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Japanese Colonialism and the Asia-Pacific War in Japan's History Textbooks: Changing representations and their causes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2012

PETER CAVE
PETER CAVE*
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures, University of Manchester Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines changes between 1992 and 2010 in Japanese junior high school history textbooks’ representations of imperial Japan's colonialism and aggression in Asia, using documentary study and interviews with actors in the textbook production process. Following a trend to increase textbook material on Japan's wartime aggression in the mid-1990s, after 2000 publishers approached this topic in contrasting ways, some expanding and some reducing their coverage, with dramatically varying results in terms of market share. Publishers’ decisions on content were related to their market position and to changes in local textbook adoption procedures that have increased the decision-making power of appointed boards of education at the expense of teachers. Increased market share since 2000 is associated primarily with a progressive pedagogy in tune with recent curriculum reforms. The recent spotlight on textbook adoption has exposed weaknesses in the system, such as inadequate representation of the local community and insufficient guarantee of teachers’ expert input in the adoption process. With the introduction of new textbook approval criteria requiring their conformity with the patriotic emphases of the revised Fundamental Law on Education of 2006, the content of future textbooks will clearly be strongly influenced by both approval and adoption processes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 542 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 For case studies and discussion, see: Hein, L. and Selden, M. (eds) (2000). Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United States, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New YorkGoogle Scholar; Vickers, E. and Jones, A. (eds) (2005). History Education and National Identity in East Asia, Routledge, New YorkGoogle Scholar; Foster, S.J. and Crawford, K.A. (eds) (2006). What Shall We Tell The Children? International Perspectives on School History Textbooks, Information Age, Greenwich, ConnecticutGoogle Scholar.

2 Saaler, S. (2005). Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society, Iudicium, MunichGoogle Scholar; Crawford, K. (2006). ‘Culture Wars: Japanese History Textbooks and the Construction of Official Memory’ in Foster and Crawford (eds), What Shall We Tell The Children?, pp. 49–68; Nozaki, Y. (2008). War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo's Court Challenges, Routledge, AbingdonGoogle Scholar; Nozaki Y. and Selden M. (2009). Japanese Textbook Controversies, Nationalism, and Historical Memory: Intra- and Inter-national Conflicts, The Asia-Pacific Journal, 24-5-09, 15 June 2009, <http://www.japanfocus.org/-Yoshiko-Nozaki/3173>, [accessed 21 June 2011].

3 Good accounts of the Tsukuru Kai and their textbook have been provided by Nelson, J.K. (2002). Tempest in a Textbook: A Report on the New Middle School History Textbook in Japan, Critical Asian Studies, 34:1, pp. 129–148CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, pp. 39–59. The Tsukuru Kai website is www.tsukurukai.com.

4 Asahi Shinbun, ‘Fusōsha rekishi kyōkasho shea 0.4%’, 6 October 2005, p. 37.

5 Kanagawa Shinbun, ‘“Tsukuru kai” kei saitaku’, 5 August 2009. Yokohama's eight wards account for about two-thirds of this total market share (13,500 of 21,269 books). These figures are from ‘2009-nendo chūgaku kyōkasho saitaku kekka’ issued by the Kodomo to Kyōkasho Zenkoku Netto 21 on 6 May 2010, based on figures issued by the Ministry of Education and Science on 5 November 2009.

6 Nozaki, War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, p. 145.

7 Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, pp. 66–67; Crawford, ‘Culture Wars’, pp. 58–59, 62–63; Nozaki, War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, pp. 144–149.

8 See Cave, P. (2005). ‘Learning to Live with the Imperial Past? History Teaching, Empire, and War in Japan and England’ in Vickers and Jones, History Education and National Identity in East Asia, pp. 307–333; and Seaton, P.A. (2007). Japan's Contested War Memories: The ‘Memory Rifts’ in Historical Consciousness of World War II, Routledge, Abingdon.Google Scholar

9 Compulsory education in Japan comprises six years of elementary school and three years of junior high school. About 96 per cent of children continue on to three years of high school; not all high school students are obliged to study Japanese history, although all must study world history. See Monbushō, (1999). Kōtō gakkō gakushū shidō yōryō, Ōkurashō Insatsukyoku, Tokyo, p. 7Google Scholar.

10 See Breen, J. (ed.) (2007). Yasukuni, the War Dead, and the Struggle for Japan's Past, Hurst and Co., LondonGoogle Scholar.

