Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan

by John Singleton (Editor)

Overview

Likely places of learning in Japan include folkcraft village pottery workshops, the clubhouses of female shellfish divers, traditional theaters, and the neighborhood public bath. The education of potters, divers, actors, and other novices generates identity within their specific communities of practice. In this volume, a collection of nineteen case studies of situated learning in such likely places, the contributors take apprenticeship as a fundamental model of experiential education in authentic arenas of cultural practice. Together, the essays demonstrate a rich variety of Japanese pedagogical arrangements and learning patterns, both historical and contemporary. All cases respond to the call for a new focus on "situated learning", an educational anthropology of the social relations and meanings of educational process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521480123
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/13/1998
Series:	Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

List of contributors; Series foreword; Preface; Introduction: situated learning in Japan: our educational analysis John Singleton; Part I. Actors, Artists and Calligraphers: Learning in the Traditional Arts: 1. Transmitting tradition by the rules: an anthropological interpretation of the iemoto system Robert J. Smith; 2. The search for mastery never ceases: Zeami's classic treatises on transmitting the traditions of the no theatre J. Thomas Rimer; 3. Education in the Kano school in nineteenth-century Japan: questions about the copybook method Brenda G. Jordan; 4. Seven characteristics of a traditional Japanese approach to learning Gary DeCoker; 5. Why was everyone laughing at me? Roles of passage for the kyogen child Jonah Salz; Part II. Potters, Weavers, Mechanics, Doctors and Violinists: Learning in Artisanal Apprenticeship: 6. Learning to be an apprentice Bill Haase; 7. Craft and art education in Mashiko pottery workshops John Singleton; 8. Craft and regulatory learning in a neighborhood garage Kathryn Ellen Madono; 9. Developing character in music teachers: a Suzuki approach Sarah Hersh and Lois Peak; 10. Becoming a master physician Susan O. Long; 11. Weaving the future from the heart of tradition: learning in leisure activities Millie Creighton; Part III. Work and Community Socialization: Diversity in Learning Arrangements: 12. Moneyed knowledge: how women become commercial shellfish divers Jacquetta F. Hill and David W. Plath; 13. The self-taught bureaucrat: Takahashi Koreikiyo and economic policy during the Great Depression Richard J. Smethurst; 14. Learning at the public bathhouse Scott Clark; 15. Growing up through matsuri: children's establishment of self and community identities in festival participation Saburo Morita; Part IV. Appropriations of Cultural Practice: 16. Learning to swing: Oh Sadaharu and the pedagogy and practice of Japanese baseball William W. Kelly; 17. Good old boy into alcoholic: Danshukai and learning a new drinking role in Japan Stephen R. Smith; 18. Did an ox wander by here recently?: Learning Americanized Zen Maureen W. McClure; 19. Learning to be learners: Americans working for a Japanese boss Jill Kleinberg; Epilogue: Calluses: when culture gets under your skin David W. Plath; Selected glossary; General bibliography; Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This book makes several kinds of contributions...[and] is likely to fuel theoretical advances regarding the nature of situational learning." Catherine Lewis, Journal of Japanese Studies

"...offer an interesting contrast, not only in disciplinary perspective, but also in the way in which these descriptions of learning are painted on quite different cultural backdrops. These two books, carefully studied, can serve to broaden our view of the possibilities. I recommend them for that purpose." Teaching and Learning Medicine

Editorial Reviews

"This book makes several kinds of contributions...[and] is likely to fuel theoretical advances regarding the nature of situational learning." Catherine Lewis, Journal of Japanese Studies

"...offer an interesting contrast, not only in disciplinary perspective, but also in the way in which these descriptions of learning are painted on quite different cultural backdrops. These two books, carefully studied, can serve to broaden our view of the possibilities. I recommend them for that purpose." Teaching and Learning Medicine

From the Publisher