Contemporary Human Rights Education in Japan: What Do Textbooks Teach?

Examining major human rights related policies in Japan during the
United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004), in this
paper I attempt to analyse government approaches to human rights
education on several societal levels, with particular regard to junior
high school education. After a brief introduction to the rationale of
sampling and category development I will present a tentative assessment
of teaching/learning contents in exemplary chapters of two widely used
textbooks for Civic Education and Moral Education.

Our contemporary international human rights discourse is said to be
dominated by the West, and accordingly the human rights timeline in the
Civic Education textbook originates with the Magna Carta. Considering
the diversity of timeline projects and notions of human rights, what
can be gained from expanding Japan’s human rights discourse
to include for instance the so-called “kakekomi-dera”?

All participants are invited to join my quest for suitable assessment
criteria and to discuss related issues such as values education and
social discourse.

Bettina C. Rabe is a doctoral student at Heidelberg University.