy suggests several important viewpoints for the analysis of and reflection on education through improvisational theatrical activities.

 Creative Drama in the USA and Drama in Education in the UK share a methodology in which both students and teachers are expected to play roles improvisationally in drama activities. Recently, a new paradigm of education has been developed on the basis of the performance and philosophy of modern improvisational theater. Energy is considered to be one of the vital factors of education through improvisational theatrical activities in these fields. In most of the studies, however, neither the phenomenon called energy itself nor its role in education is elucidated in detail.

 In order to develop a new research perspective concerning education, improvisation, and theater, this paper interprets the concept of energy employed by Spolin, the pioneer of modern improvisational theater who created so-called theater games. Each theater game includes a "problem" for players to solve. Spolin explained that the term "energy" means the "level of intensity with which one approaches the problem" and "the inspiration released when a problem is solved."

 Spolin defined "inspiration" as "energy fortified with intuitive knowledge" in theatrical situations. "Intuition" is understood here as "revelation" that sometimes comes to us beyond everyday logical reasoning and planning. Spolin pointed out that energy as creative inspiration is released when players engage intensely in theater games and solve their problems while involved in the theatrical environment. Conversely, when players resist solving a problem, the flow of energy is blocked. It is the director's job to reduce the resistance, offering activities appropriate for the players' ability, and to give them energy as inspiration. Spolin explained that players experience a moment of spontaneity when they overcome their resistance and solve the problem collaboratively. The released energy then brings about an "explosion" that liberates the players from conventional frameworks of thinking and sets them free to relate to the changing world.

 This paper concludes that Spolin's concept of energy provides us with valuable insights into the phenomenon called energy and its role in theater games and that these insights suggest several important viewpoints for the analysis of and reflection on education through improvisational theatrical activities, especially in terms of the collaboration among students (and teachers), the integration of means and goals, the implications of players' resistance to solving problems, and personal freedom in the moment of spontaneity.

 In terms of pedagogical problems in a rapidly changing world, including standardization, scientific rationalism or instrumentalism and the interdisciplinary approach as a background, the paper focuses on one form of lesson practice and explores the possibility of establishing a pedagogy that can work together with indeterminacy or uncertainty by grasping its significance and originality based on philosophical resources from critical realism as its framework. A series of lessons, collectively entitled “Easing dilemmas,” has been originally designed as part of disaster prevention education. It aims to foster students' attitudes toward living together with nature beyond human knowledge in a disaster prevention education program by collaborating with others and using the necessary and available knowledge and technological resources to face the indeterminate reality that may be unbearable to deal with in the ordinary way due to its complicatedly entangled underlying factors.

 Critical realism was originated and established by Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014). This idea has been inaugurated as a realist scientific philosophy and then developed and extended toward a philosophy of social science, practical philosophy and ethics, and interdisciplinarity. The researchers applied critical realism to interpret lessons of “Easing dilemmas.” Critical realism was used because it interprets social phenomena as structured with multiple layers, being emergent, and complex with various causal structures and mechanisms: all common properties of a dilemma.

 Following the problem statement in the introductory section, the second section highlights the interpretation of the outline of critical realism and the three frameworks used as interpretive tools to grasp “Easing dilemmas” lesson practices: basic critical realism (BCR), the transformational model of education for sustainable development (TMESD), and the MELD scheme. In the third section, the researchers reported the details of lesson practices in “Easing dilemmas” and showcased comments from students and teachers. In the fourth section, they explained how the lesson was designed in association with related previous works. Finally, in the fifth section, the researchers interpreted the results based on BCR, TMESD, and the MELD scheme.

 The results revealed three characteristics of lesson practice of “Easing dilemmas.” First, from the perspective of BCR, “Easing dilemmas” was found to be a practice based on the indeterminacy or uncertainty of reality as its premise. Second, the thinking process in practice brings about metacognition, as it can be likened to the three learning processes that compose TMESD. Third, from the perspective of the MELD scheme, the possibility that the practice itself can be taken as a social practice was revealed. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that what opens up the arena of the practice like “Easing dilemmas” will precisely become the new pedagogy that may serve as a discipline that gets to the heart of complicated and difficult reality.

