Жапондық "білімді ана" феномені

Japanese pejorative term

Kyōiku mama (教育ママ) is a Japanese pejorative term which translates literally as "education mother". The kyōiku mama is a stereotyped figure in modern Japanese society portrayed as a mother who relentlessly drives her child to study, to the detriment of the child's social and physical development, and emotional well being. The kyōiku mama is one of the best known and least liked pop culture figures in contemporary Japan. The kyōiku mama is analogous to American stereotypes such as the stage mother who forces her child to achieve show business success in Hollywood, the stereotypical Chinese tiger mother who takes an enormous amount of effort to direct much of her maternal influence towards developing their children's educational and intellectual achievement, and the stereotypical Jewish mother's drive for her children to succeed academically and professionally, resulting in a push for perfection and a continual dissatisfaction with anything less or the critical, self sacrificing mother who coerces her child into medical school or law school. The stereotype is that a kyōiku mama is feared by her children, blamed by the press for school phobias and youth suicides, and envied and resented by the mothers of children who study less and fare less well on exams.

In the early 1960s, part time women's labor began at a few major corporations in Japan and was adopted by other companies within a decade. It became popular among married women in the 1970s and even more so by 1985. Women's return to the workplace is often explained two fold: by financial demands to complement the family budget, and by psychological demands to relate themselves to society. Child rearing women in the 1960s inspired the media to produce the idiom kyōiku mama, which referred to "the domestic counterpart of sararii man" (salaryman). This encompassed a major responsibility to "rear children, especially the males, to successfully pass the competitive tests needed to enter high school and college". No such idiom emerged that deemed men "education papas"; it was "mamas" who became a social phenomenon.

The education system and larger political economy it serves influence why mothers become obsessed with children's education. Social prejudices influence media stereotypes of kyōiku mamas that blame women rather than political conditions. Getting a good, steady job in the future very much depends on getting into a good university, which depends on attaining high scores on the national university exams in a student's last year of high school. Ordinary people, including mothers, feel powerless to change this system. As a result, there is a clear map pointing students to the right nursery school that leads to the right kindergarten, the best elementary school, junior high school, and high school, all of which may be associated with prestigious universities. To ensure these results, some parents have been known to commit unethical or illegal acts to promote their child's success. In one case, a restaurant owner paid a $95,000 bribe in an attempt to get his child enrolled in Aoyama Gakuin, a prestigious kindergarten for children who are three or four years old. Because of the kindergarten's affiliation with an elite university, parents are willing to go to extreme lengths to get their children enrolled. Aoyama Gakuin has room for 40 new students a year. Every year, it receives more than 2000 hopeful applicants. The tests the potential students take are known to be extremely difficult. The issue is compounded by the notion that most important job positions in business and government are held by graduates of the University of Tokyo. In addition, which university a student attends is believed to affect one's choices for a future spouse. Because a child's life appears to be determined by what schools he or she attends, many mothers take extraordinary measures to get children into good schools.

The older generation of Japanese grew up in larger households than those normally found in Japan today. Back then, ikuji (育児, "child raising") included a larger surrounding environment, made up of more relatives and extended family, and more children: siblings and cousins. Children who grew up in that time learned responsibilities through the care of younger siblings. These children relied on themselves in the outside world through much of their childhood lives. In those days, child raising was more of a private matter, handled only by the child's surrounding family. In contemporary Japan, couples are having fewer children and teaching the children self reliance. This involves consulting child raising professionals. This new need in professional advice is commonly termed "child raising neurosis" by professionals. Reliance on professionals has largely created a new generation of young mothers with low self confidence in their child raising abilities. Indeed, most Japanese mothers today grew up in smaller families with only one or two children. Their mothers provided them with everything they needed and gave them little to no responsibilities involving their siblings. Thus, that generation of children has grown up to become mothers who have no idea how to raise their children. Mothers pressure children because they are held strongly accountable for their children's actions. It is very hard to find daycare in some parts of Japan, and it is socially looked down upon if a mother sends her child to one. The mother is seen as insufficient, not having the skills to raise a child on her own, or selfish, giving her child over to a caretaker while she pursues her own separate goals. in a manner similar to the definition of a nanny state.

