2019 Volume 86 Issue 4 Pages 461-472
The purpose of this paper is a theoretical consideration of an ethics of international educational development. Main topics to be considered include a “public-private initiative to disseminate Japanese-style education overseas” (EDU-Port Japan), and the ideologies of anti/cultural imperialism and anti/neoliberalism.
The field of international educational development has not been sufficiently related to educational ethics or normative theory in general. Global ethics research addresses the relevant issues, but hardly touches on education. It is, to be sure, difficult to develop and criticize any ideology theoretically today. However, this does not automatically mean that we can abandon issues of international educational development ideology, as international educational development practices are already based on or related to certain ideologies.
EDU-Port Japan promotes the dissemination of “Japanese-style education” overseas, especially to so-called developing countries. It is proactively promoted by a public-private nationwide initiative.
EDU-Port Japan is problematic from the ethical viewpoint of international educational development, which is asymmetry between the self and the other. Asymmetry ethics value “hesitation” before educating the other, but what EDU-Port Japan emphasizes is “dissemination” and “promotion.”
Moreover, EDU-Port Japan has affinities with cultural imperialism and neoliberalism. Cultural imperialism represents the other one-sidedly in accordance with the convenience of the self, and positions the self as a universal. It also extends the selfʼs culture across the other to intensify the self. EDU-Port Japan also resonates with neoliberalism, which supports the free-market economy or capitalism, fuses the other into economic systems in the name of “Win-Win,” and tries to change their business surroundings, including government policies, for the self. EDU-Port Japan advances Japanese enterprises to exploit the new education markets in developing countries. Here, cultural imperialism and neoliberalism come together as one.
Both are self-centered ideologies, since they use the other for the sake of the self. Therefore, anti-cultural imperialism questions the self or the subject and recalibrates the relationship between the self and the other. It also points out that self-reflection with negativity for the self is the key to criticizing and changing cultural imperialist situations. This applies to neoliberalism as well. It is difficult to listen to the otherʼs voice itself and narrate the other on behalf of the other. So negativity, which is the internal possible other within the self, is needed when reflecting on the self in order to create a revised self.
How can we make negativity work for and criticize EDU-Port Japan? There are two ways. First, we make clear the meaning of “Japanese-style,” which is not explained by EDU-Port Japan. Second, we find and present not only the “successes” but also the “failures” as “Japanese-style education.” Straightforwardly, we can understand “Japanese-style education” as all educational ideas, practices and consequences in Japan. But under the circumstances, some cases may have arbitrarily been excluded from the category of “Japanese-style education,” such as educational inequity. Through these two approaches to mediating negativity in EDU-Port Japan, we can continue its deconstruction and our calls for ethical responsibility.
