In the context of educational practice and research, the individual is often understood in terms of autonomy. From this point of view, we will see our experience as cumulative, as inside of us, and as strengthening us against others. It means that the conception of experience tends to be understood primarily in relation to usefulness. In search of…

From the historical viewpoint, is it possible that curriculum and teacher education could have been integrated at the beginning of the era of curriculum studies? This paper focuses on the development of type study in the 1910s by C. A. McMurry (1857-1929) as a pioneering curriculum theory surveying the scope of teacher education. McMurry was a key…

Higher education systems are now in a global state of flux. Japan is no exception. The most persuasive framework for analyzing the basic structure and direction of change is the structural-historical theory of the American sociologist Martin Trow. This is a generalization of his "elite to mass to universal" based on first American and then…

The aim of this paper is to consider the trends and problems of Japanese educational science from the viewpoint of Tokugawa educational thought. Firstly, I reexamine the past main works of the studies on Tokugawa educational thought, and conduct a survey of the trends of these studies. Second, through critical analysis of these studies I try to…

Since the Meiji Restoration (1868), Japan's educational studies first began by receiving theories of practical education from the UK and U. S. Later, together with the political trends around 1890, there began a trend towards receipt of German educational studies. Along with the spread of elementary education, there were experiments with building…

This paper examines the development of educational theory in Japan from 1945 to the present in five time divisions: (1) postwar "new education" and its critics (1945-52); (2) revisionist educational policy versus the people's education movement (1952-61); (3) the formation of "postwar pedagogy" as a self-reflection of the educational system…

The question explored here is this: Is curriculum for the 21st century best organized around the traditional disciplines, or is there a more promising alternative? The answered offered is that our best option is to stretch the disciplines from within, push back the boundaries now separating them, and ask how each of the expanded subjects can be…

This paper examines an alternative view of teacher education that enables teachers to redefine their image and mission in the changing society of Japan. This vision is inspired by and draws upon the educational and philosophical thoughts of nineteenth-century American writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and contemporary…

The Western theory of education was in its Greek origin inseparably tied to the Greek concept of Being and truth. This is shown clearly by the metaphor of the Cave in the seventh book of Plato's Republic. This interdependence of education (paideia) with Being (which later was identified with Nature or God) has provided, since then, a firm…

This paper considers four notions of teacher professionalism--traditional, managerial, collaborative and democratic professionalism. While its focus is on England, the increasing convergence of education policy around the world means that its discussion and arguments have much wider relevance. The paper begins by outlining the different…