Housewives are surrounded by popular media that encourages their actions. Daytime television, magazines, products, and services for mothers are largely focused on improving the home and raising the children. Thus, the job of motherhood is taken very seriously by mothers in Japan. A common description of a mother's free time is “three meals and a nap.”

Working class mothers are not as intensely active in their children's education as middle class mothers. An ethnographic study by Shimizu Tokuda (1991) portrayed one middle school that faced persistent academic problems in a working class neighborhood of Osaka. The study illustrated efforts by teachers to improve the student's academic performance: providing tests, promoting monthly teacher discussions, painting walls to enhance the study environment, and restricting hours spent in extracurricular activities. While students' enrollment in high school slightly improved, academic achievement level remained lower than the national average. This study revealed that students' academic problems were deeply related to their home environments. Most students had parents who were uneducated and not involved in their children's education.

In contrast to Japan's mostly negative images of kyōiku mamas, American leaders who put forth the image of "superhuman Japan" to boost American education performance extolled Japan's education minded mothers. Both of Ronald Reagan's education secretaries focused attention on Japanese mothers as mirrors to improve American families and schools. Reagan's first Secretary of Education, Terrel Bell (credited for the wording of A Nation at Risk) wrote an enthusiastic foreword to Guy Odom's Mothers, Leadership and Success—a book whose basic point was that only vigorous, aggressive and intelligent Super Moms exemplified by Japanese mothers could reinvigorate America. William J. Bennett, head of the Department of Education in Reagan's second term, praised Japan's "one parent on the scene" who "stays in touch with the teachers, supervises the homework, arranges extra instructional help if needed, and buttresses the child's motivation to do well in school and beyond".

Many Japanese mothers dedicate much time to get their children from one entrance exam to another. At the national university entrance exams, held in Tokyo, most mothers travel with their children to the examination hall. They arrive and stay at a nearby hotel, grilling their children on last minute statistics and making sure that they are not late to the exam. Some mothers are beginning their children's education at even younger ages. A 30 year old mother in Japan says, "This is my first baby, and I didn't know how to play with her or help her develop". She sends her 6 month old daughter to a pre pre school in Tokyo. A headmaster at another pre pre school claims that the school, for children one year or older, helps to nurture and develop the children's curiosity through "tangerine peeling or collecting and coloring snow".

In the 1950s, full time mothers devoted themselves to a smaller number of children. Parental stress resulted in the commonality of new childhood problems; these include bronchial asthma, stammering, poor appetite, proneness to bone fractures, and school phobia. Children were aware they were their mother's purpose in life. Mothers played the role of their children's school teachers while they were at home. Sometimes, a child who grows up with a kyōiku mama turns into a tenuki okusan (手抜き奥さん, "hands off housewife"). This stereotype describes women who typically have jobs and are not around the children as much, essentially becoming the female version of the stereotypical absent Japanese father, a "leisure time parent" or "Sunday friend". These mothers are said to not do a lot of homemaking, commonly making large, freezable meals that are easy to reheat in case they are not home or too busy to do the cooking. They do not attempt to represent their families in the community through participation in their children's school PTA and other community functions. In 2002, the central government reduced school hours again, decreased content, and introduced a new curriculum at all public elementary schools to encourage individual students' learning interests and motivation. By the mid 1970s, pressure to achieve in children created the need for specialty schools. Seventy percent of students continued their long school day at juku or "cram schools". In the 1980s, a series of suicides linked to school pressures began. Elementary and middle school students took their lives after failing entrance exams. During the 1990s, the economic collapse in Japan (after its global economic dominance in the previous decade) led to a loss of motivation by students. The once highly touted academic ratings of Japan in math and science fell behind those of American levels. The stress began to lead to classroom disruption. In 2001, the National Education Research Institute found that 33 percent of teachers and principals polled said that they had witnessed a complete breakdown of class "over a continuous period" due to defiant children "engaging in arbitrary activity". In 2002, the Japanese Education Ministry — pressured by the need to reform — eliminated 30 percent of its core curriculum. This freed up time for students to learn in groups according to the students' chosen path. The use of the term mukatsuku, meaning "irritating and troublesome", has been rising in use among students as a description of the feelings they experience of being fed up with teachers, parents, and life.