Lincicome offers a new perspective on Japanese educational debates and
policy reforms that have taken place under the guise of
internationalization since the mid-1980s. By contextualizing these
developments within a historical framework spanning the entire twentieth
century, he challenges the argument put forward by education officials,
conservative politicians, and their supporters in the academy and the
business world that history offers no guide for addressing the
educational challenges that face contemporary Japan. Combining
diachronic and synchronic approaches, Lincicome analyzes repeated
attempts throughout the twentieth century to Ointernationalize
educationO (/kyoiku no kokusaika/) in Japan. This comparison reveals
important similarities that transcend educational policy to encompass
Japanese conceptions of individual, national, and international
identity; relations between the individual, the nation, the state, and
the international community; and the type of education best suited to
negotiating multiple identities among the next generation of Japanese
subject-citizens.