11 See Cave, P. (2009) ‘The Inescapability of Politics? Nationalism, Democratization and Social Order in Japanese Education’ in Lall, M. and Vickers, E. (eds) Education as a Political Tool in Asia, Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 45–47.Google Scholar

12 Fifteen face-to-face interviews were conducted with a total of 27 interviewees, as follows. (1) Interview with one editor and one senior manager of Teikoku Shoin publishers, 10 September 2008; (2) interview with one editor and one manager of Kyōiku Shuppan publishers, 11 September 2008; (3) interview with one senior manager/editor and two editors of Tōkyō Shoseki publishers, 12 September 2008; (4) interview with author responsible for modern history section of Teikoku Shoin textbook, 18 September 2009; (5) interview with author responsible for modern history section of Nihon Shoseki textbook, 6 October 2009; (6) interview with two officials from the Ministry of Education and Science Textbook Bureau, 16 October 2009; (7) interview with representative of the Rekishi Kyōikusha Kyōgikai (History Educationalists’ Conference of Japan), 29 September 2009; (8) interview with representative of the Zenkoku Chūgakkō Shakaika Kyōiku Kenkyūkai (All-Japan Junior High Social Studies Education Research Association), 8 October 2009; (9) interview with representative of the Kodomo to Kyōkasho Zenkoku Netto 21 (Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21), 15 September 2009; (10) interview with representative of Shuppan Rōren (Japan Federation of Publishing Workers’ Unions), 5 October 2009; (11) interview with two representatives of Nikkyōso (Japan Teachers’ Union), 17 September 2009; (12) interview with a representative of Zenkyō (All-Japan Teachers and Staffs Union), 14 September 2009; (13) interview with two representatives of the Suginami Mushozoku Kumin-ha political group, and one Suginami textbook activist, Tokyo, 14 October 2009; (14) interview with three Yokohama textbook activists, including two school teachers and a representative of the Kyōkasho Saitaku Seido no Minshuka o Motomeru Kanagawa no Kai (Kanagawa Association for the Democratisation of the Textbook Adoption System), 11 September 2009; (15) interview with three representatives of the Kōmeitō group on the Suginami borough assembly, Tokyo, 7 September 2010. All interviews, with the exception of those with the Ministry officials and the Kōmeitō representatives, were recorded. An interview with a Tōkyō Shoseki author was requested, but the author declined, referring me to the publishers. There was no reply to a request for an interview with a Kyōiku Shuppan author, who, the publishers informed me, had asked them to speak on his behalf. There was also no reply to interview requests made to Nihon Shoseki Shinsha. All interviewees were promised anonymity, due to the politically sensitive nature of the subject. I would like to express my gratitude to all those who agreed to be interviewed.

13 Nihon Shoseki went bankrupt after the fall in its market share in 2001, but a new edition of its textbook was produced under the imprint of Nihon Shoseki Shinsha in 2005.

14 Orr, J.J. (2001). The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, p. 79Google Scholar.

15 Asahi Shinbun, ‘Tsukuru kai kyōkasho shea 0.039%’, 12 September 2001; Asahi Shinbun, ‘Fusōsha rekishi kyōkasho shea 0.4%’.

16 These five textbooks gained a combined share of 92.8 per cent of the junior high history market in 1996, rising to a 95 and a 95.7 per cent share in 2001 and 2005 respectively (see Table 1). I also examined these textbooks’ coverage of this period back to editions from the mid-1970s, in order to establish the context for changes from the 1990s onwards. Broadly speaking, the textbooks gradually increased coverage of Japan's aggression in Asia between the mid-1970s and 1992. 2009 editions of the textbooks were unchanged from the 2005 editions. Dates of the editions refer to the year of government approval and local adoption; actual school use begins in April of the following year.

17 I do not deal in detail with the issue of references to the ‘comfort women’ (sex slaves coerced into serving the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific War), as this has been dealt with well in previous accounts of the 1996 textbooks (all of which introduced brief references to the ‘comfort women’) and their successors in 2001 and after (most of which removed these references): see Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, p. 66; Crawford, ‘Culture Wars’, pp. 59, 62–63; Nozaki, War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, p. 145.

