Establishing Religion through Textbooks: Religions in Japan’s “Ethics” Program
Textbook Gods - Genre, Text and Teaching Religious Studies - Bengt-Ove Andreassen
Satoko Fujiwara
Executive Editor [+ ]
University of Tokyo
Satoko Fujiwara is Professor of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tokyo. She has been serving as Secretary General of the International Association for the History of Religions since 2020. Her main focus is on theories in the study of religion with latest publications on the global history of the discipline and the IAHR. She has also published articles on how religions have been described in public school education.
Description
In this chapter I will illustrate how Japanese textbooks are “establishing religion” by imposing demarcations and rankings among religions. Remarkably, the religion they are establishing is not State Shinto. The factors shaping the establishment of religion are quite complex and cannot be reduced to the single factor of the legacy of State Shinto. I will sort out pedagogical, ideological and business factors.