| The drop out problem is a major educational policy issue in Japan and has become more serious, urgently requiring a solution. The drop out problem reflects the phenomenon that some students refuse to go to elementary and junior high schools, which is compulsory in Japan, due to complex factors in school, at home, or with individual students themselves. Several policies have been used to address the problem by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), and they are all only partial solutions. The people involved have been concerned with drop out students' everyday lives because they do not have much human interaction and their academic learning suffers. Considering such drop out students' situations, applying the homeschooling practice used in the U.S. may be helpful. Researching the way in which homeschooling can be applied in Japan and to what extent it is effective for drop out students may provide a useful policy alternative for Japanese officials and educators.; To comprehend the drop out problem more deeply and explore the possibility of practicing homeschooling in Japan, first, my research study provides an in-depth overview of the evolution of the drop out problem in Japanese education, based on interviews with key people, including educators and officials, and probing into the multiple factors which contribute to the problem. After an in-depth investigation of the problem, the Japanese division of a U.S. home-based educational organization was examined in terms of how the organization functions for Japanese homeschoolers. Then drop students were interviewed to understand the actual homes schooling experience in Japan.; As a result of my research study, it is clear that since there is no intervention to solve the problem entirely, the strategy of creating several alternative solutions that are partially effective for the problem is reasonable and appropriate. The home schooling practice that the organization studied has applied to the Japanese homeschoolers (drop out students) can be one of the partially effective interventions, which might be able to help a group of drop out students who want to remain at home and learn effectively on their own. |
