Lifelong Learning in Neoliberal Japan

Risk, Community, and Knowledge

Akihiro Ogawa

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781438457864
  9781438457871
• eBook ISBN:
  9781438457888
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Comparative Education
• Index: Social Sciences

Explores the trend of lifelong learning in Japan as a means to deal with risk in a neoliberal era.

Akihiro Ogawa explores Japan's recent embrace of lifelong learning as a means by which a neoliberal state deals with risk. Lifelong learning has been heavily promoted by Japan's policymakers, and statistics find one-third of Japanese people engaged in some form of these activities. Activities that increase abilities and improve health help manage the insecurity that comes with Japan's new economic order and increased income disparity. Ogawa notes that the state attempts to integrate the divided and polarized Japanese population through a newly imagined collectivity, atarashii k?ky? or the New Public Commons, a concept that attempts to redefine the boundaries of moral responsibility between the state and the individual, with greater emphasis on the virtues of self-regulation. He discusses the history of lifelong learning in Japan, grassroots efforts to create an entrepreneurial self, community schools that also function as centers for problem solving, vocational education, and career education.

1

Introduction

Why Lifelong Learning Now?

Lifelong learning has become a primary focus in Japan’s education policy making. Its heightened importance became evident in December 2006, when the Japanese term shōgai gakushū (which directly translates into English as “lifelong learning”) was added to Japan’s educational charter, the Fundamental Law of Education (kyōiku kihon hō). This was the first revision made since the charter’s enactment in 1947. Yet, we must ask: Why is the focus now on lifelong learning? This is the primary research question that this book attempts to answer.

In general, lifelong learning encompasses all aspects of learning, which begin in infancy and continue into adulthood (cf. Jarvis 2009a). It includes the learning attained in families, schools, local communities, vocational training institutions, universities, and workplaces.1 Lifelong learning has become critically important in the promotion of personal development, as well as social cohesion by the improvement of the quality of community life, in the development of active citizenship, and in the sustainment of a global knowledge economy. Policy endorsement of lifelong learning is almost universal (Field 2006), although the practices involved in lifelong learning are varied and contested. Traditionally, researchers have argued that lifelong learning activities in Japan are based on what I would call a cultural model (cf. Schuetze and Casey 2006) that considers lifelong learning intrinsic to individual cultural growth. Japan’s lifelong learning is a process that operates in each individual’s life. It is designed to promote learning for learning’s sake. It is oriented toward the attainment of cultural ends during leisure time (Kawanobe 1994; Okamoto 2001; Wilson 2001; Rausch 2004) and the enjoyment of music (Watanabe 2005) and sports, primarily in the context of an aging society (Ogawa 2005; Ohsako and Sawano 2006). Furthermore, in its promotion of lifelong learning, Japanese society is now shifting from an academic diploma-oriented society (gakureki shakai) to a learning society (Fuwa 2001; Sawano 2007). It is also moving toward a knowledge-based economy (Ogawa 2009b; cf. Han 2007).

Japan’s lifelong learning policies and practices have been uniquely developed. They flourished at the grassroots level during the post–World War II period. Lifelong learning is an active form of education in Japan. It includes various forms of learning activities that revolve around personal learning and center on hobbies, sports, and liberal arts. Vocational training and recurrent education, which aim to update individuals’ knowledge and skills for survival in the labor market, are also parts of personal learning. Meanwhile, social education (shakai kyōiku), which includes nonformal learning activities, has been deeply rooted as collective learning in local communities. In 2008, the Japanese Education Ministry2 announced that the total number of participants in social education courses offered by state-run facilities achieved a record of 34,172,338 people, an increase from 29,377,896 people who participated a decade ago (MEXT 2008a, 15).3 This means that almost one-third of the Japanese population attended some kind of social education course across the country. What does this really mean?

