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- Convenor:
-
Robert Aspinall
(Doshisha University)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Anthropology and Sociology
- Location:
- Lokaal 2.20
- Sessions:
- Saturday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel examines contemporary attempts to accommodate increased diversity and develop individual agency in Japanese schooling, both mainstream and alternative. How do such attempts relate to a context of inequality, uncertainty, and precarity, and will they bring liberation or disconnection?
Long Abstract:
Japan’s schools are renowned for their apparent uniformity with students being taught the values of harmony and group loyalty. This has been criticized by many, and since the 1980s efforts have been made to allow individual students to grow and express themselves. However, attention has also been drawn to the strengths of the existing school system, and the risk that change may exacerbate inequality. A consensus has emerged for the need to reform the system but there is much disagreement about what comes next. Change has taken many forms, and there have been unintentional consequences.
This panel presents papers that examine four contrasting ways in which schools are currently addressing the needs of individual students: two have their focus within the formal school system, and two without. Two papers deal with curriculum reform carried out by the Ministry of Education and implemented by local authorities and schools. They address the broader social and economic context in which change is taking place and which will certainly affect the outcomes of reform. Another two papers look at schools that have been set up as alternatives to the formal school system. They cater for students who do not ‘fit in’ to the mainstream system for a variety of reasons, but they are also concerned with helping students find a route back to mainstream society.
As a whole, the panel addresses the question of the relationship between individual diversity and social inequality. What forms of schooling allow individual diversity to flourish, without also promoting social inequality? How should schooling deal with types of difference such as socioeconomic position, gender, disability, or neurodivergence? And how is the Japanese school system, mainstream and alternative, seeking to navigate these issues in the context of contemporary challenges of uncertainty, precarity, and change?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 19 August, 2023, -Peter Cave (University of Manchester)
Paper short abstract:
Japan’s 2017-18 school curriculum revision aims to promote ‘agentive and dialogic deep learning’. This paper examines its context, major features, and translation into textbooks, and asks whether the trajectory of recent curriculum reform develops neoliberal subjects or active democratic citizens.
Paper long abstract:
Since the late 1980s, school curriculum reform in Japan has sought to promote agency among students and encourage them to think and learn for themselves. The primary rationale offered by policymakers has been the increasing need for such qualities in the face of rapid social and economic change and an unpredictable future. The latest curriculum revision (2017-18) continues this trajectory, under the banner of ‘agentive and dialogic deep learning’, and with a focus on subject teaching in high schools, which until now had been much less affected than compulsory education by reform. This paper examines the major features of the 2017-18 curriculum revision, which include a substantial reshaping of the curriculum of academic subjects to explicitly stress ‘thinking, judging, and expressive abilities’ (shikōryoku, handanryoku, hyōgenryoku). The paper especially focuses on the subjects of Japanese (kokugo) and History at high school, where compulsory courses have been significantly restructured with a view to achieving the aims of the new curriculum. It includes discussion of how the curriculum changes have been translated into textbooks. The paper argues that the latest curriculum reform has the potential to significantly change high school teaching, but that obstacles remain, notably in the relative immobility of university entrance examinations for more prestigious universities. The paper also considers to what extent the trajectory of curriculum reform in Japan should be understood as an attempt to develop economic subjects fitted to an era of neoliberal governance, or alternatively, as developing citizens who can play an active part in solving problems within the socio-political framework of liberal democracy.
Robert Aspinall (Doshisha University)
Paper short abstract:
Recent reforms to the Japanese education system put an emphasis on student-centred teaching and learning. Such reforms are increasing social inequality due to the tendency for children from middle-class families to benefit more from increased diversity and choice in the curriculum.
Paper long abstract:
The post-war Japanese education system brought into being a system of intense competition for many pupils as they strove to succeed in tough exams in order to enter high-level senior high schools and then top universities. Criticism of both the stress brought about by this intense competition, and the reliance on the memorization of mountains of ‘facts’ (with each exam question only having one ‘correct’ answer) brought about calls for reforms that would allow students more room to breathe and more scope to express their own creativity.