 This paper clarifies how schools created and maintained order through analysis of suspension and expulsion in the “School Management Books” of the Meiji era. The “School Management Books,” written by people knowledgeable about education at the time, explained the methods of management and control of schools for teachers.

 The results of this analysis can be summarized as follows. First, the punishment of suspension, whether for a fixed term or otherwise, was designed to keep deviant children at home and then reintegrate them into the school. Second, the punishment of suspension was a ritual to make other children aware of the existence of the deviant child and to share the belief in the possibility of the child's rehabilitation through speeches aiming at that end. The punishment of expulsion, however, had the nature of nihilation (a term proposed by Berger and Luckmann). It removed incorrigible children from the school without informing anyone of their existence.

 What can be argued from the results of the above analysis is that, first, suspension may have functioned to make children recognize the image expected of people belonging to the school. Expulsion, on the other hand, was a way of resolving the contradiction that arose between the existence of incorrigible children and the belief in the rehabilitative potential of children that the suspension ritual was intended to share. This contradiction might lead to the denial of the transformability of the individual, which is the premise of schooling, and therefore must not occur. Therefore, expulsion was a way to rid the school of the child under another name, without making the fact of child expulsion known, to maintain the belief in the possibility of rehabilitation. In any case, both suspension and expulsion were discussed as functioning to create and maintain the modern school order.

 Nonetheless, the authors of the “School Management Books” believed that primary schools should not deny children the possibility of rehabilitation, much less deprive them of the right to belong to a school. On the other hand, they were also aware that there were certain children who should not be allowed to belong to the school, and may thus have given the schools and teachers the option of suspending or expelling them. However, during the Meiji era, neither the family nor other systems for the treatment of minors could be said to have fulfilled their function of protecting children. Therefore, the authors of the “School Management Books” foresaw that expelling children from school had the potential to harm society. The question of when these authors' dilemma will be resolved is an issue that needs to be explored in the future.

 This paper aims to reveal how Sukeichi Shinohara developed his arguments on educational science in 1930, focusing on his reference to an “offenes System (open system)”. Educational science has continued to struggle with the issue of its nature as an autonomous academic discipline distinct from contiguous academic fields such as psychology, ethics, and sociology. Shinohara Sukeichi, who established his stance on educational science in 1930, has been frequently cited in this context. However; previous literature tends to focus only on his efforts to develop a complete and closed system of educational science, failing to address the unclear and contradicting points in his educational science. The idea of an “offenes System (open system)” has not been taken into account by previous works, but it played a crucial role in his method of discussion.

 To reveal Shinohara's unique insights, this paper first examines trends in academic discourse in the 1930s, when the pursuit of autonomy in educational science was a common ideal for theorists and practitioners. The paper points out how this inquiry became a major trend through the 1930s, from the perspectives of social, systematic, and academic backgrounds: at this time, educational practices required reflection after the full bloom of the Taisho educational movement, a shift supported by the faculties of education and academic associations established around 1930. Academicians in this period relied on the philosophy of education of Germany.

 Shinohara developed his system of educational science while leading this academic trend. In his book The Essence of Education and Pedagogy (1930) he aimed to establish the autonomy of education through constructing an independent closed structure that could reason out all statements within itself. However, his attempt was not reflected in his arguments: examination of his descriptions of the Neo-Kantians reveals that he mixed several branches into one structure. However, he did not reflect on this contradiction, but rather came to emphasize openness to other disciplines, claiming that this openness does not necessarily sacrifice independence but rather promotes the advancement of the discipline. Openness is understood in three ways: the entire reasoning of the structure of discipline can be altered (open to the future), the structure can contain contradicting principles within itself (open to different logic), and the structure should have strong connections to contiguous disciplines (open to other fields). In his view, the autonomy of the academic discipline would be maintained, enabling the adoption of any objectives and methodologies as long as it retained its unique “perspective.”

