Through sweat and tears: High school baseball and the socialization of Japanese boys.

Through studying high school baseball in Japan, this dissertation examines a facet of Japanese education which has been largely neglected in English scholarship, extracurricular clubs, even though such clubs are an extremely important activity for a majority of Japanese high school students during their high school years. While most previous studies of Japanese education emphasize objective outcomes such as academic skills or occupational attainment, this study is unique in that it focuses on the participants' subjective understandings of their experiences. Through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and surveys, I explore the subjective meanings that participation in high school baseball holds for Japanese high school students, and high school graduates, in forming their identities, worldviews, and friendships. Despite the fact that research in the West has been largely inconclusive regarding the socializing ability of sports, I conclude that high school baseball is indeed educational in Japan, but not for reasons intrinsic to the sport, or to Japanese culture in general. Rather, it is due to the strict administrative and ideological control of the Japan High School Baseball Federation, an institution which was established primarily to make sure that high school baseball in Japan was, first and foremost, educational, as opposed to simply recreational or commercial. What is learned, or gained, through participation in high school baseball in Japan can be roughly divided into two categories: interpersonal skills, and character. Interpersonal skills include such things as proper manners/courtesy (reigi) and honorifics (keigo), especially when interacting with one's seniors (senpai) or superiors; how to conduct proper greetings or salutations (aisatsu); trust, especially the importance of trusting friends; and cooperation. Character includes things like confidence (jishin); endurance ( tairyoku, gaman); empathy (omoiyari); gratitude (kansha no kimochi), especially towards one's parents, fellow teammates, and community; cheerfulness (genki); tenacity (konjo); and the importance of making one's best effort (isshokenmei ganbaru), not complaining (monku wo iwanai, yowane wo hakanai), and taking responsibility ( sekinin wo toru). Finally, in order to avoid producing a shallow, homogenous caricature of Japanese high school baseball, or Japanese people in general, in this study I deconstruct the history and institutions of Japanese high school baseball to show that what is often considered natural or Japanese about high school baseball is actually a carefully constructed turn of the 20th century ideology, strictly regulated through today.PhDEducationEducational sociologyIndividual and family studiesRecreationSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125300/2/3192581.pd