It is well known that Sawayanagi Masataro, a prominent educational leader, published A Practical Pedagogy (1909) as a criticism of Japanese scholars’ pedantic pedagogy. However, little has been known about the Educational Instruction Association (hereafter referred to as the EIA) founded soon after the publication. The EIA appointed Sawayanagi as the president and aimed to advance educational research, in particular, by promoting cooperation between theorists (mostly scholars) and practitioners (mostly teachers). This study traces the development of the association, elucidates how the research activities were conducted by its members, and examines its legacy in the history of educational research.

The EIA was originally formed as a small circle of elementary school teachers in Tokyo, but subsequently, through Sawayanagi’s personal networks, it attracted a wide range of members. Monthly gatherings were held to discuss a variety of educational issues. Occasionally, debates lasted for several months, followed by working group members’ further investigations. Although an open-minded, face-to-face interaction was a brand-new experiment, the participants faced difficulty in conducting cooperative research. Against this background, this study highlights the emergence of a group of EIA member practitioners. These practitioners inherited the open-mindedness in EIA’s research style but rejected the conventional demarcation between theorists and practitioners. By redefining the concept of “practitioners,” they came to see their role extend to cover theoretical as well as practical research. Thus, the EIA was a significant catalyst in practitioners’ becoming aware of their role in educational research.

This study considers the relationship between education, industry, and military under the total war system, examining aviation technical schools that supplied engineers for the military industry.

In the late 1930s, companies suffering from human resources shortages set out to establish aviation industrial schools. In Osaka, a company requested human resources through the organization in which various actors participated. In Nagoya, however, other companies lobbied the government directly, pointing out the questionably cozy relationship between companies and schools. However, the military industry remained unopposed and the council and media continued to approve the establishment of the schools for such institutions.

In 1943, “Emergency Wartime Measures Concerning Education” led to the conversion of several commercial schools to aviation technical schools. The “single subject principle” or the “single function principle” was emphasized as the ideal method of conversion, and Shizuoka Kosei Aviation Technical School and others followed suit. However, the conversion differed from actor to actor, and there were proposals to establish industrial schools other than technical schools. The military industry, faced with this dilemma, expanded its pipeline of schools.

Although aviation technical schools were abolished after the war’s end, the system surrounding it did not disappear. This is because the military industry had the potential to expand on its own and absorb the human resources it needed from schools. This study is merely the beginning of a historical examination of such an invisible system.

Postwar Japan saw many war orphans and vagrant children; the largest number of such children, named “A-bomb orphans,” were born in Hiroshima Prefecture. The Moral Adoption project (1949–1959) was a campaign in which Americans “morally adopted” “A-bomb orphans” in Hiroshima, donating $2.25 per month for foster care expenses and sending the children letters. The campaign was proposed by Norman Cousins (1915–1990), the editor of the Saturday Review of Literature (SRL). This study examines how the Moral Adoptions project developed and ended, regarding the circumstances of the people in Hiroshima, including the orphanages where the orphans lived; those in the United States (U.S.) who provided assistance; the advocates; and the organizations that managed the funds. The study further considers the records of the movement’s beginnings, reactions, and operations, both in Japan and the U.S. Using letters sent to Cousins, the process leading up to the end of the movement revealed the weak financial management system and differences in the initial plans for the project, with the Hiroshima side requesting assistance for higher education and the U.S. side aiming to create a “parent-child” mentality. Additionally, using these letters, articles from the SRL magazine, and reports by General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers as historical documents, this study clarifies the reality of orphans who had been relegated to the background of postwar educational history, not only in policy documents and media records, but also in records that describe different perceptions existing in both Japan and the U.S.

This study aims to reveal the process of the formation and evolution of the theory of the educational labor movement in postwar Japan. While recent studies of teachers’ unions have discussed the Japan Teachers’ Union (JTU), this study focuses on a local case in Kyoto and considers transnational political contexts and the recognition of local leaders and some intellectuals through a historical analysis of discourse on documents of labor union. This analysis reveals two major points. First, in Kyoto, the theory of education movements used “national education” as a key phrase, developed from the late 1950s to the early 1960s through the cooperation between the Kyoto Teachers’ Union (KTU) and some intellectuals. These constituents constructed a theory of educational movement, referring to Soviet pedagogy and speeches of Chinese communists. The theory, integrating educational and labor movements, is unique and different to JTU’s theory. The Kyoto Education Center, founded in 1961, attempted to spread KTU’s theory through official bulletins and booklets. In response, several teachers discussed new curricula and methodologies of teaching. Second, the key phrase of KTU’s theory changed to “democratic education” in the early 1970s. Leaders and intellectuals of the KTU attempted to develop further local social movements in Kyoto by providing new programs based on the Constitution of Japan and the Fundamental Law of Education. In addition, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) criticized the Soviet Union and China in the 1960s and came to have a new democratic policy in the early 1970s. The actions of the JCP most likely affected educational movements and labor movements.

It has generally been understood that the policies of the Chinese Communist Party in 1950s were “enlightened” in terms of recognizing the legal status of ethnic minorities and respecting minorities’ language and script. This paper will focus on the discourse of Hafongga (哈豊阿), the leader of the postwar Inner Mongolian autonomy movement, and reevaluate his role in breaking the dominance of the Chinese language and upholding the ethnic identity of minority groups.

To achieve this, this analysis will first utilize the Inner Mongolia Daily and introduce the state of primary education in Inner Mongolia in the early 1950s, as well as organize the policies regarding the introduction of Chinese language curriculum in pastoral and farming areas.

Next, this paper will compare and analyze the speeches by Hu Zhaoheng (胡昭衡) at the 1953 Mongolian Language Conference and the report presented by Hafongga (Minister of Education of Inner Mongolia, Mongolian) at the first Ethnic Education Conference of Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in 1954.

This paper argues that there was a struggle between the Chinese language-dominant system, which inherently included the bifurcated notion of “Han ethnic group = advanced / ethnic minorities = regressive,” and the establishment of an ethnic language education system that fostered the position of “national protagonist.” In practice, while the Communist Party tended to reinforce the Chinese language-dominant system, it was through the efforts of advocates like Hafongga who relativized the notion of “advanced/regressive” and promoted separate education between ethnic groups in order to enhance Mongolian language education.