Education, Values and Politics in Japan

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CHILDRENS' textbooks in the social sciences tend to reflect accurately the values of a society. Since their lessons and morals are set forth in direct and simple language, they indicate in bold outline the things which the society, or part of it, thinks it important for the young to absorb. In Japan today such textbooks show a striking contrast to those used before the surrender of 1945, and they deserve attention as evidence of the rapid change of values that has taken place in some parts of Japanese society.

Recently the new textbooks have come under sharp attack. The debate over educational policy is one of the most important and least publicized struggles in contemporary Japan, and the controversy furnishes an excellent opportunity for judging the nature of change in Japanese society. That change has been sectional and uneven, differing in quality between those who teach and those who govern. There is a particular contrast between the way in which segments of the intelligentsia interpret the new moral basis of Japanese education and the way in which the political leaders, the liberals and moderates of prewar years, cling to the old ethic of their younger days.

The struggle focuses sharply on who is going to write the textbooks. Since Japanese society has been open and free in recent years, the textbooks in use today reflect the values and concerns of the intellectuals, or at least of the articulate and representative minority which gives the broader group its tone. To be sure, the intellectuals are not a united or clearly definable group, and neither are the so-called "conservatives." Yet there is a large area of agreement within each group. Each is convinced the other is determined to destroy its influence by alienating the minds and affections of Japan's 20,000,000 lower-school pupils...