{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.015262110152621102, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.528138528138528, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Flowers in the cracks: war, peace and Japan’s education system

A major role of education is to socialise individuals into being responsible and productive citizens. It is aimed at preparing people for the workforce and for participating in the public life of the nation. Educational systems are complex bureaucracies based on particular educational and social theories and philosophies. This paper is concerned with one particular system, the Japanese education system, which emerged from many conflicting ideologies. Polar extremes of liberal and ultra-nationalism orientations were disseminated in its historical course and it remains in the early twenty-first century a system that retains many tensions. This paper seeks to elucidate these tensions while demonstrating that peace outcomes can still be achieved. It begins with three collected narratives of peace work and peace education work within a formally militaristic institution, Ritsumeikan University. Together with Kogakukan University in Mei and Kokushikan University in Tokyo Ritsumeikan was threatened with closure by General Douglas MacArthur for activities during the Second World War. Ritsumeikan has striven to develop a peace role post-war. By employing these experiential narratives together with a brief study of Ritsumeikan itself the paper demonstrates positive peace outcomes within an oft-perceived ‘rigid’ education system: outcomes for promoting peaceful action found both at the institutional level and at the personal level.