 Through examining Shinohara's educational science, focusing on his explorations based on the “open system”, a paradoxical path was revealed through which the pursuit of the autonomy of educational science is established by opening its academic basis to other contiguous disciplines. This transformation was the very insight that Shinohara had already pioneered before the war. The entire discussion also indicates a counter-argument against the current discourse, which emphasizes interdisciplinary structures. From Shinohara's viewpoint, educational science should be placed in a dialectic relation between autonomy and interdisciplinarity.

 This paper aims to analyze the changes in the discourse on “study abroad” (ryugaku) in contemporary Japan.

 Nowadays, more and more students are studying abroad worldwide in degree-granting courses, in order to receive the credential for their talents and employability, because of the globalization of economics and the rise of global competition for talent. However, the number of Japanese students who go abroad to get a degree has decreased. In comparison, the number of short and experience-based study abroad programs has increased in Japan. Factors in these changes include the expansion of domestic higher education opportunities and a series of global human resources policies which promote study abroad for the purpose of improving human capital. In fact, recent studies have demonstrated the vocational relevance of studying abroad; nowadays, the perception that study abroad contributes to the development of global human resources is widely shared. However, in the past, study abroad was negatively evaluated by Japanese companies. Why has the situation changed? If study abroad has been standardized and promoted with the understanding that it will contribute to the development of global human resources, it is first important to analyze what significance it has been given and how people have perceived it.

 Therefore, this paper analyzes the changes in the perception of study abroad through the Ryugaku Journal, the leading study abroad periodical in Japan. The findings can be summarized as follows. First, since the late 1990s, the framework of study abroad has changed from “studying English or specific knowledge to get a better job” to “experiencing overseas and undergoing self-transformation.” Second, these changes are based on the following two discourses: the positive view of difficulties in study abroad as opportunities for self-transformation, and the emphasis on personal responsibility, which makes the significance of study abroad obvious and imbues it with a variety of meanings. Third, especially to university students in contemporary Japan, there is no contradiction between “self-transformation” and “getting a job,” in that with a changed sense of ability, expressing personal ability can be a good way to get a job. Therefore, difficulties and experience are considered capital to obtain and episodes to express personal abilities such as communicative skills or executive capacity.

 Based on these findings, it can be argued that while “studying abroad” has increased its significance in career development as a survival experience for adapting to modern society, it is necessary to seek an alternative foundation for “experience” as international movement is restricted by the spread of COVID-19.

 The interdisciplinarity of educational research has drawn more attention with the rise of a sense of its identity crisis. In response to this identity crisis, some educational researchers have sought to realize collaboration with other researchers. However, the interdisciplinarity of educational research requires educational researchers to provide more distinct explanations about the performative role they can provide to our society. In order to obtain a performative view of educational research, this paper focuses on R. J. Bernstein's engaged fallibilistic pluralism, which is proposed to explain the role of philosophy in democratic society. It enables us to see philosophy as one of the practices which holds responsibility and functional power for democratic society by inheriting the legitimacy of American classical pragmatism.

 Bernstein rejects the ideology of logical positivism and annalistic philosophy, which despise pragmatism and consider themselves the sole discipline of correct philosophy. These schools, brought to America by refugee philosophers in the 1930s and 1940s, were proud of their strict analytic approach and their uninterest in public problems. Because of the rejection of this ideology, engaged fallibilistic pluralism requires philosophers to possess democratic ēthos and a practical role.

 The democratic ēthos in engaged fallibilistic pluralism is oriented toward listening to others without denying or suppressing the otherness of the other. This democratic ēthos consists of the following 6 themes: 1. anti-foundationalism, 2. fallibilism, 3. nurture of the critical community of inquirers, 4. pluralism and contingency, 5. the agent's perspective and the continuity of theory and practice, and 6. democracy as a way of life. Although these themes reflect the orientation of major pragmatists, Bernstein relies considerably on Dewey. When we rethink these themes through Bernstein's interpretation of Dewey, we find that the first five themes are regulative principles for the sixth. In democracy as a way of life as seen by Dewey, democracy is maintained by the human freedom which is realized in a widening spiral of action and intelligence. Engaged fallibilistic pluralism represents the intelligence of philosophers engaged in the creation of democracy. And in this widening spiral, philosophers' action is performed as the criticism of criticisms, which is the practical role of philosophers.

