Characteristics of Japanese Education to Correcting Bias: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Japan’s national curriculum and authorized textbooks

• In Event: Poster Group 4
  In Poster Session: Characteristics of Japanese Education to Correcting Bias: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Japan’s national curriculum and authorized textbooks

Proposal

Recent years have seen the publication of various curricula focusing on bias (Gullo et al., 2019) that propose multiple approaches toward correcting bias. Although bias is context-driven and potentially strongly influenced by cultural factors, most studies of bias have been conducted in Western countries, such as the US or the UK (Brown, 1995). Therefore, analyzing education in non-Western countries and regions can help clarify different approaches toward correcting bias. To that end, this study focuses on school education in Japan to identify how it attempts to correct its own biases (Ahmed et al., 2020). The study explores the following two questions:

(a) How does bias correction education in Japan view the causes of bias?
(b) What approaches does Japanese education propose to correct bias?

Approaches to correcting bias differ depending on the perceived cause of the bias. Scholars have attributed the causes of bias to (1) people’s beliefs and personality and (2) people’s situations (Saul, 2017). Depending on how the causes of bias are perceived, various educational approaches have been proposed to correct bias. Examples include a personal responsibility approach (Fredericks, 2022), which involves reflection on one’s own bias; a participatory approach (Benson et al., 2020), in which one engages in social movements aimed at correcting bias; and a social justice approach (Schieble et al., 2020), which 1) recognizes social systems and norms that cause bias and 2) takes action toward change.

To examine theories on the causes of bias and approaches to correcting it in Japanese education, this study examined Japan’s national curriculum and authorized textbooks through the lens of critical discourse analysis (Wodak & Meyer, 2015).
By analyzing the national curriculum and textbooks, this study identified theories on the causes of bias and approaches to correcting it in Japanese education. Japanese education 1) attributes bias to people’s beliefs and personalities, and 2) corrects bias through either a personal responsibility approach or a participatory approach.

This indicates that Japanese education leads children to perceive that bias can be remedied through individual effort. That is because Japanese society prioritizes maintaining harmony (Tsuneyoshi, 2000). Bias may play a role in how we interact with others (Saul, 2017). Therefore, Japanese education may take the personally responsible and participatory approach that is less likely to disrupt social harmony. Based on this finding and discussion, further educational research should consider how to implement education to correct bias among social justice approaches in cultures such as Japan’s.

Author

• Ryouto TANAKA, Hiroshima University