Much of the existing research on Japan’s education system begins with the assumption that it follows a rigid, top-down pattern. Citing the national government’s authority to set curriculum standards and approve textbooks for classroom use, many researchers posit a pervasive ideological clash between the government and various educational constituencies. Teacher union resistance to Ministry policies, the Ienaga textbook censorship court cases, and the diplomatic controversies arising from textbook presentations of Japan’s role in WWII fit this conflict model.

The panelists do not deny the importance of conflict for understanding Japanese education. We argue, however, that adherence to this top-down model has produced a simplistic picture of power relations and movements for change. The papers present case studies which, taken together, identify more complex, and subtle, power relations involving actors whose initiatives help to shape, or reshape, Ministry policies. They reveal the dynamic nature of Japan’s educational system by describing the influence of outside forces and the fluid, interactive processes that affect educational policy.

DeCoker’s paper describes how social and economic forces outside the government’s control have prompted high school students to act in ways that contradict the Ministry’s carefully laid plans to diversify the curriculum. Papers by Lewis and Lincicome examine how the Ministry has been obliged to develop curricular policy based on input garnered from the local level through a give-and-take process lasting many years. Russell’s paper analyzes the challenge that the ubiquitous, shadow system of commercially operated juku present to continued ministerial authority over Japanese education.

Gary DeCoker, Ohio Wesleyan University

This paper provides an example of the dynamic context of the Japanese educational system and illustrates the way in which top-down reform efforts are inhibited by forces beyond the Ministry of Education’s control. The author describes unintended consequences that have resulted from recent Ministry of Education’s attempts to diversify the high school curriculum by reducing both the number of required courses at the high school level and the number of required examinations on the national university entrance examinations. Due to various factors beyond the control of the Ministry of Education, the recently-introduced flexibility has produced a result contrary to the Ministry’s intention, i.e., rather than increasing the breadth of their course of study, most college-preparatory students have begun taking a more narrow range of courses in high school.

The paper includes a presentation of post-WWII changes in the high school academic curriculum, of changes in the national university entrance examination, and of a case study of a high school’s attempt to react to these changes. It concludes with a discussion of the changing context for Japanese students making the transition from high school to university studies and the forces that drive their curricular decisions.

Mark E. Lincicome, College of the Holy Cross

This paper examines a series of reforms that the Ministry of Education has implemented over the past decade to "internationalize" the school curriculum and cultivate "Japanese citizens of the world" (sekai no naka no Nihonjin). To this end, the Ministry has taken a comprehensive approach that mandates school teachers and administrators to integrate "education for international understanding" into every subject in the curriculum. In addition, it has sanctioned the establishment of new "international high schools," and has allowed some existing high schools to create an "international course of study." Due to a dearth of new textbooks that address "education for international understanding," and to the absence of uniform curriculum standards and approved teaching materials for the new international studies schools and courses, teachers have been obliged to create their own.

Consequently, this initiative has the potential to alter not only curriculum content, but also the role of individual teachers in determining that content. Accordingly, this paper will include an analysis of some of these materials, and will address such questions as the following: How do teachers define the goals of international studies? How do they prepare materials and choose methods appropriate to those goals? What political or institutional constraints, if any, must they contend with? How do they view the added responsibility of determining their own course standards and materials? How have their students responded to these initiatives?

Catherine C. Lewis, Mills College

Over the past two decades, Japanese teachers have shifted from teacher-centered direct instruction to student-centered inquiry in elementary science—a difficult shift because teachers must help students move from passive recipient of information to active, thoughtful investigator. Expanding previous work on "lesson study" as a classroom-based reform force (Lewis & Tsuchida, Journal of Educational Policy, 1997), this paper investigates the role of textbooks in educational reform.

Major U.S. and Japanese elementary science textbooks were compared with respect to content, presentation (both verbal and graphic), and assumptions about children’s learning. Japanese elementary science textbooks are lean and child-centered, treat a small number of topics, use a minimum of words to do so (about one-tenth the number used to explain key concepts in U.S. textbooks), and expect students to learn by "doing" science, rather than reading about it.

Interviews were conducted with more than thirty educators in the two countries, including authors of each of the five major Japanese elementary science texts. The interviews document that Japanese texts are written by current classroom teachers based on their successful lessons, and that the Ministry of Education’s approval process exerts strong control against proliferation of textbook content. U.S. textbooks are typically not compiled by practicing teachers, but by specialists in writing or content.

Conclusions address the role of teachers, government, and commercial interests in shaping educational reform in the two countries, and science education reform as a window on the nature of power in education policy.

Nancy Ukai Russell, Independent Scholar

Juku, ("cram schools") refer to the private, non-formal sector of supplemental lessons which 75% of Japanese schoolchildren have experienced by the time they leave middle school. Juku are big business in Japan, with annual revenues estimated at approximately $11.5 billion. The institutionalization of private, supplemental lessons in Japan has spawned an industry of juku trade journals, textbook publishers, and professional development for instructors. Japanese parents begin to purchase private lessons when their children are in elementary school, with an average usage rate of 24% for this group. The attendance rate rises to 60% in middle school and peaks at 75% when students reach the last year of middle school and are preparing to take high-stakes entrance examinations.