Download or read book A Social History of Literacy in Japan written by Richard Rubinger and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the great interest in and the availability of enormous literature about education in Japan, this book is a translation of the first work written in Japanese on the history of literacy in Japan. The authors are each accomplished scholars of Japanese educational history, and each provides solid empirical evidence and original analyses of literacy in their own particular specialty, from Heian aristocrats, to religious sects in the medieval period, to Christian believers in the sixteenth century, to a variety of farmers and merchants in early modern times. The book is unique in the sense that literacy in Japan is analysed with a high degree of methodological sophistication backed by empirical evidence in the form of “signatures” or personal marks on documents, on so many topics. The result is to show the often fallacious and easy generalizations made about literacy in Japan and to show that evidence exists to enable more robust empirical investigations to be undertaken. This book will make it possible for the Japanese case to be used more meaningfully worldwide and in comparative studies of literacy.
Download or read book Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan written by Richard Rubinger and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2007-01-31 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The focus of Richard Rubinger’s study of Japanese literacy is the least-studied (yet overwhelming majority) of the premodern population: the rural farming class. In this book-length historical exploration of the topic, the first in any language, Rubinger dispels the misconception that there are few materials available for the study of popular literacy in Japan. He analyzes a rich variety of untapped sources from the sixteenth century onward, drawing for the first time on material that allows him to measure literacy: signatures on apostasy oaths, diaries, agricultural manuals, home encyclopedias, rural poetry-contest entries, village election ballots, literacy surveys, and family account books. The book begins by tracing the origins of popular literacy up to the Tokugawa period and goes on to discuss the pivotal roles of village headmen during the early sixteenth century, a group extraordinarily skilled in administrative literacy using the Sino-Japanese hybrid language favored by their warrior overlords. In time literacy began to spread beyond the leadership class to household heads, particularly those in towns and farming communities involved in commerce, and eventually to women, employees, and servants. Rubinger identifies substantial and enduring differences in the ability to read and write between commoners in the cities and those in the country until the eighteenth century, when the vigorous popular culture of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo (Tokyo) attracted village leaders and caused them to extend their capabilities. Later chapters focus on the nineteenth-century expansion of literacy to wider constituencies of farmers and townspeople. Using direct measures of literacy attainment such as village surveys, election ballots, diaries, and letters, Rubinger demonstrates the spread of basic reading and writing skills into virually every corner of Japanese society. The book ends by examining data on illiteracy generated from conscription examinations given by the Japanese army during the Meiji period, bringing the discussion into the twentieth century. Rubinger’s analysis of this information suggests that geographical factors and local traditions of learning and culture may have been more important than school attendance in explaining why illiteracy continued to persist in some areas.
Download or read book The History of Education in Japan 1600 2000 written by Masashi Tsujimoto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-16 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of the most rapid and earliest nations to achieve "Western modernisation", much of Japan’s success stems from its fruitful literacy history during the Tokugawa shogunate as well as later influences from Western educational ideals and consequent economic and democratic conflicts in Japan. This book seeks to enlighten readers on how education and schooling contributed to Japan’s particular process of modernisation and industrialisation. These historical insights can be applied to crises in formal and systemised education today, and form the basis of potential solutions to controversies faced by formal education in Japan and other nation-states. A book that bridges the international information gap in Japan’s history of education will be immensely valuable to historians of both international and Japanese education.
Download or read book Literacy and Script Reform in Occupation Japan written by J. Marshall Unger and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1996 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the United States Education Mission recommended that the Japanese give serious consideration to the introduction of alphabetic writing, key American officials in the Civil Information and Education Section of GHQ/SCAP delayed and effectively killed action on this recommendation. Japanese advocates of romanization nevertheless managed to obtain CI&E approval for an experiment in elementary schools to test the hypothesis that schoolchildren could make faster progress if spared the necessity of studying Chinese characters as part of non-language courses such as arithmetic. Though not conclusive, the experiment's results supported the hypothesis and suggested the need for more and better testing.