18 Orr, The Victim as Hero, pp. 97–103.

19 Tanabe, H., Yoshida, K., Sakaue, N.et al. (eds) (1997). Shinpen atarashii shakai: rekishi, Tōkyō Shoseki, Tokyo, p. 261Google Scholar.

20 Tanabe et al., Shinpen atarashii shakai, p. 264.

21 Sasayama, H., Okuda, Y., Kōno, S., Satō, A.et al. (eds) (1997). Chūgaku shakai: rekishi, Kyōiku Shuppan, Tokyo, pp. 232–233, 256–257, 262–263.Google Scholar

22 Shinpen Atarashii Shakai Henshū Iinkai/Tōkyō Shoseki Kabushiki Kaisha Henshūbu (eds) (n.d.). Shinpen atarashii shakai: rekishi: kyōshiyō shidōsho, Tōkyō Shoseki, Tokyo, p. 292.

23 Shinpen, Shinpen atarashii shakai, p. 324.

24 Shinpen, Shinpen atarashii shakai, p. 324.

25 Orr, The Victim as Hero, pp. 71–105.

26 Rekishi Kyōikusha Kyōgikai (eds) (1997). Rekishi kyōiku gojūnen no ayumi to kadai, Miraisha, Tokyo, pp. 211–212Google Scholar, notes that from the late 1970s, teachers increasingly stressed Asian perspectives and the suffering caused by Japan during the war of the 1930s and 1940s.

27 Yoshimi, Y. (2000). Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, trans. Suzanne, O'Brien, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 33–36Google Scholar.

28 Nozaki, War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, p. 142.

29 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama “On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the War's End” (15 August 1995)’, <http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/press/pm/murayama/>, [accessed 30 August 2010].

30 Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, p. 66.

31 In fact, from 2002 to 2006, much of the material on Japan's oppression in Asia that had appeared in Tōkyō Shoseki's 1996 edition was still available to the teacher in the 2002 teacher's manual, to which such material had been moved. However, in the 2006 teacher's manual, such material was severely curtailed and replaced by more information on less controversial issues.

32 In 2001, all junior high history textbooks except the Tsukuru Kai book from Fusōsha moved from an A5 to a larger B5 format, and introduced much more colour, following a relaxation of Ministry of Education regulations on textbook format.

33 Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, p. 66, states that only two of the 2001 textbooks mentioned the Nanking Massacre, but in fact all mentioned it.

34 Gomi, F., Saito, I., Takahashi, S.et al. (eds) (2006). Shinpen atarashii shakai: rekishi, Tōkyō Shoseki, Tokyo, p. 170Google Scholar. The 2002 Tōkyō Shoseki teacher's manual provided extra resources for the teacher—in this case, a detailed discussion of the various historical sources on the ‘Nanking Incident’, together with full bibliographical details of recommended collections of such sources, including records of Westerners in Nanking at the time, and the diaries of Japanese soldiers who participated in the attack. These were also included in the 2006 teacher's manual.

35 Gomi et al., Shinpen atarashii shakai, p. 193.

36 Tōkyō Shoseki's book has also retained the section heading ‘Japan's Invasion of China’, introduced in 1996. This point has significance because the use of the term ‘invasion’ (shinryaku) as opposed to ‘advance’ (shinshutsu) has become a shibboleth symbolizing different views of Japan's war in China. Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, pp. 66–67, states that the 2001 textbooks did not use the term ‘shinryaku’, but in fact, the 2001 and 2005 textbooks of the five leading publishers all used it.

37 Gomi et al., Shinpen atarashii shakai, p. 189.

38 Gomi et al., Shinpen atarashii shakai, p. 193.

39 Hideo, Kurodaet al. (eds) (2006). Shakai-ka: chūgakusei no rekishi, Teikoku Shoin, Tokyo, p. 174Google Scholar.

40 Kuroda, Shakai-ka, p. 175.

41 Kuroda, Shakai-ka, p. 191.

42 Kuroda, Shakai-ka, p. 204.

43 Kuroda, Shakai-ka, p. 209.

44 Kuroda, Shakai-ka, p. 211.

45 Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, p. 67.

46 Nozaki, War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, pp. 144–146.

47 ‘Kyōkasho-gaisha ni tai shi “jishu kisei” no na ni yoru rekishi no kaizan o kyōsei shita seifu/Monbushō no kōi wa zettai ni yurusenai’, Kyōkasho repōto No. 45 2001, Nihon Shuppan Rōdō Kumiai Rengōkai, Tokyo, pp. 16–17.

