Japanese higher education as myth / Brian J. McVeigh.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-294) and index.

Print version record.

Annotation In this dismantling of the myth of Japanese quality education, Brian J. McVeigh investigates what happens when state and corporate forces monopolize the purpose of education, and schooling becomes testing for employment, not learning. The book uses Japanese students' opinions and voices, not just statistics and official reports, to describe the problems and issues concerning higher education in Japan today. McVeigh (who has taught in Japan's higher education system for over eight years) shows that with so much weight given to examinations, students end up simulating much of their schooling. Grades reflect administrative expediency rather than academic achievement; class attendence substitutes for actual learning; and reforms attempts reenforce the problems. Thus although Japan's higher education system appears to successfully graduate students every year, it is actually a system of institutionalized mendacity that reproduces the less enviable traits of national statism.

Introduction: the Potëmkin factor -- Myths, mendacity, and methodology -- State, nation, capital, and examinations: the shattering of knowledge -- Gazing and guiding: Japan's educatio-examination regime -- Schooling for science: the sociopsychology of student apathy -- Japanese higher education as simulated schooling -- Self-orientalism through occidentalism: how "english" and"foreigners" nationalize Japanese students -- "Playing dumb": students who pretend not to know -- Lessons learned in higher education -- The price of simulated schooling and "reform."

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