In order to examine whether the borders between education and labor on the one hand and welfare on the other have been blurred or not in recent Japan, this article gives an outline of phenomena around these boundaries. The education as a social sphere can be depicted to have two borders: one is the inner-border which divides formal school education and other informal and non-formal educational activities, another is the outer-border which divides education as a whole and the environment of education. We focus on the inner-border because the formal school education has been situated at the core of education in modern societies. Concerning the border between school education and labor, the smoothness of the transition from school to work has been vitiated markedly in recent years, while the vocational relevance of the curriculum content of school education in Japan is still as low as ever. Concerning the border between school education and welfare, school teachers often fail to link children or families with difficulties to social services. The inside of Japanese school education is characterized by the dominance of "gakuryoku" (academic achievement) as the selection criterion with its reflective functioning and the density of the relational pressures among students and teachers. These phenomena imply that Japanese school education has a stubborn barrier around it and has been closed within that barrier. To give a theoretical interpretation to the features of the borders of the Japanese education described above, Niklas Luhmann's systems theory proves to be instructive. According to Luhmann, a social system, in general, has its own binary code as "a symbolically generalized communication medium," while the education system has only a medium which is not generalized as a binary code such as "child" or "life-course." A social system manages the connection with other systems in the form of "the paradox expansion," processing the problems posed by other systems into opposing two-fold plans, taking them into the system itself, and oscillating between them. Among the attempts to apply Luhmann's theory to the education system in Japan, there is a proposition that the binary code specific to the education system should be "able/unable." Although this proposition fits well to the actual state of Japan, the fact itself is deeply related to the stubborn closeness of Japanese school education. Therefore this article proposes that the education system should not have a binary code which stigmatize the "unable," but should take the responsibility both to identify the current state of learners and at the same time to open "the other possibility" to them. In addition to that, to make the relations to other systems more in tune, the school education must reinforce its mechanism of "the paradox expansion," through the differentiation of the courses and curriculum of the upper secondary education for example.

View full abstract

This paper presents some ideas for inquiring about the possibility for expanding the limits of school-based education. It is intended to clarify the meaning of "border" related to education, welfare and workplace as the limit of Civil Society. It also will extract the logic of the practices for expanding the limit from three activities in welfare field. Finally, the paper will examine their implications for school-based education using a term of community of difference. In Japan, the concept of "normal" citizen has been situated in the distinction between education and welfare work or social education until around the 1980s. The mission of school education has been refining "normal" students, and on the other hand, the mission of welfare work has been relieving and observing the deviants from civil society. Unfortunately, a result of this distinction is leaving them in "limbo". This also means that they have to face "the double-bind" (G. Bateson). However, recent years, an alternative mode of welfare work has been suggested, which is based on the dialogical and cooperative activity model. Some features of this activity are as followings: 1) The starting point of activity is an uncertain feeling of people in "limbo", which means "the need state" as objectless desire. When voices are listened to by others, this state will change to the resource for creating new world. 2) In the dialog process, a support practitioner is not a teacher who has the correct answer, but a co-inquirer. 3) Cooperation work includes pluralization of context by mutual-mediation and creation of new contexts as a product of cooperation. Participants of cooperative work become able to expand their world and meanings by acquiring these functions. 4) The field that is acquired by these activities can be called a "soft field", which creates stability by flexible change to adjust itself to different situations. 5) Alternative culture is produced by the above-mentioned process. It brings new words as a tool for resolving the double-bind. In order to consider what this activity means for expanding the limits of schooling, the concept of school community has to be redefined. It is hypothesized that school community has two dimensions that can be defined as the 'institutionalizing community' and the 'generative community.' The institutionalizing community reflects and is structured by the imperatives dictated by the state and the economic system. The essential characteristics of a generative community, on the other hand, are that it consists of negotiation of meaning arrived at through dialogical and collaborative activity. The limit of school community is defined as a way of solution of contradiction between these two dimensions. From this view point, we can provide some tools for an alternative way of solving the contradiction with alternative modes of welfare work. This will make the generative community-based mode of school community. However, at the same time as the institutionalizing community is defined by the world of workplace, we also have to gaze at intervention between workplace and democracy raised from alternative ways of solving the double bind mainly brought from welfare work.

