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- Title
Children as Little Angels in Japanese Stories for Teachers: The Pedagogical Meaning of a Literary Trope.
- Authors
Van Lommel, Pieter
- Abstract
During the 1890s and 1900s, Japanese primary education expanded at an unprecedented scale with the number of teachers growing from a mere 60,000 (1892) to 160,000 (1912). This mass of teachers formed a new readership and numerous educational periodicals were published specifically for them, not only providing educational philosophy and pedagogical instruction, but also literature. The short stories printed in many of these periodicals often depicted school children as little angels, pure and innocent, loving the teacher and in need of his guidance. These one-sided portrayals of children have been characterized as typical of the simple, moralistic nature of the short stories, which aimed at beautifying and idealizing the teaching profession. However, careful observation reveals significant variation between different stories and periodicals regarding the little angels' function and meaning in the texts. This paper focuses on the portrayal of children in literary texts published in the periodical Kyōikukai in the first half of 1900s. By examining the pedagogical meaning underlying the depictions of children, it lays bare the more complex character of some of the stories, attesting to the multifaceted nature of both the teachers and their reading patterns.
- Subjects
JAPAN; JAPANESE literature; MEIJI Period, Japan, 1868-1912; ELEMENTARY school teachers; EDUCATION periodicals; PRIMARY education; EDUCATION; HISTORY
- Publication
Japan Studies Association Journal, 2017, Vol 15, p107
- ISSN
1530-3527
- Publication type
Article