The education of human rights in Japan: a comparative analysis of civics textbooks in senior high school between the 1970s and 2010s

ABSTRACT

The education of human rights, or Human Rights Education (HRE), has been increasingly vital for the preservation and dissemination of human rights values in contemporary time. Japan, as an East Asian democracy, is not an exception. Yet there has been limited scholarship in English on the efforts that the Japanese government has invested in educating human rights through formal citizenship education. To what extent did (does) Japanese formal citizenship education value human rights concepts and address domestic human rights issues? This study approaches the civics textbooks of Japanese senior high schools published in the 1970s-2010s by adopting comparative content analyses. It suggests that, first, there is an increasing usage of human rights conceptual terms with Liberty as the most frequently found word in the textbooks. Second, however, limited knowledge and empowerment are provided when the human rights issues of three underprivileged groups in Japan – the Burakumin, the Ainu, and foreign residents – are taught. This study suggests the government to put greater efforts into educating students about domestic human rights issues. Future studies are also suggested to continue investigating the development of HRE in Japan and to locate the reasons behind the reluctance in teaching domestic human rights issues there.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights education
• citizenship education
• textbook analysis
• human rights
• minorities
• Japan

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Professor Kihara-Hunt Ai and Professor Kage Rieko for providing precious comments to the revision and finalization of this study. I would also like to thank Ms. Marin Ekstrom for providing language suggestions to polish the expression of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Since 2001, MOE was reformed into MEXT.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Helix Lo

Helix Lo was born in Hong Kong and is currently a PhD student at The University of Tokyo. He finished his bachelor’s degree in politics and continues the focus afterwards. He has a wide range of academic interests and is particularly interested in Japanese Culture and Politics, Hong Kong Politics, Demonstrations, Elections and Democracies, and Human Rights Education. Recently, he is working on research related to citizenship education in and outside Asian countries and democratic and human rights performances in East Asia (especially in Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong).