Schooling Selves: Autonomy, Interdependence, and Reform in Japanese Junior High Education 9780226368054

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Schooling Selves

Schooling Selves Autonomy, Interdependence, and Reform in Japanese Junior High Education

p e t e r c av e

the university of chicago press

chicago and london

peter cave is a lecturer in Japanese studies at the University of Manchester and the author of Primary School in Japan. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2016 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2016. Printed in the United States of America 25  24  23  22  21  20  19  18  17  16  1  2  3  4  5 isbn-13: 978-0-226-36772-9 (cloth) isbn-13: 978-0-226-36786-6 ( paper) isbn-13: 978-0-226-36805-4 (e-­book) doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226368054.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cave, Peter, 1965– author. Title: Schooling selves : autonomy, interdependence, and reform in Japanese junior high education / Peter Cave. Description: Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2016. | ©2016 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015039882 | isbn 9780226367729 (cloth : alkaline paper) | isbn 9780226367866 (paperback : alkaline paper) | isbn 9780226368054 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Junior high schools—Social aspects—Japan. | Japanese—Education (Elementary) | Educational change—Japan. Classification: lcc lb1556.7.j3 c38 2016 | ddc 373.52— dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039882 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-­1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents Acknowledgments vii Note on Conventions  ix introduction 1 chapter 1. I ndividuals, Autonomy, and Society in Japanese Education 14 chapter 2. R  eshaping Reform: Discipline, Autonomy, and Group Relations 40 chapter 3. Classes, Clubs, and Control 59 chapter 4. Mass Games and Dreams of  Youth 90  hanging the Classroom? Autonomy and Expression chapter 5. C in Japanese Language and Literature 122 chapter 6. The Challenges and Trials of Curricular Change 143 chapter 7. T  o Graduation and Beyond: High School Entrance and Juku 191 Conclusion 219 Fieldwork Appendix 235 Notes 241 Glossary 261 References 263 Index 283

Acknowledgments

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y deepest thanks go to the principals, teachers, students, and parents of the schools where I was very kindly allowed to conduct research. School teachers in Japan work very hard and do a very difficult and important job. To expose your teaching to the observation of an outsider is not easy. Teachers were very generous in giving me their time, despite the stress and busyness of their lives. I am very grateful for—­and very admiring of—­their efforts. It was a pleasure to spend time with them, and also a great pleasure to talk and interact with so many students, full of liveliness, intelligence, determination, and a sense of fun. Particular thanks are due to students and parents who kindly agreed to share their thoughts with me in interviews, and to the track and field club (1996) at “Tachibana” for putting up with my participation in their club activities. I would like to thank the many friends in “Sakura” and throughout Kansai who have been so helpful and supportive in so many ways over the years of this research. Special thanks go to Katayama Chijo and his family; the ever-­hospitable Ikoma, Nakata, Matsui, and Nakano families; Iwasaki Akiko; Yamasaki Kotoko; and Inagaki Kyoko. Thanks also to Kenji and Donna Go and their family for their help in Tokyo. This research could never have been completed without these friends’ kindness and encouragement. Earlier research for this book was conducted under the supervision of Professor Roger Goodman at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, and I am very grateful to Roger, not only for his excellent supervision but for his help and support over many years. Financial support for this research was provided at different times by Postgraduate Training Awards from the Economic and Social Research

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Council of Great Britain (1994–­1997), a Research Scholarship from the Ministry of Education, Japan (1995–­1997), and a Japan Foundation Fellowship (2007), as well as by internal research funds of  the University of Hong Kong (1998–­2007) and the University of Manchester (2007–­2015). I am very grateful to the School of Languages, Linguistics, and Cultures (as it was then) at the University of Manchester for allowing me to conduct fieldwork in Japan from August to December 2007. I would also like to thank my colleagues in East Asian Studies for their support in this, and in many other ways during my years at Manchester. I would like to thank Gordon Mathews, Lynne Nakano, and Ian Reader for their helpful advice on my original book proposal and the two anonymous reviewers for the University of Chicago Press for their constructive criticism, which helped me improve the book significantly. I also very much appreciate the encouragement and efficiency of Elizabeth Branch Dyson, who has been a pleasure to work with as editor. While writing the book, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to read the manuscript of Mette Halskov Hansen’s wonderful recent book, Educating the Chinese Individual, which was an extremely helpful stimulus to my thinking on schooling and selfhood. Parts of chapters 5 and 6 draw on and develop material previously published in my 2011 article, “Explaining the Impact of Japan’s Educational Reform: Or, Why Are Junior High Schools So Different from Elementary Schools?” Social  Science  Japan  Journal, 14 (2): 145–­63 ( published by Oxford University Press).

Note on Conventions

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apanese words have been romanized using the modified Hepburn system used in Kenkyūsha’s New Japanese-­English Dictionary (4th ed., 1974), with macrons used to show long vowels. Long vowels are not shown in the case of familiar place names such as Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka, or Japanese regnal names, such as Showa and Taisho. Japanese names are normally written in the Japanese style, with the family name first and the given name second. However, in the case of Japanese authors of works in English, family name follows given name. For the sake of anonymity, I have used pseudonyms for places, institutions, and people in the fieldwork site, and some details that might inadvertently allow identification have been changed. Teachers are given the honorific suffix -­sensei (meaning “teacher” or “master”) after their name, as in the original Japanese. Girls and boys at the schools studied were usually referred to and addressed by teachers (and one another) with the suffixes -­san (for girls) and -­kun (for boys) after their names, and I have also used these suffixes. All translations of Japanese texts are my own, unless otherwise indicated.

Introduction It is no exaggeration to say that whether or not this country can construct a vibrant economy and society in the twenty-­first century depends on raising creative people. — K ­ eizai Dōyūkai, business executives’ association “Relaxed education” will ruin our children. —­Wada Hideki, educational commentator What is important is to guarantee a certain level of academic attainment to all children. In that sense, I venture to say that one-­size-­fits-­all education is fine during compulsory education. —­ Saitō Takao, journalist

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or two decades, from the late 1980s to about 2010, the world of Japanese compulsory education was shaken by reform. Reform was demanded in response to perceptions of present crisis and future challenges for Japan’s economy and society. It was fiercely debated once concrete proposals were advanced; it was implemented in schools amid conflicting responses from teachers; and it was partially reversed, after setbacks in schools invited fierce media criticism. This book uses fieldwork in two Japanese schools conducted over a period of a dozen years to examine how reform discourses and policy measures played out within lower secondary education during this contentious period, and why the reforms were so radically reshaped as they were implemented in schools. Further, it explores the significance of these processes for our understanding of contemporary Japan. What do junior high schools’ responses to reform tell us about self and society in today’s Japan? How have the changes and challenges of Japan’s last twenty years been reflected, transmuted, or resisted in schools? What kinds of people are Japanese junior high schools seeking to produce, and what practices have they used to this end? Calls for change in Japanese education were the result of a variety of concerns. Business leaders and some politicians wanted an education

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system that developed creativity and promoted diversity and choice to meet the challenges of an envisaged future where Japan could no longer rely on importing ideas and knowledge, but had to come up with its own. Self-­styled progressive educationalists deplored what they saw as excessive competition and exam pressure. More generally, there was a widespread view that children were losing touch with their social and natural environ­ ments, making them less able to relate well to others socially and emotionally. The government response was curricular reform that attempted to restore children’s relationships while promoting individuality and the ability to think for oneself. Initially, the reforms seemed to embody a broad consensus and were widely welcomed. Subsequently, however, intense criticism from scholars, pundits, and media was followed by responses in schools themselves that were divided at best. This book explores how teach­­ers reinterpreted, reshaped, and resisted reforms and examines why pro­­posals that seemed so promising ran into such difficulties in classrooms and staff rooms. The context for the reform process was a period that has puzzled and divided observers of Japan. Sometimes the country has been seen as mired in stagnation, unable to make the changes it needed, whether in the fields of business, politics, or social policy (Lincoln 2001; Scheiner 2006; Schoppa 2006). On the other hand, sometimes it has been seen as undergoing dramatic change, with long-­standing social, economic, and political structures weakening, metamorphosing, or breaking up entirely (Schaede 2008; Lu­­ kács 2010; Kariya 2013; Allison 2013). In recent years, anthropologists and sociologists have increasingly focused on what many see as forces of individualization and neoliberalism that are supposedly reshaping dominant ways of thinking and behaving in Japan. Twenty years or more ago, Japan was often seen as a “group-­oriented” society; now, much writing dwells on how Japanese individuals either seek out the independence they desire or are forced willy-­nilly into taking responsibility for their own lives amid the shrinking of social support nets that constrained, but also provided secu­ rity. But has Japan really changed so dramatically? Or are forces of change operating unevenly in different areas of society, as this study will argue—­ and if so, why? In this book, I want to go beyond antinomies of individual and society, or individualism and group orientation. I want to look more deeply at the diversity of discourses of self in Japan and how they interact in dynamic ways. Does increased individualization mean a weakening of group orientation or social control? Or, as social theorists in the Foucauldian tra­ di­tion have argued, do certain types of individualization represent new

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means of governing society? Conversely, does group orientation have to mean the subordination of the individual, or could some forms of “groupism” help individual selves become more autonomous? And how have the issues involved been worked out in practical terms in schools, those key sites of socialization? In the process, I bring together strands of scholarship that have not always been fully engaged with one another in the study of contemporary Japan, particularly in studies of education. The first of these is the rich tra­­ dition of ethnographic research on Japanese education itself. The second is research on contemporary Japanese society and culture more generally, often but not always by anthropologists and sociologists. And the third comprises powerful studies of modern Japanese social and intellectual history. By taking advantage of all three, we can better understand the relationships between school practices, patterns of social behavior, and long­running debates within Japan about individuals, society, and the state.

The Japanese Education System The Japanese education system is nationally centralized (in contrast to federal systems, such as those in Germany, India, or the United States), and the vast majority of children experience similar educational struc­ tures, though there is some scope for local experimentation and initiative. Before entering elementary school, almost all children spend at least three years at preschool, either yōchien (kindergarten) or hoikuen (day-­care center or nursery school) (Cave 2011b, 247–­48). There are nine years of compulsory education: six years at elementary school, for children ages six to twelve, and three years at junior high school for twelve-­to fifteen-­year-­olds. The end of  junior high school is crucial in determining children’s life trajectories. To enter high school (three years, from age fifteen to eighteen), children must pass an entrance exam. This operates as the most important sorting mechanism in the Japanese education system, determining whether children will enter more or less educationally demanding high schools. In turn, the high school they enter will strongly influence their tertiary education and employment options. This highlights the key role played by junior high schools in the educational system, and the consequent pressure on both teachers and students. About 96 percent of students go on to high school, a figure that has been stable since the end of the 1970s (Monbukagakushō 2014). The proportion who continue on to tertiary education has been rising rapidly in

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recent years, as the number of children has fallen faster than the number of college places.1 Almost all children (98 percent in 2013) attend public elementary school, and the vast majority also attend public junior high school, though the proportion has been falling slowly over the last two decades, from 96 percent in 1990 to 92 percent in 2013.2 The proportion of privately educated high school students is much higher—­31 percent in 2013 (Monbukagakushō 2014).

The Schools and Their Settings Tachibana and Yoneda, the two junior high schools that are the focus of this study, are located in a city of about a hundred thousand people that I call Sakura.3 Sakura is situated in the Kinki district of west-­central Japan, comprising the six prefectures of Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Nara, Shiga, and Wakayama—­an area centered on the large cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe and which boasts historical cultures dating back to ancient times, along with an advanced industrial economy. Sakura is a long-­established city that has been a significant urban center for centuries, developing considerably during the Edo period (1600–­1868). Over the years, I have often been told by Sakura residents (especially incomers) that the city is a conservative place where people are cautious about speaking their minds. It is difficult to judge how fair such views are, but I have also met some very open-­minded people in Sakura. Like many cities (shi) in Japan, Sakura today comprises an urban core surrounded by a semirural hinterland. Despite the extensive rice fields in its more rural areas, all but 5 percent of the working population were employed in manufacturing, construction, trading, or services (including public services) throughout the period of this study. Several large manufacturers had factories in the city. The prefecture as a whole enjoyed income and education levels close to or slightly higher than the national average.4 During the years of this study, the population was growing, with new development taking place in the city suburbs; large new shopping malls and a new cultural center containing three concert halls opened between 1994 and 2007.5 The Tachibana Junior High School district included the city center and was the location of landmarks such as the city hall and the main railway station, as well as a major supermarket and long-­established shopping and

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figure 1.  Sakura street scene

entertainment areas. It comprised the districts of three elementary schools: Nakamachi, Ishida, and Morikawa. The Nakamachi district was the most central and included the traditional shopping streets as well as older residences. Over the decade of this study, however, these areas declined in prosperity as new, more modern shops and malls opened outside the city center. The population of this area was aging, and Nakamachi Elementary School’s student numbers decreased sharply. The Ishida district included both traditional artisanal industry and new estates, the latter often populated by newcomers to the city. Likewise, the Morikawa district was a mixture of old and new. In the 1960s, it had been largely agricultural, and the remnants of this heritage were still to be seen in the fields and older houses that remained. However, in recent years, as in the Ishida district, more and more agricultural land was being converted for residential development—­mainly small detached houses (ikkodate), but also some condominiums (manshon). Teachers in Sakura tended to see long-­ standing residents of the city as more respectful of schools and newcomers as the source of more problems, both because the latter were perceived as likelier to complain about school policies or practices and because their children were thought likelier to be involved in problems such as indiscipline, bullying, or school refusal. Teachers felt that this was because newer

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residents’ families were weakly tied into networks of kinship and neighborhood that might provide both social support and social control. Tachibana was one of the largest schools in the prefecture, with student numbers fluctuating between about eight hundred and a thousand students during the years of this study. There were always at least seven classes in each year group (gakunen). The school experienced repeated discipline problems, and though these were not in evidence during my main periods of fieldwork (1996–­1997 and 2007), they did break out in the intervening years. Perhaps partly because of this, as well as because of the size of the school, it had a reputation for being an unusually busy and demanding workplace. The school building itself dated from the early 1970s and was somewhat gloomy and down at heel; the corridors were lit with short strip lights, and in 2007, one of the teachers told me that some of the sliding doors were unchanged since she herself had been a student there thirty years before. There was also a large gymnasium, outdoor swimming pool, and sandy sports ground, all standard features of junior high schools in Japan. Since my 2007 fieldwork, this school building has been demolished and replaced by a new building on the same site. Yoneda school district was a sharp contrast. It was located in one of the most rural parts of the city, which had been incorporated into Sakura

figure 2.  Houses and rice fields in Sakura

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only in the 1950s. My twenty-­minute walk to the school from Yoneda railway station took me through a few streets of small, neat detached houses and then through the rice fields that occupied much of the school district, interspersed with older, larger detached houses and the occasional factory, temple, or convenience store. It was an attractive scene of apparent rural tranquility. However, the school district did contain some housing for the working poor (koyō sokushin jūtaku). Recent residential developments were clustered near Yoneda station, including a large multistory condominium complex that probably housed two or three hundred families. The principal of Yoneda in 2007 attributed most of the school’s few discipline problems to children from this area. The Yoneda school district boasted no major shopping or entertainment centers. Yoneda Junior High School was a medium-­sized school of about four hundred students, with four classes in each year group. Its building dated from the late 1980s and was considerably more attractive than Tachibana’s. On each of the three floors, there was a light, spacious hall outside the classrooms, unlike Tachibana’s narrow, gloomy corridors. Like the larger school, it possessed a gymnasium, an outdoor swimming pool, and a sports ground.

Research Methods The primary research method adopted in this study was ethnography, supplemented by survey research and analysis of documents issued by the Japanese government, major Japanese media, and commentators on Jap­ anese education. Ethnography was used because of its power to reveal not only the detailed behavior of local actors (teachers, students, and parents), but also the assumptions, understandings, and beliefs in which such behavior is grounded. School observations (including classroom observations), semistructured interviews, and analysis of school documents were the main methods adopted within this framework. Survey research was primarily employed in order to gain a clearer picture of the representativeness of some of the data gathered through observations and interviews. Study of national policy and discourse was enabled by analysis of policy documents and public (including media) discourse. This could then be compared with the worlds of behavior and discourse observed at the local level. The location of the study was chosen based on two major factors: comparative representativeness and quality of access. I wanted to conduct

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the study at schools and in a location that shared important features with many other schools and regions in Japan. In a country with a population of around 127 million and a public junior high school population of 4,527,400 in 11,269 schools in 1996 (3,614,552 students in 10,955 schools in 2007) (Monbukagakushō 2014), it can never be said that any single location or school is representative of the entire nation. There are especially significant differences between very rural and metropolitan areas, between affluent and economically deprived areas, and between areas with high and low minority populations, all of which are worth study in their own right. At the same time, the Japanese educational system is generally regarded as relatively highly standardized (Cummings 1980, 6–­15; Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 60). All public schools follow the same national curriculum; the Ministry of Education ensures a degree of standardization in areas such as textbooks, school buildings and facilities, and teacher qualifications (Kariya 2010, 59); and shared pedagogical discourse and practice is fostered by action research journals for teachers (Sato and Asanuma 2000, 116). Standardization of school practices is also encouraged by institutions like school sports and music associations that organize regular tournaments and contests in a pyramid structure, from the local to the national level. All this is undergirded by a shared national language, and national media organizations, such as Japan’s public broadcaster NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) and some of the world’s largest-­circulation national newspapers. Case studies at both elementary and junior high levels have consistently indicated common features in schools that are widely separated geographically.6 In addition, disparities in academic attainment are limited across most of Japan.7 As noted above, the city of Sakura is located in a prefecture with levels of income and education close to the national average, and observation of students, views of teachers, and impressions from cycling around the city fit with this statistical picture. In 1998, about 5 percent of Tachibana students received school expense subsidies (shūgaku enjo), slightly below the national figure of about 7 percent, while in 2007, the figures at both Tachibana and Yoneda were about 13 percent, similar to the national figure (Satō and Katsuno 2013, 17). There were no large minority populations in the Tachibana or Yoneda school districts. Quality of access is vital for an ethnographic study. I was fortunate to be introduced to the principals of the schools by the then principal of Morikawa Elementary School and the former vice-­principal of Tachibana. It was also helpful that I had three years’ experience working

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in Jap­anese public schools as a teaching assistant and was fluent in spoken and written Japanese, both of which probably helped to win the confidence of school managers and teachers. As has often been observed (Bestor, Steinhoff, and Bestor 2003), introductions are important in securing research cooperation in Japan, especially when the research involves long-­term access to sensitive settings. The ethnographic approach used in this study is longitudinal and multi-­ sited, by which I mean one that studies different schools, purposively chosen to enable better theoretical understanding of the key issues. Several previous ethnographic studies of Japanese education (Rohlen 1983; Fukuzawa 1994; LeTendre 2000; Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa 2009) have used such an approach in order to explore the effects of variation within Japan’s complex society, as have recent educational ethnographies in the United States (Kusserow 2004), India (Benei 2008), and China (Kipnis 2011). This type of “multi-­sited ethnography” is not the same as that, for example, discussed by Marcus (1995, 102), for whom “multi-­sited ethnography” is focused on objects of study that are “mobile and multiply situated.” Multi-­sited ethnography in either sense poses the challenge of investigating more than one site, without thereby “attenuating the power of fieldwork” to enable deep, intimate knowledge of each (Marcus 1995, 100). This study actually focuses on fewer schools than some of the studies mentioned above. This intensive focus was intentional, to enable me to study processes within each school in more detail and also to allow deeper investigation of classroom teaching practices than is achieved by many educational ethnographies. An initial pilot study at Tachibana Junior High School and Morikawa Elementary School took place between October and December 1994. This was followed by fieldwork at Tachibana from April 1996 until March 1997, covering one entire school year, with a month-­long follow-­up visit in June–­July 1998. In 1998, a new junior high curriculum was published; major revisions included the introduction of integrated studies (discussed especially in chapters 1, 2, and 6). I decided that the effects of this curricular reform (implemented from 2002) needed to be included in my research. To achieve this, I first made short visits to elementary and junior high schools in Sakura over the following years, revisiting Tachibana in 2000 and 2002 and also visiting several other junior high schools. I then revisited Sakura for four months between late August and late December 2007. Fieldwork was concentrated in two junior high schools, Tachibana and Yoneda. This time, two schools were studied in order to examine whether the different

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characteristics of the schools affected their responses to the reform. More details about the fieldwork are provided in the appendix to the book. Longitudinal ethnographic studies of education introduce an important historical dimension into ethnography. Good examples are the studies of preschools in Japan, China, and the United States by Joseph Tobin and his teams, first in the mid-­1980s (Tobin, Wu, and Davidson 1989) and then in the 2000s (Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa 2009). Part of the significance of the later studies lay in their revelation of both dramatic change over time (in the case of the main Chinese preschool studied) and remarkable continuity (in the main Japanese preschool). On the other hand, Anderson-­Levitt’s (2002) study of teaching first grade in France and the United States, though a longitudinal study based on data gathered over twenty years, does not seek to study change, instead using the period of time over which the research was conducted to support a picture of continuity. Diachronic studies can thus show how and why educational beliefs and practices undergo significant change or maintain striking continuity over time. Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa (2009, 4) write that “ethnography, at its core, is the study of culture,” and some may be surprised that “culture” as a term rarely features in this book. Why not? In recent decades, there has been a continuing debate within social and cultural anthropology about the value or otherwise of the concept of “culture.”8 As Kipnis (2011, 4) writes, “Many anthropologists, at least since the late 1970s, have abandoned the concept for being static, ahistorical, holistic, or apolitical.” Scholars of Japan in various disciplines (including anthropology and sociology) have made sustained attacks on studies that show the problems for which the concept of culture has often been criticized—­neglect of variation, conflict, and agency, and unwarranted holism—­and which, in the Japanese context, are often labeled Nihonjinron (theories of the Japanese) or Nihon bunkaron (theories of Japanese culture).9 Ryang (2004), a noted anthropologist of Japan, has specifically attacked the acceptance of the notion of “Japanese culture” as “Japan’s national culture” in such a way that culture and nation are more or less isomorphic. Though not necessarily leveled at the concept of culture itself, these critiques seem to have resulted in its diminishing use in the anthropology of Japan. The usefulness of the conceptual language of culture needs to be judged on a case by case basis, depending on what it adds analytically, as Fredrik Barth has argued (Borofsky et al. 2001). The danger when using the terms “culture” or even the adjective “cultural” is that they invite reification of

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“culture” as a whole that is a property of a certain nation or social group. In Japan as elsewhere, there are certainly shared ways of thinking, ideas, and practices that exercise considerable power within populations, as I discuss in this study. However, I found the conceptual language of “common and contested discourses” and “institutionalized beliefs and practices” more useful than the term “culture.” This was partly because one of the arguments of this book is that ideas and practices that have become firmly established within institutions (such as junior high school) can be more important there than ideas and practices that may be associated with a national or local population. In such a case, explanation on the level of the institution is better than explanation using notions of “national culture” (Cave 2011a). (The concept of “institution” is discussed further in chapter 6.)

Organization of the Book The first chapter of the book outlines the motivations for reform of school education in Japan, and how reform measures were developed and debated. It then explains the significance of the reforms of the 1990s and 2000s in the context of relationships between self, society, and the state. Finally, it examines debates about autonomy and education, in Japan and more widely. Chapter 2 describes and analyzes changes in teachers’ approaches to students’ socialization and human development between 1996 and 2007 through a comparison of first year (seventh grade) field trips at Tachibana. Teachers moved away from a focus on group discipline in 1996 toward the promotion of autonomous thinking in 2007, influenced by the educational reform agenda. However, this chapter also shows how reforms were adapted by the school to serve teachers’ priorities. Chapter 3 examines how schools sought to shape students’ selfhood through activities in two key groups within schools— ­class groups (gakkyū) and extracurricular clubs (bukatsudō). Teachers saw classes as heterogeneous groups in which students had to learn to accept and work together with others, creating unity without losing diversity. Students generally accepted these ideals in theory but in practice sometimes preferred to pursue their individual agendas. In contrast, clubs were seen as groups with a shared enthusiasm, allowing students autonomous choice. However, clubs were actually at least as much about disciplined commitment as about

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individual autonomy. The imperative to keep control was crucial in impelling teachers toward regimes of group discipline within schools, and was influenced by the dominance of norms of conventional masculine authority. Nonetheless, it did not go unquestioned, and there were signs of some loosening of masculine dominance and disciplinary emphasis by 2007. Chapter 4 explores discourses and practices of selfhood in three major school events: sports day, choral contest, and cultural festival. Schools had considerable freedom to decide the content of these events. The sports day and choral contest were dominated by discourses of collectivity and teamwork, while the cultural festival gave more scope to students’ autonomy and individual creativity. Ironically, Tachibana stopped holding its cultural festival just as educational reform reached its climax, instead prioritizing a mass callisthenic display that suggested teachers’ attraction to practices of group discipline. These major events were also key sites for the negotiation of cultural and gender identity. Chapter 5 looks at how educational reform affected teaching at Tachibana and Yoneda, focusing on the subject of Japanese (kokugo). Despite the reformist attempt to promote individuality and autonomy, texts continued to focus more on relationships with others than proactive agency. Though there was a significant expansion in the number of hours and textbook pages devoted to student expression (speaking and writing units) between 1996 and 2007, teachers often skipped these units in practice. Even teachers who sought to promote more student-­centered, autonomous learning found this hard, and many were more comfortable developing students’ basic skills and understanding. Chapter 6 outlines how Tachibana and Yoneda tackled the two central curricular changes implemented from 2002: integrated studies and the expansion of electives. It also explores how the schools used small-­ group teaching and teaching differentiated by proficiency. Most teachers were at best ambivalent about the major curricular changes of 2002. As a result, implementation was unenthusiastic and often amounted to relabeling or expansion of existing practices. Teachers were also ambivalent about teaching differentiated by proficiency but welcomed small-­group teaching, even though this did not seem to affect the way they taught. This chapter argues that the problems encountered with the 2002 reforms resembled those met by educational reforms elsewhere in the world, and suggests that conflict with institutionalized beliefs and practices was a fundamental reason for their difficulties. It suggests that future reform can only be enabled by changes to key school structures and the development of professional learning communities in schools.

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Chapter 7 considers issues surrounding learning assessment and entrance examinations for high school. Assessment and examination structures individuate junior high students but tend to promote self-­reliance rather than individuality or autonomy. Self-­reliance is also strongly promoted by discourses and practices at the juku (tutoring colleges) that many junior high students attend. Interviews with students and parents suggested that juku could help students exercise autonomy in learning, but they could also create pressure to follow the crowd. Students’ autonomy to decide their own path after junior high was limited, because the diversity of options open to them was largely hierarchical and promised very different career and life opportunities. This was not a problem of the educational system alone, but also of employment and reward systems in Japanese society. The conclusion considers what can be learned from the difficulties encountered by educational reform in junior high schools and its significance for our understanding of contemporary Japan. It argues that the advance of individualization is affected by the level of institutionalization of practices and beliefs in different social spheres. Finally, it discusses the varying notions of the group in junior high schools, arguing that these indigenous conceptual resources make it possible to work toward groups that support individual autonomy rather than produce disciplined individuals who are subordinate to the social whole.

chapter one

Individuals, Autonomy, and Society in Japanese Education

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ow children should develop into adult human beings is a universal concern, and in modern industrialized societies, it has become a sub­­ ject of almost incessant attention, if not anxiety. In Japan, school education has been a subject of intense concern for the nation-­state and for individu­ als from the beginning of the modern period in 1868, and it has also been a topic of perennial contention, especially since 1945. In the Meiji period (1868–­1912), the establishment of an effective national education system was a government priority and was designed to shape good workers and obedient imperial subjects, as well as develop a highly qualified elite to lead the nation (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 17–­19). The system established at the end of the nineteenth century endured until 1945, but was blamed thereafter for its role in creating the conditions that led to Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930s and its entry into World War II. After 1945, a thor­ oughgoing reform of the education system under the American Occupa­ tion emphasized the development of democratic citizens. The education system became much more egalitarian, as all children were given a largely undifferentiated education in coeducational classes for nine years between ages six and fifteen, in place of the multitrack, single-­sex secondary educa­ tion system of the pre-­1945 years. During the 1950s and 1960s, the major debates within Japanese edu­ cation centered on politics and ideology. Conservatives, who dominated government, sought to reintroduce greater stress on academic differentia­ tion and what they saw as traditional Japanese values and opposed teach­ ing with a left-­wing slant. Liberals and leftists, whose numbers were strong among teachers, fought against what they saw as the conserva­

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tives’ attempts to return to ideologies and practices that had dominated the pre-­1945 edu­­cation system and against increasing academic demands in the school cur­­riculum (Cummings 1980, 54–­75). In the meantime, the number of children going on to high school, which was not compulsory, increased continuously through the period, reaching 82 percent by 1970 (Monbukagakushō 2014), and Japanese students performed outstand­ ingly in the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS), conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achieve­ ment (IEA) in 1964 (Husen 1967). Despite political and ideological strug­ gles, problems within school education were not a subject of major public concern. However, this was to change during the 1970s. To some extent, the prob­­lems that came to a head in that decade resulted from the successes of the preceding years. Aspirations rose with incomes and living standards during Japan’s economic “high growth period” from 1955 to 1973. Confi­ dence in meritocratic credentialism meant that better educational quali­ fications were seen as the high road to success and security. The best jobs went to graduates of the best universities; and to have a chance of enter­ ing the best universities, it was necessary to enter the best high schools. The result was increased educational competition (Kariya and Dore 2006, 134–­41). To en­­sure the best chance of entering a good high school, it was believed that children needed extra tuition outside school, either from a private tutor or at a juku (tutorial college) offering classes in the evenings and on weekends. Contemporaries labeled the 1970s the “ranjuku jidai” (age of excessive tutorial college attendance) (Mainichi Shinbun Shakaibu 1977), though, as it turned out, attendance at juku was to become a per­ manent feature of Japan’s educational landscape. The 1970s was also the decade in which Japan’s students were subjected to the most academically demanding curriculum in the country’s postwar history (Cummings 1980, 155; NHK Shuzaihan 1983, 128–­36). Much criticism was leveled at what was labeled “cram education” and “bullet train lessons” that covered so much material so fast that many students were left hopelessly at sea as ochikobore (“the left behind”). The term “shichigosan (7-­5-­3) education” encapsulated the assertion that 70 percent of students understood what they studied at elementary school, 50 percent at junior high, and only 30 per­ cent at high school (NHK Shuzaihan 1983, 131).1 As the late 1970s also saw rising rates of juvenile delinquency and school refusal, critics of con­ temporary schooling, particularly progressives, often linked this disaffec­ tion among the young to educational competition and pressure to cram.

chapter one

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A 1978 report issued by the main opposition party of the time, the Japan Socialist Party, summarizes many points of the progressive perspective. Education is increasingly becoming a scene of desolation as a result of govern­ ment policy. The evidence can be seen in low academic attainment, the ranjuku jidai, ochikobore, “7-­5-­3 education,” the “four nos” [ yonmushugi] among students (no interest, no energy, no responsibility, no emotional reaction), universities becoming leisure lands, juvenile delinquency, and the rapid rise in suicides. . . . Failing to respond to the desire that children be taught until they under­ stand, government policies result in the creation of textbooks that cram in increased knowledge that results from social change, without any clear order. Along with difficult exam questions designed to sort students hierarchically, the result is students who get left behind, and an extreme drop in basic academic attainment [kiso gakuryoku]. This in turn produces the ranjuku jidai and a situ­ ation where school education becomes controlled by the examination industry. Children are robbed of their play, their physical strength fails to develop, they lose any latitude to do other than they have to [yutori], their sense of solidarity [rentai] disappears, and the development of their social nature as human beings becomes difficult. . . . The victors in the entrance exam competition find their motivation to study easily dissipate at university thanks to the relief they feel at having obtained the passport to a good life in the credentialist society, resulting in a tendency for university to be a “leisure land” that they can enjoy until they take company entrance exams, rather than a place of learning where they can discover their true reason for living [ikigai]. The losers see themselves as failures and are filled with a sense of inferiority, with the result that they lose the motive power to live lives true to themselves. (Sengo Nihon kyōiku shiryō shūsei henshū iinkai 1983, 32–­33)

From the second half of the 1970s, a further issue hit the headlines: vio­ lence by students against (especially) teachers (kōnai bōryoku). Not only did the number of incidents soar (by 50 percent in 1981, according to Na­ tional Police Agency records), but particularly horrifying incidents such as fatal attacks on homeless people by junior high students and the stab­ bing of a junior high student by a teacher in self-­defense left the public shocked (Schoppa 1991, 48–­49).2 After incidences of violence in schools started to subside from their peak in 1982–­1983, a new worry emerged—­ bullying. Again, the causes of alarm lay both in the number and severity

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of incidents. A Ministry of Education survey indicated over 150,000 re­ ported incidents of bullying in 1985 (Yahisa 1991, 17). In 1986, several stu­ dent suicides were linked to bullying and received wide media coverage (Yoneyama 1999, 158–­60). Though such problems affected the entire school education system, they were particularly acute at the junior high school level (Schoppa 1991, 49; Fukuzawa 1994, 68; Satō and Satō 2003, 12). This was perhaps not surpris­ ing, given junior high schools’ pivotal position in the education system as the institution where children prepared for the extremely high-­stakes high school entrance exams. Ministry of Education surveys indicated that 45  per­­ cent of junior high students attended juku in 1985, rising to 60 percent in 1993 (Dawson 2010, 16); meanwhile, junior high school refusal rates as measured by the Ministry reached 1.42 percent of students in 1995 (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 203).3 Annual ministry surveys repeatedly showed that incidents of student violence were most frequent in junior high school too; in one of the peak years, 1982, ministry statistics indicated that nearly 1,400 junior high schools (13.5 percent) experienced such an incident (Ya­ hisa 1991, 11). Bullying was also reported most often in junior high school in most years (over 15,000 incidents every year from 1985 to 1989) (Yahisa 1991, 17), and the most shocking and widely reported bullying-­related sui­ cides occurred in junior high school, as well (Yoneyama 1999, 158–­61). Public perceptions that junior high schools were both crucial and par­ ticularly problematic were reflected, as well as fueled, by dramatic portray­ als on television. The most widely watched of these was the series Sannen B-­gumi Kinpachi-­sensei (Mr. Kinpachi of Class 3-­B), written by Osanai Mieko and starring the actor and singer Takeda Tetsuya as teacher Saka­ moto Kinpachi. The first two Kinpachi-­sensei seasons were broadcast in 1979–­1980 and 1980–­1981, with twenty-­three and twenty-­five episodes, re­ spectively, and attracted huge viewing figures.4 The first season dealt with subjects like exam pressure, suicide, and teenage pregnancy; the second with school violence and exam pressure (again). The long-­haired and un­ orthodox Kinpachi-­sensei is portrayed as the ideal teacher, whose caring and readiness to listen persuade his troubled students to absorb his lec­ tures on life and change their view of themselves and others for the bet­ ter. As a whole, the Kinpachi-­sensei series lean strongly to the view that education is about healthy personal development above all, and that too much exam pressure has a thoroughly bad effect on students.5 Thus, by the mid-­1980s, there was a widespread perception within Japan that education was in crisis. Kōhai (desolation) was the term repeatedly

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used about education (NHK Shuzaihan 1983). It might well be argued that this perception was somewhat exaggerated. Ironically, the 1980s was also a period when Japanese education attracted much favorable attention among scholars, government officials, and journalists from the West, par­ ticularly the United States (Cummings 1980; Duke 1986; White 1987). In­ ternational tests indicated that Japanese students’ academic attainment was excellent, and from an American perspective, at least, the problems faced by Japanese schools seemed comparatively minor (Duke 1986, 188; LeTendre 2000, 113–­15), even though some analyses of Japanese schools by American scholars were more critical (Rohlen 1983). Nonetheless, within Japan, perceptions of crisis were intense and widely shared. Into the resulting debate strode Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro.

Educational Reform Debates from the 1980s On6 Nakasone Yasuhiro was prime minister between 1982 and 1987. Hailing from the Liberal Democratic Party, a conservative and business-­oriented party almost continuously in government between 1955 and 2009, he was considered a nationalist and an economic liberal and had long been inter­ ested in education (Schoppa 1991, 214). Seizing the opportunity presented by the perception of crisis to attempt to shape the educational debate, in 1984 Nakasone set up the high-­profile Rinji Kyōiku Shingikai (Ad Hoc Council on Education)—­Rinkyōshin for short— ­directly under the prime minister’s office rather than under the Ministry of Education. The backing of the prime minister ensured the council enormous publicity. The Rinkyōshin issued four reports before winding up in 1987. The council’s immediate impact in policy terms was limited, but it established some key ideas as guiding principles for educational reform, notably “stress on individuality” (kosei jūshi). “Stress on individuality” became a key piece of rhetoric, indicating a desire to move away from “one-­size-­fits-­all” edu­ cation where all children until the end of junior high school were learning the same things and pursuing the same goals in classrooms dominated by whole-­class teaching. However, the precise meaning of “individuality” (kosei) was unclear. An important 1995 monograph showed how protean the concept had been in twentieth-­century Japanese education; it had been used in the service of very different agendas, depending on its interpretation (Katagiri 1995; Satō 1995). Sometimes it was primarily understood in terms of “individuation”; that is, treating individuals as units with different levels of ability. It could

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then support agendas of educational efficiency and ability grouping. At other times, it was understood in terms of “singularization”; that is, treat­ ing individuals as unique possessors of special qualities. It could then sup­ port cooperative forms of education (Satō 1995). Educational sociologist Fujita Hidenori argued that the broad appeal of “individuality” masked sharp differences between those who used the word. Being a nebulous term on to which different groups could project their own interpretations, it united idealizers of free schools and child-­centered education with crit­ ics of egalitarianism and uniformity in education (Fujita 1995). The implications of “stress on individuality” for educational policy and practice were as unclear as the concept itself. Many to the political left warned that “individuality” could be interpreted simply as “differing abil­ ity” and used to justify earlier tracking of children into elite and non­ elite school programs (Hamabayashi 1987, 24–­25; Fujita 1997, 48; Saitō 2004, 25–­39). However, other progressives welcomed greater emphasis on chil­dren’s own interests and inquiry-­based learning (Kyōiku Mondai Ken­ kyūkai 1986; Yoshimoto 1992), because they understood “stress on indi­ viduality” to mean allowing each child’s special abilities and aptitudes to flourish (Hamabayashi 1987, 24–­25). Those to the political right were often ambivalent, too; some saw opportunities for more academic tracking, but others wanted more teaching of morals and “Japanese traditions and cul­ ture” (Yayama and Katō 1985; Schoppa 1991, 57–­59, 223–­28; Nijūisseiki Bijon Jū-­iinkai 1993). The debates thus highlighted the ideological am­ biguity of emphasizing the individual, which could be progressive or neo­ liberal; it could give children greater autonomy and develop their unique qualities, or throw them on their own resources and force them into com­ petition with others. The years after 1987 saw the new agenda of individuality repeatedly pro­ moted by the Ministry of Education and translated into policy measures. In 1989, the ministry issued a new school curriculum that placed greater em­ phasis on individuality and the individual. It featured what became known as a “new view of academic attainment” (shingakuryokukan), focusing on students’ interests and motivation (kyōmi, kanshin, iyoku) alongside the knowledge and understanding (chishiki, rikai) that had hitherto been un­ derstood as the core of academic attainment (Hirahara and Terasaki 1998, 33). The revised curriculum’s tone was marked by the new paragraph intro­ duced at its start: When advancing the school’s educational activities, efforts must be made fully to realize education which gives thorough guidance on basic content and makes

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the most of individuality [kosei o ikasu[. Also to be fostered are motivation to learn for oneself, and the capacity to cope as an independent subject with changes in society [mizukara manabu iyoku to shakai no henka ni shutai-­teki ni taiō dekiru nōryoku] (Monbushō 1989, 1).

Then, in 1996, came the first report of the fifteenth session of the Cen­ tral Council for Education (Chūō Kyōiku Shingikai, or Chūkyōshin), the ministry’s main advisory council (Monbushō 1996). The unusual signifi­ cance of this report lay in its comprehensive critique of the Japanese edu­ cational scene. Its analysis was broadly twofold. First, the council argued, the social and emotional education of Japanese children was inadequate, largely because children were no longer learning such skills naturally in their families and neighborhoods, as they supposedly had in the past. Second, the model of education designed to help Japan catch up with the West, based—­it was argued— ­on learning and understanding exist­ ing knowledge, was now inadequate for a new century when Japan had itself become a world leader and could no longer rely on the acquisition of knowledge from abroad. In the fast-­changing future the council envisaged, the key would be the ability to learn and to create by oneself, and conse­ quently, education had to nurture people of initiative who could identify and tackle problems themselves. The report called for education to nurture both traditionally valued qualities such as feeling for others (omoiyari), sociality, and cooperation, alongside qualities such as independence, thinking for oneself, and creativ­ ity, which had tended to be seen as underemphasized in Japanese schools. The combination of all these qualities was labeled ikiru chikara—­liter­ ally, “power to live.” The way to develop this “power to live,” according to the report, was to free children from excessive study pressure so that they could spend more time in their families and neighborhoods and have more room to think and explore for themselves, inside and outside school (Monbushō 1996, 12–­30). Concrete measures proposed by the council in this report and its 1997 successor (Monbushō 1997) included curricular reform to allow more interdisciplinary study and subject choice and the completion of a move from a five-­and-­a-­half-­day to a five-­day school week, which had begun in 1992. It was thought that the latter would give children more time to learn freely by exploration outside school. The unusual significance of these reports was underlined when the chair of the council, Professor Arima Akito, was appointed minister of educa­ tion in 1998. Arima, previously president of Tokyo University between

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1989 and 1993, was only the third academic to be appointed minister of education since 1945.7 The council’s recommendations were put into ef­ fect by the curriculum revision published in 1998, during Arima’s term as minister, and implemented in elementary and junior high schools from 2002, along with the five-­day school week. At the junior high school level, the revision had three major features (Monbushō 1998). The first was a significant reduction in the number of hours allocated for traditional sub­ jects (see chapter 6), along with their curricular content. The second was the introduction of a new curricular area, sōgō-­teki na gakushū, usually referred to by teachers as sōgō gakushū, and generally translated as in­ tegrated studies. Its purpose was to promote the kind of self-­motivated learning and thinking for oneself advocated by the 1996 Chūkyōshin re­ port. The third major feature was the expansion of time for elective sub­ jects (sentaku kyōka) in the second and third years of study. All in all, these revisions amounted to the most far-­reaching changes to the junior high curriculum since it was made binding on schools in 1958. However, hardly had the revised curriculum been published before it was subjected to a barrage of criticism—­along with the entire rationale that underpinned it—­by commentators and academics unhappy with the move away from the hitherto dominant emphasis on academic attainment in terms of high levels of knowledge and understanding. Some were con­ cerned about slipping academic standards or motivation to study, while others believed that the reforms risked widening inequality, because stu­ dents from homes with less cultural capital would be at a disadvantage (Cave 2007, 19–­24). While some progressives welcomed the reforms as promoting autonomous and exploratory teaching and learning, others at­ tacked them as a neoliberal policy designed to individualize and differen­ tiate children and undermine egalitarian commitment to ensuring basic academic attainment for all (Takayama 2008a, 136). At the same time, new concerns about education came to the fore to compete with previously dominant discourses. These concerns centered on perceived disorder, immorality, and violence among children and teen­­ agers—­from “compensated dating” (enjo kōsai) involving high school girls (Kinsella 2012) to rising youth crime (Schwarzenegger 2003), including a small number of particularly shocking murders (Fujita 2003, 160–­63). Also widely reported was an apparent breakdown of discipline in many elementary and junior high classrooms, which was given the vivid label “classroom collapse” (gakkyū hōkai) (Takahashi 1999). “Collapse” (hōkai) soon became a popular buzzword among critics for what they saw as a

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dominant progressive agenda and a resulting “collapse” in academic at­ tainment (Wada 1999) or even school itself (Kawakami 1999). Where the dominant reform discourse of the late 1980s and 1990s had been forward-­ looking, seeking to make changes in order to meet future challenges, these new discourses were basically conservative, seeking to defend or return to the practices that had, in their view, served postwar Japan well. Both a symptom and a reinforcement of this shift came in the form of the National Commission on Education Reform (Kyōiku Kaikaku Kokumin Kaigi) set up in 2000 by then prime minister Obuchi Keizō. The final report of this conservative-­dominated body advocated better moral education and com­ munity service for all schoolchildren (National Commission on Education Reform 2000) and led ultimately to a highly controversial revision of the fundamental law of education, the law that sets out basic principles used to interpret and apply other laws on education (Cave 2009, 45–­47). While the encouragement of experimentation, inquiry, individuality and autonomy continued to be a central plank of the Ministry of Education’s rhetoric and its program, a significant shift had occurred in public discourse, tending to move the focus of attention away from these themes toward the other set of issues highlighted in the 1996 Chūkyōshin report—­the supposedly declining socioemotional development of Japanese children. The changing attitude to the reforms could be tracked in the pages of Japan’s bestselling national newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri Shinbun. On the publication of the 1998 curriculum revision, a Yomiuri edito­ rial stated that “we can basically evaluate positively the direction at which the new curriculum aims.” However, the headline of another article the same day already hinted at doubts: “ ‘Integrated Studies’ a Tough Problem for Bewildered Teachers without a Manual.”8 Such misgivings continued to be highlighted in the Yomiuri’s coverage in 1999–­2000, with headlines such as “ ‘Integrated Studies’ in the New Curriculum: Anxiety Persists De­ spite Concrete Examples”; “Desire for Less Pressure, but Fears of Drop in Academic Attainment”; and “ ‘Relaxed Education’ Far from Realiza­ tion.”9 By March 2001, a Yomiuri survey found that “48 Percent Oppose ‘Relaxed Education’; Fears Rise of Drop in Academic Attainment.”10 In the months leading up to the implementation of the new curriculum in April 2002, the Yomiuri’s coverage grew ever more negative. The poten­ tial of the reforms was played down in favor of emphasis on the concerns they were raising.11 In the month before the new school year, the Yomiuri ran three front-­page articles under the headline, “What Will Happen to Academic Attainment?”12 The second of these articles started with a Lib­ eral Democratic Party politician reportedly yelling from behind a closed

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door at party headquarters: “If this goes wrong, the country’s finished!” (shippai shitara, kuni ga tsubureru zo!) Perhaps not surprisingly, when the Yomiuri carried out an opinion poll later in the month, the results, splashed on the front page, showed that 67 percent of respondents were against the cut in content of conventional subjects, and 60 percent against the five-­day school week.13 The approaches that had dominated postwar schools, previously so heavily criticized, had belatedly found defenders. Criticism of the curricular reforms was given fresh impetus by the “PISA shock” of 2003. International academic attainment tests by the Organisa­ tion for Economic Co-­operation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed Japanese fifteen-­ year-­olds slipping from first (in 2000) to sixth place among forty countries in mathematics, and from eighth to fourteenth place in reading (Takayama 2008b). The critics’ label for the reforms, “yutori kyōiku,” could be trans­ lated positively as “education with sufficient time to do more than cram” or pejoratively as “relaxed education” or “low-­pressure education,” but the pejorative interpretation became increasingly widespread. The Ministry of Education made a series of responses. From 2001, it encouraged teaching in small groups and according to academic perfor­ mance, especially in mathematics and English; funding for extra teachers was provided for this purpose (see chapter 6). The slogan “secure aca­ demic attainment” (tashika na gakuryoku) entered ministry documenta­ tion as a key term alongside “power to live,” clearly intended to show that academic rigor was a government priority. The ministry also stated that the curriculum only stated minimum standards, meaning that schools were free to teach to a higher level. Then, from 2007, the ministry instituted national achievement tests to provide better information about students’ academic attainment (Takayama 2013). Finally, the revised curriculum published in 2008 reversed some of the 1998 reforms: hours for conven­ tional academic subjects were once again increased, hours for integrated studies were reduced somewhat, and junior high electives were abolished, though the five-­day school week remained. The media pronounced that this amounted to “exiting yutori education” (datsu yutori),14 though the Ministry of Education and those close to it presented the revisions as a modification of its reform approach rather than a capitulation.15 What was clear was that the revision represented a change of course, and at least a temporary end to a reformist approach that had dominated policy toward compulsory education for two decades. This course of events was remarkable for several reasons. The suc­ cessive curriculum reforms of 1989 and 1998 were themselves striking in

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their willingness to hand over centralized ministry power over curricular content to local schools, in sharp contrast to the frequent portrayal of Japanese school education hitherto as subject to strong, if not excessive, central control (Horio 1988; Nagano 1992; Inagaki and Satō 1996, 169–­ 73). It was equally striking that this entrusting of greater power to teach­ ers (or “producer interests,” as neoliberals elsewhere often dubbed them) ran counter to movements in countries such as the United Kingdom, Aus­ tralia, and New Zealand, which were tightening control over the curricu­ lum and subjecting teachers to increasing audit, amid protests against loss of teacher autonomy (Ball 1993; Sachs 2001). Perhaps most remarkable, however, was the fact that the reforms ended up being substantially re­ versed, even though they followed extensive consultation, were respond­ ing to what seemed a strong public consensus about the maladies of school education, and fulfilled some long-­standing aspirations of progressive edu­­ cationalists. Previous ministry attempts to change school education in the 1960s and 1970s had been thwarted by opposition from the teachers’ union, among others. In this case, however, the reforms were largely in line with changes that progressives allied with the union had themselves called for; in any case, a dramatic decline in membership during the 1990s had left the teaching unions much weakened (Aspinall 2001). Why was the sup­ posedly powerful ministry brought to a dramatic reversal of Japan’s largest curriculum reform for forty years, prepared for by so many years of care­ ful deliberation? In part, the explanation for the reversal lies in the pressure of opinion in the media and among educational commentators, fueled by alarm over the slipping performance of Japanese children in some international tests. Yet it is unlikely that the reforms would have been so drastically modified if the ministry could have seen and represented them as a success. At least as fundamental as the attacks of pundits were problems within schools themselves, particularly at the junior high school level. As this book will show, skepticism, lack of capacity, and institutionalized obstacles within schools were fundamental reasons for the failure of reform.

Educational Reform and Individualization The importance of Japan’s school education reforms from the late 1980s through to the 2000s went well beyond education itself. The reform agenda was fundamentally about the kind of person that was needed for Japan’s fu­ ture, and the kind of society that Japan should become. As such, it had im­

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plications for selfhood. As the 1996 Chūkyōshin report in particular made clear, the reforms aimed at education that would develop people with the social and emotional skills to sympathize and work well with others, and also develop people with individual drive who could think for themselves and come up with creative ideas. The former set of qualities was presented by the 1996 report as ones that had generally been well developed among Japanese people, though now less evident due to social change; the latter was viewed as a set of qualities that had to be newly developed to meet the demands of a changing future. This agenda developed in the context of wider movements toward more emphasis on the individual in Japanese society. From the 1980s, Japanese sociologists and journalists pointed to signs of what they called increas­ ing individualism among young Japanese, in the form of consumerism, self-­expression, and unwillingness to put organization or nation before personal fulfillment (Yoshizaki 1997; Kinsella 1998, 290–­94). In the late 1980s, when Japan’s “bubble economy” was in full swing and employment plentiful, it seemed that young people were increasingly inclined to reject the life of the “company man” (kaisha ningen), who enjoyed the security of lifetime employment but was bound to the corporate treadmill. The trendy alternative was encapsulated by the term furiitā (freeter), which was coined by a magazine to encapsulate the supposedly liberated lifestyle of the freelance worker (Matsunaga 2000, 40–­44; Kosugi 2008, 1).16 The aftermath of the financial crash of 1990 quickly exposed the drawbacks of this insecure “freedom,” and the term furiitā morphed into a negative label for those forced to get by in precarious jobs. However, this did not end aspirations toward a system more focused on individuals. Though many young people were happy to achieve the security of being lifelong “com­ pany men,” others continued to reject corporate constraints in favor of dreams of personal fulfillment (Mathews 2004; Matsumiya 2005, 12–­22; Kosugi 2008, 35–­54; Cook 2013). Meanwhile, employers’ organizations such as Nikkeiren, Keidanren, and Keizai Dōyūkai issued a series of re­ ports in the 1990s calling for more flexible labor markets and more creative workers (Nihon Keieisha Dantai Renmei 1995; Keizai Dōyūkai 1995, 1999; Keizai Dantai Rengōkai 1996). Though what young people and large com­­ panies wanted were significantly different, on both sides there was consi­d­ erable dissatisfaction with the postwar status quo, which gave both (male) employees and big firms security and stability, but at the cost of freedom and flexibility. In other spheres of life, there were similar movements away from long-­ standing social patterns that offered stability but constrained individual

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freedom. Marriage rates fell and divorce rates rose, fueled in part by women’s increasing desire for freedom and for love in a married relationship (Na­ kano 2011; Alexy 2011b). More and more older people rejected the tradi­ tional expectation that they would live with their children in old age, instead choosing independence with interconnection in nisetai jūtaku (houses de­­ signed with spaces for two households), or else life in an old people’s home— ­partly from a wish not to burden their children with their care (Platz 2011; Allison 2013, 152). Discourses of individuality (kosei or jibunrashisa) be­ came more influential, expressing the desirability of self-­expression and creativity (Moeran 1989, 68; Matsunaga 2000, 42–­44; McVeigh 2000, 235; Edwards 2013) or commitment to “being oneself,” regardless of how oth­ ers saw that choice (Sasagawa 2004, 184; McLelland 2001, 105–­6; Ho 2008, 33, 44). According to Suzuki, Ito, Ishida, Nihei, and Maruyama (2010), this can be understood as a process of individualization, a concept they borrow from Ulrich Beck, who argues that “individualization means the disinte­ gration of previously existing social forms—­for example, the increasing fragility of such categories as class and social status, gender roles, family, neighbourhood etc.” (Beck and Beck-­Gernsheim 2001, 2). Suzuki and his colleagues (2010) believe that Japan has been experiencing an increase in both “subjective individualization”—­that is, desire for a more indivi­dually determined life, freed from the obligations imposed by family and so­ cial convention—­and “objective individualization,” whereby individuals are forced willy-­nilly to depend on themselves because of the withdrawal of the security previously provided by employers or families. Other re­ cent research also perceives increasing individualization, fracturing social relationships, and advancing neoliberalism in Japan (Slater and Galbraith 2011; Ho 2012; Edwards 2013). Anne Allison argues that many in Japan see a transformation from a previously secure, if constraining, society to one of growing isolation. Those she talked to “lamented the loss of something social—­the ‘collapse’ of the Japanese family (kazoku no hōkai), the dilu­ tion of human relationships (ningenkankei), the shrinkage of groupism in a culture now marked by solitude and loneliness (kodoku)” (Allison 2013, 81). Studies like these see individualization in Japan as propelled by multi­ ple forces—­people’s desire for more freedom and autonomy, companies’ desire for fewer obligations to their employees, and government’s desire to have citizens take more responsibility for looking after themselves. Of­ fering both promises of freedom and threats of insecurity and disconnec­ tion, it is a profoundly ambiguous process.

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Individuals and Groups in Japanese Education and Society As we have seen, the landmark Chūkyōshin reports of 1996–­1997 argued that education reform needed to help Japanese children become both more social and more individual. But what does research tell us about the kind of educational environment that Japan’s children had actually been expe­ riencing? What were its dominant ideals and practices, and what kind of people was it seeking to produce? Studies of Japanese education between the 1970s and the early 1990s portrayed a system that seemed to emphasize both the group and the in­ dividual. Research on preschools and elementary schools showed how children were taught to work together through small groups, delegation of responsibilities, and discussion (Tobin, Wu, and Davidson 1989; Lewis 1995; Kotloff 1996). They were taught to manage themselves by participat­ ing in routines that ranged from collective greetings (Peak 1989; Tobin, Wu, and Davidson 1989, 14–­17) to life habits (Allison 1996). As children moved into junior high and then high school, this emphasis on working together and routinized self-­management continued (Fukuzawa 1994; Le­ Tendre 2000, 42–­45, 152–­53; Cave 2004), but students were increasingly expected to learn and be assessed as individuals, especially in high-­stakes entrance exams for high school and university, which largely determined their life chances (Rohlen 1983, 77–­110; Rohlen and LeTendre 1996a, 7–­8). Researchers were divided about whether this dual emphasis on the group and the individual resulted in well-­rounded human development. The pervasive use of small groups for learning and regulation of daily life could be seen as a valuable way of helping children to learn how to get along with and learn from others (Lewis 1995; Kotloff 1996). On the other hand, it could also be seen as a means of social control by delegating be­ havioral monitoring to children themselves (Fukuzawa 1994). Socializa­ tion into routinized behavior was seen neutrally by some as an alternative means of maintaining order to modes used in some Western countries (Rohlen 1989; LeTendre 2000); but it could also be seen as too intensive, like a “programming” of children to become the kind of people required by contemporary Japanese capitalism (Allison 1996, 152). As for the stress on individual learning and assessment that gradually strengthened during secondary education, it could be seen positively as integral to the merito­ cratic egalitarianism of the system, which assessed all individuals by the same objective criteria (Cummings 1980, 206–­34), or negatively on the

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grounds that, ironically, it led them to subordinate individual interests and ambitions to the learning demands that were imposed by curriculum and examinations (Takeuchi 1995, 249–­55; Yoneyama 1999, 53). These di­ verging views show the need to analyze discourses and practices involving groups and individuals in Japan more carefully. Many studies have demonstrated the importance of mutual dependence and obligation for selfhood in Japan, which has been described as “inter­ actionist” (Smith 1983, 74), “group oriented” (Peak 1989, 93), or “quintes­ sentially social” (Bachnik 1994, 21). Clearly, these kinds of understanding and experience of self are very deeply rooted. However, this does not mean that group attachments and social relationships always take the same form; in fact, there is much evidence that they have varied socially, changed his­ torically, and been affected by changing ideologies and power relations.17 As this study will demonstrate ethnographically, discourses and practices can operate with varying concepts of “the group.” Although these concepts share a notion of group belonging that involves interdependence and obli­ gation, some concepts place a stronger emphasis on constituent individu­ als and their mutually beneficial interdependence, while others stress the priority of the group and the obligations owed it by individuals. Similarly, discourses of the individual need careful analysis. As other studies have shown, a monolithic concept of “individualism” is not analyt­ ically useful. Lukes (1973, ix–­x) shows that “individualism” is an imprecise term that thinkers have used to refer to widely diverging bundles of ideas. Harris (1994, 231–­33) shows that the term has also changed its mean­­ing over even short historical time spans. Kusserow (2004) shows ethnographically how very different versions or styles of “individualism” play out in the lives of contemporary New York communities. For this study, then, the term “in­ dividualism” cannot provide the fine-­grained analysis that is needed. Instead, we can use existing studies of Japan to identify discourses of the individual that will aid analysis. I identify seven important discourses with significantly different implications; these I call “seishin,” “self-­reliance,” “in­ dividual responsibility,” “individual desire,” “personal integrity,” “auton­ omy,” and “individuality” (these are my names, which sometimes but not always are translations of Japanese terms).18 Seishin (sometimes translated as “spirit”) particularly refers to inner strength stemming from self-­discipline (Moeran 1989, 59). Seishin discourse centers on individual strength of character and focuses on self-­discipline, often for a greater cause than that of the individual him-­or herself. Thus, it may well not be for the sake of the individual except insofar as the individual

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is identified with and benefited by the greater cause. This makes seishin discourse easily reconcilable with prioritization of the group to which an individual belongs, and it has been widely deployed in companies (Rohlen 1973; Kondo 1990) and sports (Kelly 1998; Miller 2010, 246–­47). Seishin ideas can easily join with the discourse of “self-­reliance.” One important variant of this discourse is “economic self-­reliance,” the notion that individuals (especially men) should take responsibility for provid­ ing for themselves and their families (Hidaka 2010, 112; Gill 2011; Cook 2013). In a capitalist society like Japan, this means engaging in economic (and educational) competition. The discourse of “individual responsibility” has been prominent in re­ cent years, frequently expressed by the term jiko-­sekinin (literally, “self-­responsibility”) (Kingston 2013, 17, 60, 84, 96; Allison 2013, 28–­30; Edwards 2013, 7). It has been used (generally by figures associated with conservative and neoliberal ideologies) to stress the need for individuals to take responsibility for their own actions. However, it has also been used more broadly to mean “individual responsibility” for fulfilling responsibil­ ities to others, or to society as a whole (Hook and Takeda 2007, 110–­14). “Individual desire” is a discourse that is ubiquitous in contemporary Japan, being indispensable to consumer capitalism and integral to narra­ tives of love and romance (Moeran 1989; Lukacs 2010). Yet it also arouses ambivalence, and unregulated desire tends to be seen as selfishness. There are words for “desire” that are positive (nozomi), neutral (ganbō, yokkyū), and negative ( yokubō); “feeling” (kimochi, omoi) also frequently expresses desire, legitimate or illegitimate. Discourses of desire and self-­reliance are yoked together in the ideologies of worldly success (risshin shusse) that have been powerful throughout Japan’s modern period (Dore 1967). Discourses of “personal integrity” and “autonomy” are also very im­ portant. Lack of integrity is criticized as two-­facedness (omoteura ga aru) or trying to please everyone (happō bijin). Autonomy in Japan is discussed in more detail below, but at an everyday level, approval of autonomy is ex­ pressed by the phrase jibun ga aru (to know one’s own mind—­literally, to “have a self”). In studying elementary schools in the 1990s, I found that concerned teachers often encouraged children to think and make deci­ sions for themselves rather than just be “swept along” (nagasareru) by the crowd (Cave 2007, 79–­82). “Individuality” can be expressed using two different terms: kosei or jibunrashisa. Kosei can be understood in different ways, as discussed above (see also Cave 2007, 24–­30). However, common to these different

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understandings is the idea of what makes a person different from others. Jibunrashisa, on the other hand, literally means “that which embodies who one is,” and is more closely tied up with discourses of personal integrity. It is crucial to realize that though these discourses may often be found in combination, they do not entail one another. In particular, discourses of “seishin,” “self-­reliance,” and even “individual desire” do not necessar­ ily entail autonomy or personal integrity. A person can have inner strength or show self-­reliance in carrying out tasks given by others or living accord­ ing to values that come from others; and as noted, “individual responsibil­ ity” has been used to refer to the responsibility to fulfill social obligations. Desires too may conform unreflectively to the dominant values and prac­ tices of a person’s surroundings. As a recent discussion of selfhood in con­ temporary China has argued, an individual may be a “divided self,” with a (secondary) “small self centered on personal interest” and a (primary) “great self based on the interest of the nation,” like the ideal individual featured in the popular 2004 Chinese novel Wolf Totem: “a self-­reliant, proactive person who, as a member of the group, is self-­disciplined and beholden to authority” (Kleinman et al. 2011, 9). Hansen (2014, 16, 32) calls the production of such individuals “authoritarian individualization.” By understanding these distinct discourses, we see that there is no necessary contradiction in the simultaneous emphasis on group and in­ dividual that previous researchers have identified in Japanese secondary education. The emphasis on the individual amounts to an imperative to show inner strength and be self-­reliant, given that children are assessed as individuals. It can even involve the pursuit of individual desires through the examination system. However, it is not necessarily an imperative to be autonomous or singular. This raises uncomfortable questions. Even some scholars who refrain from making negative judgments about the relation of groups and individuals in Japanese schools make statements that give pause to readers who value in­ dividual autonomy. Fukuzawa (1994), for example, describes how the Tokyo junior high schools she studied in the early 1980s monitored students’ lives and thoughts through diaries and surveys, encouraged students to monitor and reprimand one another in small groups, and rigorously enforced school rules. In her analysis, they operated an “intensive program of social control”: Discipline is psychological: students reflect on their misdeeds until they “un­ derstand,” i.e., internalize school norms and routines. Discipline reaches into the home: lifestyle management is more penetrating than physical punishment and makes it possible to supervise home life. (83)

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Fukuzawa argues that “the goal is the development of an ‘outer-­directed,’ compliant adult with a situationally based sense of morality” (84). She refrains from criticizing either this imputed goal or the disciplinary meth­ ods she records, merely noting that they differ from those dominant in the United States. She and other non-­Japanese scholars may understandably wish to avoid simplistic implications that Japanese schools should become more like those in the United States or other Western countries. How­ ever, Yoneyama (a native Japanese scholar) is more flatly critical, arguing that Japanese education represents an “autocratic paradigm” that “ulti­ mately aims to mould students into the pattern prescribed by the society” (Yoneyama 1999, 73) though disciplinary methods such as rules, surveil­ lance, and examinations. Within Japan itself, there has also been fierce argument about what forms of discipline are appropriate in schools. Some influential groups, such as the left-­wing Zenseiken (Zenkoku seikatsu shidō kenkyū kyōgikai, or Japa­ nese Society for Life Guidance Studies), have advocated the promotion of collectivistic discipline through small groups, but this has also elicited the critique that such an approach could result in “extremely control-­oriented group-­making” (kanri-­shugi-­teki na shūdan-­zukuri), which could be “a hot­ bed of fascism” (Nakajima 1982, 32).19 The 1980s saw considerable criticism in Japan of “kanri kyōiku” (control-­oriented education), involving what critics (usually journalists and activists rather than teachers) saw as exces­ sively detailed school rules and minute management of student behavior (Ariga 1983; Tawara 1986). However, “kanri kyōiku” in the sense of the ne­ cessity of rules and control was also vigorously defended by some teachers, notably leading members of the Saitama-­based group, the Pro Teachers’ Association (Puro Kyōshi no Kai), such as Kawakami Ryōichi and Suwa Tetsuji (Kawakami 1991; Suwa 1997).20 In other words, there has been con­ tinuing concern that schools’ approaches to maintaining control threaten the development of personal autonomy in students. This echoes similarly persistent concern about the issue of personal autonomy in Japanese soci­ ety more generally, as discussed in the next section.

