Abstract
This paper tries to reread the History of the Educational System since the Meiji Era (Meiji-iko Kyoiku Seido Hattatsu-shi) (The Ministry of Education 1938) and think about the construction of the concept of “Children” in modern Japan.
Historical argument can show the creation and establishment of the educational discourse (i.e., one that argues that pupils or children have immature bodies but will become “nations” or “laborers” in the future, and that therefore the educational system should care for them) , accompanied with the rising education rate and body measurement data, which give the “material” reason for the discourse. This means that the “materiality of children” which is instinctively insisted on as a criticism against the constructive approach to “children,” is only one factor in the discourse.
But, at the same time, the discourse shows the traces of young people outside the educational discourse. Sociology of children and education should keep in mind the constructed aspect of the concept of “children” and the educational discourse on one hand, and should never forget the existence of a world outside our own particular constructed discourse, on the other.
