ERIC Number: EJ1157311
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0958-5176
EISSN: N/A
Project-Based Learning in Post-WWII Japanese School Curriculum: An Analysis via Curriculum Orientations
Curriculum Journal, v28 n4 p626-641 2017
In the 2000s, the new national curriculum, dubbed as the "yutori curriculum," introduced a new subject for project-based learning "Integrated Study" as its prominent feature. Comparing curriculum orientations in project-based learning in three historical periods after the WWII including Integrated Study, this paper aims to offer a genealogy of postwar Japanese school curriculum primarily based on a critical reading of the national curriculum guidelines on project-based learning, which is emblematic of the extending power of postwar Japan's curriculum authorities. Although Integrated Study was purportedly child-centered and put emphasis on each child's personal relevance and each school's autonomy, the finding of this study shows that Integrated Study in the yutori curriculum was rather a technology that disciplined schools, teachers, and classroom processes to shape children into morally good and cognitively flexible Japanese nationals. Despite its rhetoric of child-centeredness and personal relevance, the introduction of Integrated Study as part of the yutori curriculum was ultimately part of the state's move to gain further control over schooling.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Active Learning, Student Projects, National Curriculum, Curriculum Evaluation, Educational Change, Student Centered Learning, Moral Development, Integrated Curriculum, Educational History, Asian History, Elementary Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Japan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A