Iida, Nagano Stimulus Paper

Quiet Dynamism of Local Communities -­ Restructuring of Grassroots Municipalities and Lifelong Learning in Japan...

The lifelong-learning policy and its practice in Japan are now at a turning point. Japan introduced the concept of “lifelong education” in its policy in the beginning of the 1970s. It was introduced essentially, on the one hand, as a concept of lifelong learning promoted by UNESCO and, on the other hand, as a theory of learning society based on recurrent education advocated by OECD. Later, as the concept of lifelong learning was introduced again from UNESCO in the 1980s and the learning organization theory in the United States and other countries was presented, lifelong learning became part of the government’s policies.

Since before the introduction of lifelong learning, however, Japan had been practicing social education as learning activities of its adult and community residents. This social education was promoted by the central and local governments as policy and administrative services. The term “social education” as a policy or administrative term first appeared in 1924, but social education per se had been practiced as a policy since the 1880s under the name of “popular education.” Counting the years from that period, we can say that social education and lifelong learning in Japan as administrative policy and practice have a history of more than 130 years.

In Japan, this lifelong learning is now in a critical transition. The transition is caused by the structural changes of Japanese society. The structural changes are caused by changes in demographic structure due to its declining birth rate and aging population, and by changes in the economic structure from the maturation and shrinking of the domestic market. With globalization and the shift toward the service industries, these changes in the economic structure are causing changes in employment structure, and all of those changes are diversifying and decentralizing people’s senses of values. As a result, in Japan, the government is shifting gears from the traditional political and administrative structure aimed at centralized integration of the so-­-called modern industrial society to a decentralized political and administrative structure assuming the decentralization and diversification of society. This new political and administrative structure seeks diversification and decentralization, but, at the same time, it promotes a new integration of society and encourages people to voluntarily involve themselves in local government and stabilize their lifestyles. What becomes the political focus there is lifelong learning.

The purpose of this paper is to (1) clarify the role of lifelong learning assigned by government policy in Japanese society, which is facing critical structural change, diversification and decentralization; (2) examine how lifelong learning is actually practiced to function effectively in people’s lives; and (3) examine how local communities, which underlie the social structure of Japan on the frontline of people’s lives, are formed through residents’ learning activities. We learn through this examination that, in the local community, the learning activities of residents are bringing a quiet dynamism to community management.

The full text of this paper follows...