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Suzuki Shn’ichi

Shin'ichi Suzuki was born on January 1, 1933, at Chanchung in China (Manchuria). Coming back to Japan in 1946, he went to a local secondary school in the District of Fukushima. The High School is in Hobara, a bit far away from the regions attacked by Tsunami in March 2011. Graduating from Waseda University (a private university in Tokyo) with a BA (1958) and an MA (1960) in Education, he visited the Institute of Education University of London (1971-72), where he met Brian Holmes and Edmund King. Since then, he has visited England many times to collect historical sources on "School Boards" and materials relating to R. H. Tawney. At present, he is reviewing educational policies in the United Kingdom.

 

Since the 1984 WCCES in Paris, he has been working with several members of CESE: the late Professor Brian Holmes (UK), Professor Wolfgang Mitter (Germany), Professor Juergen Schriewer (Germany), Professor Thyge Winther-Jensen (Denmark), Professor Miguel Pereyra (Spain), Professor Zoya Marikova (Russia), Professor Kadria Salymova, Professor Ruth Hayhoe (Canada), Professor Vandra Masemann, Professor Gerald Reed (USA), and, a little later, Professor Robert Cowen and Professor David Phillips.

 

He joined the JUSTEC (Japan-US Teacher Education Consortia), which Professor Kobayashi Tetsuya (Kyoto University) convened. Collaborative works of various types, based on the network, culminated to three international symposia at Waseda University: "Modernization and Educational Reform" (1993), "Shifts in Learning Space and Teacher Education" (2000), and "Changing Literacy-Space and Comparative Education" (2003). The symposia were supported by Waseda University and other public organizations like JSPS (Japan Society for Promotion of Science), UN University (Tokyo), The Tokyo Club (the Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), The Ministry of Education and other public Funds. The 1995 Conference at Waseda University was the Inaugural Symposium for the Asian Comparative Education Society, which he convened along with Japanese and Korean colleagues.

 

He had organized a series of panels or workshops on "modernization and educational reforms" and "worlds of childhood" at the conferences of WCCES held in Sydney, Cape Town, Chongju and Havana. He also worked as the international convener to the WCCES in Sarajevo.

 

In Japan he established the UK-Japan Education Forum in 1992 and contributed to developing mutual collaborations between British scholars and Japanese researchers. In collaboration with the British Council, he invited professors of education from the British universities to Japan. The Forum grew to become the Academic Society for British Education in Japan. In 1996 he introduced the British Studies Institute at Waseda with the financial support of the British Council in Tokyo.

 

In 1991, he also managed to organize, with his Japanese colleagues and Chinese friends, the China-Japan Forum for Educational Exchange. After serving as the Secretary-General for five years, he worked as a member of the Board and was elected as a Representative (2004-2009). He was invited as a Councilor, in 1996, to the Comparative Education Division of the Chinese Education Society. He was made Professor Emeritus at the Chinese Central Institute of Educational Research in Beijing. He has been serving as visiting professor at various normal universities inChina.

 

He completed his PhD (Education) in 1985 (Ashiya University).

 

Since 1961 he has being working in the School of Education at Waseda University; as Academic Assistant (1961), Senior Lecturer (1964), Associate Professor (1971), Professor (1979), and Professor Emeritus (2003). He was awarded several prizes including the Prize for Cross Cultural and International Understanding, De La Salle University, Manila, in 1987, and the Prize for International Understanding: Modernization and Educational Reforms in 1993.

 

His major academic interests cover not only the field of comparative education but also the field of teacher education. He served for more than ten years as a member of the Advisory Council on Teacher Education (Ministry of Education, Japan). When the Japanese Association of Private Universities for Teacher Education became an independent academic association in 1980, he took the position of the Secretary-General of the Association. For 15 years he helped develop the Japanese teacher education system in the private sector. He is the foundation member of the Japanese Society of Teacher Education. The Advanced Institute for Teacher Education at Waseda was launched in 2002 and he is the Councilor of the Institute.

 

He has published books (35), articles (206), and reviews essays (62), focusing on (i) History of Education and Educational Thought in the UK; (ii) Comprehensive School Movement in England; (iii) Methodologies in Comparative Education; (iv) Teacher Education; and (v) Educational Reforms and Policies (nationally and internationally). Most of the works are in Japanese. Some are available in English and Chinese.

 

His major works in English are:

