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Japanese Schooling: Patterns of Socialization, Equality, and Political Control.
... To stand out can be embarrassing in Japan (Markus, Kitayama, 1991) – while the wish of standing out is considered to be an inherent characteristic of competitive relationships in Western, individualistic societies. On the other hand, Japan has been one of the most successful capitalist economies of the world with a school system that has been characterized as fiercely competitive and creating "examination hell" for the adolescents (Rohlen, 1983, Frost, 1991, Amano, 1993, Inui, 1993). Parallel to the notion of overheated competition, Japan is also claimed to be egalitarian, equality and co-operation oriented (Iwama, 1993). ...
... The statements like "For Japan the most serious problem of education is extreme competition." (Inui, 1993) or that too much competition produces distortions and leads to school violence (Amano, 1993) have never been examined by proper empirical studies and challenged by examining the perception and experiences of the participants, the students themselves. Therefore it was particularly interesting to carry out a study on how Japanese experience competition and how they cope with the controversial expectations of their society concerning competition, what kind of concept of competition makes it possible to live in a cooperative-competitive society, how Japanese construct the meaning of competition (Fülöp, 1998b). ...
Interpersonal competition is present in all arenas of our life, i.e. within the family, in school, among peers, in the workplace, and in the sports ground. Competition can be an immensely joyful, exciting, and motivating experience that contributes to goal attainment, self-evaluation, development and improvement of the individual, the competing parties, the group and the society. However, it can also be an anxiety provoking, stressful, and exhausting negative experience that leads to interpersonal conflicts and has destructive consequences individually, to the group and ultimately to the society. Competition can be a friendly process in which the competitive parties mutually motivate and improve each other, but can also be a desperate fight full of aggression among the competitors who consider each other enemy. The result of competition can be winning or losing. Winning typically evokes positive emotions like happiness, satisfaction, and pride, but sometimes negative emotions emerge like guilt or embarrassment. Losing, as a potential result of competition, may result in sadness, disappointment, frustration, anger, shame, but can have positive consequences like learning about the self, realizing strengths and weaknesses and increased motivation for the future. There is not "one" competitive process. Competition can take qualitatively different forms and patterns that are determined by individual, situational and cultural factors. The paper will examine the factors that can be decisive in this respect: i.e., the characteristics of the competitive situation and the characteristics of the competing person. These situational and personality requirements will be further examined from a cultural perspective, taking examples from East-Asia (Japan), from North America (Canada) and from Europe (Hungary).
This chapter charts political changes to the Japanese education policy making process, by analyzing the relative relations and power between four main actors: the ruling and opposition parties in the Diet, influential LDP Diet members with a special interest in the area (zoku-giin), civil servants, and lastly interest groups and social groups in civil society. This analysis elucidates the characteristics of the traditional policymaking process under the so-called ‘1955 System’ to the newly fermented ‘Prime Ministerial leadership’ (Kantei-shudō). The features of contemporary education policy are set within this framework, before finally commenting on the top-down nature of Japanese education reform from the Meiji restoration until today.KeywordsPolicy making processLiberal Democratic Party (LDP)Prime Ministerial leadershipEducation reformEducation policy in Japan
Japan and Turkey have many similarities in their historical paths. The 19th century brought many
transformations up in political life, history and education which had effects on the founded educational
institutions system in Turkey and in Japan. In this period, The Ottoman Empire didn't want to fall
back behind the supremacy of Western world in science and technology so that it started a movement
of modernisation in all areas of the state starting from the periods of Selim III and Mahmut II. It
should be emphasized that the key instrument in the process of social reform during the Tanzimat era
was education. Education was taken under the state control and was used as way of social
modernisation during the Tanzimat era. Similarly, Meiji restoration began because Japanese officials
realized that they were behind the European world as Komodor Perry attempted to sign a deal to open
Japanese ports to trade because Perry arrived in Japan with large ammunitioned warships and a
technology over Japan 's technology. This caused the leaders of the Meiji Restoration struggled to
renew the imperial rule to strengthen Japan against the colonial forces of that time. Therefore, the
intellectuals who have administrative roles in Japan in Meiji period understood the importance of
education for the modernisation process for their country. With the adoption of the First National
Educational Plan in 1872, the foundation was laid to modern Japanese education. The newly
established education system, which is formulated to have the mission of providing qualified human
resources to the modernisation project, has a great impact on the history of Japan in the context of its
implementations. In these similarities, the aim of this paper is to examine and compare education
system and the reforms in educatonal institutions in Meiji Era in Japan Empire with Tanzimat Reform
Era in Ottomon Empire. The study, therefore, is based on document analysis in the context of metasynthesis
method. After reviewing the relevant documents, it is aimed at arriving a synthesis regarding
the paths of both countries in these similar time periods.
