Principle, Practice, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan

Principle, Practice, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan
Author: Mark Elwood Lincicome
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 1995-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780824816209

Scholars of modern Japan agree that education played a crucial role in that country's rapid modernization during the Meiji period (1868-1912). With few exceptions, however, Western approaches to the subject treat education as an instrument of change controlled by the Meiji political and intellectual elite. Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan offers a corrective to this view. By introducing primary source materials (including teaching manuals, educational periodicals, and primary school textbooks) missing from most English-language works, Mark Lincicome examines an early case of resistance to government control that developed within the community of professional educators. He focuses on what began, in 1872, as an attempt by the newly established Ministry of Education to train a corps of professional teachers that could "civilize and enlighten" the masses in compulsory primary schools. Through the Tokyo Normal School and other new teacher training schools sponsored by the government, the ministry began what it thought was a straightforward "technology transfer" of the latest teaching methods and materials from the United States and Europe. Little did the ministry realize that it was planting the seeds of broader reform that would challenge not only its underlying doctrine of education, but its very authority over education. The reform movement centered around efforts to explicate and disseminate the doctrine of kaihatsushugi (developmental education). Hailed as a modern, scientific approach to child education, it rejected rote memorization and passive learning, elements of the so-called method of "pouring in" (chunyu) knowledge practiced during the preceding Tokugawa period, and sought instead to cultivate the unique, innate abilities of each child. Orthodox ideas of "education," "knowledge," and the process by which children learn were challenged. The position and responsibilities of the teacher were enhanced, consequently providing educators with a claim to professional authority and autonomy - at a time when the Meiji state was attempting to control every facet of the Japanese school system. Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan analyzes a key element to understanding Meiji development and modern Japan as a whole.

Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan

Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan
Author: Mark Lincicome
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 1995-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0824864018

Scholars of modern Japan agree that education played a crucial role in that country's rapid modernization during the Meiji period (1868-1912). With few exceptions, however, Western approaches to the subject treat education as an instrument of change controlled by the Meiji political and intellectual elite. Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan offers a corrective to this view. By introducing primary source materials (including teaching manuals, educational periodicals, and primary school textbooks) missing from most English-language works, Mark Lincicome examines an early case of resistance to government control that developed within the community of professional educators. He focuses on what began, in 1872, as an attempt by the newly established Ministry of Education to train a corps of professional teachers that could "civilize and enlighten" the masses in compulsory primary schools. Through the Tokyo Normal School and other new teacher training schools sponsored by the government, the ministry began what it thought was a straightforward "technology transfer" of the latest teaching methods and materials from the United States and Europe. Little did the ministry realize that it was planting the seeds of broader reform that would challenge not only its underlying doctrine of education, but its very authority over education. The reform movement centered around efforts to explicate and disseminate the doctrine of kaihatsushugi (developmental education). Hailed as a modern, scientific approach to child education, it rejected rote memorization and passive learning, elements of the so-called method of "pouring in" (chunyu) knowledge practiced during thepreceding Tokugawa period, and sought instead to cultivate the unique, innate abilities of each child. Orthodox ideas of "education", "knowledge", and the process by which children learn were challenged. The position and responsibilities of the teacher were enhanced, consequently providing educators with a claim to professional authority and autonomy - at a time when the Meiji state was attempting to control every facet of the Japanese school system. Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan analyzes a key element to understanding Meiji development and modern Japan as a whole.

Translating the West

Translating the West
Author: Douglas R. Howland
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2001-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780824824624

In this rich and absorbing analysis of the transformation of political thought in nineteenth-century Japan, Douglas Howland examines the transmission to Japan of key concepts--liberty, rights, sovereignty, and society--from Western Europe and the United States. Because Western political concepts did not translate well into their language, Japanese had to invent terminology to engage Western political thought. This work of westernization served to structure historical agency as Japanese leaders undertook the creation of a modern state. Where scholars have previously treated the introduction of Western political thought to Japan as a simple migration of ideas from one culture to another, Howland undertakes an unprecedented integration of the history of political concepts and the semiotics of translation techniques. He demonstrates that Japanese efforts to translate the West must be understood as problems both of language and action--as the creation and circulation of new concepts and the usage of these new concepts in debates about the programs and policies to be implemented in a westernizing Japan. Translating the West will interest scholars of East Asian studies and translation studies and historians of political thought, liberalism, and modernity.

A Companion to Japanese History

A Companion to Japanese History
Author: William M. Tsutsui
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 633
Release: 2009-07-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1405193395

A Companion to Japanese History provides an authoritative overview of current debates and approaches within the study of Japan’s history. Composed of 30 chapters written by an international group of scholars Combines traditional perspectives with the most recent scholarly concerns Supplements a chronological survey with targeted thematic analyses Presents stimulating interventions into individual controversies

The Political Thought of Mori Arinori

The Political Thought of Mori Arinori
Author: Alistair Swale
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2013-10-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134250908

This new study of the Meiji Government's controversial Education Minister and thinker, Mori Arinori, seeks to complement Ivan P. Hall's excellent earlier biography (1973) by providing an alternative interpretation of the man and his mission, namely that he is 'overwhelmingly closer to the social evolutionist's view of social change', with a considerable debt to the writings of Spencer rather than the Utalitarian philosophy of J. S. Mill. In other words, Mori was able to develop a workable philosophy of government and administration in line with the pragmatic needs of Japanese society. The book, therefore, will contribute to a radical rethink of Japanese perceptions of the Meiji reforms seen in their own terms.

