This article traces the development of the wartime Japanese curriculum, which was deliberately designed to implement 'Japanese' approaches to science, and its relation to the previously dominant educational approach, learning by doing. It examines the work of Shiono Naomichi (1898-1969), who served as the curriculum and textbook revision director…

The author has lived in Japan over twenty-five years, teaching in higher education for more than twenty. He observes that it has been alarming to see the inroads of ideological activism in the academic community in Japan, which is having unfortunate effects on the curricula of many schools, including his own, Hokusei Gakuen University. In this…

History praxis can transform perceptions of the "other" by reshaping ideas about events transpiring between groups. Nevertheless, peace education research has rarely examined history teaching. This article addresses the potential for teaching peace through history teaching. After laying out a conceptual framework for understanding the…

This document describes the ways in which Japan and the German nations have taught the history of World War II. According to the document, the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) took a pro-communist and anti-fascist approach to the subject. At the same time, the Western Allies pressured the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to institute a…

The Second World War stands as the most devastating and destructive global conflict in human history. More than 60 nations representing 1.7 billion people or three quarters of the world's population were consumed by its horror. Not surprisingly, therefore, World War II stands as a landmark episode in history education throughout the world and its…

This review of cross-national data on educational achievement indicates that the U.S. educational system has clearly been responsive both to the rapid changes in society and to its basic democratic ideology. (Author)

Describes a lesson for junior high social studies which uses a comparison of research findings to teach students about international political socialization. Students answer questionnaires about their own attitudes and knowledge of international political socialization and then compare and contrast their responses to responses of American,…

Designed to help secondary students recognize that a country's music both reflects and reinforces cultural values, this unit involves students in comparing the music of the United States, China, and Japan. The unit could be used as part of an Asian history or Western history course. The approximate time required for the unit is 12 class periods.…

The purpose of this study is to compare data on sample groups of Japanese, Japanese Americans, and Americans from three separate sources to determine political orientations and the socialization influencing the Japanese Americans' attitudes. The study ascertains whether the social-geographical environment or the family and other primary groups…

The relative influence of stages of political socialization on the adult political orientation and activities of former American and Japanese student activists is examined. A causal model of the stages of political socialization, including family and school, student activism, and adult roles, is compared with the political fate of student…

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended six centuries of feudal military rule by establishing a divine Emperor and clam oligarchy. Compulsory schooling and military service soon followed. Until WWII both institutions engaged in moral training that was both Confucian and nationalistic in its emphasis on absolute loyalty to the state and Emperor. The…

This case study of Wakayama Prefecture focuses on the postwar Japanese government's efforts to facilitate administration of rural areas via "town-making." School consolidation is among the means used to fabricate a new sense of social cohesion from a patchwork of depopulated and aging villages. The goal is to promote a national modern…

Observes that, although textbook reform in occupied Japan originally supported democratic principles of openness and competition, it later became a mechanism for anticommunist censorship. Maintains that interpretations of Japan's military conduct remain highly politicized and controversial. (MJP)

The survey reviews recent research on political behavior in Japan and describes the nature and institutional setting of political science in Japan. Political science is regarded as a small academic discipline which is frequently an adjunct to another academic department within a university. Political scientists in Japan have exhibited less…