Decolonial interventions in the postwar politics of Japanese education: Reassessing the place of Shinto in Japanese language and moral education curriculum

Keita Takayama

doi:10.5944/reec.43.2023.37089

Autores/as

Keita Takayama Kyoto University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9888-0047

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5944/reec.43.2023.37089

Palabras clave:

Shinto, ecological crisis, moral education, national language education, politics of education, decolonial

Resumen

Much of postwar politics in Japanese education has revolved around the tensions between conservative’s retrogressive desire for the imperial past on the one hand and the liberal-left’s progressive agenda on the other. The former demands a return to the teaching of traditional (Confucius) family values, patriotism and Shinto-inspired reverence (awe) towards the universe, while the latter demands teaching for rational, critical minds deemed essential for democratic citizenship. This binary structure of political contestation is increasingly problematized by the emerging political sensibilities around the ecological crisis and eco-feminist critique of human exceptionalism, hype-separation between human and nature and ontological individualism. The chapter demonstrates how the new ecological and decolonial literature demands a fundamental rethinking of the postwar politics of Japanese education, in particular, in relation to the place of Shinto—the Japanese indigenous belief system—in school curriculum. It exposes the limitations of the postwar liberal-left discourse which has reduced Shinto to nothing but the conservatives’ retrogressive desire to ‘return.’ The chapter concludes, drawing on Chen’s (2010) notion of de-cold-war politics, that the Cold War framing of education policy debate must be overcome to unleash the decolonial and ecological potentials of Japanese education towards addressing the pressing sustainable challenges today.

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Biografía del autor/a

Keita Takayama, Kyoto University

Keita Takayama is a professor at Kyoto University. Professor Takayama has published extensively in the areas of comparative education, sociology of education and curriculum studies. Professor Takayama has been instrumental in promoting a better understanding of the implications of globalisation to education practice, policy and theory both within and beyond Australia. In particular, his work on OECD’s PISA and its implication for national education policy making has been widely recognized.

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