Education in Contemporary Japan

Education in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Kaori Okano
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521626866
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
A balanced introduction to and examination of contemporary Japanese education. While the postwar system of schooling has provided valuable ingredients for economic success, it has been accompanied by unfavourable developments such as excessively competitive exams, stifling uniformity, bullying, and an undervaluing of non-Japanese ethnicity. This book offers up-to-date information and new perspectives on schooling in contemporary Japanese society, and uses detailed ethnographic studies and interviews with students and teachers. It examines the main developments of modern schooling in Japan, from the beginning of the Meiji era up to the present, and includes analysis of the most recent reforms. It develops a new picture of the role that schooling plays for individuals and the wider society. Essential reading for students and educators alike.

Education in Contemporary Japan

Education in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Kaori Okano
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521626866
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
A balanced introduction to and examination of contemporary Japanese education. While the postwar system of schooling has provided valuable ingredients for economic success, it has been accompanied by unfavourable developments such as excessively competitive exams, stifling uniformity, bullying, and an undervaluing of non-Japanese ethnicity. This book offers up-to-date information and new perspectives on schooling in contemporary Japanese society, and uses detailed ethnographic studies and interviews with students and teachers. It examines the main developments of modern schooling in Japan, from the beginning of the Meiji era up to the present, and includes analysis of the most recent reforms. It develops a new picture of the role that schooling plays for individuals and the wider society. Essential reading for students and educators alike.

Education and Social Justice in Japan

Education and Social Justice in Japan PDF Author: Kaori H. Okano
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317803450
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is an up-to-date critical examination of schooling in Japan by an expert in this field. It focuses on developments in the last two decades, with a particular interest in social justice. Japan has experienced slow economic growth, changed employment practices, population decline, an aging society, and an increasingly multi-ethnic population resulting from migration. It has faced a call to respond to the rhetoric of globalization and to concerns in childhood poverty in the perceived affluence. In education we have seen developments responding to these challenges in national and local educational policies, as well as in school-level practices. What are the most significant developments in schooling of the last two decades? Why have these developments emerged, and how will they affect youth and society as a whole? How can we best interpret social justice implications of these developments in terms of both distributive justice and the politics of difference? To what extent have the shifts advanced the interests of disadvantaged groups? This book shows that, compared to three decades ago, the system of education increasingly acknowledges the need to address student diversity of all kinds, and delivers options that are more varied and flexible. But interest in social justice in education has tended to centre on the distribution of education (who gets how much of schooling), with fewer questions raised about the content of schooling that continues to advantage the already advantaged. Written in a highly accessible style, and aimed at scholars and students in the fields of comparative education, sociology of education and Japanese studies, this book illuminates changing policies and cumulative adjustments in the daily practice of schooling, as well as how various groups in society make sense of these changes.

Postwar History Education in Japan and the Germanys

Postwar History Education in Japan and the Germanys PDF Author: Julian Dierkes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135193630
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
How did East and West Germany and Japan reconstitute national identity after World War II? Did all three experience parallel reactions to national trauma and reconstruction? History education shaped how these nations reconceived their national identities. Because the content of history education was controlled by different actors, history education materials framed national identity in very different ways. In Japan, where the curriculum was controlled by bureaucrats bent on maintaining their purported neutrality, materials focused on the empirical building blocks of history (who? where? what?) at the expense of discussions of historical responsibility. In East Germany, where party cadres controlled the curriculum, students were taught that World War II was a capitalist aberration. In (West) Germany, where teachers controlled the curriculum, students were taught the lessons of shame and then regeneration after historians turned away from grand national narratives. This book shows that constructions of national identity are not easily malleable on the basis of moral and political concerns only, but that they are subject to institutional constraints and opportunities. In an age when post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation has become a major focus of international policies, the analysis offers important implications for the parallel revision of portrayals of national history and the institutional reconstruction of policy-making regimes.

