IMAGES OF JAPANESE SOCIETY IN THE “NEW CIVICS TEXTBOOK”: NEO-NATIONALIST ANTIDOTES FOR DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Abstract: Discussions of Japanese neo-nationalism and activities of neo-nationalist groups like Tsukurukai have very much focused on issues of historiography. Com-pared to publications such as the group’s “New History Textbook”, however, there has been little in-depth research on Tsukurukai’s civics textbook (Atarashii kômin kyôkasho) that remains largely unknown to a non-Japanese audience. To partially fill this gap, a close reading of Tsukurukai’s civic textbook is presented in this pa-per. I will show that its narrative is fully in line with the claims of the neo-nation-alist discourse published elsewhere. Focusing in particular on chapters that deal with the individual and the family, this reading helps to better understand Tsuku-rukai’s view on gender relations and topics such as social and demographic change. Findings are put into perspective by comparing Tsukurukai’s approach to other publishers ’ textbooks that present rather different images of these issues. I will argue that the “New Civics Textbook ” represents a minority view on the role of family members and gender relations in contemporary Japan. On the other hand, the textbook’s favourable view of an individual submissive to the state, jux-taposed with an alleged “excess of individualism ” in postwar Japan, may find more approval in the present discussion on how to instil a sense of “patriotism ” in Japanese school children