Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei Versus Education for Creative Living: How Makiguchi Tsunesaburo's Educational Ideas Are Presented in English

Abstract

The only available English translation of Makiguchi Tsunesaburo's most characteristic work, Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei (The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy; 1930–1934), was published as Education for Creative Living in 1989 with Alfred Birnbaum as the translator and Dayle M. Bethel as the editor. Education for Creative Living, not Makiguchi's Japanese original, has been translated into 13 languages and has contributed to introducing Makiguchi's educational ideas to the non-Japanese-speaking world. In this article, the author reports findings of a comparative, cross-linguistic textual analysis of Education for Creative Living and Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei. Her findings indicate that Bethel has made many editorial choices without notifying the reader, such as putting more emphasis on philosophy than pedagogy, simplifying some of Makiguchi's arguments; omitting Makiguchi's references to various scholars; and omitting, inserting and revising portions of text. These editorial choices give the impression of a simpler, less sophisticated, less well-read Makiguchi to non-Japanese readers and render Education for Creative Living problematic as a primary source of academic research.

Keywords:

• Bethel
• educational philosophy
• Makiguchi
• progressive education
• Soka
• translation
• value creation

Notes

¹Book is a unit smaller than a volume.

²Vol. 2 of Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei, edited by Josei Toda.