Nonformal Education and Civil Society in Japan (Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education) - Softcover

This volume provides an integrated view of how learning in Japan occurs outside of schools, from kindergarten to universities for the elderly. It explores how migrants and indigenous minorities cope with public schooling through non-formal means, and offers a rare look at the role that religious organizations sometimes play in Japanese society. -- Professor Gerald Le Tendre, Pennsylvania State University

Non-formal education is often a neglected area of scholarly investigation. Yet, it occupies significant space and importance in everyday life in our contemporary society, providing all generations with alternative learning opportunities. This book will be a unique contribution that highlights the interface between formal and non-formal education and provides readers with multilayered understanding of learning in post-industrial Japan. -- Professor Ryuko Kubota, University of British Columbia

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.