ECOSPIRITUALITY IN PUBLIC FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF A TRANSFORMATIVE WORLD LANGUAGE LEARNING APPROACH

Abstract

This critical instrumental case study examines a transformative world language learning approach to a unit on culture in an introductory Japanese class in a public high school. Couched in recent post-9/11 language “policy” debates, which strikingly lack mention of religion, spirituality, or environmental issues of climate change and sustainability, this study examines how a transformative world language learning approach develops and identifies students' environmentally based spirituality and how students articulate such “ecospirituality” in their emerging, standards-based Japanese writing. Critical analysis of written, interview, and classroom data reveals that a transformative world language learning approach may be effective in bridging traditional written literacies with “ecospiritual literacies” in the world language classroom. It also provides a lens for students' socio-dialogic learning of environment-related vocabulary and their subsequent use of it in their Japanese writing. Finally, this study suggests that while students rejected identities of religiosity, they embraced and articulated identities of ecospirituality.

Notes

¹One reviewer recommended I elaborate on Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) as both have been historically mischaracterized (see Gamble & Watanabe, 2004, for a thorough discussion of their mischaracterization in Japanese tabloids). Soka Gakkai International is a lay Buddhist organization with more than 12 million members in 192 countries; it is the largest Buddhist group in Japan. Its members practice Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. As the organization's president since 1960, Ikeda has been awarded with, among others, the United Nations Peace Prize, the Rosa Parks Award, and the Simon Wiesenthal Award. The world academic community has awarded him 306 honorary doctorates and professorships for his efforts for peace, culture, and education. In addition to the Boston Research Center for Peace in the 21st Century, the Victor Hugo House of Literature (Paris), and the Fuji Art Museum (Tokyo), among other institutions, Ikeda founded the secular Soka schools, which include universities in Japan and the United States and K-12 schools in Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea. The first degree program at Soka University of America was a master's degree in teaching modern languages (see daisakuikeda.org for more information).

²A version of this paper was presented at the Academy of Educational Studies 2007 conference, What Should the Role of Religion be in 21st Century Public Schools?, where Noddings (2008) also presented a version of her article.