Competitor or Ally?: Japan’s Role in American Educational Debates

184 Pages·1999·4.28 MB·English

by  Gerald K. LeTendre

COMPETITOR OR ALLY?
REFERENCE BOOKS IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
VOLUME 45
GARLAND REFERENCE LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
VOLUME 1407
COMPETITOR OR ALLY?
JAPAN'S ROLE IN AMERICAN
EDUCATIONAL DEBATES
EDITED BY
GERALD K. LETENDRE
I~ ~~ o~~~~n~~~up
NewYork London
FirstpublishedbyFalmerPress.
Thiseditionpublished20II byRoutledge:
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Copyright© 1999 by GeraldK.LeTendre
All rights reserved
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailableatthe
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Competitoror ally? :Japan'srole inAmerican educationaldebates /
edited by GeraldK.LeTendre.
Contents
Tables andFigures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
Merry White xi
Chapter I:International Achievement Studies andMyths of
Japan
GeraldK. LeTendre 3
Chapter 2:ALookattheOtherSideofJapaneseEducation:
Student Responsibility andLearning
InekoTsuchidaand CatherineC.Lewis 25
Chapter3:Coping withDiversity:TheAchilles' Heelof
Japanese Education?
DavidMcConnell 47
Chapter 4:Individuality, Learning,andAchievement:
Japanese Perspectives
HidetadaShimizu 65
Chapter 5:Work RolesandNormsforTeachers inJapan and
the UnitedStates
Hua Yang 83
Chapter 6:"The DarkSideof.. .":Suicide,Violence and
Drug UseinJapanese Schools
KangminZengandGeraldLeTendre 103
v
vi Conren~
Chapter7:International ComparisonsandEducational
ResearchPolicy
GeraldLeTendreandDavidBaker 123
Conclusion:ResilientMyths:AreOurMindsMadeUpAbout
Japanese Education?
CatherineC.Lewis 141
Glossary 149
References 151
ListofContributors 165
Index 169
Tables and Figures
Fig.2-1. ManagementstatementsinJapanese and
American classes 31
Fig. 2-2. Teacherencouragesstudents toexpress support,
disagree orelaborate onother students' remarks 37
Fig.2-3. Teacherexternal reward statements 39
Fig.2-4. Teachers' lesson-framing statements 40
Table 5-1. Weekly Time AllocationsofJapaneseand U.S.
Middle School Teachers 88
Table 5-2. Time DistributionforSpecific Academic Tasks by
Japaneseand U.S.Middle School Teachers 89
Table 5-3. Time DistributionforSpecific Student
Guidance/ActivityTasks byJapaneseand U.S.
Middle School Teachers 90
Table 5-4. Staffing Patterns intheU.S.andJapaneseMiddle
Schools 97
Table 6-1. Suicide Rates OverTime forJapanese Youth (per
100,000) byAge Ranges. 109
Table 6-2. Suicide Rates byGender inSelectiveNations.
Death bySuicide per 100,000 Populationfor
Youth Aged 15-24 109
Table 6-3. BullyinginJapan 114
vii
Acknowledgments
The process ofdeveloping abook from aset ofconference papers can
bealong andconvoluted one.Wewouldlike tothankThomas Rohlen,
Harold Stevenson and Nancy Sato for their input in developing this
manuscript, and Cindy Fetters and Judy Harper who worked to type
parts of the manuscript. Marie Ellen Larcada, formerly of Garland
Press, provided direction for anearly draft of the manuscript. And we
would especially like to thank Ed Beauchamp for his support and
guidance.
The idea for this book originated in the American Educational
Research Association symposium "Comparison or Competition: The
Use and Misuse of Japanese Educational Data in the American
Context," in which the principle authors of this book took part as
presenters and discussants. The overall conclusion of the symposium
was that to a large degree discussion of Japanese education in the
American research context isstillbelabored by stereotypical notions of
the Japanese and Japanese society; is heavily biased in favor of
quantitative studies, even those with widely acknowledged
methodological flawssuchastheSIMS;andismoreandmore apolicy
or political issue in which statistics,divorced from the social context,
areusedas"evidence"inwaysthatpreventanaccuratepictureofJapan
from emerging.
ix
Introduction
Merry White
Why do so many Americans seem to have something to say about
Japanese children? From the NationalInquirer-gossipmonger of the
