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This article briefly introduces and comments on the EPAT special issue 'Philosophical reflections on modern education in Japan: strategies and prospects' edited by Morimichi Kato. There are seven papers excluding the editor's introductory essay. This special issue provides a unique approach to Japanese educational philosophy by offering and deliberating features and concepts peculiar to Japanese education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an effort is made to explore the authors' involvement as resource persons and facilitators in an exchange programme between Japan and India. The 15-day programme was created to understand the culture and rich heritage of India, particularly Rajasthan, by involving Japanese participants in a Tour based student exchange programme. The programme offered an opportunity for Japanese students to provide an experience of Indian culture through the use of various modules. The paper attempts to explore the impact of learning that took place during the period of the exchange programme, analysed through structured interviews. The findings of this study can facilitate effective creation and development of such exchange programmes in India and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This personal, tentative, self-reflective essay explores some Japanese ways of conducting comparative educational research. In this essay, I not only describe a Japanese style of conducting comparative education research but also do so in a Japanese way. The four key elements I discuss are: daijini (taking care), soboku (simplicity), nagaime (long perspective) and shuudan-sei and kanjin shugi (collectivism and contextualism). Like Rappleye's and Takayama's recent contributions in the 2020 special issue of this journal, my paper challenges the taken-for-grantedness of the Western philosophies, theories, and methods characteristic of Anglophone comparative educational scholarship. Like those contributions, this paper argues for the value Japanese perspectives hold for comparative educational research. For me, this means arguing for the value of research methods that are not inseparable from my being Japanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of two language policies developed in the 2000s by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The two language policies analyzed in this paper are the 'Action Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Abilities' and 'JSL [Japanese as a Second Language] Curriculum in School Education,' developed within the same temporal and spatial frame at the turn of the millennium in Japan. Focusing on lexical labeling in language and population management, it is argued that these two policies have dealt with mutually exclusive groups of the student population, for whom different kinds of bilingualism and Japanese language are imagined. Cumulatively, these two policies represent an unequal access to bilingualism in the Japanese context, combined with the Japanese dualism that indexes national and other speaker-hood through the distinction between kokugo- and nihongo-Japanese education, which has been a key mechanism in the creation of national boundaries in modern Japan. Through this analysis, this paper identifies the particularities of the Japanese case, as well as situating it in the global trend of unequal management of bilingualism. Abbreviations: MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan [Monbu kagaku sho]; CNL: Council of National Language [Kokugo shingi kai]; CCA: Council of Cultural Affairs [Bunka shingi kai]; CJGTC: Commission on Japan's Goals in the Twenty-First Century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how origami has been implemented, practised, and developed in the early childhood education of Japan over the past 140 years. Historically speaking, paper-folding has been part of Japanese symbolic art, craft culture, and religious ceremonial artefacts since paper and paper-folding techniques were first imported from China during the seventh century. By the eighteenth century, paper-folding provided a form of mass entertainment in Japanese society. During the 1870s, paper-folding was dramatically transformed into a pedagogical tool within Japanese kindergartens after Friedrich Froebel's (1782–1852) kindergarten system and its curriculum was transferred to Japan from the West. "Papier-Falten" (paper-folding) comprised an element of Froebel's Occupations – which was a series of handiwork activities – in his kindergarten curriculum, whereby various folding techniques and models were derived from European traditional paper-folding and introduced into a Japanese kindergarten curriculum that was associated with the concept of Froebel's kindergarten. Particularly seen in early childhood education in Japan, what we now call origami developed as a new form of paper-folding. This gradually emerged through the marriage of Western (German) and Eastern (Japanese) paper-folding cultures. The study highlights the benefits and uniqueness of cultural transmission and transformation when developing origami in early childhood education in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paul Natorp is better known as a key figure of Neo-Kantian epistemology than as a great educationist. This paper discusses the affinity for Natorp's theory of education in Japan in the first decades of the twentieth century. It presents an overview of Natorp's educational way of thinking and analyses the interest of Japanese educationists in the educational thought encapsulated in the conception of Natorp's educational theory, which he called Sozialpädagogik. Addressing the debate around Natorp's Sozialpädagogik within the Japanese national community of scholars, key points of the inception of the theory in Japan are examined, central scholars involved are identified, and the impact of Natorp's conception on the Japanese philosophy of education and educational practice is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the complexities, contingencies and tensions involved in the creation of a new, 'scientific' assessment in what we call Prefecture A in Japan. We start with a thick, granular description of the complicated and ongoing narrative of a new policy emergence. This descriptive account serves as a precursor to our application of an Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach, particularly the concepts of assemblage and assembling, while at the same time eschewing its depoliticising effect of a flat ontology. Our account details that much work and strategising went into achieving the new assessment but also into holding it in place. This included, strategising inside and across the Prefecture, with the National Ministry, with edu-businesses that had psychometric expertise, with politicians and the board of education and with the OECD and the Director of its Education and Skills Directorate. The analysis illustrates the complex, multi-directional and topological cartographies of power that now work