This book is an up-to-date critical examination of schooling in Japan by
an expert in this field. It focuses on developments in the last two
decades, with a particular interest in social justice. Japan has
experienced slow economic growth, changed employment practices,
population decline, an aging society, and an increasingly multi-ethnic
population resulting from migration. It has faced a call to respond to
the rhetoric of globalization and to concerns in childhood poverty in
the perceived affluence. In education we have seen developments
responding to these challenges in national and local educational
policies, as well as in school-level practices.
What are the most significant developments in schooling of the last two
decades? Why have these developments emerged, and how will they affect
youth and society as a whole? How can we best interpret social justice
implications of these developments in terms of both distributive justice
and the politics of difference? To what extent have the shifts advanced
the interests of disadvantaged groups? This book shows that, compared to
three decades ago, the system of education increasingly acknowledges the
need to address student diversity of all kinds, and delivers options
that are more varied and flexible. But interest in social justice in
education has tended to centre on the distribution of education (who
gets how much of schooling), with fewer questions raised about the
content of schooling that continues to advantage the already advantaged.
Written in a highly accessible style, and aimed at scholars and students
in the fields of comparative education, sociology of education and
Japanese studies, this book illuminates changing policies and cumulative
adjustments in the daily practice of schooling, as well as how various
groups in society make sense of these changes.