48 For example, it has been claimed that Murao Jiro (textbook adviser for history 1956–1975) and Tokinoya Shigeru (who succeeded Murao as chief adviser for history) were members of the Shūkōkai, a Tokyo Imperial University society founded in the early 1930s and devoted to the centrality of the emperor, as well as students of Hiraizumi Kiyoshi, the historian who chaired the Shūkōkai. See Shinbunsha, Mainichi (ed.) (1982). Kyōkasho kentei, Mainichi Shinbunsha, Tokyo, pp. 63–74Google Scholar.

49 Shinbun Akahala, ‘Mondai no kyōkasho chōsakan wa “Tsukuru Kai” jinmyaku datta’, 4 November 2007, p. 35; Ishiyama, H. (2008). Kyōkasho kentei, Iwanami bukkuretto no. 734, Tokyo, p. 40Google Scholar.

50 Ishiyama, Kyōkasho kentai, pp. 39–40.

51 Nozaki, War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan.

52 See Aniya, M., The Okinawa Times; and Asahi Shinbun. (2008). Compulsory Mass Suicide, the Battle of Okinawa, and Japan's Textbook Controversy, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 6 January, <http://www.japanfocus.org/-Aniya-Masaaki/2629>, [accessed 1 September 2010]; and Ishiyama, Kyōkasho kentei.

53 The author added that Ministry textbook screening had improved considerably when compared to what he described as the atrocious standards of 30 or more years ago, and that though at least one of the current Ministry textbook advisers, Terunuma Yasutaka, was a disciple (deshi) of right-wing (but empirical and respected) Tokyo University historian Itō Takashi, he was nonetheless a properly trained historian.

54 See Monbukagakushō shotōchūtō-kyōikukyoku, ‘Kyōkasho seido no gaiyō’, June 2009, pp. 10–17. For a good account of the process, see Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, pp. 61–64.

55 In rural areas, several localities are often combined into one adoption district: Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, p. 61. Some textbook activists in the progressive camp dispute the legal grounds adduced by the Ministry of Education and Science as underpinning the authority of boards of education to adopt textbooks. For example, a 2001 article in Shuppan Rōren's Kyōkasho repōto argues that the laws adduced by the Ministry only give boards of education the authority to administer textbook adoption (jimu shori kengen): see ‘Abunai kyōkasho o saitaku saseyō to suru abunai ugoki no jittai’, Kyōkasho repōto No. 45 2001, pp. 20–21. However, the Ministry's position has not been challenged in the courts.

56 Kurosaki, I. (1999). Kyōiku gyōseigaku, Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, pp. 59–62Google Scholar. In a wider sense, the board also refers to the organization responsible for administering education in the locality, of which the board of education proper is the head; this is probably the more common usage of the term.

57 Monbukagakushō shotōchūtō-kyōikukyoku, ‘Kyōkasho seido no gaiyō’, p. 10. The generic term for such adoption committees is sentei shingikai, but local names vary: for example, the 2009 Yokohama committee was termed the kyōkasho toriatsukai shingikai.

58 Interview with Yokohama textbook activist, 11 September 2009. Information on the textbook adoption process was also requested from the Yokohama City Board of Education, but was refused.

59 Not the five or six people who comprise the board proper, but the larger organization they head; it is probable that subject specialists (shidō shuji) within the board play a leading role in selecting advisers.

60 The interviewee commented that while teachers with action research records tended to be the core advisers, their relative scarcity necessitated selecting others as well. Other interviewees from unions and citizens’ groups agreed that advisers tended to be drawn from teachers (including principals and vice-principals) active in local subject research groups (kyōka kenkyūkai) affiliated to national subject research associations such as Zenchūsha.

61 Fujioka, N. (2005). Kyōkasho saitaku no shinsō, PHP Shinsho, Tokyo, pp. 133–135Google Scholar, and interview with Yokohama textbook activist, 11 September 2009.

62 Fujioka, Kyōkasho saitaku no shinsō, pp. 103–126.

63 Scheiner, E. (2006). Democracy Without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 116–130Google Scholar.

64 ‘Abunai kyōkasho o saitaku saseyō to suru abunai ugoki no jittai’, Kyōkasho repōto No. 45 2001, Nihon Shuppan Rōdō Kumiai Rengōkai, pp. 19–20, 25; Fujioka, Kyōkasho saitaku no shinsō, pp. 140–142.

65 Fujioka, Kyōkasho saitaku no shinsō, pp. 146–149.

66 Interview with three Yokohama textbook activists, 11 September 2009.

67 Saaler, Politics, Memory, and Public Opinion, p. 64.

68 The accuracy of this observation was supported by the comments of the author of the Tōkyō Shoseki textbook who was contacted. Unfortunately, he declined to be interviewed, but did state that textbook content reflected the stance of the publisher, and that I should therefore address questions to the editors.

69 ‘Kyōkasho-gaisha ni tai shi “jishu kisei” no na ni yoru rekishi no kaizan o kyōsei shita seifu/Monbushō no kōi wa zettai ni yurusenai’, Kyōkasho repōto No. 45 2001, Nihon Shuppan Rōdō Kumiai Rengōkai, Tokyo, pp. 16–17.

70 This analysis is supported by Ishiyama, Kyōkasho kentei, p. 27.

71 Fujioka Nobukatsu singles out Nihon Shoseki's textbook as the most left wing of the genre, and particularly objectionable to conservative nationalists like himself (Fujioka, Kyōkasho saitaku no shinsō, pp. 135, 229–231). The Nihon Shoseki author interviewed considered that sensational press treatment, focusing on the mention of the ‘comfort women’ in the Nihon Shoseki textbook, bore considerable blame for prejudice against this textbook among boards of education. He pointed in particular to the article ‘Kagai kijutsu ga itten kōtai’ in Asahi Shinbun, 4 April 2001 (evening edition), p. 14.

72 In 1996, Nihon Shoseki's history textbook was adopted by 21 of the 23 metropolitan boroughs of Tokyo, and by 19 of the 27 non-metropolitan boroughs, as well as being adopted for all schools in Yokohama. However, outside these areas it was adopted by a mere 25 out of 521 districts nationwide. See <http://www.tsukurukai.com/02_about_us/05_adopt_02.html>, [accessed 14 August 2010].

73 Cave, P. (2007). Primary School in Japan: Self, Individuality and Learning in Elementary Education, Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 14–24Google Scholar.

74 ‘Mujun kaiketsu no itoguchi sura izen mienai kyōkasho saitaku’, Kyōkasho repōto No. 46 2002, Nihon Shuppan Rōdō Kumiai Rengōkai, Tokyo, p. 64.

75 The Zenchūsha representative interviewed detailed the evaluation criteria used by teachers serving as textbook advisers during the textbook adoption process in his city; these criteria were overwhelmingly pedagogical.

76 Radnor, H.A. and Ball, S. with Vincent, C. and Henshaw, L. (1996). Local Education Authorities: Accountability and Control, Trentham Books, Stoke-on-Trent, pp. 66–69Google Scholar; Gandin, L.A. (2006). ‘Creating Real Alternatives to Neoliberal Policies in Education: The Citizen School Project’ in Apple, M.W. and Buras, K.L. (eds) The Subaltern Speak: Curriculum, Power, and Educational Struggles, Routledge, New York, pp. 230–239Google Scholar; Beane, J.A. and Apple, M.W. (2007). ‘The Case for Democratic Schools’ in Apple, M.W. and Beane, J.A. (eds) Democratic Schools, 2nd Edition, Heinemann, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, pp. 8–10, 20–21Google Scholar.

77 Howell, W.G. (2005). ‘Introduction’ in Howell, W.G. (ed.). Besieged: School Boards and the Future of Education Politics, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., p. 4Google Scholar.

78 In September 2009, for example, the six-member Yokohama City Board of Education had charge of education in a city of 3.67 million. All but two of Tokyo's 23 metropolitan boroughs (ku) had populations of more than 170,000, with nine having populations of more than 400,000. The population of Tokyo's non-metropolitan boroughs (shi) ranged from 56,000 to 575,000, with most over 100,000. Data are from the websites of Yokohama City and Tokyo Metropolitan Government: <www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/ex/stat/ and www.toukei.metro.tokyo.jp/jsuikei/js-index.htm>, [accessed 25 October 2010].

