Associate Professor Akemi Ashida of this Graduate School, as co-editor, has received the Committee Special Award for the 2025 Japan Society for International Development.
At the 36th Annual Conference of the Japan Society for International Development (JASID) held at Hiroshima University from November 29 to 30, 2025, Associate Professor Akemi Ashida of our Graduate School, as a co-editor, received the Special Award from the 2025 Japan Society for International Development Award Selection Committee for their work.
The Japan Association for International Development (JASID) is an interdisciplinary academic society focused on international development and international cooperation. Its membership includes not only university researchers but also practitioners working in the field of development. Its research fields span economics, education, political science, and more, fostering interdisciplinary research and discussion on diverse theories and practices related to development. Annually, JASID selects and honors outstanding research achievements by its members, compiling and publishing works and papers addressing various issues in international development.
The work receiving this award is a compilation of case studies from 11 countries across Asia, Latin America, and Africa. It identifies and clarifies the patterns of students’ enrollment at school that children in developing countries follow after entering primary and secondary school, including processes such as repeating grades or dropping out, which can lead to either graduation or dropping out of school. This research is the only study to clarify children’s actual educational situation, focusing on its pattern using a longitudinal database collected through the true cohort method. While cross-sectional data is commonly used when examining education policy at the macro level, this study sought to reveal and present the unique circumstances of individual children—circumstances typically overlooked in cross-sectional data analysis and not reflected in averages. Furthermore, it employed a mixed-methods research design, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. This approach extended beyond the macro perspective to include micro-level verification through semi-structured interviews, thereby substantiating individual-level data.
Furthermore, this book has received recommendations from Professor Gita Steiner-Khamsi (Columbia University, USA), a global authority in comparative education and educational policy, and Professor Kazuo Kuroda (Waseda University), who serves as President of the Comparative and International Education Society. Messages from both scholars are included in the book’s foreword. We hope this book will be read and considered by policymakers specializing in comparative education, international educational development, and international cooperation; practitioners in these fields; researchers; and graduate students interested in this area.
The Japan Association for International Development (JASID)https://jasid.org/?lang=en
Sekiya, T., Ogawa, K., Kitamura, Y., & Ashida, A. (Eds.). (2024). Towards Ensuring Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education for All, Palgrave Macmillan.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-70266-2
