Does it exist or not? How does it exist if it doesn’t exist? An essay on gifted education in Japan

Abstract

This essay introduces Japan as a very competitive and equalist society at the same time – at least in the field of formal main stream education. Even the expression itself („gifted”) could be hardly find in Japanese. Because of a number of traditional cultural values and contemporary ideologies in education, many educational policy makers and other members of the society – teachers, students, parents and others – are ambivalent with gifted education. Anyway there is a number of programs in Japanese education which we can take as programs for the gifted students. This article introduces and analises the conceptual background and everyday practice of Japanese gifted education.