Autonomy in Postwar Japan If personal autonomy is ultimately important for education, it is because it is important for society at large. Debates about whether autonomy has been sufficiently developed in Japan have run through the entire postwar era, and central to them has been the issue of the relationship between the

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individual and the social whole. These debates ultimately stem from the conviction that inadequate personal autonomy was disastrous for Japan before 1945; many also contend that powerful disciplinary regimes still aim to subject Japanese people to the will of the state and of business. The issue was raised as early as 1946, when Ruth Benedict argued that up to 1945, Japanese children were trained in “simulated freedom of will,” which was really internalized social control: So too, chrysanthemums are grown in pots and arranged for the annual flower shows all over Japan with each perfect petal separately disposed by the grower’s hand and often held in place by a tiny invisible wire rack inserted in the living flower. (Benedict [1946 ] 1974, 295)

The formation of autonomous subjectivity (shutaisei) was a hotly de­ bated issue in early postwar Japan (Lifton 1962, 183; Koschmann 1993; 1996), as Japanese intellectuals sought urgently for new models for soci­ ety, politics, and the person. Political economist Ōtsuka Hisao and politi­ cal philosopher Maruyama Masao both argued that pre-­1945 Japan had been lacking in modern agentive subjectivity, which they saw as essential to the achievement of a modern, democratic, and prosperous society. For Ōtsuka, what was needed in postwar Japan was a “disciplined individual­ ism . . . devoted to the social whole” (Koschmann 1996, 156), which he saw as exemplified by seventeenth-­century Dutch Calvinists and by Benjamin Franklin. For Maruyama, what was needed was “freedom as disciplined self-­determination, similar to that conceptualized by Locke” (173). For critics like Koschmann, however, such work possesses problematic conti­ nuities with the pre-­1945 regime in terms of a common emphasis on the need for the individual to be self-­disciplined and devoted to the good of the whole society. Arguing that this resembles the modern individual sub­ jectivity critiqued by Foucault, Koschmann suggests that such “modern subjectivity—­whether liberal or authoritarian—­appears to be pervaded by the form of self-­surveillance that results when people internalize the gaze of state authority” (169). Later progressive intellectuals and activists of the Maruyama-­influenced “civil society school” have also been criticized for their readiness to work with the state and risk co-­option. Examples include Matsushita Keiichi and Narumi Masayasu, who argued that civilians needed to overcome mere selfish egoism and develop “civic discipline” and a “civic ethos” in order to work together and with government to build a good society

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(Avenell 2010, 151, 177). As Japan moved into the 1980s and beyond, bu­ reaucrats and politicians were increasingly ready to enthuse about citizen participation, volunteer activities, “autonomy” ( jiritsu), “civic conscious­ ness” (shimin ishiki) and “individual responsibility” ( jiko-­sekinin). But were citizens really being empowered? Critics did not think so; they saw such talk of “autonomy” as rhetoric, masking the state’s manipulative manage­ ment of citizens (191–­206). An example of such a critique is Ogawa’s (2009) ethnographic study of volunteer activities in the early 2000s, promoted by government as autonomous and healthy social participation. He argues that in fact, the state wants to create “normative subjects having internalized coercive, self-­disciplined volunteer subjectivity,” “duty-­driven people” (145). In his view, such people are “docile subjects who fit the ideology of the current neoliberal system” (180), allowing the state to cut the costs of social pro­ grams by handing them over to exploited volunteers. Like Koschmann, Ogawa criticizes the “civil society school” of postwar thinkers for seeking “self-­disciplined subjectivity” and “a system society where each individual is principally expected to play some normative role and make a positive contribution in maintaining, strengthening, and improving the existing social, political, and economic life as a self-­disciplined subject” (165–­66). His concern is that Japanese people (children included) are being sub­ tly but inexorably socialized into subjectivity that is only seemingly au­ tonomous, and that predisposes them to serve the interests of a capitalist state that prioritizes business over human needs. Kumazawa (1996) and Edwards (2014) similarly argue that companies use illusory promises of autonomy to persuade employees to participate in systems of internalized self-­management. The issue of autonomy and its development thus had significance far beyond schools. If authors like Allison, Fukuzawa, and Yoneyama were right, schools could be socializing children to become “docile subjects” who had internalized self-­management systems. But it seemed doubtful whether the solution to any such problems lay in individualization, given that in secondary education, children were already expected to learn and be assessed as self-­reliant individuals. Moreover, further individualization might result in weakened social relationships and individual isolation; and there are good reasons to believe that individualization does not develop autonomy, as the next sections argue. The implications of educational re­ form were therefore unclear. Might reform promote self-­motivated in­ quiry and new thinking, as its advocates hoped? Conversely, might it result

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in increased individualization and weakened sociality, as its critics feared? Much would depend on how it was implemented in schools.

Autonomy— ­Questions and Debates Personal autonomy as an ideal is sometimes thought of in terms of rug­ ged individualism. However, as Marilyn Friedman (2003, 91–­92) has ar­ gued, this is a historically and culturally specific popular caricature that fails to reflect recent thinking on the subject. So what do ideas of au­ tonomy entail, and how are autonomous selfhood and human sociality related? The notion of autonomy has a long history and has been understood in a variety of ways. However, its central meaning can be summarized as “self-­determination” (Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000a, 5). Friedman (2000, 37) writes that “autonomy involves choosing and living according to stan­ dards and values that are, in some plausible sense, one’s own,” while John Christman (2011) states that “individual autonomy is an idea that is gen­ erally understood to refer to the capacity to be one’s own person, to live one’s life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one’s own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces.” What is necessary in order to achieve personal autonomy? This is a major focus of debate among recent writers, well summarized by Mac­ kenzie and Stoljar (2000a, 13–­21). There seems to be agreement that at the least, autonomy requires a person to be able to exercise critical re­ flection on her own standards and values. Preferably, she should also be aware of and be able to critically assess how she acquired these standards and values (e.g., through socialization and the influence of others). In recent years, older notions of autonomy that seemed to imply an ideal of self-­sufficient, individualistic independence have largely been re­ jected by autonomy theorists. This is partly because of powerful critiques from various perspectives, including communitarians, feminists, and mul­ ticultural theorists (Christman 2009, 21–­47). Philosophers and psycholo­ gists have joined anthropologists and sociologists in arguing that the self is fundamentally social. Feminists have pointed out that the ideal of the self-­sufficient, independent individual tends to ignore the realities of so­ cial interdependence, and in particular the sustaining social support (of­ ten by women) that makes apparently independent (and mainly male) “self-­sufficiency” possible (Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000a, 5–­10; Christman

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2009, 164). As a result, “the age of classic individualism . . . is behind us” (Christman 2009, 21)—­at least in the world of thought. The term “rela­ tional autonomy” has arisen for “the conception of what it means to be a free, self-­governing agent who is also socially constituted and who possibly defines her basic value commitments in terms of interpersonal relations and mutual dependencies” (Christman 2009, 164–­65). This is clearly im­ portant for considerations of the issue of autonomy in Japan, given the emphasis on “interpersonal relations and mutual dependencies” in Japa­ nese understandings of the self. At the same time, conceptualizations of “relational autonomy” do not imply a weaker notion of autonomy in the sense of, for example, a lower importance assigned to critical awareness and reflection.21 Moreover, as Friedman (2003, 105) notes, “despite its re­ lational grounding, autonomy is potentially socially disruptive” because it can promote “social nonconformity and, thereby, resistance to possibly oppressive social norms and practices.”

Autonomy, Education, and Interdependence Socialization is a central issue for autonomy theorists, as certain types of socialization are thought to hinder the capacity for autonomy. These may include not just indoctrination, but any kind of socialization that leaves people unable in practice to decide for certain choices, for example, due to emotional impairment or the acquisition of warped values (Christman 1991, 6–­7).22 Education therefore plays an important role in the development of autonomy, a role much debated by philosophers of education and oth­ ers. Winch (2006, 96–­97) distinguishes between “strong” and “weak” au­ tonomy; “strong autonomy” being defined as the view that “within the constraints of some other-­regarding limit of reasonableness, individuals should be able to make any choices concerning life-­course and values,” and “weak autonomy” being the view that “the range of meaningful choice available to individuals should be one that is constrained by some con­ ception of worthwhileness.” He argues that it is probably impossible for any education system to promote strong autonomy, given that autonomy requires knowledge and “it is not possible to give information effectively about every possible way of living a life”; moreover, it may not even be de­ sirable, as every extension of the curriculum demands time and resources, and entails an opportunity cost (115–­17). On the other hand, he considers

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that in a liberal democracy, “some form of weak autonomy has to be a key aim of the public schooling system” (121). There are even more fundamental reasons why the development of autonomy is no simple matter. As noted above, it is widely agreed that genuine autonomy involves not just making choices, but making choices that are critical and reflective, for as Benn (1976, 123) writes, “A compe­ tent chooser may still be a slave to convention, choosing by standards he has accepted quite uncritically from his milieu.” According to R. S. Pe­ ters (1998, 15–­16), “The [autonomous] individual is conceived of as being aware of rules as alterable conventions which structure his social life. He subjects them to reflection and criticism in the light of principles and grad­ ually emerges with his own code of conduct.” Yet where do such “princi­ ples” come from? They must come from the world around the developing person; and they will include the “public inheritance of critical procedures and standards” that are comprised by “the use of reason in the different branches of the humanities”; thus, it can be argued that “an autonomous choice is only possible against the backdrop of the shared standards and criteria which belong to our human heritage” (Cuypers 2010, 195–­96). But does not this threaten the concept of “authenticity”—­“having motiva­ tional states or elements that are truly one’s own” (Cuypers and Haji 2007, 81)—­that is basic to the idea of autonomy? As Cuypers puts it: How can there be an authentic initiation into our cultural heritage? How can one “do one’s own thing” after incorporating the standards of the “generalised other”? Moreover, one cannot possibly expect a person to critically assess all of his public inheritance since most of it will remain in the dark and will not ever see the light of rational reflection. Are we then inevitably condemned to inauthenticity? (2010, 198–­99)

He goes on to argue that the problem can be resolved if one takes a “rela­ tional view of authenticity,” according to which what a child learns can be genuinely their own if it issues in later behavior for which the grown per­ son can shoulder moral responsibility. However, my concern here is not with the correctness or otherwise of this answer to the problem. For the purposes of this study, the point is that it is clear from the above discus­ sion that human autonomy is inextricably dependent on human inter­­ connections— ­opportunities to learn provided by social and educational structures, as well as support and encouragement for autonomous think­ ing and action. Autonomy is far from being purely individualistic. It is an enterprise both individual and deeply social.

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Autonomy, Individualization, and Interdependence Autonomy is not the same as individualization. This is made clear by Fou­ cault, especially in his most extended writing on institutional education and the subject, in Discipline and Punish (1977). Here Foucault argues that modern educational institutions have attempted to shape “the heart, the thoughts, the will, the inclinations . . . drives and desires” (16–­17) by means of newly conceived disciplines aimed at creating “the obedient sub­ ject, the individual subjected to habits, rules, orders, an authority that is exercised continually around him and upon him, and which he must allow to function automatically in him” (128–­29). Therefore, modern education produces individualized subjects, but these individuals are not necessarily autonomous. Foucault’s earlier pessimism about the potential for autonomy in mod­ ern life was modified somewhat in his later writings, where he focused on possible ways in which people might shape themselves “in a more autono­ mous way, through practices of liberation” (Foucault 1988b, 50). He began to distinguish between power and domination, suggesting that “relations of power are not something bad in themselves” but that we should seek to “allow these games of power to be played with a minimum of domina­ tion,” where domination refers to a state where “the relations of power are fixed in such a way that they are perpetually asymmetrical and the margin of liberty is extremely limited” (Foucault 1988a, 12, 18). However, he remained wary of the concept of “autonomy” tout simple, preferring to speak of “practices of freedom” (Foucault 1988a, 3), which were not “something that the individual invents by himself” but “are patterns that he finds in his culture and which are proposed, suggested and imposed on him by his culture, his society and his social group” (Foucault 1988a, 11). Even if the term “practices of freedom” is preferred, however, this echoes points made by Peters (1977) and Cuypers (2010) when they argue that autonomy can only develop with the help of “social transactions” such as “instruction from others, . . . public traditions and the example of others” (Peters 1977, 63). Distinguishing between individualization and autonomy shows that education that emphasizes working with others is not necessarily autonomylimiting, while education that individualizes is not necessarily autonomy-­ promoting. In fact, as Nedelsky (1989, 11) has influentially argued, auton­ omy “can develop only in the context of relations with others . . . that nurture this capacity.” The development of autonomy is likely to be encouraged in

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an environment where individuals feel accepted by others, and which pro­ motes reflection and discussion in a mutually supportive atmosphere (cf. Meyers 1989, 197; Friedman 2003, 96). Thus, interdepen­dence is not op­ posed to autonomy. Conversely, autonomy may be discouraged in a situ­ ation that compels individualization, and distances in­­dividuals from the support of others. Enforced self-­reliance may make achieving real auton­ omy more difficult. Indeed, Bauman (2000, 40) argues that “society is now primarily the condition which individuals strongly need, yet badly miss—­in their vain and frustrating struggle [for] genuine autonomy and capacity for self-­assertion.” However, he also argues that the only kind of “unity” or “to­ getherness” that is realistic or desirable in contemporary society is “a unity put together through negotiation and reconciliation, not the denial, stifling or smothering out of differences” (178). In educational terms, this implies that schools should be places for dialogue and mutual support, rather than imposed and internalized discipline. They might then foster both personal autonomy and recognition of  human interdependence.

Conclusion Educational reform in Japan in the 1990s and 2000s was supposedly in­ tended to develop children’s “power to live” (ikiru chikara), a concept that included individuality, creativity, and autonomous thinking on the one hand, and social connectedness, empathy, and cooperation on the other. The former set of qualities was seen by government as underdeveloped by Japanese education to date, yet increasingly needed in a future world of rapid change. The latter qualities, meanwhile, were perceived as tradi­ tional strengths of Japanese society, but at risk because of social change. However, reform was interpreted in widely different ways. For some who considered themselves progressives, educational reform represented neoliberal individualization, weakening the provision of basic academic at­ tainment to all children by excessive differentiation and choice at too early a stage of education. Some conservatives also feared a decline in academic standards, though they framed this in terms of a threat to the nation, rather than a threat to equality. For other progressives, reform provided welcome opportunities to promote inquiry, exploratory learning, and autonomous thinking. Though “emphasizing individuality” was a central theme of the reforms, “individuality” was an inherently ambiguous concept and could be appropriated by thinkers and activists from strikingly different ideological standpoints.

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What was clear was that the reform agenda promoted choice, differ­ ence, and thinking for oneself. This was a striking, new departure in the landscape of postwar Japanese education, which had tended to emphasize group spirit and working together, and had often been accused of exces­ sive control over individuals. In the context of Japanese society as a whole, the reform agenda seemed to be part of a wider movement toward greater emphasis on the individual, but how it would relate to this movement in practice was unclear. Some scholars described the changes taking place in Japanese society as “individualization,” meaning weakening social rela­ tionships and increasing individual self-­reliance. However, “individualiza­ tion” in this sense did not necessarily entail greater individual autonomy; indeed, its effect might be the opposite, given arguments that the develop­ ment of autonomy requires social support. Depending on point of view, therefore, the reform agenda had the po­ tential to promote individualization, risk, inequality, and insecurity, or else, more positively, it might loosen excessive control and encourage young peo­ ple to be creative and think for themselves. It could give rise to “practices of freedom,” or else further the production of “docile subjects” whose initia­ tive and drive would primarily serve the priorities of the state. However, the actual impact of reform would depend on response and implementation at school level, especially given that schools themselves were given so much autonomy in translating reform into practice. Would schools encourage students in autonomous thinking? Would they em­ brace the reform agenda, ignore it, or reshape it to fit their own priori­ ties? How would they interpret “increased individuality” and the calls to promote it? And what would their responses reveal about education and contemporary Japan?

chapter two

Reshaping Reform Discipline, Autonomy, and Group Relations

T

eachers’ and schools’ norms and expectations about selfhood, discipline, and autonomy emerge particularly clearly in students’ first weeks and months at junior high school. As a comparison of first-­year field trips at Tachibana Junior High makes clear, teachers’ expectations and emphases shifted significantly over a decade, from a focus on group discipline in 1996 toward stress on autonomous thinking in 2007. This change was influenced by the introduction of integrated studies, with its stress on thinking for oneself, as part of the 1998 curriculum reform. However, this was a process in which the school also reshaped the integrated studies program according to its own priorities, by using program time to enhance interrelationships between school members. Relationships within the school were emphasized by teachers both in 1996 and in 2007, but the articulation of this emphasis changed. In 1996, teachers often used the discourse of shūdan seikatsu, a concept of “group life” that idealized discipline and submission to common rules. They made less use of alternative discourses of interrelationship that stressed mutual support more than discipline and allowed greater scope for individuality and autonomy. By 2007, however, teachers were no longer prioritizing shūdan seikatsu and its emphasis on submission to group rules and norms. Instead, they focused on getting to know others and working with them. Educational reform was a key catalyst for this change, which showed how “group orientation” could be articulated in different forms, some more calculated to promote personal autonomy than others.

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New Start, New School April 1996 was the beginning of a new school year in Japan, and a new start for the first-­year students entering Tachibana. A few weeks before, they had been sixth graders at one of three elementary schools: Nakamachi, Morikawa, and Ishida. There, they had been school leaders, expected to guide younger children; now they were novices again. Several of their teachers were also new to the school. Of the eight first-­year class teachers,1 four had just been transferred from other junior high schools, and one was in his first year of teaching. In a staff meeting at the start of the new school year, Tachibana principal Fujita-­sensei outlined the city’s basic education policies for the year ahead, drawing teachers’ attention to the discourse of individuality and autonomy that had been prominent in Japanese education for several years by 1996. Japanese education was criticized for being too uniform, he noted; the basis of teaching was the “new view of academic attainment,” but one often heard that lessons were changing little nonetheless. There needed to be more experiential learning and problem solving, the principal observed; society could be expected to change rapidly in the future, and people would need to be able to cope with that and come up with their own initiatives. This language of initiative and individuality sat uneasily with some of the junior high school’s structures and conventions, which enforced heteronomous control and uniformity much more than the elementary schools that children had just left. Aesthetically, light, color, diversity, and decoration were replaced by the plain, sober, and uniform. Unlike the elementary schools, Tachibana enforced a school uniform, as did other junior high schools in Sakura and across most of Japan. Boys wore black Prussian jackets and trousers with white shirts; girls wore navy blue sailor suit tops with white trim, changing to white tops with navy trim in summer. These sober tones contrasted sharply with the profusion of bright colors worn by elementary school children (Cave 2007, 167). Most first years also chose a dark blue school bag over the light green alternative. Tachibana even stipulated subdued colors for coats, bicycles, and hair grips. Moreover, whereas elementary school classroom walls were covered with colorful posters, self-­portraits, slogans, and work produced in lessons, and chairs were personalized with individual cushions and seat back covers, there was much less display or individualization in Tachibana classrooms.

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Tachibana teachers took this for granted; when questioned, they could only say that this sober plainness was chūgakuseirashii—­“like the ideal image of a junior high student.”2 It could be interpreted as symbolic of serious purpose, an indication that an important milestone had been reached in the transition from the carefree playfulness of childhood to the responsibilities of adulthood (Fukuzawa 1994, 63; Rohlen and LeTendre 1996, 6–­11). In so doing, however, it associated adulthood and serious purpose with the negation of individuality, diversity, and imaginative playfulness. The school uniform was not just a symbol of discipline and control; it also enforced gender category markers and restricted girls’ freedom. At elementary schools in Sakura, very few outward signs of gender were imposed, and it was often hard to distinguish girls from boys based on appearance; many girls wore trousers and short hair (Cave 2007, 167). Now, girls had to wear skirts, which had practical as well as symbolic implications, as the need to preserve modesty restricted freedom of movement. At assemblies, boys could sit more casually than girls, and during the daily school cleaning period, girls had to be careful to adjust their skirts when squatting down to clean the floor. Although gendered consciousness and behavior were already strong among children by the end of elementary school (Cave 2007, 152–­74), uniforms formally and strikingly encoded this binary categorization. Junior high school structures also imposed limitations on teachers’ autonomy and their ability to relate to students as individuals. Particularly important was the introduction of specialist subject teaching. In elementary school, the class teacher (gakkyū tannin) taught her class almost all subjects, so that teacher and children spent nearly all their time together. In junior high, specialist subject teaching meant that the class teacher would only spend between three and six hours a week with his class, depending on the subject he taught, along with short meetings at the start and end of each day. The role of class teacher was seen as vital at both Tachibana and Yoneda; as at other junior high schools in Japan (Fukuzawa 1994, 70–­ 72; LeTendre 1994a, 46), teachers ate lunch every day with their class and spent up to an hour each day perusing and responding to the combined schedule and diary that students submitted daily. Even so, the change inevitably meant a very different relationship between teachers and students. Teaching not 30 or 40 but up to 150 different children each day, teachers’ capacity to get to know individual students was inevitably limited. Encountering so many students in one day was stressful and had presentation. It was harder to develop nuanced implications for self-­

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personae, roles, and relationships when they had to be so quickly established. Watching lessons at Tachibana and Yoneda, I often felt as if I were watching a skilled actor perform his part. The language and tone of voice used by teachers when in front of a class seemed somewhat dramatic or ritualized, and significantly different from their manner when I talked with them in the staff room. It seemed that the role of teacher had to be established by a recognizably stereotypical performance. This may also have been connected to the greater threat to teacher authority at junior high (discussed in chapter 3) and attempts to establish role distance in order to maintain this authority—­what Lacey (1970, 174–­75) calls “the teacher [as] a Wizard-­of-­Oz character” whose “control rests on bluff and his skill in manipulating the awesome mask of authority.” Indeed, Kawakami (1991, 76–­77) urges those who would become “teaching pros” to wear the right clothes to “play the part of ‘teacher’,” and to “bear yourself like an actor.” Specialist subject teaching also changed the relationship between teacher, children, and time. Although the elementary schools had timetables, class teachers could and did change them in response to the needs of the class. Teachers at Nakamachi routinely lengthened or shortened lesson times, often in consultation with the children. At junior high school, such flexibility and autonomous decision making were impossible. Teachers and children alike were ruled by organizational time. As in the realm of aesthetics and dress, so in the organization of time, the move to junior high school from elementary school involved a subordination of individuality and autonomy to uniformity and impersonal structure.

Individual Potential and Supportive Groups The first day of the new school year at Tachibana was 8 April 1996. Paper chains in the auspicious colors of pink and white hung over the doors of each first-year classroom, and messages of welcome from teachers adorned the blackboards, along with drawings of monkeys, rabbits, bears, penguins, and other cute animals, usually contributed by second-­year girls. The entrance ceremony was attended by the entire school, local VIPs, and parents dressed in their best clothes, after which children, parents, and teachers returned to the classrooms. On this first day, teachers chose to emphasize students’ potential, as in Yonemura-­sensei’s blackboard message to class 1-­6:

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Your power is limitless Let’s make it grow on and on!

Teachers also stressed the mutual support students could give one another in their class groups. They made much use of the word nakama, a concept that refers to a group of members who belong together, and carries connotations of warmth and mutual obligation to help one another—­a notion with which students were familiar from elementary school (Cave 2007, 60–­65). Most teachers had made class newsletters (gakkyū tsūshin) containing messages of welcome, and three of these listed the names of all the class members and referred to them as nakama. The 1-­2 welcome message described the class as “a nakama who will share the year’s hardships and fun,” while the 1-­4 newsletter stressed that the class should encourage one another not to worry if they made little mistakes, continuing, “Supported by such a nakama, please create your true self” (hontō no jibun). The class nakama was thus conceptualized as a group focused on supporting the individuals who made it up in their journey of self-­development. In class 1-­1, Morita-­sensei had the students and parents perform a short choral reading with him, again emphasizing creative potential and mutual support: teacher: Congratulations on your entry to junior high school. parents: Congratulations on your entry. teacher: The thirty-­nine who are the nakama of Class 1-­1 have completed the Entrance Ceremony and now are here. all: Our hearts are full of hope. all: Here we are, a nakama boys: Limitless possibilities girls: And creativity whose depths are unfathomed. teacher: Making hearts and power into one boys: With energy and spirit all: It’s the start of junior high life. all: We will become a nakama teacher: Through which will run a heart [kokoro] by which we will all share together boys: Even the painful things girls: Even the sad things. teacher: The teacher is on your side. Please come and discuss things at any time, about anything, without worrying about things on your own. parents: Dad and Mom are always wishing for your growth. all: So let’s all do our best together! (Big round of applause)

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Very quickly, however, different discourses of interrelationship came to the fore, and this focus on a supportive group enabling creativity and potential shifted toward a more disciplinary emphasis.

“It’s All the Group”: Discipline and the Demands of Shūdan Seikatsu During the rest of the first week, the word repeatedly on the first-­year teachers’ lips was not nakama but shūdan. While both words can be translated as “group,” they carry very different feelings, as teachers themselves commented. Nakama has a sense of warmth—­the people you belong with—­whereas shūdan, which refers to a public, nonfamilial group, is cool and objective. In her study of kindergartens in Japan, Lois Peak (1989) pointed out that mothers see kindergarten as “group life” (shūdan seikatsu), implying that children must not expect the indulgence that may be extended to their feelings and desires in the family setting; instead, they must restrain themselves, think of others, and do what is expected of them. These were also the connotations that accompanied the use of the term by the Tachibana teachers. Most of the first week was taken up by class activities or year assemblies. Some of this time was spent on practical matters, but teachers also used it to convey the behavior expected of students. They emphasized keeping rules, awareness that one was part of a group, and enthusiasm about what one did in and for the group. According to the teachers, these kinds of behavior and disposition were desirable because they ensured that school life, as shūdan seikatsu, would be enjoyable for everyone. Tachibana class teachers assumed that good class organization and the creation of a positive class ethos were crucial at the outset. Each class was organized into small groups (han or kakari groups), and duties were assigned to or rotated among the groups so that each student had a role in sharing responsibility for class welfare. Many of these duties were practical—­bringing milk or tea for everyone to the classroom at lunchtime or writing any timetable changes for the next day on the blackboard on the back wall of the class. Some teachers encouraged students to police one another’s conformity to school rules (Fukuzawa 1994, 78–­79). In class 1-­6, Yonemura-­sensei encouraged regular checking that uniforms were worn in regulation fashion. Though the students suggested that this be done by Yonemura-­sensei himself, he explained that he wanted them to check up on one another. In his words, it was better for them to warn one another

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when they were doing something wrong, and thus “grow all together in the same way” (minna de onaji yō ni nobite ikō). The implication was that the class should share responsibility for one another, in the way that LeTendre (2000, 42) argued is typical of Japanese junior high schools’ approach to order. The students went along with this, but their lack of enthusiasm expressed passive resistance to such self-­policing. For music teacher Tanaka-­sensei, choral singing revealed the ability to work as a group. In one year assembly, he separated the first years by elementary school and gave them ten minutes to prepare to sing their respective elementary school songs. Three Ishida girls emerged to lead their entire group in practicing. Some Nakamachi students began to practice singing in small groups, but many chatted to friends. There was no practice among the Morikawa students, who talked or engaged in friendly fights; though when they actually performed, the Morikawa students sang best of the three groups. However, Tanaka-­sensei was more interested in how the students worked together than in the result. He praised the Ishida students, especially those who had taken the lead, but reproved the Morikawa students bluntly. Their good singing showed that they had great power as individuals, he told them; however, their preparation showed how poor they were as a group (shūdan). In a later staff room conversation with head of year, Kondō-­sensei, Tanaka-­sensei was emphatic on the importance of the group: “It’s the group. It’s all the group” (shūdan desu. zenbu wa shūdan desu). “Even music?” Kondō-­sensei queried. “Yes, 99 percent is the group,” Tanaka-­sensei replied. Such emphasis on the importance of the group rather than the individual was especially striking in the context of the discourse of individuality and autonomy that Fujita-­sensei had mentioned at the start of term. After the first day, individuality, creativity, and exploration were rarely referred to by most of the Tachibana first-­year teachers. Though he joined Tanaka-­ sensei in praising the initiative of the Ishida girls, Kondō-sensei expressed low expectations of individual students in general, continuing wryly, “One would like students to take the lead like that, but they don’t, for all one talks about doing things by oneself [ jishusei].” Rather than individuality, creativity, or initiative, what Kondō-sensei focused on was students’ relations with others. On the second day of school, he talked to the assembled first years about “hearts that find happiness.” Such hearts had open and straightforward feelings, immediately responding when called on (“hai!” to iu sunao na kimochi). They felt gratitude to the many people on whom they depended—­in the students’ cases, families

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or the makers of their clothes, shoes, and bags. They felt with others (omoiyari), reflected on what they had done wrong, and were willing to serve (hōshi). They shared others’ happiness, greeted others, and were cheerful (akarui), always smiling. They gave way to others, and encouraged others to persevere. The unifying theme of this homily was responsiveness to others. For Kondō-­sensei, what was important when dealing with new first-­ year students was the inculcation of good behavior (shitsuke). “Freedom [ jiyūsa] and individuality [kosei] are for quite a bit later,” he told me. “To be able to do the matter-­of-­course things in a matter-­of-­course way, that’s important in a group [shūdan] . . . Recently there’s a lot said about expanding individuality and so on, but . . . that individuality develops from a base that is there first . . . So, you establish the fundamentals, and individuality develops on top of that . . . I think quite a lot of teachers in Japan think like that. If you put too much emphasis on individuality, and there are kids who are getting trampled on, that’s no good . . . If you just go on about individuality, then . . . for that child, you might say it’s positive, but if things are going in a negative direction from the point of view of the whole [zentai ], then that’s not an expansion of good individuality, is it? I want them to develop their good individuality while heading in a certain direction.” Such ambivalence about emphasizing individuality was common among Tachibana teachers from 1996 to 1998. When interviewed on the topic, most said that individuality meant a person’s good points, and emphasizing individuality meant helping them to develop those—­not accepting whatever they did as an expression of individuality. The snag was that it could be difficult to tell the difference between “stressing individuality” (kosei no jūshi) and “selfishness on the part of individuals” (kojin no wagamama), in the words of Yuasa-­sensei, a younger teacher. “How far do we go in stressing individuality?” he wondered. These were issues of concern to many teachers. Individuality might be a nice ideal—­fine in the world of artists, as Kondō-­sensei put it—­but how practical was its prioritization at junior high school?

Disciplined Groups: The Field Trip Ten days after the start of the new school year, all the first-­year teachers and students took part in a two-­day field trip at a prefectural youth

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center some miles away. The trip was intended to allow participants—­ teachers and students—­to get to know one another better. It also aimed at strengthening the new group identity of all, and their ability to work together. According to Kuwayama (1996, 113), who describes a similar event at an Okayama junior high school in 1986, such field trips began in the 1970s as a response to discipline problems. Physical removal to a special venue helped to give the event the character of an initiation ritual into the students’ new life (Kuwayama 1996), with echoes of the training programs for new recruits in large Japanese firms (Rohlen 1974, 192–­211; Graham 2003, 53–­63). Its mixture of recreation and discipline could be analyzed in terms of what Yoshio Sugimoto (2010, 290–­304) has called “gentle authoritarianism”— ­discipline cushioned and made easier to accept through its intertwining with friendship and fun, in the same way as Anne Allison (1996) argues that mothers win children over to the disciplined routines of kindergartens. However, its actual effects were more uncertain than such a term might imply. Before the trip, there were three hours of preparation, during which teachers stressed to students the need to prioritize “group life” (shūdan seikatsu). Yonemura-­sensei warned a meeting of hanchō (small group leaders) that if people acted as individuals on the field trip, there would be no end of difficulty. Uniforms were to be worn throughout: tracksuits during the day and gym clothes to sleep in. Students were not to bring pajamas, Yonemura-­sensei explained, because the field trip was shūdan seikatsu, and so “we want to avoid things that belong to individuals [kojin no mono] as much as possible.” He told the students that they should try to make the field trip a success by the way everyone came together as a whole (zentai ga matomaru). Over an hour was spent in the gym, having all the first years practice assembling in class lines and roll order. Once the hanchō had reported to the class representatives ( gakkyū-­iin) that all were present, the reps in turn reported to the teacher in charge. The entire process was supposed to be completed in thirty seconds, but as the fastest time achieved was fifty-­ four seconds, the students were much scolded for slowness and chatting. Kondō-­sensei and Yonemura-­sensei complained that students became worse at assembling quickly every year, and blamed this on “respect for individuality” (kosei sonchō) at elementary school. Kondō-sensei again commented that “respect for individuality,” though important, would be fruitless without the right kind of base—­namely, the kind of discipline exhibited by rapid assembly.

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On the morning of the trip, the teachers and students assembled on the school athletic ground, all dressed alike in tracksuits—­special dress that further ritualized the event. After arriving at the youth center in hired buses, there was another assembly and an opening ceremony. In all, there were six assemblies in the two days of the trip—­repeated rituals that marked beginnings, transitions, and ends, instilling group identity and demanding group discipline. Assembling properly involved learning efficiency and attention to detail; for example, students had to place their bags in neat lines beside them after lining up and squatting down, to allow class representatives to make their way easily through the files. Between these times of concentrated discipline, however, much of the field trip was spent in relaxed, fun activities that let students get to know one another better. The first afternoon was spent orienteering in han groups among the grass, trees, and flowers of the large park surrounding the center. The weather was fine and warm, and the course not especially strenuous. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and most of the small groups I met were relaxed enough to ignore the rule that their members should stay together. After dinner and the bath (itself a communal experience),3 there were class meetings to decide members of student committees, followed by recreation all together in the gymnasium. The main feature of the recreation was a jump rope contest. Two members of each class turned the long rope while the other thirty or so stood along the rope and jumped in unison. The ostensible idea was to generate a sense of identity and cooperation in each class, and though only one of the eight classes managed even one successful jump, there was a great deal of excitement and enjoyment. The next day saw an interclass dodgeball tournament with a similar purpose. All these group activities were designed to allow students to enjoy themselves together and feel that shūdan seikatsu was not just about discipline—­it was also fun. In this it seemed to succeed, judging by the reports that students wrote about the field trip after returning to school. On the field trip, gender categorization was partly imposed by the school—­mainly through having classes assemble in gender lines—­but the students’ own negotiation of gender identity was more significant. Class 1-­7’s first class meeting, to decide student committee representatives, was chaired with presence by the female class rep, Murata-­san, with somewhat diffident support from the other rep, a boy. At first, only girls volunteered for committee posts, and when Murata-­san asked, “How about the boys?” in confident tones, the response of several was, “Are you threatening us?!” Though jokey, it was nonetheless a protest against Murata-­san’s

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assertive style. Her response, “I’m a battle-­ax” (o-­batarian), though humorous, indicated the self-­presentational difficulty girls in leadership positions could meet. The next day’s dodgeball tournament was also deeply marked by gender identity, as boys mainly participated enthusiastically, while most girls (with two exceptions) did their best to escape the ball. One of the two girls who did show herself a good dodgeball player later faced teasing from some of the boys in her class, who told her, “You’re a boy!” Though the girl, Shimura-­san, asserted her female identity robustly in return, the episode showed how quick some students were to police conventional gender boundaries. The field trip was a socializing experience for teachers as well as students (Kuwayama 1996, 120). Once the latter had gone to bed, the teachers met at 11:00 p.m. to review the day and plan for the next. There was no attempt to finish quickly in order to let everyone get to bed. Discussion was thorough and leisurely, but this was not the meeting’s only purpose; it was also designed to allow the teachers to spend time with and get to know one another. Two large platters of food and numerous cans of beer, tea, and soft drinks were provided. The meeting did not break up until 12:30 a.m., and even then, though I was happy to go to bed, not all the teachers could do so. Some stayed on patrol to guard against student misbehavior before getting up at 6:30 a.m., in time for the first assembly at 7:00. The experience made it very clear that teachers’ personal wishes (such as the desire for sleep) counted for little or nothing against the expectation that everything possible should be seen to be done to prevent the smallest misdemeanors or accidents— ­even if that meant staying up half the night. The obligation to share one’s time with colleagues in order to facilitate a good working relationship also became clear. The time spent together thus symbolized acceptance of the obligations of shūdan seikatsu on the part of teachers too.

From “Group Life” to “Making Human Relations”: The Field Trip’s Death and Revival Despite the significant role assigned to the field trip in 1996, by 1998 it was abandoned, a victim of the demands imposed by the educational reform agenda. This was not because Tachibana teachers changed their minds about its value; rather, it was simply because the time pressures imposed by the approaching introduction of the five-­day school week meant that

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some events and activities had to be cut. Yet teachers’ focus on students’ relationships and human development continued and soon led to the creation of a new first-­year field trip. The return to a well-­tried model, but with a new emphasis, illuminated both continuities and changes in teachers’ concerns and priorities. Although Tachibana had been relatively free from serious concerns about order and discipline during my fieldwork in 1996–­1997 and 1998, this situation was to change. On my next visit to the school in 2000, there was an air of tension and strain. In the corridors outside the second-­year classrooms, girls with dyed brown hair, short skirts, and the then-­fashionable “loose socks” sat on the floor or wandered around, chatting to the teachers who were spending their free periods engaging with them and trying to coax them into returning to their lessons. I was told that some months before many of the ground floor windows had been smashed during the night. These disciplinary problems provided the stimulus for the reintroduction of a first-­year field trip in 2001. The new trip was a more ambitious affair than the one I had experienced in 1996. It took four days, and took place at a Youth Outdoor Learning Center several hours’ drive away, in the vicinity of the Japanese Alps. This was made possible by a successful application for action research funding by the school. The impetus to start this initiative came from Andō-­sensei, then Tachibana principal. Looking back in 2007, when he had moved on to become principal of Yoneda, Andō-­sensei told me that the state of the Tachibana first years in 2001 was so appalling, and the gulf between the teachers and students so serious, that he had felt drastic action was needed. The best thing, he thought, was for the teachers and students to spend as much time together as possible. Some teachers had wanted the trip to be just three days, but he thought that was too short; though he would really have liked a week, they eventually settled on four days. The new field trip differed from the old in that it took place within the framework of integrated studies (sōgō-­teki na gakushū), the newly introduced program that was the centerpiece of the 1998 curriculum reform. This played a significant role in shaping the emphases of the new trip. Integrated studies was intended to promote self-­motivated, exploratory, and experiential learning (see chapters 1 and 6 for further discussion). According to the 1998 curriculum, its main aims were “to develop [children’s] abilities in the areas of identifying key questions, learning and thinking by oneself, judging autonomously, and becoming better at problem-­solving,” and “to have children learn how to learn and how to think, to develop

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[in children] an attitude that tackles problem-­solving and exploratory activities autonomously and creatively, and to enable them to think about their own ways of living” (Monbushō 1998, 3–­4). This made a disciplinary focus unsuitable for a field trip under its auspices. But if curricular reform helped to reshape the field trip, the new trip also showed an opposite process at work—­how a school could interpret and reshape curricular reform to fit its own agenda. Haruoka-­sensei, who had been in charge of integrated studies at Tachibana in 2001 and by 2007 was vice-­principal of Yoneda, recalled that though integrated studies time had been used for the field trip, Andō-­sensei said that they shouldn’t worry about conforming to the program’s original aims but instead focus on building better human relations (ningen-­kankei-­zukuri) and deepening friendships between the students. The head of the center had been very nice, she said, and had assured them that if students were there for a week, they would become more receptive to what adults had to say. The purpose of integrated studies time was thus being significantly reinterpreted to respond to teachers’ concerns about human relations within the school. The aims of the 2007 field trip were set out in the guidance pamphlet received by students. The curricular aims for integrated studies were the basis for the second aim given for the trip: “to develop abilities in the areas of identifying key questions, learning and thinking by oneself, judging autonomously, and becoming better at problem-­solving, through nature experience activities,” and the third, “to interconnect and deepen the knowledge and skills acquired in each subject, so that we can exert them in an integrated way and make use of them in our future learning.” However, the first aim of the trip was quite unrelated to the curriculum: “to rediscover our good qualities and those of our friends, and experience how important and wonderful it is to work together with our nakama, through activities in the grandeur of nature.” Priority was thus given to relationship and cooperation. Early on a mid-­September morning in 2007, the Tachibana first-­year students assembled on the school athletics ground, at exactly the same place their predecessors had assembled in April 1996. Despite the superficial similarities between the two occasions, however, the atmosphere was very different than it had been eleven years before. The students were not lined up particularly tidily, they were not all sitting or squatting in a prescribed way, there was no insistence that they all place their bags on one side of them, and there was plenty of unrebuked laughing and chatting. In short, the meticulous attention to order and discipline evident in

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1996 was conspicuous by its absence. Only once did a teacher yell at the students to stop talking. Once the sendoff ceremony started, one boy addressed the students to remind them that they would need to do a lot of thinking for themselves about how to act ( jibun de kangaete kōdō suru) over the next few days. He was followed by the principal, who encouraged the students to talk to lots of friends, make a contribution to the good of all, and be grateful to those who looked after them. Soon the buses were on their way. I traveled with class 1-­9 in their bus, and there was continuous talking, calling out, and general fun for the first hour of the journey as students played cards and ate snacks, standing up frequently and without immediate rebukes from the teachers, despite an initial warning from the driver that standing up was dangerous; it was only as the bus prepared to set off again after a toilet break that the class teacher (prompted by the vice-­principal) warned them not to do this. It seemed clear that teachers’ approach to order and discipline had changed dramatically, compared to eleven years before; instead of attempting to prevent any possible problems from the outset through training students in the minute observance of detailed rules, the emphasis was now on having students think for themselves about how to behave, an approach embodied by the slogan “leave it to me!” (makasete yo) that appeared on the front of the field trip guidance pamphlet. This approach continued to be evident during the rest of the first day of the field trip, which was taken up by an orienteering exercise around the town near the outdoor center, before arriving at the center itself. This exercise was in itself much riskier and more demanding than the orienteering during the 1996 trip, which had taken place within the confines of a park, rather than around a town—­and prefecture—­unfamiliar to the students. I joined a group of two girls and three boys led by an energetic and assertive girl. At arrival and departure points, students assembled in their class lines with very few directions from the teachers. On arrival at the outdoor center, a staff member told the assembled students that during their stay they would need to think for themselves, as when encountering nature things didn’t always happen as one expected. In the intervals between dinner and bath time, there was much noisy talking, laughing, and unchecked running around. Whereas in 1996 students had not been allowed to take personal items on the field trip, now many students wore a mixture of the school gym uniform and their own clothes. The evening recreational gathering in the center’s “play hall” was largely left to the running of the students who had been given responsibility for this, with

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little guidance from the teachers. The result was rather poor organization, a lot of noise, and disorder that occasionally became chaotic. Nonetheless, the teachers did not seem concerned. When the students assembled at the end of the recreation period, technology teacher Shimoda-­sensei praised them for one good aspect of their conduct that day, and told them to reflect on things that were not so good in the “reflection time” that was to follow immediately afterward. Most students then went to their class groups, with the hanchō remaining for a meeting with the year head, Azuma-­sensei. Azuma-­sensei remarked that assembling had taken too long that day, asking the hanchō to pass on their own spirit of attentiveness to their small group members, and emphasizing that student leaders and subleaders needed to play their parts well if the group as a whole (shūdan) was to function properly. Azuma-­sensei’s comments, along with her reminder to the assembled students on arrival that it was important to keep agreed rules when living together as a group (kyōdō seikatsu), showed that teachers’ concerns about smoothly operating “group life” had not vanished. Yet the place of these concerns had clearly shifted significantly; they were no longer given the supreme importance that they had held eleven years before. The calm, reasonable tone adopted by Azuma-­sensei and Shimoda-­sensei when addressing the students also contrasted with the directive and sometimes overbearing manner common among the first-­ year teachers in 1996. The same relaxed atmosphere continued for the rest of the trip. The students spent the morning of the second day in their class groups, preparing and cooking curry in covered camp-­style kitchen areas outside. At this point, as at several others on the trip, gender norms and identity strongly affected students’ activities. In class 1-­9, the girls prepared ingredients and washed dishes, while the boys split firewood with axes and then tried unsuccessfully to light fires for the cooking (the lighting was eventually done by the teacher, using a blowtorch). Although it was unclear to what extent this division of labor was the students’ own choice—­it had been decided before the trip—­their other decisions were also strongly gendered. Boys and girls sat separately to eat lunch, and when students split into activity groups in the afternoon, only boys chose to play mallet golf, while only girls chose to cook rice cakes or make craft objects like candles and wooden plates. The sole mixed groups were those doing hiking and catching insects, though even these were largely composed of boys. Ironically, giving students choice resulted in more gender segregation than on the 1996 field trip. I joined the final activity group, which spent about seventy-­five

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figure 3.  Boys splitting firewood on the 2007 Tachibana field trip

minutes catching insects (mainly butterflies and dragonflies), which one of the staff of the outdoor center then identified for them. The activity was more fun than studious. The evening was taken up with free time for recreation (a further contrast with the organized recreation of 1996), followed by reflection time in class groups.

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The third day was taken up by a strenuous hike up to the top of the mountain at whose foot the outdoor center was located. Getting to the top took three and a half hours, with some steep ups and downs; luckily, the sky was cloudless (unlike a previous year, when, I was told, it had rained and the students came back covered in mud). After returning, the assembled students heard from Azuma-­sensei that in the years to come, there would be “difficult things, tough things, challenging things,” but she wanted them to remember that though they had a tough time getting up the mountain and back, they had been able to make it. Physical education teacher Sakuragi-­sensei announced that some students had broken the rules by eating sweets (and dropping the wrappers), which made him “very sad indeed,” and someone had also damaged a sofa: if they were responsible, said Sakuragi-­sensei, they should tell a teacher, “for the sake of your own growth, please,” because one would learn from one’s mistakes. Shimoda-­sensei concluded by telling the students that the teachers wanted to trust them and give them freedom ( jiyū), but the students should accept the responsibility (sekinin) that brought. After dinner and bath time, the students split into class groups to read letters written to them by family members—­which provoked tears from over a quarter of the girls in classes 1-­8 and 1-­9—­and then write a postcard in reply, to be posted back to their families from the center. This was followed by the usual reflection meeting and a meeting of class representatives. During the first hour of the final morning, the students were set to write their individual thoughts and reflections on the trip, after which each student was provided with some birch wood and a painting kit, to paint a commemorative picture for her-­or himself. Most students chose to paint a picture with some sort of relationship to the natural setting of the center—­ landscapes or pictures of an animal face—­but a number painted unrelated figures from pop culture, including Anpan Man (who featured several times), Doraemon, Hello Kitty, and Spiderman. After lunch, buses took everyone back to Tachibana. Shimoda-­sensei confirmed to me that the approach taken by the first-­ year teachers was a long-­term one, aiming to raise up students who could take a leadership role. If they just tried to repress the students, he said, things would just get worse as they moved up the school. Certainly the approach seemed to work in some respects. At the late night teachers’ meeting to review the third day, class teachers reported that quite a number of students (between two and eight in most classes) had responded to Sakuragi-­sensei’s request that they own up to and apologize for eating the

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forbidden sweets; and the student who had damaged the sofa had done the same. At the same time, there was some ambivalence among the teachers about this relatively liberal approach. Most notably, the final teachers’ meeting concluded with comments from Vice-­Principal Fukui-­sensei that the students were not listening properly when assembled, and that it was the job of the class teachers to move through the lines to ensure they were quiet; the other teachers straightened up, listened in respectful silence, and all thanked him at the end. When I had discussed the contrasts with the 1996 field trip with the teachers a couple of days earlier, Fukui-­sensei told me that he felt there had been a broad movement toward giving students more autonomy and independent responsibility ( jishu, jiritsu), but he sounded ambivalent about this, even as he recalled a month he had spent at schools in Australia, and how he impressed he had been by the way teachers there responded to students’ disagreement with respect and without bothering about forms, such as posture, as Japanese teachers did. It seemed clear that the move toward increased student autonomy aroused conflicting feelings among at least some teachers.

Analysis and Conclusion Why was the approach adopted by the first-year teachers in 2007 so different from that of eleven years before? Haruoka-­sensei, who had experienced both, told me that the key difference was the new integrated studies framework, which aimed to promote the ability of students to think and learn for themselves. This supported and legitimized a more autonomy-­centered approach. In the years between my two trips, all the teachers who had been at Tachibana in 1996 had been transferred and replaced by new staff, and it was my strong impression that a number of the first-­year teachers in 2007 were much more comfortable with a stress on autonomy than with a strong emphasis on discipline, in contrast to the preferences of leading first-year teachers in 1996.4 Moreover, the 2007 trip took place at the start of the second term, not the first, which might have made a difference. The emphasis on autonomy was clear in the way that teachers allowed students significant amounts of free time, sent them off orienteering in an unfamiliar town far from the school, and entrusted them with the organization of recreation, refraining from intervening even when the results were far from perfect. More generally, it was evident when students were repeatedly told that it was important for them to think for them­selves and act with responsibility.

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Yet while the integrated studies framework clearly influenced this autonomy-­centered approach, it was also clear, conversely, that Tachibana and its teachers had significantly adapted the integrated studies framework for their own purposes. As noted earlier, the trip to the outdoor center had been set up by Andō-­sensei as a way to tackle breakdowns in discipline and relationships between teachers and students. To a significant extent, this emphasis on human development and human relationships remained the main purpose of the trip. Certainly, students were encouraged to think for themselves and to act without relying on constant teacher guidance, but this was almost entirely within the sphere of nonacademic activities, such as the organization of recreation, orienteering, cooking, painting, or assembling. In this sense, the focus of the field trip was largely on the human development or “daily living” (seikatsu) side of the junior high school development agenda (discussed further in chapter 3), rather than on the academic development or “study” (gakushū) side to which integrated studies properly belonged. Students did not engage in genuine inquiry learning in which they identified and sought the answers to problems; any “problems” they were faced with were relatively minor, and were not self-­identified but provided by teachers. Activity choices did not provide a strong learning challenge, though they were certainly enjoyable, provided a wonderful opportunity to experience aspects of an unfamiliar natural environment, and probably went a long way toward fulfilling their intended human development purposes. The 2007 field trip thus showed how easily integrated studies could be reshaped in ways that teachers were comfortable with, moving it away from its core purpose of promoting independent, self-­motivated learning. The shift of focus from the group discipline of shūdan seikatsu to autonomous thinking and action was real, and showed how an emphasis on interrelationship and working together could be rearticulated in a way that actually encouraged individual autonomy. However, the reconfiguration of the reform agenda to focus primarily on human relationships was perhaps even more significant. It was an early indication of how schools would reshape curricular reform to fit their own agendas.

chapter three

Classes, Clubs, and Control

T

he development of self in an interrelational context was a fundamental educational goal at Tachibana and Yoneda junior high schools, at least as important as academic development goals. This was so across the decade and more during which I conducted fieldwork. The institutionalized practices through which teachers sought to realize these ideals were central to the context for educational reform. These practices sought to integrate students into groups within the school, especially the class group (gakkyū) and the extracurricular club (bukatsu), both of which promoted interdependence. Teachers expected students to commit themselves to each group, working with and supporting others in order to achieve a community in which they could develop as individuals. When this ideal sense of supportive community was achieved, students described it using the term nakama. In a class or club where there was genuine mutual support, individuality and autonomy could flourish. However, accepting and working together with others were difficult processes that students sometimes resisted in favor of self-­assertion or forming exclusive friendship cliques. In the eyes of teachers, these were undesirable types of individualistic behavior, both because they undermined the interdependent, mutually supportive groups at which teachers aimed, and because they threatened teacher control. The class and the club were not just means to personal development—­ they were simultaneously part of a set of institutionalized structures and practices whereby teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda sought to maintain control at the schools. As a result, there were inherent tensions between ideals of self-­development and the imperative to keep control. Teachers dis­ agreed among themselves about how far to encourage student autonomy and also confessed uncertainty about how to deal with conflicts between

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the need for control, changing social expectations, and ideals of autonomous development. The schools sought to enforce order through integrating students into positive patterns of school participation rather than through punitive sanctions on negative behavior. This approach was potentially double-­ edged in its effects: it could benefit students by engaging them in prosocial behavior patterns and experiential learning, but there was also a danger of enmeshing students within a system of regulation and habituation that was detrimental to the development of individual autonomy. Seeking to integrate students into positive participation through these methods consumed huge amounts of teachers’ time and energies. This would have major implications for the implementation of educational reform, which also made great demands of teachers. The two sets of demands became rivals for teachers’ limited personal resources, but the struggle between them would be unequal from the start. The long-­ standing ideals and practices of integration and control were not only familiar and comfortable for teachers, they also had institutionalized legitimacy. For many, they were central to the very idea of what a junior high teacher should be—­their professional identity—­and so it was always likely that schools would resist curtailing them. Understanding these systems is therefore crucial to understanding why educational reform fell so far short of its aims.

Conceptualizing Educational Goals There were two ways in which the balance between academic and nonacademic educational goals was most often articulated at Tachibana and Yoneda. The first was to understand education in terms of the tripartite formula: “intellectual, moral, physical” (chi, toku, tai) (Hamabayashi 1987, 20; Monbushō 1996, 31), which was drawn to my attention by Aoki-­sensei, Tachibana vice-­principal in 1996–­1997, and was also included in the 2007 Tachibana school management plan. The second way was to divide the work of the junior high school into “gakushū shidō” (academic guidance/ direction—­largely teaching) and “seikatsu shidō” (guidance/direction of life habits). In daily staff room talk in both 1996–­1997 and 2007, teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda often categorized their work like this, and the categories were also explicit in the classroom; several classrooms featured posters on which the “aims of the class” were divided into the two cat-

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egories of “study” (gakushū) and “daily life” (seikatsu). This classification was not idiosyncratic. Haruta states that “most teachers consider that there are two kinds of educational work that they do in schools, ‘subject guidance’ [kyōka shidō] and ‘life guidance’ [seikatsu shidō]” (Haruta 1981, 9), explaining that “while subject guidance aims at directly teaching children various kinds of knowledge and skills, life guidance aims to shape children’s conduct and character [ jinkaku]” (Haruta 1981, 11). Teachers consistently saw the aims of junior high education in terms of this kind of rounded intellectual, social, and moral development. Fujita-­sensei, Tachibana principal in 1996–­1998, went so far as to say that human development (hito o sodateru) was most important, as people could study at any stage in their life.

The Class Group: The Acceptance of Difference? Two groups at Tachibana and Yoneda were particularly important for both teachers and students: the class and the club. According to teachers’ explanations, the class brought together heterogeneous individuals who should learn to accept one another’s diversity and work together. The club, on the other hand, enabled students to pursue shared interests together. In each group, individuality was potentially both fruitful and problematic. Students’ individual talents could benefit themselves and the class or club as a whole; but individual differences could also cause disruption. Students ideally needed to learn both to respect and appreciate one another’s individuality, as well as use their own individuality for the benefit of the group as a whole. When teachers focused on individuals and individual autonomy, students’ responses tended to be positive. Moreover, evidence suggested that good group spirit and students’ sense of individuality and autonomy tended to go together rather than be in conflict. A real sense of mutual trust and belonging provided the security that encouraged students to develop as individuals, and students used the term nakama about a group where such an ideal was achieved. Two words were used with particular frequency by teachers to express their aims for their class group: matomari (working together well with a sense of mutual purpose) and mitomeai (mutual acceptance). The ideal of mutual acceptance recognized the importance of class members’ individuality. Each class adopted a class goal, displayed on a wall banner, and at

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figure 4.  Yoneda classroom and class slogan

Tachibana in 1996, the ideals of matomari and mitomeai were expressed in the slogan of the Three Musketeers that two classes adopted: “One for all, all for one.”1 Many third-­year Tachibana students interviewed in 1997 felt the classmates who lived up to the ideals of matomari and mitomeai tended to become central figures in the class. These students were “people who get along well with anyone and everyone equally” (Aya, F), “people who think about the class and lead it” (Saki, F), “people who’ve got it together, can get along with everyone, and bring them together; and people who make things fun for everyone” (Shigeru, M).2 Classmates who were admired often displayed similar qualities: Nishimoto Ai-­san—­she’s always laughing and smiling with everyone, and she always does everything with a smile and without unwillingness. And Kitada Jōji-­kun—­he really comforted me when I was in trouble. (Saki, F) Kuwayama Ruri-­san—­her character is good . . . she doesn’t criticize others, and she absolutely never does things that people would find nasty. (Kana, F)

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These were not the students’ only ideals; many also saw a good class as “fun” (tanoshii) and “cheerful” (akarui), and central figures in the class as “people who can make things fun” (Keita, M), “people who are lively and cheerful and do everything enthusiastically” (Kōsuke, M), or “funny people [omoshiroi hito]—­people who are good at saying things that make everyone laugh” (Tetsuo, M). Moreover, admired classmates included the talented and good-­looking, not just those with good character qualities. As earlier ethnographic studies elsewhere in Japan found, being outgoing, sociable, and amusing are highly valued traits among junior high students (Fukuzawa and LeTendre 2001, 47–­52). At Tachibana and Yoneda, such traits were appreciated alongside qualities that chimed with the ideals of cooperation and mutual acceptance. One reason class members were heterogeneous was because classes throughout the schools were mixed-­ability, as is typical in compulsory public education in Japan (Cummings 1980, 61–­62; Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 60).3 In 1996–­1997, no differentiation according to academic performance (“tracking,” “streaming,” or “setting”) was practiced at all at Tachibana. Vice-­ Principal Aoki-­ sensei commented that differences in ability (nōryo­ku) were not publicly acknowledged in contemporary Jap­ anese society, and that differential treatment of students was seen as discrimination (sabetsu). By 2007, some differentiation had been introduced at Yoneda in mathematics (and had been tried, then abandoned, at Tachibana), but its effects seemed very limited (see chapter 6). The resulting heterogeneity required students to be able to get along and work together with others with whom they might have relatively little in common. This requirement was strengthened by the schools’ practice of redistributing students into new classes every year. Aoki-­sensei suggested that a major reason for reshuffling classes annually was to develop students’ sociability (shakaisei) and encourage diversity in their relationships by ensuring that students made a variety of friends, rather than forming exclusive friendship groups (nakayoshi gurūpu). This approach encouraged students to accept others’ individuality, but arguably also discouraged the kind of deepening of individuality that might result from close friendships pursued over the whole of students’ junior high careers—­though these could flourish through club activities, as described later. Teachers were especially wary of the potential disruption to class unity that might be caused by exclusive friendships among girls. Many students also commented during interviews or in questionnaires that girls tended to form close-­knit groups. In the words of one third-­year girl at Yoneda in

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2007, “I think human relations among girls can be a headache. Sometimes if they don’t do what their friends like they get disliked, so that is a real strain for them.” Aoki-­sensei commented that girls tended to be difficult because they “set conditions for being friends,” and (male) English teacher Taniguchi-­sensei complained that girls were harder to deal with than boys because of their tendency to form cliques and bear grudges. In contrast, “straightforward” personalities (sappari shiteiru seikaku) were thought to be more common among boys. Aoki-­sensei explained the meaning of sappari shiteiru by contrasting it with the sticky Japanese summer—­a sappari shiteiru feeling was like putting on fresh clothes after washing off summer sweat. Having a sappari shiteiru personality meant treating the past as past, not being concerned about it forever. Some girls who saw themselves as straightforward also said that they disliked cliquishness among other girls. One third-­year Tachibana student told me in 1998 that she wished she had been born a boy for that reason. A year earlier, two other Tachibana third-­year girls, both members of the track and field club, were similarly critical: kaoru: I think we two are straightforward [sappari shiteiru] . . . There are girls who will say they dislike someone even though they get on well . . . Girls are horrible. Boys are good because they are straightforward . . . Mind you, I think that girls connect at a deeper emotional level; boys don’t do that much . . . They’re just like friends who have fun together. ruri: Girls will betray you sometimes . . . If they don’t have any friends in their class, they’ll try to make friends just on the surface . . . They don’t like people to say that they’re on their own, so they try to enter someone’s group even if it doesn’t really work and they don’t get along in terms of character. They’re friends, but just on the surface . . . I don’t think there are many girls in our year who have real friends. People say that we’re unusual in the track and field club.

Furukubo (2003, 166) agrees that Japanese schoolgirls tend to make cliques, but sees this not as a natural difference between the sexes but “a strategy of self-­protection by girls living in a gender-­bound society.” She points to studies showing a drop in many girls’ confidence and self-­esteem when they enter puberty, and suggests that Japanese “girls’ culture” (shōjo bunka), with its idealization of close friendship, represents a necessary attempt to find a “place of security” (ibasho) in the midst of anxiety. However, there is a heavy price to pay in “interminable” exchange of care and attention to the feelings of others in the group. Moreover, Furukubo

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suggests that this self-­protective strategy ironically contributes to gender reproduction, because through seeking relationships only within a chosen group of sympathetic others, girls learn to exercise emotional labor and to expect it from other girls (164). Though teachers were concerned about exclusive friendship cliques, I found little evidence of the kind of higher and lower-­status groups within classes that have been noted in lower secondary schools in the United States (Eder, Evans, and Parker 1995). When I interviewed third years at Tachibana in 1997 and asked about such groups, students tended to be puzzled; some denied their existence, while others mentioned a few group labels that did not seem widely shared, as they rarely came up in more than one interview. In particular, there seemed very few derogatory terms for lower-­status students, such as the term “grits” recorded by Eder, Evans and Parker (1995) in a Midwestern U.S. middle school. The only term mentioned by more than one or two of the students interviewed was furyō (bad kids). This suggested that students saw it as problematic to let friendship groups harden into exclusive status groups or to give groups salience by labeling. This is consistent with earlier findings in Japanese junior high schools: terms such as “lively and cheerful” (akarui) or “quiet” (otonashii) used by students in the schools studied by Fukuzawa and LeTendre (2001, 47–­53) are more descriptive of perceived character traits than derogatory labels for entire groups.4 The Tachibana students I interviewed seemed to have accepted the unified class group and the illegitimacy of exclusive cliques as ideals, even if, in practice, cliquishness did sometimes exist. Students wanted a good class group, but they also wanted individuals to be valued. In interviews during 1997 and 1998, Tachibana third years spoke highly of class teachers who showed they cared about both. They liked teachers who could make the class as a whole enjoyable, such as third-­ year class teacher and soccer club supervisor Fukumoto-­sensei: Fukumoto-­sensei writes a message every day on the blackboard. Usually teachers give up doing that pretty quickly, but he writes one every morning; and he makes a little handout each day and gives it out. (Yuki, F) Fukumoto-­sensei puts passion into being a class teacher [nekketsu]. Today he sang a song—­Kanpai—­with his guitar!5 (Maki, F)

However, teachers’ care for individuals was also very highly valued. Sometimes this involved listening to and helping with students’ problems, and

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sometimes it was shown by the teacher’s efforts at a particular time (such as when deciding on high school applications). Students praised third-­year class teacher Kitajima-­sensei for her care of individuals: She understands students’ feelings the best of any teacher. She takes bully­ing really seriously—­she experienced it herself when she was a child. (Ka­na, F) When my friend had big problems with bullying, Kitajima-­sensei did all she could to help her. She’s really a teacher who understands what you want to say. (Aya, F)

Students spoke with appreciation of teachers who showed they cared for all students in the class as individuals, by remembering their names, faces, and (in one case) birthdays: Matsumae-­sensei is amazing. She’s amazing! Right at the start of the year, on the first of April, we were helping prepare for the entrance ceremony. We didn’t know who was in the class, but she had learned all our names, and even learned our faces, and when I was carrying chairs, she comes and says, “It’s Fukuda-­san, right? Hope we’ll have a good year together!” I thought, “Wow!” (Azusa, F)

Teachers who showed respect for students by listening to and dialoguing with them were respected in return, whereas those who distrusted students were disliked: This particular teacher doesn’t believe what students say, and the only way he corrects your behavior is by getting angry. In the case of Matsumae-­sensei, she will listen to the student’s view and then give hers, but this teacher forces what he thinks on you. (Azusa, F)

The ideals of concern both for the group as a whole and for individuals within it thus seemed to resonate strongly with students. No conflict was perceived between the two. As Dawson (2008, 75–­89) also found, teachers who failed to listen to or show genuine care for individuals were likely to lose student respect, and their urgings to show group spirit and work together might have little effect as a result. On the other hand, teachers who showed respect for individuals were also likely to find it easier to bring their class together in mutual support and shared feeling.

