ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the history of Japanese education from pre-modern times to the present, and the place of teaching and learning in Japanese society. It shows how institutionalized education developed in the process of learning from China until the 19th century and then from the West, while Japan saw itself as being at the global periphery. It covers how state schooling emerged while less formalized popular education continued. The system of modern schooling was crucial in transforming Japan from a feudal society to a modern nation state, and then from a militarist society to a liberal democracy.
