2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

The End of Catching up with the West and Education Policy in Japan

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23531108
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Research Field	Sociology of education
Research Institution	Kansai University of International Studies
Principal Investigator	KARIYA Takehiko 関西国際大学, 公私立大学の部局等, その他 (60204658)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	濱名陽子関西国際大学, 教授 (60164919)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2013
Keywords	キャッチアップ / 近代化 / 西欧化 / 教育政策 / 臨時教育審議会 / 開発国家
Research Abstract	Through this research, I investigated processes in which Japanese government officially announced in their policy documents that Japan had completed catching up with 'the West' and the influences of having such social recognition on education policies after that recognition was built up. The research found that the widely recognized perception of 'the end of catching up with the West' contributed to constituting the way in which education issues were socially constructed as problems of 'developmental state' such as its excessed centralized education administration systems and cramming knowledge type of teaching and learning in school. The research also revealed that views from overseas researchers such as Ezra Vogel, the author of "Japan as Number One", impacted on the ways of constructing the recognition of the end of catching up with the West among policy makers.

(3 results)