Exam 1 Flashcards
What are the key differences between eastern and western Japan, according to Sugimoto? What is the demographic crisis to which he refers?
Eastern- more patriarchal and less democratic, rigid family structure
Western- more fluid, less patriarchal, women have higher status
The declining birthrate due to economic stagnation and there’s a longer life expectancy that’s putting a lot of pressure on the welfare system
Be able to compare Japan to the U.S. in terms of national size (population, GDP, territory) climate, geography, and natural disasters. Has “Japan” as a territory been stable historically?
About 1/3 of the population of US, has 3rd largest GDP, has 378 thousand square kilometers of area but only 1/3 is habitable. No, colonial expansion plus acquisition of islands, loss of territory and disputed islands
What value orientations and practices do some scholars believe were influenced by Japan’s ecological context? What are the dangers of ecological determinism in explaining Japanese cultural patterns?
Some believe that an “island mentality” along with wet rice culture led to a consensus society where everyone has the same cultural bubble because they are isolated from rest of the population. This ecological determinism is dangerous because it contributes to a stereotypical idea of Japan and Japanese-ness and could be used to justify colonial ambitions as a way to “help” the Japanese by introducing them to the “outside” world.
How is katakana different from hiragana? What are kanji? Be able to give examples of how the structure of the Japanese language forces one to think in relational terms. How are names an extraordinarily sensitive indicator of personal relationships in Japan?
Katakana is typically used for foreign loan words as opposed to hiragana which is used for native words. Kanji are Chinese characters that have been brought into the Japanese language and typically portray more complex ideas. Examples of relational: san, kun, chan, sensei. Names are sensitive because one typically uses a last name with an honorific so using a first name or a less formal nickname shows how close a person is to someone.
What is Stanlaw’s argument about the use of English in the Japanese language? Why does he feel the “loan word” approach doesn’t capture the reality of English use in Japan?
He argues that there is a three-pronged approach to loan words with ones being “made in Japan”, loan words keeping their foreignness, and the use of loan words to put distance between a speaker and what they’re saying. He argues overall that the made in Japan approach makes the most sense since it accounts for new connotations these loan words take on.
He feels it doesn’t capture the use of loan words well because it asserts that there is always a foreignness to the words, which doesn’t account for the made in Japan loan words that would not make sense to an English-speaker.
What is Dower’s argument about the legacy of the atomic bomb, both in the immediate aftermath of the war and in the long-term? What does he mean when he describes Japan’s “victim consciousness”? Why were the hibakusha treated so poorly in the aftermath of the bombing? How were Koreans “double victims”? How does Dower question the “thank God for the atomic bomb” interpretation of the end of the war?
He argues that the “thank god for the atomic bomb” understanding is too simplistic for understanding why the bombings happened and the aftermath they caused. He argues that shock and anger led to an increased emphasis on creating technology to reach and surpass those with nuclear weapons (new nationalism based around science). He means that because of the bombings Japanese people were seen as ultimate victims of the war which allows the government to minimize war crimes. They were treated poorly because they were seen as being touched by something evil and no one understood the effects of radiation so they were isolated and not given support out of fear of more of the population getting “tainted”. They were double victims due to colonization and then being present during the bombings (and going unrecognized or deliberately mistreated)
Be able to describe the multiple factors underlying Japan’s “economic miracle” in the postwar period. Why is the reference to “Japan, Inc.” an oversimplification of Japan’s economic rise? According to Kingston, what were the key features of the Allied Occupation and Japan’s security arrangement in the early postwar period?
Historical foundation: high literacy, little population growth, openness to outside influence
Accidental/environmental: open markets, US defense umbrella = don’t need to pay for military, reverse course and late development affect
This idea only accounts for big business and government intervention and doesn’t allow for historical and environmental/accidental factors
Rehabilitation as an Ally in Pacific to threaten USSR, took full military control in Japan,
What exactly is the “group model” of Japanese society, and what value orientations have been held up as quintessentially “Japanese?”
