Nonprofit Bildung in Japan : NPO–geleitete Berufsorientierung an städtischen Oberschulen,Nonprofit Education in Japan: NPO–led Career Guidance at Metropolitan Senior High Schools
The demand for education has changed rapidly due to social change and globalization over the last decades. Individual needs have become so diverse that the traditional actors of the Japanese education system can no longer satisfy them. Not only the private sector but civil society has an ever–growing role in the facilitation of knowledge and skill sets. (Okano 2016). This has serious implications on the role of formal schooling in contemporary Japan. The following dissertation will shed more light on the interface between formal schooling, NPO–led career guidance, and labor market entry. It examines how and why the nature of career guidance has been changing rather drastically in the recent years and analyzes the consequences for the metropolitan general senior high school as an institution which by many is still considered to have the obligation to facilitate a smooth transition into the labor market. I will provide ethnographic data which allows the reader to better understand the involvement of civil society groups like NPOs on the level of metropolitan senior high schools. By combining the theoretical concepts of institutional social capital by Brinton (2000), Okano’s (2016) concept of nonformal education as well as Estévez–Abe’s (2003) state–society–partnerships and Ogawa’s (2009) NPO–ization by the government, I provided a framework which allows a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of the current struggle of general senior high schools in providing adequate career guidance. Furthermore, I will show the benefits as well as limitations of NPO–involvement in career guidance at these institutions. Data from extensive fieldwork in form of interviews at nine general metropolitan senior high schools as well as two colleges of technology and participant observation during NPO–led career guidance events at eleven metropolitan senior high schools form the basis of the dissertation at hand. On the institutional level of the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, the implementation of various programs ...