Reimagining Japanese education: Borders,transfers, circulations,and the comparative

International Review of Education -     

Crossing borders: Research in comparative and international education

Published articles permit mapping international and comparative education research. We reviewed 605 articles published 2004–2008 in four major journals. Using title, abstract, and entire text we explored thematic focus, geographic focus, level/type of education studied, method, and funding. The economic, political, and social context of education receives far more attention than its content. Comparative and international education research reflects more diversity than convergence in approach, theory, and methodology. The research community moves in multiple directions simultaneously, insisting that understanding education requires studying not only what happens within schools but also where the schools sit and who enters their doors.     

Beyond Orientalism in comparative education: challenging the binary opposition between Japanese and American education

This article challenges the common-sense observation that Japanese and American education have been moving in “opposite directions” in recent times. Drawing on postcolonial discourse studies and cultural studies, the article extracts from this observation an Orientalist binary epistemology that continues to set discursive limits on the way Japanese and American observers make sense of each other's education. It is argued that the predominance of this Orientalist binary paradigm in comparative discussions of Japanese and Anglo-American education has resulted in the unfortunate lack of scholarly efforts to take full account of the common global structural changes in education driven by neo-liberal and neo-conservative impulses. As a crucial step towards the critical, reflexive engagement with the continuing colonial legacy, this article proposes a structurally oriented research paradigm that enables us to discuss localised and nationalised differences in education changes within the common frame of global structural changes in economy, state and education.     

中日近代教育政策比较

中日近代教育政策有许多相同之处,如制定原则、注重政策理解以及政策推行中的矛盾和冲突。同时两国教育政策也有不同之处,决策人员的差距拉开了两国教育政策过程的距离．政府能力的强弱最终决定了政策的成败,因此,进行两国教育政策比较具有重要的现实意义。     

晋察冀边区中等教育研究

抗战时期,晋察冀边区在战争年代条件极其艰苦的情况下,克服重重困难,坚持创办一种特殊的中等教育.该教育形式,既肩负着普通教育的任务,又承担着干部教育的职责.在办学性质、课程设置、教学方法、课余活动等方面,均能体现出这两方面的教育功能.晋察冀边区的中等教育有力地支援了抗战救国大业,在中国教育史上具有重要的历史地位.     

Reimagining adult education and lifelong learning for all: Historical and critical perspectives

International Review of Education -     

Reimagining Japanese Education: Borders,Transfers, Circulations and the Comparative. Edited by D.B. Willis and J. Rappleye

ABSTRACT

Vygotsky considered vraschivaniya, or ‘ingrowing’, an indispensable stage in the ‘internalization’ of meaning and described three different ways this could happen. But were these different ways options or substages? By logico-semantic analysis of Vygotsky’s notebooks and published texts, and by recontextualizing them historically, I show that what started as three options became substages. By exemplifying some vraschivaniya with data from Korean school children, I show that what starts as dialogue shared only with the family through joint activity becomes, in the classroom, generalization that can be shared with a whole culture through narrative.     

Sociology and comparative education: A comparative educationist's perspective

The thesis examined in this paper is that comparative educationists, far from following intellectual trends, have introduced new dimensions to methods of enquiry developed first by historians, then by social scientists and, finally and perhaps marginally, by conceptual philosophers. In so far as comparisons can be made, it is asserted that, in the twentieth century, paradigms in comparative education reflect revolutions in the natural sciences, and that to the extent that these preceded shifts in social science paradigms after about 1900, comparative educationists debated and rejected positivism before sociologists did, in the Anglo-Saxon world at least.A second assumption which is examined is that comparative educationists have anticipated issues which subsequently became important in the growth of national and parochial research in sociology, and for that matter in political science.A disclaimer is necessary: little attempt has been made to examine the causal influences in either field or between comparative educationists and sociologists. The history of such interaction at a personal and institutional level is very recent, the participants in the interchanges are, in many cases, still alive, and a substantive recent history of comparative education has yet to be written, although to some extent E. Shils' analysis of the history of sociological enquiry provides a schema against which the growth of comparative education can be compared.

