Educational Progressivism, Cultural Encounters and Reform in Japan provides a critical analysis of educational initiatives, progressive ideas and developments in curriculum and pedagogy in Japan, from 1900 to the present day. Drawing on evidence of both cultural encounters and internal drivers for progressivism and reform, this book re-evaluates the history of Japanese education to help inform ongoing and future debates about education policy and practice worldwide. With contributions from Japanese scholars specialising in the history and philosophy of education and curriculum studies, chapters consider key collaborative improvements to teacher education, as well as group learning, ‘life education’, the creative arts and writing, and education for girls and women. The book examines Western influences, including John Dewey, Carleton Washburne and A. S. Neill, as well as Japan’s own progressive exports, such as holistic Zenjin education, Children’s Villages and Lesson Study, highlighting cultural encounters and progressive initiatives at both transnational and national levels. The chapters reflect on historical and political background, motivations, influences and the impact of Japanese progressive education. They also stimulate, through argument and critical discussion, a continuing discourse concerning principles, policy, politics and practices of education in an increasingly globalised society. A rigorous and critical study of the history of progressive education in Japan, this book will interest an international readership of academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of progressive education, comparative education, social and cultural history, history of education, Japanese studies, curriculum studies, and the history of childhood.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Drawing on the case of moral education reform, this book provides an authoritative picture of how policy is enacted between state policymaking and school practice in Japan, focusing on how national policy is enacted locally in the classroom. The study follows the 2015 moral education reform from its genesis in central government, through the Ministry of Education to its enactment by local government and schools. The book looks beyond written policies, curricula and textbooks to examine how teachers, school administrators and others make sense of, and translate, policy into practice in the Japanese classroom context. Chapters explore how moral education practice has changed in response to the intentions of national policy, and analyzes the implications for understanding processes of policy enactment in the Japanese education system. This book presents a new perspective on the complexity of education policy making, practice, and the gaps in between. It will be of interest to postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in the fields of education policy and politics, moral education, school administration, and international and comparative education more broadly, particularly in Asia.

This book analyses the organisation cultures that promote Japanese Lesson Study, identifies the soul of lesson study, which is missing in other cultures, and discusses the conditions for successfully transplanting the Lesson Study to other cultures. Adopting Nonaka and Tateuchi’s (1995) SECI knowledge creation model as the analytical lens, it explores the tacit and explicit knowledge convention and creation processes in lesson study. Unpacking the mechanism of the knowledge management process and practices could assist policy makers and school administrators, educators in contextualising lesson study to their school systems. The book provides an accessible discussion of the benefits and challenges of introducing lesson study, and presents three new research dimensions to analyse it: reviewing the historical development of lesson study in terms of the pendulum swings between professional accountability and state accountability in developing the school-based curriculum and the national curriculum; examining lesson study as a knowledge management tool for creating pedagogical knowledge for curriculum implementation: and studying the “kaizen kata” embedded in the PDCA cycles of lesson study as an organization routine for school improvement.

The philosophy of Lesson Study in Japan—teacher ownership, teacher professionalism, student learning-focused dialogue, teacher collaboration, and teacher professional community—has attracted educators and researchers worldwide. However, Lesson Study does not have the same meaning as its original Japanese expression Jugyou Kenkyuu, a combination of two Japanese words—Jugyou meaning instruction or lesson(s) and Kenkyuu meaning study or research. To bridge the gap between Jugyou Kenkyuu and Lesson Study and therefore maximize the potential of Lesson Study in the world, this edited volume provides two "mirrors" for those who wish to reflect on and implement Lesson Study within their own contexts. One section discusses how Lesson Study is utilized in Japanese teacher education and how this system reproduces the very culture of Lesson Study. The other section addresses case studies showcasing Lesson Study implementation in several countries such as the United States, Germany, Norway, Peru, and Uganda and discusses the opportunities and challenges that arise when Lesson Study-based teacher education expands beyond Japan to the rest of the world. This book will appeal to anyone interested in learning about Lesson Study.

As one of the most rapid and earliest nations to achieve "Western modernisation", much of Japan’s success stems from its fruitful literacy history during the Tokugawa shogunate as well as later influences from Western educational ideals and consequent economic and democratic conflicts in Japan. This book seeks to enlighten readers on how education and schooling contributed to Japan’s particular process of modernisation and industrialisation. These historical insights can be applied to crises in formal and systemised education today, and form the basis of potential solutions to controversies faced by formal education in Japan and other nation-states. A book that bridges the international information gap in Japan’s history of education will be immensely valuable to historians of both international and Japanese education.

This edited collection challenges the common preoccupation with knowledge acquisition and academic achievement by comparing the aims and cultural beliefs which drive education in different countries throughout the world. Through case studies from countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe, the authors present how education can be approached holistically to foster student happiness and well-being. The book illustrates wide-ranging interpretations of what it means to provide a "good education," and how student-centered, holistic approaches to learning can be effective in promoting creativity, tolerance, student well-being, and an appreciation of environmental and societal responsibilities. Based on rigorous mixed-method empirical research, it highlights how the integration of happiness in education can not only enhance academic excellence but can also have a positive impact on the students’ overall well-being. This cutting-edge book focuses on the holistic development and well-being of students and will be a relevant reading for educators, researchers, and students in such diverse fields as psychology, the sociology and philosophy of education, intercultural education, education policy and politics, leadership/management, mental health, and international and comparative education.