Education in Contemporary Japan
Education in Contemporary Japan
$46.00
USDA balanced introduction to and examination of contemporary Japanese education. While the postwar system of schooling has provided valuable ingredients for economic success, it has been accompanied by unfavourable developments such as excessively competitive exams, stifling uniformity, bullying, and an undervaluing of non-Japanese ethnicity. This book offers up-to-date information and new perspectives on schooling in contemporary Japanese society, and uses detailed ethnographic studies and interviews with students and teachers. It examines the main developments of modern schooling in Japan, from the beginning of the Meiji era up to the present, and includes analysis of the most recent reforms. It develops a new picture of the role that schooling plays for individuals and the wider society. Essential reading for students and educators alike.
- Up-to-date, includes analysis of the most recent reforms
- Provides a balanced depiction of the benefits and flaws of the Japanese education system
- Draws extensively on ethnographic studies and participants' own accounts as 'insiders'
Reviews & endorsements
"This is the most informative book on Japanese education of the 1990s. The authors rely on a historical and qulitative approach to provide a welath of information about the functioning of contemporary Japanese education, with a special focus on the themes of inequality and diversity. This style of presentation should make the book attractive to a wide range of readers including undergraduates in anthropology, sociology, teacher education, and related courses...this is most comprehensive discussion of Japanese education to appear for some time. It is a good read and deserves the attention of a wide circle of readers." Journal of Japanese Studies
Product details
May 1999Paperback
9780521626866
288 pages
229 × 152 × 16 mm
0.43kg
14 b/w illus. 11 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Analytical frameworks: schooling and the society
- 2. Development of modern schooling
- 3. Students' experiences of schooling I: social groups
- 4. Students' experiences of schooling II: minorities
- 5. Teachers' experiences of schooling
- 6. Problems and reforms in the 1980s and 1990s
- Conclusion.
