My Parents, My Sensei: Compulsory Education and a Homeschooling Alternative in Japan
2005; Routledge; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0163-7479
Autores Tópico(s)Global Educational Reforms and Inequalities
ResumoI. INTRODUCTION During 1980s and through early 1990s, Japan's accelerated rise to economic power caused many in America to focus on one of perceived roots of success: their unique and highly disciplined public education system. Western unease at rate of postwar economic expansion-coupled with sensationalized observations of school system's instruction methods-helped to generate a popular perception that schoolchildren were the product of an inhuman regime of forced-march study and that Japanese education is dehumanizing and unfair, both to children and to American economy.1 Those who saw education system in less hyperbolic terms tried to understand direct and indirect connections between Japan's economic success and their schooling methods, and many advocates of school reform in United States sought to uncover secrets of education so that their own students might one day experience academic awakening they felt their own postindustrial society had not yet delivered.2 And while recent economic slowdown in Japan has dampened fears of a takeover of United States,3 there still remains an interest in this country in learning from education system, if not from desire to see United States stay competitive with economically then certainly from envy at Japan's continued dominance in international academic standards.4 Yet while school system maintains an impressive position in terms of international standards and statistical results,5 not all parents in Japan desire to see their children educated by state. There are those who, while recognizing that state has a legitimate interest in overseeing education of its populace, might not agree with either methods of instruction or environment in which it is provided and therefore do not want their children to attend public school. Some parents are concerned about growing problem of ijime (bullying) in schools.6 Other parents want to spend more quality time with their children, who are usually required to participate in time-consuming, afterschool activities.7 Some parents may have recently read of nineteen-year-old American novelist Christopher Paolini. Mr. Paolini, who wrote his bestselling novel Eragor9 at age of fifteen, was homeschooled by his parents and has become an example within homeschooling movement of potential of alternatives to public school system.9 Still other parents in Japan take a dim view of what some have called structural-functionalist view of school socialization10 and opt for a more individualized orientation to socialization of their children. Homeschooling as an alternative to public schooling in Japan is not a clearly defined right that parents have to exercise. Japan-along with other industrialized nations such as United States and United Kingdom-recognizes right of a child to an education as fundamental,11 and its constitution and laws accord with this international recognition that education should be compulsory and free.12 Manifest in government's interest in educational development of its populace is its willingness to enact measures that will prevent parents from neglecting their duty to see their children attend school. The compulsory education laws in Japan are part of such measures. These compulsory education laws, however, represent legal barriers to parent in Japan that chooses to take his or her children out of public education and school them at home-not because laws are so restrictive, but because they are so vague: for example, compulsory school requirement for handicapped children is subject to individual interpretation by prefectural boards of education-not necessarily unusual, but as shall be discussed later, can lead to wildly different applicative results. …
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