Realizing Daisaku Ikeda's Educational Philosophy Through Language Learning and Study Abroad: A Critical Instrumental Case Study

Abstract

This article focuses in two ways on Daisaku Ikeda (b. 1928) and language and culture education. First, the author excerpts Ikeda's translated and lesser-known Japanese speeches to explicate his view of world language learning and cultural exchange as curricular components of a broader educational philosophy for becoming “fully human.” Second, the author presents findings from a critical instrumental case study that used ethnographic and discourse analytic methods to examine how students realize Ikeda's philosophy through their language learning and study abroad experiences.

Notes

¹The Soka schools network includes Soka University of America (California), Soka University and Soka Women's College (Tokyo); Soka Junior and Senior High Schools (Tokyo); Kansai Soka Junior and Senior High Schools (Osaka); Tokyo Soka Elementary School; Kansai Soka Elementary School (Osaka); Sapporo Soka Kindergarten; Brazil Soka (elementary and middle) School (São Paulo); Brazil Soka Kindergarten (São Paulo); Hong Kong Soka Kindergarten; Malaysia Soka Kindergarten; Singapore Soka Kindergarten; and Soka Happiness Kindergarten of South Korea. Soka University in Tokyo also administrates one of Japan's largest correspondence education programs.

²The current Chinese ambassador to Japan, Cheng Yonghua, was among the first students who came to Japan under a Chinese government scholarship in 1975 and studied at Soka University.

³I used both Japanese and, when available, English versions of Ikeda's works. I reference the English with comparison (cf.) to the original. English translations of Ikeda's speeches for which no official English version is available are my own.

⁴Nambara Shigeru (1948) coined the term ningen kakumei (“human revolution”). Ikeda's teacher and mentor Josei Toda appropriated Nambara's usage (e.g., Toda [1951] 1965, Vol. 4, pp. 351–601) and Ikeda expanded Toda's appropriation (e.g., Ikeda 2004b, 1995–2010b).).