学年別における meaning

Question

学年別におけるクラスの勝敗。

別: distinction; difference; different; another; particular; separate; extra; exception.

The school will hold an exam (a competition between classes), where the 2nd grade student will pair up with the 1st grade student, and the homeroom teacher was explaining the rule and the outcome (some kind of rewards and punishments for the winning class and the losing class). The above-mentioned sentence is the opening explanation.

What does it mean the 学年別における on that sentence? For a different academic year (sounds odd)?

Answer 1

In general, [noun]+別 means "[noun]-categorized", which as a whole a noun-like thing that has adjective meaning. It is mostly used in combination with certain verbs to mean "(sorted/classified/divided...) by [noun]".

With the current available context, 学年別におけるクラスの勝敗 is open to two interpretations.

1. Simply "class win/lose in each grade" or "on the grade basis"

   における just stands for "in". However, wording like ～別における is far from the primary or natural choice. You usually just need to say ～別の or ～別での for such meaning. The writer may want to avoid stacked の for a stylistic reason or possibility of wrong parsing to be "win/lose of a 'grade-based class'". Actually, Googling "別における" returns a great number of results, most of which involves another の in the same phrase.

2. "class win/lose in the per-grade [something]"

   における is a case particle attaches to a noun, and 学年別 is an abbreviation of 学年別○○, perhaps like 試験. This kind of half-words are commonly seen where it seems obvious, for example 全国に行く "go to the national [大会 competition]" and 不燃を出す "take out incombustible [ゴミ garbage]" (or even like this).