Textbook content in social studies in Japan as a contributory factor in the marginalization of indigenous people, women, and ecological sustainability.

摘要

This study closely examines the educational and social impact of social studies' textbook content in Japan. Findings indicate that this content serves to exacerbate an existing climate of discrimination within Japanese society. Approached from an eco-justice perspective, the study reveals the extent to which the marginalization of Indigenous peoples of Japan is ignored.; Through this critical examination of textbooks and national guidelines, combined with an extensive review of relevant literature, several patterns emerge, essentially falling into four categories which, when viewed holistically, are interrelated: (1) dominant historical and contemporary governmental controls over the content of Social Studies textbooks; (2) bias regarding Indigenous peoples' histories, traditions, and a subsequent failure to address them properly; (3) bias regarding women both in textbook representation of their contributions, as well as bias on women being represented on textbook committees of authorization; and (4) failure to recognize the contributions Indigenous peoples have made and can make toward sustaining a healthy ecology.; Although Japan vaunts itself as a proponent of democratic societal values, the reality is that strict governmental controls subtly, if not explicitly, exercised through the content of social studies' textbooks at junior and senior high school levels, serve to maintain a structure wherein the government itself denies the very existence of Indigenous peoples in Japan.; Major themes, as well as sub-themes---students' disinterest in the subject of Social Studies, inadequate and generally ineffective teacher training and selection, and the subordination of women---are discussed in the light of government's entrenched biases, male dominated attitudes, and mainstream Japanese society's refusal to acknowledge or respect the rights of minorities. Findings also reveal the resultant political and cultural implications that are inculcated in Japanese citizenry through textbooks and national guidelines. The complicity of what is included as well as what is excluded in textbooks and national guideline thus emerge as core contributory factors underlying existing social inequities.