Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This presentation questions the actual capacity of course materials and teaching guides to enable teachers to implement an Active Learning approach in moral education classes in Japan. It will offer an analysis of three teaching methods based on concrete examples.

Paper long abstract

Moral education in Japan underwent a major reform in 2015, which ended up incorporating the Ministry of Education's (MEXT) desire to promote teaching methods based on active learning. In the context of moral education, these guidelines aim to place learners at the center of the learning process, encouraging them to reflect, express their opinions, and discuss with their peers, so that they learn not only from the materials provided, but also through their interactions with others. However, though MEXT controls the wording of the national curriculum, the power of MEXT to influence classroom pedagogy is mediated by many actors, not least by textbooks (Bamkin 2024).

In moral education, the recommendations of teaching methods take three main forms. The first starts with reading materials and encourages students to sympathise with characters and to think from their perspectives. The second is based on problem-solving learning, in which learners are confronted with moral situations to discuss and resolve collectively. The third approach is based on experiential learning and consists of placing learners in situations, particularly through role-playing, in order to encourage them to reflect on moral behavior based on their own experience.

This paper will analyse these three teaching methods based on concrete examples from textbooks, teaching guides and classroom observations. It will highlight the possibilities offered by teaching materials, but also the limitations they may impose on classroom practice. The analysis will reveal the extent to which textbooks influence classroom practices, and the extent to which observed pedagogies realise MEXT's recommendations for active learning in moral education.