The dissertation covers the issue of moral education in contemporary schools in Japan. Both theoretical basis and practical approaches are examined. Moral education in Japanese school is seen as similar to the practice provided in Ukrainian schools. In both education systems it is considered inseparable from training and learning. Varied teaching approaches, learning resources, students’ activities in and out of school found in typical state Japanese schools have much in common with practices provided by the top-scoring or private Ukrainian schools. Taking into consideration the significance of ensuring educational equity, this research explores the context that raises Japanese state schools to a successful level with a focus on school approaches to moral education, social, emotional and physical well-being of students that might be implemented into Ukrainian schooling. In sociological, cross-cultural researches values-and-attitudes problem was reflected in the context of culture uniqueness. It was found that the appeal to values allows to understand the meaningful side of life either of an individual, or a culture in general. Value, human-centered context of sciences from the second half of the XX century determined the new course of world education science development. «Humanization», «interpersonal skills», «attitudes», and «values» were defined as the key concepts. Since the 1990-s, education systems worldwide have moved to this fundamental principle. The understanding of value education as a fragmental process, as something that is inferior to training was shifted by its holistic vision, understanding the equal significance of character / moral / value development along with students' learning achievements. In Ukraine open discussion on humanistic, values-based pedagogics became possible since the 1990s. Before that time, Western philosophy of values was сensored by communist ideology. With the first researches on this subject, Ukrainian scholars appeal to the issue of education, which corresponds to the Ukrainian character. Consequently, the urgency of education content revising was actualized (M. Stelmakhovych, O. Kononenko, O. Sukhomlynska, O. Vyshnevsky, P. Scherban). Among the first Ukrainian scholars who dwelt on the issue of value education contents from the standpoint of system approach was O. Vyshnevsky. After his «The Code of Values of Modern Ukrainian Education and Development», a number of similar programs appeared. Among them one should mention «The National Program on value education in Ukraine» and based on it «Basic Guidelines for the Value Education in Grades 1 – 11». Their appearance consolidated in Ukrainian pedagogical thesaurus the concept of «valuable attitudes cultivation», which has remained valid in the last decade dissertations. Value education has become understood as a system of desirable characteristics, values, norms, attitudes etc. that school aspires to equips students with.
The first chapter also analyzes the Ukrainian legislative documents, governing state school activities, and value education contents transformation since 1991, revealing the surplus of agenda. It was concluded that instability in economics and politics significantly influenced the direction and duration of launched education reforms resulting in their blurriness.
Despite «The National Program» emphasizes the need to apply a value system approach, the analysis of dissertations within the period 2010 – 2016 suggests the tendency to cover the problems of value education at schools by aspect, yet not as a system. The mentioned apparently contradicts the logic of education as a holistic process. A study of students’ well-being issues indicates that both societies face similar problems (emotional, physical and social well-being of students) which differ in scale and the ways these problems are solved. Our study summarizes that the case of Japan holistic schooling is very close to new practice-based vector of the school life management in Ukraine, launched by the «New Ukrainian School» reform. Varied teaching approaches, learning resources, students’ activities in and out of school found in typical Japanese schools have much in common with practices applied in top scoring, private Ukrainian schools. Japanese experience would be useful for Ukrainian schooling in the context of rigid framework of value education arrangement (regulatory, contents, didactic and methodical). It is also desirable to borrow a mechanism of student’s engagement, and the ways schools interact with parents and community. The conclusions drawn will be additional and relevant to the dissertations in the similar field.