View full abstract

As can be seen in the Central Council for Education Report "The Future of Higher Education in Japan" (2005) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, our society has fully become a knowledge-based society where knowledge is the driving force of socioeconomic sustainable development. Lifelong learning and knowledge management have been indispensable for the sake of not only personal development but also organizational and social development. The purpose of this paper is to find the essence of adult learning and the role of education in the knowledge-based society. This paper therefore analyses the current situation of adult education in social circumstances, rather than school education. In particular, the paper analyses the situation of adult learning in communities and work places from the following two practical theories. 1. "Theory of Adult Learning" which was developed in the Japan Society for the Study of Adult and Community Education (JSSACE). 2. "Learning Organization" which has been well known from Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline (1990). It can be said that the "Theory of Adult Learning" in Japan is based on the study of social and community education, and the "Learning Organization" is based on organizational learning in the study of business administration. These two theories therefore have developed in different research fields. The paper is organized as follows. In the beginning, it shows the purpose and background of this research, such as the current situation of human development in community education and Japanese enterprises in the knowledge-based society. Section 1 surveys the evolutional process and accomplishments of the "Theory of Adult Learning" in JSSACE. Section 2 examines the art and practice of the "Learning Organization". Section 3 analyzes the correlation between these two practical theories, and then discusses the significance of "reflective practice" which has been proposed by Donald Schon, because it can be seen in both theories as a key concept. As a result of these considerations, it is discovered that the "Theory of Adult Learning" and "Organizational Learning" are based on John Dewey's educational philosophy of "experiential learning as an ongoing cycle of activity," and Donald Schon's theory of "reflective practice." Both theories have an awareness of the issues on the "theory-in-use" which is based on the past successful experiences, and argue for "technical rationality" and explain the importance of "reflective practice" which Donald Schon discusses in his study of professional development. Moreover, both theories suggest the importance of "reflective practice" not only for learners but also for researchers, and they propose to cultivate the learning community for the sake of collaborative and continuous knowledge development. In conclusion, it is clear that collaborative and continuous learning based on "reflective practice" is the essence of adult learning. People learn best from and with one another, and participation in learning communities. It can be said that cultivating the learning community is the role of education in the knowledge-based society.

View full abstract

The provision of school-based social services in the United States began in the Progressive Era, and the efforts of visiting teachers seem to be distinguishable from other services because it raises a question that focuses on the difficulties of institutionalizing such social services into a manageable school system. This paper is an attempt to analyze the origin and the institutionalization process of visiting teachers in New York City so that some implications become available for those concerned with the consequences of the recent Japanese government's policy to subsidize school social workers in Japanese schools. This paper greatly emphasizes the role of the Public Education Association of the City of New York (PEA), a progressive women's reform group especially interested in education. Before the appearance of visiting teachers, the truant officers were exclusively in charge of truant or non-attendance problems, but they became severely criticized for their anti-progressive-ness by the reformers. Visiting teachers were expected to be a substitution for the truant officers has and provide "social scientific" diagnoses for problem children. The earliest visiting teachers, however, were not well-trained professionals but like community activists who took roles as liaisons between school and home. Subsequently, the NY board of education found the role of visiting teachers invaluable and it became necessary to provide financial support instead relying on a private civic group like PEA. The employment of visiting teachers by the board of education eventually came to fruition in September 1913, placing them in the department for ungraded classroom teaching. It means that visiting teachers had to be involved with the special education of the students who were falling behind in public schools, including the mentally handicapped, foreigners, and habitual truants. While their labor condition improved, in terms of the new position of visiting teachers, they could not avoid committing to the new model of efficiency-oriented school administration. Furthermore, the regulation of the scope of work and qualifications of visiting teachers deprived them of the independence that would enable them to criticize the school.

View full abstract

It is generally said that the etymology of education is to draw forth ones faculties. In this paper, I make a few attempts to examine this view on the original meaning of education and to deconstruct the discourse of faculties in the history of education. The question is not how we can make cooperation between educational policy and welfare policy, but how we have come to depend on the concept of faculty in order to imagine both education and welfare. This study, thus, is the genealogy of governing human faculties, which brought the administrative entity compounded from health, security, welfare and education. We must begin to define the historical conditions of the governmental technology so as to surmount it. On this point, we can refer to Michel Foucault's approach to the history of governmentality. According to him, the pastoral care in the early Christianity inaugurated Western governmentality, and then raison d'État and police succeeded to their perspective and technology in the modern State. The police, in the 18th century's meaning, is an ensemble of means to increase forces of the State and to maintain the State in good order. It could be characterized by four points. First, it is the goal of police to reinforce the State's potential which includes skills and faculties of its inhabitants. Second, the police operate on individual faculties by way of promoting education and profession to render them competent for social happiness. Third, it covers the whole field of lives and attributes each phase of living acts to governmental significance and value; life is articulated and analyzed in relation to such domains as morality, health, security, arts and science, and paupers. Finally, it is evaluated by the measure of social welfare which is the operator of utility of governance. These viewpoints are refined and systematized in utilitarianism and humancapital theory, which are conveyed to us. In this way, our thought of education is firmly imprinted by the discourse of faculties which is rooted in the science of police. It is possible to say that education remains seized by the perspective of police so far as we discuss it with the concept of faculty. It should be converted from the education of faculty. To begin with, it is necessary to reexamine the etymology of education. It is obvious that education is derived from the Latin word educatio which meant rearing of young person, upbringing, nurturing and moreover breeding of animals. Its verbal form is not educere which is to draw forth something, but educare which is to nourish someone or some animals. This paper especially cites the important usages of Columella's De re rustica and some works of Cicero. They use the word educatio not only for human being, but also for animal, fowl and even for plant. Furthermore, the expression educatio et disciplina appears in Cicero's De legibus, and it reminds us of the Greek phrase τροφη και παιδεια in Plato's work. The Latin word educatio, namely, corresponds to the Greek word τροφη, which means nourishment, food and livelihood itself, rather than παιδεια. To conclude, the original meaning of education is not to draw forth faculty or ability, but supporting life with nourishing on the basis of verbal tradition of τροφη-educatio. This is why I insist that education is none other than well-being, as long as we live by eating while feeling pleasure.

