Modern Education and Biography: New Research Perspectives through Comparing Qualitative Research Methods in Germany and Japan

Abstract

  This paper explores new research perspectives in educational science by comparing biographical methods in Germany and Japan. New insights resulting from this investigation enable a critical and deeper analysis of modern education.

  Critical discourse regarding educational reform and school problems has been ongoing for many years. To consider these issues thoroughly, some authors have analyzed modern education itself with regard to its origin, history and development. Comparative education research and studies into pedagogical phenomena in foreign countries can also lead to interesting and important insights, because these research fields are able to show clearly the characteristics of modern educational thought and systems by extracting parallels from different educational phenomena. To extend this scientific possibility, it is necessary to handle not only theories of comparative study itself but also those of respective methods on the basis of research questions. Thus, this paper will explore different methods of biographical research in Germany and Japan, in that biography contains one’s life in the reflection of modern education. By comparing these two different research methods some new research perspectives can be expected to be found.

  To date, there has been little academic discourse or cooperation in the field of qualitative, biographical research methods between Germany and Japan. In Germany, pedagogical biographical studies have been pursued since the 1970s, while in Japan education research by means of biography or life history has been promoted since about 2000. However, by analyzing these two contrasting academic characteristics, some thematic or methodological insights can be provided in the particular field of education studies. These may contribute to a critical consideration of modern education using a specific methodology.

  The development of methods of biographical research in the field of sociology is taken as the basis of this comparison. Similarities can be observed in the developmental processes of these qualitative methods up to the 1970s, when biographical methodology experienced a “renaissance” following the methodological stagnation caused by mostly quantitative research interests in the 1950s and 1960s. After that, however, this kind of qualitative method developed differently in each country, due to contrasting relations with Anglo-American theories and methodologies as well as with the oral history approach.

  On this basis, the methods of biographical research in education science have been extended. The main two parts of this paper compare these in terms of the following aspects: (1) how biography is grasped from the point of education science, and (2) how open-ended interview methods and interpretation of the transcription are structured. In the second part, two typical interview methods will be addressed: the Life Story Interview in Japan and the Narrative Interview in Germany.

  Looking at biography from the perspective of education science, in Japan a common interest is found which reflects education practice in schools. This tends to treat the teacher as a typical research object. Led by some British authors, case studies have attempted to understand holistically teachers’ practice by reading their life histories of public and private life in Japan. On the contrary, German education science sets the biographical aspect as a main focus in modern education theories. As with the case of research in Japan, practical themes play a central role in each case study, as do attempts to categorize and theorize pedagogical phenomena. In both countries, occupational or professional socialization of teachers is often taken as primary themes. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)