Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Future of Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
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The International Baccalaureate in Japan: The Potential and Limitations of Global Citizenship Education
Prof. Dr. Mico Kevin Poonoosamy
ABSTRACT:
Japanese schools are currently facing the need to make the transition from a conventional content-driven, performance-oriented education model towards inquiry-oriented curricula with both local and international content, allowing for the flexible local and global application of knowledge. Since the 70s, however, there has been enormous resistance to implement educational reforms in that direction; they were perceived as incompatible with Japanese traditional ideals and values. In 2012, the Japanese Prime Minister’s Council on Promotion of Human Resource for Globalisation Development announced its intention to bring the International Baccalaureate (IB) into the wider Japanese school system by offering a dual language (Japanese and English) IB diploma, with the goal of implementing the IB in 200 schools in Japan by 2025. As of 2024, there are 115 schools offering the IB in Japan, 70 of which offer the Diploma Programme. This paper discusses the potential of the IB Diploma Programme in Japan to develop in students international mindedness and global citizenship. It critically explores the literature about citizenship and global citizenship through the lenses of identity theories. As the demarcation between line between citizenship and global citizenship has become elusive, the paper also investigates whether Japanese students can identify with the messages of modernity and cosmopolitanism, while remaining faithful to the beliefs and traditions of their sets of national and cultural referents. The paper concludes by recommending a contextualised implementation of the IB`s global citizenship education model that embraces the nuances and complexities of the Japanese educational values and beliefs.
keywords: International Baccalaureate, Global Citizenship Education, Japanese values and beliefs, globalisation