in contemporary education policy processes. As such, we suggest a way to transcend the binary of methodological nationalism and methodological globalism evident in much policy sociology in education work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment using microdata for Japan. By exploiting unique information on whether children have ever given up schooling for financial reasons and, if they have, which level of schooling they have forgone, it assesses the role of borrowing constraints in determining intergenerational educational mobility in a more direct manner than previous attempts. Despite a steady increase in the level of educational attainment, the regression results indicate the absence of an increase in intergenerational educational mobility in postwar Japan. Moreover, while borrowing constraints used to play a significant role in lowering intergenerational educational mobility, they no longer seem to matter for the youngest cohort examined in this paper. Instead, our analysis shows that the relative importance of adolescent academic ability for children's educational attainment has increased in recent years, thereby underlining the increasing importance of earlier investments in children's human capital for their subsequent academic advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the development of the hensachi system in Japanese education from the 1960s when it first appeared as a de facto measure for scholastic achievement. Unlike absolute scoring systems (such as A-level grades) hensachi gave an indication of the probability of getting a place on a particular course at a particular school or university rather than telling applicants where the bar was set in order to have a chance of being offered a place. Private companies quickly saw the opportunity to collate the huge amounts of data needed to obtain accurate hensachi bell curve distributions and began operating practice exams (mogi shiken) in schools across Japan. From the mid-1970s onwards, hensachi increasingly became seen as the source of many educational ‘evils’ in Japan and there were many attempts to ban its use. It was blamed for cramming, examination hell, and a focus on educational scores rather than learning. The system was also being used by teachers and schools to short cut the real examination system. The final section of the paper explores why, despite these concerns, repeated predictions of the demise of hensachi have proved to be premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japan Comparative Education Society (JCES) was founded in 1965 with its flagship Japanese-language journalHikakukyoikukenkyu(Comparative Education Research) first published in 1975. The organisation currently has around 1000 members, making it the second largest comparative education society in the world. Though JCES members have long engaged in methodological and theoretical debates, their insights are hardly acknowledged in the English-language literature. Drawing on a review of the Japanese-language literature and semi-structured interviews with 25 JCES members, this paper identifies a particular intellectual tradition within JCES, often referred to as the area-studies approach to comparative education. This approach, often practised by JCES researchers specialising in developing countries in Asia, has long constituted the mainstay of comparative education scholarship in Japan. This paper traces the formation of this intellectual tradition, and focuses on its complex relationship with the dominant paradigm of ‘paradigmatic’ English-language comparative education scholarship. The paper shows how ‘other’ comparative education societies – such as the JCES – can be looked to as a resource with which to ‘provincialise’ the way comparative education research is conceptualised in English-language academia, and to cross-culturalise the field of comparative education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Juxtaposed with the emerging body of literature about datafication in schooling, this paper examines the increasing encroachment of data into the Japanese education system, in particular, the use of data associated with standardised academic assessments for governance purposes. In so doing, we use the Japanese 'case' to expose the possible limits of the existing English-language scholarship on this phenomenon. By providing a contextualised, descriptive account of how data is incorporated into the three layers of Japanese education bureaucracy (municipal, prefectural, national), we call into question the assumed universality of datafication in schooling and its effect as proffered by Anglo-American education policy scholars. Using the Japanese case, the study elucidates the ways in which the particular policy context of the Anglo-American countries, where datafication has been extensively studied, sets certain limits on the existing discussion and leaves underexplored certain questions that might be more relevant to countries and regions beyond Anglo-American education policy contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book, The History of the Ouinkai, was published in 1940 as a commemorative project for the 60th anniversary of the Tokyo Higher Normal School for Women (THNSW). The purpose of this article is to illustrate the type of data collected in the surveys and their findings, to explore some of the activities of the association, and to discuss how the Ouinkai alumni association, in collaboration with THNSW, worked with female teachers nationwide. The paper traces some of the multi-norms and multi-roles for female teachers that THNSW promoted and their relation to norms thought to characterise 'ideal' Japanese women. The publication of The History of the Ouinkai was a milestone in Japanese women's education because it demonstrated the Ouinkai's successes in respect of Japanese educational policy for women as well as the leadership that the Ouinkai provided to female graduate teachers, whom it organised with skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PISA presents a new image for academic achievement, which has prompted Japanese education reforms over the past decade to innovate teaching and learning for 'PISA-style literacy'. Supported by theoretical foundations, particularly with regard to the concept of 'PISA literacy' and 'authentic assessment', these reforms have accomplished progress in the focus on higher order competencies, such as application and the development of new assessment strategies. However, more recently, various critical discussions of 'PISA literacy' are underway in the Japanese academy. They interrogate it more critically and reveal the narrow emphasis on functional application and technical operation. Current assessment practices, which tend to fall into 'criteria compliance', are in urgent need of review. There is a need to extend the critical discussions in progress to the new assessment strategies. This paper responds to this, by considering the Japanese acceptance of 'PISA literacy' and its assessment, discussing the features