How Public Reason Matters in Educational Practice: Reflections from Music Education, Teacher Education, and Education Export in Japan

This symposium explores how the pursuit of public reason can inform educational practice in the face of global socio-political tensions and cultural complexity. Drawing on cases from Japan—music education rooted in aesthetic perception, reflective evaluation in teacher education, and the exportability of national education models—we examine how educational judgments are made, contested, and negotiated. Each paper addresses distinct contexts, yet collectively they interrogate the conditions under which educational practices become intelligible and justifiable across cultural and national boundaries. A discussant will offer comparative insights to situate these Japanese cases within broader international discourses on education, equity, and democratic values. Cultivating Aesthetic Perception in Music Education: Insights from Maxine Greene's "Releasing the Imagination" Shinko KONDO (Bunkyo University, Japan) Drawing upon Releasing the Imagination by Maxine Greene (1995), this presentation explores how aesthetic perception—or shinbigan in Japanese, the cultivated ability to discern and appreciate beauty and meaning—can be nurtured in music teacher education and practice-based research. Reflecting on my experiences in both Japan and the United States, I examine how imagination and aesthetic inquiry shape our cultural understandings and pedagogical values. In Japan, national curricula emphasize the transmission of cultural heritage through traditional songs such as warabe-uta and shoka, valuing continuity across generations. However, these are often framed within a dominant Western classical paradigm that has shaped music education since the 19th centuries. In contrast, teaching Japanese songs like “Sakura” in American classrooms can reveal cultural discontinuities—some children, for instance, associated it with Halloween due to its pentatonic scale and unfamiliar modality. Greene argues that imagination allows individuals to transcend the given and envision alternative possibilities, particularly through the arts. These imaginative encounters open new perspectives and enable alternative understandings of education. This presentation, I will reflect on these experiences to consider the educational significance and potential of cultivating aesthetic perception in music education. Pursuing Public Reasons in Teacher Education: A Case of Practice Report Evaluation at the University of Fukui Takahiro ENDO (University of Fukui, Japan) The teacher education curriculum at the University of Fukui emphasizes that practitioners are encouraged to write about the process of reflection-in-action (Schön, 1983, 1987) of their long-term teaching practice, while working in collaboration with local boards of education and schools. However, the evaluation criteria remain ambiguous, and assessments are conducted through the collaborative interpretation of each report by multiple readers, who work to reach a consensus. This reflective group moderation process helps develop faculty members’ educational connoisseurship (Eisner, 1976, 1991) and plays a central role in faculty development. Importantly, such dialogue reveals differences in views on what constitutes excellent educational practice. These differences, though long present, have often gone unrecognized, potentially hindering curriculum development. While unifying these views into a single standard is neither feasible nor desirable, evaluations must still distinguish between more and less valid judgments. This raises a key question for teacher education research: whether it is possible to identify evaluation criteria that are acceptable to each other without discarding the plurality (Adrent, 1958) of different educational and practical views on the premise that they coexist. This suggests the importance of pursuing public reasons (Rawls, 2005) for judgments that remain understandable and acceptable despite differences in interests and values, even in teacher education practice. What Makes Education Transferable? A Discourse Analysis of Japan Kampei HAYASHI (Shinshu University, Japan) Many countries actively promote the export of education, often by branding their offerings under a national label. However, not all educational practices are equally exportable; some are more readily transferred than others. Educational goods that are easily packaged and distinctly differentiated tend to be more marketable. This emphasis on "difference" as a marketing strategy reflects the commodification of education—positioning it as a comparable, exchangeable, and marketable product across borders. In this context, shared educational values or cultural commonalities between exporting and importing countries are often highlighted. When education is understood as a common good within a local community, imported practices must appear "uncommon" to be perceived as valuable. In Japan, the “EDU-Port Japan” initiative to introduce Japanese-style schooling abroad is promoted collaboratively by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology along with other governmental agencies. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s education export strategy includes the international expansion of prestigious institutions such as Rugby School and Harrow, exemplified by their establishment of branded schools in countries including Japan. This presentation analyzes the promotional discourses surrounding these initiatives to identify the characteristics that make certain educational goods more transferable in the global education market. Reference List: Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. University of Chicago Press. Biesta, G. (2020). Educational research: An unorthodox introduction. Bloomsbury. Blair, D. V., & Kondo, S. (2008). Bridging musical understanding through multicultural musics. Music Educators Journal, 94(5), 50-55. Bresler, L. (2005). What musicianship can teach educational research? Music Education Research, 7(2), 169-183. Department for Business & Trade & Department for Education (U.K.) (2023). Policy Paper, International Education Strategy: 2023 progress update. 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