ABSTRACT
Traditionally, Japanese society has relied on formal education to develop character, to cultivate moral and cultural sensitivity, and, indeed, to advance industrialization and modernization. The Japanese belief that teachers should inclusively enhance the instrumental, moral, and expressive aspects of their children’s formation has become so deeply entrenched in that tradition that it has become a virtual cultural expression—one that has shaped the evolution of teacher education itself. Teachers have been viewed as agents of character development and nation-building from the inception of formal teacher education at the dawn of Japan’s modernization in the nineteenth century. Japanese teacher education has been distinctly influenced by the predominant national ideologies of particular times.
