ERIC Number: EJ1435205
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0030-9230
EISSN: EISSN-1477-674X
Interpellating Children as Imperial Subjects: A Content Analysis of Government-Produced Moral Education Textbooks (1903-1942)
Shinobu Anzai
Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, v60 n4 p708-725 2024
The Meiji Restoration (1868) ended the Tokugawa Shogunate regime (1603-1867) and proclaimed the emperor as the supreme power of Japan. The Meiji emperor's reign began abruptly, requiring restoration leaders to construct an emperor-centred ideology of whole cloth. This ideology posited an eternal imperial Japan: a unique, tight-knit community of loyal subjects. To disseminate this ideology, the Meiji government introduced "shushin" (moral teaching) into the elementary school curriculum, aiming to transform all Japanese children into imperial subjects. Drawing upon Louis Althusser's theory of interpellation via Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), this study reads textbook stories as an interpellation practice and shows how the government portrayed characters in the stories as "Unique and Absolute Subjects" of the ideology to persuade children to willingly subjugate themselves to national ideals. This study conducts direct textual and contextual analyses of "kokutei shushin-sho" (government-produced moral training textbooks) produced between 1903 and 1942, with a special focus on the teaching unit of the kokka (state). Two themes -- loyalty and the imperial family -- dominate this unit. The analysis reveals that the stories created "targeted truth" by pruning away details of characters' real lives, putting a beautiful mask on them, and sometimes even re-inventing or mythologising them.
Descriptors: Moral Values, Moral Development, Ideology, Social Systems, Elementary School Students, Elementary School Curriculum, Educational History, Educational Theories, Textbooks, Content Analysis, Nationalism, Government School Relationship, Units of Study, Fantasy, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Japan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A