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Studies on bullying at school proliferate, but the discourse is seriously lacking in sociological perspective. The explanation as to why some students bully others has been sought primarily within the personal attributes of the bully and the victim. Despite the fact that the school is the place where most bullying occurs, school factors that are correlated with the prevalence of bullying have been under-investigated. In Japan, however, schools have been subject to great scrutiny. By reviewing the Japanese literature on bullying (ijime), this paper discusses factors that appear to contribute to the school climate in which bullying among students becomes commonplace. These include authoritarian, hierarchical, and power-dominant human relationships, alienating modes of learning, high levels of regimentation, dehumanising methods of discipline, and highly interventionist human relationships in an excessively group-oriented social environment. The paper suggests the paradigm of student bullying needs to be re-thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the Japanese history textbook controversy over 'comfort women' to tease out insights that help globalize the existing theoretical discussion of politics of school knowledge. I begin by documenting how the domestic struggles over Japanese history textbooks are empowered and disempowered by the regional and international power relations. Using the Japanese case, I first problematize the use of hegemony in critical scholarship wherein struggles over school knowledge have been defined within the framework of a nation-state. Second, I call for situating the discussion of counter-hegemonic strategies in the increasingly internationalized politics of education witnessed around the world. In sum, this study calls for broadening the application of the notions of hegemony and counter-hegemony in critical education scholarship to take full account of the complex political dynamics of globalizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the Rape of Nanking in December 1937 and January 1938 by the Imperial Japanese Army is reported in the 88 history textbooks used in Japanese high schools in 1995, and which had passed the compulsory authorisation system of the Japanese Ministry of Education. An analysis of the language of the textbooks shows that, although the textbooks do deal with the this atrocity in reasonable detail, there is a consistent pattern of language use that has the effect of isolating knowledge of the Rape of Nanking from Japan and Japanese people. One possible result of this is that pupils in Japan today have no basis from which they can critically respond in an informed manner to denials within modern Japanese society that this atrocity took place. This discussion is framed in terms of a critical discourse analysis informed by the systemic functional model of grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The serious problem in Japanese education today is the excess of competition. Although that helps the high standard of Japanese education, it also brings about many difficulties for young people. The competition in the school system is, in general, closely related to the competition in society as a whole, especially in the labour market. The structure of the labour market has a strong influence on competition in the school. For example, the British segmented labour market divides the competition by occupation, and it helps the diversified structure of post-compulsory education/training. Meanwhile, in the Japanese labour market, which is characterised by Japanese-style employment, the competition is little divided by occupation, and this helps the unitary structure of competition in the school. Comparing Japan and Britain, this paper will examine the structural causes of the competition in the school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how one particular class of educational leader--international school Heads--relate to managerialism. Representing a novel site of new theorisation, the independence enjoyed by these leaders allows a 'purer' view of managerialism as experienced 'in here' (inside the subject), not just as a reaction to what is 'out there' (i.e. to policy). Through analysis of twenty-five face-to-face interviews, they were found to have relationships to managerialism that are not compliant or transgressive, educational or managerial, but hybridic. Some Heads relate to managerialism pragmatically; they reluctantly 'do' managerialism but avoid, segment and/or moderate managerial influences on their identities. Other Heads proactively use managerialism to discipline their staff and organisations; they draw power from managerial discourses; and they claim its values as their own. Seen through the lens of hybridity, educational identifications remain important, indeed they remain paramount, but for some subjects, they have been conjoined with complimentary managerial ones.

While shadow education, organized learning activities outside formal school, has grown greatly around the world, the relationship between formal schooling and shadow education has not been well investigated. This study is therefore intended to empirically test whether formal education’s structure (i.e. tracking) affects students’ shadow education participation by utilizing a nationally representative dataset consisting of 10th-grade students in Japan. Results of multilevel logistic regression analyses show school socioeconomic compositional and cross-level interaction effects on shadow education participation: students in high-socioeconomic status (SES) schools are more likely to seek shadow education lessons than those in schools of lower SES; and higher SES students tend to take shadow education lessons, especially when in high-SES schools. Additionally, the study finds that the school composition effect becomes relatively weak when extra lessons are free of charge, highlighting the importance of family economic capital to obtain additional learning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the recent debate over education reform, Japanese conservative politicians and intellectuals have selectively appropriated a particular crisis-and-success narrative of British education reform to de-territorialize contentious policy changes. They assert that Britain achieved successful education reform by transforming the very same teaching practices and legal framework that currently afflict Japanese education. In so doing, the Japanese conservatives have legitimized the fundamental 'reform' of post-war Japanese education through the combination of nationalistic and quasi-market interventions in education. Drawing on a wide range of literature (literature on educational borrowing, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies), this article illuminates how the Japanese conservatives have appropriated external references to 'British education reform' to reconstitute the people's common sense about the current state and the future course of Japanese education. In addition, we use this Japanese case study to advance the re-conceptualization of the politics of educational borrowing from the perspective of non-western 'others.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the culture of teaching mediated the implementation of the government-sponsored teacher internship in Japan. It illustrates how teachers can function as "street-level bureaucrats", influencing the implementation of policy initiatives. It supports the argument that a reform program that does not take into account teachers' perspectives is bound to either undergo significant alteration or fail entirely. As researcher David Hargreaves aptly points out, reforms must pass through "the teachers' culture as a medium", but they are frequently shaped and transformed in that passage. To study teacher internship, three relatively typical public elementary schools in Tokyo were chosen, which were named Komori, Ikeshita and Taika. The first two schools are located in Ota Ward and, respectively, received three and two beginning teachers on April 1, 1989. At the third school, located in Toshima Ward, two beginning teachers were appointed. An ethnographic method was employed as the major methodological approach for data collection. It is suited to capture ongoing events in a "natural" setting, the linkages between these events, and their social context. Intensive ethnographic research at the three schools were conducted over a period of at least 6 months.

This paper discusses the Japanese history textbook controversy over "comfort women" to tease out insights that help globalize the existing theoretical discussion of politics of school knowledge. I begin by documenting how the domestic struggles over Japanese history textbooks are empowered and dis empowered by the regional and international power relations. Using the Japanese case, I first problematize the use of hegemony in critical scholarship wherein struggles over school knowledge have been defined within the framework of a nation-state. Second, I call for situating the discussion of counter-hegemonic strategies in the increasingly internationalized politics of education witnessed around the world. In sum, this study calls for broadening the application of the notions of hegemony and counter-hegemony in critical education scholarship to take full account of the complex political dynamics of globalizations. (Contains 7 notes.)