The issue of how Japanese society operates, and in particular why it has `succeeded', has generated a wide variety of explanatory models, including the Confucian ethic, classlessness, group consciousness, and `uniqueness' in areas as diverse as body images and language patterns.In Ideology and Practice in Modern Japan the contributors examine these models and the ways in which they have sometimes been used to create a sense of `Japaneseness', that obscures the fact that Japan is actually an extremely complex and heterogenous society. In particular, `practice' at the micro-level of society is explored to illuminate or express a broader ideology. The contributors investigate a wide variety of subjects - from attitudes to death to the role of education, from film making to gender segregation - to see what can be said about the phenomenon in particular, what it tells us about Japan in general, and what conclusions can be drawn for our understanding of society in the broadest sense.
Author(s): Roger Goodman
Edition: 1
Year: 1992
Language: English
Pages: 256
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of contributors......Page 8
A note to the reader......Page 10
General Editor's preface......Page 12
Acknowledgements......Page 14
Map of Japan......Page 15
Ideology and practice in Japan: Towards a theoretical approach......Page 16
Symbols of nationalism and Nihonjinron......Page 41
Rivers in Tokyo: A mesological glimpse......Page 62
Individualism and individuality: Entry into a social world......Page 70
When blossoms fall: Japanese attitudes towards death and the otherworld: opinion polls 1953 87......Page 87
From farm to urban middle class: A case study of the role of education in the process of social mobility......Page 116
Japanese educational expansion: Quality or equality......Page 131
A beacon for the twenty-first century: Confucianism after the Tokugawa era in Japan......Page 145
NHK comes to Kuzaki: Ideology, mythology and documentary film-making......Page 168
The discourse on Japan in the German press: Images of economic competition......Page 186
Confucianism and gender segregation in Japan and Korea......Page 211
Self-presentation and performance in the yakuza way of life: Fieldwork with a Japanese underworld group......Page 225
Index......Page 250
