A Study of Gender Equality in School Education and Development of Education for Equality of the Sexes

Compulsory Home Economics for Boys and Girls

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the activities of the Organization for Promoting Coeducational Home Economics. The focus will be on the introduction of gender perspective and the establishment of education for equality of the sexes. The Organization started its activities in January of 1974 as a joint educational movementof people engaged in home economics and citizens who wanted to establish homeeconomics as a compulsory school subject for both boys and girls. The organizationwas dissolved in March 1997 after successfully achieving its goals.
The purpose of the organization's campaign was to establish an educational systemof compulsory home economics for boys and girls and to achieve equality in educationamong the sexes. The organization also sought to redesign the subject from a subjectonly for girls to one for boys and girls alike. This was achieved by redefining fixedgender role division by introducing gender perspective into the education syllabus. Thesechanges were considered necessary to improve the social status of women in Japan, tochange the conventional mindset about role division by sex, to realize gender equalityand to ensure a gender-sensitive educational system.The results of the 23-year activities of the organization include:
1. Through its unique efforts in spreading an educational view-based on the fusionof educational practice and driven by the social demand for the improvementin the status of women-the organization effectively implemented gender perspectivein the contents of school subjects.
2. The efforts of the organization were also in line with activities for the ratificationof the United Nations' “Convention on the Elimination of the All Forms of Discrimination against Women.” The compulsory Home Economics course forboys and girls was realized in 1987 through the revision in the curricula afterconsiderable and controversial debate on the provisions of Article 10, “Same Curricula for Both Sexes.”
3. By implementing the new curriculum, Home Economics from elementary schoolthrough high school shifted from a subject for the housewife training for girlsto training both boys and girls to be self-reliant citizens. During the process, the contents of the subject was redefined to provide equal education between thesexes, and a gender-free perspective was introduced in the textbooks. Such study activities have been rare in the history of education in this country, andare considered to hold valuable implications for the future in terms of retention of the equality of the sexes in education as well as the direction of gender study.