Lynne Parmenter

Constructing National Identity in a Changing World: Perspectives in Japanese education

This article explores some of the alternative perspectives on national identity which exist within the current Japanese education system. Analysis of official Japanese Ministry of Education policy is juxtaposed with presentation of the voices of junior high school students and pre-service student teachers to highlight the issue of the role of education in developing national identity in schools. It is argued that a wide discrepancy exists between Ministry of Education ideology, and the opinions of Japanese students and student teachers, and that these conflicting discourses raise questions about the definition, form, importance and even the very existence of education for national identity in the twenty-first century.

Power and place in the discourse of global citizenship education

This article critically examines the creation of the dominant academic discourse of global citizenship education, highlights gaps of thinking in the current discourse based on empirical research, and suggests some of the areas of translation/mediation/engagement that exist or need to exist in order to further research in the area. It uses a literature-mapping exercise to analyse the politics of knowledge production in the field of global citizenship education, and introduces results of an international questionnaire study to explore university students’ concepts of global citizenship.

A Solid Foundation: Citizenship Education in Japan

Citizenship education in Japan, as in other Asian and non-Asian countries, is concerned with the development of responsible citizens who will contribute to the common good of their respective societies. There are many approaches to any discussion of citizenship education, but for the purposes of this chapter I would like to propose the following framework. Firstly, the chapter briefly overviews the historical context of citizenship education in Japan. This is important as citizenship education has been an arena of political debate and international criticism in Japan for most of the past century. This will be followed by a discussion of features and issues in citizenship education in Japan using an analogy of foundation stones, as below: Open image in new window

Global Citizenship, Cultural Change, and Education Policy in Japan and New Zealand

This chapter explores how cultural change and persistence are negotiated within education policy to accommodate globalization in two countries in the Pacific Basin, focusing on the specific issue of global citizenship. Citizenship education has become a major concern in many parts of the world over the past 10 to 20 years.1 However, one of the tensions inherent in citizenship education is achieving a balance between the traditional role of schools to develop national citizens and the impact of globalization, which makes the restriction of citizenship to the national sphere incomplete if not obsolete.2