Schooling Selves by Peter Cave examines the implementation of curricular reforms in junior high schools in Japan. It is the fi rst and only in-depth anthropological work that studies junior high schools in Japan over a critical period of a dozen years and leaves us much to ponder on the complex notions of autonomy and individualization from a comparative educational and philosophical perspective. It demonstrates how school education is deeply related to ideas of selfhood as well as to issues of equity, democracy, and social change. The junior high curriculum reform in question was published in 1998 and implemented in 2002. The revisions were a culmination of debates continuing from the 1980s and signify the national refl exivity that emerged after rapid modernization. The reforms aimed on the one hand to promote sociality and cooperation (a pull toward traditional values) and, on the other hand, to promote autonomous learning and to develop “creative” people who could think for themselves, rather than simply acquire existing knowledge imported from the West. With the implementation of the reforms, a new curricular area called “integrated studies” was introduced; there was a signifi cant reduction in the number of class hours for traditional subjects; and elective subjects were introduced. The reforms received criticism and were branded a failure when international testing scores uncovered a national decline in academic standards. In 2008 conventional academic subjects were increased and electives were abolished. Cave’s work is based on fi eldwork at two junior high schools located in the Kinki district of Japan. The fi eldwork includes one year of participant observation in the late 1990s at Tachibana Junior High School and participant observation at both Tachibana and Yoneda Junior High Schools in the 2000s after the curricular reforms were published. This diachronic perspective allows for insight into what changed and what did not as a result of the 1998 reforms. The account reveals, fundamentally, that there was less change on the ground level than one might expect from the outside. The chapters forming the body of the book are richly ethnographic and focus on specifi c rituals and traditions within the school’s activities (the cultural festival, the sports day, and the choral contest), group formations and their relations (the classroom and the extracurricular club), textual

中文翻译：

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学校教育自我：日本初中教育的自主、相互依存和改革彼得凯夫

Peter Cave 的 Schooling Self 考察了日本初中课程改革的实施情况。这是第一部也是唯一一部深入研究日本初中十几年关键时期的人类学作品，让我们从比较教育和哲学的角度思考自主和个性化的复杂概念。它展示了学校教育如何与自我观念以及公平、民主和社会变革问题密切相关。所讨论的初中课程改革于 1998 年公布并于 2002 年实施。这些修订是 1980 年代持续辩论的高潮，标志着快速现代化后出现的国家反思性。改革一方面旨在促进社会性和合作（对传统价值观的拉动），另一方面旨在促进自主学习和培养能够独立思考的“有创造力的”人，而不是简单地获取现有的知识。来自西方。随着改革的实施，引入了一个名为“综合研究”的新课程领域；传统科目的课时数显着减少；并引入了选修科目。当国际考试分数发现全国学术标准下降时，改革受到批评并被称为失败。2008年增加了常规学科，取消了选修课。Cave 的作品基于日本近畿地区两所初中的实地工作。现场工作包括 1990 年代后期在立花中学进行的一年参与观察，以及在课程改革公布后的 2000 年代在立花中学和米田中学进行的参与观察。这种历时性的观点可以洞察 1998 年改革的结果是什么发生了变化，什么没有发生。从根本上说，该帐户显示，地面上的变化比人们从外部预期的要少。构成本书主体的章节内容丰富，重点关注学校活动（文化节、运动会和合唱比赛）中的特定仪式和传统，