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The Self within the Group: Haruoka-­Sensei and 1-­5 The ideal of a class group within which individuality and autonomy were respected was not the same as individualization without regard for the group as a whole. The differences were shown by the endeavors of Haruoka-­sensei as class teacher of 1-­5 at Tachibana in 1996–­1997. In her late thirties at the time and having just completed a master’s degree in the education faculty of a nearby national university, Haruoka-­sensei was an experienced teacher of Japanese (kokugo) who was engaged with educational ideas and new practices.6 She had been transferred to Tachibana at the beginning of the year after ten years in a much smaller rural school. Haruoka-­sensei saw both the individual and the group as important. She was ambivalent about educational reform for a mixture of reasons that combined progressive and conservative leanings. She feared reform might lead to intensified differentiation and selection of students, as suggested by her husband, a high school teacher who was very active in the more left-­leaning of the two high school teachers’ unions, Nikkyōkyō. However, she also shared other teachers’ ambivalence about “respect for individuality,” once commenting, “Maybe we’re respecting individuality [kosei] too much,” and suggesting that students needed to learn how to find enjoyment and fulfillment in activities that were not immediately interesting and enjoyable, since they made up so much of life. The problem was how to define “individuality,” she said. She felt that individuality meant self-­ realization ( jiko-­jitsugen), self-­formation ( jiko-­keisei), having one’s own way of living ( jibun no ikikata)—­it didn’t just mean doing what one felt like (kimama o jiyū ni). She also shared other teachers’ feelings that students’ self-­discipline, effort, and perseverance were declining. Haruoka-­sensei encouraged students to think for themselves as individuals and, at the same time, as members of a class group whose members would support one another and work together. She outlined her approach in her first lesson of class activities with 1-­5, on the second day of the new school year. The previous day she had given out a class newsletter entitled “Ichigo dōmei” (Strawberry League, or, 1-­5 League).7 Haruoka-­sensei asked the students what they thought the title meant. Most answered that it meant that class members would all help one another, cooperate, or unite their strength (chikara o awaseru). Next, Haruoka-­sensei asked the class to think about what their purpose in common was— ­especially considering that the lesson had started with student self-­introductions

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showing that everyone had different hobbies and liked different things. Stressing that she wanted them to become children who thought for themselves, she challenged the students to think about the meaning of the class goals they had articulated: “You say you want a fun class or a cheerful class—­what does that mean?” In the following weeks and months, Haruoka-­ sensei consistently stressed both the importance of the class group and the importance of thinking for oneself. She encouraged discussion about class matters and emphasized the importance of having one’s own opinion—­for the sake of the whole group, not just oneself. In one class discussion when few students were voicing their views, she suggested that if nobody had an opinion, things wouldn’t go well, as everyone would just decide for themselves (katte ni), without any discussion or listening to what others thought. In other words, voicing opinions was an essential step toward better mutual understanding and cooperation, whereas refusing to give one’s views and participate actively in group self-­government was problematic. On the field trip, she suggested to the 1-­5 students that they had a choice between selfishness ( jibun-­katte) and mutuality (o-­tagaisama) as the class ethos. In a morning meeting a few weeks later, she posed the question, “Why do we have han?” After all, she pointed out, they could have a system whereby individuals did kakari jobs, instead of pairs or groups. However, she went on, someone in the class had pointed out that “one person couldn’t keep it up on their own.” People had to support one another, a point she emphasized on another occasion by drawing attention to the two characters that made up the word ningen (human being). The first character meant “person,” the second, “between”; in other words, humans were not isolated beings, but lived their lives among others. Haruoka-­sensei’s commitment to an understanding of humans as both interconnected and individual was also evident in her teaching. Her Japanese lessons (discussed further in chapter 5) involved thorough individual work before exchange of ideas and interpretations. She was skeptical about pedagogy that stressed the individual learner but saw group activities as superfluous. Telling me of a school in Shimane prefecture that had been designed to allow the students to set their own individual study agendas, with teachers as consultants, she said that although in a way she had felt that this was good, she also felt that the students would miss out through not having the enjoyment that came from doing something together. The risk was that what a child was studying would become his prob­ lem alone and students would be less likely to stimulate one another to explore questions more deeply.

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Haruoka-­sensei put considerable effort into her work as a class teacher, including regular production of a class newsletter. However, she was dissatisfied with the results. Her class did not have major problems from the point of view of other teachers, but there was little sense of cohesive spirit. Several students, both boys and girls, were disengaged from the class, either actively disruptive (sometimes, Haruoka-­sensei thought, due to academic difficulties) or else withdrawing into friendship cliques. In contrast to the model of discussion and mutual support among independently thinking individuals that Haruoka-­sensei advocated, this was individualization without commitment to the well-­being of others within the class. This type of individualization clearly attracted a significant number of students in 1-­5, despite Haruoka-­sensei’s efforts.

Club Activities: Choosing Commitment Besides class groups, most students at Tachibana and Yoneda were members of extracurricular clubs. Children first encounter extracurricular club activities (bukatsudō) at junior high school.8 Club activities were divided into sports clubs and culture clubs, as generally was the case at junior high and high schools (Cave 2004). Sports clubs were considerably more popular than culture clubs and also met more frequently and for longer.9 The less-­popular cultural clubs usually met once or twice a week, while most sports clubs and the brass and woodwind band met every weekday and at least one weekend day; some sports clubs regularly met on both Saturday and Sunday. Club practices began once school ended at 3:30 or 4:00 p.m., and in the case of sports clubs, generally continued until dusk, finishing as early as 4:30 p.m. in December, and as late as 6:45 p.m. in June, July, and August. Teachers saw clubs and class groups as complementary. Clubs were described as jishu katsudō (activities that students decided themselves to do), unlike classes, and club members shared a common interest, whereas classes were heterogeneous.10 Club activities therefore offered students an opportunity for autonomous choice. However, autonomous choice was limited once students had entered a club. Members were expected to commit themselves to the club group and the framework of practices it provided. This was generally a commitment to discipline, as many sports clubs practiced almost daily for up to three hours in the summer. Students often said in their interview that club activities helped them develop seishin (inner strength) and konjō

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figure 5.  Club activities at Tachibana, 1996

(willpower). “I became stronger mentally” (seishin-­teki ni) (Saki, F; girls’ volleyball club), was a representative comment. The development of these qualities had an ambiguous relationship to discourses of individuality and autonomy. The ability to persevere tended to be related to “conquest of self” ( jibun ni katsu or onore ni katsu)—­as expressed, for example, on the Tachibana girls’ volleyball club banner in 1996—­and as noted in chap­ ter  1, this could potentially either enable genuine autonomy, or merely provide strength to do what others required.11 Learning took place within the club’s framework of practice and guidance. Students in lower years (kōhai) were expected to accept the guid­ance of not only the teachers who supervised and coached the club (komon), but also the older students (senpai), who had immediate responsibility for supervising activities on the many occasions when no supervisor was present.12 In 1997 interviews, Tachibana third years described good senpai as good leaders and role models, people who taught their kōhai properly but kindly, and people who were strict enough to tell their kōhai when they did something wrong. Good senpai like these were distinguished from those who were snide and sarcastic, imposing rules on the first years: “They’d say, ‘First years mustn’t wear that color hair band’

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and so on. In the girls’ badminton club, the senpai made restrictions on bags and shoes. They’d say things like, ‘It’s okay for us to have these ones, but first years mustn’t’ ” (Kana, F; girls’ basketball club). However, many students also spoke of friendly senpai and little sense of hierarchy within clubs. In contrast to Woodview, the Midwestern U.S. middle school studied by Eder, Evans, and Parker (1995, 20, 26), where individual choice and talent were prioritized by allowing students to join multiple athletic acminded commitment tivities, Tachibana and Yoneda promoted single-­ and egalitarianism by allowing students to join just one club, ideally for their entire junior high career. Changing clubs was possible but not encouraged. First-­year students received oral and printed explanations of what each club’s activities involved and could enter clubs on a trial basis for a week before making a final decision. The approach in the Sakura schools allowed more students to gain status and self-­confidence as first-­ team regulars, at the cost of denying multitalented students the chance to develop their abilities in a range of fields and to become high-­status individual stars, as happened at the U.S. school. I never heard teachers speak spontaneously of club activities as sites for the development of individuality.13 Encouraging high participation in clubs gave opportunities to more students, integrated them into disciplined habits, and helped students who were better at sports than academics gain a positive identity. In interviews, students often said that clubs had helped them learn to work with others, gain social skills, and acquire good life habits: “I became able to talk with anyone” (Yuki, F; girls’ volleyball club); “I learned that one has to be on time and keep the rules when doing things in a group” (Masanori, M; soccer club). However, high participation rates combined with limited facilities made it harder to develop individual talent. At Tachibana, for example, six clubs had to share the gymnasium, doing indoor practice and outdoor fitness training on alternate days. Because tennis or badminton courts and table tennis tables were limited, not all club members could practice at once. Opportunities usually went with seniority rather than ability, so first-­year students spent much time doing fitness training, practicing swinging a racket, or cheering on the older students and picking up their stray balls or shuttlecocks. If helping talented individuals develop was not a top priority in club activities, promoting mutual support among club members certainly was, and clubs were often more effective than class groups in this respect. One important form of support was ōen— ­cheering on others in various

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ritualized chants which were encouraged and sometimes formalized by teachers (Cave 2004). Attending a baseball tournament in 1996, I was surprised to see one of the most disruptive boys in Haruoka-­sensei’s 1-­5 class leading first-­year baseball club members in cheering on the team, at one point even asking if anyone could remember how the school song started. There was sometimes a gendered dimension to ōen, with girls showing particular enthusiasm for cheering on others and so doing the “emotion work” of encouragement, often seen as an appropriate feminine role in Japan (Kondo 1990, 281, 295; Rosenberger 1994, 92). Girls invented other ways of communicating support too, as I observed while participating in the Tachibana track and field club in 1996. Before tournaments, girls in the first and second years would write letters of encouragement to the older girls, and at the final track and field meet before the third years’ retirement from the club, the second-­and third-­year girls staged a short farewell ceremony. The two groups lined up facing one another, and after a speech and a song of farewell from the second years (which brought several of the third years to the verge of tears), each third year was presented with a packet of letters from all of the second years.14 However, no such ceremonies were conducted by the boys. Promotion of mutual support could and did encourage individuality and autonomy, as students felt free to be themselves within a nakama. Common interests and shared goals often made this easier to achieve in the club than in the class group. The Tachibana track and field club in 1996–­1997 was a good example. When asked about her strongest junior high memories, third-­year member Kaoru (F) answered: It’s got to be the club. That was everything as far as we were concerned! It was really fun. At elementary school, everyone was good friends, without there being anyone special, but with the club, it was a case of, “We’re nakama!” There were never many of us [third-year girls], just seven or eight, so with a small number like that we all got to understand one another’s feelings, and we got so bonded together [matomatteita] that we didn’t even think about leaving somebody out or anything.

In her composition for the graduation yearbook, another girl, Mika, wrote along similar lines:15 I gained a great thing through the club—­a nakama. It has a slightly different feeling from my other friends [nakama]. None of us were indulgent to the

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others . . . At athletic meets, we cheered one another in voices so loud we were hoarse . . . The fact that we respected one another as individuals [hitori-­hitori no kojin o sonchō shiatta] also made a difference to our results, because it meant that we ran in a free and easy way.

This sense that the club members had been close, yet in a way that allowed difference and autonomy, was also voiced in interview by a third girl, Ruri: I think I’ve grown a lot as a person since I entered the club, in terms of feelings. When I was at elementary school, . . . I sort of didn’t allow myself much freedom, I made myself make efforts, because I felt like I had to do everything well. So it was a bit of a strain. But when I came to junior high, people in the club behaved as if they did things because they wanted to do them, and looking at that, I thought, that’s what’s most important, . . . and gradually I became like that too.

Individuality and autonomy could also be promoted by supervisors. Some stressed that they tried to tailor training to individual students. First-­ year students who were good enough (perhaps because they had already played the sport for several years) might practice with the second-­year students, for example. Such supervisors encouraged individual students to think for themselves about their personal goals and how to achieve them. Tachibana swimming supervisor Komaba-­sensei had students decide goals for themselves—­for example, what time they aimed to swim 200 meters in—­and work toward them. Soccer supervisor Fukumoto-­sensei emphasized to students that they should pay attention to their physical condition and judge for themselves whether to practice or rest. Just before the 1996 summer tournament, he told the soccer club members that it was important was to produce all one was capable of for the sake of their own feeling of satisfaction—­not for his sake, nor for that of the principal or the school. Students were thus being made aware of the importance of thinking about what they themselves wanted as individuals. Supervisors usually drew up the training routine to be followed, and many club captains would go to the main supervising teacher daily, to be told what that day’s routine was to be. However, there were exceptions to this. There were times when Tachibana’s track and field club supervisor set out the training routine, but there were others when he told the students to decide it themselves. Third-­year students in the club told me that during the summer vacation of their second year, the supervisor had been very busy and told the club members to work out their own training

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schedule together; according to the students, this was very good for bonding within the club. Ten years later, the members of the Yoneda girls’ table tennis club told me that it was always they who decided the content of practice, not the supervisor. In addition, keen students might decide to do extra training on their own, particularly in periods before exams (when club activities were cancelled), and this would be carried out on their own initiative and according to their own plan, though often after seeking the supervisor’s advice. There was no doubt about many students’ appreciation of club activities. In answer to the question, “What has especially stayed with you (kokoro ni nokotteiru) from your three years at junior high?,” seventeen of the twenty-­four Tachibana third years I interviewed in 1997 mentioned club activities, some because of the friends they had made in the club, some because of the fun they had had, some because of what they had learned or because of how they felt they had grown as a person, some simply because of the intensity of the experience, and some for a combination of all these reasons. When I asked the same question to twenty-­one third years in July 1998, the proportion of students mentioning bukatsudō was lower (nine out of twenty-­one) but still significant. In 2007, 50 percent of Tachibana and 61 percent of Yoneda respondents to my third-­year student questionnaire indicated that club activities had left a strong impression on them. As “retirement” from the track and field club approached in the summer of her third year, Ruri sighed with regret, “It’s like your goal isn’t there any longer.” When I asked if study didn’t provide a goal, she commented that club activities helped motivate her to study too. In fact, some third-­year track and field club members were still training voluntarily at the start of the fall term of 1996, even after they were supposed to have re­ tired from the club. Clubs play a multifaceted role. They offer students a space in which they can develop a particular enthusiasm of their choice, together with others who share the same enthusiasm. They thus offer an important supplement to the rest of the junior high day, which is largely spent sitting in a classroom doing studies about which students have little choice, with classmates who are not necessarily close friends. In 1996, I used to enjoy participating in after-­school practice with the Tachibana Track and Field Club not least because of the pleasure of being able to move about freely and do some physical exercise in the open air, after hours sitting and taking notes inside, and many students seem to have felt the same. As students

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spend considerable time in clubs, and as the atmosphere is more informal than the classroom, students can get to know one another and their teachers better than they would otherwise, providing opportunities to develop close friendships. But although clubs provide an opportunity for individual choice and development, they are also places where commitment, self-­ discipline, and mutual support are strongly emphasized.

Dilemmas of Guidance and Control Classes and clubs were very important in the efforts of teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda to maintain school order. They helped to integrate students into what teachers saw as positive patterns of behavior and were avenues for seito shidō and seikatsu shidō. Seito shidō literally translates as “student guidance,” but in practice was largely concerned with school discipline and problematic behavior. Seito shidō was especially central at Tachibana because of the school’s recurrent discipline problems. The short morning staff meeting often included an announcement from the head of student guidance, sometimes reporting a student fight or similar problem, but more often to ask teachers to instruct students, or to be on the lookout for unacceptable behavior. Seikatsu shidō, or, life guidance, focused on conduct in daily life—­though one of its purposes was to help prevent discipline problems through instilling life habits. In this sense, seito shidō and seikatsu shidō were two ends of a spectrum of behavioral guidance.16 Teachers’ fear of losing control was based either on experience or on reading or hearing of schools where this had happened. A particularly strong collective memory for teachers in the 1990s was the turbulent period of “school violence” (kōnai bōryoku) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Teachers who had experienced this told of knives and other objects thrown at the blackboard, and one said that wearing a tie had been rare because of the physical danger involved. Memories of turbulent periods at Tachibana itself and knowledge of other local schools with serious discipline problems also kept teachers alert. In 1996, one teacher recently transferred from a nearby school told me that Tachibana was very quiet—­at his previous school, he said, there had been daily disturbances, with shoe racks crashing down and bicycles being ridden down the corridors.17 Teachers also worried about the reputation of their school. Parents were very aware of disorder issues and mentioned the violence of the 1980s

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to me. In 1996, a close friend who lived within the Tachibana school district and had children at elementary school asked me whether Tachibana had discipline problems (areteiru). In 2000, another local friend was the first to tell me about the smashing of Tachibana’s windows. Even during the school’s peaceful periods, its previous discipline problems were always fresh enough in the popular memory to make teachers sensitive about its reputation. These worries helped to explain some of the ambivalence shown by many teachers toward the idea of “stress on individuality.”

Governing without Sanctions At Tachibana and Yoneda, teachers prioritized maintaining order through the prevention of problems, rather than by imposing sanctions on offenders. This approach was consistent across 1996–­1997 and 2007. The schools’ punishment systems were vestigial compared to those documented in secondary schools in the United States (LeTendre 2000, 126–­28) or En­ gland (Simpson 1997, 15–­16). Students who had infringed on the rules did not suffer a set, impersonal penalty, such as detention or exclusion from valued school activities. Nor did teachers use corporal punishment to intimidate students, despite reports of its use in junior high schools in the past.18 Rather, teachers talked with misbehaving students about their conduct, sometimes listening to the student, sometimes trying to show them the bad consequences of their actions, sometimes berating them for their misbehavior. Occasionally such a scolding was intense and intimidatory, as once at Yoneda in 2007, when two third-­year boys locked themselves briefly into the school’s broadcasting studio. One failed to apologize in a manner that satisfied Nohara-­sensei, a senior male teacher. After manhandling the boy (who was taller than the teacher himself) into the staff room, Nohara-­ sensei stood face to face with him, less than a foot apart, and yelled, “Do you think that kind of apology is okay?! Apologize properly! You want to go to the baseball club at Oda High School [a local low-­level private high school]— ­do you think you can with that kind of behavior? Do you understand human feeling—­feelings of love, feelings of friendship? When you get married and have kids, you will have to pour love on your kids, do you understand this human feeling? Is my feeling getting through to you yet?! Do you understand my feelings?” The assault at high volume continued for a minute or two, during which time the boy stood stock still; then Nohara-­ sensei dropped his voice, softened his tone, and continued to talk about

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understanding the teacher’s feelings, what the teacher wanted for him and from him; he then ushered the boy into a nearby reception room, to talk with him further. Such beratings are dramatic but rare; I only witnessed two during my sixteen months of fieldwork in junior high school. They may have an exemplary deterrent effect, as students learn of particular teachers’ reputations by hearsay. However, the effectiveness of the approach, whether using severe scolding or gentler guidance, depends on the qualities of the teacher and her or his ability to connect personally with the student.19 In more serious cases of misbehavior, the class teacher would visit the home to talk with the parents, or (less frequently) one or both parents would visit the school. In very severe cases, suspension was possible, but expulsion was not a legal option, I was told. Unless the case was exceptional, therefore, the school’s response to rule-­breaking was not punishment, but heavy moral and psychological pressure. Instead of deterring misconduct with sanctions, teachers tried to prevent it beforehand. They used four main approaches. First, great emphasis was placed on integrating students into the school and groups within the school, so students would feel that participating in the “group life” of the school community was a rewarding and not just a restrictive experience (LeTendre 2000, 42, 101). For this, not only class and club activities were important, but also major school events ( gakkō gyōji), such as the sports day and cultural festival (discussed in chapter 4). Using these various avenues, teachers tried to ensure that all students were given roles of authority and responsibility, albeit limited, to show that they were seen as trustworthy and responsible. Students were already well used to this integrative approach through their experiences at preschool and elementary school (Lewis 1995; Cave 2007). Second, teachers rigorously policed certain school rules that were regarded as being of particular symbolic importance in marking the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable conduct—­particularly rules about bodily appearance, personal possessions, and time. School uniforms were strictly enforced, as were rules about hair length and color (LeTendre 2000, 55, 102–­3, 153). Teachers corrected minute infractions, such as boys’ changing the buttons on their jackets for almost identical buttons with different insignia, girls’ wearing colored hair grips, or body adornment using colored lip salve or brown hair rinse (the latter of which was all the rage among adults and was even used by some female teachers at the schools). Students who had tinted their hair were made to wash the rinse out; in extreme cases, such as one I witnessed in 1996, teachers at

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Tachibana returned the hair to its original color with black hair spray. The schools did not insist on black hair, but on not altering the natural color; in 1996, one Tachibana boy whose hair was naturally brownish wanted to dye it black, but was not allowed. Personal possessions were also an important boundary marker, teachers emphasizing that items unnecessary for school life should not be brought to school. “Unnecessary items” seemed to include anything incompatible with an ethos of serious devotion to intellectual, physical, and moral self-­improvement, so books were allowed, but not comics. Time was also policed, especially lateness. In 1996 at Tachibana, second-­and third-­year teachers without classes stood at the school entrances in the morning, calling out warnings to students rushing in to beat the chime that divided those on time from those officially late. Occasionally there would be drives to eliminate lateness, and the names of latecomers would be officially noted. By concentrating on these three areas, teachers policed the boundaries of the school as a venue for shūdan seikatsu, where private preferences often had to be set aside. However, the exact position of the boundaries was somewhat arbitrary, and was renegotiated every year by the schools’ student councils (seitokai), one of whose ongoing aims was the revision of school rules, invariably in the direction of greater freedom for individual preference in school uniforms. Third, teachers sought to prevent misconduct by encouraging students to establish what they called a “daily life rhythm” (seikatsu rizumu)— ­a life of disciplined, healthy habits. When holidays approached, there was special concern that students’ “daily life rhythm would crumble.” In 1996–­1997, Tachibana issued a guidance booklet before vacations that included prohi­ bitions on sleeping over at friends’ houses or going out before 10:00 a.m. Included was a calendar of the vacation in which students had to write their plan for each day, followed by what they had actually done. Students were also meant to draw up approved goals for the vacation. This was not a new practice at junior high; during my earlier fieldwork at Nakamachi Elementary School, I learned that children there also filled in plans for and records of their vacations, from the first year onward.20 School discipline and the demands of shūdan seikatsu thus involved supervision of life outside school, albeit supervision that was imperfect and depended on parents for enforcement that was variable, as teachers were well aware. As with the nighttime patrols during the Tachibana field trip in 1996, such supervision may have been more for a show of thoroughness than for effect.

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Finally, teachers sought to prevent misconduct through early awareness of possible problems, aided by gathering and exchanging of information. When problems were thought to be looming, an informal word would make the students involved aware that their activities were not being ignored. Sometimes teachers would overhear students arranging to meet out of school, especially during club activities, when the atmosphere was more informal and students talked more freely. Teachers might ask one student about another’s activities; once or twice at Tachibana in 1996–­1997 I even saw teachers phone students at home for this purpose. Information passed between schools was also important, since students at different schools often got together or fell out. Finally, when trouble seemed likely, some teachers might drive around the city looking out for students and keeping an eye on probable trouble spots. This whole approach was very demanding of teachers’ time and energy. After one relatively serious incident at Tachibana in 1996, the class teacher involved told me that he spent ninety minutes talking to the students involved, and a further ninety minutes in a meeting of the second-­ year teachers about the incident. The requirement that all teachers in a year group attend such meetings, for the sake of shared understanding, again showed the importance attached to behavioral guidance and how time consuming it was. When a class teacher made a home visit, it was normal for him to return to school afterward to report to the head of student guidance, and very likely also the head of year. Other teachers in the year might also stay late, partly so that there would be someone around to discuss with, and partly to express solidarity and promote the feeling that the particular student and her or his problems were the responsibility of all the teachers in the year. One Tachibana third-­year class teacher in 1996–­1997, Fukumoto-­sensei, estimated that he had made perhaps thirty home visits that year; the previous year, there had been fewer visits, he said, but they had been more demanding. In 2007, one of the first-­year class teachers at Yoneda told me that he made a home visit about twice a week to a long-­term absentee ( futōkō) student in his class. This was unusually high, but even so, almost a quarter of teachers who responded to my 2007 questionnaire estimated that they had made over twenty home visits between April and December that year, and a further third estimated that they had made between eleven and twenty home visits.21 Fukumoto-­sensei considered home visits one way to create the necessary connections (tsunagari) with students in order to talk to them effectively. This concept of tsunagari was important in seito shidō at Tachibana

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and Yoneda. Teachers felt that such connections enabled what they said to students to have effect. Connections were created in many ways: through the interactions of the class teacher with students, through spending time with students in club activities or in preparation for special events, or even through seito shidō and its related activities, such as home visits. Several teachers said that they thought the relationships formed with troublesome students were actually the deepest, because teacher and student had been through so much together; after graduation, it was such students who would call out a greeting in the street or even call on the teacher at home. The head of student guidance at Tachibana in 1996–­1997, Yasuda-­ sensei, thought that many students who caused trouble were poor at relating to others (hitotsukiai ga umaku nai) and wanted to be spoken to, even if it was to be rebuked. He recalled hearing that one troublesome boy a few years earlier had told the school nurse that he hadn’t been told off recently even when his name badge was missing, and that it felt sort of lonely (sabishisō na kanji).22 Evidence that such perceptions were sometimes accurate came from a 1996 interview with one Tachibana parent who had been a student at the school himself twenty years before, and confessed with some pride to having been a terrible “bad lad” ( yancha)—­ one of many, he said, who had skipped lessons, roller skated down the corridors, and taken the toilet doors off their hinges. Of all the parents I interviewed, this man talked of his teachers with the most affection. He also told me of one occasion when a teacher left a class to study on its own while he drove around town looking for a truanting girl. According to his account, the girl was tremendously happy to hear the teacher had looked for her, and nowadays always remembered to invite him to student re­ unions. In at least some cases, therefore, student guidance did seem to be remembered with appreciation. It was also clear that many teachers received considerable satisfaction from what they saw as their responsibility for guiding and directing students, and creating meaningful connections with them as part of that process.

Control, Autonomy, and the Purposes of Education Junior high teachers’ exhaustive efforts in seito shidō have been controversial, both within and outside Japan. Within Japan, there have been fre­ quent criticisms of junior high school as control-­obsessed education (kanri kyōiku) from at least the 1980s (LeTendre 2000, 19–­20; Fukuzawa and

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LeTendre 2001, 90–­91). Schools in Aichi prefecture were attacked particularly strongly for the detailed control some attempted to exercise over students’ lives, from regulation of hairstyle and uniform to minutely scripted cleaning routines and parade drills (Ariga 1983; Yoneyama 1999, 105–­8), but criticism of detailed regulation was leveled at schools nationwide (Tawara 1986; Schoolland 1990, 19–­36). In response, some teachers strongly defended the need for rules and order in schools while simultaneously arguing that criticism of “obsessive control” was misplaced because it focused on written rules rather than their actual implementation, which was less stringent (Kawakami 1991; Suwa 1997). Western observers have also seen dominant Japanese approaches as problematic. Though LeTendre’s (2000) comparative study scrupulously sets the Japanese and Californian lower secondary schools he researched in their respective cultural contexts, without judging either to be better as a whole, his analyses of the Japanese schools are implicitly severely critical of the ways they seek to control and constrain students, especially because of what he sees as the potential damage to students’ development of autonomous habits of thought and action: Japanese schooling does not give students much chance to develop a sense of individual responsibility or to practice making decisions independently of others (55) . . . By applying minute rules to all aspects of student life, the Japanese system might prevent major disruption but at the cost of students being able to think for themselves (141) . . . In limiting student choice, Japanese teachers appeared to limit students’ ability to exercise their will. (159)

Although LeTendre (2000, 38–­42) points out the apparent paradox that students in the “controlled” Japanese schools were left without teacher supervision much more than their counterparts in the “freer” Californian schools, he argues that this can be explained by the different ideals of social order and self-­development dominant in Japan and the United States. According to his analysis, social order in U.S. schools comes from rules, and people are expected to develop responsibility to obey the rules as individuals. More direct teacher supervision is therefore needed, as other forces constraining individual students are weak. In Japan, on the other hand, social order comes from embedding people into groups that are governed by routines and scripts, so that responsibility is diffused and shared. Once group routines and scripts are well established, teacher supervision is less necessary, as students can supervise one another in following the scripts they have learned.

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LeTendre sees strengths and weaknesses in each of these two ideal-­ typical approaches. In the schools he studied, the American approach often failed to achieve its objectives. Students constantly sought to evade responsibility, and mechanisms for keeping order often seemed close to dysfunctional. On the other hand, as he suggests in the quotations above, the Japanese schools might have been thought to achieve order at too high a price. In fact, LeTendre’s argument strongly recalls Ruth Benedict’s ([1946] 1974, 295) contrast between individual responsibility for the self and “simulated freedom of will” that masks internalized social control, as well as Ogawa’s critique that Japanese citizens are “normative subjects [who have] internalized coercive, self-­disciplined . . . subjectivity” (2009, 145). Issues similar to those raised by LeTendre were the subject of a staff room discussion between three second-­year teachers at Tachibana in 1997, which saw a challenge to the practice of detailed regulation governed by the shūdan seikatsu paradigm. Two, Nohara-­sensei and Noda-­sensei, were experienced teachers in their thirties at the time, while the third, Matsuzaka-­sensei, was a young graduate in his first year as a teacher.23 Matsuzaka-­sensei explained that while reading comics in lessons was unacceptable, he found it hard to explain to students why they shouldn’t be allowed to bring comics to school to read in the breaks, which he considered a matter for the individual (kojin). Nohara-­sensei replied that if students were allowed comics, they should soon want to bring other things, and “Where do you put the brake on?” He concluded that Matsuzaka-­ sensei’s way of thinking amounted to saying that guiding students about breaks was unnecessary. Nohara-­sensei was then called away to a meeting, but Matsuzaka-­sensei and Noda-­sensei continued the discussion. Later, I discussed the issues involved with all three teachers individually. Matsuzaka-­sensei’s criticisms resembled those expressed by LeTendre. He felt that the dominant approach to discipline at Tachibana, which aimed to prevent problems beforehand, did little to develop students’ abilities to solve their own problems. He preferred to foster students’ capacity for self-­government by having them think about problems when they occurred. He even suggested that Japanese education might be accused of totalitarianism (zentai-­shugi), though teachers did not intend this. However, he was also critical of liberalism ( jiyū-­shugi), as he felt that this led to students becoming separated and isolated from one another (bara-­bara). Matsuzaka-­sensei himself saw freedom as for the benefit of the whole by allowing the abilities of all to be used to the full, an understanding he derived from Mill’s On Liberty, and his provisional alternative to both

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liberalism and totalitarianism was “nakama-­ism” (nakama-­shugi). His ap­ proach was thus based on a belief in autonomy within the context of human interdependence, rather than on prioritizing individualization at all costs.24 Noda-­sensei presented a rationale for the then dominant shūdan seikatsu approach to order at Tachibana. He suggested that schools were about shūdan seikatsu because this was what the general public (seken) wanted, and they, after all, were paying for public schools through their taxes. He thought that shūdan seikatsu embodied the philosophy of postwar Japanese public schooling, which was to produce people who were more or less the same (onaji mono o tsukurō) and who all reached a sound if unspectacular standard (bunan ni soroeta)—­people who could become a cog (haguruma) when they entered a company, working for the sake of the country’s economy. Whether that was good or bad was another question; the economy had grown, but there had been bad results too, Noda-­sensei said. He agreed that the context of schooling had changed, however; in the past, teachers could just tell students what was good and bad, but things weren’t so simple any longer—­students had to think for themselves too. Nohara-­sensei’s views were less theoretical. He feared the practical consequences of the individualistic approach to discipline suggested by Matsuzaka-­sensei. He pointed out that if private high schools felt that discipline at Tachibana was poor, they would be less likely to accept students with poor academic performance on the basis of a character reference from the school (see chapter 7), and this would make full-­time high school impossible for some students.25 His outlook was also influenced by experiences at a previous school. “Every day it was a matter of do or get done [ yaru ka yarareru ka],” he told me. “Suddenly a chair would fly through a window, or there’d be some kid brandishing a knife and saying, ‘Come on! Come on!’ And when that happens, the students who suffer are the ones who want to study.” Even so, he confessed that he found it hard to spell out right and wrong to students as simply and decisively as in the past. Guidance was now more about asking students what they thought about a question, he said. In the past, one would say, “that’s hade [unsuitably bright and gaudy], it’s not chūgakuseirashii [like a junior high student is supposed to be]; but what color is or isn’t chūgakuseirashii? When I was at junior high, that’s how things were done, and everybody thought in the same way; but things have changed.” Even within Tachibana, therefore, there was debate and uncertainty about whether disciplinary approaches dominant hitherto were still appropriate. Noda-­ sensei justified shūdan seikatsu by contextualizing it

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within the goals of postwar Japanese society as a whole; Matsuzaka-­ sensei critiqued it for its failure to develop students’ autonomous abilities; Nohara-­sensei simply saw it as the most practical approach available. However, both Noda-­sensei and Nohara-­sensei admitted that maintaining discipline by means of the shūdan seikatsu paradigm was becoming increasingly problematic in the face of diversifying values and the need to develop autonomous thinking. Nonetheless, Matsuzaka-­sensei’s alternative was not individualization but a different kind of group relationship that aimed to develop students’ autonomous thinking and use it for the benefit of the whole, not dissimilar to the approach attempted by Haruoka-­sensei. Neither was proposing a complete break from a focus on interrelationship and the good of the whole. The 2007 Tachibana field trip provided evidence that teachers at the school had somewhat shifted their approach away from the maintenance of discipline by means of strict enforcement of the shūdan seikatsu paradigm, toward encouraging students to think for themselves about their conduct. Even so, both Tachibana and Yoneda still enforced rules about punctuality, appearance, and the items that students were allowed to bring to school. The paradigm for the maintenance of control had altered its tone and become less stringent, but it had not been abandoned. The 1996 debate between Tachibana teachers and the changes at the school between 1996 and 2007 showed both the shared thinking among teachers about issues of autonomy and control, and also the significant divergences of view and variation of approach that could arise within the horizons of these shared assumptions.

Masculinity, Authority, and Student Guidance Observation suggested that student guidance also had a strong gender dimension. While many teachers, both male and female, seemed to enjoy interacting with students and trying to influence their lives for the better, as they saw it, some male teachers seemed to engage in student guidance with a particular enthusiasm that was scarcely disguised by their complaints about its demands. On one occasion in 1996, Tachibana received a phone call at 6:00 p.m. from a nearby fast food restaurant, complaining that some of the school’s students were behaving suspiciously there. At once, no fewer than six or seven male teachers set off for the restaurant with an alacrity that suggested not just a concern for the restaurant, the students, or the good name of the school, but also a desire to be where

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the action was. Yasuda-­sensei confided his opinion that some teachers enjoyed responding to the needs to keep tabs on students’ goings-­on: “Confusing their job with that of a police officer, maybe,” he said with a grin. On another occasion at Yoneda in 2007, Nohara-­sensei returned to the staff room in a noticeably good mood after spending some time doing seito shidō with a student. On my commenting on his good mood, he remarked that he rarely had chances to do seito shidō at Yoneda, in contrast to the years he spent at Tachibana, and that, if he was honest, it gave him a sense of fulfillment (“yatta!”). One source of this enthusiasm may have been the consonance of student guidance with ideals of masculine identity and authority. This did not necessarily demand a confrontational or aggressive style of guidance; some teachers preferred gentler approaches in the style of a firm but empathetic father or older brother, both important authority styles in Japan. Nonetheless, in Japan, as in many other societies, a “real man” is expected to be able to display strength and assert power when needed (Harrell 2007, 7–­8). Light (1999, 76), drawing on Connell (1983), argues that to be a man according to such codes of hegemonic masculinity, one must “embody force and . . . move in ways that suggest power.” Student guidance provides male teachers with an opportunity to display strength and power, and moreover, to do so in a context in which this can easily be legitimized and justified, given the real threat to order and authority in junior high schools, sometimes including the overt or latent threat of violence (Kimura and Naoi 2009, 431).26 Indeed, Yasuda-­sensei recalled once being told by an older colleague that there were three ways to make a name for yourself as a teacher: through your subject teaching, by coaching a strong club, or by strict student guidance. It is not surprising, therefore, that some male teachers welcome the opportunity to display such authority. Moreover, it can be argued that the threat to authority that often exists in junior high schools can be particularly acute for male teachers, especially when it comes from boys, precisely because the ability to exert authority and control is such an important component of hegemonic masculine identity (Sato 1991, 86). There were limited yet significant changes in the junior high school gender dynamics between my earlier and later fieldwork. At Tachibana in 1996–­1997, the dominant ethos was strongly masculine. This was reflected not only in the formal hierarchy (almost all senior positions being filled by men), but also in the informal use of space. The rest area in one corner of the staff room was almost exclusively occupied by the male staff, who would sit there smoking, working, and reading the newspaper during their free periods. During the summer vacation, rebuilding allowed

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the construction of a new rest area, a small room lined with comfortable chairs and adjacent to the staff room. This also became the exclusive preserve of male staff. That these were the only parts of the staff room where smoking was allowed partly accounted for the dominance of the male staff (so far as I knew, none of the female staff smoked), but nonsmokers among the male staff also visited the room. In fact, the rest area seemed to allow the consolidation of a male discourse, and it was thus one of the key places in which the school culture was created. By 2007, however, significant changes had taken place. In the interim, Tachibana had acquired its first female vice-­principal when Haruoka-­ sensei was promoted to that position—­indeed, I was told, she was the first female vice-­principal ever to be appointed to a junior high school in Sakura. Although by the time of my fieldwork in 2007 Tachibana again had two male vice-­principals, two of the three heads of year were female, compared with only one in 1996–­1997.27 As significantly, smoking in schools and many other workplaces became illegal on 1 April 2007, leading to the demise of the male-­dominated smoking room culture. Male teachers were now often to be seen standing outside the school indulging in a semi-­furtive cigarette, in a narrow space between the school building and a high hedge that grew between the school grounds and the road. From something close to a position of centrality within the school, male teachers’ smoking and the accompanying consolidation of discourse that went with it had been rendered peripheral in dramatic fashion. As winter approached, male smoking became situated literally as well as figuratively out in the cold, a far cry from the comfortable chat and banter of the old smoking room. While it is important not to overstress the change, given that most senior posts at Tachibana continued to be occupied by men, I certainly felt in 2007 that the school atmosphere was less male-­dominated than it had been ten years earlier. Male dominance was also moderated at Yoneda, where Haruoka-­sensei was the sole vice-­principal after being transferred there from Tachibana. One of the three heads of year was female, as was the head of student guidance, though both the principal and the head of administration (kyōmu shunin) were men.28 An important aspect of the changed atmosphere at Tachibana was a sense that there was a greater readiness to trust students and to lay greater emphasis than before on their ability to make judgments themselves and behave accordingly, as discussed in the comparison of the 1996 and 2007 field trips in chapter 2. As noted there, this change was connected to the introduction of integrated studies in 2002. However, changes in the

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gender composition of the school and its more senior positions may also have played a role. Such causal connections should not be oversimplified, because differences in outlook between individual teachers, whether male or female, also play a key role; moreover, as previous research has shown, female teachers can also adopt an authoritarian style of interaction with students (Fukuzawa 1994).

Freedom and Control Even in 1996–­1997, the paradigm of control though shūdan seikatsu was under challenge, as some teachers sought to develop an alternative model of interrelationship that combined autonomy and interdependence. There were also other indications that order was not as tightly scripted as an analysis like that of LeTendre would suggest. Like both LeTendre (2000) and Dawson (2008), I found that strict policing of certain areas of school life went alongside minimal teacher supervision at other times. Students were unsupervised during the ten-­minute breaks between lessons; and during club activities, hundreds of students would be engaged in sports and other activities across the school building, gymnasium, and sports ground, often with only one or even no teacher in each location. During preparations for the cultural festivals at Tachibana in 1996 and Yoneda in 2007 (discussed in the next chapter), students were left unsupervised for long periods while using dangerous tools such as saws and hammers to construct stage props or fairground games. LeTendre (2000, 51) found that at the Japanese schools he studied, “responsibility was expanded to include as many actors as possible,” whereas at the Californian schools, “it was limited to as few individuals as possible.” It was certainly accepted at Tachibana and Yoneda that groups such as a class or a club bore shared responsibility for one another; if one member of the group acted badly, it was unacceptable for others to disassociate themselves from the behavior of their class-­or club mate. This followed from the discourse of humans being fundamentally interdependent, and more specifically, from the notion that members of a group such as a class or club had a special responsibility to help and support one another. However, individual responsibility was also expected. On several occasions, I saw teachers telling a student off for not fulfilling his or her own specific responsibilities, and dismissing the student’s attempts to diffuse the blame to others. The same message was given on the 2007 Tachibana field trip,

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when students who had broken rules were asked to own up as individuals. In other words, individual responsibility was emphasized alongside responsibility to support and help others. Students were also expected to take individual responsibility for their academic work, or accept the consequences if they failed to do so. This attitude affected teachers’ tolerance of off-­task behavior in lessons, provided it was not too disruptive (as LeTendre [2000, 120–­29] also found). One Tachibana mathematics teacher told me that she rarely reprimanded students, because it was their own responsibility to work; moreover, she didn’t think frequent reprimands would be effective. A similar philosophy influenced teachers’ responses to students’ failure to do lesson exercises or homework; this was sanctioned not by punishments such as detentions, but simply by loss of marks and a reduced grade. Tachibana students themselves thought that independence was encouraged at the school. Ruri, a third-­year girl interviewed in 1997, considered that in comparison to her “incredibly strict” sixth-­year elementary teacher, the aim of Tachibana teachers was to “develop the ability to do things on one’s own” ( jishusei o nobasō), and another third-year boy, Keisuke, also felt that there was more independence ( jishusei) at Tachibana, with students expected to think about what to do by themselves, especially for school events (see chapter 4); he appreciated these chances to make his own plans and thought it made life more interesting and enjoyable (omoshiroi). Other students interviewed also felt that the cultural festival in particular was an event they did themselves, even if they had teachers’ help where necessary. Dawson (2008, 108, 113–­14, 138–­39) found that students at the Yokohama junior high school he studied in 2000–­2001 also believed that they could make their own decisions and change school life. Although he expresses skepticism at the extent to which this was more than a “governing mythology,” he admits that in some cases, at least, students were able to “co-­opt the governing mythologies presented to them and use them to their advantage” (139). Students were clearly learning to value and practice autonomy, even if within limitations.

Conclusion The roles played by class groups and club activities at Tachibana and Yoneda were shot through with tensions. Both classes and clubs were intended to be groups where students could learn to work together, support

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one another, and develop a sense of interdependence. In at least some cases, the good relationships and sense of mutual acceptance and support within them also helped to develop students’ autonomy and individuality, and some teachers explicitly aimed to achieve this combination. However, classes and clubs were also pulled between students’ desires for individualization and teachers’ fears of losing control. Though many students accepted the ideal of a mutually supportive class with a shared ethos, others showed little or no interest in contributing to the group, instead prioritizing individual pleasures and friendships. On the other hand, when teachers gave students little encouragement to think for themselves, participation in class and club activities could also be little more than a way of keeping students under control by keeping them busy with routines and winning their commitment to regimes of discipline within the paradigm of shūdan seikatsu. There were signs that the shūdan seikatsu paradigm was increasingly felt to be problematic by teachers in the face of social change, including diversifying social norms. By 2007, there was evidence of a more liberal approach to discipline that placed greater emphasis on students’ autonomous thinking. This went along with curricular reform and the introduction of integrated studies, as well as with the increased prominence of women in senior school positions, and the weakening of core masculine worlds of discourse that were associated with assertive teacher authority. Nonetheless, schools’ fundamental approach to the maintenance of control remained unchanged—­they continued to rely mainly on integration of students into patterns of positive behavior, rather than the deployment of sanctions against individual misconduct. These continuities were evident in the way that schools used major events such as the sports day and cultural festival (discussed in chapter 4). The power of institutionalization and teachers’ need to maintain control will probably ensure that this fundamentally integrative paradigm continues. However, schools are likely to see continuing debate about how it should be interpreted and implemented amid increasing social acceptance of individualization and diversity.

chapter four

Mass Games and Dreams of Youth

T

he big events that took place in the second term—­the sports day (taiiku-­daikai), cultural festival (bunkasai), and choral contest ( gasshō konkūru)—­were a major focus of the school year at Tachibana and Yoneda. These events were not mandated by the national curriculum, so schools were free to shape their content and form in keeping with their educational goals. There was considerable potential for schools to expand the promotion of student autonomy and creativity through these events, in line with the educational reform agenda. Yet over the decade and more of my research, there was remarkably little change. The one important exception, at Tachibana, was striking precisely because rather than increasing students’ opportunities to take the initiative and show individual flair, it significantly decreased them. In this area, where schools had such freedom, the reform agenda made almost no impact. Teachers’ inaction was consistent with the doubts many expressed about the need for more stress on individuality. The sports day, cultural festival, and choral contest absorbed much teacher and student energy during the late summer and fall. The events gave individual students opportunities to display autonomy and talent, but their main aims focused on the school as a whole, and on groups within it. Through these events, teachers aimed to bring students together in an experience of shared purpose and achievement. Students could learn to work together toward common goals while enjoying a break from academic activities. These events also provided a stage for negotiations of ideology, imaginings of cultural identity, and enactments of gender. They articulated an image of youth that centered on energy, potential, and nakama spirit, and contrasted with alternative, more ambiguous discourses of adolescent instability.

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School Events in Curriculum and History School events ( gakkō gyōji) are part of Japan’s national school curriculum, but they both precede it historically and go beyond its contemporary stipulations. Whereas the postwar curriculum was made compulsory only in 1958, the most long-­established school event, sports day, dates back to the 1880s (Hall 1973, 337–­42; Nakano and Yoshimura 1995, 4–­5), while other major activities, such as cultural events ( gakugeikai or bunkasai) and final-­year school trips (shūgaku ryokō), date back to the 1920s or earlier (Nakano and Yoshimura 1995, 46–­54; Hikone Nishi-­Kō Hyakunenshi Henshū Iinkai 1987, 216–­17). Annual sports days have been held at Tachibana and Yoneda every year since the schools were established in 1947–­1948, during the educational reform under the U.S. Occupation. Choral contests are a more recent though still long-­standing development, reportedly having begun around 1960.1 Stipulated curricular hours account for only some of the time used for these events.2 Their standing is derived less from the official curriculum, and more from their long history and place in collective memory. My 2007 questionnaire survey  of  a random sample of  junior high schools in the Kinki region indicated that the vast majority of schools responding held both a sports day and a cultural festival, while about 60 percent also held a choral contest.3 Talking to teachers about their former schools revealed that some held a cheering contest (ōen gassen) instead of a choral contest. Ethnographic accounts of schools in Tokyo, Hyogo, and Tochigi also report major events such as sports day and cultural festival (Fukuzawa and LeTendre 2001, 9; Shimizu and Tokuda 1991, 30, 33; Feiler 1991), and friends and acquaintances of mine from locations as widespread as Tokyo, Nagoya, and Niigata spoke of similar school experiences, suggesting that such events are institutionalized nationwide.

Beautiful Collectivity and the Release from Self: The Sports Day As seen in chapter 1, educationalists from widely different points on Japan’s ideological spectrum agree on the importance of developing students’ attachment to the group they belong to. This is exemplified by writing on school events. The Ministry of Education’s junior high school curriculum states that events should be “experiential,” “give order and variety

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to school life,” and “deepen the sense of belonging to a group [shūdan]” (Monbushō 1998, 103). In particular, events linked to physical education should promote “disciplined group conduct” and “feelings of solidarity” (rentaikan).4 Likewise, the left-­wing Zenseiken’s influential book, Gakkyū shūdan-­zukuri nyūmon (Introduction to creating class groups) states that “events are for the sake of the group’s sense of solidarity (shūdan no rentaikan) and for strengthening the self-­consciousness of being a group member”; they are “group actions whose main goal is the emotional unifying of the group” (Zenseiken Jōnin Iinkai 1971, 241). These were central aims at Tachibana and Yoneda too. In 1996, Tachibana P.E. teacher Komaba-­sensei told me that school events made it easier for class groups to come together (matomaru), as they gave members a common purpose. In her view, school events were even “more im­ portant than study” because they released students from the need to main­ tain their carefully constructed self-­images: Students can be idiots—­they are released from themselves [ jibun o suteru]. Normally, students wouldn’t behave as they do at sports day, because it’s not cool [kakkō-­warui]. But on sports day, they can forget about all that kind of thing. They really get into it.

Komaba-­sensei’s comments not only indicated the importance teachers attached to group spirit, but also showed that creating such a spirit was no easy matter. The official aims of the 1996 Tachibana sports day included helping students learn “to behave as a group” (shūdan) and allowing them to experience “the lifting of the spirits that comes from the harmony of the class group and the cohesion of the school as a group.” Similarly, in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2007 sports day at Yoneda, speeches by the principal and student council leaders emphasized teamwork, cooperation, the power of unity (danketsuryoku), and “making one the hearts of all” (hitori-­hitori no kokoro o hitotsu ni shite). The senior P.E. teacher at Yoneda told me that he thought the sports day reflected an aesthetic of the group in Japan, according to which “alignment is beautiful” (soroeru no ga utsukushii); though students’ movements would never be perfectly aligned, “their feelings align” (kimochi wa soroeru), he said. The sports days I observed in 1996 and 2007 reflected these aims in several ways. Students were divided into teams, and performances in individual events gained points for their team. There was no special recognition of

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figure 6.  Class jump rope competition at the 2007 Yoneda sports day

outstanding individual achievement, such as an award of a victor ludorum prize. Team events were central; particularly exciting for students were class relays, in which classes competed against one another, with every class member running one hundred meters. At the 2007 Tachibana sports day, classes also competed in what might be described as enormously extended versions of the three-­legged race, with the ankles of all the fifteen to twenty students of one sex in each class tied together to form a line. At Yoneda in 2007, four teams competed in an elaborate relay, each leg of which was completed by a group of students, either with arms linked in a circle, or else marching in centipede formation, ankles linked by rope. There was also a jump rope competition between classes, which involved two students turning a large rope, while the other thirty-­odd students stood along the rope and tried to record as many successful jumps together as possible in the three-­minute time limit, enthusiastically chanting out the number of clearances in unison. While the best first-­year class managed over sixty jumps in total, and the best second-­year class over ninety, the best third-­year class managed a remarkable forty consecutive jumps on their first attempt alone, ending with a total of a hundred seven clearances in the three minutes. All these events encouraged students to practice together, in order to perform as well as possible as a team, and the students responded with enthusiasm.

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This enthusiasm was consistent with third-­year students’ responses to my 2007 questionnaire survey, which showed that at both schools, the sports day was among the school events and activities that students felt had left the strongest impression—­selected by 70 percent of third-­year respondents at Tachibana and 61 percent at Yoneda. Among the relatively few students who wrote a reason for their choice, typical answers included “I joined my strength with everyone and did my best,” and “It’s a memory that I gained together with everyone and that you can’t have on your own—­having fun and being happy with everyone.” Both at Tachibana and Yoneda, the culmination of sports day was a gymnastic display involving the whole school, known as the “mass game” (masu gēmu).5 At Yoneda, this gymnastic routine was part of the closing ceremony and involved students making human pyramids and towers. Though impressive, it was much shorter and simpler than the Tachibana display, which was made even more spectacular by the size of the student body and the spacious and attractive surroundings of the city athletics arena, where the Tachibana sports day took place. In 1996, the entire Tachibana student body performed synchronized calisthenics to the upbeat melody of a recent hit song, Okamoto Mayo’s Tomorrow, which expressed seishin discourses of inner strength through its lyrics about growing stronger through suffering, “like a flower blooming on the asphalt,” exhorting listeners to “believe in yourself as you are” because “tomorrow will come.” As the students performed, there were gasps from the many spectators (mostly mothers) in the grandstand, and great applause at the end of the routine. The gasps and applause were redoubled when the students proceeded to form waves, towers, and pyramids. Their 2007 mass game was even more elaborate. This time, the opening callisthenic display (by the second and third years) was accompanied not by pop music but by eight students playing traditional Japanese taiko drums. This was followed by a spectacular feature where the entire school formed a series of circles, like a flower, whose “petals” appeared to wave on the green grass of the sports field as the students raised their bodies up and then lay down again. Next came an Okinawan eisā dance routine by the entire first year, during which students played three sizes of drum, with those in the center wearing maroon tunics and yellow sashes over their sports uniforms.6 The performance climaxed with the second and third years making waves, towers, and pyramids, as in 1996. These mass games take considerable preparation. In 1996, each year group at Tachibana spent several P.E. periods practicing their routines.

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figure 7.  Boys practicing a “human tower” for the 2007 Tachibana sports day

In 2007, there were whole-­school practices on each of the four days before sports day; before that, there had been practices in year groups for a week. In both 1996 and 2007, the entire school spent the morning of the day before sports day rehearsing the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the mass game, at the athletics track itself. Yoneda students also

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figure 8.  Girls practicing a “human wave” for the 2007 Tachibana sports day

practiced beforehand in P.E. lessons, and rehearsed major features, such as the opening and closing ceremonies, the day before the sports day itself. All this showed the importance teachers attached to accomplished, disciplined group performance. Nonetheless, there was a relaxation of discipline between 1996 and 2007, paralleling the relaxation in the first-year field trips between those two years. At the 1996 opening ceremony of the Tachibana sports day, all the classes were seated in perfect lines; in 2007, the lines were only roughly straight, with students sitting in various ways and facing slightly different directions. In 1996, all teachers had been lined up on the track, and partway through the ceremony, I had noticed that without having been told, all the teachers had their toes completely behind one of the white lines on the track, with only my disorderly toes a few centimeters over the line. By 2007, such meticulous and self-­disciplined observance of minute boundaries was no longer evident, and teachers stood much more casually. In 1996 the Tachibana sports day was held for the first time at the city athletics arena rather than at the school. According to teachers, the

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purpose of the change was to enable better athletic performances, thanks to the superior track and facilities, and consequently, allow greater student fulfillment. This was seen as linked to the encouragement of initiative and autonomy ( jishu, jiritsu), which were also goals of the 1996 sports day, alongside the group-­focused aims. The event was supposed to be one “where students are active as autonomous agents” (seito ga shutai-­teki ni katsudō jissen suru ba) and “actively participating in its running.” However, some teachers opposed the change of venue, largely on the grounds that it would mean abandoning some group activities through which students could learn to work together and enjoy a sense of collective achievement. At the athletics track, classes could not erect the huge backboard decorations (bakku) that they created when sports day was held at the school.7 These allowed each class to plan and execute a large-­scale project, and acted as dramatic symbols of class identity and cooperative effort on sports day itself. It was decided that instead, each class would design and paint a large flag to display at the stadium. Some teachers also regretted that they could not hold a tug-­of-­war, because of the damage that would

figure 9.  Students practicing drums for the 2007 Tachibana sports day

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be done to the grass at the arena. The great thing about the tug-­of-­war, Komaba-­sensei told me, was that everyone could participate in the endeavor to win. If everyone helped to devise a strategy, there was a chance of winning, even if students were not physically strong. In other words, the tug-­of-­war was an especially participatory and egalitarian event, and so was particularly good for bringing a class together. It was difficult to say whether the move to the athletics track encouraged individual fulfillment, initiative, or autonomy. Although the facilities probably encouraged better individual athletic performances, the abandonment of the bakku and the tug-­of-­war also deprived students of opportunities to show initiative and creativity within their class. What was clear, however, was that the move to the athletics track provided an opportunity to stage a grander and more elaborate mass game than before—­and in the years between 1996 and 2007, the mass game was developed even further. Thus, a move that was proposed partly in order to focus on student individuality and initiative ultimately resulted in a more elaborate focus on group performance. Moreover, the time required for practicing the mass game probably further diminished opportunities for student initiative by contributing to the demise of Tachibana’s cultural festival, as we shall see later. Though at least some Tachibana teachers expressed regret in 2007 about the loss of the cultural festival, they were nonetheless willing to prioritize the mass game and its aesthetic of collective, choreographed beauty over alternative activities that could have provided greater scope for autonomy and individuality.

Romances of Youth: The Choral Contest The choral contests at Tachibana and Yoneda resembled the sports day in that they focused on group activities, cooperation, and a sense of unity. Choral contests became established in junior high schools more recently than sports days and cultural festivals, and evidence indicates that they are also less ubiquitous. Even so, with a history dating back to the late 1960s and being held at about 60 percent of schools responding to my 2007 survey, they are strongly institutionalized. Two school principals dis­cussed their goals in a 2009 issue of the journal Kyōiku ongaku (Music in education).8 For Saitama principal Kojima Toshiaki, choral singing is where “all can achieve a single accomplishment, with hearts as one,” with the result that “the whole class becomes cohesive as a community” (Kojima 2009, 40). Tokyo principal Kikuyama Naoyuki similarly suggests that a choral

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festival brings a class together as students cooperate and exchange views; besides having a musical purpose, a choral festival “is for the sake of effects in the moral sphere, in terms of the balance of ‘intellectual, moral, and physical’ [education]” (“chi /toku /tai” no baransu de ieba “toku” no bubun o nobasu tame) (Kikuyama 2009, 38). A very similar perspective was offered by the music teacher in charge of the Tachibana choral contest in 2007: for him, the event had two aims, one being to bring the class together (gakkyū-­zukuri, nakama-­zukuri) by having everyone strive toward a single goal, the other being to move students emotionally. The two are no doubt linked, as an emotionally moving experience is more likely to bring students together. At both Tachibana and Yoneda, the choral contest took place at the start of November. Each class sang one song of its own choice ( jiyūkyoku) from a list of about fifteen songs provided by teachers, in addition to a prescribed song (kadaikyoku), which was the same for all classes in a year group. Although some songs were commercial pop ballads adapted for choral singing, many were written specially for choral singing in schools, with lyrics thought to be appropriate for junior high students. Some were the creation of current or former junior high school teachers, such as Matsui Takao, composer and lyricist of many songs including Mai barādo (My ballad), Sonomama no kimi de (Just as you are), and Habatakō ashita e (Let’s take flight for tomorrow).9 Classes wrote out the lyrics on big sheets of paper hung in their classroom, and began to practice three or four weeks before the contest. They practiced both in parts and all together, in lunch breaks, music lessons, and for half an hour a day after school. Some students were very keen to win, and could be heard discussing which classes were their main rivals. Choral contest songs often drew on narratives and images of seishun (youth), a long-­standing discourse full of romanticized stereotypes (Sato 1991, 81–­  85). According to Japanese Wikipedia, for example, seishun eiga (“youth movies”) are “a genre of movies depicting the dreams, setbacks, friendships, first loves, adventures and settings forth (tabidachi) particular to young people.”10 Furuya (2001, 9) states that in seishun, “People fall in love, awaken to their individuality, decide their path in life, agonize, struggle to find the truth, shudder at the ugliness of society. Pure, still half-­dreaming, they are stubbornly convinced that they can cross the morass of the world by the nobility of their heart alone, yet they are gasping for breath as they are held back by the deep mire within. It is a dramatic period of life full of contradictions, when all sorts of problems erupt.” The word seishun appears in many popular songs; a well-­known example is

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Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi’s Kanpai (Here’s to you; 1988), whose first few lines feature the strong friendships and emotions that are typically associated with seishun: かたい絆に　思いをよせて 語り尽くせぬ　青春の日々 時には傷つき　時には喜び 肩をたたきあった　あの日 Turning my thoughts to strong ties The days of youth of whose tales there’s no end Sometimes being hurt, sometimes full of joy Clapping one another on the shoulder—­those days

Most teachers and friends with whom I discussed the term “seishun” associated it with freedom, energy, and adventurousness. One high school student was among those who saw its romantic stereotypes as corny. Indeed, novelist Itsuki Hiroyuki, author of the multivolume novel Seishun no mon (The gate of youth), writes that “there is surely no word that sounds as hackneyed as seishun” (Itsuki 1979, 46) in an essay discussing how he avoided using the word for years.11 Yet this in itself shows how firmly embedded the notion is in Japanese popular consciousness. It is significant that choral contest songs preferred the literary language of seishun to that of the other major discourse of adolescence and youth in Japan, shishunki (puberty/adolescence)—­a term with scientific rather than literary associations.12 LeTendre (2000, 68 –­76) found that Japanese junior high school teachers tended to see shishunki as an ambiguous period of rebelliousness, energy, and potential. Among teachers, parents, and students I talked to, it was understood as a time when young people tended to retreat into themselves, having all sorts of thoughts and feelings which they were unable to articulate clearly. A similar view is found in books on developmental psychology written for trainee teachers (Mutō, Fujisaki, and Ichikawa 1991) or the general public (Hatano 1976; Ogi 1986; Akiba 1990), as well as in books of guidance issued by the Ministry of Education (Monbushō 1974; Monbukagakushō 2001b). As LeTendre (2000, 59, 75) points out, the associations of shishunki in Japan are by no means solely negative. My experience, however, was that it was often seen by teachers, parents, and students as an underlying cause of behavioral and emotional difficulties.

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Although the concepts of shishunki and seishun both represent adolescence and youth as a time of inner turbulence, the scientifically-­associated concept of shishunki was used by teachers, students and parents when discussing the practicalities and difficulties of this period of life in a sober and unromantic way, whereas seishun, with its literary roots, was used when students in particular wanted to cast their lives in an adventurous and romantic light. One recent Tachibana graduate saw the junior high drama Kinpachi-­sensei as a story of seishun, and Tachibana students consciously framed their sports day in seishun language. In 1996, the Tachibana sports day slogan, created from student suggestions, was “Show your courage, let fly your energy—­now, the time of our youth [seishun],” while in 2007, the student pledge at the start of the event vowed to “compete with all we’ve got, so that we can inscribe a page of our youth.” At the 1997 graduation ceremony, meanwhile, the graduating students’ representative unexpectedly followed his speech with an impromptu solo rendition of Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi’s seishun ballad Kanpai, prompting the rest of the eight hundred-­ plus students to clap along enthusiastically. The language of seishun was thus used to frame adolescence and youth as a positive and cheerful time of potential and excitement, rather than a problematic time of difficulty and turbulence.13 The lyrics of choral contest songs were full of this romantic seishun language. They featured dreams, hopes, wings, and hearts aflame. They sang of youthful energy seeking the future, bravely faring forward regardless of sadness and difficulty, together with friends and fellows (nakama). A typ­ ical example was Wakai tsubasa wa (Young wings), sung as a prescribed song at Tachibana in 1994, and as a free choice in 1996: 流れゆく　雲の彼方 まだ知らぬ　未来求め 若い翼は　大空仰ぐ 悲しみの嵐吹くのか 寂しさの海続くのか 何が待つのか　恐れもせず 何が待つのか　恐れもせず 弾む若い命　ただ信じて 弾む若い命　ただ信じて Beyond the streaming clouds Seek the future as yet unknown

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Young wings, look up to the great sky Will a storm of sorrow blow? Will a sea of loneliness stretch out? Not fearing what may await Not fearing what may await Just trust resilient young life Just trust resilient young life

Similar sentiments were expressed by Ashita e (Toward tomorrow), a pop­ ular choice at Tachibana in 2007: 青い風に吹かれて 明日思うぼくらがいる 遥かな風を受けて 心ふるえ熱く燃える どこまで行けるかわからないけど ぼくらは走り出す　明日へ そうさ　果てなく続く道を行くぼくら 向かい風の時も　嵐の夜も ぼくらのことを　何かが呼ぶから まだ見ぬ明日へと　走っていくよ Blown by a youthful wind We are thinking of tomorrow Upon us comes a wind from afar Our hearts tremble and burn hot How far we can go we don’t know But we start to run toward tomorrow Our road goes ever on Through headwinds and stormy nights For something calls us as We run toward a yet unseen tomorrow!