View full abstract

This thesis investigates historically the extent of Monbusho's jurisdiction and concepts to describe and integrate it as a condition of the historical formation of the kyoiku-seido (the Japanese system of education). The Monbusho, a predecessor of the MEXT, has consolidated its extent of jurisdiction through repeated disputes with other Ministries. On the other side, it has been designated as the Ministry which is responsible for the affairs of "kyoiku" (education) since its establishment (1871). And the kyoiku-seido has been formed integrating the things within this jurisdiction. These things mean that the jurisdiction of the Monbusho has been a condition to promote and to restrict the formation of the kyoiku-seido, especially as the system integrated by the concept of "kyoiku". And it can be seen that meanings of the administrational concept "kyoiku" were raised on the condition. During the warfare in 1868 three Tokugawa Shogunate institutions, the Gakumonjo (the Confucian Academy), the Kaiseisho (the Institution for Foreign Learning) and the Igakusho (the Institution for Medicine), were militarily occupied by the force of the New Government of the Emperor and restarted in a few months. These were unified in the year 1869 into the Daigakko (the Grand School) and, in the next year, reformed into the Daigaku (the University). It attempted to institutionalize its control over the schools in the prefectures. In the logic of the unification and insistence of the control were embedded Japanese traditional thoughts of "gakko". And the Daigaku was seen as the bureau which was responsible for academic things. The Monbusho was seemed to be the successor of the Daigaku. It inherited the extent of the jurisdiction of the Daigaku. But, it was itself no longer a university nor a school. In its early days, the Monbusho claimed to other Ministries that it should have jurisdiction over all "gakko", which included both schools and universities. And, the 1872 Gakusei (the School System Order) was itself a regulation about the jurisdiction of the Monbusho, for it declared the jurisdiction of the Monbusho in its first article. Thereby the Gakusei was fixed to contain all things within this jurisdiction and nothing out of it. But on the other side the jurisdiction of the Monbusho was prescribed as affairs of "kyoiku" in the text of another ordinance. The Gakusei prescribed the jurisdiction of the Monbusho as "gakusei" (administration of academic things). But the 1879 Kyoiku-rei (the Education Order) adopted "kyoiku" as its name and the concept to prescribe the jurisdiction. Here the schools and universities were clearly defined as institutions for "kyoiku." Thus, the kyoiku-seido has been formed to contain all schools and universities in the jurisdiction of the Monbusho from the beginning but actually not to contain things out of it such as practical training out of schools.

View full abstract

In studies on the history of higher education in Japan, the studies on management of private higher education institutions focused on tuition and not donations. Although donations, unlike tuition income, were a temporary source of funds, they were an important source with impact on management of private higher education institutions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify and consider the effects of donations on the finances as well as the factors which enabled the successful gaining of donations, by reviewing the case of Keio University, which was the most successful university in prewar Japan in fund-raising. Using historical financial records and the lists of donors, this paper examines the institutional management of Keio from the viewpoint of the three fund-raising campaigns which were undertaken in the mid-Meiji to the Taisho Period, with attention to the campaign planning process. Keio implemented three major fund-raising campaigns during the period from the mid-Meiji to the Taisho Period. The first was intended for the establishment of a foundation, the second for the construction of the library, and the third for the creation of the medical department and the university hospital. All the campaigns ended with good results, especially, with the one for the library, they succeeded at building the library only with the donation money without counting on any other financial resources. The financial data also indicated significant contributions of donations; the donations contributed largely to the asset formation of Keio. There are mainly three factors in the success of fund-raising campaigns. The first factor was that the campaigns were carried out in a booming economy. The second was that the donations were raised widely, centering on Tokyo and local big cities and that large donations could be collected from very wealthy people, mainly the alumni of Keio. The third was that Keio established an excellent recruiting organization and carried out practical activities by making elaborate preparations so that more donations could be raised. Specifically, Keio conducted effective public relations activities and fund-raising activities focusing on very wealthy people and the general public, and made an announcement about fund-raising activities at Harvard University as an ideal model to explain the importance of donations to faculty members and students. It can be said that these findings clarify the importance of donations in the management of Keio. And, it may be said that these facts also indicate the aspects and reality of the "management body" of Keio to strive toward development and perpetuity despite the fact that they did not receive any support and were constrained under a severe management environment.

View full abstract