Reforms in the 1990s and 2000s put an emphasis on student-centred teaching and learning. For the 1992 reform, MEXT called for “teachers to see children as having the desire to improve themselves to seek for a better life and possess a variety of good qualities and potential unique to them as individuals.” Few could disagree with these aims. Unfortunately the movement away from a curriculum based on strict uniformity has led to increased inequality due to the fact that middle class families are better able to exploit the opportunities of a system which contains more flexibility, individualization and choice than previously.
Drawing on the work of sociologists of education Kariya Takehiko and Stephen Ball, this paper explores the ways in which social class is reproduced in the reformed Japanese education system. This paper builds on previous research by making use of the concepts of cultural and human capital to argue that even when most of the costs of primary and secondary education are borne by the state – as they are in Japan – it is children from middle-class families who will able to take most of the advantages offered by a system based on choice, flexibility and curriculum that encourages individual development.
Lynne Nakano (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on two niche schools in Japan that aim to prepare children for adulthood while keeping in mind these children’s specific needs and potential to engage in society. Together they provide a glimpse into how alternative schooling systems and pedagogies are developing in Japan today.
Paper long abstract:
As the numbers of children who do not attend accredited school in Japan have grown, public and media attention has focused on the services provided by alternative schools. Of these, “free schools” provide a physical space for children to spend time without the pressures of a set curriculum, and in some urban areas, niche schools cater to diverse student populations. This paper focuses on two niche schools in Japan that aim to prepare children for adulthood while keeping in mind these children’s specific needs and potential to engage in society. The two schools discussed in this paper differ significantly; one specializes in educating children on the autism spectrum and another provides education for children who have dropped out of the mainstream school system for various reasons. Both schools focus on understanding and addressing students’ social, psychological, and educational needs through a well-structured curriculum. According to the different philosophical and historical models of their founders, their target markets, and the distinct features of their student populations, the two schools adopt different approaches; one uses discipline and teacher experience, and another focuses on building confidence and skills to draw children back into society. Taken together, they provide a glimpse into how alternative schooling systems and pedagogies are developing in Japan today.
Kunisuke Hirano (Keio University)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation states that choosing schools with unique characteristics can allow students to pursue alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Even if they proceed to mainstream universities, their ways of interpreting the world are heavily influenced by their experiences in high school.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation investigates students’ individual aspirations and hopes for the future in an alternative Japanese high school in order to understand the intersectionality of education, family, and students’ aspirations in the uncertain environment of contemporary Japan. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the school in 2016 and 2019, interviews with alumni, and analysis of educational magazines that came out in 1973–2000 and were partly edited by the school’s founder, I will analyze the students’ and parents’ survival strategies when they refuse to be part of the Japanese mainstream education.
School F was built about 30 years ago. Although it is officially endorsed by the Japanese government as a regular school, it offers a unique pedagogy and culture that contrast with those of mainstream Japanese high schools. School F has stuck to its policy of not conducting tests and has instead focused on nurturing the students’ internal motivation to learn. This provided a strong antithesis to the school culture of the 1980s, which offered control-oriented education (kanri kyôiku).
Analyzing alternative schools also means how students and parents navigate their paths when they refuse mainstream Japanese education. While some students choose progressive schools, in many cases, it is after they fail to be part of mainstream schools due to school refusal (tôkô kyohi) or bullying. However, even if people started to distrust mainstream Japanese education, many still cling to the norms of going to a good school to secure their future. But the decreasing number of younger people and the diversification of entrance examinations, such as the recommendation system or the admission office system, gave alternative opportunities to enter university for those who do not receive training for the traditional entrance examination. Under this circumstance, more diverse students have chances to go to reputable universities. Choosing schools with unique characteristics can allow students to pursue alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Even if they follow the path of those who graduated from mainstream schools, such as going to university, their ways of interpreting the world are heavily influenced by their experiences in high school.