Examples of similar phrases and images in other songs could be multiplied, from the title and lyrics of Let’s Search for Tomorrow to the references to “continuing to search for tomorrow” with “hearts aflame” in Kaze no naka no seishun (Youth amid the wind), or the exhortation to “go to meet a wonderful tomorrow” in Toki no tabibito ( Travelers through time). Natural images of sky, sea, wind, storm and fire were repeatedly called upon to

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express the strong emotion, great dreams, and almost limitless potential that characterized youth, in this romantic imaginary. Few choral contest songs dealt with romantic love, even though— ­or perhaps because—­teachers were well aware that this interested many students. When expressions such as “burning hearts” (moeru kokoro) or “desires” (nozomi) appeared, they referred to strong emotion or aspiration in general, without any sexual connotations. The energy and passion of youth were to be sublimated in nonsexual forms of adventure and exploration. As LeTendre (2000, 67–­  71) has noted, teachers consider junior high too early for romantic, let alone sexual relationships, and rarely have to deal with actual instances; I was never aware of student relationships at Tachibana or Yoneda. Instead, songs focused on the bonds of friendship (tomodachi or nakama), matching teachers’ desire to foster class cohesion. In Matsui Takao’s Mai barādo (My ballad), a prescribed song for the Tachibana first years in 1994 and 2007, the language of togetherness was joined with the motifs of youthful energy, emotion, and aspiration: みんなで歌おう　心を一つにして 悲しい時も　辛い時も みんなで歌おう　大きな声を出して 恥ずかしがらず　歌おうよ 心燃える歌が　歌がきっと君のもとへ きらめけ世界中に　ぼくの歌を乗せて きらめけ世界中に　届け愛のメセージ Let’s sing all together Making our hearts one Even when it’s sad, even when it’s hard Let’s sing all together, with loud voices Let’s sing, unembarrassed! A song at which the heart burns Will surely reach you Shine through the world Mounted on my song Shine through the world Reach your destination, message of love

Similarly, Toki no tabibito urged, “Let’s open the door to the future with you, let’s sing of overflowing hope with you,” and Let’s Search for

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Tomorrow exhorted, “Let’s set off on a journey through this great world all together [minna de tabidatō, kono hiroi sekai de].” Choral contest songs thus strongly embodied interdependence and seishin (inner strength) discourses of self. In these respects, they resembled narratives that students would have encountered at elementary school, including songs, stories, and poems such as Miyazawa Kenji’s famous work Ame nimo makezu (Neither yielding to rain) (Cave 2007, 70 –­79, 92–­94). They were about endeavor in the face of hardship, the typical seishin narrative; but this was collective endeavor in which nakama support one another— ­despite the educational reform agenda, there were no songs celebrating individual quests. The one-­dimensional ideals of youth expressed in these songs could be accused of being simplistic, failing to do justice to the conflict, complication, and pressures in real teenagers’ lives. As David Slater (2010) points out, the future for many students is not very hopeful, and adolescents’ dreams often stand little realistic chance of being fulfilled. Slater (2010, 145) even suggests that emphasis on group contribution can mislead working-­class students into underestimating the need for individual academic effort. This might suggest that choral contest songs are vehicles of illusion, guilty of helping to inculcate false consciousness that blinds students to the real harshness of the lives that await many of them in twenty-­first century Japan. On the other hand, Shimizu (2004, 232–­33) and his research associates (Kawaguchi 2009; Tanada 2009) point to evidence that stressing mutually supportive communities within school can help to improve academic performance in disadvantaged areas. Moreover, the ethos of cooperative perseverance toward one’s dreams in face of hardship is one that could fuel social and political engagement, as Lukacs (2013, 56–­58) suggests about the very similar messages conveyed by young cell phone novelists—­who, like other Japanese young people, will have absorbed choral contest songs while at junior high school.

The Cultural Festival: Individual Initiative and Group Spirit Whereas the sports day and choral contest focused on encouraging cooperation and group spirit, the cultural festival gave more scope to student individuality and autonomy. It was more attuned to these aspects of the educational reform agenda than any other major school event. It was therefore surprising, ironic, and revealing that, far from flourishing at Tachibana

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during this period, by 2007 the cultural festival no longer even took place. Exploring the tensions aroused by the festival helps to illuminate the problems that faced the encouragement of an individual-­oriented agenda in junior high school. The cultural festival was meant to be an event in whose direction and organization the students themselves played a significant role. Tachibana documents emphasized this as the first aim of the school’s 1996 cultural festival: “to do activities out of our own motivation, which we have thought up and made ourselves, since it is our cultural festival” ( jibuntachi no bunkasai na node, jibuntachi de kangae, jibuntachi no te de tsukutteiku yō na jishu-­ teki na katsudō o shite iku). However, like the sports day and choral contest, the cultural festival also had a group-­oriented goal: “to heighten the sense of solidarity between the students, and to aim to make better year groups” ( yori yoi gakunen-­shūdan-­zukuri). In practice, tensions emerged between these goals. Students themselves saw the festival as “their” event. At the first general meeting of the 1996–­1997 Tachibana student council in May 1996, stu­ dents from the floor requested to applause that the cultural festival be held over two days in the city concert hall rather than over one day in the school gymnasium, as it had been in 1995. The school should take these requests seriously, one student asserted, “since it’s our cultural festival.” These requests were important in helping to persuade the teachers responsible for the festival to hold it in the concert hall over a compromise period of one and a half days. Both in 1996 at Tachibana and in 2007 at Yoneda, the cultural festival was organized in year groups (gakunen), each of which undertook a number of projects. This was a deliberate device to allow students to choose to participate in the project that most interested them. However, not all teachers favored this choice-­focused approach; some preferred an alternative used at other schools, whereby each class decided on a project and all class members participated. The advocates of this class-­focused approach believed that it resulted in a greater sense of fulfillment as students tackled a project together. The choice-­based approach made it harder to supervise students, posing potential discipline problems. In 1996, Tachibana teachers’ unease about encouraging student initiative and choice at the expense of group spirit came to a head when deciding whether to allow students who so wished to make stage performances independent of the main festival projects. These “request performances” ( yūshi happyō) were mainly rock bands. Some teachers felt that there was

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relatively little emphasis on strengthening groups (shūdan-­zukuri) at the festival already and that students shouldn’t think that the festival was a chance for them to do whatever they wanted—­rather, individual performances should contribute to the whole (zentai). Other teachers wanted to allow request performances, because they often helped “difficult students” gain a sense of recognition and identity. It was eventually decided not to allow request performances, partly out of concern about possible noise complaints from local residents. The debate revealed the depth of commitment that many teachers felt to group-­oriented activities and their discomfort with an agenda that might endanger such activities by its stress on the individual. When it came to deciding festival content, the relationship between student initiative and teacher guidance was complex. On the surface, students had considerable scope to decide what was done. There was an organizing committee in each grade, comprising three representatives from each class, including each class’s two culture committee members. It was primarily responsible for deciding the festival projects, guided by surveys of student opinion—­and by teachers. Festival projects included displays, stage presentations, and “experience corners,” the last of which involved planning and executing an activity that others could try. Although teachers told me students decided content with their help, the results were sometimes so obviously educational and so at variance with the student surveys as to invite suspicion that teacher persuasion had played a significant role. For example, at Tachibana in 1996, the most popular themes for experience-­ oriented projects emerging from the first-­year student surveys were animals, haunted houses, computers, and computer games, all of which were rejected in favor of making traditional toys (the fifth most popular idea among students). Teacher guidance played a major role because of their greater knowledge and access to resources, and because of lack of confidence among students, especially first years. At the same time, there were real opportunities for students with clear ideas and confidence to take the initiative. At both the 1996 Tachibana cultural festival and the 2007 Yoneda festival, third-­year students wrote and performed their own play, and students in cultural clubs and elective classes also created their own performances. In 1996, one third-­year boy at Tachibana made a music video showing himself looking soulfully solitary in a natural scene, while the English club (of which I was the supervisor) staged a skit in English, at the initiative of its captain. She showed energy and leadership in finding a short script, adapting it, and thinking up props, music, and lighting.

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figure 10.  Preparations for the Yoneda cultural festival, 2007

In 2007, Yoneda students doing elective music performed a short musical version of Alice in Wonderland. Students who directed plays or took major parts faced considerable individual demands on their talents, as did the members of the student council executive committee, who played a major organizational role.

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However, the festivals did not simply offer opportunities for individual initiative and prominence. Like sports day, they were also structured to allow maximum participation by all students, often in roles that demanded teamwork and diligence rather than leadership or creativity. Most of the displays were collective artworks, which involved many students doing quite mundane work. At Tachibana in 1996, for example, these displays included “stained glass” windows (made of colored plastic film), dinosaur skeletons made of expanded polystyrene, and mosaics composed of hundreds of tiny pieces of colored paper, painstakingly applied by students. At Yoneda in 2007, the collective artworks included a huge mosaic picture of a birthday cake, which was composed of soft drink cans that students had covered with colored paper and then hung upon strings from a pole. There was also a school artwork (zenkō sakuhin), a huge mosaic picture of sunflowers, to which everyone in the school had contributed by coloring in a checkered square of paper; the four hundred or so squares were then put together to form the whole picture. Many “experiences” also involved construction projects using painted cardboard; at Tachibana in 1996, these included ten-­pin bowling, putt-­putt golf, and a maze, while in 2007, Yoneda students built homemade versions of popular fairground games, including Whack-­A-­Mole (mogura-­tataki), attempting to swing a large ball against targets with different values (eā bōringu), and Knock Down Daruma (daruma-­taoshi—­a game where competitors try to knock out lower sections of a tower without bringing the whole tower down). Stage plays also involved many students in making costumes, props, and scenery. The importance of cooperation and collective achievement was rhetorically emphasized by “interdependence” discourse at key points during the festivals. At Yoneda in 2007, for example, the principal’s opening speech talked of “nurturing cooperative hearts” and “succeeding through uniting hearts,” while the third years’ play was introduced with a speech that talked of succeeding through “joining everyone’s powers.” It was clearly very important to teachers that all students participated and felt a sense of fulfillment in shared achievement, and the festivals were certainly successful in achieving maximum participation—­part of the schools’ attempts to integrate students into school life (as discussed in chapter 3). How much impact this had on students was more doubtful; a number of students commented that they felt little sense of involvement until they took on a central role in the student council or a major project, perhaps reflecting the undemanding nature of much of the activity, and several teachers (including one 2007 Yoneda teacher who had been a Tachibana

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student in 1994) confessed to remembering little about the cultural festivals at their own junior high schools. In the 2007 questionnaire, 53 percent of Yoneda third-­year students selected the cultural festival as one of the school events and activities that had made a strong impression on them, making it a less popular choice than the third-­year school trip (88 percent) or either the sports day or club activities (61 percent each), though it was on a par with the choral contest (53 percent). A much higher proportion of girls (63 percent) than boys (35 percent) selected the cultural festival, although this was a pattern that affected all events and activities at Yoneda.14 Discourses of “autonomy” and “individuality” were present at the festivals, but they were less prominent than “interdependence” discourse. Seishin discourse of endeavoring amid hardship was also powerfully present in the first-year play at the 1996 Tachibana cultural festival. The play, Guddobai mai . . . (Goodbye My . . .), was introduced to the students by first-­year class teacher Yonemura-­sensei. I was told that it had been performed at the 1996 Yoneda festival, as well as at Yonemura-­sensei’s previous school, and Internet references indicate that its popularity at junior

figure 11.  Making a collective artwork at the 2007 Yoneda cultural festival

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figure 12.  “Air bowling” at the 2007 Yoneda cultural festival

high cultural festivals continues.15 The play portrays four children waiting to be born. All learned that they would face hard lives, culminating in crises with uncertain outcomes. One would be abandoned at birth in a train station locker; the second would live a wild youth, culminating in a motorbike accident; the third would face intense study pressure and resolve on suicide; and the fourth would be born without the use of his hands. Aghast, the four thought about giving up the chance of life, and choosing instead the easy alternative of oblivion. The first, Midori, chose to be born nonetheless, and cried with all her might to be heard—­but her struggles were in vain and she perished in the locker. Yet the three who remained were inspired by the sound of a baby crying loudly offstage, and, telling one another that Midori must have cried as hard as that, they resolved to live with all that was in them (isshōkenmei ikiru). Last to exit through the door leading to birth was Kiro, who was to be born without the use of his hands. Asking whether his life would have any meaning, given all the hardships he would face, he was told, “Every human being is born for something. You have to believe that.” Kiro replied, “I’m going to live a special life, aren’t I?” Then, gazing at his hands, he delivered the play’s final speech:

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I won’t be beaten, no matter how hard things are. I’ll touch, I’ll grasp, I’ll throw. I’ll use tools. I’ll write characters. I’ll persevere even without you. I promise you! Goodbye! My! . . . 

And amid music gathering in a crescendo, the curtain fell. Goodbye My . . . promised no happy endings; its protagonists received no assurance of anything but desperately hard lives. Their determination to persevere seemed to come from a sense that fulfillment could be gained through personal commitment, even in the hardest circumstances, a classic seishin model of self-­realization through hardship (Kondo 1990, 229 –­ 41). The students seemed quite gripped while watching, one remarking quietly to a teacher afterward, “That’s a good story, isn’t it?” If Goodbye My . . . , a play selected (and probably written) by teachers, was a powerful expression of seishin discourse of self, the plays written by students themselves were more varied. In 1996, the Tachibana third-­year play was a comic adventure featuring a studious junior high boy who metamorphoses into the superhero guise of “Heroman,” to rescue female students captured by a monster. While based on a plot found in a thousand comic books, the play also displayed an ironic self-­awareness by parodying its own genre. “Heroman” was a boaster, repeatedly knocked down in his fights with the monster until the very end of the play. The junior high school girls he rescued were presented as obsessed with their appearance: “We have beauty,” one says, “so we don’t have to worry about studying.” The play thus balanced enthusiastic enjoyment of conventional forms with simultaneous ironic distance, withholding its complete commitment from the forms of which it made use. The contrast with the advocacy of commitment in Goodbye My . . . suggested that students could maintain critical distance from dominant discourses. In 2007, meanwhile, the third-­year play at Yoneda, Happy Birthday, was based on a bestselling teen novel of the same title by Aoki Kazuo and Yoshitomi Tami. It depicted a girl coming to understand how her mother’s lack of love had its roots in childhood experiences, and how forgiveness and reconciliation between parents and children was possible. Impressively acted by the cast, it was a powerful drama that concluded with a reconciliation of all involved, even including some school bullies, echoing the ideal of unity and togetherness so often expressed at Tachibana and Yoneda. Though closer to dominant discourses at the schools than the parodic “Heroman” drama, it also showed students’ interest in exploring the emotional complexities of family life. Why was the cultural festival abandoned at Tachibana? Judging by the

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results of my 2007 questionnaire, this was an unusual decision; the vast majority of schools responding to the survey did stage a cultural festival. For Tachibana teachers, it was simply an unfortunate consequence of the need to cut down on nonacademic activities, when being faced with the introduction of the five-­day school week and the 2002 curriculum. However, few other schools seemed to have made such a decision, and time pressure was not an explanation for why the sports day was prioritized over the cultural festival. Although I heard no reason for this, it was probably linked to the unusually large size of the school and the opportunities and problems that presented. As one Tachibana P.E. teacher told me in 2007, the school could exploit its unusual size and its proximity to the athletic arena by staging its spectacular mass game. However, a successful mass game required considerable practice, making it hard to accommodate the time-­consuming cultural festival as well. Moreover, for all the value that many teachers attached to the festival, it had the potential to be more problematic than the sports day in terms of school order and discipline, especially because during the preparations, students were divided into so many groups around the school. In contrast, practice for the mass game took place in class groups, year groups, or as a whole school. Given the perennial concern for discipline and order at Tachibana, it does not seem entirely surprising that the sports day, an event that has discipline and order at its center, was preferred to the cultural festival, with its greater emphasis on individuality and creativity. Ultimately, the decision represented the prioritization of cooperation and group spirit over opportunities for individual initiative and autonomy—­a rejection of key parts of the educational reform agenda, at the very moment that its central curricular reform was being introduced.

Meanings of Japaneseness The sports day, choral contest, and cultural festival were not only about fostering cooperation, building group relationships, or providing opportunities for individual initiative. They also provided opportunities to construct, validate, and absorb aspects of culture. This included cultural expressions presented as representative of traditional Japanese culture, but by 2007, it also included others that expressed multiculturalism within Japan. The choral contest was particularly notable for its domination by forms and practices representing modern, middle-­class Japan, hybridizing Western forms with ideas and sentiments strongly associated with Japanese identity. It also

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showcased a major expression of discourses of cosmological interdependence, which complemented the discourse of interdependence in daily life that pervaded the events. The cultural expressions presented as representations of Japanese tradition came from both everyday and high culture. At the 1996 Tachibana cultural festival, high culture was represented by the mosaics that students made, which depicted scenes from traditional woodblock prints. Moreover, the scenes were of famous landscapes nearby, making this a way of learning and validating notions of traditional local culture too. Everyday traditional culture was represented in the “experiences” part of the festival, where students had the opportunity to make bamboo toys such as water-­pistols and “bamboo dragonflies” (taketonbo).16 Although this idea came from students, it was less popular than aspects of contemporary culture, such as computers and computer games. At the 2007 Yoneda festival, meanwhile, the second-­year students’ collective artwork was a large model of a local architectural feature that was a major example of traditional Japanese culture. By 2007, however, cultural representations no longer only symbolized a national tradition presented as largely homogeneous. From 2003, the Tachibana sports day included the Okinawan eisā dance. According to a Tachibana P.E. teacher, the dance had been introduced on the initiative of the then student council president and P.E. student representative after the school had begun to go to Okinawa for its third-­year school trip. The teacher placed this in the context of a broader “Okinawa boom” and “eisā boom,” which had seen quite a few schools introduce the dance. The introduction of the eisā dance represented a move away from the kind of representation of homogeneous national culture that was widely criticized from the 1980s onward (Mouer and Sugimoto 1986; Befu 2001; Ryang 2004), instead recognizing and celebrating cultural diversity within Japan. The radicalism of this shift should not be exaggerated. Tanji (2012, 109) argues that in the “Okinawa boom” in Japan since the 1990s, “ ‘Okinawan culture’ has been commodified into utopian, pre-­modern images” that “contribute to Japan’s ‘cosmetic multiculturalism’ ” but “actually have the political effect of obscuring the violence and injustices of the Okinawan social predicament.” In her view, enthusiasm about eisā among mainland Japanese embodies a “romanticized vision of Okinawan culture” which is a form of “subconscious colonialism” (109). She quotes Tessa Morris-­ Suzuki’s view that such multiculturalism is “a disguised form of nationalism or self-­indulgent culturalism” whereby “cultural diversity is praised and consumed on a superficial level” alone, often ignoring claims for political

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and economic rights (Tanji 2012, 116; Morris-­Suzuki 2001, cited in Ko 2006, 157). Nevertheless, Tanji also shows that eisā dancing has led to diasporic Okinawans in Japan feeling that mainland Japanese are more accepting of Okinawan identity. The eisā dance at Tachibana was symptomatic of shifts toward greater appreciation of Japan’s diversity, though as with the seishun discourse of the choral contest, it risked fostering romanticized and superficial illusions unless complemented elsewhere by critical engagement with the Okinawan situation.17 The relationship of the choral contest with cultural identity was also complex. To a large extent, this event centered on musical forms and practices introduced into Japan from the West after the Meiji Restoration in 1868—­Western choral singing with a conductor and a piano accompaniment. The assimilation of such forms and practices has been an important part of the formation of modern middle-­class Japanese identity during the twentieth century (Inagaki 2007, 22–­31), and the choral contest has validated and promulgated this complex of cultural forms, practices, and identity within the public school system.18 Whereas certain forms of art, architecture, and everyday culture were validated as parts of “Japanese tradition” at the cultural festival, traditional music received no such validation. Indeed, music teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda pointed out to me with dissatisfaction that the school music curriculum featured very little traditional ( pre-­Meiji) Japanese music. On the other hand, the actual songs sung at the contest were almost always by contemporary Japanese composers; the few exceptions were foreign works with a strong affinity with the romantic idealism that pervaded the event.19 Besides modeling middle-­class modernity and acclimatizing students to romantic idealism, the choral contest also involved them in the articulation of a sense of a love of and harmony with nature that has attained the status of an ideology in Japan, often informing constructions of national identity (Kalland and Asquith 1997, 25). This was preeminently expressed in Daichi sanshō (Praise to the earth), the work prescribed for third-­year students at every single choral concert I witnessed in Sakura between 1994 and 2007. Daichi sanshō is the final section of the cantata Tsuchi no uta (Song of earth), composed by Satō Shin in 1962 with words by the poet Ōki Atsuo, and has been described as irreplaceable in junior high choral contests and festivals.20 Its lyrics express a quasi-­religious veneration of nature: 母なる大地の　ふところに われら人の子の　喜びはある

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大地を愛せよ　大地に生きる 人の子ら　人の子ら土に感謝せよ 人のこらその立つ土に感謝せよ 平和な大地を　静かな大地を 大地をほめよ　讃えよ土を　 （男声） われら人の子の　われら人の子の 大地をほめよ　ほめよ讃えよ （女声） 恩寵の豊かな　豊かな大地 大地　大地　讃えよ讃えよ土を ほめよ　讃えよ　土を 母なる大地を　ああ～ 讃えよ大地を　ああ～ In the bosom of earth our mother Is the joy we have, children of humanity Love the earth, you children of humanity Who live on the earth, render her thanks You who stand on the earth, render thanks The peaceful earth, the quiet earth Praise the earth, extol the earth (Male voices) Children of humanity, children of Humanity, praise our earth, praise and extol! (Female voices) The earth rich in grace The earth, the earth, extol, extol the earth Praise, extol the earth The earth our mother! Extol the earth!

The quasi-­religious feeling of the work comes not just from the uplifting solemnity of the music (which can be heard easily on the Internet), but also from its lyrics, which include words with strong religious overtones, such as tataeru (extol) or onchō (grace).21 This reverence for nature is far

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from unique to Daichi sanshō, being shared with other extremely popular works in contemporary Japan, including such films as Miyazaki’s Tonari no totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) and Mononokehime (Princess Mononoke) (Wright 2005). Daichi sanshō’s ubiquity as the culmination of students’ choral contest experience represented not just the expression of sentiments associated with national identity, however. The dependence on nature expressed in its lyrics was also a form of discourse of the inter­ dependent self, broadening interdependence beyond the human to the natural world. As Morioka (1991) has shown, such understandings of the continuity and interdependence of the whole of nature are widespread in Japan, and draw on ideas that nature partakes actually or potentially of spirituality or even divinity—­ideas with links to Shinto, Buddhism, and neo-­Confucianism (Kalland and Asquith 1997, 2–­3). Interdependence dis­ course on a cosmological scale was thus articulated in powerful musical form, adding to its expression in the structures and practices of sports day, cultural festival, and choral contest.

Constructions of Gender The major school events were important spaces for the construction and expression of gender. Between 1996 and 2007, there were some signs of movement away from gender differentiation, and signs of greater readiness among girls to take leading roles. Advances toward gender equality were significant, though limited. Gender differentiation and inequality were most pronounced at the schools’ sports days, with relatively little change even by 2007. The organization of the events suggested male priority and centrality. Boys’ races began the athletics program at both schools, and at Tachibana also ended it, and there were also more boys’ races at Tachibana, where only boys ran a 400-­meter race. Moreover, at both schools the boys’ middle distance race was 1500 meters, whereas the girls’ was 800 meters. The gymnastic performances also gave boys more prominent and central positions. At Tachibana in 1996 and in Yoneda at 2007, boys made higher pyramids and towers than the girls, while there were no pyramids or towers by Tachibana girls in 2007. According to a female P.E. teacher there, this was because girls were not strong enough to carry the weight without significant danger. On the other hand, only girls made wave formations in Tachibana’s mass game. These involved about ten girls kneeling in a line with their

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arms around the shoulders of those on each side, and successively bowing and rising to create an effect like a rippling wave. The mass game thus reaffirmed stereotypes of masculine strength and feminine grace (Feiler 1991, 57). Boys stood tall in the center of the display, while girls knelt in off-­center positions. In 2007, furthermore, the initial Tachibana calisthenics placed third-­year boys at the center, while outside them on each side stood third-­year girls, second-­year boys, and on the outside, second-­year girls. In the first-­year eisā dance, boys were again literally front and center, with girls behind and to the sides. Amid this male structural dominance, there were some moves toward gender equality. In 1996, the Tachibana P.E. uniform was made unisex, so that all students wore similar T-­shirts and shorts. Before that, girls had worn short, close-­fitting bloomers (burumā), which they disliked, according to the female P.E. teacher who instigated the change. In 1996, only the male students presented class flags at the Tachibana opening ceremony, whereas by 2007 both male and female students did so; and all students in 2007 wore black numbers on their T-­shirts, whereas girls had worn red numbers in 1996. At the opening ceremony of the 2007 Yoneda sports day, moreover, the students’ pledge was spoken by one boy and one girl, speaking alternately. The direction of change was clearly toward gender equality, but the organization of sports day as a whole still tended to express conservative gender ideologies and hierarchies. The choral contest showed the greatest shift toward gender equality between 1996 and 2007, though this move was not unambiguous. The two most important roles were those of conductor and piano accompanist for each class. At Tachibana in 1994 and 1996, almost all the pianists were girls, while the vast majority of conductors were boys. By 2007, however, more than a third of  Tachibana conductors and a small majority of  Yoneda conductors were girls. Almost all pianists continued to be girls. The change suggested that girls were increasingly willing to put themselves forward for leading roles. The 2007 Yoneda student council president, elected by students, was also female. The change could have been interpreted as a possible sign of boys’ decreasing identification with the choral contest, but 2007 student questionnaires suggested that the event left a strong impression on boys as well as girls, at least at Tachibana, where 61 percent of boys indicated this, compared to 65 percent of girls. At Yoneda, the respective percentages were 36 and 65, but a similar pattern of greater female enthusiasm was apparent in relation to most events there, not confined to the choral contest. On the other hand, observation suggested that

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girls were more enthusiastic in discussing and practicing for the choral contest; in contrast, a few boys fooled around during practice, while some others showed embarrassment and constraint in their faces and physical demeanor. For such boys, the female associations of classical music might have been felt as a threat to their developing and as yet insecure masculine identity.22 Gender did not affect the organization of the cultural festival. However, the festival tended to give prominence to girls because it showcased the accomplishments of cultural clubs, such as the brass and woodwind band and the art club, as well as elective classes in music and art. The mem­ bership of these clubs and classes was overwhelmingly female. At the 2007 Yoneda festival, girls were particularly conspicuous in the stage plays, directing and taking several of the leading parts. The abandonment of the Tachibana cultural festival probably resulted in reduced prominence and recognition for girls. Although gender differentiation sometimes occurred because of the organization of events, as with the sports day, it often resulted from students’ own choices too. At the Tachibana sports days, for example, girls tended to take charge of jobs like record-­keeping and broadcasting. Girls and boys also tended to avoid mixing spontaneously at the events or while preparing for them. At Yoneda in 2007, students tended to split into single-­gender groups even when doing the same activity. At the cultural festival itself, the fairground game “experiences” were mainly played by boys, perhaps because many of them involved the conventionally masculine activity of hitting things. Ironically, encouraging autonomy by leaving activity participation to student choice seemed to result in more gender segregation—­a phenomenon I had also witnessed at elementary schools in Sakura (Cave 2007, 161). On the other hand, student council leaders at the schools worked together energetically without any apparent gender differentiation. This may have reflected the unusual openness or self-­ confidence of these students, but could also have been a result of structural context, as the student council leaders were a relatively small group that was expected to work together, regardless of gender. It was also notable that students prepared to break gendered expectations in one context might also do so in others: one second-year boy at Yoneda, for example, was not only one of the few male members of the brass and woodwind band, but also one of the few boys to take a leading part in the secondyear play. Between 1996 and 2007, movement toward gender equality at these major school events overwhelmingly resulted from actions by students,

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especially the increased readiness of girls to take up leading roles, which suggested their increasing self-­confidence and belief in their equality with boys. In contrast, gender hierarchy and differentiation at sports days was determined by teachers, suggesting that their views of gender were changing more slowly. Nonetheless, students tended to segregate themselves spontaneously according to gender if given the opportunity, suggesting the need for strategic encouragement of interaction that would challenge gender boundaries.

Conclusion The sports day, cultural festival, and choral contest were major annual events whose form and content were entirely controlled by schools. They were therefore very revealing of priorities at Tachibana and Yoneda, including the schools’ attitudes to the reformist stress on individuality and autonomy. There were some changes in the way these major events were run between 1996 and 2007. Teachers became less meticulous about discipline, and there were limited moves toward gender equality and multiculturalism. However, there was no evidence that the form or content had been significantly changed to promote individuality or autonomy among students. In fact, the disappearance of the Tachibana cultural festival meant fewer opportunities for individuals to take the initiative and show off their talents. This did not mean that there was no scope at all for autonomous initiative and individual expression by students. In fact, in 1996 teachers did make changes that they believed would encourage students to make their own choices and display their particular talents, by moving the Tachibana sports day to the city athletics track, and by encouraging students to participate in their individual choice of project at the cultural festival. Moreover, the events did allow significant numbers of individuals to develop and show off their abilities in sports, music, art, or leadership and organization. One result was the clear increase between 1996 and 2007 in the numbers of girls taking leading roles, whether as conductors at the choral contest, or actors and directors at the cultural festival. However, the fact that teachers initiated so little change between 1996 and 2007 suggested that they were largely happy with the events as they were. In particular, it suggested that they were satisfied with the relative emphases placed upon collective endeavor and individual initiative. The

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events continued to place heavy stress on students’ cooperation in shared projects, aiming at enhancement of their ability to work together and a sense of common achievement. Participation, working together, and unity were pervasive concerns of the events’ organization, content, and rhetoric. The choral contest even culminated in a hymn to nature that expressed cosmological interdependence. The shift toward increased emphasis on student autonomy and choice was limited, compared with the continuity of this strong focus on group activities and aims. Indeed, at Tachibana, opportunities for student initiative diminished between 1996 and 2007, a result of the disappearance of the cultural festival. Ironically, two of the major causes of the festival’s disappearance were the staging of the school’s sports day at the city athletics track, and the reduction in school hours from 2002, both of which were supposed to encourage student autonomy and initiative. In the case of Tachibana, however, the school opted to maintain and develop the time-­consuming mass game, which prioritized disciplined collective performance. The mass game did make the most of the size of the student body and provided many potentially fulfilling and enjoyable challenges for students. Nonetheless, the prioritization of disciplined group performance over individual initiative suggested what teachers thought mattered most. Featuring certain cultural forms and discourses at these events was an act of implicit validation by schools, which gave them silent endorsement over alternatives that were not selected. The events tended to celebrate a version of “Japanese culture” that conformed to certain well-­worn national stereotypes, such as love of nature, and to a modern middle-­class Japanese identity—­though by 2007, the representation of “Japanese culture” had been diversified by the introduction of the Okinawan eisā dance. Students were imperceptibly guided toward appreciation of certain forms and practices put forward as representing (Japanese) “tradition,” such as woodblock prints and bamboo toys, and away from contemporary aspects of culture, such as computer games or rock bands. In practice, this meant denying students the chance to develop and express some of their interests. It amounted to an implicit insistence that it was important to stay in touch with and be rooted in (a certain version of) the past, even while creating a new future. The overall tone of the three big events was one of guided and limited freedom. There were real opportunities for students to be creative and show their talents, especially at the cultural festival, but these opportunities were subject to limitations, which stemmed from teachers’ beliefs about

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the educational guidance students needed. They could point to students’ engagement with and enjoyment of the events as justification. The stability, however, carried with it an implicit question: was the kind of change that educational reform demanded actually necessary? Was there any need to alter Japan’s educational institutions after all? These questions would become more urgent, and more explicit, as teachers grappled with the challenges of reform in the classroom.

chapter five

Changing the Classroom? Autonomy and Expression in Japanese Language and Literature

C

hanges to teaching and learning were at the heart of the educational reform agenda in the two decades after 1989. As described in chap­ ter 1, it was widely felt that education in Japan was too wedded to didactic modes of teaching that emphasized transmission of knowledge and de­ velopment of understanding, which, while successful as far as they went, were no longer adequate because they failed sufficiently to develop chil­ dren’s ability to think and learn for themselves. Critics also argued that the education system placed too much pressure on children to study for exams, resulting in excessive stress and loss of intrinsic interest in learning. Curricular changes were intended to tackle these perceived problems, in­ troducing first a new stress on students’ “interest and motivation” (kyōmi, kanshin, iyoku) in the 1989 curriculum, and then slimming the academic curriculum and introducing a new area of study, sōgō-­teki na gakushū (in­ tegrated studies), in the 1998 curriculum. However, these changes were far from uncontroversial, and met with vocal opposition (see chapter 1). In this chapter and the next, I examine teaching and learning, focusing in this chapter particularly on the subject of Japanese (kokugo). I chose Japanese as a focus for two reasons. First, the study of language and literature might be expected to lend itself to the educational reform agenda, with potential to develop students’ abilities in imaginative inter­ pretation, creative expression, and the articulation of ideas. It could well be argued that if the educational reform agenda could not show significant im­ pact on teaching and learning in this subject, then its hopes of affecting any

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area of the academic curriculum would be dim. Secondly, language and lit­ erature is an area of study with special importance for human development and selfhood. This has been recognized in Japan at least since the writings of Ashida Enosuke, one of the most important Japanese educationalists in the field, during the Taisho period (1912–­1926). For Ashida, reading in school was “reading the self” ( jiko o yomu), and composition was “composing the self” ( jiko o tsuzuru) (Hida 1973, 99, 111).1 According to Ishihara Chiaki (2005, 74–­75), language and literature education has played a central part in fulfilling postwar Japanese education’s mission of human development. The study of language and literature has also been seen as important for human development in other countries; in England, for example, Goodwyn (2011, 68–­  71) argues that “personal growth” has been the most influential model of the subject among teachers of English. Language and literature teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda were well aware of the importance of their subject for human development and identity, as we shall see.

Teaching and Learning in Japanese Junior High Schools Studies of teaching and learning in Japanese junior high schools are lim­ ited. Rebecca Fukuzawa’s ethnography of three Tokyo schools, carried out in 1983–­1985, described teaching styles and classroom organization there as “homogenous”: All instruction is large-­group instruction. I found no multitask organization of classrooms, and small-­group work was rare in academic subjects (Japanese, math, social studies, science, and English) . . . most classes were text-­centered lectures. (Fukuzawa 1994, 64)

Similarly, Satō Manabu comments that “the typical scene in a junior high lesson is of  the teacher explaining and the students passively taking notes” (Satō and Satō 2003, 21). On the other hand, LeTendre’s study of two ju­ nior high schools in the early 1990s found a more complex picture: Classes in most of the core academic courses tended to be teacher-­directed but involved high levels of student activity at specific points . . . Despite large class size (sometimes more than forty students in a class), teachers actively en­ gaged students through pair work, group work, or classes held in special rooms equipped for experiments or language study.

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Kotani teachers placed great emphasis on having students explain their an­ swers and focused their classes more on student reasoning than on obtaining the correct answer. (LeTendre 2000, 82)

The video study of junior high mathematics teaching by Stigler and Hiebert (1999), meanwhile, found considerable variation in teaching styles, ranging from student presentation and group work to teacher ex­ position and memorization by students. Teaching styles at Tachibana and Yoneda tended to vary according to the subject taught. However, teacher-­directed learning was common, and even teachers who sought to encourage more student-­centered learning often struggled to do so. To date, the predominance of didactic, transmission modes of teaching at the secondary level in Japan has mainly been explained by two forces working together: cultural notions of life course, which allegedly dictate that “stricter discipline and increasing challenges must be part of the ad­ olescent experience for a successful transition from childhood to adult­ hood to occur” (Rohlen and LeTendre 1996a, 8  –­  9), and systemic pressures from the national curriculum, government-­approved textbooks, and the demands of high school entrance exams (Rohlen 1983; Fukuzawa 1994; LeTendre 2002). According to Fukuzawa (1994, 64), the Ministry of Edu­ cation’s control of the junior high curriculum and supervision of textbooks “wrest instructional control out of the hands of individual teachers and even individual schools.” Yet these explanations are questionable. Notions of life course may certainly help explain why junior high schools emphasize discipline and rigor more than elementary schools, but it is hard to see a clear connection between emphasis on discipline and particular teaching modes. There are many ways of learning discipline. Moreover, the concept of development from carefree child to disciplined adult is a broad ideal, not a strict tem­ plate. In fact, evidence indicates that Japanese children are not subjected to gradually increasing discipline as they move toward adulthood. Rather, high schools often give students more freedom than junior high schools, and universities give even more (Cave 2011a, 148). The determining influence of the curriculum and textbooks is also doubtful, given that these affect not only junior high schools but also ele­ mentary schools, which have often been praised for their imaginative and en­gaging teaching (Lewis 1995, 149–­77; Cave 2007, 88 –­151). If elementary teachers enjoy instructional autonomy despite the curriculum and text­

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books, why should junior high teachers be different? In fact, if these forces are as powerful as claimed, then curricular reform should have changed teaching practices. As for high school entrance exams, their influence is asserted by many, sometimes including teachers themselves (Fukuzawa 1994, 64; Bjork 2009, 36), but I will argue that this is an oversimplification, and propose an alternative explanation why teachers at junior high teach as they do.

Teachers’ Views of  Teaching and Learning When I talked to Tachibana teachers about subject teaching in 1996–­1998, divided views about curricular reform were evident. Teachers agreed that the 1989 curriculum represented a move toward emphasizing students’ own interests (kyōmi/kanshin), modifying the previously dominant emphasis on knowledge (chishiki) and understanding (rikai). Their attitudes to this shift differed, and their own teaching priorities did not necessarily match those of the new curriculum. Of the thirteen teachers with whom I dis­ cussed teaching aims, four said during interviews they wanted to encour­ age students to think for themselves, while it was clear from the way three others taught and from conversation that they shared this aim.2 However, the other six teachers emphasized teaching that promoted student under­ standing or mastery of skills (such as writing characters correctly), and they made no reference to the new aims set out in the 1989 curriculum. This divi­ sion was partly subject-­related, as all three mathematics teachers empha­ sized understanding, while those who stressed thinking for oneself included Japanese, social studies, and science teachers. Teachers also expressed considerable skepticism about the broader ed­ ucational reform agenda as it related to teaching and learning. Even teach­ ers sympathetic to greater emphasis on individuality and self-­motivated learning generally felt that the reforms needed more financial resources than the government was providing. “How can one emphasize individuality in a class with forty students?” asked one science teacher. Other teachers considered the reforms “out of touch with reality,” to quote social studies teacher Yonemura-­sensei. For him, the “reality” that mattered was that in recent years, pupils had been entering junior high school without the nec­ essary basic academic attainment (kiso gakuryoku), because elementary teachers had been teaching less thoroughly than before. Such a concern for basic academic attainment was linked to the view that many teachers

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expressed in interviews, both in 1996–­1998 and in 2007, that the role of the junior high school was to ensure that all students could graduate in posses­ sion of the basic competences they would need as human beings in society (“hito toshite no kiso,” as Yoneda Japanese teacher Shirakawa-­sensei ex­ pressed it). Many teachers linked this responsibility to junior high schools’ position as the final stage of compulsory education— ­despite the fact that over 90 percent of junior high graduates continue their education and have been doing so since the late 1970s (Monbukagakushō 2014).3 Teachers also tended to see it as most important to help average or below average stu­ dents attain satisfactory knowledge and understanding, even if this meant not extending the more able. Tachibana’s principal encapsulated this view in a 1996 staff meeting (without endorsing it) by quoting the saying, “rather one step by a hundred people than a hundred steps by one person” (hitori no hyappo yori hyakunin no ippo).4 Such a tendency to focus on students’ weaknesses contrasted with the central tenets of the reform agenda, which stressed helping individuals develop their strengths (Monbushō 1996, 32, 35).5 One reason for Yonemura-­sensei’s critical attitude to the reforms was his belief that they would result in only a few students extending their abili­ ties. This point of  view was one that I sensed among not a few teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda, who were pessimistic about the desire and ability of the majority of students to study on their own initiative, and who there­ fore felt the need for thorough, teacher-­centered instruction. Though teachers voiced commitment to “having as many people as possible understand the basics,” as one Tachibana mathematics teacher put it, they also accepted that in practice, some students’ achievements would be significantly limited. Another mathematics teacher distinguished between his ideal, to have all students understand, and what he saw as the reality that individual differences increased through the school. A third mathematics teacher told me that she would be satisfied if all the students could do calculations with whole numbers, as she was resigned to some students’ inability to master fractions and decimals. Even these aspirations were not achieved for all students, however. In many classes I observed, there were at least one or two students who struggled with academic ba­ sics or who seemed to have given up the struggle already. Such students were referred to in meetings as “children of low academic attainment” (teigakuryoku no ko). Though teachers accepted that these students posed a significant problem, in practice there seemed to be little or no systematic attempt to give them special help, partly due to concerns about singling children out and perhaps exposing them to the ridicule of peers, partly due

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to the other demands on teachers’ time, and partly, I suspected, because teachers believed that some students were so far behind academically that attempts to help them would be futile—­though this was never explicitly stated. Instead, teachers seemed to try to help such students by talking to them kindly and encouraging them to do the simple work they could manage. Though this approach could be questioned, it was impressive that teachers avoided strongly disparaging or scornful remarks about poorly at­ taining or troublesome students, either in the classroom or the staff room. This contrasted sharply with the Californian teachers described by LeTen­ dre (1994b, 196) and the British teachers described by Lacey (1970) and Beynon (1985). In the staff room, teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda did sometimes say of a student that she “didn’t understand” or “couldn’t do” a task or a subject, but they did not label students with more derogatory and essentializing terms, such as “idiot” (aho, baka) or “no good” (dame).

Lessons: Social Studies and Mathematics In 1996–­1997, I focused my lesson observations at Tachibana on three subjects: Japanese, social studies, and mathematics. In 2007, practical considerations made it impossible to observe all three of these subjects extensively at both Tachibana and Yoneda, so I concentrated on Japanese because of its greater potential for changed teaching modes in response to the educational reform agenda, and its significance for personal develop­ ment, though I did watch a small number of social studies and mathemat­ ics lessons too. At Tachibana in 1996–­1997, the three social studies teachers for the first year all taught in a fundamentally similar way: they usually explained the current topic to the class, enlivening their talk with interesting examples or stories, and now and then referring to the textbook or a book of supple­ mentary materials.6 They varied somewhat in the frequency with which they asked the students questions, the length of the summarizing notes they wrote on the blackboard, and the extent to which they allowed students to call out questions and comments. Only in the first term of the first year did they adopt different approaches, having students research certain top­ ics in small groups and then report on the topics to the rest of the class, an approach that I had previously observed at elementary schools in Sakura but rarely saw at junior high schools. Observations of social studies les­ sons by three other Tachibana teachers in 1994, by five teachers at other

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junior highs in the same prefecture between 1997 and 2001, and by one teacher at Tachibana and one at Yoneda in 2007 suggested that this ap­ proach was representative, as only one of all the teachers observed used a more student-­centered teaching style (Cave 2002, 634). Some teachers were skilled expositors, mixing pithy explanations with examples close to students’ own experiences or with exciting stories about historical charac­ ters, and the entire class would often listen with apparent interest through­ out their lessons. However, this didactic mode of teaching provided only limited opportunities for students to develop their abilities in autonomous research or critical thinking. Encouragement of reflective analysis was inci­ dental rather than integral. There was no suggestion that students could or should develop their own interpretations of history. Mathematics classes usually comprised a series of short cycles: teacher explanation would be followed by the students’ working on some practice exercises, and then the checking of the answers by the teacher. While the students worked on the practice exercises, the teacher would walk around looking at students’ work and making herself available for questions. At these times, teachers usually gave much more attention to weaker students. When checking answers, teachers would ask for volunteers or else nomi­ nate students, perhaps asking the student to explain how he arrived at his answer, or adding a short explanation themselves. As in social studies, the lessons were fundamentally teacher centered, in the sense that the subject, direction, and pace of the lesson were basically set by the teacher. How­ ever, as students needed time for practice exercises, much less time was used for teacher explanation than in social studies. Students worked on practice exercises individually rather than in small groups, but they often asked for and received help from one another, a practice which was never reprimanded by teachers. The style of mathematics teaching and learning at the junior high schools was very different from that I observed in elementary schools in Sakura. There, much more group work and discussion was in evidence (Cave 2007, 111–­51). Though mathematics might not be thought to lend itself to the promotion of autonomous thinking as readily as subjects like language, lit­ erature, or history, it was normal practice at the elementary level for chil­ dren to be encouraged to express and explain their thinking. This was rarely in evidence at Tachibana and Yoneda, although Stigler and Hiebert (1999, 68 –­71) found that in 42 percent of the junior high mathematics lessons they videoed in Japan, students presented alternative solutions to problems, sug­ gesting that a range of approaches is used by junior high teachers.7

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There were thus few signs that teaching styles in either social studies or mathematics were much influenced by the educational reform agenda. In both subjects, teachers may have been constrained by the demands of both the curriculum, which stipulated in some detail what topics had to be studied, and of high school entrance exams, which continued to focus on knowledge and understanding. One Tachibana mathematics teacher told me that one had to train (kunren) the students for the entrance exams, and since time used for thinking was time lost for practice, he didn’t set aside time for students to think about problems. Entrance exams in social studies were especially notable for being dominated by multiple-­choice and short-­answer questions, though this was hardly surprising, given that the exam was only forty to fifty minutes long (see chapter 7). Even in mathematics and social studies, however, the failure to experi­ ment with alternative teaching and learning modes is not completely ex­ plained by the constraints of the curriculum and entrance exams. Other influences are at work on teachers, as the case of Japanese reveals.

Japanese: Interdependence and Expression in Curriculum and Textbooks Language and literature curricula and textbooks contain implicit ideals of human development. These ideals are inherent in the activities that are recommended or required, and the time spent on them. How many hours are to be used for reading, how many for writing, and how many for speak­ ing and listening activities? Moreover, what kind of reading, writing, and speaking are students supposed to engage in? There are many possible priorities—­appreciation of a canon of national literature, grammatically accurate writing, critical appraisal, argumentative skill, imaginative self-­ ex­pression, the development of empathy, or the understanding of con­ temporary social and cultural issues, to name but a few. Furthermore, the subjects about which students read, write, and talk also show the educa­ tional priorities of those who produce curricula and textbooks. What kinds of topics, what kind of human actors, what kind of situations are consid­ ered most important for students to think about? What implicit ideals of selfhood do they encounter through their texts and activities? Junior high schools in Sakura used textbooks for Japanese produced by the publisher Mitsumura Tosho, both in 1996–­1997 and 2007.8 The textbooks included a range of reading materials, including short stories,

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extracts from novels, essays and expository nonfiction, modern Japanese poems, and classical Japanese texts, both prose and poetry.9 There were also short units on grammar and other linguistic points, and units for report writing and discussion. Relationships among people or within the natural world were among the themes that recurred frequently in the textbooks. Many nonfiction texts dealt with nature or environmental issues.10 Human relationships, es­ pecially between family members or friends, were another regular topic.11 The 1937–­1945 Asia-­Pacific War was also featured, in poetry and in the moving autobiographical essay “Otona ni narenakatta otōtotachi ni . . .” (To my little brothers who couldn’t grow up . . .) by Yonekura Masakane, which was in both the 1996–­1997 and 2007 textbooks. Whereas few fiction texts dealt with contemporary life, many featured rural life in the past.12 The prominent place occupied by nature, the environment, and rural life in both fiction and nonfiction texts strongly suggested that textbook editors wanted contemporary children to learn about and reflect on these subjects. Like the choral contest song Daichi sanshō, Japanese language textbooks thus attempted to keep nature before the eyes of Japan’s largely urban or suburban children, no doubt mindful of the frequent concern ex­ pressed in contemporary Japan about children’s decreasing contact with the natural world (Itō 1990, 20–­21; Monbushō 1996, 13, 23, 25, 105). “Interdependence” discourse was implicit or explicit in many texts on the relationships of humans with one another and with nature. The open­ ing story in the 1996 –­1997 first-­year textbook, “Sukai haitsu ōkesutora” (Sky heights orchestra) was about a boy who has just moved to a new apartment block where he feels lonely but then realizes the block is full of potential friends. The story suggested that humans were inescapably connected to one another, and that if these connections could be fruitfully realized, something could be created that transcends what any individual could achieve alone. A later story, entitled “Inochi to iu koto” (Life), fo­ cused on the significance of life and human interdependence with the natu­ ral world. A group of German children visit a farm, hear the squeals of a pig being slaughtered, and have the chance to touch the warm carcass as their teacher talks about respect for life and the interdependence of living things: “We humans eat various things in order to live. Vegetables, meat, fish, all of them have lives. We humans live by receiving the lives of other living things” (Kurihara, Hida, and Inoue 1994, 154). The treatment of plants as equivalent to animals and humans as possessors of life (inochi) was striking, again recalling the cosmological vision of Daichi sanshō and

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Morioka’s (1991) argument that notions of the interdependence of the hu­ man and natural worlds are fundamental and pervasive in Japan.13 Gerbert argues that during the 1980s, stories in elementary textbooks for Japanese tended to feature protagonists who were feeling and con­ templative rather than active, self-­confident, or struggling with strong desires, in contrast with their equivalents in American readers, who were “depicted as highly goal-­oriented individuals” who “gain[ed] mastery over themselves by facing new challenges” (Gerbert 1993, 158). Gerbert de­ tects limited moves toward the introduction of more active protagonists in the early 1990s and suggests that this chimed with the educational reform agenda. However, empathetic protagonists notable more for passivity or endurance than action continued to predominate in the Mitsumura junior high textbooks used in 1996–­1997 and in 2007. In “Sukai haitsu ōkesutora,” the protagonist’s actions were confined to waving a conductor’s baton in response to the directions of a mysterious man. In “O-­inori” (The prayer), a group of cats remembered the kindnesses of their fishmonger friend be­ fore praying for his illness. In “Otona ni narenakatta otōtotachi ni . . . ,” the author recalled his family’s endurance through hardship during the war, while “Bon-­miyage” (A midsummer gift) described how two children re­ act with wonder and pleasure to the unfamiliar, luxurious prawns brought home from Tokyo by their father. Another story from the 2007 textbook, “Mugiwara-­bōshi” (The straw hat), centered on a girl endangered by a rising tide because she tried to help an injured seagull, who is finally res­ cued when her older sister spots her straw hat. In all these texts, the main protagonists reacted or endured. In none was the human condition seen as one where protagonists are forced to wrestle with complex dilemmas or are required to take decisive individual actions to change a situation. On the other hand, the importance of relationships with others was clear, whether the others were family members or friends. The continuities with the stories described by Gerbert were even more striking given that these were texts not for elementary but for junior high school children, who were older and faced with important decisions about their future after gradua­ tion. In the selection of texts, the side of the educational reform agenda that sought to redress children’s supposedly inadequate sociality seemed more influential than the side seeking to develop independently motivated self-­starters. If there was relatively little change in the ideals of selfhood implicit in reading texts, however, there were much greater changes in the balance of activities covered by the language and literature curriculum. The 1989

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table 1  Hours allocated for sections of the Japanese curriculum in the Mitsumura Tosho textbooks, 1996–­1997 and 2007–­2008. The figures give the totals for the three years of junior high school combined, not including hours for calligraphy (shosha). 1996–­1997 Hours (% of total curriculum for Japanese) Modern fiction Modern nonfiction Modern poetry Classical Japanese texts (koten) Classical Chinese texts (kanbun) Language study (grammar, Chinese characters, etc.) Speaking and listening Writing  Total

2007–­2008 Hours (% of total curriculum for Japanese)

Change, in hours (% of this subsection of curriculum for Japanese)

67 (20%) 89 (26%) 20 (6%) 29 (9%) 10 (3%) 41 (12%)

47 (16%) 67 (22%) 18 (6%) 18 (6%) 7 (2%) 42 (14%)

−20 (30%) −22 (25%) −2 (10%) −11 (38%) −3 (30%) +1 (2%)

31 (9%) 53 (16%) 340

40 (13%) 70 (23%) 299

+9 (29%) +17 (32%) −41 (12%)

junior high curriculum for Japanese already assigned importance to the expressive skills of speaking and writing, alongside reading comprehen­ sion and language; thirty to fifty-­five hours a year (about 20 to 35 percent) were specifically allocated to composition (Monbushō 1989a, 14–­15).14 Even more emphasis was given to expressive skills in the 1998 curriculum for Japanese, which stated that each year, 10 to 20 percent of lesson time should be devoted to speaking and listening, and 20 to 30 percent to writ­ ing (Monbushō 1998, 12–­13). However, the Ministry of Education guidance manual that accompanied the 1989 curriculum for Japanese noted that “hitherto, lesson hours for composition have not always been adequately guaranteed” (Monbushō 1989b, 103), suggesting that schools were failing to follow the curriculum. The guidance manual for the 1998 curriculum for Japanese similarly pointed out the importance of trying to ensure time for writing, and cautioned against spending too much time on knowledge transmission (Monbukagakushō 2004, 99–­100), suggesting continuing prob­ lems with curriculum implementation. There were significant changes between 1996–­1997 and 2007 in the num­ ber of hours the textbook manuals (shidōsho) allocated to different parts of the Japanese curriculum. Hours devoted to reading units (modern fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) dropped by  44  hours—­almost a quarter—­from 176 to 132 hours, and hours for classical Japanese texts declined by more than a third, while hours for units devoted to writing and to speaking and listening

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both increased by almost a third, as shown in table 1. These radical changes mirrored the curriculum’s changing requirements for writing, speaking and listening, described above, and clearly indicated a shift toward greater text­ book emphasis on expression at the expense of reading and understand­ ing.15 If teachers were as influenced by textbooks as has been claimed, this should have resulted in an equally dramatic shift in teaching practices, and in turn, more opportunities for students to articulate their own ideas and feelings. However, no such shift occurred.

Japanese Lessons at Tachibana in the 1990s: The Challenge of Change In 1996–­1997 at Tachibana, I observed lessons by all three of the teachers who taught Japanese to the first years. Three first-­year classes were taught by Haruoka-­sensei (whose approach as class teacher of 1-­5 was described in chapter 4), one by vice-­principal Aoki-­sensei, and four by Morita-­ sensei, a kind and easygoing man in his mid-­thirties. Here I compare the three teachers’ approaches to one of the longer fiction texts in the text­ book, “The Prayer,” a story about a group of cats who learn that a friendly fishmonger has been rushed to hospital with a possibly fatal illness. The story centered on the cats’ depiction of the fishmonger’s character. Both Haruoka-­sensei and Aoki-­sensei sought to encourage independent think­ ing but found themselves dissatisfied with the students’ response. As Haruoka-­sensei stated in a paper she submitted to a research group for Japanese language and literature teaching, she wanted students to ac­ quire “the ability to study independently.” She told me that she felt that knowledge was only a small part of Japanese; what were important were judgment (handan) and ways of thinking (kangaekata). She also wished to emphasize oral skills, especially discussion, and made these emphases clear to the students from the start of the school year. In a print headed “Let’s create our own learning” ( jibun no gakushū), she wrote, “Different people’s eyes light on different things . . . It will be good if you can find something of your own [to study] as much as you can.” The way she taught “The Prayer” exemplified this approach. Haruoka-­sensei told me that she wanted to have the students think about a topic for study that they personally found worthwhile. In the ini­ tial lesson on “The Prayer,” she explained that she wanted the students to plan the study they wanted to do individually. She gave some possible

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examples—­students could annotate the text (kakikomi) or write a con­ tinuation of the story. The students spent the next few lessons working individually on their chosen topics, after which four lessons were spent allowing each student to present their work orally before the whole class. Haruoka-­sensei’s approach during this unit emphasized independent individual study but did not neglect the class group, showing the same concern to develop individuals within a group context that informed her approach as class teacher of 1-­5. The presentations were learning experi­ ences not only for the individual presenters but also for others in the class. Moreover, in the next unit she had students work in small groups rather than individually, to help them learn to get along well together. She also changed to a more teacher-­structured approach because of her dissatis­ faction with the level of students’ work; she felt that most students were not yet able to make and execute independent study plans. “The able stu­ dents could do it,” she told me, “but the others just played about. So I felt I had to do very well-­planned lessons before they would be ready for that kind of thing.” However, Haruoka-­sensei did not abandon her stress on independent work. In her lessons on the final story in the first-year textbook, for ex­ ample, she divided the study into two parts: “basic study,” in which stu­ dents had to look up word meanings and make summaries, and “personal study” ( jibun-­nari no gakushū), in which students decided on their own study topic. Aoki-­sensei, the 1996–­1997 Tachibana vice-­principal, was originally a teacher of Japanese and had taught for ten years at the national junior high school attached to the education department of the nearby national university. The role of such laboratory schools is to pioneer innovation, and assignment there indicates that a teacher is well regarded. Haruoka-­ sensei told me that Aoki-­sensei was a well-­known teacher of Japanese within the prefecture, and that she respected him greatly. According to Aoki-­sensei, Japanese was fundamentally about teaching students how to express themselves. He told me that he wanted the students to look at the cats’ feelings in “The Prayer” and the language through which they were expressed. After giving the students some examples  of  points in the text where the cats’ feelings toward the fishmonger were shown, he had them spend the best part of three lessons working individually on text anno­ tation, focusing on two issues: “Whose feelings or character can we under­ stand from this part?” and “What kind of feelings or character are they?” After this, Aoki-­sensei divided the class into three groups, each of which

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was to plan and practice a choral reading of the entire story. This required them to discuss how to read different parts. Aoki-­sensei gave each group sheets of paper on which to write parts of the text where they thought feel­ ings were particularly well expressed, and told the groups to be sure they could explain why they had chosen these parts. Two groups then went to other classrooms to discuss and plan, while the third stayed in their own classroom. Aoki-­sensei told me that though using separate rooms was un­ usual because of lack of space and concerns about discipline, it allowed the final group presentations to be more of a surprise for those in other groups. Unfortunately, the students’ work left Aoki-­sensei dissatisfied. Though three lessons were spent planning and practicing, the quality of work was variable. The girls in each group usually worked hard, but most of the boys gave the task little attention, talking and joking in seats positioned well away from the chairperson. The exception was a studious boy who chaired one group with an enthusiasm that contrasted with his usually quiet de­ meanor. The three groups’ final presentations were not very expressive. Reflecting, Aoki-­sensei suggested that the problem with language and lit­ erature education in Japan was that the students felt that the problems they were tackling were not their own, but given by others. Aoki-­sensei was more directive than Haruoka-­sensei, deciding the basic topic and the students’ activities. However, the group planning activities allowed students considerable freedom. As in Haruoka-­sensei’s classes, there was a balance between individual work and cooperative work, devel­ oping students’ abilities in both ways. The third first-­year Japanese teacher, Morita-­sensei, also used individ­ ual project work when teaching “The Prayer.” He began by playing a tape of the story to the students, and then told them to write their first impres­ sions and decide on a text-­related topic they would like to tackle. Students spent two lessons working on their own projects, which ranged from writ­ ing about the characters to writing a continuation of the story, or, in some cases, copying out and illustrating it.16 However, Morita-­sensei did not display great enthusiasm for having students plan and work on their own projects, and in later textbook units, he used a whole-­class teaching style based around asking the students relatively simple comprehension ques­ tions on the text. Despite the Ministry of Education’s exhortations about emphasizing composition, none of the three teachers did so. Although the textbook stipulated six compositions of various kinds over the course of the first year, Tachibana students only wrote two in 1996–­1997: one was a book

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review, written as homework over the summer vacation, while the other was a two-­minute speech about reading (which in many cases also turned into a book review). Nor were compositions set as homework, other than during the summer vacation. Teachers’ common explanation was that it was difficult to find lesson time for students to write compositions, but it was hard not to feel that time would have been found, either in lessons or outside, if composition practice had been considered important enough. Haruoka-­sensei herself admitted that teachers’ consciousness of the need to have students write was weak. As a result, students had few opportuni­ ties to develop the ability to express their ideas, feelings, or imagination in writing.

