Edward R. Beauchamp - Education in Japan: A Source Book

PART II.CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE
EDUCATION: PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

This series of reference works and monographs in education in selected nations and regions is designed to provide a resource to scholars, students, and a variety of other professionals who need to understand the place of education in a particular society or region. While the format of the volumes is often similar, the authors have had the flexibility to adjust the common outline to reflect the uniqueness of their particular nation or region.

Contributors to this series are scholars who have devoted their professional lives to studying the nation or region about which they write. Without exception they have not only studied the educational system in question, but they have lived and travelled widely in the society in which it is embedded. In short, they are exceptionally knowledgeable about their subject.

In our increasingly interdependent world, it is now widely understood that it is a matter of survival that we understand better what makes other societies tick. As the late George Z.F. Bereday wrote: First, education is a mirror held against the face of a people. Nations may put on blustering shows of strength to conceal public weakness, erect grand facades to conceal shabby backyards, and profess peace while secretly arming for conquest, but how they take care of their children tells unerringly who they are (Comparative Method in Education, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964, page 5).

Perhaps equally important, however, is the valuable perspective that studying another education system provides us in understanding our own. To step outside of our commonly held assumptions about schools and learning, however briefly, and to look back at our system in contrast to another, places it in a very different light. To learn, for example, how the Soviet Union handles the education of a multilingual society; how the French provide for the funding of public education; or how the Japanese control admissions into their universities enables us to understand that there are alternatives to our familiar way of doing things. Not that we can often borrow from other societies; indeed, educational arrangements are inevitably a reflection of deeply rooted political, economic, and cultural factors that are unique to a society. But a conscious recognition that there are other ways of doing things can serve to open our minds and provoke our imaginations in ways that can result in new approaches that we would not have otherwise considered.

Since this series is designed to be a useful research tool, the editors and contributors welcome suggestions for future volumes as well as ways in which this series can be improved.

Edward R. Beauchamp
University of Hawaii

A work of this kind could not be accomplished without the expert assistance of professional librarians. The editors are particularly grateful to the following for guidance and services beyond the call of duty: Ms. Togasaki Tamiyo, Ms. Kurita Junko of the International House of Japan Library, Ms. Fukunaga Matsumiko of the Japan Foundation Library, Ms. Nakamura Yoshiko and Mr. Noguchi Takahiro of the Kyoto University Faculty of Education Library, and Mr. Shiro Saito of the University of Hawaii Library. We would also like to thank Gerard Sullivan, Jan Ibana, Suzanne Culter, Ida Yoshinaga, and Pamela Kido, of the staff of the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Hawaii, for help in preparing the manuscript for publication.

Errors that remain are, of course, the responsibility of the editors.

Over the past several years American interest in Japanese education has grown by leaps and bounds. As a result, there have been numerous accounts, often by instant experts who, having spent a week or two in Tokyo, have contributed to shaping American views about Japan and Japanese education. These accounts, although often inaccurate or misleading, have filled the popular media.