and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a massive open online course (MOOC) titled "Studying at Japanese Universities" was designed. The purpose of the course was to encourage international students to study in Japan. Accordingly, it is intended to build an online community to afford international students to encourage and support each other and realise their student lives in Japan. This paper outlined how the course was designed and further reported the results of the early outcomes of how the students received the course. The results indicated that the course reaches the target age group while also attracting a diverse audience. It is further been specified that students can communicate with others who have common interests. Furthermore, students share their thoughts and concerns about their plans to study in Japan and receive mutual support from the online community. Those who are interested in producing MOOCs as an educational environment for global outreach should find the results of the study beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ongoing discourse on children's rights and related attitudes towards individualisation and risk in contemporary Japan's education system. The paper is also interested in how this discourse is translated into concrete change. The concepts of ‘children's rights’ and ‘risk society’ both have their origins in Western conceptions of the relationship between the individual and society, and the place of children and young people in that society. This paper explores the way that these concepts have been transformed by their adoption into domestic Japanese discourse on education reform. After a discussion of how the classical liberal concepts of positive and negative human rights can be applied to the specific case of children's rights, the discussion moves on to show how this debate has developed in Japan since the 1980s. Then the paradigm of the ‘Risk Society’ is introduced and the concepts of ‘positive risks’ and ‘negative risks’ are explored, first with reference to schooling in Western countries and then in relation to Japan. Finally, the relationship between risk, rights and neoliberalism is discussed, and it is shown how Western notions of individualisation have met strong resistance from various actors on both sides of the political spectrum. In the case of the Japanese education system, the shift of responsibility from state bureaucracies to individuals and private-sector organisations that is predicted by Risk Society theory has only partially taken place. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At the close of World War II, Japan’s ouster from Malaya led to the resumption of British control and a new outlook toward political independence. Higher education would play a central role in this complex transition, where the forces of decolonization and nation-building converged with drives toward both interethnic competition and multiethnic cooperation. These tensions stimulated a multiplicity of new rhetorics and new networks for universities and university students. This paper uses the framework of governance to uncover the contrasting rhetorics and networks produced by postwar Singapore’s new universities. By examining their structures and mechanisms of governance, the paper demonstrates how the sudden catapulting of university education to a crucial socio-political position redefined the intersections between education, language, culture, and nation. In doing so, it reveals that these redefinitions forecasted contemporary discourse and mechanisms in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Extracurricular clubs are widely believed to be an important part of education in Japan, and Japanese students devote an enormous amount of time and energy to them. Until recently, however, there has been very little research examining either the content or the outcomes of participation in such clubs. In this paper, based on a nationally representative survey of Japanese high school seniors (n = 3753) we examine the relationship between participating in extracurricular clubs and Japanese students' self-concepts. Our findings demonstrate that students who join extracurricular clubs have more positive self-concepts than those who do not join clubs, and students in sports clubs have higher self-concepts than students in non-sports clubs. This paper, therefore, offers important data for scholars interested in non-academic aspects of Japanese education in general, and demonstrates the impact that extracurricular activities have on Japanese students' self-concepts in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of a tuition-free high school program launched in FY2010 in Japan on the high school enrollment rate and household spending. We have some interesting findings. First, the program contributed to improvement in the high school enrollment rate for poorer households. Second, the program stimulated household spending significantly for poorer households relative to richer households. Third, the program altered the composition of household expenditure significantly for richer households with a surge in spending shares in non-tuition education, clothing, and recreational goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets out to elucidate the role of Japanese Protestants in the education of Koreans during the early twentieth century. Scholarship has often assigned only marginal roles to Japanese Protestants within the history of Japanese imperialism, despite the remarkable success of western missionaries in Korea at the time. As imperial expansion progressed, Japanese Protestants intensified their efforts to take up a leading role in the education of Koreans in colonial Korea and in the metropole wishing to spearhead the assimilation of Koreans. By drawing on the colonial discourses of East Asian unity under Japanese leadership, Protestant churches strove to mediate and facilitate colonial policies in Korea. Yet there were also voices of dissent from prominent Japanese Protestants critical of the assimilation policies implemented by colonial authorities in Korea. This ambivalent stance of Protestantism towards Korea is further complicated by the fact that the Korean Young Men’s Christian Association in Tokyo served as an important venue of the Korean Independence Movement. Examining Christian magazines and journals of the time, this paper delves into the contentious debates among Japanese Protestants concerning the Korea Mission and the Japanese government’s strategy of assimilation through education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper compares the governance of education for older people in Japan and Korea. The findings revealed that the overall mechanisms of governance for the education of older people shared a number of similar features such as the structure of relevant laws, ministries, and policies. However, differences were also found regarding independence of education administration, contracting out of public institutions, and participation of voluntary