Educational Dialogue between “East” and “West” in the Global Era

Abstract

This special issue focuses on the question of how to grasp and reconfigure the educational dialogue between “East” and “West” in the age of globalization. Twenty-first century education has accelerated the formation of global academic skills, emphasizing the knowledge-based society and the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competence that are demanded in globalized settings, as well as the construction of globally standardized curricula and evaluation frameworks, which have promoted innovation in education. While globalization has promoted the standardization of schools, learning, and curricula, it has also led to criticism of the failure to take into account the diversity of education rooted in the differences in culture, history, and traditions of various countries and regions, including the East and the West. In addition, postcolonial issues and interest in the multicultural society have led to active study on ways to question and problematize the old framework of “East” and “West” itself. The educational dialogue between “East” and “West” in the global era is an ongoing issue. One approach to a deeper understanding and study of this topic is to reexamine the ideas, philosophy, and history of education. In the history of education and educational philosophy, how have the “East” and the “West” been understood in terms of problematic constructs, and specifically, how can they be described from the perspective of contrasts, exchanges, and intersections? There is nothing new about the approach of understanding the world through the framework of “East” and “West,” and it is not without its own problems. Elsewhere, it is noteworthy that in today’s globalized world, attention is being drawn to the meaning and richness of Japanese and other Eastern forms of education, which cannot necessarily be understood in their entirety through the framework of Western education alone. East Asia has long seen the exchange of traditional thought and culture, and the sharing of values, including Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. In this context, it is once again important to clarify how East Asian countries have encountered, accepted, and reconstructed Western concepts of freedom, human rights, justice, care, democracy, publicness, and civil society, and what differences in educational and human perspectives underlie these concepts. Another important approach is to rethink dialogue in the dimensions of educational practices and policies. There is a concern that the advance of globalization may, if anything, lead Educational Dialogue between “East” and “West” in the Global Era