The potential of the globalization of education in Japan

the Japanese style of school sports activities (bukatsu)

Yasuhiro Omi

pp. 255-266

in: Giuseppina Marsico, Marilena Ristum, Souza de Souza Bastos (eds), Educational contexts and borders through a cultural lens, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

This paper aims to provide the necessities to improve Japan's English education under a variety of political pressures by focusing on the cultural settings of Japan's junior high school life, particularly its unique types of school sports clubs and activities, or bukatsu. Understanding bukatsu will help us to understand both school culture and sport culture in Japan, because Japanese common sense and the Japanese way of disciplining students or children seem to be condensed into bukatsu. In addition, an approach to bukatsu will produce fruitful findings that typical cross-cultural studies are likely to overlook, because it is too unique to universally explain one-dimensionally. Therefore, an autoethnographic study on bukatsu was performed from a cultural psychological point of view that is different from a cross-cultural one. A variety of unique cultural norms in junior high school in Japan are illustrated, followed by presentations of the unique norms of bukatsu. The concept of Kimochism—which overemphasizes the importance of mind, heart, and motivation—was introduced to understand bukatsu. It is suggested that a Japanese-style tournament, which means an only knockout tournament in two competitor games, may influence the coaching method that is based on kimochism. It is pointed out that Japanese government policies on the globalization of education seem strange and could lead to imperialism, although that is not reasonable or realistic. Reasonable ways of globalization of education in Japan would lead to change the ways of bukatsu. The findings also suggest not only the orientation of the globalization of Japanese education, but also the way to improve moral education in Japan, which is another hot topic within education, primarily among nationalists. Finally, also presented is a bukatsu reformation plan in the globalization of education and conditions to carry it out.