Nowadays, a variety of learning opportunities related to liberal arts, sports, fine arts, foreign languages, and so on, are provided through government-funded programs at public lifelong learning facilities (see Appendix 1). These include citizens’ public halls (kōminkan), libraries (toshokan), museums (hakubutsukan), gymnasiums (taiikukan), lifelong learning centers (shōgai gakushū sentā), women’s education centers, the Open University of Japan (Hōsō daigaku), university extension departments, and private lifelong learning service providers (karuchā sentā) (i.e., culture centers, most of which are operated by newspaper publishers and department stores; they primarily target housewives). Further, many NPOs,4 which were established under the so-called NPO Law enacted in 1998, chose social education as one of their activity areas when they registered. Actually, social education is the second most popular area of activity, after social welfare. The majority of social education NPOs are funded by local governments (Cabinet Office 2011a; cf. Ogawa 2009a). At the same time, some forms of correspondence courses (tsūshin kyōiku), including Internet-based courses, are also available.

In this book, my research focuses on state-funded lifelong learning. In fact, the state is one of the key sponsors of lifelong learning activities in Japanese society. For fiscal year 2011 (April 2011–March 2012), the Education Ministry spent a total of 19.8 billion yen ($194 million) for the promotion of lifelong learning (MEXT 2011a). This enormous amount of money may be difficult to imagine. Meanwhile, at the grassroots level, one of my field sites, the city of Hirosaki, which is located in Aomori Prefecture, spent a total of 1.62 billion yen ($16 million) for a population of some 170,000 in fiscal year 2010 (April 2010–March 2011) to support the development of learning activities at twenty-three local public lifelong learning facilities. These facilities included citizens’ public halls, libraries, museums, and gymnasiums. This means that the city spent 8,553 yen ($84) per citizen to support their lifelong learning activities. Further, this amount equals 12.7 percent of the total expenses related to education in the municipality (Hirosaki Municipal Board of Education 2010, 88). I believe that Japanese people maintain a variety of learning drives. Those who are eager to learn something new will look for service providers even if they must pay expensive tuition. However, this raises another research question: Why does the state fund these types of learning activities?

A practical or realistic answer may be that offering lifelong learning courses is a government’s legal duty to its citizens. Shortly after World War II, in 1949, the Japanese government enacted the Social Education Law (shakai kyōiku hō) to support grassroots, nonformal learning activities. This law articulates the concept that lifelong learning is a legal right of the Japanese people. For instance, this law states that both the national and municipal governments are required to make every effort to develop and operate public facilities for lifelong learning so that all citizens can enhance their lives by self-cultivation. Further, it stipulates that state and local public bodies should endeavor to attain educational objectives by establishing institutions such as citizens’ public halls, libraries, and museums. In 1990, the government also enacted the Lifelong Learning Promotion Law (shōgai gakushū shinkō hō)5 to prepare the institutional environment for the promotion of lifelong learning. This law prescribes measures including (1) the establishment of lifelong learning councils at national and prefectural levels for the local promotion of lifelong learning; (2) a provision aimed at the development of lifelong learning in designated communities; and (3) surveys for the assessment of residents’ learning needs and requirements. However, none of these observations help us understand why lifelong learning is currently garnering special attention. My argument in this book extends beyond what I have mentioned as a cultural model and attempts to situate Japan’s new interest in lifelong learning in international policy making. In fact, current developments in Japan’s lifelong learning are generating new patterns of behaviors and outcomes; they are producing new types of disciplinary knowledge for surviving neoliberal Japan.

Lifelong Learning as a Global Trend

The continuing march of globalization has heightened uncertainty in everyday life around the world. Japan is not exempt from this uncertainty. One way to cope with this rapidly evolving environment is to practice lifelong learning: In other words, individuals must engage in continual learning efforts that can help them improve and adapt to society. With the publication of the so-called Faure Report—Learning to Be (Faure et al. 1972) by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), lifelong learning became a worldwide topic of discussion. Since then, as globalization gathered momentum, lifelong learning came into greater focus (Jarvis 2007; cf. Mebrahtu et al. 2000; Stromquist 2002; Suárez-Orozco 2007; Fien et al. 2009; Spring 2009). Sutherland and Crowther (2006) termed the emerging trend of lifelong learning “lifelong learning imagination” in reference to C. Wright Mills’ sociological imagination (1959). They argued, “The promise of the “lifelong learning imagination” is of a process that enables people to understand their personal circumstances and the habits of mind, knowledge and skills they possess. For this to be useful, it has to be an ongoing process—a lifelong activity that people engage and re-engage in continually in order to improve their understanding and develop new knowledge and skills” (Sutherland and Crowther 2006, 4).