institutions. Our findings suggest the need for promotion of interministerial cooperation and the development of more “educational” programs for older people in both countries. In particular, the findings indicate that Japan should evaluate the effectiveness of the national policy of contracting out and the local policy of subordination of the educational administration to the general administration. With regard to Korea, the findings suggest that both the national and local administrations of education should change their school education-oriented policy and promote education for older people. In addition, Korea needs to facilitate education for older people at voluntary institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As Japan's declining birthrate has been perceived as a major menace to its society since the 1990s, pronatalist policy approaches are again a source of social and political concern. This paper focuses on a number of political measures involved in ameliorating low birthrates - measures that emphasize the necessity of educating individuals about reproduction and fertility in order to enable them to make informed decisions. Investigated will be the question of how the new trend in the narrative of countermeasures focusing on education about reproduction can be evaluated, particularly regarding the question of how the notion of "autonomy" is to be understood in this context. The reference points in this deliberation are two dimensions of autonomy that have been carved out in various fields of scholarship: (i) autonomy as empowerment and (ii) autonomy as a neoliberal government technology. Furthermore, and constituting an additional level, are the issues of how gender is depicted in this narrative, and how its representation has to be evaluated in the context of autonomy. The argumentation is based on the analysis of the political narrative on pronatalist policy, concrete examples of its implementation, as well as contributions from sources critical of the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese children with disabilities have traditionally been educated in special schools, specifically dedicated to one type of disability, and often isolated from the rest of society. However, in 2006, in the course of the general reform of education, special education was reformed to promote the principle of "inclusive education" - that is, education in mainstream schools along with non-disabled peers - and, in a broader sense, education meeting the needs of all children, regardless of their particularities in terms of abilities, command of the Japanese language, ethnic/social/family background, etc. This paper aims at assessing the results of this reform after almost ten years of implementation. To what extent has the 2006 reform contributed to improving the integration of disabled or less-abled children into Japanese society? Based on quantitative and qualitative data, the argument shows that it has achieved mixed results in practice, with large variations depending on the type of disability considered. The observed evolution can be interpreted as an extended individualization of pedagogy in mainstream schools, still enrooted in the framework of strong control processes. Even though new structures are created in order to meet everyone's needs, the implemented approach remains based on a willingness to externalize difficulties, rather than the promised radical transformation of schools toward the recognition of a general diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an account of the historic and ongoing international interchange between Britain and Japan in the field of progressive education. Concentrating on the last half-century, it takes two reference points from Roy Lowe’s writings in 1977 and 2006. Eveline Lowe Primary was a newly built model progressive school when documented by him in a seminal work on school architecture, later becoming a key point of interest for Japanese educationists. The British educational policy context against which this exchange of ideas and practices occurred was later documented by Lowe in a major book. Contemporaneous debates and events within Japanese society and government meanwhile provided the impetus for networks of research and transmission of progressive practices. The most recent turn in the narrative presented here demonstrates Japanese support for independent progressive practice continuing in the UK. Responding to an extensive historical research literature on transnational migration of educational ideals and practices this paper constitutes a micro-study that draws on personal memory, oral testimony, records of classroom observation on site and by means of video-conferencing, in addition to more formal documentation of conference proceedings and policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the cultural attraction, ‘soft power’, and importance of cultural proximity to the popularity of the Japanese language in Hong Kong over the last three decades. Exploration of both primary and secondary sources constitutes the main research methodology employed. Email surveys and face-to-face interviews were undertaken to ascertain the nature and degree of the cultural attraction that stimulates local people's interest in learning Japanese language and culture. The paper concludes that Japan's ‘soft power’, i.e., popular culture and cultural products, are the most influential driving forces behind the popularity of Japanese language in Hong Kong. Also, the Japanese cultural proximity to the Chinese is another factor that excites local people's interest in learning Japanese as a foreign language. In the Hong Kong context, geopolitical and national identity factors do not seem to detract from the popularity of the Japanese language. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A major role of education is to socialise individuals into being responsible and productive citizens. It is aimed at preparing people for the workforce and for participating in the public life of the nation. Educational systems are complex bureaucracies based on particular educational and social theories and philosophies. This paper is concerned with one particular system, the Japanese education system, which emerged from many conflicting ideologies. Polar extremes of liberal and ultra-nationalism orientations were disseminated in its historical course and it remains in the early twenty-first century a system that retains many tensions. This paper seeks to elucidate these tensions while demonstrating that peace outcomes can still be achieved. It begins with three collected narratives of peace work and peace education work within a formally militaristic institution, Ritsumeikan University. Together with Kogakukan University in Mei and Kokushikan University in Tokyo Ritsumeikan was threatened with closure by General Douglas MacArthur for activities during the Second World War. Ritsumeikan has striven to develop a peace role post-war. By employing these experiential narratives together with a brief study of Ritsumeikan