Japanese Lessons in 2007: Retreat from Change? In 2007, I observed Japanese lessons in all three years at both Tachibana and Yoneda, in order to gain a broader picture of teachers’ approaches than had been possible in 1996–­1997. I also interviewed six of the seven teachers observed about their emphases when teaching the subject. Their responses varied widely, but placed only limited emphasis on developing students’ abilities to think for themselves and express their own ideas. Teachers who did emphasize this included Koyama-­sensei at Tachibana, who explicitly said that she stressed “drawing out and communicating one’s own thoughts and feelings.” Her colleague Takase-­sensei also told me that he wanted to encourage students to think and exchange their ideas: “One goal is what is called PISA-­type reading ability—­I would say that involves taking in in­ formation, sorting it out in your mind, having your own thoughts about it, and working out how to communicate them to someone else . . . The focus of study always lies in what the children think . . . As they communicate and exchange ideas while studying, . . . their awareness will broaden.”17 Though several teachers mentioned the importance of writing, most added that in practice, expressive skills such as speaking and writing tended to be neglected—­just as teachers had remarked a decade earlier. Other teachers had different priorities, such as to develop daily life skills and habits or to help students to appreciate classical Japanese texts. Shirakawa-­sensei at Yoneda told me that she tended to focus on content that was more difficult for students, including classical Japanese texts and expository texts, and directed her attention especially to “basics” (kiso) and lower level students. Enomoto-­sensei, an experienced, skilled,

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and humorous teacher at Tachibana, also said that she felt that classical Japanese texts were extremely important: for her they represented “the identity [aidentitii] of the Japanese,” their “foundation” [ yoridokoro], and provided much that students could learn from, in terms of depth and quality of writing. Meanwhile, Mori-­sensei at Yoneda saw “the ability to read and understand” as the most practical and important thing that his subject could give students as they went into society. Focus on developing students’ individuality and ability to think, learn, and express ideas for themselves thus tended to be outweighed by concerns that students learn to get to grips with classical texts and develop basic skills and attitudes that teachers thought of as useful for their future lives. Although in 2007 my opportunities to watch lessons on modern fiction were fewer than in 1996–­1997, there was evidence of teachers attempting to encourage individual interpretation and class discussion when they taught such texts, as there had been a decade earlier.18 However, success contin­ ued to be elusive. Teaching “A Midsummer Gift” at Yoneda, young teacher Wakabayashi-­sensei gave one second-­year class nearly fifteen minutes to write their individual responses to the story, followed by eight minutes to discuss the story in small groups. Unfortunately, discussion proved limited; as a result, when teaching the same lesson to another class, Wakabayashi-­ sensei changed her approach, having students write individually and then selecting some to read out what they had written to the class, as volunteers were not forthcoming. Other teachers simply gave students a little time to make their own individual responses to the story, usually in writing, with­ out attempting to follow this with discussion. As noted earlier, the 2007–­2008 textbooks for Japanese contained many more units on writing and on speaking and listening than their predeces­ sors a decade before, providing scope to develop students’ abilities in imaginative expression or the articulation of ideas. However, in practice, teachers tended to skip these units. Both Koyama-­sensei at Tachibana and Wakabayashi-­sensei at Yoneda told me that they considered such skills im­ portant. However, for Koyama-­sensei, lack of time was a problem, while for Wakabayashi-­sensei, these units were “hard to teach and easy to skip.” For Enomoto-­sensei at Tachibana, a unit about writing a report was “too much bother” (mendōkusai), while a group discussion unit “tired you out,” so she skipped both, although she did have students write a “letter to God” (kamisama) as an imaginative take on a letter-­writing unit. Shirakawa-­ sensei at Yoneda also said that she tended to skip sections of the textbook relating to writing, speaking and listening. In fact, several such sections

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were skipped by teachers at both Tachibana and Yoneda while I was there, although, on the other hand, Koyama-­sensei at Tachibana also set her stu­ dents a writing task that was not included in the textbook. Meanwhile, the genuine difficulties involved in teaching a unit focused on speaking and listening skills were shown when third-­year Tachibana teacher Takase-­ sensei taught a “panel discussion” unit. Many students seemed reluctant to participate seriously: several girls spoke almost inaudibly, while a number of boys fooled around in their role as panel discussants. Having students take an active, independent role in learning was clearly not easy to achieve. In contrast, teachers often seemed much more successful when they adopted less ambitious, more teacher-­directed approaches. Such lessons could often be highly engaging when the teacher was skilled. Enomoto-­ sensei and Shirakawa-­sensei both had excellent rapport with the students; they  taught  well-­paced lessons, used well-­chosen questions to help students engage with and understand the texts, and were skilled at pithy explana­ tion and illustration. Koyama-­sensei encouraged student interaction and learning from others. When teaching classical Japanese texts, she had stu­ dents work in pairs to read through the text together; when teaching nonfic­ tion, she had students first analyze the text themselves and then exchange ideas; and she also read out one piece of excellent student written work to the whole class. Her lessons were well paced and involved students very successfully. Why did teachers of  Japanese at Tachibana and Yoneda encounter such difficulty when they tried to engage students in independently planned study and discussion? This seems particularly strange given that children often arrive at junior high school well used to this form of study from their elementary school days (Cave 2007, 96–­107). There were several likely rea­ sons. First, it was not easy for junior high teachers to establish the kind of comfortable rapport with students that would encourage speaking out, because they spent many fewer hours a week with them than did elemen­ tary teachers. Whereas elementary teachers could work toward a class­ room atmosphere that continued through all subjects in the school day, an individual teacher at junior high had much less power in this regard. Junior high teachers also had a much shallower knowledge of each indi­ vidual student. Second, as teachers of other subjects rarely encouraged independent study or student discussion, these modes were replaced as the school norm by teacher-­centered and teacher-­directed lessons. Third, teachers of Japanese at Tachibana and Yoneda had less time to spend on each textbook unit than did their elementary school counterparts.19 There

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was less time for students to pursue in-­depth exploration of a text or ex­ change ideas, and teachers often seemed to feel pressure to complete a unit and move on. A fourth reason was probably the impact on students of increasing adolescent self-­consciousness and the relative insecurity they may have felt as they entered a new, unfamiliar institution and the chal­ lenge of establishing themselves in a new group. Finally, it was difficult for junior high teachers to become skilled at encouraging independent study and discussion, not least because of the obstacles mentioned above, and because the relative rarity of this style of teaching at junior high pro­ vides fewer examples to learn from. A vicious circle was at work, whereby teachers lacked skills due to lack of practice, and lack of practice meant these skills remained underdeveloped. While teachers in 2007 often found it difficult to engage students in dis­ cussion and tended to neglect the development of writing skills, they were keen on memorization and copying. Memorization was mainly favored as a way of getting students to engage with classical Japanese texts. Students were encouraged to learn texts by heart and were given grades according to how much they could recite. According to teachers, some students greatly enjoyed this, and it helped them appreciate the rhythm of texts. Mean­ while, Enomoto-­sensei had her students spend three lessons copying from the textbook an extract from Natsume Sōseki’s classic novel Botchan, and two further lessons studying it. This text was not in the main body of the textbook, only in an appendix, and the teacher’s manual allocated no lesson time at all to study it, so Enomoto-­sensei’s decision showed her readiness to exercise pedagogic autonomy. She told me that copying the text was valuable in two ways: first, it ensured the students actually read the text, which was important as the textbook offered very few opportunities to read such Meiji era writings; and second, it developed their concentration and perseverance. These were clearly higher priorities for Enomoto-­sensei than the qualities students might have gained through the discussion and writing exercises that she skipped. Teachers’ actions were thus far from completely determined by either the curriculum or their textbooks, which they could and did use with con­ siderable freedom. However, it is also often claimed that teachers are con­ strained by high school entrance examinations (Fukuzawa 1994, 64; Bjork 2009, 36). Were these exams the true determinants of the teaching style for Japanese language at Tachibana and Yoneda? The evidence suggests not. The teachers made little or no reference to the entrance exams when explaining their teaching approaches, and their teaching practices were

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hard to explain in terms of exam preparation. In the prefecture in which Sakura was located, a composition of 100–­140 characters accounted for 20 percent of the marks in the Japanese exam during the whole period of this study.20 Teachers could therefore have been expected to focus more on writing than they did, had they been as strongly influenced by the en­ trance exam as is often claimed. Other practices, such as memorization and recital of  classical texts, choral reading, or copying a text like Botchan, were also of dubious use as exam preparation, given that most marks were given for understanding unseen texts. Certainly, teachers’ practices were not completely unrelated to the high school entrance exams any more than they were completely unrelated to the curriculum or the textbooks, but there was no simple causal relationship. As described above, interviews showed that teachers of  Japanese gener­ ally thought carefully about what and how they taught, and lesson observa­ tions indicated that this was related to significant variations between their practices. At the same time, certain trends were clear, most notably, the difficulties teachers faced when they tried to introduce more discussion and independent learning and their tendency to neglect student writing. I have already suggested reasons for the former. Why did teachers spend so little time on writing, despite its significant place in the curriculum, the textbooks, and the high school entrance exam? This is a difficult question to answer, because while teachers themselves admitted that writing tended to be neglected, they offered no explanation—­that was just the way things were. This in itself can contribute to an explanation, for in the absence of strong incentives to change, existing practice has considerable power to induce imitation (as discussed in chapter 6). Moreover, teachers were less likely to feel keenly the value of writing, given that their own education had probably not stressed this. Broader observation of the junior high context, along with teacher inter­ views and comments, suggest further reasons for the neglect of writing. One was the many demands on teachers’ time. As explained in chapter 3, the role of a teacher went far beyond teaching the academic curriculum, which was only one part of their job of guiding students and helping to equip them for the challenges of life. The demands of nonacademic guidance drained teach­ ers’ time and energy away from subject teaching. Marking and correcting student compositions was particularly time-­consuming, as pithily observed by Enomoto-­sensei, who commented that it “tires you out.” A second reason not to emphasize writing may have been because of its potential to highlight differences in student performance. After Koyama-­sensei set her students

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an interesting composition exercise at Tachibana, I commented that some students were likely to complete it much better than others. Koyama-­sensei took this as a criticism—­though it was not so intended—­and was apologetic rather than resigned about what she accepted was likely to be differential student performance. As Aspinall (2006, 272–­73) has pointed out, exercises that draw attention to such differences can be seen as problematic by teach­ ers in Japan because they threaten the concept of a unified and equal class community. Indeed, teaching that risks highlighting differential proficiency may even be seen as discriminatory (Kariya 2013, 56–­ 76). Composition is certainly likely to result in differential performance. Some teachers may also see it as a relatively advanced skill that can safely be left to high school, and as beyond what many see as their central mission of inculcating “the basics.” Though teachers of Japanese provided some opportunities for ad­ ditional, more challenging tasks for able students, I also observed more than one lesson where some children finished their work quickly and then had nothing to do for ten minutes or more. Though such situations did not seem to worry the teachers concerned, they meant fewer opportunities for chil­ dren to develop their individual talents, an issue central to the educational reform agenda.

Conclusion Curricular reform provided teachers of Japanese with opportunities to allow students to express their own ideas and to be creative. These cur­ ricular changes were also reflected to some extent in school textbooks and high school entrance exams. However, teachers often preferred to focus on other priorities. Some did actively seek to promote self-­expression and autonomous learning, though they were careful to combine this with ac­ tivities that encouraged learning from others. However, they often found that students were unresponsive and the results were disappointing, and this sometimes caused them to revert to more conventional teaching ap­ proaches. Other teachers did not see student expression or autonomous learning as priorities, preferring instead to focus on developing what they saw as more basic and important skills, such as reading expository or clas­ sical Japanese texts or helping students develop their concentration and perseverance. Speaking and writing were activities that were especially neglected, despite specific and repeated guidance to the contrary from the Ministry of Education.

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Teachers’ tendencies to be lukewarm about student autonomy and initiative paralleled the choice of reading selections in the Japanese text­ books. These were dominated by stories stressing interdependence and interrelationship of humans with one another and with nature, and rarely featured protagonists who acted with independent initiative to solve prob­ lems. Thus, there was limited emphasis on individual autonomy, initia­ tive, or expression, whether in reading texts or in learning activities. More stress was placed on perseverance, basic skills, and relationships. Japanese provided more scope than most other subjects for autono­ mous learning and individuality, given that there was less curricular con­ tent to cover. Not surprisingly, therefore, teachers of other subjects dis­ played even greater skepticism toward the goals of educational reform as they affected teaching and learning. This coolness resulted partly from a view that these goals were difficult if not impossible to achieve without more time and better teaching conditions (such as smaller class sizes). However, as if not more fundamental was teachers’ view that their primary mission at junior high school was to ensure the basics in both academic and nonacademic terms for as many students as possible. The issues of teacher busyness, focus on the basics, and tendency to neglect provision of more challenging learning opportunities were also to be highly significant for the fate experienced at Tachibana and Yoneda by the most far-­reaching part of the curricular reforms, the introduction of integrated studies and elective subjects.

chapter six

The Challenges and Trials of Curricular Change

T

he publication of the 1998 national curriculum presented Japan’s ju­ nior high schools with the biggest pedagogic challenge they had faced since the introduction of a compulsory national curriculum in 1958, as well as the biggest challenge that teachers had faced during their careers. Previous curriculum revisions had been relatively limited, usually confined to either slimming down curriculum content or introducing a small num­ ber of hours for elective subjects. Even the 1989 curriculum revision, though it introduced a new emphasis on students’ own interests and moti­ vation, had made only limited changes to curriculum content. The 1998 re­ vision, however, went much further, introducing the entirely new domain of integrated studies (sōgō-­teki na gakushū) and expanding the number of hours for elective subjects dramatically. The purpose of the revision was to give students more freedom to learn and think for themselves and either develop their particular strengths or spend more time on in-­depth study of areas where they were weak, in line with the reform agenda’s focus on individuality and the development of independent thinking. As described in chapter 1, the new curriculum was strongly criticized, and these criticisms were given extra force in 2004, when international PISA test results suggested that the academic attainment of Japanese stu­ dents was slipping in international comparisons. The Ministry of Educa­ tion and Science1 responded by reemphasizing basic academic attainment and encouraging teaching of core subjects in smaller classes grouped ac­ cording to academic proficiency. Funding was made available to provide extra teachers for this purpose. This chapter examines the implementation of integrated studies, electives, and small-­group teaching at Tachibana and

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Yoneda and considers how these schools compared with others locally, re­ gionally, and nationally. As will be seen, teachers at the two schools were often far from enthusiastic about integrated studies and the expansion of electives, and the implementation of these measures at school level met with limited success at best. I argue that the difficulties resulted from the clash between the demands made by the new programs and institutional­ ized beliefs and practices at school level. There was not enough aware­ ness that the new demands would be difficult to fulfill without significantly changing teachers’ existing institutionalized practices. There was also too little attention paid to building teachers’ capacities and freeing resources to meet the new challenges. As in the case of the Tachibana field trip (discussed in chapter 2), teach­ers reinterpreted and reshaped the new curriculum to fit their own priorities—­namely, the development of students’ abilities to interrelate and the reinforcement of basic academic attainment. In this context, “thinking and learning for oneself” became refocused largely on social relationships and human development; often, it meant thinking about how one should relate to others or one’s future path after graduation, which were long-­ standing concerns of junior high school teachers for their students. This reinterpretation of the curriculum seemed to satisfy many teachers. How­ ever, it was questionable how far the resulting programs and classes real­ ized the intent of the curriculum to encourage autonomous thinking and learning.

Junior High Curricular Reform in 1998: Aims and Major Features The revision of the junior high curriculum in 1998 had three major fea­ tures. The first was the introduction of integrated studies. This was a groundbreaking innovation for several reasons. Whereas most of the cur­ riculum consisted of traditional academic subjects taught by specialist sub­ ject teachers, integrated studies was intended to be interdisciplinary; it was not subject-­based. As there were no dedicated integrated studies teachers, all were expected to work together to teach this new program. The cur­ riculum specifications also gave schools considerable freedom to decide how to teach integrated studies, in marked contrast to academic subjects. Just one page of the 1998 curriculum was devoted to integrated studies, compared to nine pages for mathematics, fifteen for science, and nineteen

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for social studies (Monbushō 1998). This was particularly significant, given long-­standing criticisms that excessive central control of Japanese educa­ tion allowed teachers too little freedom (Horio 1988; Nagano 1992; In­ agaki and Satō 1996, 169–­73). Schools were specifically encouraged to tailor integrated studies to their own children and the characteristics of their local area. As it was a curricular “domain” (ryōiki) and not a “sub­ ject” (kyōka) like Japanese, mathematics, English, music, art, and so on, it had no textbooks (in Japanese, the word for textbooks literally means “subject books”—­kyōkasho). Integrated studies was innovative because it was free from the constraints that traditional assessment imposed on learning. There were to be no tests and no grades given on students’ report cards, nor was it to be included in high school entrance exams. The new program was also important because of the hours it took up— ­on average, between two and three hours a week in the first and second year of junior high, and between two and four hours a week in the third year (7 to 14 percent of the minimum twenty-­eight hours per week).2 The 1998 curriculum stated two aims for integrated studies. The first was “to develop [children’s] abilities in the areas of identifying key ques­ tions, learning and thinking by oneself, judging autonomously, and becom­ ing better at problem-­solving,” and the second was “to have children learn how to learn and how to think, to develop [in them] an attitude that tackles problem-­solving and exploratory activities autonomously and creatively, and to enable them to think about their own ways of living.” In response to concerns about falling academic attainment, a third aim was added in December 2003: “to interconnect and integrate the knowledge and skills acquired in other curricular areas and subjects, making use of them in study and in life” (Monbushō 1998, 3–­4). The first two aims especially em­ phasized the ability to learn and think for oneself that was central to the reform agenda. The curriculum also stated points that schools must consider when teach­ ing integrated studies. Experiential and problem-­solving study should be incorporated: examples included experience of nature, volunteering, obser­ vational study, experiments, surveys, presentations and debates, and making things. Schools should employ various modes of study, such as group work and mixed-­age activities, and should exploit the study resources of the local area (chiiki) in cooperation with local people (Monbushō 1998, 3–­4). It was thus clearly emphasized that learning during integrated studies should not be the kind of individuated, classroom-­bound study that was seen as char­ acteristic of junior high schools. The new program was meant to encourage

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autonomous and exploratory thinking by getting away from the kind of in­ dividuated, self-­reliant study and assessment that had dominated junior high schools hitherto. Students were to think for themselves while working with others. The implication was that the encouragement of individuality and au­ tonomy would take place in a context of dialogue and cooperation, rather than individuation and self-­reliance. The second major feature of the 1998 junior high curriculum reform was the expansion of hours for elective subjects. Time for elective subjects had been introduced in the 1989 curriculum, but it could also be used to provide extra hours in selected regular subjects.3 The 1998 curriculum extended that time and obliged schools to use it for electives. Hours rose to between 1.5 and 2.5 hours per week for second-­year students, and be­ tween as much as 3 to 4.7 hours a week for third years. In practice, schools could choose whether to spend a certain number of hours a week either on electives or on integrated studies (see table 2).4 Like the introduction of integrated studies, the expansion of electives was intended to allow schools to adapt to their students’ diverse needs (Monbushō 1998, 2–­3; Monbushō 1999, 41–­49). By giving students more choice about what to study, it theoretically enabled them to do extra work either to develop their strengths or to remedy their weaknesses. Thus, like the introduction of integrated studies, this reform encouraged autonomous learning and individuality. The final major feature of the 1998 curriculum reform, the reduction of hours for traditional subjects, was a corollary of the introduction of integrated studies, the expansion of electives, and the introduction of a five-­day school week and final abolition of Saturday schooling.5 Subject time was reduced by between 8 and 34 percent, with practical subjects such as art, music, and technology / home economics being the biggest los­ ers (see table 3). The overall thrust of the 1998 reform was thus to move away from tra­ ditional forms of study toward new styles of learning that were intended

table 2  Annual curriculum hours for electives and integrated studies, 2002–­2012.

Year

Electives

Either electives or integrated studies

Integrated studies

First Second Third

0 50 105

30 35 60

70 70 70

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table 3  Comparison of junior high subject hours in the 1989 and 1998 curricula. Subject

1989 Curriculum

1998 Curriculum

Change, in hours (%)

Japanese Mathematics English Science Social studies Music Art Technology and home economics Health and physical education

455 385 315–­420 315–­350 350–­385 140–­175 140–­175 210–­245

350 315 315 290 295 115 115 175

−105 (23%) −70 (18%) −0–­105 (0–­25%) −25–­60 (8–­17%) −55–­90 (16–­23%) −25–­60 (18–­34%) −25–­60 (18–­34%) −35–­70 (17–­29%)

315–­350

270

−45–­80 (14–­23%)

to foster the independent learners and self-­starting problem-­solvers that the 1996 Chūkyōshin report had seen as vital for Japan’s future in the twenty-­first century. The reform had the potential to encourage autono­ mous thinking in tandem with cooperative working—­a significant depar­ ture from the dominant model of learning at junior high schools, which positioned students as individuated learners who were expected to be self-­reliant, but gave them very little autonomy to decide what or how they would learn. The task for schools was now to prepare for this challenge.

Preparing for 2002 There was a preparatory interval of three years between the publication of the revised national curriculum in December 1998 and its implementation in April 2002—­a normal span when the curriculum is revised in Japan. Many schools implemented pilot integrated studies programs. I made one-­ day visits to three such schools in June and July 2000, observing integrated studies lessons at two. All three programs centered on project study. At Akindo Junior High School, students were divided into small groups according to their chosen project theme. Most focused on the history, en­ vironment, or culture of the locality or prefecture. Students from all three years studied together, so that the older could help the younger. The first term centered on planning and investigation of the topic; students then continued to gather materials during summer vacation, before preparing project presentations in the second term. Limited school facilities caused problems: at that point, only six of the school’s computers were connected

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to the Internet, while the school library was too small for many students to use at one time. At Horiuchi Junior High School, first-­year students chose projects within six broad themes, decided on the basis of teachers’ interests and expertise. Second-­year students worked in small groups, while third years mainly did individual projects. Problems with facilities resembled those at Akindo. Observations at the two schools indicated that despite some interest­ ing and original project work, many students simply collected facts with­ out progressing to interpretation or analysis. Already, at the pilot stage, this suggested the need for guidance and stimulation from teachers, de­ spite the risk of undermining the aim of having students discover their own problems to tackle. Schools drew on both internal and external resources in their prepara­ tion. They could learn from other schools, especially university-­attached laboratory (national) schools, many of which had been conducting in­ tegrated studies programs for years before its curricular introduction.6 Many laboratory schools published books or articles describing their inte­ grated studies programs in detail.7 Teachers could also visit open lessons at laboratory schools and other schools designated for research into inte­ grated studies (shitei-­kō), such as Shukuba, the smallest of Sakura’s junior high schools. The teacher in charge of integrated studies at Tachibana in 2007, Kita-­sensei, told me that he had prepared both by reading books and by visiting pioneering schools in several prefectures. I myself attended an open day devoted to integrated studies at the national junior high school at­ tached to Chiba University in June 2000. The number of participants prob­ ably reached five hundred, with some teachers having traveled two hours or more by bullet train. There were open lessons, a presentation on the school’s program, and a ninety-­minute symposium. The education center of the prefecture in which Sakura is located also organized professional development activities focused on integrated stud­ ies. The main activity was a one-­day course, held twice a year in 1998 and 1999, four times in 2000, and three times a year from 2001 onward. Par­ ticipation was voluntary, and fewer than 250 participants from junior high schools attended between 1998 and 2001—­not a high number given the challenges posed by the new program. In addition, mandatory professio­ nal development courses for teachers with 10 years’ service included half a day on integrated studies, and newly hired teachers also learned about the program as part of their probationary professional development train­

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ing, which included observation of open lessons. Newly appointed school principals, vice-­principals, and heads of administration (kyōmu shunin) received lectures about integrated studies for between 90 minutes and 4 hours. For most teachers, however, professional development took place in schools. Ongoing professional development (kōnai kenkyū or kenshū) is a normal feature of Japanese junior high schools and generally centers on the planning, observation, and discussion of open lessons (kenkyū jugyō—­ literally, “research lessons”) (Shimahara 2002, 112–­14). The 2000–­2001 Tachibana research bulletin illustrated the school’ s preparations.8 Four teachers were given responsibility for the development of the new pro­ gram. Meeting weekly to discuss and plan, they researched ways to imple­ ment integrated studies. In the fall term, the school ran a pilot program, as had Akindo and Horiuchi. Opportunities to learn about integrated studies outside schools were thus largely voluntary and seem to have been taken up only by a minority of teachers, many of whom were probably responsible for leading the new program in their schools.9 For the vast majority, learning about integrated studies took place largely through in-­school professional development. Mori-­sensei, in charge of integrated studies at Yoneda in 2007, felt that many teachers lacked sufficient training and had trouble grasping the new program: It’s okay for teachers like me who have had training, but I think there are lots of teachers who are all at sea with integrated studies and can’t make head or tail of it. Their reaction is, “What is all this?”

Mori-­sensei believed that many schools were poorly prepared and so re­ sorted to inadequately considered copycat programs: I was very well prepared, having heard what was coming and reading books about it while at the Board of Education, and then going to Shukuba [the small “designated school” for integrated studies research in Sakura] . . . so I was able to be abreast of the current. But other schools never managed that. So they would say, well, for now [toriaezu] let’s have students do local research, for now let’s have students study about understanding people with disabilities, and in the end every school was like that—­“for now, for now.” And they looked at what Shukuba had done as a pioneer and copied it. So the Shukuba style be­ came the style of all the schools in Sakura.

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Contrary to the common image of public education in Japan, prepara­ tion for the implementation of integrated studies was not subject to heavy central direction but was largely left to schools to develop, with reference to exemplary programs at laboratory and “designated” schools. This ap­ proach was in the spirit of the educational reform and had much to com­ mend it, at least in theory. At any rate, excessive direction or control from the center was not an issue; the results of the programs were in the hands of schools.

Integrated Studies In the fall of 2002, I made one-­day visits to both Tachibana and Yoneda, observing integrated studies activities and interviewing the school princi­ pals. On the day I visited Tachibana, first-­and second-­year students were making project presentations. Then principal Andō-­sensei told me that he regarded educational reform as a mistake, repeating the errors of the United States in the 1960s—­a point of view also argued by prolific critic of educational reform Wada Hideki (Wada 2001, 33–­36). According to Andō-­sensei, there was too great a gap between the reform’s lofty ideals and the realities facing schools, the biggest problem being that students were not properly brought up (shitsuke ga dekiteinai) and lacked academic attainment and judgment. As a result, there were lots of disciplinary prob­ lems. Andō-­sensei commented that the problems were less with the elite than with lower-­level students, the main issue being how to maintain a minimum level of education for all children. Such comments recalled the ambivalence toward educational reform at Tachibana between 1996 and 1998 and resembled observations to be made by several teachers inter­ viewed in 2007. At Yoneda, I joined one of many groups of second-­year students leav­ ing the school campus to investigate whether the streets of Sakura were accessible (“barrier-­free”) to all, including those with disabilities. The stu­ dents took conscientious notes and photographs as we walked through the city center. Former Tachibana vice-­principal Aoki-­sensei, now principal of Yoneda, was much more positive than Andō-­sensei about integrated stud­ ies, influenced by his experiences teaching at the prefectural laboratory school, a pioneer of the new program. The two principals personified op­ posing reactions to the curriculum reform. By the time of my 2007 fieldwork, significant changes had been made to the Tachibana program. The two schools’ programs are laid out in tables 4

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table 4  Tachibana integrated studies program, 2007–­2008.

Year

Annual hours (E time/basics time)

First

100 (65/35)

Second

Third

85 (50/35)

130 (95/35)

Main activities Local ecological survey; Japan Alps field trip; welcoming visiting sixth-­ year elementary school students Workplace experience; practice for sports day and choral contest; preparatory study for school trip to Okinawa School trip to Okinawa; guidance on postgraduation pathways; “learning how to live”; “learning how to interact”

table 5  Yoneda integrated studies program, 2007–­2008. Year

Annual hours

Main activities

First

85

Second

85

Third

85

“Let’s Start from Yoneda”: local research projects “Living Together”: visits to local welfare facilities “Let’s Start from Yoneda”: preparatory study for school trip to Tokyo “Finding Oneself” ( jibunsagashi): workplace experience “Let’s Start from Yoneda”: school trip to Tokyo “Finding Oneself”: thinking about postgraduation pathways “Living Together”: studying universal design

and 5. The most striking difference was the division of integrated studies at Tachibana into two parts: “E-­Time” (“E” standing for “explore, ex­ press, exchange”) and “Basics (kiso) Time.” The latter, newly introduced that year and discussed below, had no counterpart at Yoneda. Superficially, at least, Yoneda seemed to treat integrated studies more seriously than Tachibana. The smaller school had a well-­prepared and co­ herent program, clearly related to the national curriculum. In contrast, my overwhelming impression was that integrated studies was a problem for teachers at Tachibana. Some activities there were only tenuously related to the curriculum, and others not at all. However, deeper examination re­ vealed resemblances between the two schools’ approaches. Three motifs

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were particularly striking. Both schools stressed experiences outside the school, in the local community or the natural environment. Both also stressed learning related to social, emotional, and moral development, fo­cused on human relationships. In contrast, both placed less emphasis on developing autonomous thinking and learning, despite the central place of this aim in the curriculum. In short, social development was prioritized over the development of individual autonomy.

Integrated Studies at Tachibana At Tachibana, first-­year integrated studies in the second term was used entirely for the field trip to the Japanese Alps (described in chapter 2). Its aims were human development and behavioral guidance, especially strengthening relationships among students and between students and teachers. As an opportunity for experiences impossible in the classroom, it partially fulfilled the curricular guidance for integrated studies. However, it was unclear to what extent students’ autonomous thinking or problem-­ solving abilities were developed. Students were not engaged in sustained inquiry learning, and cognitively challenging activities were meagre. Fol­ low up at school was also undemanding, consisting of a “newspaper re­ port” by each student of her or his activities and brief reflections on a B4 (9.8 ×13.9 inch) sheet of paper. According to Tachibana’s 2007–­2008 school plan, integrated studies ac­ tivities for the second year involved practicing the Okinawan eisā dance to perform at the sports day; preparation for and participation in the choral contest; and preparatory study for the school trip to Okinawa. All could have been alternatively categorized in curricular terms as “special activi­ ties” (tokubetsu katsudō) (specifically, “school events” or gakkō gyōji). As it turned out, preparatory study for the school trip did not take place until the third term, after the end of my fieldwork. In the third year, 130 hours were allocated to integrated studies, of which 35 were “Basics” time (discussed below). Within the remaining 95 hours, the largest single block of time (29 hours) was used in connection with the third-­year school trip (shūgaku ryokō) to Okinawa, the chain of islands that forms Japan’s southernmost prefecture. As noted by Grimes-­ MacLellan (2008, 26), final-­year school trips are an educational tradition whose history extends back to the late nineteenth century, far predating integrated studies. As the trip involved experiential learning, and poten­

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tially also inquiry learning, using integrated studies time for this purpose made sense. Kita-­sensei, the teacher in charge of integrated studies at Tachibana, pointed out that Okinawa offered excellent opportunities for studying about the Asia-­Pacific War and for peace education;10 moreover, incorporating the school trip into integrated studies allowed students more time for preparatory study and follow-­up work, potentially enhancing the trip as a learning experience. Nonetheless, incorporating existing activities into integrated studies meant less innovation. The remaining sixty-­six hours of third-­year integrated studies time at Tachibana were used for a range of small-­scale activities. Activities dur­ ing the fall term were entitled “Learning How to Live” (ikikata gakushū), bestowing a somewhat superficial coherence on a miscellany of topics. There were eight lessons in all, each taught in rotation to each of the eight third-­year classes. In one, students learned about HIV/AIDS; in another, they completed a psychological test as a way of looking at themselves dur­ ing adolescence (shishunki), “the period of looking for oneself [ jibun-­ sagashi],” in the words of the teacher. Several lessons concerned people with disabilities. During an hour on the topic “Let’s Understand Being 80 Years Old,” students walked around the school wearing equipment that muffled their hearing, dimmed their sight, bent them over, and made walking harder. In another lesson, students prepared music or dance per­ formances for the next integrated studies theme, “Learning to Interact,” during which stu­dents visited facilities for elderly or hearing-­impaired people and performed for them—­what Kita-­sensei called “interaction with people of oth­er ages” (inenrei kōryū). Kita-­sensei pointed out that students would have to think about how to interact with those they visited, as some were fit and healthy, and others infirm. Later activities included guidance on post-­graduation pathways, and finally, four hours of cleaning the school as an expression of gratitude before graduation. As Kita-­sensei admitted, in practice the third-­year integrated stud­ ies program had become a convenient vehicle for worthwhile activities for which teachers had trouble finding time elsewhere. They were re­ lated to the integrated studies curriculum because they used “unconven­ tional” modes of study (especially experiential learning), or focused on either “wel­fare” ( fukushi), a suggested curricular theme, or “thinking about one’s own way of living,” a curricular term of considerable flexibility. Some activities arguably belonged to a different part of the school cur­ riculum (such as moral education or homeroom activities); others, such as guidance on post-­graduation pathways or school cleaning, long predated

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integrated studies. As with the first-­year field trip, concern for students’ social, emotional, and moral development was more evident than a focus on autonomous learning or problem-­solving abilities. However, the most striking feature of integrated studies at Tachibana was “Basics Time” (kiso taimu), which occupied thirty-­five hours (about one hour per week), and during which students were given worksheets with which to revise material previously studied, from subtraction, Japanese his­ tory, or Chinese characters (kanji) to classical Japanese texts. There was no differentiation according to proficiency; the same worksheets were used by all students, for many of whom they were clearly very easy. I observed one student complete a sheet of subtraction problems in less than sixty sec­ onds. “Basics Time” was a new introduction that revealed teachers’ di­vided feelings about curricular reform and, more fundamentally, about the pur­ pose of junior high school. Kita-­sensei disclaimed it, and first-­year teacher Shimoda-­sensei commented that while “Basics Time” was inadequate for students lacking academic fundamentals, it was a waste of time for those possessing them. But for other teachers, “Basics Time” developed solid virtues. Second-­ year Japanese teacher Inoue-­ sensei remarked approv­ ingly to me that students really concentrated while doing the worksheets. Kawamura-­sensei, who was in charge of “Basics Time,” explained its incep­ tion in terms that revealed the hostility of some Tachibana teachers to in­ tegrated studies. Although it was a wonderful idea to have students decide their own study topics, he said, in reality teachers hadn’t sufficient prepa­ ration time to enable such lofty goals to be achieved, and the result had been disorder and chaos, with students escaping from their class­rooms. The fact was, he continued, that there were quite a few students who hadn’t learned the fundamentals at elementary school, and so “Basics Time” was conceived as a way to help them. According to Kawamura-­sensei, such stu­ dents felt good because they were doing things that they could manage, and it helped them acquire the “habit of sitting at their desk.” However, he recognized that “Basics Time” was poorly suited to students who wanted more of a challenge. As these comments show, “Basics Time” was appreciated by some teachers for instilling conventional study attitudes and habits of a kind long valued in Japanese secondary schools (Rohlen 1983, 246–­47); more­ over, it helped maintain teacher control, with students “sitting at their desks” instead of threatening to undermine that control, as project-­style integrated studies was perceived to do. The paradox was that integrated studies had been introduced with the precise intent of developing different

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abilities from those traditionally valued. Rather than doing problem solv­ ing or independent, exploratory study in order to develop their individual strengths and interests, during “Basics Time” students were revising ba­ sic knowledge and understanding, with no opportunity for individuals to pursue self-­determined studies. “Basics Time” thus represented a decisive rejection of the aims of integrated studies and of curricular reform more generally; that it was taking place under the integrated studies banner was deeply ironic.

Integrated Studies at Yoneda As noted above, the integrated studies program at Yoneda was consider­ ably better developed than its Tachibana counterpart and had the poten­ tial to fulfill its curricular aims; however, this potential did not seem to be realized in practice. Despite superficial contrasts with Tachibana, at a deeper level there were resemblances in the emphases of the two schools’ programs and the way they were taught. During the fall term, integrated studies for Yoneda first years focused on “welfare,” using the title “Living Together” (tomo ni ikiru). Teachers had created a learning pack, which stated the aim of the unit: Let us understand the respective standpoints of people who are (for example) elderly, visually impaired, deaf, or using a wheelchair, and through knowing their hardships and difficulties, let us think about what we can do and should do, aiming to create a society where we can live together. And, through deep­ ening our understanding of disabled and elderly people, let us learn the im­ portance of understanding and helping one another, recognizing and accepting the individuality and differences of everyone [subete no hito no kosei ya chigai o mitomete].

After an orientation, a moral education lesson about the problems faced by elderly people, and a lecture on understanding disabilities from one of the teachers of the school’s two classes for disabled children, students spent about nine hours preparing for one-­day visits, in small groups, to a variety of facilities for elderly and disabled people in Sakura. This in­ cluded four hours preparing questions, presents, or performances for peo­ ple at the facilities. After the visit, students then spent six hours preparing and giving presentations about their group’s experiences.

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figure 13.  Yoneda students making an integrated studies presentation

The unit’s potential to make students think about important issues seemed to go unfulfilled because of lack of teacher support at crucial points, especially when students were preparing for the visit and for their presenta­ tions later. Teachers could rarely be heard stimulating students’ thinking or encouraging different points of view, even though this could have improved the rather simple and perfunctory questions that many students prepared for their visits. Teachers seemed much more concerned about ensuring good student behavior than stimulating their thinking. One lesson was devoted to a “course in manners” (manā kōza), and much time was spent ensuring that travel and the “polite aspects” of the visits were planned and execut­ed properly. At the final briefing lesson the day before the visits, the head of year emphasized responsibility to the assembled first years: “Keep the rules of society; observe manners; observe etiquette. I want you to take responsibility [ jiko-­sekinin] for your own actions.” Teachers fo­ cused on developing students’ ability to relate to others appropriately and thoughtfully—­their social and emotional skills—­but showed much less interest in challenging them intellectually. Indeed, the preparation

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for the visits strongly resembled those I had observed among fifth-­year children at Morikawa Elementary School in Sakura before they visited a preschool during integrated studies in 2004 (Cave 2007, 198), even though the Yoneda students were two years older. During the fall, second years’ integrated studies focused on workplace experience (shokuba taiken)—­five days in one of a range of local work­ places that included libraries, shops, cultural or sports facilities, a local newspaper, and an electrical goods factory. Workplace experience was another activity that predated integrated studies and had been expanded for the new program; Tachibana students had made one-­day workplace visits in 1997. Manners were once again stressed through a two-­hour talk to the entire second year on the subject by a retired local businessman. The guest speaker, Mr. Itō, emphasized “a cheerful, smiling face” and aisatsu (greetings and other routinized expressions such as expressions of thanks). The students watched a company training video demonstrating the correct posture for bowing (hands in front, one over the other; knees together; feet at a forty-­five-­degree angle), as well as how to make both a normal thirty-­degree bow and a forty-­five-­degree bow for apologies. The video too emphasized aisatsu: they should be done “cheerfully” (akuruku), “always” (itsumo), “without delay” (saki ni) and “continuously” (tsuzukete)—­the first syllables of these four words forming the word aisatsu. Mr. Itō then had pairs of students practice introducing themselves and pointed out shortcomings, such as quiet voices, head bobs instead of correct bows, and inappropriately positioned hands. Mr. Itō’s talk provided another example of social training taking priority over what were the main goals of integrated studies—­autonomous learn­ ing and problem solving. As with the first years, second years showed little enthusiastic engagement with their preparations for the workplace experi­ ence, and stimulus from teachers was rare. Nonetheless, students did com­ plete detailed and well-­produced individual reports after their workplace visits, in the format of a one-­page, A4-­size (8.3 × 11.7 inch) newspaper, and once these were on display, time was provided for students to read them and write evaluations, encouraging mutual learning. Third-­year students spent part of their summer vacation researching high schools and attending open days. The first part of their fall term in­ tegrated studies was used to prepare presentations about this research. This was a new label for yet another old activity—­guidance about post-­ graduation pathways (shinro shidō; see chapter 7)—­which had gone on long before the introduction of integrated studies.

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The third years then focused on “universal design” (or “barrier free” de­ sign),11 as part of the “Living Together” theme. Their learning pack stated the study aim: To have an opportunity to think about the design of towns and homes from the standpoint of various people (the elderly; the physically disabled; children; foreigners), and to think about what makes a livable town and what we can do [to that end].

In an introductory lesson, students watched a video about using universal design to help elderly people in their homes. Next, they visited nearby lo­ cations to investigate the use of universal design, as had their predecessors in 2002. Their preparations included one lesson of Internet research in the school computer room. After the visits, they prepared group presentations. Once again, the learning pack (very similar to the one I had seen in 2002) was more impressive than the engagement of teachers and students. Students often seemed uninterested, and their questions trivial or of mar­ ginal relevance. For example, of the six questions that one group prepared for managers of a housing development they visited, only two related to design; others included, “How many people live in this development?” and “Does your firm use any [cartoon] characters [in its literature and promotion]?” Teachers largely failed to stimulate students’ interest, en­ courage deeper inquiry, or even stop the considerable amounts of off-­task behavior during presentation preparation, as some students (particularly boys) chatted and left most of the work to other group members. In­ deed, students themselves commented disparagingly that people “played about” during integrated studies, one saying that she thought a reduction in study time would be a good thing for that reason.12 Of the elements of the program that I witnessed, the one that seemed to have the most potential to fulfill the curricular aims was a small group project about the prefecture that first-year students started at the end of the fall term. Students decided on a project in one of four areas—­“his­ tory,” “culture,” “nature,” and “daily life” —­and visited two locations for research, including sites of historic, natural, scientific, or cultural interest, and public institutions such as police stations. Some good learning re­ sources were available, including a book on the history of the prefecture. Although the students did not make their research trips until after the end of my fieldwork, they were planning some interesting projects with considerable learning potential, given good teacher support. However, my

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figure 14.  Yoneda students doing research for integrated studies

fieldwork observations suggested that such support could not be taken for granted. Although the integrated studies program at Yoneda was more coher­ ent than its Tachibana equivalent, there were fundamental similarities. In each case, the primary focus was students’ social, emotional, and moral

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development, with cognitive and intellectual development taking a distant second place. The Yoneda students’ welfare facility visits, workplace ex­ perience, and study of universal design all engaged them experiential­ly with the society around them and were strongly focused on moral develop­ ment, with students being encouraged to think about how to live together with and help those with weaknesses and disabilities, and about the at­ titudes and behavior demanded by workplaces. Indeed, the first-­year program explicitly linked the unit on welfare to moral education. The Tachibana field trip, workplace experience, and lessons on learning how to live had a similar focus. Despite the potential for realizing the main intellectual development aims of integrated studies through these pro­ grams, there was scant evidence of this actually being achieved. The fun­ damental reason for this appeared to be lack of teacher engagement and support.

Integrated Studies at Other Local Schools To gain a broader perspective on the implementation of integrated stud­ ies, in 2007 I made one-­day visits to two further junior high schools in Sakura, Horiuchi and Yamagawa. Horiuchi was a small school of about 250 students and just 2 or 3 classes in each year. It was located in a relatively tra­ ditional and affluent district, many of whose families were seen as keen on education. Azuma-­sensei, the head of the first year at Tachibana, had pre­ viously taught at Horiuchi, and told me that in the past, it had been called “the Gakushuin of Sakura,” alluding to the Tokyo school where mem­ bers of aristocratic families were educated before 1945. On previous visits to the school, I had been struck by the high level of student engagement with lessons; students seemed much readier to raise their hands and to ask and answer questions than students at either Tachibana or Yoneda. It thus seemed a promising environment for integrated studies. Azuma-­sensei herself praised the Horiuchi program and the fact that each student had his or her own study theme, pursued through three years at the school. As was explained when I visited, such themes included “nature,” “daily life,” “culture,” “society,” “industry,” and “welfare.” First years researched the locality, second years compared their own prefecture with another, and third years focused on Japan and the world, making use of the school trip to Kyushu. Their topics of study included human rights (bullying and dis­ crimination); post-­graduation pathways and careers (including workplace

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experience); and health and the body (including “saying no to drugs”). I observed first-­year students working in small groups to create wall post­ ers in newspaper format about their visits to traditional artisanal industry workplaces. Second-year students were looking at handouts on the treat­ ment of disabled people, and writing comments in response; the teacher showing me around commented rather uneasily that this was “close to moral education,” suggesting again that activities properly belonging to another part of the curriculum were being relabeled as integrated studies for convenience. As at Yoneda, Horiuchi’s integrated studies program included both ex­ ploratory project work and activities previously dealt with under different curricular banners, though there was more evidence of individual project work than at Yoneda. Though the curricular aims of integrated studies seemed closer to being realized here than at Tachibana or Yoneda, there were still striking limitations. For example, the standardized final project report length of a single piece of paper restricted more extensive writing and thus student individuality. Yamagawa Junior High School also offered a potentially favorable environment for integrated studies. Its roughly three hundred students formed the junior high section of a public six-­year secondary school (chūkō-­ikkankō) established in the early 2000s.13 Students were selected for entry using a composition, a mathematics test, and an interview. The principal of Yamagawa secondary school told me that its special features included “exploratory [tankyū-­gata] study” and “cultivating the ability to think [kangaeru chikara].” There were two lesson hours per week more than the national minimum (one more than at Tachibana and Yoneda), and these were used for studies particular to the school, including explor­ atory science (working with students from local universities), computer presentation skills, and debates. Debate topics became progressively more sophisticated from first year (“Should the school have a choral con­ test or not?”) to third year (“Do you agree with the death penalty?”). Stu­ dents also visited local traditional industries, did workplace experience, and visited local universities for mock classes and interviews with students there; since they all went on to Yamagawa’s high school section, research about pathways to high school was unnecessary. Of the Sakura schools I visited, Yamagawa’s integrated studies pro­ gram seemed closest to fulfilling curricular aims. Yet it was an atypical junior high school whose mission was to provide a distinctive education, unlike that of regular public schools. This begged the question of whether

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only such schools would or could aspire to creating the kind of integrated studies program that seemed to be envisaged in the national curriculum.

Integrated Studies at Elite Private Schools Japan’s most academically successful schools are six-­ year private and national boys’ schools (Kobayashi 2009, 171), a situation that has been maintained since the 1970s (Rohlen 1977). To investigate the implemen­ tation of integrated studies at such elite schools, I made visits in Novem­ ber 2007 to two top Tokyo private high schools, both well-­known for their graduates’ success in entering Tokyo University, Japan’s most prestigious college. At Ikegaoka Gakuen, I was told that private schools interpreted and implemented the national curriculum in a way that suited their needs, an approach known as yomigae (giving an alternative reading). Schools could be teaching something rather different from the curricular specifications, despite reporting to the educational authorities that they were following the curriculum. What Ikegaoka reported as integrated studies for first-­year junior high students was a form of social studies that combined history, geography, and cultural history, and what they reported as integrated stud­ ies for the third year was a subject in which students researched a book or books, wrote a report, and then held debates about their readings. Both these subjects long predated integrated studies at the school. On Saturday mornings, Ikegaoka also ran a special liberal arts pro­ gram for its first and second-­year high school students. After discussing whether to implement the five-­day school week after 2002, teachers finally decided to retain Saturday morning classes, but to introduce a new pro­ gram reflecting the school’s spirit of liberal inquiry. Dating from 2004, this prog­ram had also been compulsory for third-­year  junior high students until 2007. While some of the classes were taught by Ikegaoka teachers, others were taught by alumni or contacts of alumni or teachers. I observed several classes from the program while visiting Ikegaoka. The first was a highly informative and well-­presented lecture about global warming taught by a visiting lecturer from a research institute, the friend of an alumnus who was a university professor. In a second class, students were carving their own calligraphy seals, using chisels and vices. Their art teacher provided books showing how Chinese characters were written in different historical periods, so that the students could carve the seals in

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a consistent style. Finally, I joined a class on the topic of life and death, taught by the school principal, a philosophy teacher whose blackboard notes included views from thinkers ranging from Confucius and the Buddha to Heidegger and Camus. One of the six boys taking the class had pre­pared notes as the starting point for a discussion, during which the students gave their thoughts and ideas quite articulately. At a second elite private school that I visited, Miyamoto Gakuen, what the school reported as first-­and second-­year junior high integrated stud­ ies were summer vacation trips, to the mountains in the first year, and to the sea in the second. In the third year, integrated studies took the form of a second foreign language (with a choice of German, French, Chi­ nese, or Korean). Before the introduction of the new program, this had been taught as an elective, and from 2002, it was made compulsory and a cultural element added, to allow it to come under the integrated studies banner. First-­year high school students at Miyamoto also took integrated studies lessons: almost thirty separate courses were offered, allowing teaching in small groups of fewer than ten students each. The emphasis was on experiential learning, with courses on theater, carpentry, fishing, and agriculture, as well as a summer trip to a remote island. Elite private schools like Ikegaoka and Miyamoto felt relatively little need to conform closely to the national curriculum, though nominally re­ quired to do so, but were nonetheless sufficiently affected to introduce pro­ grams that were in the spirit of integrated studies. It was clear that in doing so, they enjoyed significant advantages over regular public junior high schools. Not only did they benefit from excellent students, and staff who were not subject to being transferred elsewhere, but they were also helped by numerous distinguished alumni and their connections. This allowed them to develop programs that were interesting and stable, confident that their students were able enough to respond well to challenging material. These programs were close to the spirit of the integrated studies curricu­ lum, but again begged the question of whether such programs could only be implemented by exceptional schools.

Integrated Studies in the Kinki Region: Survey Evidence To ascertain how representative Tachibana and Yoneda were in their implementation of integrated studies, in November 2007 I conducted a questionnaire survey of a random sample of 128 junior high schools in the

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table 6  Results of survey of Kinki region schools about integrated studies activities.

Activity Preparatory study for the school trip (shūgaku ryokō) Study relating to students’ postgraduation pathways (shinro) Workplace experience Experiential study of welfare facilities ( fukushi shisetsu) Basic study relating to academic subjects Field trip (shukuhaku kenshū) Debate

Percentage of responding schools including this activity in integrated studies 88% 85% 75% 50% 40% 31% 17%

Kinki region, asking about their implementation of integrated studies and other reforms.14 The results indicated that practices at the Sakura schools were representative of junior high schools in this region. Table 6 shows which activities were most often included in integrated studies. Most pop­ ular were preparatory study for the school trip, study relating to students’ post–­junior high school pathways, and workplace experience. As many as 40 percent (21 out of 52 schools responding) included “basic study [kiso gakushū] related to academic subjects,” which, as at Tachibana, seemed unlikely to fulfill the curricular aims of integrated studies. Interestingly, of the options offered by the survey form, it was “debates” that schools were least likely to include in integrated studies time, even though the curricu­ lum explicitly suggested using debates. Debates were not used at Yoneda or Tachibana either. The evidence available from other qualitative studies of the implemen­ tation of integrated studies, including evidence from elsewhere in Japan, also suggests that Tachibana and Yoneda were broadly representative of public junior high schools in the way they approached this new curricu­ lar area. Bjork’s (2009; 2011) study of schools in Niigata and elsewhere found that junior high teachers were unsure how to teach integrated stud­ ies, unconvinced of its value, and disposed to use integrated studies time for academic teaching where possible. Hamamoto’s (2009) study of three Osaka schools found that they, like Tachibana and Yoneda, used much integrated studies time for workplace experience, careers guidance, and school events such as the school trip, sports day, or field trips, recategoriz­ ing preexisting activities; welfare and human rights were also significant focuses of study.

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Teachers’ Views of Integrated Studies Teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda were generally unenthusiastic about integrated studies. Almost all who responded to a survey I administered in 2007 thought that hours for the program should be reduced; a few thought it should be eliminated altogether.15 Kawamura-­ sensei, the teacher in charge of “Basics Time” at Tachibana, told me that schools had found inte­ grated studies plonked on them and dealing with it had become a burden; specialist integrated studies teachers were needed if the program’s origi­ nal purpose was to be realized. He considered that though the programs of laboratory schools could be learned from, simply trying to copy them made it hard to run an ordinary school because of differences in school size and in the students. Here Kawamura-­sensei was referring to the disciplin­ ary problems sometimes encountered at Tachibana. He felt that integrated studies time would be better used for study of the very basics (kyōka no kiso no kiso), such as reading and writing, which he described as “cross-­ curricular study,” or else for activities such as the cultural festival, which had been discontinued at Tachibana due to lack of time (see chapter 4). In short, from this point of view, integrated studies was a burdensome distrac­ tion from the real mission of a junior high school. Mori-­sensei, the teacher in charge of integrated studies at Yoneda, was somewhat more positive about the new program in principle, but his views of the practical problems of implementation were similarly negative. I’m expecting time for integrated studies to be cut [in the 2008 curriculum revi­ sion] . . . Schools with discipline problems will be happy . . . For schools like that, keeping control of students [seito o kanri suru] is incredibly difficult. In the end, integrated studies has increased the burden on teachers. You’ve got to prepare stuff other than your own subject, and at schools with discipline problems, you have to work out how to maintain control of students—­there are those two issues. Going back to the school of twenty years ago, when there was no integrated studies, is in some respects going back to what a school es­ sentially is. But children get bored just studying, so in a sense, it has a good effect to let them go outside and experience things in integrated studies. To be honest, I’ve been at two schools [since the program was introduced], and the feeling has been that we’ve been doing it because we have to . . . Do I think that children now have acquired abilities because they did integrated studies? Not really . . . Though, I do think maybe they have acquired abilities in expressive

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ability and media literacy—­investigating and putting together reports on vari­ ous things. The kids are really good at using PowerPoint.

After talking about how impressive integrated studies was at Shukuba, the designated school for integrated studies research where he taught be­ fore Yoneda, he went on: I did have doubts. I wondered if doing this kind of thing wasn’t a waste. I always used to say at the time that lessons are a teacher’s lifeblood, that if you didn’t teach lessons properly, then doing this kind of thing was no good. If you pour your effort into these kind of things, then ultimately your ability in your subject will decline.

As noted previously, Mori-­sensei believed that most of Sakura’s junior high schools had imitated Shukuba’s integrated studies program. Though schools were supposed to devise their own distinctive program, he believed that “schools don’t have the time to do that.” He also criticized portfolio assessment, common in integrated studies, as unrealistic, despite acknowl­ edging that he had learned a lot about assessment modes at Shukuba, where there was a room to store and display integrated studies work: Evaluation of integrated studies is hopeless. Even now we are writing messages on students’ work . . . but I don’t think we are doing portfolio assessment now at this school . . . You should really write a comment on a student’s file after every lesson, and when all of those are put together, that’s the evaluation . . . Now we’re not placing great importance on it. It’s on a different piece of paper than children’s school report . . . when parents see it, they don’t pay much attention. It’s like moral education or class activities.

Even so, Mori-­sensei recalled the achievements at Shukuba appreciatively: The kids at Shukuba were interesting, you know. When they did their research presentations, we had debating, with one side arguing in favor of Tokyo, and the other side in favor of this prefecture, and had them pit their views against each other. That was interesting! . . . I think they learned quite a bit through that sort of thing. Here [at Yoneda] they just research things and that’s it. We don’t have them argue against one another . . . The kids five years ago at Shu­ kuba were amazing. One of them researched about this creature that’s found around there, and his presentation about it was amazing. I think that’s what in­ tegrated studies was meant to be. And the children enjoyed it. Now they don’t.

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When asked why such achievements had not spread elsewhere, Mori-­ sensei gave this analysis: Schools don’t have the time, and I don’t think teachers have that level of capac­ ity [chikara]. In the end, it’s the teachers’ capacity. If you want to have inte­ grated studies succeed, you need a huge amount of training. The teachers have to know what to do better than the kids, because the kids come and ask so many things . . . At Shukuba we did a huge amount of training for a year, and then we communicated to the children what we’d learned and did it all together, so the school came together as one, that was the feeling. We were busy, it was tough, but . . . For other schools, it’s not possible. Doing that much training . . . As it happened, Shukuba was designated for that research by the Ministry of Education . . . If you don’t do that much training, I don’t think it’s possible. And in terms of leadership, this guy Kimoto was amazing—­my, he was keen! He was a social studies teacher, and he had traveled the world when young—­he’d been to Ethiopia and camping with the Masai in Kenya and so on . . . So he had those kinds of things as his own experiences. That guy became central and he made all sorts of plans for us. That kind of person who acts as a leader is very important. At other schools, it’s more like, “there’s no way around it,” you get told, “do it.” I think that’s how other schools started off. Shukuba was different, you see; a guy like Kimoto was there, and he had all sorts of information. To be frank, the way things are now, your own subject and class takes all you’ve got; we’ve only just got our heads above water. To add something on top of that . . . and integrated studies is a subject that requires a huge amount of capacity, in a sense, because it’s broader than just studying your own subject. So, to be honest, I think all the schools are doing integrated studies as if from a manual. “Right, first years, this; second years, this. Do it like this.” There’s no creativity [kufū] at all any longer. There’s no time to be creative. It’s manual­ ized. That’s why I think it’s not interesting or fun for the students. Another thing is the environment at Shukuba, compared to here—­the hills are close to the school, so you can go whenever you want, it’s easy to go and investigate bamboo shoots or something, the materials for teaching are right there— ­or you can go to the river. . . . There aren’t many schools where you can do that kind of study. Then, in integrated studies, there’s nothing to teach, is there? With subjects, there are things you have to teach, but there are no such regulations for inte­ grated studies. So if you want to coast, you can coast as much as you like. You say for public consumption that you’re doing it, but in fact, you’re not doing anything. Teachers coast, they give out cookie-­cutter handouts, say, “Right, do this,” and children’s capacities don’t develop [chikara ga tsukanai].

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Money to fund integrated studies activities directly was not the problem: We do have a budget. That much we have. But even if you have money, if you don’t decide what to do with it, it goes to waste. Every year there’s money left over. We have money to pay guest speakers and teachers, activity expenses and so on. We don’t use it at all . . . At Shukuba, there wasn’t enough money for the presentations—­the bill for ink, for chart paper, for stationery, and then we invited one speaker after another, research staff, university professors . . . But if you don’t know how to use the money, it doesn’t matter how much you get.

Mori-­sensei’s revealing comments were representative of the view of in­ tegrated studies that I encountered among many junior high teachers. The key problem that he pinpointed was teachers’ lack of the capacity (chikara) to teach the new program. Capacity involved vision, know-­how, understanding, motivation, and time. For Mori-­sensei, integrated studies was much more demanding of teachers than their own subject. Building up their capacity to teach it demanded considerable time, both for inten­ sive initial training and for continuing training to maintain creativity. The presence of visionary, enthusiastic leaders, like Kimoto at Shukuba, was also important to drive the program and build other teachers’ capacity. Motivation needed to be built because many teachers doubted the value of integrated studies, especially compared to institutionalized priorities like subject teaching, maintaining order, and caring for one’s class. Already with their hands more than full, teachers needed such resources, especially time, to tackle the new challenge well. A penetrating analysis also came from a Tokyo junior high school prin­ cipal, formerly a social studies teacher, whom I interviewed in 2009 about the extent to which local history study materials in textbooks were used in integrated studies: When integrated studies first emerged, we social studies teachers thought that social studies was the kind of subject that would become central to it . . . But when we actually started doing it, it didn’t go in that direction. We thought that we could use the materials in history and geography textbooks fruitfully for re­ searching about the local area in integrated studies, but actually, we’re hardly using them . . . There are teachers of various subjects teaching a particular year group, and even if we form a team and send children to go and research vari­ ous places, it’s only the social studies teachers who know about this textbook

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content, so what we get from other teachers is, “We can’t do that. You social studies teachers do it.” If that happens, the social studies teachers have to take on everything, which we can’t manage . . . So we couldn’t do it as much as we ex­ pected. Another thing was that . . . schools stopped being able to do things that we had done till then— ­excursions, study ahead of the school trip, practice for sports day or choral contest. Those sorts of things, which there had been time for before, disappeared, and . . . we understood the significance of integrated studies, but when we asked ourselves what we should do in terms of content, we changed the aims and the category, but the content, what we were doing, didn’t change—­it was researching where we are going on the school trip, or on an ex­ cursion. In other words, what was originally intended and aimed at in integrated studies didn’t fit together well with the schools themselves [ gakkō genba]. And also, we didn’t reach the point where teachers sufficiently assimilated and un­ derstood the original aims of integrated studies and exerted their abilities to the point of offering ideas. The aims of integrated studies were really wonderful—­ bringing out the ability to think, to present, integrating what one had gained from various subjects—­but the teachers in the schools themselves didn’t un­ derstand them sufficiently and couldn’t create programs. Because they couldn’t create programs, they have been doing what they did before without much change in content, just changing the title and the aims. And one more thing is that the kind of content that was aimed at in integrated studies was prob­ ably good for very able [nōryoku no takai] children, but for children who don’t have basic abilities [kiso-­teki na chikara], teachers thought, “Can they really do that?” And what teachers at the chalk face thought was that there weren’t that many students who could manage that. And in a situation where even if you were to create a program, the children’s level would have to rise that far, many people were critical and took the view that instead, it would be better to take the time to do more basic things.

This analysis had much in common with the views of Mori-­sensei and Kawamura-­sensei. It suggests that many teachers were unable to assimi­ late and accept the aims of integrated studies; they doubted whether many children could achieve these aims; they were unwilling or unable to cross subject boundaries; and they thought time would be better spent teach­ ing the basics. Teachers were either skeptical of the value of encourag­ ing autonomous learning and individuality, or else they felt that they had more important priorities. As a result, integrated studies largely ended up as relabeling existing activities, and the hopes invested in it went mostly unrealized.

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The Implementation of Elective Subjects A second very significant part of the 2002 curriculum reform was the ex­ pansion of hours for elective subjects (sentaku kyōka). As with integrated studies, the purpose was to increase flexibility and freedom for teachers and students. According to the curriculum, schools were to decide on the ap­ propriate content and number of hours for their own students, carrying out “diverse learning activities, such as problem-­based study (kadai gakushū), remedial study (hoju-­teki na gakushū), or advanced study (hatten-­teki na gakushū), in response to the particularities of the students” (Monbushō 1998, 2). Schools were free to offer each elective subject to second-­and third-­year students for up to seventy hours a year (two hours a week), and could choose to offer electives in any existing compulsory subjects, with the proviso that at least two subjects must be offered to third-year students as electives. Potentially, students could study subjects that interested them in greater depth, or spend more time addressing their weaknesses, thus pro­ moting individuality and autonomous learning. However, the potential of electives proved as hard to realize as that of integrated studies. At Tachibana, both second and third years took one hundred five hours of elective subjects during the 2007–­2008 school year—­ three hours per week. In each half of the school year, students would choose one elective from the five academic subjects in the curriculum (Japanese, mathematics, English, science, and social studies), and two from the four practical subjects (art, music, physical education, and technology / home economics). This meant that students spent about seventeen or eighteen hours on each of their six elective choices over the year.16 The vice-­principal informed me that in academic subjects, electives at Tachibana focused on reinforcement of fundamentals (hojū-­teki na gakushū). The elective lessons that I observed at Tachibana varied widely in style. Broadly, lesson content could be categorized as revision of basic knowl­ edge, fun subject-­related activities, or activities designed to extend or deepen students’ understanding and ability. In social studies, I watched a third-­year lesson on revision of factual economic knowledge, and a second-­ year lesson spent doing Sudoku puzzles and a bingo game about European cities. Second-­year elective English lessons included listening exercises and making Christmas cards. In Japanese, second-­year lessons were spent doing Chinese character practice; I was told that students would write compositions the following term. In third-­year Japanese, students were set the task of correcting incorrect sentences (written by other students);

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one lesson was given over to pre-­exam self-­study revision. It was clear that some elective lessons observed had involved little teacher preparation. At Yoneda, second-­year students took two hours a week of elective subjects, while third years took over four hours a week. Again, electives were offered in both academic and practical subjects. My observations focused on Japanese, English, and social studies. In the third year, stu­ dents taking these subjects were divided into two groups, and I was told that one group was doing more advanced study (hatten-­teki na gakushū), while the other concentrated on reinforcing fundamentals. In the case of Japanese, no difference between the two groups was apparent, as all students studied Chinese characters individually, choosing practice sheets of a level appropriate for them. In English, the larger of the two groups was doing reinforcement study, which involved cloze exercises listening to pop songs in English. The smaller, advanced group, which contained just six students, started the term doing individual worksheet study, and later wrote individual speeches. The larger (reinforcement study) social studies group sometimes did worksheet study, and sometimes watched documentary television programs and films. The smaller, advanced group comprised eight students (two girls and six boys) who created large post­ ers on topics of their choice, using articles and reports photocopied from newspapers as a basis. Their topics included child abuse ( jidō gyakutai), environmental problems, and teenage athletes. The choice of advanced or reinforcement groups was made by students themselves, with most pre­ ferring the latter. Teaching and learning in Yoneda electives demanded relatively little of teachers. Students often studied on their own using worksheets, while the teacher sat at a desk doing her or his own work. Some opportunities offered by small-­group teaching went untaken, as when a class of six ad­ vanced elective English students studied worksheets individually, rather than engaging in activities that a small class could have facilitated, such as interactive oral practice. As with integrated studies, teacher support and stimulus were limited. This was particularly striking in the case of the ad­ vanced social studies group, where such support would have been valuable as students worked on their projects. For example, I was surprised that the teacher had not made students aware of the existence of Wikipedia. Few teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda expressed enthusiasm for elec­ tives, and most of those asked welcomed their demise, which was already anticipated in 2007 and in fact came about in the 2008 curriculum revi­ sion.17 The teacher in charge of electives at Yoneda, Mitaka-­sensei, pointed out that as lessons only took place once a week, each felt like an isolated

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event, with little sense of flow or building on what had been learned before. Kita-­sensei, the art teacher at Tachibana, commented that because stu­ dents were used to their class groups, they tended to work better in that environment than in elective groups. Yoneda social studies teacher Hashiguchi-­ sensei, who taught the third-year social studies advanced group, commented that able students made this option interesting, but less able students were difficult to teach because they needed a lot of help to find materials. It was clear that electives were problematic to organize and plan, not least because their possibilities altered with student numbers; moreover, more ambitious electives required considerable teacher prepa­ ration. At Yoneda, Mori-­sensei expressed his view frankly: Elective subjects—­well, they are villainous. They need amazing amounts of labor. The amount of time you need just to prepare for one lesson is incred­ ible, over and above what is needed for ordinary subjects. It’s a huge burden. Frankly, if they vanish, it’ll be a relief.

As with integrated studies, any potential benefits of electives were out­ weighed for most teachers by the difficulties caused by the necessary prep­ aration, and the organizational complications involved. As a result, the curriculum reform again failed to bear the hoped-­for fruit.

