| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 日本語文學系 === 99 === As Qing Dynasty China lost the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became part of Japan for fifty years between 1895 and 1945. The past textbooks always describe Taiwanese people lived without dignity in that era because of the unequal treatment by the Japanese government. However, that is contrary to what I have learned from the older generation. Sixty years after the Japanese rule, they still cannot forget about the Japanese spirit. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to discuss what Japanese spirit is, how it has been formed and how it has influenced Taiwanese people.
As civic education is closely related to ethics education, the emphasis of this study is on ethics education during the period of Japanese rule. I first looked into the education system and examined the processes, methods and orientations of education. Then I analyzed how the contents of the textbooks corresponded to the education policies in the hope to see if the education guidelines and the contents of the textbook were changed according to the changes in government policies.
In addition to literature review, interviews with the older generation who used those textbooks are also incorporated in this study. I visited and interviewed the old people about their habits, ways of living and opinions on the schools they attended so as to understand the society under Japanese rule. I also tried to understand how their behavior had been influenced. Through field work and data collection, I was able to get a comprehensive grasp of the education back then and draw conclusions from further interview analysis and comparison between the education policies and the contents of the textbooks.
Most past studies tend to focus on the cultivation of Japanese spirit, which accounts for the highest percentage among the key components in textbooks. However, the results of my field work indicate that the Japanese spirit appreciated by the older generation is purely about ethical standards without any implication of Japanese nationalism.
Among the ethical standards, justice, a central tenet of Bushido, is mostly mentioned by the older generation. However, that is least discussed in the textbooks. Therefore, my conclusion is that the older generation’s thinking and behavior is not only influenced by the textbooks but also shaped by the teachers and the society.
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