Globally, since the mid-1990s, lifelong learning has been a topic of intensive discussions. International organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UNESCO, have actively advocated for “lifelong learning imagination.” John Field describes the series of events when “lifelong learning emerged onto the policy scene with the suddenness of a new fashion” (2006, 3). For example, since the 1980s, the OECD has primarily encouraged macroeconomic stabilization, structural adjustment, and the globalization of production and distribution (Schuller 2009), while secondarily paying attention to the preservation of social cohesion (Miller 1997). During the 1990s, new technologies, lifelong learning, and higher education were added to policy priorities. In particular, this addition defined the debates and policies on lifelong learning that occurred in the member states (Moutsios 2009). In this context, in 1996, the OECD held a meeting of education ministers entitled Lifelong Learning for All. These ministers advocated “the continuation of conscious learning throughout the lifespan.” They embraced learning undertaken “informally at work, by talking to others, by watching television and playing games, and through virtually every other form of human activity” (OECD 1996, 89). As Moutsios (2009, 474–75) claims, the development of human capital is the main ideology pursued by the OECD; this ideology is promulgated in its formal statements. In 2005, the OECD published a report entitled Promoting Adult Learning (OECD 2005) that proclaimed the economistic paradigm—the importance of learning to enhance the human capital of individuals and nations. However, the report states that, despite the benefits, there has been insufficient participation in adult learning. As one policy lever, the OECD recommends the clarification of economic incentives and the introduction of co-financing mechanisms that can increase the efficiency of the provision of adult learning.

UNESCO developed its discourse on lifelong learning in a different manner (Ouane 2009). It avoided the rhetoric of human capital development. UNESCO’s approach has been more humanistic since its publication of the Faure Report in the early 1970s. It advocated “for the right and necessity of each individual to learn for his/her social, economic, political, and cultural development” (Medel-Añonuevo et al. 2001, 2). The Faure Report claims: “Every individual must be in a position to keep learning throughout his life. … The lifelong concept covers all aspects of education, embracing everything in it, with the whole being more than the sum of its parts” (Faure et al. 1972, 181–82). In 1996, UNESCO published a report entitled Learning: The Treasure Within (Delors 1996). This report was produced by the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century, which was chaired by Jacques Delors, former French minister of economics and finance and former president of the European Commission (1985–95). This report was more balanced than the OECD’s report. It recognized the significance of learning for work as well as the human potential for learning. As Jarvis (2007, 69) points out, the report views education as a dimension of all human living: The report began by calling UNESCO’s own foundation a hope “for a world that is a better place to live in” (Delors 1996, 14). It also criticized the emphasis placed on “all-out economic growth” (ibid., 15).

The Group of Eight (G8), which is comprised of seven of the world’s leading industrialized nations and Russia, adopted the Cologne Charter: Aims and Ambitions for Lifelong Learning in June 1999.

The challenge every country faces is how to become a learning society and to ensure that its citizens are equipped with the knowledge, skills and qualifications they will need in the next century. Economies and societies are increasingly knowledge-based. Education and skills are indispensable to achieving economic success, civic responsibility, and social cohesion. The next century will be defined by flexibility and change; more than ever, there will be a demand for mobility. Today, a passport and a ticket allow people to travel anywhere in the world. In the future, the passport to mobility will be education and lifelong learning. This passport to mobility must be offered to everyone. (Group of Eight 1999)

The G8 economic summit brought the issue of education and lifelong learning to the forefront for the first time in twenty-five years. The summit argued for greater centrality of education and training in policy making among the member states. The Cologne Charter highlighted the importance of the creation of “lifelong learning,” by which people are encouraged to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for survival in the twenty-first century.