itself the paper demonstrates positive peace outcomes within an oft-perceived 'rigid' education system: outcomes for promoting peaceful action found both at the institutional level and at the personal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics education for professionals has become popular in Japan over the last two decades. Many professional schools now require students to take an applied ethics or professional ethics course. In contrast, very few courses of professional ethics for teaching exist or have been taught in Japan. In order to obtain suggestions for teacher education, this paper reviews and examines practices of ethics education for engineers and nurses in Japan that have been successfully implemented. The paper concludes that difficulties in professional ethics education in Japan are caused by the fact that both teachers and students lack experience in leading and participating in discussion-based classes and misunderstand the effectiveness of a case-based pedagogy. It also suggests that we need to offer teachers systematic opportunities to be trained to be proficient in enabling students to be active and critical in class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the political-economic analysis of globalisation and education as well as a culturalist approach to education policy borrowing, the paper analyses the role of local actors, specifically, national newspapers and the Ministry of Education, in mediating the potentially homogenising curricular policy pressure of globalisation exerted through the PISA league tables. Using the recent Japanese education policy debate as a case study, the author demonstrates how the Japanese media interpreted the PISA 2003 findings in a way that resonated with the specific cultural, political, and economic context of the time and how the Ministry used the findings to legitimise otherwise highly contentious policy measures. Questioning the conventional interpretation that the PISA 2003 shock caused the Ministry to redirect its controversial yutori (low pressure) curricular policy, the paper reconstitutes the Ministry as an active agent that capitalised on an external reference (PISA) to re-establish its political legitimacy in a time of increasing neo-liberal state-restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of English in Japan, outlining its current status and use. The paper begins with a critical review of the World Englishes model as it relates to the categorization of Japan within the expanding circle of English use and continues with a brief history of English language contact with the country. It then examines the changing role of English in the Japanese education system and media. This is followed by a discussion of the influence of English on the Japanese language as well as the role which the English language plays within the discourses of nihonjinron and kokusaika. The paper concludes with a call for empirical research to be conducted investigating the spread, acquisition and attitudes towards English in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to elucidate the different meaning of university autonomy historically and comparatively. The paper examines the shift in the definition of the university autonomy in England and Japan. It argues that the definition of university autonomy in England and Japan differed traditionally. In England, university autonomy functioned as the universities' ideology to protect the universities from outside of pressure. In Japan, university autonomy was understood in relation to the Ministerial coordination. The market-oriented policies in those countries have changed the meaning of university autonomy, bringing about “contractual autonomy” in England and institutional autonomy in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we shed light on the dynamic nature of 'diversity' in higher education from the perspectives of four Japanese women graduate students seeking possibilities through different ways of knowing. Using an autoethnographical methodology embedded in a dialogue format of zadankai, we examine the stereotypes of Japanese women that are activated both inside and outside of academic institutions. Stereotyping propagates racist, patriarchal and heterosexist norms. The examination of the mechanisms in which stereotyping silences Japanese women reveals the micro and macro politics of identity. Our collective dialogue demonstrates the processes in which silenced Japanese women graduate students reclaim their holistic agencies to peel the layers of superficial notions of diversity and address the creative and flexible nature of 'difference' and 'diversity' in knowledge production. We hope this paper will encourage minority groups amongst students, educators, and administrators to engage in various ways of knowing and address the issues of 'diversity' in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The uniquely Japanese institution of the tanki daigaku (two-year university) known as 'junior college' in English was seen as Japan's answer to increasing participation in higher education. Initially established on a provisional basis in 1950, becoming permanent in 1965, they were the higher education institution (HEI) of choice of almost 500,000 students a year at their peak in 1995. Demographic changes after 1992 brought about a buyers' market for higher education with institutions in aggressive competition for students, a battle in which the tanki daigaku seems destined to be defeated. This paper examines the options available to junior colleges in crisis and in so doing identifies a number of features of a virtually universal system of higher education which raise issues for other advanced societies grappling with massification and commodification in their own higher education systems. The paper reviews the literature in this area, as well as drawing on a year of participant observation as an associate professor from 2000-2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social dimension of lifelong learning from the perspective of demographics, with particular focus on the issue of the birth of fewer children, which has become one of the most important current social issues in Japanese society. When considering hie relationship between lifelong learning and demographics, the issues arising from an ageing population are usually the focus of policy-makers. This perspective often overlooks crucial children's issues, such as child development and the influence of the child's daily environment. This paper suggests that it is necessary to analyse the issues arising from a society with fewer children independent of the concept of an aged society with fewer children in an attempt to emphasize these essential issues. The presented relationship between lifelong learning and the issues surrounding the birth of fewer children is based on two perspectives. The first perspective seeks to remove barriers such as the economic burden of educating children and the traditional stereotypical gender-roles that have contributed to