学位制度是教育制度的重要组成部分，关系高端人才培养的质量和水平。日本作为亚洲高等教育强国，二战后形成的现代学位制度起到了重要作用。日本和中国同属中央集权的高等教育管理机制，教育理念有诸多相似之处。因此从历史发展的视角，对日本学位制度的发展、变革进行追本溯源，分析其成败得失，对完善我国学位制度、提升人才培养质量和丰富学位制度理论具有重要意义。

    本论文以提高学位质量为主线，以历史制度主义的理论和方法为分析框架，运用文献法和访谈法进行资料收集，运用历史分析法、比较法对资料进行整理分析，总结了日本学位制度变迁的历史脉络、动因和“路径依赖”特点，凝练了具有普遍意义的关于学位制度建设的若干两难问题，为构建学术、学科、学位相互促进、相得益彰的高质量体系提供理论依据。

    论文的结论和发现主要有：

    第一，基于历史视角，聚焦于高端人才培养质量的制度保障，分析了二战后日本学位制度变迁发展可以划分为四个重要阶段，即学位制度的引进消化期（二战后至20世纪80年代），这一期间日本实现了研究生教育与学位制度的紧密结合；学位制度的多元发展期（20世纪90年代初至2005年），这一时期日本在应对人才数量扩展和多样化要求的背景下，探索了富有弹性的学位制度；学位制度的深化内涵建设期（2005-2010年），这一时期日本学位教育深化内涵建设，着力提高学位质量；学位制度的国际竞争力提升期（2011年以后），这一时期日本把培养具有国际竞争力人才作为学位教育的核心目标，着力提高国际化水平。

    第二，日本学位制度的变迁，是多种因素综合作用的结果。知识的增长和演化，产业结构的变化，科学技术的进步，社会发展水平的提高，教育发展自身逻辑的演进，是推动日本学位制度变迁的主要动因，在这些因素的作用下，学科结构、学位制度不断变化发展。

    第三，论文从数量、结构、质量三个维度构建了日本学位制度的分析框架。从学位教育的进口、过程和出口等基本环节总结了日本学位教育质量保障的制度建设，揭示了日本学位制度变迁的基本特点、突出特色和发展趋势，围绕学位质量的保障和提升，基于对日本学位制度变迁成败得失、经验教训的分析，就改进和完善我国的学位制度提出了若干启示。

    第四，论文从学位制度建设如何兼顾多种需要、各方诉求出发，从人才培养与学位制度关系的三个维度，提炼了考试制与申请审核制、学位管理权力的集中与分散、学力与学历、硕士与博士、在职与脱产、学术学位与专业学位、课程与论文、宽进严出与严进宽出、留学生与本国生等九个具有普遍意义的两难问题展开讨论，为保持学位制度在人才培养的规范与自由、统一与多样、严格与宽松之间保持必要的张力，多出人才、出好人才，提供了理论依据。

    第五，论文借鉴历史制度主义的理论和方法，对日本学位制度变迁进行了历史分析。历史制度主义起源于政治学研究，后来逐渐推广到社会学等学科，但在教育学中的运用尚属少见。论文借鉴历史制度主义的制度变迁理论和“路径依赖”理论，对剖析日本学位制度变迁表象之后的深层次原因和动力具有创新突破意义。

As an indispensable component in the education system, the academic degree system exerts considerable influence on the quality and level of high-end talents cultivation. With a leading status in terms of higher education in Asia, Japan has assumed a crucial role in the formation of the modern academic degree system after World War II. Both Japanese and Chinese higher education management mechanisms feature centralized authority, sharing numerous similarities in educational philosophies. On that account, tracing the evolvement and reform of the Japanese academic degree system and analyzing its success and failures from a historical perspective provide a significant value for refining the Chinese academic degree system, improving the quality of talent cultivation and enriching theories pertinent to the academic degree system.

This paper considers the improvement of degree quality as the main line and takes the theory and method of historical institutionalism as the analytical framework. When it comes to the research methods, this study summarizes the historical context, motivation and "path dependence" characteristics of the change of the Japanese degree system and condenses the general significance of the degree system by using the literature and interview method to collect data, and the historical analysis method and the comparative method to organize and analyze the reference. It provides a theoretical basis for building a high-quality system in which academics, disciplines, and degrees promote and complement each other.

The main findings and conclusions of this paper are as follows:

First and foremost, this paper, with a historical perspective, focuses the system guarantee of the quality of high-end talent cultivation and analyses the four important stages of the evolvement of the Japanese academic degree system after World War II. The first stage, namely the introduction and internalization of the academic degree system (after World War II to the 1980s), closely fused postgraduate education with the academic degree system. The second stage, namely the “flexibility” of the academic degree system (the early 1990s to 2005), explored the flexible academic degree system in response to the demand for expanding talents’ scale and diversity. The third stage, namely the “substantiation” of the academic degree system (2005-2010), mainly assured high quality and refined connotation construction. The fourth stage, namely the uplift of international competitiveness of the academic degree system (after 2011), connsiders cultivating talents with international competitiveness as a core goal of academic degree and focuses on enhancing the level of internationalization.

Secondly, the evolvement of the Japanese academic degree system is the outcome of various factors. The extension of human knowledge, the variation of industrial structure, the progress of science and technology, the improvement of social development level and the own logic of education development are the main reasons behind the evolvement of the Japanese academic degree system. With these factors, the discipline structure and degree system are constantly changing and developing.

Thirdly, this paper constructs an analytical framework for the Japanese academic degree system from three dimensions, including quantity, structure and quality. It summarizes the construction of Japan's degree education quality guarantee system from the import, process and export of degree education and reveals the basic characteristics, prominent characteristics and development trends of the Japanese degree system changes. In addition, this paper focuses on the guarantee and improvement of the degree quality, and based on the analysis of the successes and failures as well as the experience and lessons of the Japanese degree system, puts forward some enlightenment on how to improve the degree system in our country.  

Fourthly, starting from the question of how to balance all parties’ interests and various demands in constructing the academic degree system, this paper extracts nine common dilemmas from three dimensions of the relationship of talent cultivation and academic degree system, mainly including examination system and application review system, concentration and decentralization of degree management power, academic enhancement and academic qualification, master and doctor, on-the-job and out of labor, academic degree and professional degrees, courses and paper, tolerant enrollment and rigorous graduation and rigorous enrollment and tolerant graduation and foreign students and domestic students. It provides a theoretical basis for maintaining the necessary balance between the standard and freedom, unity and diversity, strictness and laxity of the degree system in talent cultivation, so as to produce more and better talents.

Fifthly, based on historical institutionalism, this paper finalizes a dynamic analysis of the evolvement of the Japanese academic degree system. Derived from the study of politics, historical institutionalism has been gradually expanded to sociology and other disciplines. However, its application in pedagogy is still rare. Using the system evolvement theory and “path dependence” theory within historical institutionalism, this paper presents both innovative and groundbreaking values in analyzing deeply the profound reasons and motivation of the evolvement of the Japanese academic degree system.