War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan

War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan PDF Author: Yoshiko Nozaki
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134195907
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
The controversy over official state-approved history textbooks in Japan, which omit or play down many episodes of Japan’s occupation of neighbouring countries during the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945), and which have been challenged by critics who favour more critical, peace and justice perspectives, goes to the heart of Japan’s sense of itself as a nation. The degree to which Japan is willing to confront its past is not just about history, but also about how Japan defines itself at present, and going forward. This book examines the history textbook controversy in Japan. It sets the controversy in the context of debates about memory, and education, and in relation to evolving politics both within Japan, and in Japan’s relations with its neighbours and former colonies and countries it invaded. It discusses in particular the struggles of Ienaga Saburo, who has made crucial contributions, including through three epic lawsuits, in challenging the official government position. Winner of the American Educational Research Association 2009 Outstanding Book Award in the Curriculum Studies category.

Schooling Selves

Schooling Selves PDF Author: Peter Cave
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022636786X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
Individuals, autonomy, and society in Japanese education -- Reshaping reform : discipline, autonomy, and group relations -- Classes, clubs, and control -- Mass games and dreams of youth -- Changing the classroom? : autonomy and expression in Japanese language and literature -- The challenges and trials of curricular change -- To graduation and beyond : high school entrance and juku

Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan

Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Aya Ezawa
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498529976
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 157

Get Book Here

Book Description
Combining work and family remains a major challenge for married women in contemporary Japan, and it’s not uncommon for them to quit working when starting a family. Single mothers, by contrast, almost always work, regardless of the age of their children. Despite their eagerness to support themselves and their children through employment, their average income remains low and many live on a household budget close to the poverty line. This book examines how the difficult living conditions facing single mothers in Japan highlight not only the challenges they face in earning a family wage and managing the work-family balance, but also reveals the class dimensions of family life in contemporary Japan. The need to make ends meet with few resources means that mothers may find it difficult to uphold the lifestyle they may consider as most appropriate for the upbringing of their children, and that they may have to choose between their presence at home, in line with the ideal of the middle-class housewife and mother, or devoting more time to earning an income that can pay for a good education. Social class, in this case, is not just a matter of education, occupation, or income, but is also expressed by mothers’ approaches to their children’s’ upbringing and future opportunities in education and employment. Based on life history interviews with single mothers, this study examines the gendered meanings of social class and social achievement and the role of maternal practices in shaping their children’s future life trajectories.

Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan

Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Jeff Kingston
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351139622
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book Here

Book Description
This new and fully updated second edition of Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan provides undergraduate and graduate students with an interdisciplinary textbook written by leading specialists on contemporary Japan. Students will gain the analytical insights and information necessary to assess the challenges that confront the Japanese people, policymakers and private and public-sector institutions in Japan today. Featuring a comprehensive analysis of key debates and issues confronting Japan, issues covered include: A rapidly aging society and changing employment system Nuclear and renewable energy policy Gender discrimination Immigration and ethnic minorities Post-3/11 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear meltdown developments Sino-Japanese relations An essential reference work for students of contemporary Japan, it is also an invaluable source for a variety of courses, including comparative politics, anthropology, public policy and international relations.

Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan

Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Kosaku Yoshino
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134910738
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book Here

Book Description
The debate about Japan's 'uniqueness' is central to Japanese studies. This book aims to illuminate that debate from a comparative and theoretical perspective. It also tests theories of ethnicity and cultural nationalism through the use of Japan as a case study. Yoshino examines how ideas of national distinctiveness are `produced' and `consumed' in Japanese society through a study of intellectuals, teachers and businessmen. He finds that ideas of Japanese uniqueness, the nihonjinron, have been embraced more by those in business than in education. He looks at the Japanese perception of their own 'uniqueness' and at the ways in which ideas of cultural distinctiveness are formulated in different national and historical contexts. This extremely readable book combines anthropology and sociology to present both a historical analysis of the roots of the Japanese sense of national identity and a discussion of the ways in which that sense is changing.

Family-Run Universities in Japan

Family-Run Universities in Japan PDF Author: Jeremy Breaden
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198863497
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Japan, almost 80% of university students attend private institutions, up to 40% of which are family businesses. This book offers a detailed historical, sociological, and ethnographic analysis of this important category of private university, and examines how institutions have negotiated a period of major demographic decline since the 1990s.

Language and Education in Japan

Language and Education in Japan PDF Author: Y. Kanno
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230591582
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first critical ethnography of bilingual education in Japan. Based on fieldwork at five different schools, this examines the role of schools in the unequal distribution of bilingualism as cultural capital. It argues that schooling gives children unequal access to bilingualism thus socializing them into different futures.