The Japanese Educational Policy and the Pedagogical Development of Thoughts of Self-Realization throughout the Meiji, Taisho, and the Early Showa Periods

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25381010
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Education
• Research Institution: Utsunomiya University
• Principal Investigator: Sasaki Hidekazu 宇都宮大学, 地域連携教育研究センター, 准教授 (40292578)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 自我実現 / 中島力造 / トーマス・ヒル・グリーン / ミューアヘッド / 哲学館事件 / 井上哲次郎 / 教育勅語 / 人格

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The word “jiko-jitsugen” has become very popular in modern Japan, but its original appearance in Japanese history can be traced to the moment when Rikizo Nakashima, a Japanese ethicist, translated the British word “self-realisation” into the Japanese word “jiga-jitsugen” in an 1895 publication. Subsequently, throughout the Meiji, Taisho, and the early Showa periods, thoughts of self-realization developed as a series of ethical percepts reflecting what the relationship between individual and society is, and should be, like. However, in the fascist era, the ideological constraints imposed on their concept of self-realization made young Japanese elites convert the idea of a horizontal individual-society harmony, producing the concept of a vertical absorption of the people into the state. As self-realization is predisposed to be an exclusive term symbolizing individualism in the present day, this paradoxical fact is a significant discovery in the educational history of Japan.

Free Research Field

教育学、社会教育学、生涯学習論