 The above discussion of engaged fallibilistic pluralism is connected to educational research by being reconstructed by Dewey's view of philosophy as a general theory of education. Educational research is a component of the widening spiral, and at the same time has a unique perspective that reflexively criticizes the movement as a process of cultivating intelligence. As a result, this paper concludes that educational research can and should undertake the democratic ēthos and a practical role in engaged fallibilistic pluralism as its responsibility and functional power. This performative view enables us to see the generation of educational research in controversies on educational problems with other researchers and creates the performative role of enhancing democratic ēthos.

 This study examines issues in pedagogic transfer by exploring the "recontextualization" of lesson study (LS) in an Indonesian junior high school. While LS was introduced as a best practice motivated by global educational reform, foreign implementation faced challenges. Teachers interpret educational innovations in the local context; thus, their meanings fluctuate from setting to setting. Therefore, the study problematizes the issues of education transfer and examines gaps in policy and practice as an issue of “recontextualization.” Based on fieldwork and data analysis using the grounded theory approach, the study provides sociological analysis on the institutional regulation of teachers' practice.

 First, the study examined the professional accountabilities of teachers at SMP Sari and presented how they prioritized the collective interest of the teacher community. Teachers were collectively held accountable for the bureaucratic responsibility of carrying out school programs and the social responsibility of protecting social harmony. Both responsibilities encouraged teachers to conform to the social norms and discouraged them from acting autonomously.

 Then, using Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse, the study analyzed the institutional regulation of teachers' pedagogic choices. In pedagogic discourse, instructional discourse (ID), which concerns the content of instruction, is embedded in regulative discourse (RD), which concerns the social order of classrooms. Javanese teachers identified their teaching responsibility as the transmission of the state-designated curriculum for exam preparation. Thus, they used didactic methods and intervened minimally in student learning. This suggests that bureaucratic accountability strongly regulated teachers' practice in terms of ID (what to teach) but not RD (how to teach).

 Finally, the study examined two issues of the recontextualization of lesson study. The continuities/discontinuities between daily teaching and teaching in LS at SMP Sari were examined as the first issue of recontextualization. While the purpose, methods, and activities differed in LS from those of daily practice, there was consistency in how teachers interacted with students. Although teachers introduced group activities, they instructed in one way and did not provide scaffolding. The content of the post-lesson discussion concentrated on the effectiveness of teacher instruction, and there was no discussion on how students learned. A comparison of educational settings in Japan and Java was analyzed as the second issue of recontextualization. The study examined different understandings in professional accountabilities, teachers' responsibilities for students' learning, and the nature of collegiality in Java and Japan. In the Javanese setting, LS functioned as a teacher evaluation, whereas in Japan, it functioned as a place to share and understand student learning.

 These issues of recontextualization raised an important point: professional accountabilities are socially constructed, and teachers' pedagogic concerns and choices were influenced by a shared understanding of what constitutes their professional responsibilities. In introducing LS, efforts to fill contextual gaps and to hold teachers accountable for how to teach (RD)—especially to motivate teachers for scaffolding—were needed. The discussion also includes the implications of recontextualization in pedagogic transfer for Japanese schools.

 This study elucidates the actual situation and issues of participation in university laboratory communities (hereafter referred to as "communities").

 The system for accepting international students is an indicator of the internationalization of universities, and the importance of these communities has been pointed out therein. Traditionally, higher education research has focused on policy research and organizational theory, with little research on international student education in Japan or abroad that has clarified the reality of these　communities. Therefore, faculty members in each laboratory are currently teaching without an academically systematized methodology. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the improvement of these communities by clarifying the actual situation and issues of community participation.

 In this study, we analyzed the interaction of all members of a community through interviews and participant observation in a science laboratory, where the community is easily visualized through the use of experimental equipment. We used Lave and Wenger's Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) as our analytical perspective.

 Through the analysis, it became clear that the positioning of international students in the community was a reason for them to move from non-involvement to LPP. It also revealed the positive and negative aspects of community participation.

