Having remained stable from the 1950s to at least the 1980s, Japan's educational administration system now confronts the challenges of drastic restructuring. The main institutions of the system, such as the local school board system and the national treasury's share of compulsory education, have been changed as a part of comprehensive reform for coordinating otherwise autonomous education policy. Most of the recent literature on educational administration reforms tends to emphasize the importance of protecting educational autonomy and independence against a move toward political and administrative integration. In contrast, the present paper addressed this issue from the viewpoint of the differentiation and integration of governmental organizations. Along this line of the argument, three points were discussed as follows: (a) Differentiation (autonomy) and integration (interfusion) of educational administration in the relationship between central and local government and those within the level of local government (b) Differentiation (separation) and integration (coordination) of educational administration in the central government, both of which have vertical and horizontal aspects (c) Redefining the autonomy or independence of educational administration in the context of integration Particularly for the third point, the author suggests a new notion of autonomy or independence in educational administration: autonomy open to policy arguments. Although the literature has justified the educational administration system as autonomous, in the context of comprehensive reform, the system has been criticized as vertically compartmentalized. Similarly, Japanese administration studies, as well have negatively described the nature of such a system as "sectionalism," which refers to a pronounced vertical segregation and resulting non-cooperation between ministries. In contrast to these negative conceptions in the field, this paper adds a new dimension concerning bureaucratic struggles in the policy- making process, reconsidering the notion of administrative "sectionalism." Policy conflicts between different organizations, as described here, can be seen a process of making acceptable claims to the opposition. It is therefore necessary to make a persuasive argument during this process. A new paradigm of the autonomy of educational administration can thus be seen as restructured on the basis of this open process of policy argument.
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