Change and Continuity in Modern Japanese Educational History: Allied Occupational Reforms Forty Years Later
| Autor: | Harry Wray |
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| Rok vydání: | 1991 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Comparative Education Review. 35:447-475 |
| ISSN: | 1545-701X 0010-4086 |
| DOI: | 10.1086/447047 |
| Popis: | This article is based on primary research in contemporary documents on educational reform during the Allied Occupation of Japan, 1945-52, interviews of 90 former participants of the Ministry of Education (Monbush6) and the Education Division of the Civil Information and Education Section (CIE), Supreme Command for Allied Powers (SCAP), and research on current Japanese education. It is intended to be interpretive in nature and to stimulate thought on the subjects of change, continuity, and significance of the Allied Occupation within modern Japanese history by examining educational reform during that period. I pose two questions: First, how historically significant were the occupation's educational reforms viewed from the standpoint of their change or continuity in content, structure, and ideology of present Japanese education? Second, how much change and continuity exists between current and prewar education?' For this analysis, I examine the occupation's educational reforms within three categories: structure, methodology, and ideology. First, I conclude that in ideological and methodological areas there is more continuity than change from prewar Japanese education. Japan's meager fiscal and physical resources, the limited duration of the occupation, and deep-seated traditional cultural values and social behavior patterns did not allow the reforms to take root.2 Second, structural reforms were more successful because limited prewar reforms provided roots and created vested interests that made rescinding them difficult. Third, CIE's ideological and structural goals of decentralizing Japanese education failed because of their dependence on the Ministry of Education and traditional cultural and political behavior patterns that caused local educators and citizens to look to Tokyo |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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