 The advantage of participation is that international students can enjoy the benefits thereof (e.g., acquiring the skills and Japanese language required for research). The negative aspect of participation is the pressure on international students to assimilate, revealing the closed nature of the community. It was suggested that a situation where there are few options for participation may lead to assimilation pressure.

 In the future, it is necessary to pursue the internationalization of the community in response to the diversity of international students by accumulating cases that distinguish between the Japanese characteristics of the community and the characteristics common to all communities. Therefore, it is hoped that (1) domestic cases and (2) overseas cases will be accumulated for comparison.

 This article examines utopian imagination in David Halpin. Previous studies regarding utopia have focused on the totalitarian aspect. However, in recent years educational researchers have argued that utopia is recurrent to educational theories. Therefore, this article analyzes the way in which utopia recurs in pedagogy through a discussion of utopia in Halpin, whose work on utopia is pioneering in current educational philosophy.

 First, this article shows the relationship between utopia and education. For instance, in More's “Utopia,” education did not play an important role in the utopia. Education became closely intertwined with utopia as the concepts of progress and perfectibility became widespread in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. However, utopia was criticized as totalitarian ideology from World War II on.

 Second, this paper analyzes Halpin's argument about utopian imagination in order to elucidate how utopia recurs in educational theories. Halpin calls for a reconsideration of the functions of hope and utopia in education, since we are living in a hopeless society. However, Halpin tries to reconsider not the totalitarian aspect of utopia, but the utopian imagination which separates those hoping for a better future from their environment.

 Third, based on the above, the paper examines Darren Webb's criticism of Halpin's arguments. According to Webb, Halpin values utopianism as an approach and a method, but sets clear boundaries on what he considers ‘possible’ and ‘fanciful’. However, Webb emphasizes that the bounds of possibility are less narrow than we imagine.

 Webb concludes by shedding light on how utopian pedagogy has avoided the issue of handling educators or teachers. As mentioned above, utopian pedagogy focuses on the imagination in children and students, in order to avoid its totalitarian predisposition. Therefore, the role and functions of the educator have been ignored or assigned the same positions as progressivism. However, utopian pedagogy has a duty to examine the bond between education and utopia, so as to envisage new theories of “education.”

 Finally, this article reveals that utopian pedagogy has excluded the contributions of educational theory and policy to Halpin's theory. Due to this, the radical issue facing utopian pedagogy has been ignored: the expectations of amelioration by education contain the threat of totalitarianism. Utopian pedagogy must address this issue for the sake of a educational theory in the postmodern age.

 This paper discusses the process of the reform of the Joint First-Stage Achievement Test for National and Public Universities (JFAT) by the Japan Association of National Universities (JANU) during the 1980s. During the process of JANU's policy change, the number of test subjects was reduced and the so-called “à la carte” system was introduced into the JFAT. The purpose of this study is, by analyzing the JFAT reform process, to reexamine possible factors in the introduction of the new system into the standardized Japanese university entrance exam.

 The analysis found that there were two important factors in the background of this change. One is the lack of consensus among JANU members. The purpose of the JFAT was originally to judge the degree of academic ability of examinees. However, national universities were shifting their focus to the grades received on the achievement tests constituting each university's secondary exam. Thus, the JANU members failed to build a consensus on the use of the JFAT. The other is that the Ministry of Education requested JANU to reform the JFAT for private universities' use. As a result, JANU made a policy change: they decided to promote the liberalization and flexibility of using JFAT grades by reducing the number of test subjects and introducing the “à la carte” system. This direction of the reform matched the content of the standardized test proposed by the Ad Hoc Council on Education in the Nakasone Cabinet. Furthermore, on the basis of the content of this standardized test, the newly standardized National Center Test adopted the “à la carte” system. So, it can be said that JANU's policy change in the JFAT reform process was one of the important factors in the introduction of the “à la carte” system into the standardized Japanese university entrance exam.

 This conclusion provides beneficial suggestions about the changing standardized university entrance exam system in Japan and the current reforms of the Japanese university entrance exams.