<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
        
        <p> This paper provides a thorough socio-cultural analysis of Sports Day in Japanese education. Basing myself on contemporary ritual research and Gerard Genette’s notion of intertextuality, I describe the ritual ‘Sports Day’ as a ‘cultural palimpsest’, a form of practice where new meanings are constantly inscribed or rewritten without the former meanings being completely lost. This allows me to provide a detailed analysis of this school event by incorporating its ever-changing cultural dimensions. Since the introduction of the event into Japanese education in the early Meiji period, the most prominent discourses inscribed in Sports Day are elemental questions such as the relationship between the central national authorities and local practices or the problem of individualism and competitiveness in Japanese education. In an ethnographic account of a junior high school Sports Day which is based on my own fieldwork, I show how these discourses provide the framework in which Sports Day is still operated and experienced today.</p>
      </abstract>

This paper provides a thorough socio-cultural analysis of Sports Day in Japanese education. Basing myself on contemporary ritual research and Gerard Genette’s notion of intertextuality, I describe the ritual ‘Sports Day’ as a ‘cultural palimpsest’, a form of practice where new meanings are constantly inscribed or rewritten without the former meanings being completely lost. This allows me to provide a detailed analysis of this school event by incorporating its ever-changing cultural dimensions. Since the introduction of the event into Japanese education in the early Meiji period, the most prominent discourses inscribed in Sports Day are elemental questions such as the relationship between the central national authorities and local practices or the problem of individualism and competitiveness in Japanese education. In an ethnographic account of a junior high school Sports Day which is based on my own fieldwork, I show how these discourses provide the framework in which Sports Day is still operated and experienced today.

The Japanese School Sports Day. The Socio-Cultural Role of a Ritualistic School Event in Contemporary Japan

Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This paper provides a thorough socio-cultural analysis of Sports Day in Japanese education. Basing myself on contemporary ritual research and Gerard Genette’s...

The Japanese School Sports Day. The Socio-Cultural Role of a Ritualistic School Event in Contemporary Japan

Published Online: Dec 05, 2018

Page range: 67 - 96

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/vjeas-2013-0004

Keywords
School, education, sport, ritual, Japan

© 2018 Peter Mühleder, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Japanese School Sports Day. The Socio-Cultural Role of a Ritualistic School Event in Contemporary Japan

Published Online: Dec 05, 2018

Page range: 67 - 96

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/vjeas-2013-0004

KeywordsSchool, education, sport, ritual, Japan

© 2018 Peter Mühleder, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
School, education, sport, ritual, Japan