Inspired by Hammond’s (2006) study of Japanese student’s reactions to a
racial inequality simulation exercise, I approached this study with the intention to
clarify ideological themes regarding Japanese ethnicity that one may encounter in the
discourse of multiculturalism in Japan. Through a CDA (critical discourse analysis)
framework, I analyzed student essays detailing their opinions on “Japanese ethnicity”
as either inclusive or exclusive of a single ethnicity. Through a textual analysis and
deconstruction of their answers, I attempted to identify and thematically categorize
the most prominent ethnic ideologies. The ultimate goal of this study is to contribute
to the discourse of equality through the promotion of critical pedagogy and
multicultural education in Japanese EFL.
This chapter describes an agent-based simulation of the influence of education policy upon stratified students’ academic abilities. We have proposed that the academic achievement gap in the social stratum is not caused by academic ability or investment in education, but by the action rules for task achievement, that is, by the motivation to learn. It suggests that education policy should aim at cultivating students’ motivation to learn.
Future work includes exploring the various factors for the causal relationship between levels of academic achievement and education policy, because, in general, levels of academic achievement depend on national education policy and education systems (Green 1997).
The study examines the organizational strategies of Japanese principals in school management. One hundred principals of primary schools in Hiroshima Prefecture were surveyed in 2007. The samples comprised of the differences between the two groups aged 51-55 and 56-60 in terms of how competency level should be exerted in school. The study was conducted to clarify how principals apply specific organizational tasks in schools. The study used a questionnaire developed to measure the school management skills. The questionnaire composed of a 3 points scale for principal competencies, indicating assessment with the following: low competency, moderate competency and high competency. The principals were considered to be high competent in the area of vision for the organization because of their knowledge of the tasks, the materials to be learned, and their strategies for learning to influence academic success. It recommends that skills must be acquired in order to manage the outcomes of instruction in accomplishment of school objectives. Application of professional responsibilities and leadership in addition to some other tasks can add to the teaching quality. The results provide important information about the relevance of organizational strategies to principals' work, and issues to consider in implementing standard-based school organizational strategies. These strategies have been adopted in school system in the form of formal teacher training (konai kenshu) and effective leadership.
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.
This article critically examines the ongoing revisions of school education in Japan in general, and of science education and science teacher education in particular. One of the major issues is that the revision policy does not necessarily reflect another emergent national policy, namely: “science and technology as Japan's survival strategy.” The reasons why such a discrepancy between two national policies has happened are investigated from sociocultural viewpoints. The policymakers realize that the school education system in Japan is now in a crisis, as almost all social institutions of traditional Japan society—family, rural communities, and schools—are collapsing, and their educational roles and functions are being lost. Thus, the top priority in the revision of school education is how to recover such educational roles and functions within school settings. So far, the revisions in science education have been unsatisfactory. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed85:586–606, 2001.
A number of different parties in Japan have been discussinghigher educational reform for over thirty years. Many of theseideas finally started to take form in the 1990s as the Ministryof Education's University Council began implementing many of thepropositions that had been put forth during the deliberations ofthe 1970s and 1980s. As Japan enters the 21st century, its18-year-old population has decreased by over half a million since1992. It will decrease another 300,000 by the year 2010. This has added an increased urgency to make reforms, especially atthird-tier universities, which are now starting to have troublerecruiting students. Japan's Ministry of Education would alsolike to bring the quality of its university educational standardsup to par with the rest of the advanced nations. Moreover, industryis demanding a new breed of employee – and one much different thanthe Japanese educational system has been known to produce. Finally, a new generation of Japanese is starting to reach adulthood, who – raised on consumerism, and material abundance – have acompletely different value system than their parents' generation. This paper looks at the present higher education reform movement and its history extending back approximately thirty years. It then goes on to offer some suggestions as to what more can be done to alleviate many problems still inherent in the system.
Demotivation can negatively influence the learner’s attitudes and behaviors, degrade classroom group dynamics and teacher’s motivation, and result in long-term and widespread negative learning outcomes. 900 university EFL learners were surveyed to investigate the demotivating factors in learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in Japan, and the relationship between past demotivating experiences and present proficiencies. Affective states and capacity to self-regulate learning were compared among learners with varying academic interests, experiences, and proficiencies. Demotivating factors were grouped into three categories: external conditions of the learning environment, internal conditions of the learner, and reactive behaviors to demotivating experiences. Internal and reactive factors were shown to correlate with long-term EFL learning outcomes. Findings from this study indicated that beginning, less-proficient learners in non-English majors were least likely to control their affective states to cope with demotivating experiences. Finally, this paper discusses steps that might prevent or minimize demotivation and facilitate remotivation.
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