the birth of fewer children. The second perspective includes a response to the negative influences that the birth of fewer children has had on family's experiences of child rearing and on children's growth. Specifically, this paper develops the second perspective by focusing on three aspects: the development of children's social skills; children's growth as influenced by a high adult-child ratio; a decline in the quality of child rearing. Three issues are identified as necessary in order to build a Japanese society that fosters children: (1) embracing the concept of the "family-friendly company'; (2) creating opportunities for mixed age groups to participate in learning programmes based on communities and schools; (3) reconsidering an intergenerational exchange programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines lifelong learning in contemporary Japan, considering first various conceptual, policy and practical aspects before contextualizing the reality of the relevance, focus and sustainability of lifelong learning in a rural Japanese setting by detailing lifelong learning as directed by Aomori Prefecture, Hirosaki University and in a special program of Hirosaki City. On the basis of this contextualization, the paper concludes by proposing that the lifelong learning sector that is emerging in Japan can be organized on the basis of four overlapping orientations: one based on personal interest for the 'hobbyist' as life- long learner, a second based on the lifestyle and contemporary issues concerns of the 'resident' as lifelong learner, a third through meeting the knowledge and skills needs of the 'careerist' as lifelong learner and the fourth through a specialized themes curriculum for the 'activist' as lifelong learner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the negotiating positions adopted by the US and Japan for the liberalisation of trade in educational services under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). We argue that the US adopts a position of hegemon and freerider in the development of a liberalisation regime in education. The aggressive character of the US position is profoundly influenced by: (1) a strong federal government level faith in service liberalisation; (2) high levels of domestic privatisation in the fields of higher education, training, testing and evaluation; (3) active lobbying by educational services providers. Nonetheless, the US is cautious about allowing foreign competition into domestic education markets. This stems in part from active resistance of the public education sector; and in part because of the delicate jurisdictional questions it would raise given the constitutional right of states to control educational policy. Ironically, US reticence also seems to be related to the relatively high levels of private educational expenditures in the US. In contrast, the Japanese government's approach is motivated primarily by bet-hedging and legitimation concerns. Japan is not a net-exporter of educational services and cannot be said to have comparative advantage in this field. However, three things seem to be influencing what might be seen as Japan's surprising decision to join the group of only four (World Trade Organization)WTO member nations who have submitted negotiating proposals for trade in educational services. First, the Japanese are strongly interested in the expansion of trade in other service areas, and may be willing to negotiate in education in order to further negotiations in these other areas. Secondly, Japan's decade-long economic crisis has contributed to an important policy shift in the government's plans for higher education. Questions about the relevance and competitiveness of Japanese higher education have recently led the Japanese government to commit itself to this sector's 'internationalisation'. To this end the government is also considering legislation that allows for the accreditation of 282 K. Mundy & M. Iga foreign higher education within Japan. Nonetheless, the Japanese government's negotiating proposal on trade in educational services is much more tentative than that presented by the European Union (EU) and New Zealand, for example. Japan places unique emphasis on the importance of regulatory control mechanisms for foreign service providers. As in the US, at least some part of the Japanese reticence seems to be driven by relatively high levels of private educational expenditure in the country. This paper is organised as follows. In Sections I-V we briefly trace the history of the WTO, the GATS, and the inclusion of educational services in the GATS. Here we emphasise the strong role played by the US in the inclusion of services in international trade negotiations, and its part in the collapse of 'embedded liberalism' as a foundation for a multilateral trade regime. We also look briefly at the contentious aspects of the current round of negotiations in the education sector and describe their current state of play. In Sections VI and VII, we look more closely at the political economy of the negotiating positions adopted by the US and by Japan. We situate the negotiating approaches of these two countries within a comparative analysis of their relative share of current trade in educational services. In our concluding section, we begin to answer two questions. First, what theoretical framework best explains the content and direction of the American and Japanese negotiating frameworks? Second, what can the negotiating positions of these two important WTO members tell us about the overall direction and likely outcomes of the Doho round of negotiations on educational services? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

How evident is democracy within education in Japan, and is current practice different from elsewhere? This paper assesses the perception that Japanese political and educational practices are not fully 'democratic'. The first part examines the Japanese perspective on democracy, and then considers democracy and education in Japan. From a school-based study, the second part discusses examples of class practice concerning decision-making. The paper concludes that democracy is deeply rooted in Japanese history, but not in a form that is readily recognisable to Western observers. Consensus has been more significant than voting. The view that the US administration had a strong influence probably reflects policy rhetoric, not the reality in schools. But this rhetoric may have led to a belief that 'democracy' is not an appropriate term within contemporary Japanese education. However, what happens in Japanese classrooms equates with 'democratic' practice elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to contribute to recent attempts to rethink the deepest foundations of the field, this paper offers news ways of contemplating time, specifically its relations to self, nihilism, and schooling. We briefly review how some leading Western thinkers have contemplated time before detailing Japanese scholars who have offered divergent, original, and arguably more