The politics of curriculum change in Japan: a case study of the introduction of Seikatsuka [Life Environment Studies]

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Adopting educational ideas from other countries’ experience is not at all rare these days. However, adoption is not as simple as it seems because ideas, and educational policies and reforms, are not independent of social environment and historical trajectories. This paper illustrates this theme of the rootedness of educational policies by analysing in detail the cultural politics of curriculum reform in Japan by a case study of Seikatsuka [Life Environment Studies]. The apparent ‘efficiency’ and ‘success’ of Japanese educational policies is contrasted with one example of the cumbersome and slow politics of curriculum change in Japan. In counterpoint, it is questioned whether new curriculum theorizing might be advisable as other countries centralize their control over the ‘message systems’ of curriculum content, pedagogy and evaluation. The overall argument is that the complexity of the cultural politics of curriculum policy makes educational transfer a trickier business than enthusiastic and reforming governments have hitherto acknowledged.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: