From the standpoint of equal opportunity of education, equal access to educational services must be guaranteed for every person, wherever he or she may live. However, the level of educational services being provided for the people by educational administrations and educational foundations has actually brought about regional disparities quantitatively and qualitatively.
The purpose of this paper is to make clear the regional disparities and time series changes in educational service level of high schools, and the relations between educational service level and behavior of going on to high schools in Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan. Three divisions and fifteen districts are used as areal units for analysis.
The results obtained are summarized as follows;
1) There were regional disparities in the formation of the supplying system of educational services at high schools. That is, establishments of high schools have been promoted since the 1960s in the northeast region of the prefecture, while those movements were almost over in the west and southeast regions before the mid 1960s.
2) The author tried to understand the quantitative regional disparities by the capacity index (the ratio of accommodations for high school freshmen to the number of new leavers from junior high schools). As a result, educational service level has been improved in quantity at every region from 1965 to 1995. But, the spatial pattern of regional disparities that the capacity index is high in the west region and low in the northeast region has been consistently retained from 1965.
3) As for the provision of vocational (agricultural-forestry-fishery, commercial, technical) education courses at high schools, the quality of educational service level has been improved in majority of districts from 1965 to 1995. But, there were a few districts where educational service level has been left in poor situation or cut down. On account of this, regional disparities have become larger comparing with 1965. As for the scale of high schools, it has been reducing throughout the prefecture from 1965. Especially, in the northeast and southeast regions, qualitative decline of educational service level was remarkable, because the percentage of school of which scale was too small to maintain its daily educational activities was increasing. And about the composition of teachers at each district, there was a tendency that the teachers were composed mainly by longer-experienced person in the west region and shorter-experienced in other regions both in 1965 and 1995. Further, the region, where teachers were consisted mainly by longer-experienced, had a tendency that the average length of teacher's services at the same schools was larger. From the above-mentioned results, qualitative regional disparities in educational service level can be pointed out.
4) In 1965, there was positive correlation between the capacity index and the GHS ratio (the number of students who go on to high schools/the number of students who leave junior high schools). But, in 1995, due to the raise of income level and establishment of high schools at peripheral areas and the improvement of traffic convenience, the GHS ratio was over 95 percent in every district regardless of capacity index.
5) In Iwaizumi district that located in the northeastern part of Prefecture, the GHS ratio has been increasing at every settlement from the 1960s to 1980s. But, comparing the 1980s with the 1990s, the GHS ratio was almost same. This means that the GHS ratio had already reached upper limit in the 1980s. As to the relation between GHS ratio and commuting distance of students, the longer the commuting distance was, the lower the GHS ratio was in each period.

View full abstract

The monthly cross-section measurement of a sandy beach was carried out from March, 1994 until December, 1994 in order to compare the differences in seasonal changes of the erosion or accumulation section of the beach.
The area investigated is on Yamoto Sand Beach, which faces Sendai Bay, on the northeastern part of Honshu island. Six headlands have been constructed on this beach in recent years, in order to protect it from the coastal erosion. The headlands have been installed at about 1, 000m intervals, and stick out about 150m into the sea. The area investigated was between two headlands. On the sandy beach within these headlands, the line joining the erosion section and accumulation section was clear, because the conveyance of sand by the coastal current was obstructed by the headlands.
The surveying line intersecting with the right angle in the coastline was set up at about 50m intervals. Along the line, measurements were carried out using a simple surveying instrument.
The results of the measurements are as follows:
(1) It was shown that the same morphological changes were occurring in the erosion and accumulation sections. Both the erosion section and accumulation section accumulate (or erode) in the same amount of time.
(2) The amount of accumulation (or erosion) occurring each month were different in each section. The amount of erosion relatively exceeded the amount of accumulation in the erosion section. On one side of the accumulation section, the amount of accumulation exceeded the amount of erosion.
It was postulated that the relative difference of a small change in the cross-sectional area (sand volume) determined the tendency (erosion or accumulation) of the applicable section during the investigation period.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract