The Development of Educational Studies in Japan after World War II: An Analysis of Journals in Its Subfields

This study is the first attempt to analyze the articles in several journals, in order to disclose the development of academic educational studies in Japan. In this paper, my examination was not limited to one journal, but covered six education journals listed below and all their issues until 2005. I chose, from a methodological viewpoint, four journals that have been most important for the philosophical, historical, sociological and comparative research on education and, from thematic viewpoints, two celebrated Japanese journals for the study of educational method and that of educational administration. The development of educational studies shown in the articles of the journals reviewed was diverse and complex. On the one hand, the home institutions of the authors were not only traditional research universities, but also other types of universities. On the other hand, the former institutions are still the center of training for (graduate) students who make up the largest number of authors of the articles today. The analyzed six journals had such heterogeneous character as to have oriented themselves to different areas (theory, school, society [public]) to a varied extent. The articles targeted several historical periods and countries/areas and their distribution of these factors was relatively balanced. Although the studies were based, methodologically, primarily on the analysis of certain kinds of text, in other words on the philosophical method, the object of the studies was mostly not the ideas of certain persons. The articles referred, topically, to a certain philosopher or education researcher/theorist less often than to secondary/higher education. Furthermore, the research methods, objects and topics of the articles in one journal were far from homogeneous. (Contains 11 figures, 15 tables, and 3 notes.)