Music and the Making of Modern Japan

Music and the Making of Modern Japan
Author: Margaret Mehl
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2024-05-29
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1800647050

Japan was the first non-Western nation to compete with the Western powers at their own game. The country’s rise to a major player on the stage of Western music has been equally spectacular. The connection between these two developments, however, has never been explored. How did making music make Japan modern? How did Japan make music that originated in Europe its own? And what happened to Japan’s traditional music in the process? Music and the Making of Modern Japan answers these questions. Discussing musical modernization in the context of globalization and nation-building, Margaret Mehl argues that, far from being a side-show, music was part of the action on centre stage. Making music became an important vehicle for empowering the people of Japan to join in the shaping of the modern world. In only fifty years, from the 1870s to the early 1920s, Japanese people laid the foundations for the country’s post-war rise as a musical as well as an economic power. Meanwhile, new types of popular song, fuelled by the growing global record industry, successfully blended inspiration from the West with musical characteristics perceived as Japanese. Music and the Making of Modern Japan represents a fresh contribution to historical research on making music as a major cultural, social, and political force.

A History of Japan

A History of Japan
Author: Conrad Totman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 724
Release: 2014-09-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1119022355

This is an updated edition of Conrad Totman's authoritative history of Japan from c.8000 BC to the present day. The first edition was widely praised for combining sophistication and accessibility. Covers a wide range of subjects, including geology, climate, agriculture, government and politics, culture, literature, media, foreign relations, imperialism, and industrialism. Updated to include an epilogue on Japan today and tomorrow. Now includes more on women in history and more on international relations. Bibliographical listings have been updated and enlarged. Part of The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.

Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens

Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens
Author: Mark Lincicome
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2009-02-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1461633613

Lincicome offers a new perspective on Japanese educational debates and policy reforms that have taken place under the guise of internationalization since the mid-1980s. By contextualizing these developments within a historical framework spanning the entire twentieth century, he challenges the argument put forward by education officials, conservative politicians, and their supporters in the academy and the business world that history offers no guide for addressing the educational challenges that face contemporary Japan. Combining diachronic and synchronic approaches, Lincicome analyzes repeated attempts throughout the twentieth century to Ointernationalize educationO (/kyoiku no kokusaika/) in Japan. This comparison reveals important similarities that transcend educational policy to encompass Japanese conceptions of individual, national, and international identity; relations between the individual, the nation, the state, and the international community; and the type of education best suited to negotiating multiple identities among the next generation of Japanese subject-citizens.

Cities around the World [2 volumes]

Cities around the World [2 volumes]
Author: Jing Luo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 659
Release: 2019-07-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 144085386X

This two-volume set offers a comprehensive overview of major challenges faced by cities worldwide in the 21st century, and how cities in different geographic, economic, and political conditions are finding solutions to them. This two-volume encyclopedia examines ten critical issues that face cities across the globe today—environmental and societal struggles that affect the daily lives of city dwellers. Readers will gain a better understanding of our global neighbors and will be able to use this book in order to compare and contrast different approaches to critical issues in our world. Volume One examines employment and jobs; energy and sustainability; green spaces; housing and infrastructure; and migration and demographic changes. Volume Two discusses pollution; schools; traffic and transportation; violence, corruption, and organized crime; and waste management. Each issue begins with an introduction providing an overview of the issue from a global perspective. Following the introduction are ten alphabetically arranged world city profiles of cities that are struggling with the issue and cities that have found innovative solutions to deal with the crisis. The profiles explain how the problem came to be; consequences inhabitants face, such as compromised health, limited access to education, and high taxes with low wages; and failed and successful initiatives taken by city management.

Education Policy and Equal Opportunity in Japan

Education Policy and Equal Opportunity in Japan
Author: Akito Okada
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2011-12-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0857452681

In many societies today, educational aims or goals are commonly characterized in terms of “equality,” “equal opportunity,” “equal access” or “equal rights,” the underlying assumption being that “equality” in some form is an intelligible and sensible educational ideal. Yet, there are different views and lively debates about what sort of equality should be pursued; in particular, the issue of equality of educational opportunity has served as justification for much of the postwar restructuring of educational systems around the world. The author explores different interpretations of the concept of equality of educational opportunity in Japan, especially as applied to post-World War II educational policies. By focusing on the positions taken by key actors such as the major political parties, central administrative bodies, teachers’ unions, and scholars, he describes how their concepts have developed over time and in what way they relate to the making of educational policy, especially in light of Japan’s falling birthrate and aging society.