79 Suginami adopted the history textbook published by Fusōsha in 2005 and 2009.

80 Yamada, H. (2006). Zenjin ki o ue, kōnin ryō o tanoshimu: Suginami kaikaku techō, Gyōsei, TokyoGoogle Scholar.

81 See the election reports in Asahi Shinbun (central Tokyo edition), 26 April 1999, p. 17.

82 Adams, A.A., Murata, K. and Orito, Y. (2009). The Japanese Sense of Information Privacy, AI and Society, 24:4, p. 338CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Yamada, Zenjin ki o ue, pp. 150–162.

84 Kariya, T.et al. (2008). Suginami-kuritsu ‘Wada Chū’ no gakkō kaikaku, Iwanami bukkuretto No. 738, Tokyo.Google Scholar

85 According to Yamada, the Suginami Teacher Training Institute focuses especially on improving teachers’ abilities to deliver moral education and ‘education based on Japanese culture and tradition, so that one can feel proud of being Japanese’ (see Yamada, H., ‘Kyōiku e no netsui to kodomo e no aijō o mochi, tsune ni henka dekiru sensei o Suginami-ku wa yōsei shite iku’, Zaikai, 23 October 2007, p. 61).

86 Yamada resigned as mayor of Suginami at the end of May 2010, in order to run for the Upper House of the Japanese Parliament as leader of the newly formed Spirit of Japan Party (Nippon Sōshintō). However, he failed to be elected in the Upper House election of 11 July 2010, coming eighth in the Tokyo constituency with 3.3 per cent of the vote. See <www.yomiuri.co.jp/election/sangiin/2010/kaihyou/ye13.htm>, [accessed 16 August 2010]. The party's other candidates were also defeated.

87 Ōkura, who is the chair of the Board, contributed in November 2006 to the ‘Opinion Leader’ column of the organization Nippon Kyōiku Saisei Kikō, which is headed by well-known right-wing intellectual Yagi Hidetsugu and linked to the Kyōkasho Kaizen no Kai. See <http://www.kyoiku-saisei.jp/kol/kol29.html>, [accessed 16 August 2010].

88 This account is based on ‘Ōkura, Miyazaka “Tsukuru Kai” kyōiku-iin sainin dangai!’, Suginami kumin nyūsu gōgai, Mushozoku Kumin-ha, Suginami, Tokyo, 25 November 2008, and an interview with three members of the Kōmeito group on the Suginami borough assembly on 7 September 2010. The Kōmeitō representatives provided me with the formal statement issued by the group after the vote, which stated that the Kōmeitō members had absented themselves because they deplored the violation of the principle that politics should not intrude into education, and that they had then returned out of a sense of responsibility to enable assembly business to proceed. The statement further asserted that they disagreed with the Board's 2005 decision that the Tsukuru Kai textbook was the best one, but that given that the selection of textbooks was far from being the Board's only responsibility, they had voted for the reappointment of Ōkura and Miyazaka on the basis of the Board's overall record. In my interview with them on 14 October 2009, members of the Mushozoku Kumin-ha had suggested that the reason for the return of the Kōmeitō members was their governing alliance with the Liberal Democrats and Democratic Party members.

89 I am grateful to the members of the Mushozoku Kumin-ha interviewed for providing information about the assessments by schools, along with supporting documentation.

90 Kyōkasho Saitaku Seido no Minshūka o Motomeru Kanagawa no Kai, ‘2009 (Heisei 21)-nendo Yokohama-shi kyōkasho saitaku no mondaiten’, Yokohama, 4 August 2009; Hoshi, T. ‘Genba o wasureta kyōkasho saitaku no jittai’, Shūkan kinyōbi 770, 9 October 2009, pp. 23–25. As the minutes of the meeting show, the members of the Board did not discuss the report of the textbook adoption committee when making their decision (Yokohama-shi kyōiku iinkai teireikai kaigiroku, 4 August 2009: <http://www.city.yokohama.jp/me/kyoiku/soshiki/kaigiroku/21/0804.pdf>, [accessed 16 August 2010]).

91 Yokohama-shi kyōiku iinkai teireikai kaigiroku, 4 August 2009, p. 17.

92 Deputy Chair Kohama Itsuo has frequently contributed to right-wing or right-of-centre publications such as the Sankei Shinbun, Seiron and Voice, as stated on his website: <http://www.ittsy.net/academy/library/index.htm>, [accessed 16 August 2010]. In her blog of 15 May 2009, Kibi Kayo, Board member until June 2010, expresses her strong agreement with Fujiwara Masahiko and Sono Ayako (well-known right-wing writers) that the greatest evil in today's education is ‘child-centredness’, and bemoans what she considers excessive attachment to equality and opposition to competition within education. See: <http://ameblo.jp/jobia/page-3.html#main>, [accessed 16 August 2010].

93 After resigning as mayor of Yokohama in 2009, in April 2010 Nakada joined Yamada Hiroshi in forming the Spirit of Japan Party, of which he is the deputy leader. See: <www.nippon-soushin.jp>, [accessed 16 August 2010]. Both Nakada and Yamada are graduates of the Matsushita Seikei Juku (Matsushita Institute of Government and Management), two of whose main concerns are the reduction of taxes and the improvement of education (with an emphasis on nationalism and morality). See Kamisaka, F. (2008). Seiji keizai yori ningenryoku: Matsushita Seikei Juku wa nani o suru tokoro ka, PHP Kenkyūjo, Tokyo, pp. 47–81Google Scholar.

94 Kurosaki, Kyōiku gyōseigaku, p. 60.

95 In the United States, it has been argued that school-site councils have the potential to increase the openness of schools to the voices of the local community: see Bastian, A.et al. (1986). Choosing Equality: The Case for Democratic Schooling, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, pp. 140–144Google Scholar; and Wohlstetter, P. and Sebring, P.B. (2000). ‘School-based Management in the United States’ in Arnott, M.A. and Raab, C.D. (eds) The Governance of Schooling, Routledge, London, pp. 161–179Google Scholar. In England, school governing bodies with parental and community participation have been intended to play a similar role, though much evidence suggests that their success in doing so has been limited: see Vincent, C. and Martin, J. (2005). ‘Parents as Citizens: Making the Case’ in Crozier, G. and Reay, D. (eds) Activating Participation: Parents and Teachers Working Towards Partnership, Trentham Books, Stoke-on-Trent, pp. 113–135Google Scholar.

96 The dangers of domination by educational professionals or local elites are discussed in Bastian et al., Choosing Equality, pp. 136–144; and in Crozier, G. (2000). Parents and Schools: Partners or Protagonists?, Trentham Books, Stoke-on-Trent, pp. 117–125Google Scholar.

97 For example, the case for textbook selection by teachers, with no mention of parents or others, is made in a recent publication by a leading group of progressive textbook activists: Kodomo to Kyōkasho Zenkoku Netto 21 (2008). Sairyō no ‘Kyōkasho’ o Motomete, Tsunan Shuppan, Ichikawa, pp. 58–60.

98 Cody, C. (1990). ‘The Politics of Textbook Publishing, Adoption, and Use’ in Elliott, D.L. and Woodward, A. (eds) Textbooks and Schooling in the United States, National Society for the Study of Education, Chicago, pp. 127–145Google Scholar.

99 Publishers are required to indicate the page and line numbers where the textbook contains material that particularly helps to achieve each of the five aims. See Monbukagakushō Shotōchūtōkyōiku-kyoku, ‘Gimu kyōiku sho-gakkō kyōka-yō tosho kentei kijun: kyōka-yō tosho kentei kisoku’, Tokyo, April 2009, pp. 19, 59, 72.

100 See Cave, ‘The Inescapability of Politics?’, pp. 45–47; the text of the Law is available at: <http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/kihon/about/index.htm>, [accessed 1 November 2010]. The most controversial of the new goals is the fifth: ‘To nurture an attitude that respects tradition and culture, loves our country and the homeland that has fostered them, respects other countries, and contributes to the development of peace in international society’. (My translation—no English translation appears to be available on the Ministry of Education and Science website.)

101 Yamazumi, M. (1986). ‘Educational Democracy versus State Control’ in McCormack, G. and Sugimoto, Y. (eds) Democracy in Contemporary Japan, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York, pp. 90–113Google Scholar.

102 See Harris, Tobias (2010). The Politics of Japan's Prime Minister's Apology, East Asia Forum, 18 August. Available online at: <http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/08/18/the-politics-of-japans-prime-ministers-apology/>, [accessed 1 November 2010].

103 ‘Minshutō seisakushū INDEX 2009’ p. 23. Available online at: <http://www.dpj.or.jp/policy/manifesto/>, [accessed 2 November 2010].