ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the ways in which Japanese education over the past four hundred years has developed in relation with, and in response to, political, economic and social change. While this development surely represents a particular Japanese experience, it is also possible to find themes that should be appreciated within the more universal narrative of modernity. Japan is currently facing a rapidly changing world of declining birth rates, aging population, economic and social globalisation and a media revolution of information technology. As these changes cause the old paradigm of the nation-state to tremble, so too trembles the foundation of contemporary school education rooted in this paradigm. Although East Asia has a common philosophical and educational foundation in Confucianism and Buddhism, the manner in which this foundation has been expressed varies quite dramatically per region and time period.