Based on these international developments, this book is a result of my comparative interest in the institutional development of lifelong learning policies and practices between Japan and Europe—two regions where lifelong learning is deeply rooted in the everyday lives of individuals. Yet, lifelong learning has developed in different ways in each culture. Further, my analysis is inspired by several ideas of European origin: risk, social inclusion, and social enterprises. The following questions stimulated my research curiosity: What are the impacts of global policy making on lifelong learning at regional and local levels? How were policy ideas transferred and translated to domestic, grassroots levels? In Europe, lifelong learning activities have been developed based on a philosophy that differs considerably from the Japanese philosophy. In the European policy context, the debate over lifelong learning is treated in a more utilitarian manner; meanwhile, Japanese traditional lifelong learning has been primarily understood as a cultural model. Europeans follow OECD policy and focus greater attention on knowledge production in the globalization of social and economic life. It makes serious efforts to identify the types of knowledge required for economic and social developments. Peters and Besley (2006) described this activity as the creation of a “knowledge culture.” This might be considered the foundation for competition in the globally expanding knowledge economy. Lifelong learning is squarely connected to success and to individuals’ employment strategies in the knowledge economy because the current labor market demands ever-changing profiles of skills, qualifications, and experiences.

Since the 1990s, in tandem with international economic restructuring, the European Union (EU) has placed a high priority on the need to raise skill levels across Europe (Jarvis 2009b; Milana and Holford 2014). Indeed, the EU is nowadays a key player in making lifelong learning and adult education policies (Milana and Holford 2014). EU policy makers consider lifelong learning to be centered on vocational education and training a significant employment strategy. They wish to create a highly skilled workforce capable of adaptation to both European and global demands in an environment filled with intensified competition. The White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, and Jobs issued by President Jacques Delors in 1993 was a milestone in the creation of EU policy for lifelong learning. This was crucial for the improvement of the significant unemployment situation in Europe. The follow-up was created during the Luxemburg Summit in 1997, which was held to determine the development of an employment strategy for the EU. Since that time, as Jones (2005, 248) points out, successive European summits have taken active measures on five key structural issues: (1) development of job-intensive growth, (2) reduction of nonwage labor costs, (3) introduction of more active labor market measures, (4) targeting of assistance for long-term unemployed individuals, and (5) investment in human resources. European citizens’ increased concerns contributed to the development of the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997, which asked member states to commit to “the development of a skilled, trained, and adaptable workforce and labor markets responsive to economic change.”

As mentioned earlier, during the 1990s, lifelong learning was reconsidered for the first time since the early 1970s when UNESCO propounded the idea. At the time, although the OECD emphasized recurrent education as a strategy for the promotion of lifelong education (Tuijnman and Boström 2002, 99), it also actively promoted lifelong learning. Whereas UNESCO provided a broad use of the concept, the OECD narrowed the concept of lifelong learning to include human capital theory, which refers to the supply of productive skills and knowledge in labor (cf. Schultz 1961; Mincer 1962; Becker 1964). In line with the OECD’s policy making, the EU translated lifelong learning into the educational policies of the sovereign state and beyond. With respect to this policy move, Borg and Mayo (2005, 207–08) state the following: “Its re-emergence in this context, and in the context of the OECD, has to be seen against the backdrop of a world economic system characterized by the intensification of globalization and the emergence of the neo-liberal ideology.”

In more recent policy developments, lifelong learning has been consciously embodied as policy integral to the Lisbon Strategy on the global knowledge economy. When they met in Lisbon, Portugal, in March 2000, the European Council set a new and ambitious goal for the EU: to become, by 2010, “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” (European Council 2000). In particular, the strategy emphasized the need for the EU to adapt to changes in the information society and to boost research and development. Consequently, the European Council published a key policy document, A Memorandum on Lifelong Learning, which was based on conclusions reached during the 1996 European Year of Lifelong Learning. This policy document provided a key conceptual framework for current education policy discourse in Europe. On the very first page of the memorandum, the Council adopts the following definition of lifelong learning: “[A]ll purposeful learning activity, undertaken on an ongoing basis with the aim of improving knowledge, skills, and competence.” Further, it mentions the following:

Lifelong learning is no longer just one aspect o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Japan’s Lifelong Learning: History, Policies, and Practices
• Chapter 3 Risk Management by a Neoliberal State
• Chapter 4 The New Public Commons
• Chapter 5 The Japanese “Community School”
• Chapter 6 Becoming a Social Entrepreneur
• Chapter 7 New Knowledge for Youth
• Afterword
• Appendix 1 Japan’s Lifelong Learning in the 2000s
• Appendix 2 Major Legal and Policy Developments of Japan’s Lifelong Learning (1947–2011)
• Appendix 3 List of Civic Knowledge Sources
• Notes
• Japanese Glossary
• References
• Index
• Back Cover