Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

or ‘global villagers’ proliferated, accompanied by allusions to the interests
shared by children worldwide, and to global issues (including SARS and climate
change) that affect them (Rose, 2015, pp. 98-99). But school texts also stress
that world peace depends on the continuing modernisation and strengthening
of China’s military. Middle school civics (sixiang pinde) texts emphasise that,
as a ‘developing’ country facing manifold pressures from developed countries,
only by further promoting national development can the state bring about the
‘great revival of the Chinese people’ (p. 97). This emphasis on the importance
of economic and military strength and the dangers of national weakness is
underpinned by a historical narrative highlighting instances of foreign ‘bullying’
(Vickers, 2009).
The prominence in Japanese Social Studies curricula of ‘humanity as a privileged
referent of identity’ parallels the embrace of pacifism in the same documents
(see Figure 3.3). But at the level of textbooks, evidence suggests that recent
years have seen a drift towards more emphasis on the national component of
identity. Whereas the 1996 edition of a widely used social studies text in Japan
(by Mitsumura Tosho) featured phrases such as ‘same world person’ and allusions
to notions of global citizenship, the 2011 edition of the same text contained ‘no
reference to world or global citizens in the corresponding section’ (Rose, 2015, p.
99). Ironically, over the same period, debate over ‘internationalisation’ has been a
major feature of educational debate within Japan. However, as noted above, this
has tended to be dominated by the instrumentalist objective of producing ‘global
human resources’ to boost national competitiveness, and has emphatically not
embraced notions of transnational identity. As Tsuneyoshi puts it, ‘discussions
of internationalisation in Japan… are linked to discussions of developing citizens
who have a Japanese identity and who can function as “Japanese” in international
society’ (2011, p. 117). It is expected that citizens’ perception of the world beyond
Japan will always be refracted through the prism of their Japaneseness. And this
approach to nationhood is legitimated through reference to overseas practice.
For example, the primary Social Studies Course of Study directs that students
should be ‘brought to understand that our country and other countries have
national flags, and be instilled with an attitude of respect for these’ (p. 24), thus
ostensibly aiming at the promotion of international awareness and ‘respect’. But
given the domestic political controversies surrounding such matters, it is likely
that the overriding goal here is to normalise veneration of Japan’s own national
flag by reference to a putative international standard.
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Chapter 3: East Asia