Challenges in fostering democratic participation in Japanese education

I draw on Dewey’s concept of democratically constituted society to investigate whether Japanese schools are organized in a way that students can experience democratic living, by examining diversity and interaction within schools. I also rely on Reimer’s notion of citizenship education to explore whether schools in Japan foster the competencies necessary to understand, care about, and act upon global challenges, by examining the teaching of relevance and development of sense of purpose. Based on the analyses of PISA data, I find the following characteristics of Japanese education compared to OECD countries: (1) the high school system sorts students not only by their academic achievement but simultaneously by their family background, creating the least diversified schools; (2) interaction, measured by student participation and debate in class, is low; (3) teaching relevance and application of scientific concepts in class are limited; and (4) students have a low sense of purpose at the end of compulsory education. The lack of opportunity to practice and internalize democratic values in the school, to connect what is being taught to real-world issues, and to develop one’s sense of purpose may partly explain the current youths’ political apathy and why there is little youth-led collective activism in Japan.