Japan and the Pursuit of a New American Identity

Work and Education in a Multicultural Age

Walter Feinberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032609997
• eBook ISBN: 9781003827078
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

First published in 1993, Japan and the Pursuit of a New American Identity is a sophisticated analysis of the mission of education in a multicultural age. Arguing that American education has been too long constrained by conservative discourse – which positions schools and students as weapons in an international competition with the Japanese – author Walter Feinberg assesses the cultural and philosophical limits of conservative vision as popularized by exponents Allan Bloom and E. D. Hirsch. Feinberg then develops a vision of education which accommodates the growing cultural diversity of American society and American schools. At the heart of Feinberg's study is a unique philosophical analysis of Japanese and American attitudes towards work and education. Through a series of sensitively developed interview with American and Japanese workers, managers, parents, and teachers who have experienced life in one another's culture, he examines the implications of our profound cultural differences with the Japanese for the development of a new American, multicultural identity. This book will be of interest to students of education, pedagogy, history and public policy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One An American Identity Crisis
• Two Japan and the American Quest for Moral Authority
• Three Economic Conservatives and the Culture of Friction
• Four Cultural Conservatives and the Vision of Harmony
• Five Collective Identity and Social Practice
• Six Japanese Identity
• Seven Education, Work, and Democratic Identity
• Appendix I Notes on the Structure of Japanese Education
• Appendix II Terminology
• Notes
• Index