Small-­Group and Differentiated Teaching Moves to encourage teaching in small groups, and according to student proficiency, took place over several years at junior high schools. The 1998 curriculum stated that “teaching adapted to the individual” (ko ni ōjita shidō) should be advanced in various forms, including “teaching adapted to level of mastery of educational content” (Monbushō 1998, 5). This strengthened the previous encouragement to differentiate teaching and learning according to student proficiency in the 1989 curriculum. In the ministry’s explanatory guide to the 1998 curriculum, schools were en­ couraged to consider grouping students in particular subjects according to their proficiency in that subject (Monbushō 1999, 93–­94). Further, in December 2000, the final report of the National Commission on Educa­ tional Reform (Kyōiku Kaikaku Kokumin Kaigi), set up by prime min­ ister Obuchi Keizō, included recommendations for the implementation of “small-­group instruction [shōninzū shidō] . . . to ensure the acquisi­ tion of basic scholastic ability” and the promotion of “learning according

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to the level of proficiency [shūjukudobetsu shidō],” under the heading, “Remedy standardized education and introduce an education system that develops individuality.”18 Following this report, in January 2001 the Ministry of Education and Science published a “Twenty-­First Century Educational Rebirth Plan,” also known as the “Rainbow Plan”: among proposed measures intended to raise “secure academic attainment” (tashika na gakuryoku), schools were encouraged to teach children in small classes of twenty or fewer in selected subjects, with funding provided to hire extra teachers (Monbukagakushō 2001a). These were significant innovations. The maximum legal class size in Japanese elementary and junior high schools was forty, and in 1994, the average number of students in junior high classes across Japan was thirty-­ three (Ogawa 1998, 98). A class size of twenty or fewer was thus a dramatic change. Moreover, Japanese elementary and junior high schools had long avoided differentiating children according to proficiency, whether by tracking, streaming, or setting (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 58–­60). In 2003, 67 percent of  junior high schools reported to a Ministry of Edu­ cation and Science survey that they were using differentiated instruction.19 However, closer examination revealed complexities behind this headline figure; it did not necessarily mean that most schools had started track­ ing students. First, some schools were providing differentiated instruction in electives, but not in regular classes. Second, differentiated instruction sometimes meant not teaching students in different groups, but provid­ ing differentiated teaching of some kind (such as extra guidance from a second teacher) within one class group.20 Differentiated instruction was most commonly implemented in mathematics and English: for example, 45 percent of schools used differentiated instruction for second years in mathematics, while 31 percent used it in English, though the figures for teaching in proficiency groups (as opposed to use of assistant teachers and other support methods) were only 34 percent and 22 percent, respectively. In 2008, the ministry surveyed schools on their use of differentiated in­ struction in mathematics and Japanese. The survey found that 88 percent of junior high schools never used differentiated instruction in Japanese (Monbukagakushō 2009, 98–­99). In mathematics, 51 percent of junior high schools used differentiated instruction to some extent, though 14 percent used it in less than a quarter of lessons; only 23 percent used it in more than three-­quarters of mathematics lessons (Monbukagakushō 2009, 99). My own survey of schools in the Kinki region found similar results to the 2008 survey. 50 percent of schools that responded to the survey re­ ported that they did not use differentiated instruction (shūjukudobetsu

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shidō), while 46 percent did (4 percent of the results were unclear). Math­ ematics and English were again by far the most popular subjects for small-­group and differentiated instruction. However, unlike the ministry studies, my survey also asked how students were allocated to differenti­ ated groups. Thirty-­one percent of schools reported that they tended to let students choose their own group, while only 15 percent reported al­ locating students by test results.21 In other words, 85 percent of schools indicated that they did not divide students into differentiated instruction groups on the basis of test results. Tachibana and Yoneda both used small-­group teaching, but only Yoneda used differentiated instruction. At Tachibana, second-­and third-­year math­ ematics and English classes were split into two, based on whether students’ numbers in the class register were even or odd. There were not enough spare classrooms for first-­year small-­group teaching, so team teaching was used instead, with one of the two teachers in the classroom acting as assistant. Differentiated instruction had been used at Tachibana two years before, with students choosing their own groups, but this had been deemed unsuc­ cessful, as students had tended to choose their groups according to friend­ ship rather than academic level. A friend’s daughter who was a Tachibana student at the time expressed the view that differentiated instruction had made little difference; as the more advanced classes were taught by an in­ experienced teacher, and the less advanced by an experienced teacher who taught with great care, students in the advanced class did not necessarily learn more. This again showed the schools’ tendency to focus on students who had difficulty mastering the basics. The Yoneda situation was more complicated. Small-­group teaching was used in mathematics and English in two of the three years (in the second and third years for mathematics, with limited use of team teaching in the first year; and in the first and second year for English). There was an insufficient number of teachers for small-­group teaching in both subjects for all three years. Differentiated instruction was not used in English. In mathematics, each textbook unit was divided into a basic section and an advanced section, the latter generally dealing with applications or proofs. At the end of the basic section, during which students were not differentiated, there would be a test, and students would then be allowed to choose whether to join the advanced (hatten-­teki) group or the basic (kihon-­teki) group. Teachers tried to ensure that the basic group contained fewer students (about ten), to allow the teacher to spend more time with each student. A more able stu­ dent choosing the basic group would be given individual advice, including

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the result of the test score, with the teacher suggesting that she or he try the more advanced group. As all the students took the same tests, both groups had to tackle at least one problem in common, after which the more advanced group generally did more difficult problems from the textbook, while the basic group did easier problems. Teachers continued to debate differentiated instruction. Two math­ ematics teachers at Yoneda saw the merits and demerits as equally balanced. According to one, differentiated instruction provided the ad­ vantages that one could teach the material with careful attention to detail, and it was easier for students to say that they didn’t understand; on the other hand, students in the slower group didn’t come up with the sudden insights that the teacher could pick up and use to help other students. Her colleague suggested that differentiation dissipated a positive sense of competition, as lower group students used one another as their reference point and became satisfied with a poorer performance. This observation paralleled findings in the United States (Oakes 2005) and England (Lacey 1970, 57–­73; Abraham 1995, 34–­61) about the polarizing effects of differ­ entiation by academic performance. For Yoneda English teacher Mitaka-­ sensei, it was problematic that differentiated instruction tended to result in divergence, with the more advanced group going faster, and the less ad­ vanced slowing down. At Tachibana, English teacher Azuma-­sensei com­ mented that differentiated instruction helped advanced groups to make lively progress, but required great efforts from lower group teachers to stop lessons becoming boring. She told me that many teachers felt “it’s dangerous to look at students like that.” While some wanted to see and treat all children as equal, she commented, others thought it necessary to develop leaders for Japan—­an elite. There was thus considerable caution about differentiated instruction. One central argument against this type of teaching was the harmful effects it might have on less able students. When it was used, teachers avoided al­ locating students by test results as much as possible. One Yoneda teacher claimed that it might cause complaints from parents of children placed in the lower group. Differentiated instruction again showed how schools focused on less proficient students; when it was used, ensuring benefits for less proficient students was the main focus. If the question of differentiated instruction was set aside, however, teach­ ers at Yoneda and Tachibana were very positive about small class sizes, per se. Mathematics and English teachers alike commented that classes of twenty students or fewer allowed them to keep an eye on the work of all

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children and made it much easier to help those having difficulties. In addi­ tion, they said, smaller class sizes improved student motivation and encour­ aged students to speak out in class. All these benefits were evident in the small-­group lessons that I observed. Students were more attentive and par­ ticipated more actively than in regular classes, not least because they were generally all seated in the front three rows of the classroom. However, I saw little evidence that small class sizes led to changes in modes of teaching. In English, small classes might potentially have encour­ aged teachers to focus on conversation, but in practice did not seem to do so.22 I observed more than one case where teachers passed over opportuni­ ties to have students practice oral production by creating their own sen­ tences and dialogues, potentially a major advantage of small class sizes for foreign language teaching. In one case, a Tachibana English teacher told students to spend the final thirteen minutes of the lesson doing preparatory work normally done at home, ignoring a textbook oral production exercise in which students were to create their own English dialogue. The reason given later by the teacher was that the main aim of the lesson was reading, not oral production. For me, the neglect of creative oral production practice was illuminated by a conversation with a Yoneda teacher who emphasized how hard it was for students, especially the less proficient, to make their own English sentences. This again revealed a lack of conviction in students’ abili­ ties and showed teachers’ tendency to focus so much on struggling students that they potentially disadvantaged better performers. Teachers were glad to be able to give individual students more attention. However, many were cautious about or resistant to the idea of fostering individuality where that meant enabling some individuals to make more progress than others. This commitment to equality of outcome limited the effects of small class sizes. Research into various kinds of differentiated instruction suggests that teachers had reason to be cautious. Studies over decades have overwhelm­ ingly found that dividing children into different instruction groups is ac­ ademically ineffective or even damaging, especially for less proficient students.23 In 2012, PISA tested students in sixty-­five countries and econo­ mies and concluded that differentiated instruction was unrelated to average academic performance, though some forms had a negative effect (OECD 2013, 36). Researchers critical of “tracking” students into different instruc­ tion groups advocate providing multidimensional assignments that offer a range of options for students to pursue, depending on their interests and skills (Oakes 2005, 270, 286; Boaler 2011, 11). The latter approach was not used in heterogeneous instruction groups at Tachibana and Yoneda; as noted above, some teachers seemed uninterested in any approaches that

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might result in differential progress. However, its apparent success in coun­ tries like the United States and United Kingdom suggests that it could help Japanese junior high schools combine equity with the promotion of indi­ viduality and autonomous learning.24

Analyzing the Implementation of Reform Why did the implementation of educational reform in the junior high schools studied take the form it did? In seeking to answer this question, I focus primarily on the implementation of integrated studies, the central el­ ement of the reform program. Despite differences between Tachibana and Yoneda, integrated studies at both schools emphasized social, moral, and emotional development over the program aims stated in the national cur­ riculum, with their focus on developing students’ ability to learn and think for themselves. Moreover, this reshaping of the program as it was trans­ lated from national policy to local practice seemed to be representative of other schools, rather than an aberration. How could it be explained? To find an answer, it is helpful to turn to neoinstitutional analysis of or­ ganizations. Junior high school is an “institution” in the sense of being “an integrated . . . set of institutionalized forms, practices, and conventions” (Barley 2008, 508), which are reproduced routinely rather than through special effort (Jepperson 1991, 145). Synthesizing the major theoretical de­velopments that have fed into neoinstitutional organizational analysis, DiMaggio and Powell (1991, 10) argue that “behaviors and structures that are institutionalized are ordinarily slower to change than those that are not.” There are many reasons for this, including the costs of making changes and “the difficulty of conceiving of alternatives,” or of seeing alternatives as realistic, owing to the power over human behavior of “taken-­for-­granted scripts, rules, and classifications,” “shared ‘typifications’,” “sche­mas,” and “routines” (DiMaggio and Powell 1991, 4, 7, 15, 27). Structures, practices, and procedures can become “taken-­for-­granted means to accomplish or­ ganizational ends”; once established as such and seen as inevitable and necessary features of an organization, they bestow legitimacy upon it: “their use displays responsibility and avoids claims of negligence” (Meyer and Rowan 1991, 45). Moreover, institutions that are long established and widely accepted are particularly likely to exercise determining power over human action (Barley and Tolbert 1997, 96). Junior high school is an excellent example of such a long-­established and widely accepted institution, having been created as a separate stage

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of the Japanese education system in the late 1940s. Moreover, as an insti­ tution, it incorporates an interlocking range of smaller-­scale institutions that are as or even more established. These include traditions and prac­ tices such as the school trip, the sports day, and extracurricular clubs, be­ sides institutionalized ideas—­long-­established notions about what junior high schools exist for and what the vocation and duties of junior high teachers are. Among the most powerful such notions are the idea that human development is a major purpose of junior high school, the idea of shidō as divided into academic instruction and behavioral guidance, and the ideas of the special roles of the class group and the class teacher, all of which my fieldwork found firmly entrenched at the schools studied. These ideas are powerful enough to generate and justify many activities and rou­ tines within junior high schools like Tachibana and Yoneda, such as field trips, club and class activities, and major school events. When institution­ alized ideas and practices interlock with and complement one another in this way, they become stronger and more difficult to change (Vogel 2006, 216; Keizer 2010, 23, 154–­55). The power of the institution to shape teachers’ ways of thinking and acting is strengthened by the fact that most Japanese junior high teachers enter the profession soon after graduating from university and spend their entire teaching careers within junior high school, which is thus effectively its own social world. I found that junior high teachers usually had no ex­ perience teaching in elementary or high schools. Teachers from the differ­ ent levels met infrequently and almost never discussed teaching together. On the other hand, within junior high school as a level of the education system, institutionalization is promoted by both regulatory structures and practices and by networks (Scott 2008, 134–­37). Regulatory structures and practices operate at both national and prefectural levels: the curriculum is the best example of the former, while the latter includes practices of high school entrance examinations (see chapter 7) and regular teacher transfer between schools. National networks include educational media (notably journals and magazines), pedagogical associations, and sports associa­ tions, which organize regular local, prefectural, regional, and national tournaments. Until the 1990s, educational content and practice at Japan’s junior high schools had been extremely stable over many decades, with limited changes since the introduction of a national curriculum in 1958. For teachers at the end of the twentieth century, this was all they had ever experienced, whether as teachers or even as students themselves; moreover, it could rea­ sonably be assumed that they chose their profession in part because they

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were comfortable with this model of junior high. It was thus unsurprising that they responded to integrated studies cautiously and often reinterpreted or resisted this radical innovation when it conflicted with institutionalized ideas and practices. In my fieldwork, there was frequent evidence of this conflict. First, the reformist focus on developing individuals’ strengths (Monbushō 1996, 32, 35) clashed with the view of many teachers interviewed in 1996–­1998 and 2007 that, as the final stage of compulsory education, the purpose of junior high school was to ensure that all students could graduate with the basic competences they would need in society. Teachers rarely seemed very in­ terested in the opportunities provided by integrated studies to help stu­ dents develop their individual strengths. Instead, they consistently focused on helping average or below-­average students attain satisfactory knowl­ edge and understanding, sometimes at the expense of abler or more mo­ tivated students, as in “Basics Time” at Tachibana. The attitude of many echoed that articulated by journalist Saitō Takao in his book on educa­tion reform: What is important is to guarantee a certain level of academic attainment to all children . . . That is the minimum that public education should protect . . . Chil­ dren who really have “individuality” will develop later by themselves. (Saitō 2004, 127–­28)

Second, the demands made on teachers’ resources by integrated stud­ ies had to compete, usually unsuccessfully, with the enormous demands made by traditional subject teaching and the institutionalized emphasis on human development in schools, explained in chapters 3 and 4. Besides teaching classes, usually for three or four hours a day, teachers were ex­ pected to engage in behavioral guidance; support and direct students in nonacademic activities, such as preparation for the sports day, cultural fes­ tival, or choral contest; supervise extracurricular clubs; make and mark periodic tests; determine and record grades; take part in various grade, school, and committee meetings; and (if a class teacher) eat lunch with their class and look at students’ schedules and diaries every day. Third-­year class teachers also had to guide students about post-­graduation pathways, as described in chapter 7. It was perhaps hardly surprising that I rarely saw teachers preparing lessons or discussing teaching with colleagues. This was certainly not because teachers spent insufficient time at school— ­quite the opposite. Both in 1996–­1997 and 2007, many teachers were regularly still at school after 6:00 p.m., or even at 7:00 p.m. or later. Moreover, many

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teachers supervised sports clubs for several hours a day throughout vaca­ tion, sometimes taking a break only for the few days of the New Year and midsummer holidays. They were also expected to go on neighborhood pa­ trols and attend in-­service training during vacations. Schools’ prioritization of human development and behavioral guid­ ance resulted in their interpreting integrated studies to accommodate this, as seen in the Tachibana field trip described in chapter 2. Thus, students often engaged in experiential activities and worked in groups. The cur­ ricular reference to having students “think about their own ways of living” could justify the relabeling of activities such as workplace experience and guidance on post-­graduation pathways as integrated studies. In contrast, there was much less emphasis on problem solving or autonomous learn­ ing, and references to such aims in school documents often seemed to be lip service. Encouraging problem solving or self-­motivated learning presented even enthusiastic teachers with major challenges in terms of creating curriculum content and supporting students’ learning, as this de­ manded resources of time and energy that were in short supply. Inadequate access to facilities also hindered the implementation of in­tegrated studies, especially at Tachibana. In 2007, both Tachibana and Yoneda possessed one computer room containing forty Internet-­connected computer terminals. In addition, there was one computer in each class­ room. Given that there were over eight hundred students at Tachibana and around four hundred at Yoneda, only a small fraction of students could use the Internet for research at any one time, while it was impossible to have an entire year group use computers simultaneously. Teachers dealt with this problem through group work, with one representative from each group using the Internet when needed. The library at each school could also only accommodate about forty students at one time; moreover, unless it was being used for a class, it was kept locked, except for half an hour a day during the lunch break, even though teachers and students were gen­ erally at school for at least one or two hours after lessons ended. Clearly, library access was not a priority for teachers, unlike club activities. There were no computers in the library of either school. The facilities’ shortcom­ ings were highlighted when three teachers from a Midwestern U.S. city of comparable size to Sakura visited Yoneda during my 2007 research. They noted that classrooms in their junior high schools contained about six computers each, besides those in the computer room. Ikegaoka, the elite six-­year private Tokyo school, also boasted a new two-­story library containing fifteen computers. Though school facilities had improved since

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my visits to Akindo and Horiuchi in 2000, they did not seem adequate for integrated studies; nor were schools making the most of the facilities they already possessed. Evidence from junior high schools elsewhere in Japan suggested that teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda were not atypical in prioritizing non­ academic duties. As a study of teaching at a Shizuoka junior high school notes, Because the running of junior high schools has centered for many years on the “three guidances [shidō]” (student guidance, club activities, and guidance about post-­graduation pathways), lessons and learning have been pushed to the margins for both teachers and students. Even though it is said that “lessons are central,” teachers cannot expect immediate results from action research on teaching, so it becomes peripheral to their work. Nor is learning the corner­ stone of school life in the minds of students— ­or of parents. Recently, if teach­ ers at junior high school work energetically on lessons or action research, there are often complaints from parents that they should put more effort into seikatsu shidō or club activities. (Satō and Satō 2003, 16–­17)

Similarly, Satō Masaaki (Satō and Satō 2003, 207) writes that though “about 80 percent of teachers’ work is teaching . . . the reality is that they spend less than half their time on this.” Iwamoto Yasunori (2010, 19) writes that when he started upon teaching reform as an Ibaraki junior high princi­ pal, “most of the teachers were completely taken up by seikatsu shidō and exhausted. Remaking the school through a central focus on lessons was not on their agenda.” One junior high teacher quoted by Shimizu Kōkichi (2008, 114) notes how unusual his Niigata school was in putting teaching and learning first: “What tends to happen at junior high schools is that teachers’ order of priorities is club activities, disciplinary guidance, guid­ ance about post-­graduation pathways, class management [gakkyū keiei], and then lessons come about fifth.” Sakai’s study of a junior high in the Tōkai region similarly found that teachers tended to spend noncontact hours on such nonacademic activities, with one interviewee commenting that after a teacher has taught all grades once, “I guess not too much time is spent on lesson preparation. That gets skimped for work relating to one’s class” (Sakai 1999, 232). Such evidence from schools across Japan makes clear that junior high teachers’ focus on nonacademic guidance of students is strongly institutionalized, and that as a result, they have limited time to think about and prepare lessons, let alone new curricular programs. In this

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context, it is not surprising that teachers chose to use integrated studies as a vehicle for human development and careers guidance activities. This choice enabled them to realize their existing educational goals, and mini­ mized demands on their limited resources.

Japan as a Case Study of Educational Change The difficulties encountered in translating the 1998 curriculum reform into practice were not unique to Japan. In fact, as Levin (2008, 63–­83) and Harris (2011, 159–­60) note, studies in various countries have made clear how difficult educational change commonly is. Hargreaves, Earl, Moore, and Manning (2001, 115) sum this up: Policymakers and senior administrators often underestimate, overlook, or are oblivious to the difficulties of implementing change. The history of educational reform has, in this sense, largely been one of “predictable failure” . . . Power holders have issued edicts, legislated mandates, and reconfigured whole sys­ tems, but few of their changes have made a difference at the classroom level or had a significant impact on student learning.

Fullan (2007, 3–­11) provides a brief historical overview of educational re­ form attempts since the 1960s and their persistent failure. Most strategies for reform focus on structures, formal requirements, and event-­ based activities involving, for example, professional development sessions. They do not struggle directly with existing cultures within which new values and prac­ tices may be required . . . restructuring (which can be done by fiat) occurs time and time again, whereas reculturing (how teachers come to question and change their beliefs and habits) is what is needed. (Fullan 2007, 25; original emphasis)

Much of the analysis provided by Fullan and by Hargreaves et al. is closely applicable to the curricular reform in Japan. These authors argue that ad­ dressing what I have called institutionalized factors is crucial to the success or failure of reform. These factors include teachers’ beliefs, whose impor­ tance in Sakura schools I have indicated. Hargreaves et al. (2001, 130) state that “we found that most teachers agreed to develop and implement cur­ riculum changes because they saw them as being largely consistent with their own educational and socio-­political beliefs.” Fullan (2007, 22, 37, 88) argues that “individuals (e.g., teachers) are members of social systems

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(e.g., schools) that have shared senses of meaning,” and that “changes in belief and understanding (first principles) are the foundation of achiev­ ing lasting reform”; by the point when implementation of reform is in its early stages, “the people involved must perceive . . . that the needs being addressed are significant.” As we have seen, teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda were often skeptical about the value of the reform agenda in gen­ eral, and integrated studies and elective subjects in particular. Even when they did acknowledge the importance of reform, this was often heavily qualified by arguments that there were competing priorities that better deserved time and attention, such as school order, human development, or teaching basic knowledge. However, beliefs do not become institutionalized independently from a context of institutionalized structures and practices, which may well both express these beliefs and also shape and reproduce them. Tachibana and Yoneda exemplified this too. Existing structures and practices, from subject-­specific teaching to a wide range of time-­consuming human devel­ opment activities, reinforced teachers’ beliefs and made it even harder to implement the 1998 reforms effectively. Because of the time and energy ab­ sorbed by existing human development activities such as student guidance, major school events, and club activities, teachers had relatively little time for thinking about teaching or discussing it with colleagues, let alone for working together on major projects such as integrated studies or elective programs. Other aspects of school structure also discouraged discussion of teaching and learning. Staff room desks were arranged in year groups rather than subject departments, which aided pastoral care and behavioral control but made it less likely that teachers of the same subject would be seated together; this structural prioritization of human development over teaching made regular informal discussion of teaching less likely. The insti­ tutionalization of subject teaching was also a major barrier to pedagogical discussion across subjects, the overall result of which was relatively little reflection or discussion about teaching and learning. This may seem surprising, given the extensive documentation of how teachers in Japan observe one another’s lessons and then discuss and cri­ tique them (Shimahara 2002; Nihon Kyōiku Hōhō Gakkai 2009), a process referred to in English as “lesson study.” Though there was lesson observa­ tion and discussion, it was infrequent— ­once or twice a year—­and thus of limited effect, as Shimahara (2002, 112) claims is often the case at junior high level, due to teachers’ many nonacademic duties. “Lesson study” was more effective in promoting pedagogical discussion at elementary schools in Sakura, because the hindrances were much fewer in an institution where

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teachers taught all subjects, thus sharing a common practice base, and where they were able to accomplish many human development objectives through their classroom teaching (Cave 2011a). Recent studies of educational change have argued that schools need to create “professional learning communities,” or “collaborative work cultures,” if change is to be successful (Louis and Kruse 1995; McLaugh­ lin and Talbert 2001, 2006; Hargreaves et al. 2001, 165–­74; Fullan 2007, 138–­54). Hargreaves et al. (2001, 166) find that such learning communities “helped teachers make sense together of the reform initiatives they were expected to implement . . . helped to stimulate teacher creativity . . . , provided teachers with the confidence to experiment with new ideas . . . , and offered a support network in which teachers were more prepared to persevere when they experienced setbacks.” Fullan (2007, 138–­39) argues that learning communities are essential because “significant educational change consists of changes in beliefs, teaching style, and materials, which can come about only through a process of personal development in a so­ cial context” (original emphasis). Professor Satō Manabu of Tokyo University has been a leading ad­ vocate of schools as learning communities (involving both teachers and students).25 Significantly, most of his writing on this subject, whether the­ oretical or in case studies, has concerned elementary schools. In a rare exception, a case study of reform at a Shizuoka junior high school, Satō writes, “Reform in junior high schools is [very] difficult. I myself have worked with junior high schools on reform over twenty-­three years, but until the thirteenth year, experienced a series of failures” (Satō and Satō 2003, 14). Like the present study, Satō sees the difficulties as stemming partly from divides created by subject teaching, and partly from junior high schools’ focus on nonacademic activities, which results in the marginaliza­ tion of teaching and learning. He argues that frequent open lessons and lesson study are essential for progress, and that the principal has a crucial leadership role to play, especially in safeguarding time for teachers to focus on teaching and learning (16–­17, 22–­25). At Gakuyō Junior High School, the subject of the book, Principal Satō Masaaki did this by reducing the number of meetings and concentrating them on one day a week, as well as by taking advantage of the city board of education’s policy of one day a week without club activities. As a result, the school was able to hold almost eighty open lessons in the space of a year (25, 207–­15). However, Satō and Satō note that reform is made more difficult by the short tenure of prin­ cipals (three years in Satō Masaaki’s case) and teacher transfers (almost

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one-­third of the school’s teachers were transferred at the start of the sec­ ond year of Principal Satō’s tenure). These practices increase the power of institutionalized norms vis-­à-­vis forces of change. In Sakura, Mori-­sensei’s interview recollections of his time at Shukuba Junior High showed the considerable potential that can be released when a teaching body becomes a “professional learning community” focused on improving teaching and learning. However, my interviews also indicated clearly that for this to happen, teachers had to be provided with more time to focus on this area of their work. Leading studies of educational change also make this argument strongly. Hargreaves et al. (2001, 170) write that “time is one of the scarcest yet most important resources for educational innovation: time to plan, think through new themes, find resources, under­ stand outcomes, write new units, experiment with new assessments, and do all this with colleagues.” McLaughlin and Talbert (2007, 152, 161) note that teacher collaboration demands time that must be found by changing work structures. Fullan (2007, 292) agrees on the need for time, but adds an important caveat: Providing more time for teachers to work together during the day . . . is neces­ sary but not sufficient. If the capacity (culture) is not evident in these situations, the new time will be squandered more times than not.

Fullan’s argument has important implications for Japanese junior high schools. Without doubt, one of their major problems was lack of time for teachers to focus on teaching and learning, through reflection, discussion, planning, and preparation. More time is thus a prerequisite for teaching and learning practices to change. Yet the strength of institutionalized ideas and practices, especially those that stress human development and student guidance, mean that schools might well use extra time for nonacademic ac­ tivities rather than to focus on teaching and learning. Teachers need more time, but they also need to be convinced to use that time to focus much more on teaching and learning. The question of how such change might be brought about is only begin­ ning to be addressed. Writers such as Fullan (2007) argue that it requires coordinated action at all levels of the educational system, from schools up through districts and governments. Centrally important is what writ­ ers on educational change call “capacity building” (Hargreaves et al. 2001, 159; Fullan 2007; Levin 2008, 82–­83; Stoll 2009)—­building the ability to do what cannot be done under existing conditions. In Japan, this might

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require changes to school governance structures. One of the most striking features of governance in Japanese schools at all levels is that principals are generally in post for only two or three years before being transferred to another school.26 It is therefore extremely difficult for them to lead change, since doing so takes time. The cases of Satō (Satō and Satō 2003) and Iwa­ moto (2010) show that a determined and dynamic principal can bring about change, but they also show how difficult this is. Indeed, this is arguably not what is expected of them. In his study of the role of the Japanese school principal, based on interviews with educators in four prefectures, Bjork (2000) argues convincingly that Japanese principals do not focus much on instruction or pedagogy in their schools, nor are they expected to do so; their role is one of school management rather than educational leadership. This contrasts strikingly with international studies of educational change, which generally see the principal as a very important change agent (Har­ greaves et al. 2001, 175–­81; Fullan 2007, 155–­69; Harris and Jones 2010, 178). In theory it could be argued that change in a Japanese school district could be driven by a strong superintendent (kyōiku-­chō), even with a rapid turnover of principals, but change would certainly be easier if principals were in post longer. This is not to say that changing the role of school prin­ cipals would be a “silver bullet.” As Stoll (2009, 122) notes, it has been in­ creasingly argued that successful and sustained educational improvement requires the development of able leadership distributed among significant numbers of teachers and administrators throughout a school, not just lead­ ership by one individual, however talented. Moreover, the regrettable fact is that ideological conflicts over education in Japan have sometimes seen principals used as political “enforcers” by local administrations, notably in highly controversial issues such as the use of the flag and anthem in school ceremonies (Aspinall and Cave 2001), and this has left an understandable legacy of teacher resistance to the strengthening of principals’ authority. Arguably, Japanese schools already possess a mature tradition of distrib­ uted leadership,27 which may help to explain Japan’s long record of high-­ quality education. It could be argued that rather than simple strengthening of principal power, what change demands is giving principals greater ca­ pacity to act as educational leaders, especially by extending the tenure of their position. A corollary would be the appointment of younger principals and vice-­principals, especially bearing in mind that principals in Japan, like other teachers, retire at sixty. In 2008, 70 percent of junior high principals nationwide were aged fifty-­five or over, and only 0.02 percent (189 out of 9,752) were under the age of fifty (Monbukagakushō 2008a).

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However, developing the ability of principals to lead and support change in schools is only one part of “capacity building.” Central to the endeavor is enabling teachers to rethink their ideas and develop their practices. For this, teachers need not only time but also inspiration, ideas, and support. As this study suggests, this requires more substantial, systematic, and sus­ tained investment than was provided for the 1998 curriculum reform. For example, more use could have been made of facilitators such as consultants and coaches to work with groups of schools on planning and implementing change, as has proved effective elsewhere (Hargreaves et al. 2001, 172–­73; Fullan 2007, 223–­24; Levin 2008, 83–­87). If change is to be achieved in fu­ ture, however, it is most fundamental for junior high schools to develop active, sustainable, professional learning communities focused on children’s teaching and learning. As the case study described by Satō and Satō (2003) suggests, this almost certainly requires careful reduction in teachers’ ac­ tivities in other areas, such as human development, though without jeop­ ardizing the strong personal relationships between students and adults that Levin (2008, 96–­98) argues are crucial for students’ attitude to school and motivation to learn.

Conclusion The central innovations of the 1998 junior high curriculum reform—­ integrated studies and the expansion of electives—­were invested with high hopes and represented strikingly new departures for secondary education in Japan. By giving schools freedom to devise their own educational content, they represented relaxation of the much-­criticized tight central control of the education system. Junior high schools, repeatedly attacked for control-­ oriented education and uniformity, were now being urged by the Ministry of Education to encourage autonomous learning and individuality. More­ over, these reforms had significance far beyond schools, given long-­standing misgivings about whether individual autonomy was sufficiently developed in Japanese society. Teachers were encouraged to think for themselves and devise programs suitable for their own schools; they in turn could enable students to think about and develop their own interests. Yet far less was achieved than was hoped. There were assaults from crit­ ics and doubts among the public, as described in chapter 1, but the most fundamental reasons for the reforms’ lack of success lay in schools, and especially in the unwillingness or inability of teachers to make the changes

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188 table 7  Changes to junior high lesson hours in the 2008 curriculum revision.

Subject

Annual hours (1998 curriculum)

Annual hours (2008 curriculum)

Change, in hours (%)

Kokugo (Japanese) Mathematics Social studies Science English Physical education Integrated studies Elective subjects   Total lesson hours

350 315 295 290 315 270 210–­335 155–­280 980

385 385 350 385 420 315 190 0 1015

+35 (10%) +70 (22%) +55 (19%) +95 (33%) +105 (33%) +45 (17%) −20–­145 (10–­43%) −155–­280 (100%) +35 (4%)

work. In response, the Ministry of Education and Science beat a partial re­ treat, while maintaining that the fundamental direction of reform had been merely modified, not abandoned. When the curriculum was next revised in 2008, hours for integrated studies were reduced by a third and electives were abolished completely, while time for academic subjects, especially English and science, was increased (see table 7). The media described these changes as “exiting yutori education” (datsu-­yutori).28 Most junior high teachers at Tachibana, Yoneda, and other schools were initially suspicious of and uncertain about the 1998 curriculum re­ form and ended up implementing it half-­heartedly, reinterpreting it to fit their own priorities, or completely subverting it. Few, if any, explicitly re­ jected its goals; teachers repeatedly told me that the aims of the reform were magnificent, and clearly felt autonomous learning to be beyond criti­ cism as an ideal. Moreover, the relaxation of discipline in favor of greater student autonomy at Tachibana, exemplified by the 2007 first-­year field trip, indicated that teachers were willing to encourage students to think for themselves within the context of activities focused on human development. Yet this limited assent was qualified in ways that suggested deep-­seated ambivalence when it came to the promotion of autonomy and individuality within teaching and learning. Teachers repeatedly described the reforms as fine but impractical ideals, fatally flawed because they themselves did not have the capacity to teach as demanded, because many students were incapable of the autonomous learning that was expected, and because other priorities were more important, especially human development ac­ tivities and basic academic attainment. Such criticisms in fact amounted to rejection of most of the reform program.

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Variations in school practices were significant. Tachibana, the school with the greatest discipline problems, was more inclined to reinterpret and subvert the curricular aims of integrated studies. In contrast, selective schools with distinctive missions, such as Yamagawa, Ikegaoka, and Miya­ moto, were more willing to use integrated studies time in ways that came closer to fulfilling its original goals. Standard public schools with few dis­ cipline problems, like Yoneda and Horiuchi, fell between these two poles. The more positive approaches taken by the selective and elite schools can be explained in part by a perceived mission to educate potential leaders, and in the case of the two private schools, by a self-­conscious identity as liberal institutions. The belief that potential leaders need to be educated to think autonomously has strong roots in the Japanese educational world, extending back through the Higher Schools of the pre-­1945 period (Roden 1980) to Japan’s first minister of education, Mori Arinori (Hall 1973, 409–­ 12). In addition, selective and elite schools had little reason to fear what is a constant worry for most public junior high schools, loss of teacher control. This was a major source of the ambivalence shown toward autonomy and individuality by teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda. As Dorinne Kondo (1990, 43) writes, “ ‘A concept of self’ is inevitably implicated in relations of power,” and faced with a choice between individuality and autonomy on the one hand, and interdependence on the other, teachers at ordinary pub­ lic junior high schools largely prioritized interdependence, the option that was less threatening to order and to power relations within schools. In hindsight, educational reform asked too much of public junior high schools and their teachers, given the limited resources of time, energy, and expertise available to them, and the great demands made by their other institutionalized duties. As explained at the start of this study, junior high school is the pivotal stage of education in Japan, and is probably the point at which teachers and students are exposed to the greatest pressures. Even before the reforms, junior high schools were expected to provide students with an excellent academic education, prepare them for the most impor­ tant exams of their lives, support their human development, and ensure that they learned approved social behavior. Educational reform added a new set of demands with which, it turned out, teachers did not have the capacity to cope. Any future reform effort would need to consider very seriously how teachers’ capacities could be developed to meet their new challenges, and what resources would be needed to enable this. It is less clear, however, whether the goals of educational reform were mistaken from the outset. The questions remain: What kind of self should

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Japanese junior high schools seek to develop in their students? Should development of the ability to think and learn for oneself be among the basics for students growing up in twenty-­first-­century Japan? And if this is indeed a fundamental goal for Japanese education, how should it be achieved?

chapter seven

To Graduation and Beyond High School Entrance and Juku

A

lthough junior high school is the final stage of compulsory education in Japan, since the 1970s the vast majority of students have con­ tinued on to high school.1 High schools’ entrance requirements vary with their academic level. Only the top-­ranking high schools in each prefec­ ture prepare students for the competition to enter Japan’s best univer­ sities, which, in turn, offer passports to jobs in leading companies or central government. The lower the level of the high school, the lower the chance of a secure career with a major employer (Rohlen 1983; Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 62–­109; Borovoy 2010). High school entrance is thus a crucial moment in students’ lives. This process has implications for selfhood. High school entrance allows only limited personal autonomy. Though students choose which schools to apply to, their choices are ultimately constrained by the realities of their academic performance. Nor does the system encourage individuality, due to the limited—­though increasing— ­diversity of high school programs and the nature of the high school entrance exams. On the other hand, the sys­ tem does promote self-­reliance and individual effort. As discussed in chap­ ter 1, it is important to analyze how “individuals” are shaped by educational structures and practices. The high school entrance process is certainly indi­ vidualizing in assessing students as individual performers and forcing them to rely on their own resources (interwoven with those of their families) in preparing for and taking the exams. However, the process is the opposite of individualizing in the sense that all students are measured against the same, relatively narrow, exam assessment criteria, with little attention to other qualities that individuals might possess.

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Third-­year class teachers are responsible for advising students on their choice of high school, and for guiding them through the application pro­ cess. At Tachibana, there were inherent tensions in teachers’ attempts to encourage students to make their own decisions, yet simultaneously re­ duce the risks to individuals as they were guided through the high school entrance process. Although students faced entrance exams alone, the in­ dividualization inherent in this system was mitigated somewhat by this guidance process. Students were not left to take decisions about their in­ dividual futures without good information and advice. As competition to enter high school has intensified since the 1970s, more and more students and parents have sought help from out-­of-­school tutoring, either by individual tutors (katei kyōshi) or at juku, dedicated private tutoring schools. What critics in the 1970s dubbed the “ranjuku jidai” (age of excessive juku attendance) (Rohlen 1980, 208) has continued to this day; Ministry of Education surveys found that the proportion of all junior high students attending juku was 45 percent in 1985, 60 percent in 1993, and 54 percent in 2007 (Monbukagakushō 2008b, 9). Juku have been frequently criticized, as has high school entrance by selection, par­ ticularly by progressives who see competition as damaging to adolescents’ education and development (Ōta 1983, 100–­2, 108; Ogi 1998). As this chap­ ter shows, juku emphasize several discourses of the individual, but espe­ cially self-­reliance. They play an ambiguous role, providing opportuni­ ties for autonomous action by individual students, but also creating pressure to follow the crowd. Educational reform in the 1990s and 2000s has made only limited changes to this assessment and selection system. This may be seen as one of the ma­jor shortcomings of the reform agenda. However, the problems surrounding narrow criteria for assessing students’ individual qualities ex­ tend beyond the educational system to the reward systems of society as a whole.

High School Entrance Exams For the vast majority of students in Japan, entry to prefectural high school is decided by a combination of performance in the prefectural high school entrance exam and their performance while at junior high school. The public high school entrance system and examinations are decided at pre­ fectural level, so there are forty-­seven different exams across Japan. These

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exams share two key features. First, they are set in five equally weighted subjects: Japanese (kokugo), mathematics, English, science, and social stud­ies. Second, the exam for each subject lasts only forty to fifty minutes, so that the entire exam is completed in one day. One major consequence of these features has been that all five exam subjects matter; overall per­ formance is prioritized over unusual strength in one or two fields. An­ other is that because the exam for each subject lasts less than an hour, it is very difficult to test students’ ability to produce written or spoken dis­ course, even though this might be considered important in subjects such as Japanese, English, and social studies, and even though development of these abilities is actually part of the curriculum in Japanese (discussed in chapter 5) and English. All prefectural exams give the vast majority of marks for multiple choice or short answer questions, as did the entrance exams of the private high schools to which students in Sakura applied.2 For many progressives in Japan, eliminating high school entrance ex­ ams and changing to a system that takes children through to the end of sec­ ondary education without any selection has been a long-­held dream (Ōta 1983, 100–­2, 108; Ogi 1998); although even within the high school teach­ing unions, generally seen as part of the progressive camp, many want to as­ sess students’ suitability for high school study (Sakoda 2011, 96). Some prefectures, notably Kyoto and Kōchi, have been held up as models by progressives because they minimized high school selection for many years. Moreover, between the 1960s and 1980s, thirteen other prefectures at­ tempted to mitigate competitive selection by changing to an integrated selection system (sōgō senbatsu seido), whereby students passing the pre­ fectural high school entrance exam were randomly assigned to a local high school (Kariya 2013, 82). The most high-­profile example of such a change was Tokyo, which introduced a version of the integrated selection system in 1967 (Rohlen 1977, 56–­63). However, better-­off Tokyo parents responded by sending their children to private high schools, which then became more successful than public high schools in getting students into Japan’s top uni­ versities. Not only was there no decrease in educational com­petition, but the more prosperous now had an increased competitive advantage (Rohlen 1977, 62–­67). This tendency for more academically proficient students to exit the public school system in prefectures using the integrated selection system has been seen nationwide (Kariya 2013, 85). Public discontent, along with the impact of discourses of choice, individu­ ality, and diversification in educational debate, has led to a move away from the integrated selection system in many prefectures from the 1990s onward

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(Ogawa Hiroshi 1998). Since the late 1990s, the trend has been to expand student choice (and intensify exam competition), as many prefectures have abolished high school districts and allowed application to any high school in the prefecture. By 2011, twenty of Japan’s forty-­seven prefectures took this approach, while only six continued to maintain eight or more high school districts (Okayama-­ken kōtō gakkō kyōiku kenkyū kyōgikai 2011).3 The promotion of choice and diversity through the high school entrance exam system has also taken other forms. Some prefectures have intro­ duced a double exam system whereby a proportion of students are re­ cruited to prefectural high schools via a first exam, and the remainder by a second exam (Kasuya 2011; Ōki 2011; Sakoda 2011). In many cases, the first exam is set in fewer subjects. Some prefectures have also allowed high schools to recruit some students by setting their own entrance exams, or have allowed high schools to increase their recruitment of students rec­ ommended (suishin) by their junior high school, as recommended by the 1997 Chūkyōshin report (Monbushō 1997, 50).4 All these systems poten­ tially reward individual strengths. However, the introduction of additional exams has also been criticized for increasing stress among students and teach­ers, and some prefectures, such as Saitama and Shizuoka, have re­ ver­ted to a single prefectural entrance exam after some years (Kasuya 2011; Sakōda 2011, 92–­93). Choice and diversity have also been expanded somewhat since the start of the 1990s by the introduction of a limited number of new high school programs, such as mathematics and science (risūka), music, and art, as well as comprehensive programs (sōgō gakka), which allow students some­what more choice than regular programs. The number of places on these new programs remains small, and their impact has been correspondingly lim­ ited.5 Nonetheless, such structural reforms have proved easier to bring about than reforms that require changes in teaching practices. On the other hand, the educational reform agenda from the 1980s on­ ward has not included proposals to assess extended writing or speaking in a systematic way, even though such assessment might be thought to en­ courage individuality by broadening evaluation to include students’ cre­ ative, expressive, or analytical abilities. This suggests that existing modes of teaching, learning and assessment enjoy wide support, even if disquiet may be expressed about selection for high school or the difficulty of assessment. Some recent reforms to high school entrance processes have thus made limited moves toward accommodating individuality, understood as special individual talents. However, other reforms have intensified competition

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between individuals whose performance is measured on a single scale of relatively narrow academic criteria.

Assessment within Junior High School Assessment at junior high schools is recorded in grades on each student’s teaching-­learning record (shidō yōroku), a document that schools are le­ gally required to maintain (Sawada 1974). Grades are communicated on termly school reports. At Tachibana and Yoneda, grades for each of the nine subjects were given on a low-­high scale of 1 to 5, and were used to de­ termine performance in each subject (on a 1 to 10 scale) when the student applied to high school.6 Grades were based largely on the results of regular tests (teiki tesuto), together with the student’s effort, as expressed by attitude in class, or by submitting well-­kept notebooks on time. Regular tests in all nine subjects generally took place five times a year, with midterm and end-­of-­term tests in the first and second terms, and an end-­of-­term test alone in the shorter third term. They took place over a day and a half, thus being ritually sepa­ rated from normal, mundane school time. Students were required to make their own study timetables before the tests and submit them to their class teacher. Club activities were suspended just before and during tests. Stu­ dents also took proficiency tests ( jitsuryoku tesuto), which measured their knowledge and proficiency in relation to all they had learned in a subject to date, and were used to estimate their likely performance in high school entrance exams. Tests thus became a highly ritualized part of school life to which students reacted with excitement and trepidation.7 Junior high teachers created both regular tests and proficiency tests themselves. This added significantly to their workload, even when the job could be shared between two or three teachers.8 Determining grades was also time-­consuming, as each teacher could be responsible for the grades of two hundred students in one subject.

Juku: Discourses and Practices of Selfhood The topic of juku (tutoring colleges) is rarely far away from discussion of assessment and exams in  Japan. According to my 1998 questionnaire, 51 per­ cent of  Tachibana third-­year students were attending juku, significantly

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lower than the national figures of 67 and 63 percent recorded for third-­ year junior high students in 1993 and 2002, respectively (Monbukagakushō 2008b, 10). On the other hand, my 2007 questionnaire showed that 65 per­ cent of third years at Tachibana were attending juku, the same percentage recorded for junior high third years nationally by a Ministry of Educa­ tion survey in that year (Monbukagakushō 2008b, 10), while the figure at Yoneda was even higher, at 73 percent. At both schools, the proportion of boys attending juku was higher than that of girls (73 percent compared with 60 percent at Tachibana, and 75 percent compared with 70 percent at Yoneda). This no doubt reflected differential expectations and pres­ sures according to gender, driven by career opportunities and sociocul­ tural norms (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 74–­78), though it also showed that girls’ academic aspirations were by no means low, despite their disadvan­ taged employment position. The “juku phenomenon” (Rohlen 1980) tends to be seen with ambiva­ lence, at best, by both Japanese and overseas commentators. Juku are often seen as a “problem” (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 60). Their prolif­era­ tion is interpreted as symptomatic of excessive examination competition (Fujita 1997, 172) or shortcomings in the public school system (Roesgaard 2006, 181–­84). They are considered a mechanism for the production of so­ cial inequality, whereby those who can afford them improve their chances in the exam competition (Slater 2010, 146–­52). They “are frequently depicted as dark dens of cramming and memorization” (Russell 1997, 158), and allegedly “rob children of free playtime and pressure them to learn trivial facts” (Russell 1997, 167–­68). They are blamed for encour­ aging selfishness by drawing students away from participation in school life (Slater 2010, 149), and for undermining tuition at school by the way they teach material in advance of the schools (Fukuzawa 1994, 68; Russell 2002). Positive views of juku and related forms of supplementary tutoring are less common. Some argue that as private, market-­driven institutions, they may be able to respond to students’ demands more flexibly and rap­ idly than public schools, providing support that schools cannot (Russell 1997, 155–­60). In his analysis of supplementary tutoring as an interna­ tional phenomenon, Bray (2013, 20) suggests that such tutoring can en­ hance stu­dent satisfaction, sense of achievement, and autonomy. Despite their long-­standing importance in Japan, there is surprisingly little ethnographic research on juku.9 To begin to investigate their sig­ nificance in the lives of junior high students, especially in relation to dis­

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courses of selfhood, I conducted observations and interviews at three juku in 1997, and asked students and parents about the topic in interviews. Two of the juku were in Sakura, and one was on the outskirts of a large city in the Kinki district. Besides observing classes and collecting publicity and literature from the juku, I also interviewed one or more managers at each and talked informally with some teachers. Of the two Sakura juku, one, Advance, was a local enterprise with five schools in all, while the other, Excel, was a nationwide chain.10 The third juku, Foundation Academy, was one of the most well-­known and successful in the Kinki district, and many of its students entered the region’s most academically demanding schools. As it had no branch in Sakura, few Tachibana students attended, but it was brought to my attention by a friend whose daughter, a recent Tachibana graduate, had found the tuition there valuable and had been greatly helped by one of the teachers. All three enterprises marketed themselves as exam-­prep (shingaku) juku, with Advance also offering re­ medial (hoshū) tuition.11 The practices of these three juku embodied several different discourses of selfhood. Emphasis on seishin self-­reliance was prominent. For exam­ ple, the first of the “three guidance policies” that Excel proclaimed on its glossy flyers was “education that polishes the intellect and trains the core of your being [(kokoro o kitaeru].” The flyer went on to explain that this involved developing “inner strength” (seishinryoku) and a “brave and indomitable heart” (takumashii kokoro) through study. Foundation com­ municated similar messages, providing its students with literature stressing effort rather than innate ability, very much in line with mainstream think­ ing in Japan (Cave 2011b, 247, 259). In the student diary, there was a mes­ sage from the founder, which included the words, All human beings are given boundless potential. However, potential is not in itself ability [nōryoku]. It will only become ability if you make an effort.

Similarly, a book of pep talks selected by the juku contained a section entitled “What Is Ability?” in which the author emphasized that it was vital not to think poorly of your own ability. The important point, he said, was that everyone had much more ability than they usually showed, so you should concentrate on doing your utmost. Another section in the pep-­ talk book urged students to concentrate single-­mindedly on getting the best out of themselves, and not to be conscious of other students as com­ petitors. During a lesson on classical Japanese grammar that I observed

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at Foundation, the teacher gave the students a similar message by having them make a grammatical analysis of a text in classical Chinese (kanbun) that meant, “Rely on yourself, don’t rely on others.” He told them, “That is the world of the entrance exam, okay?” Another Foundation teacher lectured his students about the bad habit of asking a classmate the answer to a question, or even worse, telling the answer, which stunted the other’s ability to think, he said. They should “win or lose on their own by them­ selves” ( jibun hitori de shōbu suru). Lessons observed at Foundation (in mathematics and Japanese) also developed disciplined self-­reliance by the demands they made; they were intense, fast-­paced lectures, interspersed with questions and requiring concentration. Advance also used a lecture format, although the teaching was somewhat less intense, its students being less academically outstand­ ing. Perhaps the most striking sign of these schools’ appeal to an ethic of discipline and seishin self-­reliance was the shabby state of their buildings. At Advance, the linoleum floor had frayed edges, part of the skirting-­ board was missing, and there were no decorations or pictures to be seen on the walls of either the entrance hall or the classroom that I visited. The classroom door was made of flimsy material like deal board, dented and broken in several places, and there was graffiti on the brown board walls of the classroom. At the Foundation school that I visited, one of the dilapidated classrooms had a dent in the wall, as well as cracks that were covered with tape. Focus on individuality and autonomy was less marked and more am­ biguous. Some juku marketing appealed to prevalent discourses of indi­ viduality in ways that reflected the lack of clarity in this concept, discussed in chapter 1. They mixed appeals to understandings of “individuality” as “individuation” (individuals have different abilities, but are measured against the same criteria) with appeals to the idea of the uniqueness of individuals (“individuality” as “singularity”). All three juku taught in classes organized according to differences in academic proficiency. Advance offered computer-­based, individually ori­ ented learning for less proficient students seeking remedial rather than exam-­prep tuition. The flyers advertising this program appealed to dis­ courses of individuality with language such as “each person’s personal­ ity, academic attainment [gakuryoku] and ability are different” and “our lessons move forward using guidance methods and speeds suited to each individual.” Similarly, Excel’s flyers stated that “there are individual dif­ ferences in students’ abilities . . . We are seeking a guidance system

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responsive to each student as an individual” (seito hitori-­hitori no “ko” ni ōjita shidō taisei). The juku’s guidance policy referred to this as its “indi­ viduality teaching” (kosei shidō). Excel made a selling point of its small class sizes: its manager told me that the maximum class size was sixteen, though ten to twelve was even more desirable. Whereas the classrooms at Foundation and Advance could accommodate fifty or even sixty-­five stu­ dents, the classrooms at Excel were only large enough for twenty, allowing more individual attention. On the other hand, most of the Excel teachers were university students who taught part-­time at the juku and were given a mere three hours’ training in its highly standardized teaching methods, which cast some doubt on how far the juku was really able to provide high quality, individually helpful tuition. Meanwhile, Foundation’s literature stated that the first of its six distinguishing features was the development of “the ability to study autonomously” ( jiritsu gakushū nōryoku) and “the ability to solve problems by oneself,” so that students would do well not only in exams, but also after passing exams. However, juku discourses did not focus solely on the individual. At Foun­dation, interdependence discourse was also prominent. The juku pro­ duced a diary for its students which began with five “Vows on Entering the Academy.” The first of these vows was “to greet others before they greet me,” akin to the emphasis on “greetings” in the integrated studies work experience preparation at Yoneda. The second vow was “to strictly pre­ serve a spirit of gratitude, reflection on oneself, and service (hōshi), and to practice a moment of silent meditation before classes and meals without fail.” This was followed by two pages where the juku’s deceased founder wrote that the aim of Foundation was not merely study for the sake of entrance exams, but to produce people who possessed both knowledge and virtue (toku), and who would be internationally oriented and re­ spected by people abroad. Two further pages with the heading, “Moral Guidance” expanded on the importance of effort, self-­polishing, feeling for others (omoiyari), and wide reading. There were strong echoes here of value-­laden discourses at Tachibana and Yoneda. During my visit, one elderly teacher at Foundation even delivered a short “farewell message” that touched on the “days of youth” (seishun jidai) that his students were experiencing, telling them that these days came only once in life, and so if they didn’t “make them into years when they sparkled and shone,” it would be a waste. The romantic idealism of seishun discourse could thus be found at juku as well as at junior high school, suggesting that juku are not necessarily purely pragmatic in their approaches. Rohlen (1980,

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216 –­21), Roesgaard (2006, 170  –­  71, 179) and Dierkes (2010, 28–­31) have pointed to idealism and distinctive educational philosophies and practices at juku, and I also met staff at both Foundation and Excel who stressed educational ideals. One teacher at Excel told me that she wanted to “save” children who had been failed by schools, while two long-­standing staff members at Foundation told me that its founder had been motivated by dissatisfaction with educational standards in his home city. One suggested that Foundation’s policy of hiring many retired school teachers was re­ lated to the aim of providing a rigorous education and “building human beings” (ningen o mōkeru). However, as Roesgaard (2006) and Dierkes (2010) point out, there are tensions between the educational ideals of some juku managers and teach­ ers, and the business imperatives that require juku to attract customers. Commercial pragmatism no doubt explained why both Excel and Ad­ vance offered exam-­prep tuition only in inflexible packages that required enrollment in multiple subjects. At Excel, first-­and second-­year junior high students had to attend either two evenings a week (four and a half hours total), taking English and mathematics, or else three evenings (seven hours total), taking Japanese and science in addition. The third-­year pro­ gram occupied either three or four evenings. At Advance, junior high stu­ dents had to attend three evenings a week (six hours total), studying at least four subjects. At these juku, therefore, students’ autonomy to choose study programs was limited. At Foundation, however, students had more autonomy, as it was possible to select subjects and study as few as three hours a week, though costs per hour of tuition were higher.12 The strong focus on cooperation and group spirit found at Tachibana and Yoneda was absent at the juku; in that sense, their emphasis was the individual. However, there were subtle differences between the discourses of self articulated and embodied at the three institutions. Foundation provided the most complex combination of discourses. Its program al­ lowed stu­dents the most autonomy in choosing subjects to study, but it also placed more emphasis than the other two juku on interdependence—­ sociality, empathy, service, and gratitude. Both in the rhetoric of its teach­ ers and literature and in its practical demands, it placed considerable em­ phasis on seishin: self-­reliance and individual effort. By implication, ideal Foundation students were autonomous, self-­reliant individuals who were nonetheless deeply aware of  what they owed to others, well-­integrated so­ cially, and imbued with determination to serve the world. Excel rhetoric also stressed discipline, effort, and self-­reliance, with a degree of emphasis

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on individuality in its marketing and lesson organization—­though stu­ dents actually had limited choices about their study programs. Such au­ tonomous choice was even more limited for students taking the exam-­prep program at Advance, though this juku did employ the language of indi­ viduality to market its computer-­based remedial tuition. Discourses of self were least elaborated at Advance, either expressed rhetorically or embod­ ied in practice, but the lecture to over forty exam-­prep program students that I observed in a shabby classroom implied a demand for individual self-­reliance here too. While these juku focused on the individual much more than did the junior high schools, the type of individual they emphasized was one char­ acterized more by self-­reliant effort than by creativity, individuality, or autonomy. Despite differing dramatically from the junior high schools in largely ignoring group spirit and cooperation, their emphasis on inner strength, self-­reliance, and discipline had much in common with empha­ ses at Tachibana and Yoneda, especially in the schools’ club activities. Many of the “interdependence” values stressed at Foundation also ac­ corded closely with those emphasized at the schools. Thus, junior high schools and juku can reinforce one another’s mes­ sages about self. These commonalities have tended to be overlooked; most studies have stressed the differences between juku and the public educa­ tion system. Rohlen’s seminal analysis, for example, contrasts “the ideal­ ism of public educational ideology and the pragmatism that dominates the juku approach” (Rohlen 1980, 209), seeing the contrast as both “comple­ mentary and antagonistic” (Rohlen 1980, 232), and describing juku as a safety valve that allows the public school system to pursue its egalitarian, democratic agenda (Rohlen 1980, 233). This study’s findings are far from conclusive because of the small number of juku visited, but suggest that currently, such an analysis might somewhat exaggerate both the progres­ sive idealism of the public school system and the pragmatism of juku. Both public junior high schools and juku emphasize self-­reliance, and both pro­ vide opportunities for students to develop limited autonomy. Both institu­ tions attempt to help students realize their individual academic abilities, but within relatively narrow parameters. The major differences are that ju­ nior high schools attend to students’ human development, especially their ability to get along with and work with others, and juku track students into proficiency-­related instruction groups for the purpose of entrance exam preparation. In these respects, school and juku could be perceived by stu­ dents to be contrasting and complementary, as we shall see.

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Juku, Autonomy, and Conformity I asked about juku in my interviews with twenty-­two third-­year students at Tachibana, and also with parents of twenty-­five first-­year students at Tachibana, carried out in late 1996 and early 1997. Of the third years inter­ viewed, fifteen (68 percent) were attending  juku at the time. Most were glad they had attended. Some academically able students appreciated the faster pace and more demanding content of their lessons at juku. Others liked the more academically focused context or found the teaching more helpful: pc: If you compare lessons at school and at juku, are they different? haruo: You bet! pc: What’s different? haruo: At school, if people are talking, you want to tell them, “Be quiet!” but at juku, people don’t talk, and they’ve got a different expression in their eyes. They’re in earnest. pc: I see. So nobody talks at juku. haruo: In the breaks they talk. pc: Wonder why it’s like that? haruo: I guess it’s to do with academic attainment [gakuryoku]. You want to im­ prove your academic attainment. pc: But couldn’t you do that at school, if you studied hard? haruo: The way they teach is better than at school—­they teach you from step one. At school, there are forty students to one teacher, but [at juku] it’s a bit less than that, so if you don’t understand, they teach you.

Other students simply found it helpful to be taught the same topic twice, particularly when the teachers and their approaches were different. However, appreciation of juku did not necessarily lead to criticism of school. Several students saw the two institutions as functionally comple­ men­tary, with the narrow study focus of the juku supplementing the broader role of the school. Such students included Kaoru (who attended an exam-­prep juku throughout junior high) and Ruri (who only attended for part of her first year).13 pc: If you compare lessons at school and at juku, are they different? kaoru: Definitely . . . The pace is different . . . And they don’t mince their words [at juku]. They give it you straight.

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ruri: The atmosphere is “study, study!” whereas at school, it’s more relaxed, not so serious. At juku . . . lessons are totally focused on study. But that’s enjoyable in its own way. kaoru: The texts are different, too. It’s more advanced [hatten shiteiru] than what you study at school. pc: What do you mean by more advanced? kaoru: Problems where you have to apply what you learned [oyō mondai]. pc: So at school you don’t have many applied problems, but you do at juku? ruri: [At school] it’s basic stuff. pc: Are teachers at school and at juku different? kaoru: Yeah, sure . . . Teachers at school provide emotional care [kokoro no kea]. [To Ruri:] Don’t you think? Teachers at juku are, like, teachers who teach you your studies. ruri: This is kind of a funny thing to say . . . but juku teachers have to get the students to understand, no matter what. So the teachers are teaching for dear life—­the problems are difficult, after all—­they have to get the students to un­ derstand, they have to understand them themselves . . . But what you study at school isn’t that difficult, so the teachers are like, well, they’ll understand even if our teaching is a bit approximate, whereas juku teachers’ attitude to study is more intense . . . If the kids don’t understand and the parents complain, they’ll be straight out the door, right? So they’re teaching for their lives. kaoru: But teachers at school are okay as they are, don’t you think? Cause they’re kind and sympathetic. Juku teachers are teachers for study. Whatever happens, they’re like, “Forward! Advance!” [mae e susume! ] And even if the way you feel won’t let you “Advance!” they won’t change their tune. But when you can’t go forward, teachers at school are different, they’ll say kind and sympathetic things to you. pc: So do you think you’d like teachers at school to be as focused and intense as juku teachers? kaoru: No way. ruri: They’re okay as they are. kaoru: Juku is juku. It’s an exam-­prep [shingaku] juku. At school, there are peo­ ple who don’t go on to high school. School isn’t for the sake of exam prep, I don’t think. ruri: Exactly. School makes you bigger as a person. I’d hate it if school didn’t have the humanity it does. kaoru: I don’t think school is a place you come for study. Well, maybe it is, but me,

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I come to school to enjoy it. School is so much fun! . . . School is for enjoying, juku is for study. You do study at school, but it’s more for enjoying. ruri: Somehow it’s different, you meet your friends, you interact with people . . . The atmosphere’s different . . . School has the feeling of a school for the you inside [kokoro no gakkō to iu kanji], I would say . . . At juku, the atmosphere is “study, study,” but at school, there are people who are like, “Who cares about study?!” At any rate, at school there are all sorts of people. It’s not a rule that you have to study. kaoru: Well, it is, but there are people who get jobs after graduating and that. ruri: When there are people like that, you get to see these various people’s per­ sonalities, so yeah, it’s fun. I think it’s thanks to the teachers, too, don’t you think? . . . That they let you do what you want . . . I don’t like it if teachers don’t have a reasonable understanding of your questions, but . . . there are more times when you get anxious and uncertain inside, at our age. Teachers who’ll help you in earnest at those times are what I’m most glad about. Study you can do yourself, any amount, but things you’re worried about, you can’t solve those problems by yourself.

This perspective strongly resembled the view of Tachibana and Yoneda teachers that the main role of junior high school was to teach the basics, both academically and in terms of human development. For students like Kaoru and Ruri, teachers were right to see their role as going well beyond academic instruction. These students even saw exam preparation as be­ yond the remit of the school.14 Several students told me that it was their own decision to attend juku, not their parents’, and several parents echoed this emphasis on students’ autonomy, some commenting that one of their children had decided to attend juku, and another not. Other parents represented the decision as theirs; several said that they did it for “peace of mind” (anshin), support­ ing Dierkes’ (2008, 244) analysis of juku as an “insecurity industry.” More than one said that otherwise, their child did not study, a reason also cited by Kaoru at Tachibana: School is enough on its own if you’re a person who studies, but in my case, I don’t study much at home, or actually not at all, so if I didn’t go to juku, things would be dicey.

Most parents contrasted the contemporary popularity of juku with the situation in their own teenage years in the 1960s, when, they said, juku attendance was usually to learn abacus15 or English.16 Several expressed

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a preference that children not attend juku, either because they wanted them to develop without pressure (nobi-­nobi) or because they thought that there were better ways for children to spend their time. One example was a father who was a manager at a major manufacturer: In my case, I don’t have any experience of  juku or a home tutor. For me, study­ ing was something you do by yourself . . . I think that while [ juku] seem to give children opportunities, they actually steal away children’s sense of play and the joy of discovery. As for my son, he himself says he wants to go to juku, but in­ stead, we are using a sort of distance learning where the mother and father can keep an eye on it. That’s good for parent-­child communication, and we can get a direct grasp of how much he understands.

However, even such parents sometimes admitted to wavering in the face of a situation where it seemed that most other children were attending juku. One mother who told me that her son was not going to juku went on: Whether you go to juku or not, I think that the bright kids do well and the less bright don’t! [Laughs] But you know, these days most kids are going to juku, aren’t they? . . . I get told, “Three-­quarters of children are going—­we have to put ours into juku too. Will it really be okay if you don’t make him go?” Well, it might not be [laughs] . . . Am I anxious? Well, yes . . . We’re not sending him to any juku, he doesn’t study at home . . . But when I think back to my own days at junior high, I feel that no matter what you’re told at this age, what you don’t want, you don’t want—­so I try to watch calmly, without saying anything, until he himself feels that he wants to go.

Another mother who expressed her dislike of juku also spoke of her uncertainty: When my son entered junior high, advertising arrived from everywhere—­juku, home tutors, people ringing you up saying, “I’m at such-­and-­such university.” I have my convictions, but there was a point when I wavered and thought, “Is it really okay not to send him?” So I discussed with various people, but in the end, everyone says different things, so I decided to go with what I thought . . . If he himself said he wanted to go, that would be okay, but whatever he does, I want him to do it by his own will [ jibun no ishi de].

These parents felt strongly that their children should make their own deci­ sions about whether to go to juku. However, it was clear that the pressures

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that stemmed from worry about losing out to others in the competition to secure good educational credentials could be hard for both parents and children to resist. Interview evidence thus suggested that students sometimes exercised autonomy in deciding whether or not to attend juku, as well as which juku to attend—­and were sometimes encouraged to exercise that autonomy by their parents. Students could evaluate juku intelligently, and some had changed or quit juku after finding their original choice unsatisfactory. On the other hand, it also seemed clear that juku attendance sometimes stemmed from an attempt to alleviate insecurity by doing as many others did. Thus, juku had two opposite effects at once: providing opportunities for autonomous decision-­making yet also increasing pressure to follow the crowd.

