David Lee Stevenson

Shadow Education and Allocation in Formal Schooling: Transition to University in Japan

Shadow education is a set of educational activities that occur out-side formal schooling and are designed to enhance the students formal school career. Analyses of data from a longitudinal study of high school seniors in Japan indicate that students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to participate in shadow education and that students who participate in certain forms of shadow education are more likely to attend university. Expanding theories of allocation to incorporate shadow education may enhance the study of how students are allocated to places in formal schooling and how social advantages are transferred across generations.

State Education Policies and Changing School Practices: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Schools, 1980-1993.

Since the early 1980s states have implemented numerous policies designed to change school practices. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Schools, a nationally representative sample of public high schools, we examine the relationship between three state policies and changes in school practices between the early 1980s and 1993. In states with greater high school graduation requirements, high schools are more likely to increase course requirements but are not more likely to change course offerings. Dissemination of school test score policies are associated with an increase in the percentage of students enrolled in the academic track and a decrease in general track enrollments. State policies encouraging site-based management are associated with increases in the influence of teachers and school councils in decision making and with decreases in the influence of the central office. These findings suggest that state policies influence school practices in policy specific domains, rather than having diffuse effects on the organization of schools. These policy effects illustrate the need for more theoretically grounded studies of the complex linkages between state policies and school practices.

Deviant Students as a Collective Resource in Classroom Control.

The managerial perspective of classroom control tends to view deviant students as detrimental to the quality of classroom instruction and as problematic for the maintenance of order in the classroom. From a collective-resource perspective, however, deviant students may be a valuable asset in the maintenance of classroom order. This article outlines a collective-resource perspective and illustrates the usefulness of this perspective with data from a case study and a study of 96 first-grade classrooms. Implications of the collective-resource perspective for research on deviant students and classroom control are discussed.

Institutional Context of an Adolescent Transition Going from High School to College in the United States and Japan

The transition from high school to college occurs within an institutional context and this institutional context influences the academic transitional tasks faced by adolescents. Key characteristics of the institutional context of the transition to college in the United States were the size of higher education, the similarity among colleges in their admission applications, and the nonselectiveness of admission to most colleges. Key characteristics of the institutional context of the transition from high school to college in Japan were the use of different entrance examinations by each college, the links between the prestige of a students college and labor market opportunities, and the selectiveness of admission to many colleges.