Download or read book The Female as Subject written by P.F. Kornicki and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-01-08 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals the rich and lively world of literate women in Japan from 1600 through the early 20th century
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature written by Haruo Shirane and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature provides, for the first time, a history of Japanese literature with comprehensive coverage of the premodern and modern eras in a single volume. The book is arranged topically in a series of short, accessible chapters for easy access and reference, giving insight into both canonical texts and many lesser known, popular genres, from centuries-old folk literature to the detective fiction of modern times. The various period introductions provide an overview of recurrent issues that span many decades, if not centuries. The book also places Japanese literature in a wider East Asian tradition of Sinitic writing and provides comprehensive coverage of women's literature as well as new popular literary forms, including manga (comic books). An extensive bibliography of works in English enables readers to continue to explore this rich tradition through translations and secondary reading.
Download or read book Reflections on Multiliterate Lives written by Diane Dewhurst Belcher and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2001 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reflection on Multiliterate Lives is a collection of personal accounts, in narrative and interview format, of the formative literacy experiences of highly successful second language users, all of who are professional academics. Representing fourteen countries in origin, the contributors, well-known specialists in language teaching as well as a variety of other fields in the social and physical sciences, recount in their own words past and present struggles and successes as learners of language and of much else.
Download or read book Reading Japan Cool written by John E. Ingulsrud and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-02-03 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japanese animation, video games, and manga have attracted fans around the world. The characters, the stories, and the sensibilities that come out of these cultural products are together called Japan Cool. This is not a sudden fad, but is rooted in manga—Japanese comics—which since the mid-1940s have developed in an exponential way. In spite of a gradual decline in readership, manga still commands over a third of the publishing output. The volume of manga works that is being produced and has been through history is enormous. There are manga publications that attract readers of all ages and genders. The diversity in content attracts readers well into adulthood. Surveys on reading practices have found that almost all Japanese people read manga or have done so at some point in their lives. The skills of reading manga are learned by readers themselves, but learned in the context of other readers and in tandem with school learning. Manga reading practices are sustained by the practices of other readers, and manga content therefore serves as a topic of conversation for both families and friends. Moreover, manga is one of the largest sources of content for media production in film, television, and video games. Manga literacy, the practices of the readers, the diversity of titles, and the sheer number of works provide the basis for the movement recognized as Japan Cool. Reading Japan Cool is directed at an audience of students of Japanese studies, discourse analysts, educators, parents, and manga readers.
Download or read book Writing and Literacy in Chinese Korean and Japanese written by Insup Taylor and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese, Japanese, South (and North) Koreans in East Asia have a long, intertwined and distinguished cultural history and have achieved, or are in the process of achieving, spectacular economic success. Together, these three peoples make up one quarter of the world population.They use a variety of unique and fascinating writing systems: logographic Chinese characters of ancient origin, as well as phonetic systems of syllabaries and alphabets. The book describes, often in comparison with English, how the Chinese, Korean and Japanese writing systems originated and developed; how each relates to its spoken language; how it is learned or taught; how it can be computerized; and how it relates to the past and present literacy, education, and culture of its users.Intimately familiar with the three East Asian cultures, Insup Taylor with the assistance of Martin Taylor, has written an accessible and highly readable book. Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese is intended for academic readers (students in East Asian Studies, linguistics, education, psychology) as well as for the general public (parents, business, government). Readers of the book will learn about the interrelated cultural histories of China, Korea and Japan, but mainly about the various writing systems, some exotic, some familar, some simple, some complex, but all fascinating.
Download or read book A Cultural History of Translation in Early Modern Japan written by Rebekah Clements and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the first cultural history of translation in Japan during the Tokugawa period, 1600-1868.
Download or read book Cultural and Social Division in Contemporary Japan written by Yoshikazu Shiobara and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent manifestation of exclusionism in Japan has emerged at a time of intensified neoliberal economic policies, increased cross-border migration brought on by globalization, the elevated threat of global terrorism, heightened tensions between East Asian states over historical and territorial conflicts, and a backlash by Japanese conservatives over perceived historical apologism. The social and political environment for minorities in Japan has shifted drastically since the 1990s, yet many studies of Japan still tend to view Japan through the dominant discourses of “ethnic homogeneity (tanitsu minzoku shakai)” and “middle-class society (so ̄churyu ̄-shakai)” which positions the exclusion of minorities as an exceptional phenomenon. While exclusionism has been recognized as a serious threat to minority groups, it has not often been considered a representative issue for the whole of Japanese society. This tendency will persist until the discourses of tanitsu minzoku shakai and so ̄churyu ̄-shakai are systematically debunked and Japan is widely recognized as both multiethnic and socio-economically stratified. Today, as with most advanced capitalist countries, serious social divides occasioned by the impacts of globalization and neoliberalism have destabilized Japanese society. This book explores not only how Japanese society is diversified and unequal, but also how diversity and inequality have caused people to divide into separate realities from which conflict and violence have emerged. It empirically examines the current situation while considering the historical development of exclusionism from the interdisciplinary viewpoints of history, policy studies, cultural studies, sociology and cultural anthropology. In addition to analyzing the realities of division and exclusionism, the authors propose theoretical alternatives to overcome such cultural and social divides.