Shinro Shidō: Guidance and Autonomy Application for high school is a key moment of choice for students. How­ ever, the autonomy they exercise in choosing is limited, as they compete for a set number of places at each high school. Whether they achieve their aspirations is determined by their individual performance, mainly in terms of academic attainment. Nor do high school programs do much to encourage individuality in the sense of singularity. The high school programs often seen as most desirable are those that prepare students for application to high-­ranking universities, and these programs are very similar in their content, differing only in their academic level. With the exception of a handful of programs specializing in mathematics and science, music, or art, most nonstandard programs are vocational and are largely the resort of students unable to enter an academically demanding high school. In the main, therefore, high school application is a process in which individuals must conform to a common set of standards to succeed. These individuals are not fundamentally different in the qualities they possess, only in the level to which they possess them. The process thus promotes normalized individuality (Foucault 1977, 182–­83), rather than singularity. Students in Sakura (and throughout the prefecture) could apply to only one public high school program, though they could also apply to one or more private high school programs.17 As it is throughout Japan, junior high teachers in Sakura played a crucial role in guiding students through

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the complexity of the high school entrance system (Shimizu and Tokuda 1991, 159–­74; Shimizu 1992, 123–­26; LeTendre 1996). This was part of a broader counseling process about post-­graduation pathways, known as shinro shidō. Most students’ first choice was a public high school program, whose requirements they needed to be sure of meeting in order to avoid the extra expense of a private high school.18 This in turn placed consid­ erable responsibility on teachers to give students a clear picture of their chances of entering their desired high school. In his study of shinro shidō at junior high schools in a city in central Japan in the early 1990s, LeTendre (1996) argues that while both teachers and students genuinely believed that application decisions were made by students, the guidance process steered students toward “safe” choices. The complexity of the situation made it impossible to see students’ decisions as either fully autonomous or externally determined. However, LeTendre finds that the schools he studied tended to direct students’ focus toward the situation and expectations of their own families (for example, by hav­ ing them spend a day at a parent’s workplace), which might limit students’ horizons and encourage social reproduction. The high school ap­plication system for Sakura schools was very similar to that in the city studied by LeTendre, resulting in many of the same constraints. However, Tachibana and Yoneda did not seem to direct students’ attention toward their fami­ lies as exemplars for their own aspirations, potentially freeing students to think more expansively about their futures. Nonetheless, the workplace experience that formed an important element of guidance, especially by 2007, did tend to focus students’ attention on locally available careers in a limited range of fields. Shinro shidō started in the first year, with students being encouraged to think about their future life paths. In December 1996, the Tachibana first years wrote out a “life plan” for themselves until beyond age seventy, using as a reference point the imaginary life plan of “A-­kun.” a boy who projected going to university, entering a company, marrying at age twenty-­ nine, having two children, buying his own home, and being promoted to department head (kachō) and then division head (buchō), before retiring at age sixty, running his own bookshop for a few years, and then doing volunteer activities while living happily, surrounded by his five grand­ children. The purpose of the exercise was simply to get students to think about their futures, and teachers did not expect them to have a clear life plan in reality. Teachers also encouraged students to compare their ideas and observations about different kinds of work; the guidance leaflet for

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teachers stressed that students should appreciate the diversity of types of work. Nonetheless, the reference point presented to students reproduced the classic male, new middle-­class ideal of postwar Japan— ­even though this was likely to represent future reality for only a minority of students (Sugimoto 2010, 1). This had the merit of providing all students with an aspirational model, avoiding the risk of promoting social reproduction—­ in contrast to many schools researched by LeTendre (1996, 199), which often encouraged students to write about their own parents’ occupations. On the other hand, the Tachibana approach presented a single, homoge­ neous model and failed to broaden students’ awareness that there might be diverse career possibilities available to individuals with differing inter­ ests and aptitudes. The “life plan” was also to help students prepare for workplace ex­ perience. In 1997, this took up one day for the first-year students. How­ ever, by 2007, workplace experience had been expanded to five days as part of second-­year integrated studies. In each case, students chose their preferred workplace from a list provided by teachers (who had arranged the placements), rather than visiting their own parent’s workplace. Thus, students’ families were not presented as implied models for their fu­ tures. Nonetheless, workplace experience as organized at Yoneda was of limited value as career guidance. The vast majority of the workplaces visit­ed were public facilities or retail outlets. Moreover, students’ prefer­ ences were strongly gendered. Students visited the workplaces in small groups, almost all of which were single-­gender. Groups of girls visited a library, the city concert hall, an elementary school, a welfare facility for the handicapped, and a beauty salon, while groups of boys went to the city athletics stadium, a sports club, an electrical goods shop, an electrical goods factory, and a fire station. As had been evident on the Tachibana first-­year field trip, allowing students to choose their activities resulted in experiences that conformed to gender convention.

Guiding Students’ High School Applications Shinro shidō intensified during students’ third year. During the sum­ mer vacation, students researched high schools and went to open days at those that interested them. From late fall, the guidance process moved up a notch (see table 8). On 1 November 1996, third-­year Tachibana class teachers held fifteen-­minute meetings with each student in their class,

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together with a parent. These meetings were to encourage students to persevere toward their goals or to warn that their preferred high school might be an unrealistic aspiration. The final proficiency test for the third years took place on 3 and 4 December 1997. Kawakami-­sensei, the coor­ dinator for third-­year shinro shidō, then tabulated key data, which were used at review meetings of teachers on 11 and 12 December. Two of the key data were based on proficiency tests, and the third on students’ school performance. First came each student’s average mark from the four proficiency tests given in the five examination subjects during the third year. The second key figure, also based on proficiency tests, was each student’s hensachi. This standard deviation value showed a student’s score relative to the av­ erage mark obtained by all students taking the test, when the average was adjusted to be 50.19 The third key figure was the student’s school perfor­ mance rating (sōhyō, short for sōgō hyōtei). The maximum rating was 90, comprising maximum scores of 10 in all nine curricular subjects, based on the student’s grades.20 Teachers needed this information, because high school entrance was based on a combination of the high school entrance exam and school per­ formance.21 Kawakami-­sensei told me that while the prefectural Board of Education advised prefectural high schools to assess applicants on both, in practice schools’ approaches differed. The top public high school in the area stressed the entrance exam, while low-­ranking schools with discipline problems emphasized school performance. Each high school set min­ imum acceptable scores for the entrance exam and school performance rating. Because students could only apply to one public high school program, teachers strongly recommended them to apply to a less difficult private high school program as a backup in case of failure to pass the require­ ments for their first choice.22 A small number of students applied to pri­ vate schools as their first choice, with a public school as backup. Teachers gradually intensified their discussions with students at risk of failing to gain their desired high school place, particularly those in danger of failing to gain any high school place at all. There were further meetings with students and parents from 17 to 20 December. Most stu­ dents were encouraged to work hard to achieve their desired goal, but those whose hopes seemed seriously unrealistic were strongly urged to change to an alternative. Most—­though not all—­seemed to do so. Teach­ ers’ biggest headaches came from low-­achieving students (the bottom

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15 percent) whose options were limited to either an agricultural high school, the lowest-­ranking private schools, a public evening school (teijisei kōkō) (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 66), or else employment. Teachers oc­ casionally suggested that such students make a private high school their first choice, hoping to use “pre-­application discussions” ( jizen sōdan) to persuade these schools to accept the students on the basis of a good character reference. Kawakami-­sensei told me that lower-­ranking high schools were keen to accept earnest students who were unlikely to cause discipline problems. Pre-­application discussions were also important for students admitted to high school by recommendation (suisen) or special recommendation (tokubetsu suisen). Recommendation was used by some high schools for a proportion of entrants to vocational and other nonregular programs in order to secure enough satisfactory students. To qualify, students had to show motivation, have a satisfactory school performance record, and be considered of excellent character by Tachibana teachers. Special recom­ mendation was used by high schools to recruit students for extracurricular sports clubs, so sporting ability was more important than character. High school teachers visited Tachibana to discuss and meet potential candidates a number of times during the late fall. Under both types of recommenda­ tion, students with lower academic attainment than otherwise necessary could be accepted by the high school. In this sense, the recommendation system recognized students’ diverse individual qualities, though its effects were confined to students of average or below average academic attain­ ment. In 1997, only a small number of Tachibana students entered high school by this route, though the proportion increased somewhat by 2007. Pre-­application discussions only affected a minority of students, but took up significant teacher time, both in meeting visiting high school teachers and also in visiting high schools themselves. The application deadline for private high schools (most students’ sec­ ond choice) was 9 January 1997, followed on 16 January by the dead­ line for applications to prefectural high schools by recommendation.23 Most private high schools held their entrance exams a week later and an­ nounced the results at the end of January. Third-­year class teachers told me that they would instruct students who had passed (the vast majority) to think about which public high school they wanted to apply to— ­did they want to stick with their current choice or try for somewhere more dif­ ficult, now that a place at a private high school was assured? In contrast, students who failed to gain a private high school place would generally be

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advised to think about applying to a less demanding public high school, though teachers stressed that this was ultimately a choice for the child and her or his parents. Teachers seemed to do their best to respect students’ autonomy while giving them clear advice about their alternatives. Sometimes they sought to protect students from parental pressure; third-­ year class teacher Fukumoto-­sensei told me that he would make a home visit if he felt that parents were pressuring a child to apply for a school that was too dif­ ficult for them. Maruta-­sensei told me that two students in her class had failed to gain a place at their second-­choice school. Both had a strong desire to go to a technical high school, and she did not intend to tell them to apply instead to a lower-­ranked agricultural high school unless they raised the subject themselves—­though she might suggest applying to one of the technical high school’s easier programs, she said. One, she told me, might make an extra application to an urban private school to study com­ puters. The other had already rejected her suggestion that he apply to a local private school as his first choice to try to secure a place through pre-­ application discussions. This student was her biggest worry. Kawakami-­sensei consulted some high school principals about the chances of students with dangerously low school performance, receiving a negative in some cases, and also met his counterparts at other Sakura ju­ nior high schools to exchange information. On 14 February, the third-­year teachers met to consider students likely to fail unless they lowered their sights. Class teachers thought that most would change their preference but sometimes reported that students were unsure or else were deter­ mined to stick to their original choice and “go for it” (tsukkomi). In such cases, teachers were often resigned, saying, “I’ve told him strongly enough that it’s risky,” “She’s stubborn—­just won’t listen,” or “Even if he wants to change, his parents won’t let him.” If teachers believed that an at-­risk student’s family might have trouble paying private school fees, they felt it important to advise a change. They continued to counsel students and parents, phoning or visiting students’ homes where necessary, and dra­w­ ing on any further information from another coordinators’ meeting on 21 February. Students then made their final decisions in time for the pre­ fectural high schools’ application deadline on 25 February. The prefectural high school entrance exam took place at the end of the first week of March. Students had to travel to the high school to which they had applied to take the exam, and each group was escorted there and back by one of the third-­year teachers. Students then prepared for the

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table 8  The high school entrance guidance process at Tachibana, from late fall 1996 to graduation 1997. Date

Event

1 November

Sansha kondankai (meeting of class teacher with student and his/her parent) Final proficiency test Review meeting of third-­year teachers Sansha kondankai (meeting of class teacher with student and his/her parent) Application deadline for private high schools Application deadline for prefectural high schools (entry by recommendation) Entrance exam for private high schools Private high schools announce entrance results Review meeting of third-­year teachers Application deadline for prefectural high schools (regular entry) Entrance exam for prefectural high schools Graduation ceremony; prefectural high schools announce entrance results

3–­4 December 11–­12 December 17–­20 December 9 January 16 January Final week of January End of January 14 February 25 February First week of March Mid-­March

graduation ceremony in mid-­March, a day before the announcement of the high school entrance results. The shinro shidō process for the third years showed teachers providing considerable individual attention and care for students.24 They seemed to do their best to respect students’ aspirations and consider their individual qualities, while remaining mindful of the constraints of the high school entrance system. I never heard teachers say anything that suggested that they advised boys and girls differently. For example, there was no indica­ tion that boys were encouraged to enter more demanding high schools, nor girls discouraged. On the other hand, the fact that students could only apply to one public high school might well have resulted in some from poorer homes avoiding more ambitious choices that carried a risk of fail­ ure, leading to social reproduction. As in LeTendre’s (1996) study, there was tension between a genuine emphasis on student autonomy and teach­ ers’ desire to help students avoid potentially harmful risks inherent in the high school entrance system. Tachibana teachers stressed that though they advised, the ultimate decision lay with the student. Indeed, teach­ ers sometimes supported students against parental demands that did not seem to be in the student’s best interests. According to the head of student guidance, Yasuda-­sensei, teachers’ at­ titudes regarding the risk of entrance exam failure varied with local con­ text. He recalled that when he was teaching in a rural part of the prefec­

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ture during the 1980s, teachers from the different junior high schools would coordinate applications in order to avoid excessive numbers of ap­ plicants for any one high school. He and other teachers would even visit the homes of children at risk of failure to give them individual tuition in the period before the exam. In such areas, Yasuda-­sensei explained, pri­ vate high schools were too remote to use as a fallback, and if a student’s application for a public high school failed, local people blamed the school. Moreover, children who failed tended to be stigmatized by others as “thick” or “dumb” (deki ga warui), so the school wanted to avoid putting them through such an experience. “I used to go to a kid’s home,” Yasuda-­ sensei recalled, “and sit in front of the student and the parents and say, ‘The student ranked immediately above your child is applying to high school X, and the student immediately below, to high school Y. Your child wants to go to high school Z, but his chances of getting in are extremely slim.’ They would usually agree to change, though I daresay they thought, ‘What right does this young whippersnapper have to talk to us like this?!’ ” Nowadays, he said, he didn’t press so hard, putting forth his point of view but accepting the wishes of the family if they persisted. “Looking back,” he reflected, “I also had a certain pride—­I didn’t want to produce a stu­ dent who failed to pass.” He recalled that when two students had failed at the rural school, it has been the first such occurrence for thirteen years, and a major problem. In Sakura, Yasuda-­sensei joked in one meeting of third-­year teachers, things were different: “Teachers are fine about stu­ dents failing!”—­a suggestion which the other third-­year teachers imme­ diately repudiated. Nonetheless, there was other evidence that Tachibana teachers were increasingly prepared to accept the risk that students would fail. “A few will probably fail,” commented Yuasa-­sensei to me matter-­of-­ factly, the day before the prefectural high school exam. The head of third year, Inada-­sensei, also reflected on this in conversation: “It’s not such a big deal if students fail the exam. That in itself would be something they would learn from. We teachers are to blame. We’ve kept on saying, ‘This is safe,’ because we don’t want students to have bad experiences and fail. That’s no good. It’s not surprising, because nowadays teachers themselves have been brought up like that, to take the safe path. But what happens to the children when those people who have protected them—­parents and teachers—­aren’t there any longer?” To my suggestion that students were no doubt anxious because they didn’t know what they would do if they failed, Inada-­sensei retorted, “Well, they can think about it. There are lots of places to study besides high school and university.”

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The teachers’ comments indicated a belief that students should be allowed to make their own choices about their lives, even if it involved them in more risk—­an acceptance of increasing individualization. Inada-­ sensei’s remarks expressed a sense that it was important for students to think seriously for themselves about their life aims, and how to achieve them; in other words, it was important for them to learn to exercise per­ sonal autonomy. Yet the increases in both individualization and autonomy were limited. Individualization was softened, and its risks lessened, by the support and advice provided by teachers. Meanwhile, autonomy was se­ verely constrained for most students.

Continuity and Change in Shinro Shidō Although I was unable to attend shinro shidō meetings for third-­year students at Tachibana and Yoneda in 2007, the account I received of the guidance process indicated that little had changed from 1997. Students continued to apply for a first-­and second-­choice high school, the backup usually being a private high school. The criteria used by high schools for admission continued to be a mixture of entrance examination and school performance, and junior high teachers continued to use profi­ ciency tests and grades as their main sources of guidance about students’ prospects. Entrance by means other than the regular method based on prefectural entrance exam and school performance has been the main area where changes have occurred over the last fifteen years. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the trend was to expand such approaches by allowing high schools more discretion to adopt alternative or additional means of assessing can­didates. This trend was ostensibly in line with the gov­ ernment policy of en­couraging a diversity of admission methods, which was put for­ward in the 1997 Chūkyōshin report as a means of promot­ ing individuali­ty (Monbushō 1997, 47–­50). However, there were probably other agendas at work too. In many cases, increasing alternative meth­ ods of entrance involved an expansion of the recommendation system, whereby students were admitted to high schools primarily on the basis of the recommendation of their junior high school, based on their char­ acter and school per­formance, often combined with an interview or an essay (Nakazawa 2000, 47). In the prefecture in which Sakura is located, however, this approach was mainly employed by nonelite prefectural high schools— ­especially but not only vocational high schools. The approach

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helped such high schools secure satisfactory students via pre-­application discussions with junior high schools, helping them come closer to filling their entrance quotas in a period when overall numbers of high school entrants were falling or flat. However, elite public high schools also used a recommendation system for a proportion of students on special small programs (especially “science and maths” [risūka] programs). By 2007, the shinro shidō coordinator at Yoneda estimated that 10–­20 percent of the school’s graduates entered high school via recommendation, a figure in line with prefectural statistics. Another approach was for schools to set their own entrance exams to select a proportion of entrants. This approach was used by prefectural high schools with a high academic reputation in Sakura’s prefecture. Such an approach probably increases exam competition and study pressure among academically able students, and may be a means of enabling high-­ranking public high schools to increase their distinctiveness and compete more effectively with elite private schools. Exam competition is also likely to increase when prefectures allow students a wider choice of high schools by combining or abolishing high school districts, as has been the trend since the early 2000s. Increasing competition individuates students and encourages greater self-­reliant effort, but is unlikely to promote either in­ dividuality, in the sense of singularity, or autonomy, while high school pro­ grams remain limited in their diversity, and assessment methods for entry to more prestigious high schools are so narrow.

Conclusion The high school entrance process individuated students. It also encour­ aged them to think of themselves as autonomous and thus to value au­ tonomy. However, the reality was that students’ autonomy was limited by educational structures and the employment recruitment practices to which they ultimately led. The system also gave only limited encour­ agement to individuality in the sense of singularity. Students’ high school choices were constrained by the fact that the better high schools offered very similar academic programs. There were a very small number of places available in the prefecture on specialist programs in music, art, maths and science, or P.E., and a few schools of average academic level or below offered comprehensive programs (sōgō gakka), which offered some­what more flexibility. Otherwise, opting for something other than a regular

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academic program meant choosing a vocational program with poorer career prospects at the end of it. Moreover, the format of high school entrance exams gave very little scope for students to show individuality in any other way than differential ability in knowledge and understand­ ing in the five examination subjects—­in other words, “individuality” in terms of the differences between individuated persons, not in the sense of individual singularity. Entrance exams focused only to a limited extent, if at all, on aspects of the curriculum that might be considered especially important for individuality as singularity, such as speaking and writing in language-­based subjects like Japanese and English. Individuation through the examination system has been established as a central feature of Japanese society for over a century, becoming in­ creasingly important through the postwar decades as almost the entire population entered high school, and a majority went on to tertiary edu­ cation (Rohlen 1983; Amano 1990). As Foucault (1977, 170–­92) argues, examinations have been a key part of the disciplinary technology that has operated to constitute the modern individual. In this sense, people in Ja­ pan have been accustomed for decades to striving and being evaluated as individuals. This individuation is also intimately connected to the continu­ ing power of self-­reliance discourse in Japan, which is pervasive not only at junior high school, but also at juku. Meritocratic selection for entrance to a higher level of education is based on differences between students. However, the criteria against which individual differences are evaluated—­what counts as merit—­may vary widely between systems. The selection procedures described here used relatively narrow criteria—­knowledge and understanding in five subjects, as measured primarily by a short written examination—­for places in the most valued high school programs. Some programs evaluated students by more varied criteria, such as character, sporting ability, or ability in par­ ticular subjects such as art, music, or mathematics, but most of these pro­ grams were vocational and less valued because they were perceived to lead to poorer career opportunities. Thus, high school en­trance assessment structures focused on individuality only in the very limited sense of dif­ ferences between individuated performers, measured against restricted criteria. “Individuality” in the sense of singularity could have been better accounted for if the range of assessment criteria used had been broader, if more account had been taken of strengths in particular fields, or if a greater diversity of attractive high school programs had been available. As it was, assessment structures indicated that what was really important was a relatively narrow conception of academic ability.

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As a result, student autonomy in their high school choices was inevita­ bly limited. For those students with the ability to enter the most academic high school programs, the choice was more or less made for them, given that substantial differences between these programs lay in their academic level, not the content of study. The real choices had to be made by less ac­ ademically proficient students who might decide to enter one vocational program rather than another based on interest, or who might choose a vocational program over a lower-­ranking academic program because they wanted to seek employment after graduating from high school.25 However, the least academically proficient students had very few choices indeed. It has long been observed that meritocratic processes such as entrance examinations are central to the functioning and perceived legitimacy of the Japanese educational system (Rohlen 1983, 61–­62; Yoneyama 1999, 44–­53; Kariya and Dore 2006). Moreover, the shinro shidō process works extremely well in many respects, as studies by Kariya and Rosenbaum (1987) and LeTendre (1996) have shown. It provides students with ac­ curate information about their chances of entering their preferred high school program, allowing them to make well-­informed decisions and min­ imizing the costs that might result from exam failures caused by confusing information. Moreover, it provides a supportive context for these deci­ sions. Though individuated, students at Tachibana and Yoneda were not isolated. Not only did they receive support or pressure or both from their families, they also received guidance over many months from teachers. It might even be argued that the limited autonomy that is a feature of the system partially results from the system’s very fairness and clarity. None­ theless, the limitations on individuality and autonomy evident in the high school entrance process do expose the problems of a capitalist meritoc­ racy like Japan’s, which “does not pretend to evaluate people’s intrinsic worth, only the market value of their skills” (Marris 2006, 160). Indeed, Takeuchi (1995, 249–­55) argues that what he sees as the excessively nar­ row focus and artificially created exactness of evaluation of the Japanese examination system is damaging because it tends to drain students of au­ tonomous ambition, training them instead to perform according to exter­ nally imposed standards. The narrowness of such a system’s definition of merit is also a potential problem for society because it leads to recognition and reward flowing to a limited range of talents (Lister 2006, 234). Unless a wider range of abilities are economically rewarded, rhetoric about the value of “individuality” is unlikely to change students’ decisions about high school programs. Nor will students be encouraged to make choices that are more autonomous in the sense of reflecting their aspirations and

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interests. Indeed, it can be argued that Japan’s high school entrance exams are flawed even as an instrument of capitalist meritocracy because the abilities they evaluate are so restricted. This is a problem that could be tackled by modifying the assessment and examination system in order to evaluate a wider range of abilities. However, the wider issue of the flaws in capitalist meritocracy extends far beyond the education system. Pro­ motion of individuality and autonomy within schools will ultimately be limited without change in the reward systems of society as a whole.

Conclusion

T

he educational reforms that took place in Japan from 1989 onward were intended to prepare schools, students, and society for the new challenges anticipated in the twenty-­first century. Their aim was to promote individuality, autonomy, and choice, both for students and for schools. Junior high schools were given new freedom to decide the content of their curriculum within the rubric of the new integrated studies program and the expansion of electives. Children were given more free time, as Saturday schooling was phased out in public schools. The changes gave rise to heated debate. They were welcomed by some as an opportunity for schools to exercise autonomy and to develop exploratory, problem-­focused learning for children, and were attacked by others as threatening to widen inequality or subvert academic standards. However, the core reforms to the curriculum and school week also had a second purpose—­not just to develop supposedly neglected qualities of individuality and creativity but to restore the social and emotional com­ petence and wellbeing that it was feared children were losing. This at­ tracted much less attention and caused no controversy, indicating widespread acceptance that these were problems that needed tackling. Yet despite the lack of attention these aspects of the reforms received in public debate, they became central for schools when they implemented reform. In the process, reforms were reinterpreted and transformed—­ sometimes even turned on their heads. The reforms affected schools, but the schools’ effects upon the reforms were even greater. In this conclusion, I want to consider what this study tells us about Japanese junior high schools and educational reform and what we can learn from the study about relations between groups and individuals in Japanese education and society. What can we learn from a study of junior high

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schools about the forces propelling and resisting individualization in Japan? Is the long-­standing quest for individual autonomy in Japan ultimately vain? Or, is it a goal that leads only to new forms of coercion? Can schools develop students’ autonomy while combating their individualization—­and if so, how?

Educational Reform Meets the Local School: Resistance and Repackaging There were many reasons to think that the educational reform measures of the 1990s and 2000s would succeed. They emerged from an apparent consensus that Japanese education was suffering from serious problems. Each stage of the reforms was preceded by years of consultation and debate. Their emphasis on increased individuality, autonomy, and creativity was supported by many influential voices, not only in education but also in business. Moreover, they took place in the context of what was generally seen as a movement toward more individualization across Japanese society as a whole. Yet in junior high schools such as Tachibana and Yoneda, they were greeted with little enthusiasm and considerable resistance. The results of the reforms were disappointing. At worst, they could be called a failure, and even with the most generous assessment, they fell far short of the significant transformation of educational practice for which reformers had hoped. At every stage of my fieldwork, teachers’ ambivalence about the reforms and their goals was clear. “Emphasizing individuality” was a term that tended to evoke uncertainty, suspicion, or resistance: teachers were often uncertain what it meant, or suspected it meant going easy on selfishness, laziness, or lax discipline. Few saw it as a priority. Instead, most teachers saw the role of junior high school as ensuring that as many children as possible acquired the basics needed to be a human being in society, from fundamental knowledge and understanding to discipline and life habits. “Individuality” and self-­motivated learning were agreed to be fine ideals, but many teachers saw them as impractical and even, at the junior high level, undesirable distractions from their real task. Teachers’ priorities emerged very clearly in major events, such as the sports day, cultural festival, and choral contest, over whose form and content schools had complete control. There was some attempt to give students greater scope to show individuality and exercise autonomy by organizing

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the cultural festival so that students chose the activities they engaged in. However, many teachers worried about overemphasizing the individual and underemphasizing contributions to a cooperative whole. Overall, whether in the mid-­1990s or the mid-­2000s, the major school events emphasized working together and team spirit much more than autonomy or individuality. At Tachibana, the relative priorities were symbolized by the way that the mass game at the sports day was elaborated between 1996 and 2007, while the cultural festival, which offered more scope for individuality and autonomy, disappeared completely in the early 2000s. Even teachers who were more enthusiastic about encouraging individ­ uality and self-­motivated learning often ran into difficulties. This was seen in the setbacks encountered by teachers of Japanese when they tried placing more emphasis on autonomous learning and individual expression. Students did not necessarily respond with enthusiasm, and the level of work done often disappointed the teachers. To change their practices successfully demanded considerable skill and persistence on the part of teachers, and it was easy to become discouraged. The biggest challenge faced by teachers came with the introduction of integrated studies in 2002. It might also have been seen as the biggest opportunity, given the freedom it allowed teachers, but relatively few saw it as such. Integrated studies was not a complete failure; schools did take advantage of its framework to introduce new initiatives that involved students in more self-­directed and experiential learning, including individual project work, as well as studies of local provision for older people and those with disabilities. However, I observed few teachers who showed much enthusiasm for such initiatives or actively sought to help students improve the quality of their work in integrated studies. To a significant extent, the content of the program amounted to existing activities, sometimes in elaborated form, which had been given a new label. Schools thus “appropriated” integrated studies rather than simply “implementing” it (Levinson and Sutton 2001, 2–­4), adapting the program to their own concerns in ways that were sometimes close to its original curricular intentions, and sometimes very far from them.1 Although the junior high curriculum stated that the focus of integrated studies should be self-­directed learning, in practice schools tended to use the new domain to promote better human relations, empathy, and good social behavior. These were areas that the educational reform agenda had also identified as needing attention, and they seemed much more in line with teachers’ views about what junior high students needed. Time

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students spent visiting the countryside, welfare facilities, or workplaces was strongly focused on such concerns. Evaluating the extent to which integrated studies succeeded or failed depends on the criteria used. However, the evidence at Tachibana and Yoneda indicated that the new domain was not achieving its curricular aims, and in this sense, it was failing. The lack of enthusiasm and engagement it engendered among teachers and students at the schools also indicated lack of success. The overwhelming majority of teachers thought that hours for integrated studies should be reduced, as indeed they were in the 2008 curriculum revision. There were several reasons for this relative failure. One of the most important was lack of capacity in schools to implement the reformed curriculum. “Lack of capacity” meant that teachers had insufficient knowledge, skills, time, or energy to undertake the considerable task successfully. Though the autonomy provided by integrated studies provided teachers with opportunities to develop new teaching and learning initiatives, taking those opportunities required a great investment of time, energy, and creative ideas. The slimming down of the curriculum and the phasing out of Saturday schooling did free up some teacher time, but the demands on teachers remained enormous. Moreover, my observations suggested that teachers might not know how to provide the less directive support for student learning that self-­directed learning required. More time and more training were needed. It was almost certainly a mistake to expand elective subjects at the same time as introducing integrated studies, as the expansion of electives placed additional demands on teachers and made it less likely that either reform would succeed. The reforms suffered from excessive ambition and inadequate support for implementation, as the education minister responsible, Arima Akito, reflected in a 2007 interview.2 However, there must be doubts whether integrated studies would have succeeded, even with the provision of more time and training for teachers. There was considerable evidence that many teachers simply did not believe that the goals of the reform agenda—­more emphasis on individuality, self-­directed learning, and autonomous thinking—­were suitable for junior high schools. These goals conflicted with their own sense that the proper mission of the junior high school was to provide the basics for their students’ futures. It was striking, for example, that though teachers complained that they had too little time to do the large amounts of planning and preparation that integrated studies demanded, many were willing to invest very large amounts of time supervising extracurricular clubs, when

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there was no curricular requirement to do so—­including on weekends. Clearly, club supervision was a higher priority for them than planning and preparation for integrated studies. The explanation for this was that club supervision was personally rewarding for many teachers, and it was also a strongly institutionalized activity that was perceived to be vital for students’ personal development and their integration into the school. Teachers strongly believed in the school’s role in supporting students’ personal and social development, which they tended to interpret as helping students to learn to get along well with others and learn socially approved behavior. They also tended to be more concerned with ensuring that the student body as a whole was reaching acceptable standards of academic attainment and behavior, than to give individuals opportunities to develop their particular strengths. Their relative lack of interest in developing individuals’ strong points was most evident in the classroom, where more proficient students were often left without work to do after completing tasks set for all. These observations were corroborated by several teachers at different times during my fieldwork, in comments that indicated that they considered it relatively unimportant whether a minority of students extended their individual strengths. Such an attitude was fundamentally at odds with the reform agenda’s emphasis on individuality and autonomous learning. Teachers’ emphasis on the integration of the entire student body was not purely for the sake of the students themselves. It was also an essential means of maintaining control, which was perhaps the schools’ highest priority. Giving as many students as possible roles to play and a sense of fulfillment and belonging at school was vital for school order, particularly in the absence of a finely graded system of sanctions for poor behavior. Schools’ worries about losing control were well founded, given past experiences, but were probably intensified by a dominant ethos of conventional masculinity among the teaching staff, especially at Tachibana, the school with more discipline problems and a higher proportion of men on the staff. Male teachers were more likely to take an aggressive role in enforcing order, and to gain satisfaction from taking this role. The institutionalization of beliefs and practices at the junior high schools was a key reason new ideas that conflicted with established views found it so hard to make headway, as did new practices that required resources already used for existing activities. Moreover, these institutionalized beliefs and practices tended to interlock and reinforce one another, making major innovation even more difficult. On the other hand, changes

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that required no significant innovation in practice or belief were easily accepted. The best example was the introduction of small-­group teaching in certain subjects, provided that the small groups were not differentiated according to proficiency (which aroused much more ambivalence and was therefore less likely to be implemented). These findings harmonize with those of other studies of attempted educational change around the world. It has been found that attempts to make significant changes to teachers’ educational practices usually fail (Sarason 1990; Fullan 2007). Where change appears to have been successful, it often seems to be based on visions that local practitioners have had a strong say in developing, and that win the commitment of teachers ( Hargreaves 2010, 110–­14; Hargreaves and Shirley 2012, 118–­19). Change is unlikely to be achieved without building the capacity of teachers (Fullan 2007, 58–­59, 252–­ 54; Hargreaves and Shirley 2012, 183–­84; Hargreaves and Fullan 2012) and may be hindered by goals that are too ambitious (Jaquith and McLaughlin 2010, 93–­94). In retrospect, it is clear that the educational reform agenda of the 1990s and 2000s failed to win the commitment of teachers, in part because they did not have enough say in developing it; moreover, the agenda was too ambitious, especially in seeking to expand elective subjects at the same time as introducing integrated studies, and there was insufficient effort made to build teachers’ capacities. It is also worth noting that much recent writing on successful educational change has focused on reforms to domains such as literacy and mathematics (Hargreaves and Shirley 2012, 93–­149), which are traditionally regarded as central to school education, and where success can be measured partly by improved test scores (Hargreaves 2010). It might have been easier to secure support for reform in these areas among teachers (as well as media and public) in Japan, since, as we have seen, teachers agreed on their importance. However, reform in Japan focused on change in areas that had not traditionally been seen as central goals of lower secondary education—­ promoting individuality and autonomous learning—­and where progress was not easy to measure. This exacerbated the challenge that the reforms faced. One recent study that does show educational change toward a more child-­centered approach to learning is the research of Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa (2009) on preschools in China. They show the dramatic changes at a preschool in Kunming, originally studied by Tobin and his colleagues twenty years earlier (Tobin, Wu, and Davidson 1989). Regimented group activities were replaced by much more freedom for individual children

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to show creativity and imagination. At a preschool the team studied in Shanghai, emphasis on child-­initiated activities was even more evident. The researchers show that the change is in line with new preschool curricular guidelines. This Chinese reform approach seems very similar in in­ tention and method to the reforms that encountered such difficulties in Japan. Why did the Chinese reform apparently achieve so much more success? Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa (2009, 75–­  78, 82) attribute the changes at the Chinese preschools to the acceptance of new ideas, a political shift away from communist ideology toward economic pragmatism, “the power of top-­down planning,” and a “sense of shared national purpose.” I would suggest that the central reason why these changes were successful is that during the 1980s and 1990s, China underwent political, ideological, economic, and social change of truly epoch-­making scale and rapidity. Institutionalized structures and beliefs in the domain of education are much more likely to become open to change in such a context, when institutions of all kinds are in flux (as they were in Japan during the first half of the Meiji period in the late nineteenth century, or immediately after World War II). Moreover, the “sense of shared national purpose” of which Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa write stems from an optimistic conviction that things are changing for the better and that education must play its part in this. As these authors write, the situation in the 1990s and 2000s was very different in Japan, amid the economic stagnation that followed the “bubble economy” of the 1980s, with “a loss of faith . . . in the future” (154) that, they suggest, contributed to a sense that Japanese preschools’ job was more to conserve the good qualities of the past than to blaze a trail for the future. This insight can also be applied to junior high schools. In other words, the situation that allowed radical pedagogical reform in China’s urban preschools may perhaps be historically unusual, and is certainly very different from the contemporary Japanese context.3 In addition, it can be argued that reform at junior high level is significantly harder than reform at preschool level, because of the greater pressures on children and teachers at this stage of education. This is particularly so in Japan, given that junior high schools prepare children for the vital high school entrance examinations and must help guide them through one of the most crucial choices of their lives. Such pressures add to those stemming from the social, psychological, and physical transitions involved in adolescence, and help to explain why Japanese junior high school teachers are so keen to integrate their students into school life and maintain

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control. This study explains the problems of reform largely in terms of institutionalized beliefs and practices specific to junior high school as a stage of the education system, not in terms of beliefs and practices common to Japanese society as a whole. Studies of Japanese preschools and elementary schools (e.g., Tobin, Wu, and Davidson 1989; Lewis 1995; Kotloff 1996; Cave 2007; Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa 2009) show that at those stages of education, institutionalized beliefs and practices differ significantly from those at junior high level; in fact, each stage is an institution with its own internal debates. As I have argued elsewhere (Cave 2011a), this explains why responses to educational reform were more positive in elementary than in junior high schools. How should these outcomes of the reform initiative be evaluated? Did its relative failure represent a victory for the practical experience and good sense of teachers over misguided idealism, or the regrettable defeat of an opportunity to improve education and draw out children’s powers? Or is this a pointless question, given the conclusion already reached that the reforms were overambitious? Inevitably, different points of  view will yield different answers to these questions. It is likely that some— ­even many—­teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda might consider the relative failure of the reform initiative a welcome outcome, given their ambivalence about or hostility to the measures. Others might consider the results regrettable but inevitable, given the reforms’ excessive ambitions and inadequate resourcing. Still others might argue that the reforms were unnecessary, given that Japanese junior high schools do seem to provide a good education in thinking in at least some subjects, judging by students’ continued good results in the OECD’s PISA tests, which purport to measure the ability to analyze, reason, and apply knowledge in mathematics, reading, and science.4 Notwithstanding, the initiators of the reform and their successors in the Ministry of Education and Science continue to believe in the value of the reforms. They have been defended by the education minister who introduced them, former Tokyo University president Arima Akito, who justifies his view of “the need to nurture ‘thinking ability,’ not just cram” by pointing to international surveys that indicate low scientific understanding among Japanese adults who tested well while at school.5 As the Asahi Shinbun reported in its three-­ part retrospective on the reforms in 2012, “The ministry has not lowered the banners of ‘emphasizing the ability to use knowledge’ and ‘power to live’ that it hoisted in the 2002 curriculum.”6 The major ministry policy document issued in 2013 (Monbukagakushō 2013a, 2013b) shows the same

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concern that education produce creative individuals and also contribute to a strong community that was expressed in the 1996 Chūkyōshin report. Terms from the 1996 report, such as “ikiru chikara” (power to live), “kosei” (individuality) and “mizukara manabi, kangae, kōdō suru chikara” (ability to learn, think, and act by oneself) are found in the 2013 document, along with emphasis on creativity (sōzōsei), have-­a-­go spirit (charenji seishin), and self-­reliant independence ( jiritsu)—­as well as working together (kyōdō) and community formation (komyunitii no keisei). Despite the widespread media view associating the 2002 curriculum reform with falling academic attainment, ministry officials continue to maintain that “in schools that are carrying out integrated studies with enthusiasm, children’s academic attainment is rising” (Hirooka 2014, 165). On such a view, the reforms’ relative lack of success is a serious concern. I also regret that the reforms did not achieve more, despite concluding that there were major flaws in their design and implementation. I think Japanese junior high students benefit from being encouraged to think and learn autonomously, allowed to explore complex and important topics that range across subject boundaries, and helped to pursue their own interests and extend their particular strengths as individuals. For all the problems with the reforms, they did provide opportunities to develop Japanese junior high school education in these ways. They increased autonomy for both teachers and students, giving teachers the chance to engage students with important topics beyond the confines of the subject curriculum, and enabling students to explore issues that they cared about, potentially liberating a sense of their own creative and investigative capabilities. This was particularly important given the questions that have been repeatedly raised about whether Japanese society in general, and state education in particular, do enough to enable individual autonomy to develop and thrive.

Individualization versus Institutionalization The findings of this study differ strikingly from much recent research on con­temporary Japan, which often highlights increased individualization, in the sense used by authors such as Bauman (2000) and Beck and Beck-­ Gernsheim (2001). Such research points to weakening social and economic support systems, and increasing desire for individual freedom and autonomy among the population at large. Do my findings suggest that

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individualization is less important in Japan than such studies suggest? Do they simply reveal ambivalence about individualization? Or are schools unusually resistant to individualizing forces? A major reason for these divergent findings lies in the different subjects of the research. Studies revealing individualization have tended to focus on settings and social relationships where the power of institutionalization has been limited. These include studies of newly established institutions, such as Edwards’s study of soccer in Japan following the establishment of the semi-­professional women’s L-­League in 1989, and the men’s professional J-­League in 1993 (2013); or Lukacs’s examination of cell phone novelists, and the new infrastructure of cell phone novel portals that has been established to enable publication and marketization of their work (2013). Other studies have looked at comparatively flexible institutions. These include Nakano’s study of marriage and singlehood (2011) and Alexy’s studies of marriage and divorce (2011a, 2011b). Such institutions have become easier for individuals to shape for their own purposes, as social and legal change has weakened the power of established family structures. Still other studies have examined relationships that are relatively free from institutionalization; a good example is Ho’s research on the friendships-­cum-­support networks of professional Tokyo women (2012). Individualization is more likely to flourish in settings such as these, which are relatively free from conventions and norms that constrain action. In contrast, recent studies of long-­established social frameworks find much greater resistance to individualization, due to the power of institutionalized procedures, behaviors, and patterns of thought. Examples include the university sports clubs examined by Miller (2013), or the large enterprises studied by Vogel (2006) and Keizer (2010). Within complex, bureaucratized institutions such as schools and large companies, it is especially likely that complementary, interlocking institutionalized practices and schemas will impede or shape change (Vogel 2006, 216; Keizer 2010, 27, 154). This is not to say that change cannot occur even within highly institutionalized frameworks. Vogel (2006), Schaede (2008), and Keizer (2010) have shown how employment practices have been changing in large Japanese firms, facilitated by legal changes coming from the government and the courts. As Keizer (2010) has shown in particular detail, large firms have altered the “lifetime employment” system, introduced evaluation of employees’ individual performance, and perhaps most importantly, increased nonregular employees (who are given less security and fewer benefits) as a proportion of their workforce. Nonetheless, these changes have

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been made not in order to destroy the “lifetime employment” system, but precisely so that it can be maintained in a modified form that firms believe to be sustainable. This study similarly shows how schools have made limited modifications to their practices. A key difference is that pressure on public schools to change has come not from the market, as with business, but from government, primarily in the form of the Ministry of Education and Science. In practice, however, Ministry pressure on schools to change has been relatively weak, in comparison to the competitive market forces being brought to bear on Japanese companies. Evaluation of the implementation of curricular reform has been limited, criteria for success unclear, and reward or sanctions apparently nonexistent. In addition, the aims of reform have been divided, focusing on social development as well as individuality and autonomy. This provided legitimacy for junior high schools’ reshaping of reform to fit their existing priorities. They were further encouraged in this by mounting public concern about disorderly, immoral, and criminal juveniles in the late 1990s, symbolized and reinforced by Prime Minister Obuchi’s National Commission on Education Reform in 2000, which helped to justify a focus on students’ human development. Ministry priorities also shifted over the years, partly in response to these public and political pressures. All this reflects the fact that the aims of public education are more complex than those of private business, and the number of stakeholders far greater, making it even harder to overcome institutional pressures against change.

“Groupism,” Individualization, and Autonomy As I discussed in chapter 1, writers have been divided in their evaluation of the group identity, common rules, and working together that they have identified as characteristics of Japanese schooling. Some have praised the ways in which children learn to cooperate and support one another through group activities, while others have criticized educational institutions for suppressing individuality and autonomy, and for training children to internalize the demands of the capitalist state. These debates have paralleled broader arguments about relationships between the state, society, and individuals in Japan. However, this study finds that the opposition often drawn between groups and individuals in Japanese schools is too simple. There was no mono­lithic concept of the group at Tachibana and Yoneda. Instead,

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teachers used different concepts, with different connotations and implications. Particularly important were the concepts of shūdan and nakama. Shūdan was often used to emphasize that a group demanded discipline and conformity from its members. The term shūdan seikatsu (group life) was used to express the idea that individuals needed to discipline themselves for the benefit of the group as a whole, as Peak (1989) has previously noted with reference to preschool children. On the other hand, the term “nakama” was used to emphasize that members of the group should support one another. It emphasized the benefits of the group for the individuals that composed it. A third term, “nakayoshi gurūpu,” was used as a criticism of cliques whose members expressed their friendship with one another at the expense of excluded others. In 1996, Tachibana teachers placed considerable emphasis on group discipline and used the discourse of shūdan much more than the language of nakama; eleven years later, their successors had shifted the stress toward individual autonomy and responsibility, and rarely talked in terms of shūdan. The shift had come about at least in part through the increased stress on individuality and autonomy that came with educational reform, and particularly the introduction of integrated studies. These variations showed that an emphasis on the group could take various forms, and suggested that group emphasis need not be oppressive of individuals. In fact, fieldwork showed that supportive groups can provide the right conditions for individuals to learn to act autonomously, as experienced by members of Tachibana’s track and field club. Conversely, this study also found that individualization during the junior high school years does not necessarily increase autonomy. Individualization in learning and assessment at junior high school, culminating in high school entrance exams, led only to a very limited kind of autonomy for children, in which they and their families made decisions about how best to study (including whether to attend juku, and if so, which one), and what high schools to aim for—­but severely constrained by the narrow demands of the examination system. An emphasis on the group can thus be empowering for individuals as well, provided that it is the right kind of group that is emphasized, and for the right reasons. This conclusion is in accord with much contemporary thinking on the question of personal autonomy. It is increasingly recognized that personal autonomy is not opposed to interdependence with others. In fact, there is good reason to believe that people cannot attain a significant degree of autonomy without learning from others and drawing on their help and support. In contrast, individualization that makes it

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harder for people to support one another and work together for common ends increases their vulnerability, and decreases their power to achieve the lives they want; in other words, decreases their autonomy. It follows that in order to further personal autonomy, schools should emphasize groups that provide mutual support for the individuals that comprise them, based on recognition of human interdependence. Focusing primarily on social control through groups aiming at the maintenance of discipline, on the other hand, risks diminishing autonomy. Promoting individualization while neglecting the need for social support may similarly endanger the development of autonomy. The schools examined in this study seem to have promoted individual autonomy to a limited extent through some of their practices. Some teachers clearly tried to encourage children to think and make decisions for themselves within a supportive context, whether in the classroom, during club activities, or when making decisions about post-­graduation pathways. At Tachibana, there was some evidence of increased promotion of autonomy by 2007, and this was linked to the introduction of integrated studies. However, there was also evidence of misgivings among teachers that promoting individuality and autonomy might result in indiscipline and loss of control, and this was a significant factor in some teachers’ lack of enthusiasm for the educational reform agenda. In the final analysis, the encouragement of individual autonomy at the schools studied remained limited. Research at elite and selective schools such as Yamagawa, Ikegaoka, and Miyamoto, discussed in chapter 6, suggested that such schools were readier to encourage their students’ autonomous thinking and learning than were regular public schools such as Tachibana and Yoneda. Elite schools also had greater resources for such encouragement, in the form of a stable and highly qualified teaching force, and excellent support from alumni connections. This supports the conclusion that the promotion of individual autonomy was more likely when schools had few discipline worries. Moreover, schools were more likely to encourage autonomous thinking and learning if they saw part of their mission as the education of future leaders, as the selective and elite schools did. In contrast, most teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda saw their mission as educating their students in what the teachers defined as “the basics,” which for many teachers included autonomous teaching and learning only peripherally at best. The notion that only future leaders require education in autonomy is long-­standing in Japan, going back to the first minister of education, Mori Arinori, and the structures he established

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in the 1880s (Hall 1973, 409–­12). Many teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda might well have protested that they were not against education for autonomy, but simply saw it as a priority for a later (post-­compulsory) stage of education, not for junior high school. Their caution was understandable, given the pressures they were under, and the overambitious demands that were made on them. The question remains, however, whether continued attempts are needed to enable greater development of autonomous thinking and learning at regular public schools, in order to develop qualities that children need if they are to grow up to make their own decisions and articulate their views in a liberal democratic society. Failure to develop individual autonomy in schools could also be damaging for Japanese society as a whole. As chapter 1 explained, thinkers and activists in post–­World War II Japan have argued passionately over how to develop autonomy, and about the dangers of internalized social control that masquerades as autonomy, but actually allows people to be manipulated and co-­opted by the state. If we accept the arguments that autonomy is a good for both individuals and for society as a whole, then its development is an issue of vital importance. Many recent writings seem skeptical about the possibilities of autonomy in the economic, social, and political context of contemporary Japan. They have often focused on ways in which discourses of individuality and autonomy have been exploited by business or government, in the service of a neoliberal agenda that results in the subjection of individuals, rather than their empowerment. For example, Edwards (2013, 23) suggests that “conceptualizations of freedom, self-­determination, and the promise of individuality” help to enforce “regimes of responsibility and self-­reliance” among soccer players, in a deeply coercive Foucauldian system of internalized self-­surveillance. Ogawa (2009) argues that though the public-­spirited citizens of the Tokyo nonprofit organization he studied wanted to realize themselves and help others, they ended up being exploited and manipulated by a neoliberal state that wants to cut costs yet retain control. Anne Allison’s recent book, Precarious Japan (2013), focuses on the breakdown of mutual support and relationships that she sees in contemporary Japan, leaving individuals not autonomous but isolated in precarious existences. These analyses carry echoes of the critique mounted by authors such as Beck and Bauman, who argue that individualization’s promise of autonomy is hollow, as individuals continue to have limited control over their lives, yet are expected to take responsibility for their life choices—­the result being anxiety and insecurity (Bauman 2000, 16–­52).

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The desire for autonomy can therefore result in individualized social arrangements that end up actually reducing autonomy. This is not just the result of right-­wing neoliberal ideology, however. Miller and Rose (2008, 209–­15) see such arrangements, which simultaneously allow and compel individuals to be responsible for themselves through their choices, as a form of governmentality that they call “advanced liberalism,” and they argue that this is partly a response to demands for individual autonomy that emanate from across the political spectrum, not only from the right. Such demands are not just “neoliberal” but fundamental to all forms of liberalism (Rose 1999, 61– ­97). This does not mean we should give up on autonomy. In fact, even writers who show that autonomy is implicated in advanced liberal governmentality find that they need the concept in some form. For example, Ogawa (2009, 192–­93) advocates “technologies of the self” that involve reflection and discussion of one’s goals and the reasons for one’s actions, as a means of self-­knowledge and empowerment vis-­à-­vis the state. Likewise, Rose (1999, 97) suggests that practices should be evaluated “in terms of the extent to which they accord those caught up within them the capacity to judge, accept or transform the practices that subjectify them.” Both statements emphasize practices of reflection on one’s own values, and thus effectively rearticulate recently advanced understandings of autonomy, as discussed in chapter 1. The question of exactly how to combine autonomy with commitment to the good of the whole is subject to perennial dispute. As Rose (1999, 167– ­96) asks, who decides what the good of the whole is, and how? Moreover, will the powerful not seek to impose their own values by claiming them to be normative? Nonetheless, he argues that struggle against atomistic individualism remains essential, despite the pitfalls. A key issue is where the “whole” that claims importance is located, and on what grounds its claims are made. In Japan, the issue is especially controversial because “the whole” has often been identified at least to some extent with the nation-­state, with the right arguing that the state is an essential locus of commitment for the individual (Abe 2006, 43–­108; Yagi 2007, 157–­59; Cave 2009, 49–­50), and the left arguing against this (Avenell 2010), as exemplified by Ogawa’s (2009, 164) criticism of “self-­disciplined subjectivity working for the benefit of the whole (i.e. the state).” Ogawa implies that autonomy-­ enhancing reflective discussion can take place in local groups and communities, as does Rose (1999, 194–­96, 277–­80) when he suggests thinking about “community [as] not fixed and given but locally and situationally

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constructed” (Rose 1999, 195). Despite the problems encountered when seeking to promote both individual autonomy and commitment to the good of the whole of which individuals are part, the impossibility of individuals’ developing personal autonomy without appropriate support from others (Meyers 1989, 135, 169, 189–­202; Barclay 2000, 57–­58; Friedman 2003, 87–­91; Plant 2010, 243–­45) makes it essential to persevere. However, as Bauman (2000, 178) writes, the good of the whole in contemporary plural societies like Japan can only be the subject of “confrontation, debate, negotiation, and compromise.” The relatively small community of the local school is an excellent site for teachers and children to work on constructing autonomy-­enabling social groups, engaging in reflective discussion as they do so. Japanese junior high schools like Tachibana and Yoneda have long sought to build social groups that enable students’ human development, based on a range of ideals of self in relation with society. In a time when there is much concern in Japan about weakening social relationships and increasing individual isolation, it is to be expected that schools feel the need to counter such tendencies. However, the question still needs to be answered, what kind of social groups and social relationships need to be constructed, in order to equip children to meet the challenges they face? Will they be groups that emphasize discipline and the obligations of the members to the group, focused on maintaining order, even at the expense of discussion, questioning and initiative? Or, will they be groups whose focus is mutual support, accepting and applauding the diversity of their different constituent individuals, and seeking to help those individuals develop as people who can think and act for themselves—­yet, continuing to insist on the need for all to contribute to the whole, not least through questioning and debate? These are questions that will continue to confront Japan’s junior high schools. How they are answered, by schools and by government and administrative authorities with the responsibility for supporting schools’ development, will help to shape the future for Japan and its children.

Fieldwork Appendix

T

his appendix gives more details about the fieldwork for this study. During the pilot study (October–­December 1994), I carried out school observations in Tachibana Junior High School and Morikawa Ele­ men­tary School, including classroom observations in all three grades at the junior high level. After six months of fieldwork at Nakamachi and Morikawa elementary schools (reported in Cave 2007), I conducted one school year of fieldwork at Tachibana, during which I focused on the first year (seventh grade), having decided as a result of the 1994 pilot study that deep understanding of teachers’ approaches and students’ responses would best be obtained by this kind of concentration. I was already famil­ iar with many of the first-­year students, whom I had previously observed at their elementary schools. I had a desk in the staff room with the first-­ year teachers and was able to attend all relevant meetings (starting with meetings at the start of the school year, before the entrance ceremony). I taught the English Speaking Society, which was one of the school’s ex­ tracurricular clubs, and also helped out as a teaching assistant in some first-­year English classes. Most days, I was at school from about 8.20 a.m., in order to take part in the brief staff meeting each morning, and stayed until about 6 p.m. or sometimes later, as did most teachers. Classroom observations were one of  my most important research meth­ ods. I focused on three subjects: Japanese (kokugo), mathematics, and social studies. All three subjects were chosen because of their potential for pedagogical innovation that might encourage thinking for oneself. Additionally, Japanese was expected to reveal understandings of self­ hood and the teaching of values, and social studies was chosen because of its importance as a subject with the potential to foster critical analysis. Mathematics might seem a less obvious choice, but was selected because

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of indications from previous literature (see Cave 2007, 111–­12), as well as my observations at elementary schools (111–­51), that mathematics edu­ cation in Japan often promotes problem-­solving, thinking for oneself, and discussion. I observed first-­year lessons taught by three different Japa­ nese language teachers, two different mathematics teachers, and three dif­ fer­ent social studies teachers in order to capture the commonalities and variety of teaching. Many subjects in Japanese junior high schools are taught through discrete textbook units (tangen) which extend over several lessons, meaning that different styles of lesson (more teacher-­centered or student-­centered) may be used at different stages of the unit. Observ­ ing isolated lessons can therefore result in a misleading impression of a teacher’s aims and methods. To avoid this problem, I aimed to observe as many lessons in a textbook unit as possible. Observations were mainly concentrated in the first two terms of the school year. Extracurricular club activities are extremely important in Japanese junior high schools, as discussed in chapter 3. I often participated in Ta­ chibana track and field club practice, both after school and on some days during the summer vacation, as well as observing other club practices. I chose the track and field club because I could take part without interfer­ ing with students’ practice, which was not the case in most clubs. I also joined the track and field club to the prefectural tournament (chūtairen) in the summer. As noted above, I also taught the English Speaking Soci­ ety, which held meetings once a week and enabled me to experience club activities from the teacher’s perspective. Besides observing lessons and taking part in club activities, I also ob­ served other events and activities around the school, including major events such as the first-­year field trip, the sports day, the cultural festival, and the choral contest. I observed class activity periods (gakkyū katsudō or gakkatsu), which were often taken up with preparations for major events. I generally stayed in the classroom during the ten-­minute break bet­ween lessons, in order to talk with students and observe their interactions. I also ate lunch in the classrooms with the students and their class teacher and took part in the daily cleaning session. During the year, I made records of over a hundred interviews or conver­ sations with twenty-­eight different teachers, the form of which ranged from semistructured tape-­ recorded interviews to short conversations about certain lessons or classroom incidents. I also conducted a simple ques­ tionnaire survey of teachers about matters such as subscription to peda­ gogical journals and union membership, with a response rate of  76 percent.

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From the second term onward, I conducted interviews with students and parents. I decided to interview third-­year students in order to get their perspective on their entire junior high school experience. Twenty-­two stu­ dents were interviewed in a reception room or classroom at the school after lessons had ended, either singly or in pairs (students could choose which they preferred). The students were chosen with the help of the third-­ year teachers; students of various levels of academic performance and en­ gagement with club activities were interviewed, in order to gain diverse perspectives. Permission to interview was obtained from both parents and students, and interviews were recorded. Parents were contacted via a letter sent home with first-­year students. I introduced the research project and asked those who would be willing to be interviewed to return a slip indicating this. Based on previous ex­ perience at Nakamachi Elementary School, I anticipated that a relatively small number of parents would agree to be interviewed, and that most would be more confident, middle-­class parents, rather than a representa­ tive sample. This proved to be the case. It would have been more desirable to interview a socially representative sample of parents, but this was im­ possible, given the interviews’ necessarily voluntary nature. Despite these limitations, the interviews provided valuable insights into these parents’ perspectives. In total, I interviewed the parents of twenty-­five first-­year students. In sixteen cases the interview took place at the family home (usually a pleasant detached house), and in nine, in the school’s recep­ tion room ( parents were offered the choice of venues). In eighteen cases, the interview was with the mother alone; once, with the father alone; four times with both parents, and twice with the entire family. All interviews but one were recorded. As noted in chapter 7, tutorial colleges ( juku) are a key feature of the educational landscape for many junior high students. I therefore visited three juku, at each of which I interviewed one or more managers. At two juku, I was able to observe lessons, and I was provided with a video re­ cording of lessons at the third. I also obtained educational and promo­ tional materials. I revisited Tachibana for a month in June–­July 1998, primarily to inter­ view teachers and students with follow-­up questions that had arisen from analysis of my 1996–­1997 fieldwork records. By this time, the students I had observed as first years in 1996–­1997 were in their third and final year (ninth grade). I conducted recorded interviews with fourteen teach­ ers and twenty-­one third-­year students. I also conducted a questionnaire

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survey about juku attendance among third-­year students, for which the response rate was 77 percent. I continued to make short visits to elementary and junior high schools in Sakura over the following years, revisiting Tachibana in 2000 and 2002, and also visiting several other junior high schools, as discussed in chapter 6. Between late August and late December 2007, I revisited Sakura for four months, focusing my fieldwork on Tachibana and Yoneda junior high schools. During this visit, I focused primarily on lesson observations and interviews with teachers, paying particular attention to changes made since 1997: integrated studies, elective subjects, and teaching in small­sized classes and in proficiency groups. I again observed lessons in Japa­ nese, in order to see to what extent educational reform might have con­ tinued to influence teaching and learning in this subject. I also observed a few classes in social studies, mathematics, and English (in the case of the two latter subjects, focusing on small-­sized classes). As I felt that I had already achieved deep understanding of teaching approaches during my 1996–­1997 fieldwork, in 2007 I decided to make observations across all three years at each school, in order to gain a broad understanding that would be informed by the deeper understanding that I had gained pre­ viously. I conducted semistructured interviews with eleven teachers at Tachibana and eleven teachers at Yoneda; all interviews but one were re­ corded. I also carried out a questionnaire survey of teachers, to which the response rates were 71 percent at Tachibana and 58 percent at Yoneda. Five students at Tachibana and eleven students at Yoneda were also inter­ viewed briefly or answered the same questions in writing. Parental per­ mission was obtained, and the interviews were not recorded. I conducted a questionnaire survey of students; responses of the third years are used in this study, because their answers were based on the fullest experience of junior high school life. The survey included questions about studying, extracurricular clubs, school events and activities, and juku attendance. The response rate among third-­year students was 80 percent at Tachibana and 86 percent at Yoneda. I carried out short visits to several other schools, in order to gain in­ sight into the potential diversity of responses to curricular reform. These schools were selected because their characteristics differed from those at Tachibana and Yoneda. One-­day visits were made at two other schools in Sakura, Horiuchi and Yamagawa. Both were selected because they were considered to provide relatively favorable environments for the implementation of reform. Horiuchi was a small school in a traditional,

fieldwork appendix

239

middle-­class area, and Yamagawa was a six-­year secondary school with selective entry to its junior high section. I also conducted visits to two leading private six-­year secondary schools in Tokyo, Ikegaoka (two days) and Miyamoto (one day). I interviewed teachers at these schools and was able to observe lessons at every school except Yamagawa. More details are given in chapter 6. In addition, I interviewed the vice president of the prefectural education center of the prefecture in which Sakura is located, primarily about preparatory training for the implementation of the 1998 curriculum revision. Finally, I carried out a questionnaire survey of junior high schools in the Kinki region, in order to get a better sense of the representativeness of practices at Tachibana and Yoneda. A random sample of 128 schools was taken, equal to 10 percent of all public (kōritsu) and private junior high schools in the region in 2007, when schools of fewer than 100 stu­ dents were excluded (this was done because I considered that the or­ ganization of learning at very small schools might be so different from other schools as to distort the findings). National and prefectural junior high schools were excluded on the grounds that there were very few such schools, and also because part of their mission is to provide an educa­ tion that is either experimental or significantly different from other public schools, meaning that results from such schools might distort the findings. The questionnaire survey was carried out by post, and 52 questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 41 percent.

Notes Introduction 1. In 1990, 31 percent of high school graduates entered university or junior col­ lege, with a further 16 percent entering training colleges (senmon gakkō), but by 2013 these figures had reached 53 percent and 17 percent, respectively, totaling 70 percent of all high school graduates (Monbukagakushō 2014). 2. The proportion attending private junior high school in Tokyo (24 percent in 2013) is much higher than anywhere else in Japan (calculated from Monbuka­ gakushō 2013c). 3. This is a pseudonym, as are the names of all schools and teachers in the text. 4. Owner-­occupation in Sakura itself was about 65–­67 percent during the study, slightly higher than the national average of 60–­61 percent (Zaidan Hōjin Yano Tsu­ neta Kinenkai 2006, 332). 5. The foreign population of the city grew from over 900 to almost 1,700 be­ tween 1995 and 2005, with Brazilians being the largest group of foreign nationals, and there was a small number of children with foreign nationality—­mostly from South America but with Japanese ancestry—­at Tachibana ( 7 in 1998 and 4 in 2007). Two part-­time language support teachers were assigned to Tachibana to help these children. 6. At the elementary level, see, e.g., Lewis 1995; Benjamin 1997; Sato 2004 and Cave 2007. At the junior high level; see Fukuzawa 1994; LeTendre 1994a, 2000; Fu­ kuzawa and LeTendre 2001; and Dawson 2008. 7. In 2007, e.g., the results of nationwide tests in Japanese and mathematics conducted by the Ministry of Education and Science revealed that average total scores of junior high students in 41 of Japan’s 47 prefectures were within 10 percent of the national average (286.1 out of 400) (“Osaka 45-­banme, Akita, Fukui toppu” Sankei Shinbun, 11 February 2007). 8. A good overview of the debate is provided by Borofsky et al. 2001. 9. A classic example of such critiques is Mouer and Sugimoto 1986.

