ABSTRACT
This chapter traces how the depoliticisation of post-World War II Japanese education and the focus on the moral values of the individual, both influenced by the “do no harm principle”, have led to a child-centred teacher education pedagogy which leaves teachers and trainee teachers with no critical voice, convenient to current common sense neo-liberalism. Reforms of the 1980s which encouraged such pedagogy were challenged by declining PISA results and the introduction of neo-liberal education reforms. These reforms have led to a decline in the attraction of teaching and have contributed to poor recruitment and retention. The author argues that the negative spiral of neo-liberalism can only be addressed if teacher educators develop a political literacy which will enable trainee teachers and the profession to establish a critical voice. The author concludes that teachers and trainee teachers need to confront the politics and recognise that child-centred education of the liberal period is different from the depoliticisation of education exploited by the neo-liberal period. In this way, it is possible that teacher development might create a dialectic between teachers’ moral and political and the dominant neo-liberal education values.