sophisticated, theoretical accounts. We then illustrate these ideas by sketching how Japan ‘borrowed time’ following the abrupt political rupture of 1868, showing howLinear Timecame to be disseminated and diffused, largely through modern schooling. Last, we spotlight the nihilism that has arisen as consequence. Our primary aim is not empirical elaboration, however, but instead disclosure of a complex of relations that the field of comparative education has yet to discuss. We offer both the experience-cum-thought of Japan and this complex itself as reconstructive resources for the field which remains shallow in its parochial presumptions and unwillingness to engage ontologically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a comparative study of English language education in Japan and Singapore and the role English plays in both countries. English language education in Japan has not been very effective. Although the communicative approach to teaching English was introduced in the 1980s, schools still use the grammar-translation method and most Japanese do not possess the communicative skills necessary for interacting with foreigners. Government rhetoric has also been hesitant in encouraging the learning of English due to concerns about English becoming a threat to the Japanese language and Japanese identity. This paper uses the case study of the Singaporean Chinese to point out that unlike in the Singaporean case, the chances of the Japanese shifting towards the English language and the values associated with it are relatively low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan in recent years, there has been much discussion of the need for global human resources alongside criticism of Japanese youth as having an ‘inward-looking’ (uchimuki) orientation. Drawing out the contradictions apparent in a youth apparently reluctant to leave Japan and companies, universitiesand government seemingly desperate to nurture and attract global talent, this paper frames theuchimukidiscourse as a cover for an insular Japan and its failure to attract and foster ‘global human resources’.As such, the two discourses shed a great deal of light on Japan's complex relationship with globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As there are many anthropologists in Japan, including those who work elsewhere, the focus here is largely on foreign anthropologists who choose Japan as a field, and whose numbers have increased exponentially during the working lifetime of the author. The perspective is from Europe, but the vital cooperation of local anthropologists in Japan is acknowledged from the outset. The paper recounts ways in which these anthropologists have themselves cooperated, reviews a selection of the theory and ethnography they have espoused, and demonstrates the importance of anthropology as a discipline essential for a good understanding of Japan and its inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with an overall changing trend witnessed in public schooling in Japan, known as educational reforms. Through looking at recent reforms in Japan, with an international trend in view, the author first summarizes educational reforms as waves of liberalization that have changed the post-war fundamental principle of Japanese education. Thus the reforms are characterized as a shift from the egalitarian education system to more meritocratic one, focusing on the changing aspects of egalitarian schooling. Secondly, the author considers some interpretations of the central issue of school choice in educational reforms underway to search for a perspective that can be posited for policy discussions in times of change. Finally, the question whether the recent reforms would cause the end of schooling or not is examined and the current educational reforms could be a blessing to those who have been longing for an appropriate representation of their voice in education in that it is encouraging more participation of parents and local people in the running of local schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberal agendas, globalism and the marketisation of higher education have had profound implications for teacher education throughout the world, including increasing standardisation, accountability and credentialism. The rhetoric is 'teachers need better training'. However, raising the bar to a master's degree without analysing carefully the rationale for such a reform seems short-sighted. What alternatives are there to a master's degree as a standard in teacher accreditation? What are the significant issues facing learners of the twenty-first century? In a post 9/11 world, with drastic changes stemming from globalisation, what is important? Teachers need global citizenship education to nurture global citizens who have the knowledge and skills required to critically evaluate phenomena in a rapidly changing world. In this paper, a narrative case study of a unique initial teacher education programme at a Japanese university is juxtaposed with discussion of a well-established Canadian programme offering multiple pathways into teaching. The results show that effective teacher induction integrating global citizenship education and providing a gradual acculturation into teaching is possible within undergraduate programmes, providing opportunities for sharing the transcultural personal, practical and professional knowledge of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This self-reflexive essay teases out the predicaments that I have encountered through my past publishing experience, while situating them in a critical review of the existing English-language studies of Japanese education. Drawing on postcolonial theoretical insights and recent critical sociology of academic knowledge production, I use my personal experience as a starting point to identify the particular discursive structure of comparative education that constrains the articulation of ‘other’ education in the field. My critical review of comparative studies of Japanese education demonstrates that many of them, including my own, unreflexively accept the subject positions offered by this discursive condition and thus further constrain space for those who write in English about ‘other’ education and Japanese education in particular. In conclusion, I discuss recent studies of Japanese education that partially address the dilemmas raised in this paper and the wider implications of this study for the field of comparative education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was prompted by an empirical puzzle: why is sex education in schools so underdeveloped in Japan compared to many other industrialised societies? On the one hand, formal pedagogy under state policy is conservative, emphasising reproductive and prophylactic purposes rather than a comprehensive understanding of sexuality. On the other hand, however, Japan has a highly visible sexual environment where a variety of commercial sex activities are tolerated and even encouraged. The aim of the paper is to provide an integrated picture