1990 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Historical Study on the Views of Human Abilities and on Institutional Changes in American Higher Education
| Project/Area Number |
01301033
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Co-operative Research (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Educaion
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| Research Institution | International Christian University |
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Principal Investigator |
TACHIKAWA Akira International Christian University, College of Liberal Arts, Associate Professor, 教養学部, 助教授 (70119056)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ITO Toshio Kogakukan University, Faculty, of Literature, Associate Professor, 文学部, 助教授 (40151518)
SAKAMOTO Tatsuro Soka University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (60153912)
ASANUMA Shigeru Nagoya University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (30184146)
TAKEICHI Yoshinari Aichigakuin University, College of General Education, Professor, 教養部, 教授 (80102721)
ICHIMURA Takahisa Waseda University, Faculty of Education, Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (30063556)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1989 – 1990
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| Keywords | American higher education / history / ability / meritocracy / honors program / gender |
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| Research Abstract |
(1) The emergence of the idea of ability in American higher education can be traced to the process in which, during the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries, the concepts of character and of virtue underwent a subtle but significant transformation.
(2) Thomas Jefferson who founded the University of Virginia and George Ticknor who tried to reform Havard education in the early years of the nineteenth century, placed special emphasis upon students' ability to choose courses as well as subjects of study.
(3) The now dominant idea of ability, in which "abstract intellectual ability" predominates, has definitively emerged when the graduate school system was established during the later part of the nineteenth century when its students were required to produce a Ph. D. dissertation. In this period, which replaced recitations with lectures, the elitist Jeffersonian ideas of selected students and the more liberal Jacksonian ideas collided in higher education.
(4) During the first half of the twentieth century, the wide-spread use of IQ tests and other "objective" tests has promoted the assumption of fixed abilities. In higher education, honors program was one of the prominent consequences, and yet the program in part represented serious efforts to enhance research among faculty members on the part of small colleges.
(5) Since the 1960s, major arguments on ability revolved around social as well as sexual discrimination in higher education. In his criticism of meritocracy, John Rawls founded his theory of equality upon a new scheme of social contract and won wide acclaim. Again, debates on women's ability saw a radical change and old assumptions about their distinct natures were largely replaced by genuine equality between the sexes, which promoted the cause of women's access to higher education in a novel way.
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Research Products
(16 results)
