Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, 1871-1944 ─ Educational Philosophy in Context

This edited volume focuses on the life and work of Makiguchi Tsunesaburo (1871-1944), a Japanese elementary schoolteacher, principal, educational philosopher, author, activist, and Buddhist war resister who has emerged as an important figure in international education. Makiguchi is the progenitor of value-creating (soka) pedagogy that informs practice in the Soka schools network, which includes two universities (in Japan and the U.S.), a women's college (Japan), two secondary schools (Japan), three elementary schools (Brazil and Japan), and six Kindergartens (Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore), as well as one of Japan's largest correspondence education programs. In addition, thousands of educators worldwide incorporate Makiguchi's ideas in their own curriculum and instruction, and Brazil has instituted the Makiguchi in Action Project, which has provided literacy training and teacher development for nearly a million people. This edited volume is the first in the Anglophone literature to theoretically and empirically examine the nature and global application of Makiguchi's influential educational ideas.

The book was originally published as a special issue of American Educational Studies.

Jason Goulah is Assistant Professor and Director of Bilingual-Bicultural Education and Director of World Languages Education at DePaul University, USA. His research interests include transformative learning approaches to second and foreign language education, Makiguchi and Ikeda studies in education, and language, culture, identity and multiple literacies. His research has appeared in numerous journals and edited volumes. He was awarded the 2009 Stephen A Freeman Award from the Northeast Conference of Teachers of Foreign Languages.

Andrew Gebert was born in 1958 and currently lives in Tokyo, Japan, where he works as a translator and researcher.