Comparison of Japanese and British Colonial Policy in Asia and their Effect onIndigenous Educational Systems through 1930

摘要

The focus of this study is the comparison of nineteenth and twentieth-centuryJapanese and British colonial policy in Asia and its effect on indigenous education systems. As points of comparison, I will use Great Britain in Burma and Japan in Korea. The countries represent, at least superficially, opposite ends of a continuum. Japan was a member of the nations of East Asia, Great Britain an outside imperial power. Similarly, Japan shared some cultural affinity with the nations of East Asia while Great Britain had none with the countries of Southeast Asia. In late nineteenth-century, Japan was a newcomer to the membership of imperial nations, whereas Great Britain represented the older, more established imperial powers. Given these obvious differences, one would expect to find wide variances in the perceptions each country had of its relationship with its-respective colony. Even given this, however, there was one very basic similarity. Each country perceived its respective colony as lacking in cultural development. Thus, each saw a need to conduct a civilizing mission and used education as the primary tool through which to accomplish the civilizing mission.