人口減少県の高校魅力化から全国の普通科の特色化・魅力化へ : どのように離島の高校改革が全国の高校改革に展開したか

本稿は、高校魅力化を分析し、高校教育改革の段階が「量的拡大期の画一化と中央集権化」から「質的充実期の個性化と多様化」を経て、「人口減少期に現れた特色化・魅力化」へと展開しつつあることを論じ、近年停滞気味であった高校教育改革研究を進展させることを目的とした。高校魅力化は、過疎が進んでいた島根県の離島で、地域と高校が互いの資源を利活用して地域活性化（地方創生）と高校教育改革を連動して行った取り組みに起源を持つ教育の地域主義的転回の改革であった。高校魅力化は全国に急速に拡大し2022年に開始される新制高校発足以来初の国による高校普通科再編改革の柱の一つとなった。本稿では、島根県での高校魅力化の誕生から国の高校普通科再編改革へと接続されるまでの各過程について関連する資料や聞き取りの記録を整理・検討し高校魅力化の展開を分析した。分析の結果、高校魅力化は学校統廃合問題を教育の地域主義的転換の教育内容の改革の問題へと転換したが、その過程で様々なレベル・出自の、概念・制度・組織を縦横無尽に自己に取り込みながらスケールアウトしていた。高校魅力化には、多様なアクターを参加させる強い領域横断性と、葛藤を生じさせながら改革のあり方を常に問い直し自己を再編成する再帰的な教育改革としての性質が見られた。

The objective of this paper is to revive research on high school educational reform, an area that has been stagnating in recent years, by analyzing the approaches that have been taken to enhance the attractiveness of high school education in Japan. In performing this analysis, I trace how education policy reforms have evolved over time from promoting “standardization and centralization” during a reform period emphasizing quantitative expansion, to encouraging “individualization and diversification” during a period focusing on qualitative enrichment, and finally, to advocating “characteristics and attractiveness” in a period of population decline, local autonomy, and regional revitalization. This new phase of educational reform, originating in a local project in 2008 undertaken on a remote island of Shimane Prefecture where the population was rapidly declining, was rooted in the effort of island residents to link regional revitalization and high school educational reform by utilizing the resources of both the local community and the local high school. Since then, similar efforts have accelerated throughout the country, and the novel approach has become one of the pillars of the government’s restructuring of the general high school course that will take effect in 2022, the first such major undertaking since the current high school system was launched in 1948. In this paper, I compile and examine relevant documents and interview transcripts from the period starting with the initiation of the Shimane project to enhance the attractiveness of a local high school to its adaptation into the national government’s high school restructuring to show that the process involved a regional turn in education from school consolidation efforts to regionally initiated educational efforts focusing on educational content reform. This process entailed an expansion of the high school educational reform initiated in Shimane to incorporate concepts, institutions, and organizations of various levels and origins. The effort to enhance the attractiveness of high school education is strongly cross-disciplinary in nature and involves diverse actors. It is a reflexive educational reform model sparking conflicts that compel constant reexamination and reorganization.