Policies and Practices in Japanese Public Schools

An ethnographic study of lunches and cleaning in Japanese schools

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  • Introduction

    This blog explores two sets of culturally specific practices in Japanese schools: school lunches and daily cleaning. It analyzes the origins, purposes, and impacts of these practices, drawing on both my own ethnographic research and prior studies. My time spent attending Japanese public schools, as well as my fieldwork at a special school for hikikomori…

  • Lunches Part 1

    School lunches were first served in 1889 at a temple school in Yamagata Prefecture for children who could not afford to attend other schools. This practice spread throughout Japan until World War II, when food shortages made it difficult to continue serving lunch to students. Backed by the American government and charity support, school lunches…

  • Lunches Part 2

    Another distinctive aspect of school lunches in Japan is the kyushoku touban, or lunch duty. From first grade, students are split into han, groups of about five or six people, and take weekly rotations on lunch duty. I participated in this practice every summer when I attended public school in Tokyo. At the start of…

  • Lunches Part 3

    Although Japanese school lunches teach many values, there is also a lack of accommodations for certain groups. For those with allergies, parents may submit a form with their child’s dietary needs, and the school will then provide an alternate food item and set it aside from everyone else’s food so that the child can eat…

  • Cleaning Part 1

    Students have participated in school cleaning since the Meiji era, although the origin of cleaning by a student or disciple can be traced back to Buddhist temples in medieval times. The Buddhist tradition stems from the idea that cleaning is good for a person’s development and character growth – values that have been adopted into…

  • Cleaning Part 2

    There are other values that students may learn from this cleaning practice besides collaboration and responsibility. In addition to the collaborative relationships and personal development, students get the chance to actively make their school more comfortable and clean, and learn to live more healthily, both mentally and physically. This satisfaction at making their surroundings more…

  • Hikikomori Part 1

    Both school lunches and cleaning are structured around collective responsibility, discipline, and cooperation, as discussed in earlier sections of this blog. Through “institutionalized control” (Damrow 2014), the schools have established a strict set of expectations that all students must follow. For students who struggle with these tenets, these expectations may foster feelings of discomfort and…

  • Hikikomori Part 2

    I will now discuss lunches and cleaning at the hikikomori school, as a contrast to those practices in traditional public schools. The school did not provide lunches; the children could either bring their own lunch or buy lunch at the nearby convenience store. Most children chose the latter option, and each day I accompanied them…

  • Conclusion

    Japanese public schools emphasize the development of a student’s character outside the classroom through the practices of lunch and cleaning. The lunchtime practices serve to teach social responsibility as well as promote food and nutrition education. The cleaning teaches group and individual responsibility, as well as care for shared spaces. However, both of these practices…