First published in 1986, this book proposes and illustrates a new approach to the comparative analysis of educational policy, based on anthropological and historical inquiry. It reviews the transitions of Western countries, Japan, and the People's Republic of China and in doing so investigates cultural ideas of human potential and how they inform social and economic goals of education. An analysis of the problems and emerging patterns in developing countries reveals how and why the meanings of life for the majority of their populations were still influenced by agrarian cultural models, even after the introduction of new educational and occupational careers. In place of universalistic economic models and homogenous modernization strategies, the authors propose that culture-specific meanings of education are determined by each country's particular transition from its agrarian past to its socio-economic conditions at the time. They argue that change in educational development has been as varied in ends, means and significance outcomes as the cultures in which it has occurred and point to the need for a deeper understanding of cultural contexts in which policy choices and development plans are made.

First published in 1986, this book proposes and illustrates a new approach to the comparative analysis of educational policy, based on anthropological and historical inquiry. It reviews the transitions of Western countries, Japan, and the People's Republic of China and in doing so investigates cultural ideas of human potential and how they inform social and economic goals of education. An analysis of the problems and emerging patterns in developing countries reveals how and why the meanings of life for the majority of their populations were still influenced by agrarian cultural models, even after the introduction of new educational and occupational careers. In place of universalistic economic models and homogenous modernization strategies, the authors propose that culture-specific meanings of education are determined by each country's particular transition from its agrarian past to its socio-economic conditions at the time. They argue that change in educational development has been as varied in ends, means and significance outcomes as the cultures in which it has occurred and point to the need for a deeper understanding of cultural contexts in which policy choices and development plans are made.

Assembling Japan focuses on Japan's modernization as a long-term process that is reliant on changing technology and that has led to the nation's full engagement with the global system. This process forms a complex field of tensions, full of interesting dynamisms and synergies that can be best understood through the book's methodology: anthropological analysis combined with historical contextualization. The approaches in this collection are manifold. Some chapters examine the themes of modernity, technology and Japan's global experience though popular culture, from reggae to football, from television to film. Other topics include coffee, travel, economics, cultural politics and technological innovation in the field of robotics. All of the contributions aim to show how these global interactions have occurred and continue to take place in twenty-first-century Japan.

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"White debunks the idealized image of the Japanese family held by many Americans as the exemplar of traditional family values--stable, dutiful, homogeneous, harmonious. This is also the 'official image' promoted by state, the media, and other institutions. Instead, White shows that families in Japan are as diverse, complex and contested as ours. She exposes the struggle of individuals and families as they negotiate the gap between the ideal and the realities of the post-industrial world of the twenty-first century."--Arlene Skolnick, author of "Embattled Paradise: The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty

"Japanese politicians have pronounced the declining birthrate a national crisis. White gives us an enlightening bolt of reality, showing how Japanese families are really coping with the enormous changes surrounding them. Creative new patterns in dealing with the elderly, shopping, young people living at home, and married couples who continue to have an average of two or more children, are explored in depth."--Ezra Vogel, Henry Ford II Research Professor at Harvard and author of "Is Japan Still Number One?

What does it mean to be an adolescent in today's world? Are teens from different cultures becoming increasingly similar as they become subject to the same media and pop influences? And how do these influences shape adolescents' perceptions of their lives and their futures? What roles do parents and teachers play in this process? In The Material Child, Merry White explores the world of the teenager in two significantly different modern societies, Japan and America. Drawing on the voices of adolescents themselves, she offers an in-depth look at the sexuality, school work, family relationships, leisure activities, friendships, and buying behavior of the young in both worlds. Through her analysis, White shows that although adolescents in the United States and Japan may share the same taste in pizza, pop music, and leather jackets, they remain very different from each other. The Japanese teen, for example, is sexually sophisticated, but dependent and childish by American standards. In contrast, our adolescents are more independent and worldly on some fronts, but surprisingly ignorant sexually. The author also explores Japanese fears for their teens versus the U.S. fear of their teens, showing how these contrasting anxieties developed and how they affect the behavior of the adolescents themselves. And White takes a new look at our youths' work ethics and our educational systems, arguing that we are neither a nation in decline as some have maintained nor is Japan necessarily a model to be emulated in these areas. Through the author's analysis, we see that it is a far more complicated issue than recent controversy suggests. In The Material Child, Merry White paints a fascinating and richportrait of youth today, and, in the process, gives us much needed insights into our own culture in relation to that of our most important partner and competitor.

This fascinating bookOCopart ethnography, part memoirOCotraces JapanOCOs vibrant caf(r) society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces JapanOCOs coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. WhiteOCOs book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the caf(r) in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality, dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in pub

This fascinating bookOCopart ethnography, part memoirOCotraces JapanOCOs vibrant caf(r) society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces JapanOCOs coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. WhiteOCOs book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the caf(r) in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality, dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in pub

What we learn when an anthropologist and a historian talk about food.   From the origins of agriculture to contemporary debates over culinary authenticity, Ways of Eating introduces readers to world food history and food anthropology. Through engaging stories and historical deep dives, Benjamin A. Wurgaft and Merry I. White offer new ways to understand food in relation to its natural and cultural histories and the social rules that shape our meals.   Wurgaft and White use vivid storytelling to bring food practices to life, weaving stories of Panamanian coffee growers, medieval women beer makers, and Japanese knife forgers. From the Venetian spice trade to the Columbian Exchange, from Roman garum to Vietnamese nớc chấm, Ways of Eating provides an absorbing account of world food history and anthropology. Migration, politics, and the dynamics of group identity all shape what we eat, and we can learn to trace these social forces from the plate to the kitchen, the factory, and the field.

From Simon & Schuster, The Japanese Educational Challenge is Merry White's fascinating exploration in the educational system of Japan. With this outstanding analysis of child-rearing, one of the most influential books on education in the 1980s, White has received major attention from federal policy makers, education experts, and the national media.