Journal of East Asian Cultures

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2021): Community Building: Family and Nation, Tradition and Innovation
Articles

Education and ‘Civilization’: Westernisation through Centralisation and the Concept of Women’s Education in Late 19th Century Japan

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  • Ferenc Takó
Ferenc Takó
Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE)
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38144/TKT.2021.1.16

Published 2021-12-15

Keywords

  • Meiji transition,
  • Meiji era,
  • educational reform,
  • Westernisation,
  • women's education,
  • Meiroku Zasshi,
  • Meirokusha,
  • Mori Arinori
    • ...More
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How to Cite

Takó, F. (2021). Education and ‘Civilization’: Westernisation through Centralisation and the Concept of Women’s Education in Late 19th Century Japan. Journal of East Asian Cultures, 13(1), 255–268. https://doi.org/10.38144/TKT.2021.1.16

Copyright (c) 2021 the author(s)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Studies on the transformation of the Japanese educational system in the Meiji period usually emphasise the intensity of reforms and their comprehensive character. In the framework of the present study, I will briefly summarise the central aspects of this transformation, then turn to the examination of the tension manifested in Meiji period discourses on education. This is a tension that emerges when one compares the interpretation of the Meiji era as the introduction of ‘enlightened’ Western liberalism with the ideology of centralised reform, far from being as liberal as reported by Meiji period intellectuals themselves. I draw attention to this tension as manifested in the purposes of Meiji educational reforms, then I turn to the analysis of the education of women as a central question in terms of the interpretation of the family in Meiji Japan. The analysis is based on the writings of the leading intellectuals of the time, basically their essays published in the famous journal of the 1870s, Meiroku Zasshi 明六雑誌.

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