---

Zusammenfassung In dieser Arbeit wird die These überprüft, daß vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaftler, weit davon entfernt, intellektuellen Trends zu folgen, neue Dimensionen für Untersuchungsmethoden eingeführt haben, die zuerst von Historikern, dann von Sozialwissenschaftlern und am Rande auch von konzeptuellen Philosophen entwickelt wurden. Soweit es möglich ist, Vergleiche anzustellen, wird dargelegt, daß im 20. Jahrhundert Paradigmen der vergleichenden Erziehungswissenschaft tiefgreifene Veränderungen in den Naturwissenschaften widerspiegeln. Softern diese den nach ca. 1900 stattfindenden Wandlungen in sozialwissenschaftlichen Paradigmen vorausgingen, haben vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaftler noch vor den Soziologen den Positivismus erörtert und verworfen, zumindest in der angelsächsischen Welt.Zweitens wird die Annahme überprüft, daß vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaftler Fragen vorweggenommen haben, die später in der Entwicklung nationaler und örtlicher soziologischer Forschung und auch in der Politologie Bedeutung erlangten.Eine Einschränkung muß noch gemacht werden: Der Autor hat weitgehend darauf verzichtet, die kausalen Einflüsse in den beiden Einzelbereichen sowie die gegenseitigen Einwirkungen von vergleichenden Erziehungswissenschaftlern und Soziologen zu untersuchen. Die Geschichte solcher Wechselwirkungen auf persönlicher und institutioneller Ebene ist noch sehr jung, die Teilnehmer an ihnen sind in vielen Fällen noch am Leben, und eine substantielle neuere Geschichte der vergleichenden Erziehungswissenschaft ist noch nicht geschrieben. Dennoch bietet E. Shils Analyse der Geschichte soziologischer Untersuchungen eine gewisse Grundlage für einen Vergleich mit der Entwicklung der vergleichenden Erziehungswissenschaft.

---

Résumé La thèse soutenue dans cet article est que les théoriciens de l'éducation comparée, loin de suivre les courants intellectuels, ont introduit de nouvelles dimensions dans les méthodes d'enquête élaborées d'abord par les historiens, puis développées par les spécialistes des sciences sociales, et enfin — marginalement peut-être — par les philosophes conceptuels. Pour autant que l'on puisse établir des comparaisons, on constate qu'au XXe siècle, les paradigmes de l'éducation comparée reflètent les révolutions qui surviennent dans les sciences naturelles et qu'ils se modifient avant même ceux des sciences sociales, aux alentours de 1900, au point que les théoriciens de l'éducation comparée contestent et rejettent le positivisme avant que les spécialistes des sciences sociales soient parvenus à cette démarche, du moins dans les pays anglosaxons.Une autre assomption de la thèse est que les théoriciens de l'éducation comparée ont anticipé des situations qui devaient se révéler importantes par la suite, avec le développement de la recherche sociologique nationale et locale, et également avec celui des sciences politiques.Il est juste de reconnaître néanmoins qu'une timide tentative a été faite dans l'intention d'étudier les influences causales, que ce soit dans chacun de ces domaines ou entre théoriciens de l'éducation comparée et sociologues. L'histoire d'une telle interaction au niveau individuel et au niveau institutionnel est très récente; les hommes qui ont participé à ces échanges sont encore pour la plupart vivants et une histoire récente autonome de l'éducation comparée reste à écrire. Toutefois, l'analyse que E. Shils a fate de l'histoire de l'enquête sociologique fournit, jusqu'à un certain point, une base permettant d'évaluer le développement de l'éducation comparée.

     

Globalisation,knowledge economy and comparative education

This paper seeks to introduce this special issue by setting out what seem to be some of the major theoretical and methodological issues raised for comparative education by the increasing prominence of the discourses of the knowledge economy, which, it is argued, represent a particularly strong version of globalisation and its possible relationships to education systems, and hence an especially acute challenge to comparative education. It focuses on the possible implications of these changes for each of the three elements of ‘national education system’. In terms of the ‘national’ it discusses the nature and consequences of methodological nationalism, and emphasises the emerging pluri‐scalar nature of the governance of education. In terms of ‘education’, it argues that education is now being asked to do different things in different ways, rather than the same things in different ways. In terms of ‘system’, it is suggested that the constitution of education sectors may be in the process of changing, with a development of parallel sectors at different scales with different responsibilities. Overall, the article suggests that we may be witnessing the development of a new functional, scalar and sectoral (non zero sum) division of the labour of educational governance. Finally, it addresses the question ‘what is now to be compared’ and considers the consequences for both ‘explaining’ and ‘learning’ through comparative education.     

Socioeconomic strata, mobile technology, and education: a comparative analysis

Mobile devices are highly portable, easily distributable, substantially affordable, and have the potential to be pedagogically complementary resources in education. This study, incorporating mixed method analyses, discusses the implications of a mobile learning technology-based learning model in two public primary schools near the Mexico-USA border in the state of Baja California, Mexico. One school was located in an urban slum and the other in a rural village community. Empirical and ethnographic data were collected through a series of achievement tests, observations, surveys, and interviews involving 160 s grade school children recruited by convenience sampling. The general technology infrastructure, distinctive features of mobile learning to supplement literacy development, profound contextual phenomena arising from the two uniquely underserved communities, and social factors possibly influencing the educational experiences are discussed. The findings suggest that students in the rural village, seriously lacking educational resources and technology exposure, may have benefited substantially more from mobile technologies than urban school students possibly due to their relatively higher socio-economic status and higher parental involvement and interest in education. In contrast, there was no evidence of interaction with parental education levels, the experience of teachers or school principals, or the teacher’s perception or preparation of the technology. Overall, the mobile learning technology adoption was rapid, seamless, and actively driven by the students rather than the teacher. The challenges of the phenomenal migratory nature of most families in this unique geographical region are also discussed to benefit future studies.