It’s the model that looks at the individual, inter, and intra personal relationships of a society and is a set of assumptions based on those relationships that emphasizes subordination of the individual for the group. Value orientations: honor, respect, empathy, hierarchy, obligation, responsibility, and harmony
What are the strengths and limitations of the group model for understanding Japanese society? In what ways does Sugimoto critique the group model, and what does he propose as an alternative?
Strengths: provides model for understanding a personalized nation
Limitations: presumes all Japanese people share same characteristics + ignores diversity, doesn’t take differences into account, and assumes qualities have always been there
He critiques the model by describing the varied groups that make up Japan and presenting Japan as a country made up of parts and pieces from various island cultures that have been incorporated. He proposes that Japan is instead a multicultural society that’s complexity can be understood as a mosaic of rival groups, competing strata, and subcultures.
What is innovative about Hayashi and Tobin’s research methods and about their approach to culture? What is their research puzzle?
Research puzzle: how do Japanese preschools function as a place where Japanese children learn to be Japanese?
Innovative because of their use of footage, changing perspective of scenes, getting teacher feedback from those in different cultures or level of education, careful not to fall into national character portrayal of Japan
How does the teacher’s handling of fighting in the film Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited illustrate mimamoru? What are the various components of this pedagogy?
They keep a watchful eye on the children to ensure they don’t get hurt and know they have support if they can’t reach the solution, but by not getting directly involved they allow students to problem solve. Mimamoru is the idea of watching and guarding so this approach allows teachers to encourage problem solving and empathy building in students.
Why do Japanese preschool teachers practice a pedagogy of restraint, offer benign attributions of children’s misbehavior, and encourage peer discipline?
They do this because it allows children to learn how to self-regulate and more naturally function as a member of a group since they are relying on their fellow students to help them grow.
Why do Hayashi and Tobin reject the interpretation that Nao was being bullied in the teddy bear fight? What did Akiba and Shimizu’s study reveal in terms of how students perceive and experience ijime and how student-teacher relationships influence student involvement in ijime?
They reject that interpretation because looking at the bigger picture surrounding the fight one can see several bears which would suggest that Nao went for that particular bear as a way to interact with her classmates. However, she did so in such a way that caused her classmates to try to regulate her behavior because she was not behaving appropriately in the context.
It revealed that students perceive ijime as a way to correct abnormal social behavior and showed that most ijime is perpetrated by a group on one student. They also discussed the fact that bullies typically had weaker bonds with teachers as opposed to the victims of ijime who had greater trust in their teachers.
Why do teachers use a “pedagogy of feelings,” and how, for example, do they relate sabishii, amae, and omoiyari to each other? What is kejime, and why is it important? How do they think about “the gallery” when a dispute breaks out?
They use a pedagogy of feelings because it allows children to relate emotionally to concepts such as empathy and asking for help. With sabishii, teachers invoke this loneliness to make students more conscious of group dynamics which helps them understand when someone acts in a way that invokes help (amae) which both lead to the development of empathy (omoiyari). Keijime is acting in a way appropriate to context, it is important because keijime ties into self discipline and helps clearly define formal vs informal situations. The gallery is seen as an extended tool for regulation and they also use conflicts and how they handle it to show the students in the gallery ways they could approach + solve a problem.
What are some of the corporeal practices that are learned in Japanese preschools? What do Japanese teachers’ perspectives contribute to the literature on teacher expertise? How do MEXT guidelines for preschools reflect mimamoru?
Bowing (formal), tilting the head/body (informal), learning how to establish+move around in space. They provide a better understanding of what differentiates a good teacher from an expert teacher: comes down to being able to distinguish between situations that need involvement and those that don’t, further embodiment of
culture and using more body language as way to get message across. For preschools, MEXT gives teachers loose guidelines that allow them to explore how they want to teach students and the guides act less like mandates and more like check-in points = teacher autonomy and feeling of respect since gov is showing they trust teachers to be able to handle class