Download or read book Nonformal Education and Civil Society in Japan written by Kaori H. Okano and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nonformal Education and Civil Society in Japan critically examines an aspect of education that has received little attention to date: intentional teaching and learning activities that occur outside formal schooling. In the last two decades nonformal education has rapidly increased in extent and significance. This is because individual needs for education have become so diverse and rapidly changing that formal education alone is unable to satisfy them. Increasingly diverse demands on education resulted from a combination of transnational migration, heightened human rights awareness, the aging population, and competition in the globalised labour market. Some in the private sector saw this situation as a business opportunity. Others in the civil society volunteered to assist the vulnerable. The rise in nonformal education has also been facilitated by national policy developments since the 1990s. Drawing on case studies, this book illuminates a diverse range of nonformal education activities; and suggests that the nature of the relationship between nonformal education and mainstream schooling has changed. Not only have the two sectors become more interdependent, but the formal education sector increasingly acknowledges nonformal education’s important and necessary roles. These changes signal a significant departure from the past in the overall functioning of Japanese education. The case studies include: neighbourhood homework clubs for migrant children, community-based literacy classes, after-school care programs, sport clubs, alternative schools for long-term absent students, schools for foreigners, training in intercultural competence at universities and corporations, kôminkan (community halls), and lifelong learning for the seniors. This book will appeal to both scholars of Japanese Studies/Asian Studies, and those of comparative education and sociology/anthropology of education.
Download or read book A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations written by Conrad Schirokauer and published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. This book was released on 1989 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gift of Dr. John Matzko (BJU History Faculty).
Download or read book Stranger in the Shogun s City written by Amy Stanley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography* *Winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award* *Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography* A “captivating” (The Washington Post) work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo—the city that would become Tokyo—and a portrait of a city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West. The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces—and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval—she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno’s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture—and a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions. “A compelling story, traced with meticulous detail and told with exquisite sympathy” (The Wall Street Journal), Stranger in the Shogun’s City is “a vivid, polyphonic portrait of life in 19th-century Japan [that] evokes the Shogun era with panache and insight” (National Review of Books).
Download or read book The New Japanese Woman written by Barbara Sato and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2003-04-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVA study of the "modern" woman in Japan before World War II./div
Download or read book Pachinko National Book Award Finalist written by Min Jin Lee and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Top Ten Book of the Year and National Book Award finalist, Pachinko is an "extraordinary epic" of four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family as they fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan (San Francisco Chronicle). NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 * A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE* WINNER OF THE MEDICI BOOK CLUB PRIZE Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER "There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones." In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history. *Includes reading group guide*
Download or read book A Brief History of Japanese Civilization written by Conrad Schirokauer and published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. This book was released on 2006 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface. Part I: BEGINNINGS AND FOUNDATIONS. 1. Early Japan. 2. The Impact of Continental Civilization. Part II: ARISTOCRATS, MONKS, AND SAMURAI. 3. The Heian Period. 4. The Kamakura Period. 5. The Ashikaga Shogunate: Integration and Disintegration. Part III: LATE TRADITIONAL JAPAN. 6. The Formation of a New Order. 7. The Tokugawa Shogunate: The Middle Years. Part IV: JAPAN IN THE MODERN WORLD. 8. Endings and Beginnings: From Tokugawa to Meiji. 9. The Emergence of Modern Japan: 1874-1894. 10. Imperial Japan 18951931. 11. Militarism and War. 12. The New Japan. Afterword. Suggestions for Further Reading. Index.
