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Civil Society, State, and Institutions for Young Children in Modern Japan: The Initial Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Kathleen Uno
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Extract

Research on the history of children and childhood in modern Japan (1868–1945) reveals that issues related to civil society, state, and the establishment of institutions for young children can be explored beyond the transatlantic world. This brief essay considers the role of state and nonstate agents in the genesis of institutions for young children in modern Japan after briefly surveying historiography, a few basic terms, and earlier patterns of state and private involvement in education. After that, it proceeds in chronological order, treating first the founding of kindergartens and then day nurseries, focusing on the initial four decades.

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Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , May 2009 , pp. 170 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 History of Education Society 

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References

1 Recent Western monographs treating children's institutions include: Marshall, Byron K., Learning to be Modern: Japanese Political Discourse on Education (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994); Uno, Kathleen S., Passages to Modernity: Motherhood, Childhood, and Social Reform in Early Twentieth Century Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999); and Platt, Brian, Burning and Building: Schooling and State Formation in Japan, 1750–1890 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004). For the modern period, on foreign missionary kindergartens, see Roberta Wollons, “Black Forest in a Bamboo Garden: Missionary Kindergartens in Japan, 1868–1912.” History of Education Quarterly 33, 1 (Spring 1993): 1–35; Wollons, Roberta, “The Missionary Kindergarten in Japan,” in Kindergartens and Cultures: The Global Diffusion of an Idea, ed. Wollons, Roberta (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 113–36; and on day care centers, see Uno, Kathleen, Passages to Modernity. Google Scholar

2 Uno, Kathleen, “Japan,” in Children in Historical and Comparative Perspective: An International Handbook and Research Guide, ed. Hawes, Joseph M. and Hiner, N. Ray (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), 396–97; Hardacre, Helen, Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 26–28, 43. Although there is no space to discuss it in this essay, the end of childhood at around age 15 also showed significant variation by region, class, and occupation.Google Scholar

3 Uno, , “Japan,” 390, 392–95; Uno, Kathleen, “Women and Changes in the Household Division of Labor,” in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 25–26, 34–35.Google Scholar

4 Early Childhood Education Association of Japan, ed. Early Childhood Education and Care in Japan (Tokyo: Child Honsha Col, Ltd., 1979), 9. As relief institutions, “day nurseries” can also be called day or child care centers, for in addition to physical care, their programs included educational content, see Uno, Passages to Modernity. For lack of data, factory day nurseries are not discussed in this essay.Google Scholar

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13 Ibid., 19; Makoto, Tsumori, Ito, Kubo, and Masuko, Honda, Yoochien no rekishi (Tokyo: Koseikaku, 1959, 1978 ed.), 203.Google Scholar

14 Monbushoo, , Yoochien kyooiku hyakunen shi, (Tokyo: Hikari no kuni kabushiki kaisha, 1979), 34. Also, in 1871 in Yokohama, foreign women established a short-lived institution that took in children not being cared for by their parents, but its expensive tuition contributed to its early demise. In 1872, it was converted into a girls school. See, al., Tsumori et, 204; Monbushoo, , Yoochien kyooiku hyakunen shi, 33.Google Scholar

15 The modern peerage was established in 1885, in advance of the Constitution of 1890 making the House of Peers the upper house of the Imperial Diet (legislature).Google Scholar

16 Early Childhood Education Association of Japan, 22; al., Tsumori et, 204.Google Scholar

17 al., Tsumori et, 205, 210–11.Google Scholar

18 Uno, , Passages to Modernity, 51. The girls’ department of the Peers’ School was established in 1877, became the separate Peeress’ School in 1885, and from 1907 once more became a department of the Peers’ School See, Naruse, Jinzo, “The Education of Japanese Women,” in Fifty Years of New Japan, vol. 2, ed. Shigenobu, Okuma (1910; rpt. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1970), 206–7. Exclusion of the kindergarten from compulsory education tended to make kindergarten education the province of the affluent, although a few poor children attended charity kindergartens. See Tsumori et al., 204.Google Scholar

19 Monbushoo, , Yoochien kyooiku hyakunen shi, 821–22.Google Scholar

20 Uno, , Passages to Modernity, 41–42, 52–56. Regarding babysitters (komori) early in the modern period, see Uno, , Passages of Modernity, 32–33; Tamanoi, Mariko Asano, Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998), chap. 2.Google Scholar

21 Uno, , Passages to Modernity, 60–65.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 76–78.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., 72–73, 76.Google Scholar

24 Yasuko, Ichibangase, Jun, Izumi, Nobuko, Ogawa, and Takeo, Shishido, Nihon no hoiku (Tokyo: shuppan, Domesu, 1962, 1980 ed.), 286, 278; Takao, Terawaki, “Jidoo hogo jigyoo choosa,” in Senzen Nihon no shakai jigyoo choosa, ed. Shakai fukushi choosa kenkyuukai (Tokyo: Keisoo shoboo, 1983), 190; Uno, Passages to Modernity. Before the founding of municipal day nurseries, a few elementary schools established facilities to care for young children in 1911 and 1912.Google Scholar

25 Kyuuichi, Yoshida, Shakai jigyoo no rekishi (Tokyo: Keisoo shoboo, 1981), 145–161; Uno, , Passages to Modernity, 97, 127–137.Google Scholar

26 Uno, , Passages to Modernity, 136. This essay does not discuss orphanages, for they did not care exclusively for children under six.Google Scholar

27 Monbushoo, , Yoochien kyooiku hyakunen shi. 131.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., 132.Google Scholar

29 Hiroshi, Urabe, Takeo, Shishido, and Yuuichi, Murayama, Hoiku no rekishi (Tokyo: Shoten, Aoki, 1981), 48.Google Scholar

30 See limited data in Sarane Spence Boocock, “Controlled Diversity: An Overview of the Japanese Preschool System.” Journal of Japanese Studies 15, 1 (Winter 1989): 41–65, especially 47–49. There are numerous works discussing institutions for young children in postwar Japan. However, space constraints preclude any further mention of them.Google Scholar