supermarket checkout lines-which ran a story about Japanese
education moms, to leading political satirist Gary Trudeau, everyone
wants to talk about Japanese students.But, at the same time that some
writers are exalting Japanese educational values, others in the same
popular media write lurid stories about bullying, juvenile suicide,
robotized mindsandstifledimaginations.
American andJapanese writersoverthepast25yearshave offered
models, mirrors and cautionary tales of Japanese childhood and
schooling.The Japanese classroom hasbeenafocus,evenanobsession
of commentators associating education with national security. This
obsession has equally affected cartoonists, supermarket tabloids and,
more recently itappears, someleading educational researchjournalsin
which, forexample,theresultsoftheThirdInternational Math-Science
Study are debated using reference to U.S. and Japanese cultural
parameters. The contradictory and inflammatory views that typify
coverage of Japanese students or schools reflect American divisions
and confusion over educational priorities and goals. These views also
demonstrate how research data can be (and often has been) used and
misused inthediscourses onbothJapanese andAmerican education to
promote a range of reform agendas. American attention to Japan has
reflected our international and domestic concerns about global
competition and the frustrations ofa generation of young workers who
willnotdobetterthantheirparents.Buttheseconcernsweresometimes
buried under an overarching feverish attention to the success of
xi
xii Introduction
children in a country that is just about as far away from the United
States (culturallyandgeographically)asyoucanget.
Of course, these cycles of attention and concern have not always
been characterized bydistortion, projection or denial of appropriate
priorities.There arecertain giveaways whichcancue thereader to the
presence ofbiasedreporting:theuseofabsolutes suchas"all Japanese
children," unsubstantiated claims orcorrelations such as"examination
pressurehascausedariseinjuvenile suicides,"referencestoamythical
idealorarchetypal norminonesocietythatiscontrastedwithdown-to
earth realities in the other.Ineach ofthe three waves ofengagement I
will discuss below, there have also been clear, well-researched pieces
on Japanese realities which critically assess the constructions which
American researchers and policy makers tend to place on Japanese
schoolsandstudents.
Withproper acknowledgmentofthecomplexity andcontradictions
thatany serious treatment willgenerate, letuscall these three types or
stages of reaction to Japanese education the "wow!", "uh-oh" and as
Joseph Tobin notes, "yes, but .. . " reactions. "Wow" refers to the
gape-mouthed amazement with which stories of exceIIence in test
results, classroom management, and family-school cooperation were
received in the United States in the 1970s when Japan's economic
"miracle" firstcametocenterstageintheinternationalmedia."Uh-oh"
describes the reaction of those concerned with American
competitiveness in the face of apparent Japanese superiority. Finally,
"yes, but..." allows for thepositive aspects,putting them incontext
as weII as noting downsides-an admiring but qualified response.
These three periods roughly correspond to the three decades in which
Japanese education has developed a high profile in America, in the
seventies,eightiesandnineties.
Japaneseeducationhasstimulatedenvy,fearandpityinAmericans
for some time: wartime propaganda tended to focus on fear (Japanese
adolescents training to be kamikaze pilots) and postwar reports often
focused on pity (children packed 50 to a classroom in half-bombed
buildings). Since the take-off of the Japanese economy in the 1970s,
envy appeared inthe"wow!" stories ofJapanese schoolsuccess.These
tended to focus positively onclassroom order, high test scores and on
the moral value and political priority given to education in Japanese
society. Openly curious, the writers of these stories asked if this
centrality could be attributed to the traditional Confucian equation of