ABSTRACT
The state of religious education and spiritual development at schools in Japan entered a new phase in 2006. The Fundamental Law of Education, which was enacted and enforced in 1947, set forth the principles of education and provided the bases for school education in postwar Japan. In December 2006, a revised version of the Fundamental Law of Education was introduced, and a new sentence that ‘general education concerning religion should be respected’ was added. However, a proposed clause specifying the need ‘to develop religious sentiment’ was not included, after much deliberation on its appropriateness. The first part of this paper will consider the development of religious sentiment, with reference to research conducted in the West, and its applicability to the Japanese context. Part 2 will focus on Japan’s unique history regarding religious sentiment, including a discussion of spiritual development in the field of education. Part 3 will examine how religious sentiment is proposed to be cultivated within Japanese schools. Part 4 will explore how spiritual development is encouraged in teaching materials used in Japanese language and literature classes. Finally in Part 5, Life-Education, which is taught as an alternative to religious education in Japanese schools, will be analysed in terms of its capacity to contribute to student’s spiritual wellbeing.1
