GLOCAL_Vol.23

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2国際人間学研究科　言語文化専攻　准教授David Laurence（デービット　ローレンス）I have been living and teaching in Japan since 1996, and here at Chubu University since 2008, after earning my Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Ohio University. My primary research focus is higher education, and I also do work in extensive reading and other teaching topics.Ways of ThinkingThe Transition from High School to Universityin the past. Tinto’s (1998) research into retention of new university students is also important. He finds that the first one to three months of the university experience are the most important for successful integration into the university community, and that failure to integrate is the primary reason for students to drop out of university. Notably, while academic integration (learning academic expectations, study skills, and so on) is of course important, social integration into the wider university community, and adoption of a self-image as a student, are also critical to the successful transition into higher education. Finally, students coming from certain family and educational backgrounds (those with a strong history of attendance of higher education, and strong support networks for success) begin their university journeys better prepared to manage this integration and transition. Notably, first-generation students (those students who, in Trow’s reckoning, would not have attended university at all in the past) are by this logic less well-prepared for the transition to higher education. Finally, Thornton (2012) proposes a Research Area and Impetus for the Research Broadly speaking, the research described in this article focuses on the area of the transition from secondary to higher education: how new university students adapt to their new lives and their new educational surroundings, and how the transition from “high school student” to “university student” can be supported and managed. The research was inspired by my early and continuing experiences at the Department of English Language and Culture here at Chubu University. The University places a commendably strong emphasis on helping new students adjust to life at university, and yet we often see new students struggle to successfully integrate themselves into the university environment. Foundational Concepts The three important foundations of this research are Martin Trow’s work in the evolution of higher education systems, Richard Tinto’s research into the connection between the transition from secondary to higher education and student retention, and Patricia Thornton’s ideas of institutional logics. Trow (2010) describes the transition of higher education systems from what he calls “elite” to “mass” to “universal” access as a larger and larger proportion of the society begins to attend university. According to this system, Japan has for some time been in a so-called “universal access” state, where more than 50% of the student cohort continues to higher education after finishing secondary school.Important qualities of such a system include:• The view that higher education is seen as a necessity rather than a right or privilege.• The belief that higher education should provide concrete skills and measurable benefits to students.• Competition between universities for a shrinking student pool leading to the commodification of higher education and increasing stratification between lower-prestige and higher-prestige institutions.• Especially at lower-prestige institutions, an increasing number of students who would not have had the opportunity to attend university