  • Teacher education: Asian perspectives, Routledge, London, co-edited with E. Howe, 2008.
  • Shifts in education space and teacher education, Proceedings, International Symposium held at Waseda University, Waseda University Press, Tokyo, 2000.
  • Issues of dichotomy in cultural dialogues: implications to comparative studies in education, in Proceedings of the fourth world-wide forum for comparative education, Beijing Normal University, 2011.
  • Transforming popular consciousness through the sacralisation of Western schools: the Meiji Schoolhouse and Tenno Worship, Comparativ, Vol. 19, No.2 /3, edited by J. Schriewer, Leipziger Universitaet Verlarg, Germany, co-authored with Y. Kazuhiko, 2010, pp. 44-77.
  • Toward learning beyond that nation-state: where and how?—conflicting paradigms of nationalism: East Asia and Europe, in Changing knowledge and education, edited by M. Pereyra, Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.m., 2008, pp.85-103.
  • Toward holistic knowledge-base for learning facilitators: conflict between the global and the local, in Identity, education and citizenship—multiple interrelations, edited by T. Winther-Jensen and J. Sproges, Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.m., 2006.
  • Higher education: Administrative reform in Japan, in Comparison in Higher Education Administration, edited by Zhang Xi-mei, Higher Education Publisher, Beijing, 2005, pp. 149-173.
  • Issues of poli-ethnic, multicultural and multinational education—ubiquitous sphere of learning and its impacts upon schooling, in Proceedings of the 4th comparative education society of Asia, edited by M. Gaffar, Indonesia University of Education, Bandung, 2005, pp. 467-489.
  • An issue on world peace: from legal provision to education—visible law and invisible law: towards new geo-bodies and bodies educational, International Journal for World Peace, Part 1 & 2, PWPA, Tokyo, No.160, 2003, pp.58-75.
  • Roles of comparative education revisited: tasks and prospects, Policy Future in Education, Vol. 1, No. 2, Symposium Books, Oxford, 2003, pp. 234-247.
  • Policies and new schemes of teacher education and training: some Japanese issues, in Teacher Education, The Yearbook of Education 2000, edited by Elwyn Thomas, Kogan Page, London, 2002, pp. 91-98.
  • Teacher education reform in Japan, in Proceedings of the 3rd APED Conference on Teacher education in Asia Pacific Region: current and future issues, Seoul, 2002, pp. 121-137.
  • New reality and new idea of childhood in global society, in Proceedings of the Forum of Democratic Citizenship Education in the Asia-Pacific Region on Redefining the Democratic Citizenship Education in the Global Society, Korea Educational Development Education Institute, Seoul, 2001, pp. 145-158.
  • Educational partnership between public and private sectors: some Japanese cases, Proceedings, Public-Private Partnership in Education, Asia Development Bank Institute, 2000, pp. 1-9.
  • State policy on innovation for education: implications and tasks for Japan, in Education and change in the Pacific Rim—meeting the challenges, edited by K. Sullivan, Oxford Series in Comparative Education, Triangle Books, Oxford, 1998, pp. 225-240.
  • Shifts in political regimes and the geo-political reorganization of educational space: implications for comparative education, in Vergleichende Erziehunswissenschaft: Festschrift fuer Wolfang Mitter zum 70 Geburstag, edited by Botho-von Kopp et al., Beohlau Verlag, Boehlau, Band I, 1997, pp. 143-151.
  • Europe: illumination or illusion?—lessons from comparative education (Lauwerys Memorial Lecture), in Challenges to European education-cultural values, national identities, and global responsibilities, edited by Thyge Winther-Jensen, Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.m., 1996, pp. 447-468.
  • Confucianism and modernization: educational reforms and democratization—Japanese cases before 1945, Proceedings, Universal and Particular of Confucianism, The Academy of Korean Studies, Seoul, 1994, pp.495-511.
  • State policy on innovation of school education—implementation and the tasks: the Japanese case-policy choice in 1980s, Proceedings of 25th Anniversary of Korean Comparative Education Society on Educational Reform, Seoul, 1993, pp.137-146.
  • Recruitment and employment of academic staff: Japanese case, Proceedings of the KCUI International Seminar on Recruitment and Employment of Academic Staff, KCUI, Seoul, 1990, pp. 3-14.
  • What kind of geo-bodies and what kinds of research units for comparative education?, Research Bulletin, No. 13, Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, 2002, pp. 47-55.
  • Idiomatology or grammatology, Research Bulletin, No. 8, Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, Tokyo, pp.29-39.
  • Comparative research on European integration and structural changes in public education—common textbooks: a note, Annual Report, Waseda University & European Center, Bonn, 1997, pp.43-45.
  • In search for the new units for comparative studies in education, Research Bulletin, No. 7, Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, Tokyo, 1998, pp. 13-22.
  • Beyond monadic image of man: critical discourses on the methodological individualism as an ideology—paradigm shift and comparative education, Research Bulletin, No. 6, Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, Tokyo, 1995, pp. 13-23.
  • Colour symbolism and its implications for comparative education, Research Bulletin, No. 4, Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, 1993, pp. 1-15.
  • Studies of the notion of Space in comparative education—meta-methodological analysis: lessons from the endogenous development, Annual Academic Reports, No. 40, Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, Tokyo, pp. 1-11.
  • Teacher education innovation at private university—an experiment at Waseda University, Studia Institutione, No. 3, The Japanese Association of Private Universities for Teacher Education, Tokyo, 1991, pp. 123-146.
  • Crisis and methodology in comparative education: conceptual framework of time and its issue, Annual Academic Reports, No. 36, Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, Tokyo, 1985, pp. 79-97.
  • The London school—critical studies of methodologies in comparative education: the problem approach reconsidered, Academic Bulletin, No. 32, The Graduate School of Literature, Waseda University, Tokyo, 1984, pp. 67-83.