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notes to pages 15–22

Chapter One 1. This is a play on words, shichigosan being a Shinto ceremony for children ages three, five, or seven. 2. A vivid account of the stabbing incident opens the book Nippon no jōken 10: kyōiku (1)—­nani ga kōhai shiteiru no ka ( NHK Shuzaihan 1983, 18–­25), one of a series of books accompanying a major television series on the state of Japan by the national public broadcaster, NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai). The account explains that the teacher concerned had been assaulted more than once by students, includ­ ing an incident just thirty minutes before the stabbing. 3. The ministry definition of school refusal is absence for thirty school days in a year for reasons other than illness or poverty (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 201). 4. The first series gained an average 24.4 percent of viewers, rising to 39.9 per­ cent in the final episode, and the second series gained an average 26.3 percent share, with 34.8 percent watching the final episode ( Furusawa 2000, 192). 5. At the end of her 2005 memoir, Farewell My Mr Kinpachi, Osanai Mieko laments the readiness of the government to give ground on the 2002 curricular reforms, designed to ease exam pressure and promote more lively and interesting studies, as described later in this chapter and in chapters 2 and 6 (Osanai 2005, 216–­19). 6. For more detailed accounts of these debates, see Tsuneyoshi 2004; Cave 2007, 14–­24; and Okano 2009. 7. Significantly, Arima was a participant (as president of RIKEN [ Institute for Physical and Chemical Research] and science advisor to the Ministry of Educa­ tion) in the Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development (OECD) Symposium on Public Understanding of Science and Technology held in Tokyo on 5–­6 November 1996 (OECD 1997). Among the presentations was one by lead­ ing expert Jon D. Miller comparing public understanding of science in OECD countries. The data presented showed Japanese adults as ranking thirteenth out of fourteen countries surveyed, and clearly made a deep impression on Arima, as in 2007–­2008 he cited the data (together with similar data from a decade later) as evidence that excellent results in attainment tests at school did not necessarily translate into retained adult understanding (“Yutori kyōiku de seiseki ochinu,” Asahi Shinbun, 5 November 2007; Arima 2008), and that it was therefore neces­ sary to develop the ability to think and not just cram children with knowledge. 8. See “Shin-­shidō yōryō o nezukaseru niwa,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 19 November 1998; and “Sensei ni nandai ‘sōgō-­teki gakushū: manyuaru naku konwaku,” Yomiuri Shunbun, 9 November 1998. 9. See “Shinyōryō ‘sōgō-­teki na gakushū’: jitsurei nimo kienu fuan,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 1 February 1999; “Yutori hoshii ga gakuryoku teika mo shinpai,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 7 February 1999; and “Yutori kyōiku jitsugen ni tōku,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 27 April 2000.

notes to pages 22–28

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10. “ ‘Yutori kyōiku’ 48% hantai,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 15 March 2001. In contrast, when the OECD’s 2001 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) academic attainment tests showed Japanese children achieving outstanding results, the Yomiuri’s incredulous headline read, “Japan’s First Year High Schoolers Are Actually Excellent?!” (“Nippon no kō-­ichi, jitsu wa yūshū?!” Yomiuri Shinbun, 5  De­cember 2001), after which the article quickly focused on negatives, implying that the test results should be discounted: As students’ falling academic attainment continues to be pointed out, the results of the first international survey to try to measure “power to live” [ ikiru chikara] have been published. Japan’s firstyear high school students have an “unexpected” high ranking of first and second in mathematics and science. However, there are also mysterious results, such as a tendency to give up without an­ swering difficult written problems, and in reading, “high marks considering they neither read nor study.” It also emerged that there are few top-­level students. Good news about Japanese education clearly did not fit the newspaper’s preferred narrative. 11. On 14 January, an article on page 25 carried the subheading, “Worries over Falling Academic Attainment with the Cut in Classes” (“Atarashii shidōhō hitsuyō: gen de gakuryoku teika no fuan,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 14 January 2002). Twelve days later, a report on the annual conference of the Japan Teachers’ Union carried the subheading, “Sense of Crisis about ‘Falling Academic Attainment’ ” (“Nikkyōso no kyōken shūkai kaimaku: ‘gakuryoku teika’ kikikan,” Yomiuri Shinbun (yūkan), 26  Jan­uary 2002). Two days on, the Yomiuri reported Minister of Education Toyama Atsuko’s emphasis on academic attainment with the subheading, “Un­ precedented ‘Order’ for Maintenance of Academic Attainment” (“Shin-­gakushū shidō yōryō shigatsu dōnyū, Toyama Monkashō ga ‘manabi no susume’ o happyō,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 28 January 2002). 12. “Fuan kakae ‘yutori’ shidō,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 6 March 2002; “Shō ga yure, kyōshi ni tomadoi,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 8 March 2002; and “ ‘Chiiki-­hatsu’ kaikaku no kokoromi zokuzoku,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 9 March 2002. 13. “Kyōka naiyō sakugen ‘hantai’ 67%, kanzen shū-­itsukasei mo 60%,” Yomiuri Shinbun 30 March 2002. 14. For example, see the three articles in the series “ ‘Datsu yutori’ no shinsō” ( The Truth about “the End of yutori”) in the Asahi Shinbun, 5–­7 September 2012. 15. “Shōgakkō no jugyō jikanzō,” Asahi Shinbun, 31 August 2007; “Gakushū shidō yōryō dō kaeru,” Asahi Shinbun, 18 November 2007. 16. Furiitā is formed from two borrowed words: English “free” and German “arbeiter” (worker). 17. In Japan’s New Middle Class, Vogel (1963, 19–­39) discusses the differing

244

notes to pages 28–49

social relationships of successful businessmen, independent professionals, shop­ keepers, and salaried employees during the late 1950s. Ben-­Ari (1991) analyzes different forms of social relationship in two Japanese suburban communities and argues that younger middle-­class people want “a more conditional attitude to com­ munity affairs with a greater respect for personal choice” (273). Roberson (1998) points out the differences between the social relationships of middle-­class employ­ ees in large firms and working-­class employees in small firms. Meanwhile, Dore (1990) shows how relationships between firms and workers, and between different types of employee, were transformed over the first half of the twentieth century as a result of management strategies and ideological and power struggles. 18. An earlier and more detailed version of the following can be found in Cave 2007, 39–­43. 19. The second edition of the Zenseiken book Gakkyū shūdan-­zukuri nyūmon (An introduction to making class groups) (Zenseiken Jōnin Iinkai 1971) was re­ printed twenty-­eight times in eleven years. The ideas of the Zenseiken and debates surrounding them are discussed in Ōhashi 1980, 177–­230. 20. Whether or not it would be accurate to call all the members of the Pro Teach­ ers’ Association conservatives is debatable, but they certainly embraced a tradi­ tional view of schools and of the teacher-­student relationship. Yoneyama (1999, 65) calls the group “extremely autocratic.” 21. Indeed, some accounts of “relational autonomy” focus on the way that social relations may hinder or advance autonomy, and argue for reformed social structures and relationships in order to expand possibilities of personal autonomy ( Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000a, 22; Christman 2009, 164–­86). 22. This view may, of course, leave us with the unresolved issue that there is likely to be some disagreement about what constitutes a warped value (e.g., femi­ nists may see traditional gender socialization as teaching warped values, whereas supporters of such socialization will disagree) See the discussion in Christman 2009, 167–­77.

Chapter Two 1. “Class teacher” refers to the position known as “homeroom teacher” in the United States and “form tutor” in the United Kingdom. 2. The Japanese suffix –­rashii is an approbatory term indicating that something conforms well to the ideal image of the category to which they are assigned. Fu­ kuzawa (1994, 71) also notes the importance of the notion chūgakuseirashii at the Tokyo schools she studied in the early 1980s. 3. Traditional Japanese hotels and lodgings generally have communal baths. Public bathhouses (sentō), once common but now declining, are also communal. Daily bathing is the norm in contemporary Japan.

notes to pages 57–69

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4. The turnover of staff was the result of the prefectural policy, common through­ out Japan, of transferring teachers between schools periodically, allowing at most ten years at one school.

Chapter Three 1. Although the vast majority of classes displayed a class slogan in the class­ room, there was one 1994 Tachibana class that decided against displaying a slogan, in favor of keeping it “in their hearts.” 2. “F” indicates a female student, “M” indicates a male. 3. During the 1950s and into the 1960s, before the vast majority of students pro­ gressed to high school, it was common for junior high schools to track or stream students into separate classes aiming at high school entrance or employment. How­ ever, this practice was attacked as discriminatory from the late 1950s, and it de­ clined ( Kariya 2013, 56–­76). 4. The primary derogatory label found by Fukuzawa and LeTendre (2001, 51) is kurai (dark, gloomy), but this seems to be applied mainly on a personality basis to socially isolated individuals who have trouble making friends with others, rather than entire groups, as with Eder, Evans, and Parker’s “grits.” A similar term men­ tioned in just one interview at Tachibana was inkis ( gloomballs): “They’re always drawing manga . . . They’re shy . . . For us, they’re hard to relate to . . . They’re not into things in fashion . . . Some of them don’t wash their hair . . . They’re like, ‘This is our style, we’re going this way’ ” ( jibunryū de ikimasu) (interview with Kaoru and Ruri, F). 5. Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi’s Kanpai (Here’s to you) is a very well-­known song whose lyrics offer wishes for the future of a friend, recalling memories of youthful friend­ ship, as noted at the start of this chapter. The third years were due to graduate the day after this interview, which explains why Fukumoto-­sensei chose this song. 6. During the summer of 1996, I joined Haruoka-­sensei and some other local teachers in traveling several hours to two overnight workshops organized by teach­ ers’ groups, at one of which the participants included not only practicing teachers but also two nationally eminent educationalists, Professor Emeritus Inagaki Tada­ hiko and Professor Satō Manabu of Tokyo University. 7. Ichigo means “strawberry” and was also a pun on the name of the class (1–­5), which was read ichi no go. 8. Until 2002, there was also one weekly period of club activities (kurabu katsudō) within the elementary and junior high curriculum. Some elementary school chil­ dren also join sports clubs organized by local volunteers. 9. In 2007, there were twelve sports clubs and seven culture clubs at Tachibana and ten sports and three culture clubs at Yoneda. At Tachibana, sports club mem­ bership ranged from nineteen to forty-­five students, whereas five of the seven

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cultural clubs had fewer than ten members, though Tachibana’s brass and wood­ wind band was the school’s most popular club, with sixty-­three members, and the computer club had twenty-­nine (the art club, which had a large membership in 1996, had declined to only six members by 2007). These figures included only first-­ and second-­year students, as third years retired in the summer of their third year at the school to focus on study. Though I was unable to obtain membership figures at Yoneda in 2007, it was clear that clubs were popular among students, even though joining was not compulsory. The head of first year told me that to his knowledge, only two first-­year students had not joined a club; the girls’ tennis club he super­ vised had thirty-­nine members (about one-­tenth of the total student body) among the first and second years alone. In 1996–­1997, meanwhile, there were a total of twenty extracurricular clubs at Tachibana, of which twelve were sports clubs and eight were culture clubs. Of the culture clubs, however, six had a total of only thirty-­nine members between them; in comparison, the track and field club, a rep­ resentative sports club, had forty-­one first-­year members alone. 10. Some junior high schools make it compulsory for students to join a club, even if only nominally, but neither Tachibana nor Yoneda did so while I was re­ searching. Tachibana had required club membership until the mid-­1990s, but I was told that the educational reform agenda of increased individuality had been an important reason for abandoning this policy. 11. Kuwayama (1996, 127) records an elementary school principal telling stu­ dents at a junior high entrance ceremony that they must learn to “overcome them­ selves [onore ni katsu]” as junior high students. 12. There was always supposed to be one teacher present on the playing field and one in the gymnasium in order to deal with accidents. However, there were times during my fieldwork when this requirement was not met. 13. When I specifically asked teachers whether clubs could be seen as arenas for the development of individuality, they agreed that they could, suggesting no fundamental incompatibility, even if individuality was not foregrounded in club discourse. 14. This event also showed how previous school experiences could supply the form for the expression of emotion outside organized school events, as the song sung by the second years was an adaptation of a song I had heard sung at the 1996 Morikawa Elementary School graduation ceremony. A song of gratitude and fare­ well, it had then been sung to the graduating students by the rest of the school. 15. The graduation yearbook was made up of half-­page compositions from each of the graduating third-­year students, bound into a hardcover book. 16. Seikatsu shidō is a term with a longer history than seito shidō. According to Haruta (1981, 9) the Ministry of Education promoted the use of the term seito shidō in place of seikatsu shidō during the 1970s, presumably because of the latter term’s promotion by the Japan Teachers’ Union and its origins in left-­wing teach­ ing movements. LeTendre also found that the term seikatsu shidō was regarded

notes to pages 75–79

247

more favorably by liberal than by conservative teachers (Fukuzawa and LeTendre 2001, 42). Some might therefore argue that seikatsu shidō and seito shidō have different ideological connotations. However, as Haruta (1981, 3) himself notes, in practice the term seikatsu shidō is used with various nuances of meaning by teachers, precisely because it has become such a common phrase. For instance, hypercontrolled school cleaning activities of a type deplored by liberals can be called seikatsu shidō by their initiators (Ariga 1983, 9). As the basic purpose of seikatsu shidō is to provide conduct and character guidance, teachers will inevitably have different interpretations of what is necessary for this purpose, depending on their own outlooks on life and the ideological views that may influence them, con­ sciously or unconsciously. My account is based on the way the two terms were used by teachers at Tachibana and Yoneda; I did not detect any ideological nuances in the use of the terms there. 17. At most Japanese schools, children change their shoes on entering school, outside shoes being placed in large wooden or metal shoe racks as tall as a person. 18. I witnessed almost nothing that could be described as corporal punishment during my fieldwork, with the exception of one occasion in 1996 when a female teacher pinched a boy’s cheek. Fukuzawa (1994) and LeTendre (2000, 219) write of children sometimes having to sit in a formal kneeling position ( seiza) as pun­ ishment, but I never came across this. The daughter of friends, who had gradu­ ated from Tachibana the previous year, also told me that she had never heard of corporal punishment at the school. However, two Tachibana teachers did tell me spontaneously that they had used corporal punishment. One did not specify what this involved; the other told me that he had struck a student who he had known was lying to him, saying, “Don’t tell lies.” He saw this as a way of bringing home the seriousness of lying, and an expression of his genuine care for the student. Both teachers talked of the incidents as isolated rather than as a systematic practice. For evidence that corporal punishment has been used more widely, see Schoolland (1990, 49–­94) and Yoneyama (1999, 90–­118). 19. Indeed, ten years earlier at Tachibana, I heard Nohara-­sensei advise a youn­ ger teacher that “the feeling with which you give students guidance will get through to them.” 20. Whereas junior high students were forbidden to go out before 10:00 a.m., elementary children had to get up early in the summer vacation for neighbor­ hood calisthenics (rajio taisō) at 6:30 a.m. It was not only Tachibana students who had to complete reports about how they spent each day of the summer vacation—­ teachers had to do so, too. 21. In 2007, Tachibana was able to allocate one teacher to dealing full time with students who were long-­term absentees ( futōkō) or had difficulty being taught in regular classes for psychological or emotional reasons (about ten students were receiving tuition in their own separate classroom for this reason, while eight were long-­term absentees). Funding was provided to about 10 percent of junior high

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schools in the prefecture for this purpose. In addition, a staff member from the city educational research center came to the school to give extra support one and a half days a week. These support measures were not in place at Yoneda, which had only two or three long-­term absentee children. For discussion of the issue of long-­term absentee students, see Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 201–­  7; and Yoneyama 1999, 188–­241. 22. Students at Tachibana and Yoneda, like those of most junior highs, had to wear rectangular plastic name badges. 23. Nohara-­sensei was transferred to Yoneda a few years later, and was teach­ ing there at the time of my 2007 fieldwork. 24. Matsuzaka-­sensei commented that his thinking had been helped by attend­ ing a recent public lecture by Professor Satō Manabu of the University of Tokyo, at which Satō had discussed how high schools in the United States had seen better results from fostering what Matsuzaka-­sensei called nakama among students than from increasing students’ choices, which separated them from one another. 25. A full-­time high school refers to a school with a daytime schedule. Students might still be able to enter a high school offering its classes in the evening (teijisei kōkō) or a correspondence high school (tsūshinsei kōkō). 26. This phenomenon is far from unique to Japan, of course; for a British ex­ ample, see Beynon 1985, 9–­13. 27. The number of vice-­principals was doubled at Tachibana between 1997 and 2007 because it was considered such a demanding school. 28. In 1996–­1997, seventeen of the forty-­five teachers at Tachibana were female ( 38 percent). In 2007–­2008, twenty of the forty-­five teachers at Tachibana were female (44 percent), while thirteen of the twenty-­four teachers at Yoneda were female ( 54 percent). Nationwide, 40 percent of junior high teachers were wom­en in 1996–­1997, and 41 percent in 2007–­2008 (42 percent in 2012–­2013). The pro­ portion of female junior high principals rose from 2 percent in 1996–­1997 to 5 percent in 2007–­2008 (6 percent in 2012–­2013), while the proportion of fe­ male vice-­principals rose from 6 percent to 8 percent (10 percent in 2012–­2013) (Monbukagaku­shō 2014).

Chapter Four 1. “Gasshō konkūru de utawareru kyoku wa?” Asahi Shinbun, 11 November 2007. 2. A breakdown presented by Vice-­Principal Aoki at a Tachibana staff meet­ ing in 1996–­1997 showed that “school events” ( gakkō gyōji ) took up 176 hours in the first year, 171 in the second year, and 191 in the third year. However, schools’ reported hours for this category of activity vary dramatically. This is partly because the category is very flexible and can include a great variety of activities, including

notes to pages 91–98

249

field trips, graduation ceremonies, and teachers’ annual visits to students’ homes; it is also because some time used for events such as sports day or the choral contest can be counted as subject time (in P.E. or music, for example). Official curricular time (1,050 hours annually in junior high school 1992–­2002, 980 hours in 2002–­ 2011) only takes up about 32 of the roughly 42 weeks of the year that schools hold classes, assuming 33 class hours a week until 2002 and 29 thereafter, and so there is considerable leeway for time to be used for activities not stipulated in the curriculum. 3. Of the thirty-­five schools that identified themselves as public schools, thirty-­ four held a sports day, thirty-­one a cultural festival, and twenty-­one a choral con­ test. All three of the schools that identified themselves as private held both a sports day and a cultural festival, and two also held a choral contest. The proportions were very similar at the fourteen schools that failed to identify themselves as either public or private; all held both a sports day and a cultural festival, while nine held a choral contest. 4. The wording in the previous curriculum ( Monbushō 1989a) was identical. 5. The official term for the “mass game” was shūdan engi ( group performance), but this was rarely used informally. Such performances seem to be common in Japanese junior high schools; I saw an example at another school in 1992, and one is also described in Feiler’s (1991) account of a junior high school in Tochigi. They seem to have been performed for many years; in 1996, the Tachibana vice-­ principal told me that he had been assigned the top position on such a pyramid when at junior high in the late 1950s. In his 1960 book Zusetsu masu gēmu (Mass games illustrated), Hamada (1960, i–­ii) writes that his experiences of mass games go back to his student days, and that they are often the star attraction at sports days. Hamada (1960, 5) describes mass games as “a species of physical culture that, through healthy physical activities, restores in a beautiful way suitable for modern culture the ability to undertake group activity [shūdan katsudō ] that has been lost with cultural progress.” 6. Eisa is an Okinawan midsummer folk dance that has become popular through­ out Japan in recent years ( Nakatsugawa 2007; Tanji 2012). According to one of the P.E. teachers at Tachibana, 2007 was the fifth year that the dance had been per­ formed at sports day, the students having first learned it after the school started to go to Okinawa on the third-­year school trip. 7. These bakku were made of a series of wooden boards, on each of which part of a picture was painted by the students. They were then assembled and the whole picture mounted on a wooden frame, lashed to stakes fifteen feet high, and hauled into position with ropes, behind (hence the English-­derived term bakku, or, “back of”) the spectators. 8. In addition to choral contests within schools, there are also contests between school choirs whose purpose is more purely musical. These have an even lon­ ger history, the first having been established by NHK in 1932. The Japan Choral

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Association (Zen-­Nihon Gasshō Renmei) has also held a similar contest since it was established in 1948 (Muratani 1967). 9. Now associate professor of music at Seitoku University in Chiba Prefec­ ture, Matsui’s home page can be found at http://www.seitoku.jp/daigaku /kyoinfd /kyo inhp/00004821.html, and his profile with Kyōgei music publishers is available at http://www.kyogei.co.jp/data_room/profile/022.html (accessed 11 May 2012). 10. Wikipedia (Japanese version), s.v. for “seishun eiga,” accessed 25 Novem­ ber 2011. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92%E6%98%A5%E6%98% A0%E7%94%BB 11. In the title of the essay, “Waga seishun,” seishun is written with the un­ orthodox characters 凄春 (suggesting “terrific/terrifying youth”) rather than the conventional青春. 12. Whereas English possesses the two different words (and concepts) of “pu­ berty” and “adolescence,” Japanese does not distinguish between the two. The lit­ eral meaning of the characters that make up the word shishunki are “time of spring thoughts”—­spring being associated with new growth and sex in Japan. Shishunki is generally thought to last from about twelve to about eighteen years of age (Saitō 1998, 30; Monbukagakushō 2001b, 20). 13. Sato (1991, 79–­85) similarly describes how Japanese hot-­rod bike gangs (bōsōzoku) explain their expression of unrestrained energy and emotion in speed­ ing as a positive manifestation and proof of seishun. 14. The respective percentages of Yoneda girls and boys selecting various events as having made a strong impression were as follows: school trip, 95 percent (girls) and 73 percent (boys); sports day, 70 percent and 45 percent; club activi­ ties, 63 percent and 49 percent; choral contest, 65 percent and 36 percent; cultural festival, 63 percent and 35 percent; work experience, 55 percent and 35 percent. 15. Guddobai mai . . . was written for school performance by Onogawa Kunio, a member of the Tokyo-­based Sōgei theater company, founded in 1964, which is mainly composed of school teachers (see http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/sogei/ [accessed 3 May 2012]). The text of the play can be found on the website of the Tōkyō-­to chūgakkō engeki kyōiku kenkyūkai (Tokyo Research Association for Ju­ nior High School Drama Education), where it had 17,012 views as of 3 May 2012, far more than any other play script on the site (http://chugekiken.jpn.org/ [ac­ cessed 3 May 2012]). For the play’s popularity in schools, see also the blog Follow My Heart (http://blog.goo.ne.jp/p-­create-­km [accessed 2 May 2012]) for 8 Novem­ create-­ km/e/a6219115f ber 2007, “Guddobai mai . . .” (http://blog.goo.ne.jp/p-­ 6a78ba04d0ded576c67d4be), where the blogger states that it was performed at the cultural festival of her daughter’s junior high school that year. Among the many comments made on the entry between 2009 and 2011, thirteen were from people who had performed or were going to perform the play at a junior high cultural festival, and eleven more from others involved at performances at some level of schooling, sometimes unspecified, as well as two comments from people who had

notes to pages 113–126

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watched family members performing the play at a junior high cultural festival. Several commented on what a moving piece it was. 16. This toy is made by fashioning a two-­blade propeller from a strip of bam­ boo, making a hole in its center, and then inserting one end of a bamboo rod. When the rod is twirled skillfully and released, the propeller flies high into the air. 17. Potential opportunities for such critical engagement were provided by the third years’ trip to Okinawa. Unfortunately, this took place in the spring of 2007, before my fieldwork, and I was unable to ascertain whether students were encour­ aged to engage with the kind of difficult social and political issues indicated by Tanji. One third-­year teacher at Tachibana did tell me that the trip to Okinawa provided good opportunities for peace education, however. 18. Japanese friends with whom I discussed the choral contest pointed out that one reason choral contests are a more recently established school event than sports days or cultural festivals is because it was only from about 1960 onward that schools expected there to be enough students who could play the piano accompa­ niment for each class. 19. In 1994, for example, one Tachibana first-­year class sang a Japanese version of A Whole New World, from the 1992 Disney film Aladdin, while in 1994 and 1996, Tachibana classes sang Rurō no tami ( The wandering people), a Japanese version of Schumann’s song Zigeunerleben. Also popular was Morudau (The Moldau) a choral version of the best-­known melody from Smetana’s symphonic poem Má Vlast, the Japanese lyrics to which celebrate the natural beauty of the Vltava River and its environs. 20. “Gasshō konkūru de utawareru kyoku wa?” Asahi Shinbun, 11 November 2007; Satō n.d. 21. Such words are often used in religious settings, such as Christian churches in Japan, applied to God or figures like the Virgin Mary (onchō is the word used in the Japanese equivalent of “Hail Mary, full of grace”). 22. As the predominance of female pianists (and mainly female membership of the brass and woodwind bands) indicated, classical music as a pursuit had strong female associations at the schools. Hebert (2001, 221) states that “female students greatly outnumber males in Japanese conservatories.”

Chapter Five 1. I was first made aware of Ashida’s seminal status in Japan’s language and literature pedagogy by Haruoka-­sensei at Tachibana. 2. The subjects taught by the thirteen teachers were Japanese (four teachers), social studies (three), mathematics (three), and science (three). 3. Compare the words of Ogi Naoki, the well-­known educational commentator and junior high school teacher, in 1989: “Teachers at the chalk face are wrestling

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intensely with the question of how to impart ability appropriate to the conclu­ sion of compulsory education” ( gimu kyōiku shūryō ni fusawashii chikara) (Shinjō Okuda and Naoki Ogi, “Taiwa,” Asahi Shinbun, 11 February 1989). 4. Coincidentally, this saying also happened to be one of several mottoes taped to the inside of the lavatory door in the house of some friends in Sakura. An Inter­ net search reveals the wide prevalence and popularity of the expression in public documents and blogs. 5. This suggests teachers’ continuing commitment to a form of egalitarian­ ism that is long-­standing and well-­documented in Japanese schools (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999, 173; Tsuneyoshi 2001, 58). Such egalitarian sentiment seems to ex­ ist independently of the recent decline in union membership and influence, though it may in part be a residual of past decades of union strength. Questionnaires to teachers at Tachibana (1997 and 2007) and Yoneda (2007) indicated that only 18 percent of 1997 respondents at Tachibana were union members, while the 2007 figures were 16 percent and 21 percent at Tachibana and Yoneda, respectively. 6. Besides the textbook and an atlas (which were provided for free), all students had one book of reference materials (shiryōsho) for history and one for geography, costing ¥630 and ¥480, respectively (about $6 and $4.50 at the 1996 exchange rate of $1 = ¥110). 7. Japanese junior high students have performed well in the OECD’s PISA tests in mathematics, which aim to look at “students’ ability to apply knowledge and skills in key subject areas and to analyze, reason and communicate effectively as they examine, interpret and solve problems” (FAQ, PISA website, http://www .oecd.org/pisa/pisafaq/ [accessed December 6, 2014]). 8. Textbooks for elementary and junior high schools are selected by the local board of education (kyōiku iinkai) to be used for a three-­or four-­year period. Mit­ sumura Tosho has for many years been the publisher of the most popular junior high Japanese textbook (Nakamura 1997). 9. Classical Japanese texts refers to works written in classical rather than mod­ ern Japanese, generally before the start of the Meiji period in 1868. 10. In 2007, for example, one first-­year text dealt with the singing of  whales, and another with the role of microorganisms, while there were second-­year texts on chimpanzee culture and environmental collapse on Easter Island, and a third-­year text on nature in Alaska. 11. The 2007 Mitsumura textbooks contained a number of such stories, includ­ing Hermann Hesse’s Memories of  Youth (Shōnen no hi no omoide), Dazai Osamu’s Run, Melos, Run! (Hasshire Melosu), and Lu Xun’s Hometown (Kokyō). 12. Besides Hometown (about the protagonist’s return to the rural Chinese vil­ lage where he grew up) and To My Little Brothers (about rural hardship in Fu­ kuoka at the end of the Asia-­Pacific War), such stories included A Midsummer Gift (Bon-­miyage), about a northeastern rural family’s first experience of eating fried prawns, brought back by the father on a biannual visit home from his work in postwar Tokyo.

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13. The teacher’s manual that accompanied the textbook explained that this text was taken from the children’s novel Ashita wa hareta sora no shita de (Tomor­ row under a clear sky), whose main theme is the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in April 1986. The manual also contains a two-­page essay by the author, Nakazawa Shōko, explaining the plot of the novel and its purpose—­to make read­ ers think about their use of environmental resources and what they have to do to hand the earth on to the next generation (Mitsumura Tosho Shuppan Kabushiki Kaisha 1994, 280–­81). 14. Instruction on language includes pages on grammar, Chinese characters, and special forms of expression. 15. The number of pages devoted to the different types of unit largely changed to correspond with the allocated hours, though the decline in the number of pages devoted to classical Japanese texts was less marked. This might have made it dif­ ficult to teach these texts in the allotted time. 16. Morita-­sensei was constrained for time in teaching this unit, as he had to allow three lessons to be taught by a trainee teacher, and this may explain why he did not conclude with presentations or whole-­class discussion, as had Haruoka-­ sensei and Aoki-­sensei. 17. “PISA-­type reading ability” refers to reading ability as understood in the OECD’s PISA academic attainment tests, which had attracted considerable atten­ tion in Japan (see chapter 1). 18. While I was making observations during the second term of the school year, the main texts taught were nonfiction pieces or classical Japanese texts. 19. For example, fiction texts in Mitsumura’s 1992 sixth-­year elementary text­ book were allocated nine or even eleven lesson hours by the teacher’s manual, whereas fiction texts in the same publisher’s 1993 first-­year junior high textbook were allocated six to seven, or at most, seven to nine hours. 20. In 2009, thirty-­four of Japan’s forty-­seven prefectures set a short compo­ sition as part of the high school Japanese exam; the proportion of total marks awarded for this, where stated, ranged from 10 percent to 23 percent (Ōbunsha 2009).

Chapter Six 1. The Ministry of Education was renamed the Ministry of Education and Sci­ ence in 2001. 2. The annual hours were 70–­100 for first years, 70–­105 for second years, and 70–­130 for third years (Monbushō 1998). 3. At Tachibana in 1996–­1997, second-­and third-­year students each spent one hour a week (thirty-­five hours a year) studying electives. 4. Although electives had been included in the national curriculum from its in­ ception in 1958, before 1992 this time had been mainly or solely used for teaching

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English, which was technically an elective subject until 2002, even though in prac­ tice compulsory at more or less all schools. 5. Private schools were not forced to adopt the five-­day school week, and in fact, many did not do so. In 2011, according to a survey by the Benesse Educational Research and Development Center, 87 percent of private junior high schools were conducting regular or supplementary classes on Saturdays, against only 9 percent of public junior high schools; moreover, 49 percent of private junior high schools conducted 1,121 hours or more of classes per year, whereas 92 percent of public junior high schools conducted 1,015 or fewer hours of classes per year (“Chūgaku jugyō jikan, kōshi de sa,” Asahi Shinbun, 1 December 2011). 6. Such university-­attached schools ( fuzoku gakkō), of which there is usually at least one per prefecture, are generally attached to education faculties that train elementary as well as junior high and high school teachers. 7. On a 2001 visit to the Taiseidō bookstore in Shibuya, Tokyo, I counted 23 such books among the 160 different books about integrated studies on sale. Among 3 available for Tachibana teachers to consult in 2007 were books on the programs at the Sapporo junior high school attached to Hokkaido University of Education and the junior high school attached to Fukuoka University of Education, while the junior high school attached to the leading faculty of education in the prefecture in which Sakura was located had also produced a book about its own highly regarded integrated studies program. 8. Japanese elementary and junior high schools normally produce an annual research bulletin (kenkyū kiyō) as a record of their action research and in-­school professional development activities. 9. In his study of the implementation and development of integrated studies at three schools in Osaka, Hamamoto (2009, 92) also notes that at one of the schools, only two out of dozens of teachers participated in professional development ses­ sions at city level in 1999. These enthusiastic teachers also went to observe open lessons at laboratory schools, and later led the development and implementation of the integrated studies program at their own school. 10. Okinawa was the only part of Japan to be invaded at the end of  World War II, resulting in great suffering and death, much of which Okinawans blame on the Japanese government and military. 11. A common definition of universal design is that of Ron Mace: “universal design is an approach to design that incorporates products as well as building fea­ tures which, to the greatest extent possible, can be used by everyone” (Ostroff 2001, 1.5). “Barrier-­free” design is an earlier term for universal design. 12. In response to my 2007 questionnaire to third-­year students, 59 percent of Tachibana and 63 percent of Yoneda respondents indicated that they “liked” (suki ) or “quite liked” (māmā suki ) integrated studies, though the proportions for “quite liked,” at 45 and 48 percent, respectively, were much higher than those for “liked” at 14 and 15 percent, respectively. Unfortunately, these figures do not

notes to pages 161–173

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make clear exactly what among the many integrated studies activities students liked or disliked. Though the questionnaire gave students the opportunity to give more details, very few did so. 13. Public six-­year secondary schools were a national government initiative from the late 1990s (Cave 2003, 91–­94). By 2012, 184 had been set up by prefec­ tures (Monbukagakushō 2012). 14. One hundred twenty-­eight schools was equal to 10 percent of all public (kōritsu) and private junior high schools in the six prefectures that make up the Kinki district, when schools with fewer than a hundred students were excluded (this was done because it was felt that the organization of learning at very small schools might be so different from that at larger schools as to distort the findings). National and prefectural junior high schools were also excluded on the groups that (a) there are very few such schools, and (b) part of their mission is to provide an education that is either experimental or significantly distinctive from other public schools, and thus, results from such schools might distort the findings. Fifty-­two questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 41 percent. 15. The survey asked teachers what they thought should happen to integrated studies in the next curriculum revision, giving five choices: elimination, reduced hours, no change, increased hours, and other. Twenty-­six of thirty-­two respon­ dents at Tachibana chose “reduced hours,” as did twelve of fourteen respondents at Yoneda. Four Tachibana respondents and one Yoneda respondent chose “elimi­ nation.” Response rates were 71 percent at Tachibana and 58 percent at Yoneda. 16. The previous year, 2006–­2007, there had been 135 elective hours for third-­ year students, equally divided between academic and practical subjects. As stu­ dents chose different subjects in each of the three terms, they spent about 24 hours on each. 17. My 2007 questionnaire survey asked teachers what they thought should hap­ pen to elective subjects in the next curriculum revision, giving five choices: elimina­ tion, reduced hours, no change, increased hours, and other. Twenty-­six of thirty-­two respondents at Tachibana chose either “reduced hours” (nineteen) or “elimination” (seven), with four choosing “no change.” The response rate was 71 percent. Nine of fourteen respondents at Yoneda chose “reduced hours,” one chose “elimination,” and three picked “no change.” The response rate was 58 percent. 18. The report (National Commission on Education Reform 2000) is available in Japanese as well as English, with other commission documents, at http://www .kantei.go.jp/jp/kyouiku /index.html (accessed 21 November 2012). 19. ‘Heisei 15-­nendo kōritsu shōchūgakkō ni okeru kyōiku katei no hensei/ jisshi jōkyō chōsa no kekka ni tsuite’. Available online at: http://www.mext.go.jp /b_menu /shingi/chukyo/chukyo3/004/gijiroku /03081101/006.htm (accessed 4 Feb­ ruary 2012). 20. Fifty-­seven percent of schools reported using differentiated instruction in regular first-year subjects, and only 44 percent reported teaching students in

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proficiency groups, rather than their normal class group. For second-­year students, the figures were 59 percent and 47 percent; and for third years, 59 percent and 47 percent. 21. The remainder of schools either reported not using differentiated instruc­ tion or were unclear about how they allocated students. 22. The dominant English lesson activities at both Tachibana and Yoneda were teacher exposition of grammar points (in Japanese), having children repeat text or vocabulary from the textbook (after a recording or the teacher), comprehension questions (in Japanese), translation of the English text into Japanese, having chil­ dren read or recite textbook dialogues in pairs (sometimes to the rest of the class), and oral production of simple sentences in a whole-­class setting. 23. The research is voluminous; particularly important studies include Slavin 1990, Boaler 1997, Ireson and Hallam 2001, William and Bartholomew 2004, and Oakes 2005. There are many kinds of differentiated instruction, including put­ ting children into different classes for all subjects (known in the UK as “stream­ ing”), and putting them into groups for specific subjects only (known in the UK as “setting”). 24. It should be pointed out that schools adopting such strategies in the United States and United Kingdom may be in the minority, because of strong political and parental pressures to maintain “tracking” and “setting,” regardless of the findings of educational research. 25. In 2013, Professor Satō moved to Gakushūin University. 26. According to Monbukagakushō (2008a), principals retiring in 2008, nation­ wide, had spent an average of three years at each school. In thirty-­nine prefectures and metropolitan cities, the average period was less than three years; in twenty-­ three prefectures, it was between three and four years; and it was more than four years in just one prefecture and one metropolitan city. 27. This point was made by Professor Shimizu Kōkichi in discussion at the 2007 Annual Conference of the Japan Society for Educational Sociology. 28. For example, the series of three articles in the series “ ‘Datsu yutori’ no shinsō” (The truth about “the end of yutori”) in the Asahi Shinbun, 5–­  7 September 2012.

Chapter Seven 1. By 1970, 82 percent of junior high graduates continued their education, and this rose to 94 percent in 1980. Since 1995, the figure has hovered between 96 and 98 percent. Of these, about 2.5 percent attend a part-­time (teijisei ) high school in the evenings, almost 2 percent a correspondence high school program, and almost 1 percent a college of technology (kōtō senmon gakkō, colloquially shortened to kōsen) (Monbukagakushō 2014). Kōsen provide five-­year programs and are aca­ demically demanding to enter.

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2. High school entrance examinations from all prefectures for the previous year are collected by subject in examination preparation publications from the pub­ lisher Ōbunsha (e.g., Ōbunsha 2009; 2011a; 2011b). 3. When a prefecture is divided into high school districts, students can gener­ ally only apply for a regular academic ( futsū-­ka) high school program in the district where they reside. Until the early 2000s, some prefectures were divided into a large number of high school districts, but abolition or expansion of districts reduced the number of districts nationwide from 518 in 2000 to 287 in 2005 (Iwate kenritsu kōkō nyūshi kaizen kentō iinkai 2006, 5). This change was often accompanied by the abo­ lition of the integrated selection system; in Okayama prefecture, for example, this system was abolished in 1999, when the number of high school districts was reduced from twenty-­one to six (Okayama-­ken kōtō gakkō kyōiku kenkyū kyōgikai 2011). 4. As noted later in this chapter, the entrance exam score demanded of students selected by the recommendation system is generally lower than for other students. 5. In 2000, 2 percent of high school students nationwide were enrolled in com­ prehensive programs, and 3 percent in new specialist programs such as mathemat­ ics and science, art, and music. The corresponding figures for 2012 were 5 percent and 3 percent. These figures are calculated from Monbukagakushō 2014. 6. The school report also evaluated students’ behavior and attitude, along with moral education, special activities, and (from 2002) integrated studies, but these were not expressed on a number scale and were relatively insignificant for high school entrance, unless students were seeking to use the recommendation route. 7. This was a big change from Sakura elementary school, where performance was evaluated on a simpler three-­level scale ranging from “can do well” ( yoku dekiru) through “can do” (dekiru) down to “let’s make an effort” ( ganbarō). More­ over, teachers I talked to at Sakura elementary school told me that they based their evaluations not only on tests on each textbook unit, but also very substan­ tially on children’s work in class, including the quality of their class participation. Elementary school tests were much less ritualized than tests at junior high school. 8. The format of the tests was very similar to that of the high school entrance exams—­almost entirely made up of multiple choice or short answer questions. 9. Rohlen (1980), Rosegaard (2006), and Dierkes (2008, 2010) provide qualita­ tive studies. Rohlen’s study is based on surveys, media reports, and nonacademic literature, while Roesgaard also draws on limited observations and interviews. Di­ erkes, whose study is based on the most observations and interviews, primarily focuses on small and medium-­sized juku run by owner-­operators. Tsukada (1991) gives an ethnography of a yobikō, a tutorial college preparing high school gradu­ ates to retake university entrance exams. 10. Names for all three juku are pseudonyms. 11. Exam-­prep (shingaku) juku focus on preparing students for high school or university entrance examinations, while remedial (hoshū) juku aim to help stu­ dents understand work at school with which they are having difficulty (Rohlen 1980, 210; Roesgaard 2006, 35–­40).

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notes to pages 200–209

12. In 1997, tuition at Foundation started at ¥10,000 a month (US$83 at the 1997 exchange rate of US$1 = ¥120) for three hours’ instruction per week. The monthly cost of programs at Excel ranged between ¥16,000 and ¥28,000 (US$133–­233) and came to ¥20,000 (US$166) at Advance (with an initial entrance fee of ¥10,000 –­ 12,000 [US$83–­100] in each case). For comparison, Dierkes (2008, 27) states that ¥6,000 per month (for two sessions a week in one subject) is a minimum figure, while “at the top end, fees are virtually unlimited.” Roesgaard (2006, 70 –­96) quotes figures for a number of leading exam-­prep juku in Tokyo that range from ¥7,500 to ¥59,800 monthly for final-­year elementary students, depending on the number of hours of study. 13. Kaoru and Ruri were interviewed just a few weeks before taking the high school entrance exam. They were both in the top 10 percent of students in their year, and went on to the best public high school in the area. 14. This view was not as unreasonable as it might seem at first sight. High school is not compulsory in Japan and the high school entrance exam is not a school leav­ ing exam, for which junior high teachers might reasonably be expected to prepare students. 15. Abacuses were commonly used by shopkeepers and others as calculators during this period (Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, 1st ed., s.v., “abacus”). 16. The exceptions were some parents who had grown up in Tokyo or Fukuoka, including two women from Tokyo who told me that between a third and a half of their classmates had attended juku. 17. This was the case throughout the period between 1996–­1997 and 2007–­2008, and is the case in many prefectures (Rohlen 1977, 46; LeTendre 1996, 198). 18. For the school year 1997–­1998, the annual tuition fees at the private high schools whose entrance exams were taken by Tachibana students ranged from ¥360,000 to over ¥600,000 (US$3,000 to over US$5,000). In comparison, tuition fees at prefectural high schools were less than half those of the least expensive private school. 19. The best prefectural high school in the area required a hensachi of at least 63 to enter, while the second best needed 59; the most difficult programs at the local technical high school needed a hensachi of 52, and the best commercial high school required 50. Requirements dipped to 43 at a less prestigious commercial high school and 40 at a home economics program. 20. The proportion of students in the year who could be awarded each score, from one to ten, was limited in each subject and followed a normal distribution (bell curve), meaning that the rating evaluated each student against all others. At Tachibana in 1996–­1997, up to 4 percent of students could be awarded a ten, be­ tween 3 and 7 percent could be awarded a nine, between 7 and 11 percent an eight, and so on, with the largest proportion of students ( between 17 and 21 percent each) being awarded a six or a five, respectively. 21. School performance was recorded on each student’s confidential report card

notes to pages 209–225

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(chōsasho—­popularly known as naishinsho). This card is often criticized because its contents are not open to the student or her family and are not open to challenge or appeal. It has often been argued that junior high teachers use the threat that bad behavior will be recorded on the report as a way to control students (Horio 1988, 279–­80; Yoneyama 1999, 126–­27; Betsui, 2000). One teacher at Tachibana told me in 1996 that junior high teachers in general did use this threat, though she denied that it was actually carried out. My observations of the shinro shidō process at Tachibana suggested that teachers there tried hard to help as many students as possible find a high school place, and that by far the most important part of the confidential report was the record of academic performance, based on grades. Be­ havior was only referred to in relation to decisions about whether or not students should be entered for high school via recommendation. 22. The first choice was referred to as students’ sengan, and the second choice as heigan. The backup school is often informally referred to as suberidome, but Tachibana teachers did not use this term or encourage its use among students, presumably because it was disrespectful to the backup school. 23. The application fee was between ¥13,000 and ¥15,000 (about US$110–­125) for most of the private high schools to which Tachibana students applied, though one or two particularly prestigious urban high schools charged ¥20,000. As there were very high numbers of applicants (Kawakami-­sensei estimated 2,000 each year for one school), most of whom would not actually enter the school, the application fee represented a very important source of income ( ¥13,000 from a thousand ap­ plicants would be ¥13 million, or about US$110,000). 24. Similar observations are recorded by Shimizu and Tokuda (1991, 101–­16, 159–­74), Shimizu (1992, 123–­26), and LeTendre (1996), in their accounts of shinro shidō at junior high schools. 25. Mediocre academic high school programs do not necessarily lead to better career prospects than well-­regarded vocational programs, as graduates of the for­ mer may only be able to enter low-­ranking universities and colleges, while the best graduates of the latter may be able to take advantage of the better connections with local firms enjoyed by vocational high schools (Kosugi 2008, 23–­29).

Conclusion 1. Similar processes of appropriation have been described in studies of other attempts to change teaching practices, such as Anderson-­Levitt and Alimasu 2001. 2. “Yutori kyōiku de seiseki ochinu,” Asahi Shinbun, 5 November 2007. 3. Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa (2009) also point out that some in China feel a need to row back from child-­initiated learning and creativity, that many parents exert pressure to teach academic skills in preschool, and that there is serious con­ cern that rural preschools do not have the capability to educate children according

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to the reformist ideas. The change that they point to, though real, is thus neither complete not unchallenged. 4. The OECD’s PISA tests have been held five times since 2000. The rank­ ings for Japanese fifteen-­year-­olds in mathematics, science, and reading respec­ tively have been 2nd, 2nd, and 9th (2000; thirty-­two participating territories); 6th, 2nd, and 14th (2003; forty-­one participating territories);, 10th, 5th, and 15th (2006; fifty-­seven participating territories); 9th, 5th, and 8th (2009; sixty-­five participat­ ing territories); and 7th, 4th, and 4th (2012; sixty-­five participating territories) (OECD 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2014a). In 2012, Japanese students ranked third among students in forty-­four territories in creative problem solving (although they were stronger in understanding and formulation than in planning and reflecting) (OECD 2014b). 5. “Yutori kyōiku de seiseki ochinu,” Asahi Shinbun, 5 November 2007. 6. “Monkashō, shūtō na soshiki bōei: semaru jisshi, naibu kara mo fuan,” Asahi Shinbun, 7 September 2012.

Glossary Chūkyōshin:  Abbreviation for Chūō Kyōiku Shingikai (Central Council for Education), the main advisory council of Japan’s Ministry of Education.

han:  A small group or groups. Junior high classes are often divided into such groups, partly in order to divide up responsibility for daily tasks.

juku:  Private educational institutions offering tuition outside school time (usually in classes rather than individually), either for exam preparation, as reinforcement or remedial academic instruction, or in a subject not taught at school, such as abacus. Sometimes referred to in English-­language literature as “cram schools.”

Monbukagakushō:  Ministry of Education and Science, Japan (sometimes abbreviated as MEXT). Before 2001, it was known as Monbushō (Ministry of Education).

Monbushō:  See Monbukagakushō. nakama:  A group whose members belong together. Often carries connotations of mutual warmth and support.

PISA:  Programme for International Student Assessment. A program of international tests of student proficiency, with related research, carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since 2000.

seishin:  Literally, “spirit,” but often used with the nuance of “inner strength.” seishun:  “Youth,” with largely positive connotations of hope and energy. seito shidō:  Literally, “student guidance,” mainly referring to behavioral and disciplinary guidance.

shinro shidō:  Guidance given by teachers to students about their possible post-­ graduation pathways.

shūdan seikatsu:  Literally, “group life,” with the implication that this places disciplin­ ary constraints and mutual obligations on the group members.

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Index ability, ideas about, 197–­98, 205 ability grouping, 19, 176. See also academic proficiency grouping academic attainment, 1, 8, 18, 21–­23, 38, 104, 126, 143, 145, 173, 202, 227, 242n7; basic, 125 –­26, 136 –­37, 141, 144, 150, 154 –­55, 172, 179; “new view of,” 19, 41 academic proficiency grouping, 23, 63, 67, 143; in international context, 175 –­76; introduction in schools, 173 –­75; at juku, 198; promoted by government, 172 –­73; teachers’ views, 175 Ad Hoc Council on Education. See Rinji Kyōiku Shingikai adolescence. See shishunki aisatsu, 157, 199 Allison, Anne, 2, 26 –­27, 33, 48, 232 Arima Akito, 20, 222, 226, 242n7 art in schools, 108 –­9, 113, 118 Ashida Enosuke, 123 Asia-­Pacific War, 130 assessment, 195, 215 –­18, 257n7, 258nn20 –­21. See also examinations; tests autonomy, 29 – ­43, 227, 229 –­34; and education, 19, 35 –­38; and gender, 54, 118; and high school entrance, 191, 206, 211–­18; and juku, 196, 200 –­201, 204 – ­6; relational, 35; in schools, 57, 60 – ­61, 67, 69, 72 –­73, 81– ­84, 88 –­90, 97–­98, 104, 106, 118 –­20, 128, 141– ­42, 144 – ­45, 152, 229 –­34; theories of, 34 –­38 Bauman, Zygmunt, 38, 227, 232, 234 Beck, Ulrich, 26, 227, 232

Benedict, Ruth, 32, 82 Bjork, Christopher, 125, 139, 164, 186 “bubble economy,” 25, 225 bukatsudō. See clubs, extracurricular bullying, 16 –­17, 66, 160 capitalism, 27, 29, 33, 217–­18 careers guidance. See shinro shidō Central Council for Education. See Chūō Kyōiku Shingikai ceremonies: entrance, 43; graduation, 101, 246n14 chiiki. See locality choral contest, 90 –­91, 98 –­104, 114 –­18 chūkō-­ikkankō. See six-­year secondary school Chūō Kyōiku Shingikai, 20, 147, 227, 261 civil society, 32 –­33 class, social, 104, 112 –­14, 208, 212, 237, 244 – ­45n17 class group, 44, 59, 61– ­69, 97, 134, 172, 181 class size, 44, 125, 173; at juku, 199; small-­ sized classes, promotion of, 23, 143, 172 –­77; teachers and small-­sized classes, 175 –­76, 224 class teacher, 42, 65 – ­69, 80; and high school guidance, 192 cleaning, 42, 153, 236, 247n16 cliques, 63 – ­65, 69 clubs, extracurricular, 59, 61, 69 –­75, 79 – ­80, 87, 180 – ­81, 210, 222 –­23, 228, 235 –­36, 246n10; and gender, 72, 118 companies in Japan, 25, 29, 33, 48, 228 –­29 competition, in education, 15, 19, 192 –­94, 206, 215

284

index

control, in schools, 42 – ­43, 59 – ­60, 75 – ­89, 165, 189, 223, 231; threatened by integrated studies, 154 cooperation, 20, 27, 38, 49, 52, 63, 68, 97–­98, 108, 120, 147 copying, 139 – ­40, 149 cram school. See juku creativity, 1, 20, 26, 44, 90, 98, 112, 120, 122, 141, 145, 167, 225, 227; and assessment, 194 credentialism, 15 –­16 cultural festival, 77, 87– ­88, 90 –­91, 104 –­12, 118 –­20 culture: as a concept, 10 –­11; and Japanese identity, 112 –­16, 120 curriculum, 15, 24, 90 –­91, 124 –­25, 129, 139; 1989 revision, 19 –­20, 125, 143, 146; 1998 revision, 21–­23, 40, 143 – ­47, 239; 2008 revision, 23, 171, 188; in private schools, 162 – ­63; reform proposals, 20 –­21

in, 14 –­15, 186; media portrayals of, 17, 22 –­23, 188 education system in Japan, 3 – ­4, 8 egalitarianism, 27, 71, 98, 126, 140 – ­41, 175 –­76 elective subjects, 21, 23, 107, 143 – ­44, 146, 222; abolition of, 188; aims and implementation, 170 –­72 elementary school, 27, 41– ­43, 48, 125, 127–­ 28, 138, 157; and educational reform, 226; pedagogical discussion in, 183 – ­84 English, school subject, 23, 238, 256n22; elective lessons, 171; proficiency grouping, use of, 173 –­75; small class sizes, effect of, 176 examinations, 16 –­17; format, 193; high school entrance, 3, 17, 27, 124 –­25, 129, 139 – ­41, 145, 192 –­94, 209 –­17 expression, 134 –­37, 141, 165 – ­66; and assessment, 194

Daichi sanshō, 114 –­16, 130 debate, as part of integrated studies, 161– ­62, 164, 166 disability, as focus of integrated studies, 149 –­50, 153, 155, 158, 161 discipline, 32; discipline problems, 5 –­7, 21, 48, 51, 75 –­76, 80, 83, 105, 150, 154, 165, 189, 210; in juku, 198; and life course, 124; relaxed, 52 –­53, 96, 188; in schools, 31, 38, 40, 42, 45, 47– ­49, 57, 69, 71, 78, 82 – ­83, 92, 96, 112, 120, 135, 220, 230 –­ 31; self-­discipline, 28, 32 –­33, 67, 96, 233 discrimination, 63, 141; as topic for integrated studies, 160

family: children affected by problems in, 5 – ­6; and high school entrance, 211–­13; relations with school, 5 field trips, 40, 47–­58 fieldwork: methods, 8 –­10, 235 –­39; sites, 4 –­8 five-­day school week, 20 –­21, 23, 50, 112, 146, 162, 254n5 Foucault, Michel, 32, 37, 216, 232 freeter. See furiitā Friedman, Marilyn, 34 –­35, 38 friendship, 63 – ­65, 72 –­75, 103, 228 Fujita Hidenori, 19, 196 Fukuzawa, Rebecca Erwin, 27, 30 –­31, 65, 80, 87, 123 –­24, 139 Fullan, Michael, 182 – ­87, 224 furiitā, 25 futōkō, 79, 247– ­48n21

educational change: and governance struc­­ tures, 185 – ­86; implementation of, 148 – ­49, 224 –­26; Japan as case study, 182 – ­87; and professional learning communities, 184 – ­87 educational reform in Japan, 39 – ­40, 60, 90, 104, 112, 121–­23, 126, 131, 141, 143, 229; and assessment, 194; debates about, 18 –­24, 226 –­27; explaining implementation of, 177– ­89, 225 –­26; in international context, 24, 182, 224 –­26; and selfhood, 25, 33; teachers’ views of, 67, 125 –­26, 150, 188, 220 education in Japan: criticisms of, 15 –­18, 24; history of, 14 –­18; ideological conflict

gakkō gyōji, 77, 90 –­121; incorporation into integrated studies, 152 –­53 gakkyū. See class group gakuryoku. See academic attainment gasshō konkūru. See choral contest gender: and juku attendance, 196; in school, 42 – ­43, 49 –­50, 63 – ­65, 72, 116 –­19, 212; and student choice, 54, 208; and teachers, 84 – ­87, 223; and work experience, 208 governmentality, 233

index group, 28 –­29, 233 –­34; in Japanese education, 27, 30 –­31, 40, 44 – ­45, 48 – ­49, 61, 66, 84, 87, 90 –­92, 96 –­98, 104 – ­6, 112, 119 –­20, 229 –­31, 234; status groups, 65. See also nakama; shūdan; shūdan seikatsu han. See small groups Hargreaves, Andy, 182 – ­87, 224 hensachi, 209 hierarchy: by age, 70 –­71; and gender, 85 –­ 87, 116 –­19 higher education. See tertiary education high school, 3, 15, 27, 83; entrance procedures, 192 –­95, 209 –­17; programs, 194, 206, 215 HIV/AIDS, 153 homeroom. See class group homeroom teacher. See class teacher identity: gender, 42, 49 –­50, 85, 118; Japanese, 112 –­16 ikiru chikara, 20, 227 individual, 38 –­39, 42, 46, 48, 65 – ­68, 71, 73, 82, 90, 93, 98, 105 –­7, 133 –­35, 141, 155, 161, 172, 212; ideological ambiguity of, 19, 201; individual responsibility, 29, 33, 81– ­82, 87– ­88; in Japan, 25 –­26, 32, 39; in Japanese education, 27–­28, 30, 104, 126; shaped by educational structures, 37, 191, 216; and the state, 32 –­33 individualism, 28, 34 –­35 individuality, 41– ­43, 46 – ­48, 59, 61, 63, 67, 98, 104, 112, 119, 155, 173, 177, 179, 227; ambiguous meaning of, 198; and club activities, 70 –­73, 246n10, 246n13; in curriculum, 20, 143, 146; debated meaning of, 18 –­19, 38, 47; discourses of, 26, 29 –­30; and high school entrance, 191, 194 –­95, 206, 214, 216 –­18; teachers’ views of, 46 – ­47, 67, 76, 125, 220; and teaching and learning, 125, 137, 161 individualization, 26, 30, 33, 37–­39, 67– ­69, 84, 214, 227–­31; meanings, 190 individuation, 145 – ­47, 198, 215 –­16 inequality, 8, 21 institution, 11, 228; definition, 177; junior high school as, 177–­79, 226 institutionalization, 11, 60, 144, 228 –­29; definition, 177; effects in junior high schools, 177–­79, 181– ­83, 223, 226;

285 strengthened by personnel practices, 184 – ­85 integrated studies, 21–­23, 40, 51–­52, 57–­58, 143 – ­69, 221, 227, 230; aims, 145; assessment, 166; basic academic study, used for, 154 –­55, 164; content, 145, 150 – ­64, 169; explaining implementation of, 177–­ 82, 188 – ­89; hours, reduction in, 188; and school facilities, 147– ­48, 180 – ­81; at selective secondary schools, 161– ­63; student engagement, 157–­58; teachers’ views of, 148, 150, 154, 165 – ­69; as threat to discipline, 154; training for, 148 – ­49, 167– ­68; workplace experience, 151, 157, 160, 164, 180, 207– ­8 interdependence, 28, 34 –­35, 38, 59, 83, 87, 104, 108, 116, 120, 130 –­31, 189, 199, 201, 230 –­31 Japanese, school subject, 122 –­23, 125 – ­42, 235 –­36, 238; classical Japanese, 132 –­33, 138 – ­40; classroom teaching, 133 – ­41; in high school entrance exam, 193, 216; and ideas of selfhood, 130 –­31; little use of proficiency grouping, 173; textbook content, 129 –­33; writing and composition, 131–­33, 135 – ­41, 193, 216 jibunrashisa. See individuality jiko-­sekinin, 29, 33, 156 juku, 15 –­17, 192, 195 –­206, 237, 261; appearance, 198; attendance rates, 192, 195 –­96; compared with schools, 201– ­4; and discourses of selfhood, 197–­201; fees, 258n12; lessons, 198; views of, 196, 202 –­5 junior high school: aims and purposes, 61, 126, 178 –­79, 189; facilities, 6 –­7, 147– ­48, 180 – ­81; as institution, 177–­79; leadership, 184 – ­87; role in education system, 3, 17, 189, 225 kanri kyōiku, 31, 80 – ­81 Kawakami Ryōichi, 31, 43, 81 Keidanren, 25 Keizai Dōyūkai, 1, 25 Kinpachi-­sensei, 17, 101 kokugo. See Japanese, school subject kōnai bōryoku, 16 –­17, 75 kosei. See individuality Kyōiku Kaikaku Kokumin Kaigi, 22, 172, 229

286 labeling, 65, 127, 245n4 learning: autonomous, 146, 152, 154, 177, 180, 221–­22; experiential, 145, 152 –­53, 160, 163; in extracurricular clubs, 69 –­71; individual, 27, 133 –­35, 137, 148; inquiry-­ based, 19, 58, 152 –­53; in junior high schools, 123 –­29, 146 – ­47, 181; project, 147– ­48, 151, 155 – ­61; self-­motivated, 20 –­21, 180; undifferentiated, 63, 141, 154, 173 left-­wing views of education, 14 –­16, 19, 21, 38, 67, 92, 192 –­93 lesson study, 183 – ­84 LeTendre, Gerald, 27, 65, 76 –­77, 80 – ­82, 87– ­88, 100, 103, 123 –­24, 127, 207– ­8, 212, 217, 246 – ­47n16 liberalism, 82 – ­83, 233 life guidance. See seikatsu shidō literature, 122 – ­42 locality, 145, 152, 160 marriage, 26, 228 Maruyama Masao, 32 mass game, 94 –­96, 98, 112, 116 –­17, 120, 221, 249n5 mathematics, 15, 23, 124 –­29, 235 –­36, 238; use of proficiency grouping, 173 –­75 matomari, 61– ­62, 72, 92 Matsui Takao, 99, 103 memorization, 139 – ­40 meritocracy, 15, 27, 216 –­18 Mill, John Stuart, 82 minorities, 8, 241n5 mitomeai, 61– ­62 Miyazaki Hayao, 116 Miyazawa Kenji, 104 moral education, 19, 22; connected with integrated studies, 153, 155, 161 Mori Arinori, 189, 231 multiculturalism, 112 –1­4 music, 46, 65, 94, 105 –­7, 114 –­18; and gender, 251n22; student rock bands, 105 naishinsho, 258 –­59n21 nakama, 44 – ­45, 52, 59, 61, 72 –­73, 83, 99, 101, 103, 230, 261 Nakasone Yasuhiro, 18 National Commission on Education Reform. See Kyōiku Kaikaku Kokumin Kaigi Natsume Sōseki, 139

index nature, 52, 114 –­16, 130, 145, 152 neoliberalism, 19, 21, 26, 29, 33, 38, 232 –­33 Nikkeiren, 25 Obuchi Keizō, 22, 172, 229 Ogawa, Akihiro, 33, 232 –­33 Okinawa, 94, 113 –­14, 151–­52; eisā dance, 94, 113, 117, 152 omoiyari, 20, 47, 199 Osanai Mieko, 17, 242n5 Ōtsuka Hisao, 32 parents, 75, 77–­79, 94, 175; and high school entrance, 211–­13; interviews with, 204 –­5, 237; views of juku, 204 – ­6 Peters, R. S., 36 –­37 PISA. See Programme for International Student Assessment popular culture, 17, 56, 78, 82, 94, 100, 105, 111 preschool, 3, 27, 45, 48, 225 –­26 private schools, 4, 83, 193, 206 –­7, 209 –­15, 231, 254n5; facilities, 180; fees, 258n18; and integrated studies, 162 – ­63 problem solving, 20, 145, 152, 154, 180, 199, 236 professional development, 148 – ­49, 180 Programme for International Student Assessment, 136, 176, 226, 243n10, 260n4, 261; 2003 results, 23, 143 punishment, corporal, 247n18. See also sanctions reflection, 54 –­56, 233 religion, 115 –­16 research methods, 7–­11 right-­wing views of education, 14, 19, 38 Rinji Kyōiku Shingikai, 18 ritual, 48 – ­49, 72, 117, 195 Rose, Nikolas, 233 –­34 routines, 27, 73, 81 sanctions, 76 –­77, 88 Satō Manabu, 18 –­19, 123, 181, 184, 245n6, 248n24 school refusal, 17, 242n3. See also futōkō school trip, final year, 91, 151–­52, 160, 164 school violence. See kōnai bōryoku seikatsu shidō, 60 – ­61, 75, 181, 246 – ­47n16

index

287

seishin, 28 –­30, 69 –­70, 94, 109, 111, 197–­98, 200, 261 seishun, 99 –­101, 199, 261 seitokai. See student council seito shidō, 75 –­76, 79 – ­87, 181, 246 – ­47n16; and gender, 84 – ­87 selfhood, 25, 28 –­38, 44, 70, 82, 104, 111, 123, 131, 191, 197–­201, 246n11; and power, 189, 233 self-­management, 27, 33 self-­reliance, 29 –­30, 146, 216, 227; and high school entrance, 191–­92, 215; in juku, 197–­98, 200 –­201 Shimizu, Kōkichi, 104, 181, 207 shinro shidō, 151, 153, 181, 206 –­17, 261; within integrated studies, 157, 160, 164 shishunki, 100 –­101, 153, 250n12 shūdan, 45 – ­47, 54, 92, 106, 230 shūdan seikatsu, 40, 45 – ­46, 48 –­50, 54, 77–­ 78, 82 – ­84, 230, 261 shūgaku ryokō. See school trip, final year shutaisei, 32 singing, 46, 65, 72, 98 –­104, 114 –­16 six-­year secondary school, 161, 255n13 Slater, David, 26, 104, 196 small groups, 27, 30 –­31; for organizing school life, 45, 48 – ­49, 68; for organizing study, 134, 137, 147 social control, 6, 27, 30 –­32, 82, 231–­32 socialization, 34 –­35 social reproduction, 207– ­8, 212 social studies, 125, 127–­29, 235 –­36, 238 sōgō-­teki na gakushū. See integrated studies sport, 29; in extracurricular clubs, 69, 71–­73 sports day, 77, 90 –­98, 101, 112, 116 –­20 state, the, 32 –­33, 39, 229, 232 –­33 student council, 78, 92, 105, 107, 113, 117–­18 subjectivity. See shutaisei

180 – ­81, 183, 223; identity, 60, 80; self-­ presentation, 42 – ­43; students’ views of, 65 – ­66, 203 – ­4; transfers, 184 – ­85, 245n4; vacation duties, 179 – ­80, 247n20; view of junior high school mission, 165, 220 –­23, 231 teachers’ unions, 24, 67, 193, 246n16, 252n5 teaching: focus on basic skills, 125 –­27, 134 –­ 35, 139, 169, 174 –­75; interdisciplinary, 144; of Japanese language and literature, 133 – ­41; in junior high schools, 123 –­29, 181; lack of stimulation, 156 – ­60, 171; and lesson study, 183 – ­84; organization, 236; subject teaching, 42 – ­43, 144, 183 – ­84 tertiary education, 3 – ­4, 16, 161, 191 tests, 195; national attainment, 241n7; and proficiency grouping, 174 –­75 textbooks, 124, 129 –­33, 139; teachers’ flexible use of, 133 – ­41 thinking for oneself, 20 –­21, 53, 67– ­68, 81–­ 83, 88, 105, 125, 136 –­37, 143 – ­45, 152, 227, 236; and elite education, 189 time: curricular, 146 – ­47, 248 – ­49n2, 254n5; policed, 78; school timetable, 43; time demands on teachers, 50, 79, 140, 172, 179 – ­80, 184 – ­85, 195, 210 Tobin, Joseph, 27, 224 –­26 totalitarianism, 82 – ­83 tradition, 112 –­16, 120 tutorial college. See juku

tannin. See class teacher teachers: autonomy, 139; careers, 178; demands on, 50, 79, 140, 167– ­68, 179 – ­81, 195, 210; focus on human relationships, 46, 51–­53, 59, 63, 79 – ­80, 144, 152 – ­60, 223; focus on less proficient students, 126, 136, 154, 165, 169, 174 –­76, 179; focus on student behavior, 30 –­31, 43 – ­44, 47–­50, 59 – ­60, 75 – ­85, 156 –­57,

Wada Hideki, 1, 150 work, 151, 207– ­8

uniform, school, 41, 45, 48 – ­49, 77–­78, 81, 117 universal design, 151, 158 university. See tertiary education volunteering, 33, 145

Yomiuri Shinbun, 22 –­23, 243n10 youth: ideas about, 99 –­104; problems, 21, 229 yutori kyōiku, 22 –­23, 188 Zenseiken, 31, 92, 244n19