of these apparently contradictory trends by examining the nexus of political, economic and sociocultural factors that affect sex education in contemporary Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any moves towards substantive equality in education must negotiate the contradictions between equality and efficiency. Equality of education comes about through both the widening of opportunity and the maintenance of educational quality, but in the context of limited resources, educational policy rarely serves both ends simultaneously. Regardless of imperatives involved in making particular policy choices, if the resulting outcomes are either too visible or the system is deemed to be too rigid, social inequality emerges as an intractable, highly salient issue. The critical questions for research thus become: How do various approaches to negotiating this central tension differ? How does the choice of strategies produce different results across different education systems? To explore these questions, this paper examines the function and outcomes of educational differentiation in Japan, both at the secondary and tertiary levels, in relation to social inequality. Given that Japan entered an era of 'universal' access to higher education ahead of other high-income countries, it presents an ideal case to reflect on policy choices currently being considered or implemented elsewhere. Through cross-sectional analyses of three cohorts of Japanese graduates, it reveals that social equality in accessing elite secondary and higher education institutions deteriorates as privatisation of education advances. It concludes that hierarchical structure of secondary and higher education institutions, when coupled with policies advancing privatisation and universalisation, result in negative or inconsequential effects on social equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several years have passed since the adoption by the United Nations of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Yet, what changes have happened in the lives of Indigenous peoples for whom the Declaration was written? This paper employs a framework of Indigenous educational theory to focus on the case of the Ainu of Japan and examines what kind of changes could be happening vis-a-vis Ainu education but are not. I explain the current stalled state of deliberations regarding implementation of the UNDRIP, outline the current resource base for an Ainu-run education system, and argue that it is the duty of the Japanese government to provide the infrastructure and expertise necessary to implement such an educational initiative, as well as to aid the Ainu in overcoming 'internalized oppression' which currently hampers many Ainu from embracing their Ainu identity and thereby vocally advocating their rights to an Indigenously driven Ainu education. I briefly touch upon the relevance of the Ainu situation to other Asian Indigenous peoples and contend that the Ainu case provides one useful watermark for comparison with other Indigenous peoples' scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss the conflicting views of Japan's mission in the world and national moral education held by Yamaji Aizan and Inoue Tetsujirō, two eminent intellectuals of the Meiji and Taisho periods. In doing so, I suggest that one can not understand the dilemma that Japanese intellectuals faced when they realized the limits of Meiji modernization if one simply labels them as 'nationalists'. Inoue Tetsujirō made a sharp distinction between Japanese culture and other cultures and regarded foreign countries as a threat to Japan. Inoue attempted to establish the Japanese spirit embodied in bushido as the basis of 'state-centred education' (kokkashugi kyōiku), while believing that Japan's mission was to spread this unique spirit to the world. In opposition to such arguments, Yamaji Aizan criticised Inoue's idea of Japanese cultural uniqueness, which he thought could hinder cross-cultural understanding. Yamaji was also opposed to Inoue's method of investigating Japanese spirit in history and utilising it as the basis of national moral education. Instead Yamaji asserted that there was a common humanity behind the different manners, customs and ways of thinking in each nation. Although often considered an imperialist, Yamaji believed that Japan's mission was to promote better cross-cultural understanding by removing prejudice and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will focus on the neo-liberal 'reforms' of Japanese higher education that have taken the form of incorporating national universities, and are now entering a decisive stage one year afterwards. I will also describe the devastation that has resulted from university incorporation. From these descriptions, I will demonstrate how the incorporation of national universities is a typical example of neo-liberal control in present day Japan. Moreover, we will then be able clearly to see the current situation of the weakening of Japanese intellectuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese universities' total capacity to accommodate new entrants will reach 100% before 2009. Partly to attract students as 'courted customers' (Kitamura 1997, 147), and, with a growing trend towards university accountability and assessment to meet the needs of homogeneously skilled students with diverse study backgrounds, administration of Student Evaluation of Teaching surveys (SETs) has become mandatory. This is problematic, however, as the effects of different 'dominant cultures' (McKeachie 1997, 1221) may influence students' attitudes towards evaluation. If ratings reflect how learners feel as well as the way they think (Kulik 2001; Kerridge & Mathews 1998), evaluation results may be influenced by the environment around them on the day of the administration. This questionable discriminant validity of SETs suggests the need to consider additional evaluative measures that address the potential effects of the school environment or 'ethos' or culture. This paper examines the dominant culture in a tertiary establishment in Western Japan through an adaptation of an 'ethos indicators' questionnaire (MacBeath & McGlynn 2002). Tentative suggestions are offered for how this tool could be adapted for use in tertiary education in Japan and beyond as a counterweight to SETs. Adding another perspective to evaluation is a way to understand the effectiveness of the learning environment for student learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editor's note This historical paper is an introduction to curriculum thinking in Japan. It discusses contested value frameworks that have exercised professional educators in the light of two 'Western' interventions: the modernization initiatives of the Meiji government of the nineteenth century and the policies that followed Japan's defeat in the Second World War. Overall, it reports on conflicts between valued-based and knowledge-based views of curriculum content that still prevail in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]