DEAR / Development Education Association and Resource Center

Design for a Curriculum and Learning that "Digs into the Local Community andConnects with the World"
Yuji Yamanishi
Professor of Faculty of Letters
Arts and Sciences
Waseda University
The Development Education Curriculum Study Group instituted in the Development
Education Association and Resource Center has taken the notion of "digging into the
local community and connecting with the world" as a new perspective to frame thenotion of a desirable curriculum, and to design a new learning based on that curriculum.
The question to be examined here first of all, bearing in mind the movements indevelopment education to date, is why the local community is specified.
Development education is an educational movement that aims to achieve understandingof problems with development, symbolized for example by poverty and north-south
disparity, to reach solutions to those problems, and to realize a global society thatenables fairness and coexistence. In Japan, it has been approximately 30 years since
specific movements to development of such education emerged. A look back at those
30 years of growth in development education, at the level of actual practice, shows thata pace of progress so dizzying it could not have been foreseen took place at the
beginning of the 1980s in relation to the popularization of the term and concept ofdevelopment education and the development of educational methods and instructional
materials for it. It has still been just 30 years, however, and it is also a fact thatdevelopment education still has many issues remaining to be resolved. Reexaminationof those issues from the perspective of the local community will raise points like thefollowing.
First, development education to date has placed importance on aspects of the problemsof development in developing countries and on a structural understanding of those
problems. It has not, however, made a determined effort to delve into the economic
disparity, the environmental destruction, the depopulation, and other problems ofdevelopment of the local communities that are immediately present to the learners, nor
to grasp those problems by drawing structural connections to problems in other regionsof the world. Nor has adequate attention been given to the perspective that seeks tograpple with the resolution of those problems starting in the local community.
The second point arises when local problems of development are examined and a local
society that allows fairness and harmonious coexistence is envisioned. In that case, the1

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important thing is the perspective that questions how the diversity of cultures in that
local community (regionality, traditions, etc.) is understood, and asks further how thosecultures are to be developed into a culture that promotes fairness and harmonious
coexistence. However, adequate attention has not been given to this approach bydevelopment education.
The third point has to do with efforts to obtain perspectives on the 21st century that
advocate sustainable development, the culture of peace(1) and other such values andvisions of society that are more universal for human beings. Efforts are being made to
put those into actual practice. In order for those values to develop into cultures that aremodes of life or codes of conduct that are passed on, and that do so without remaining
at the level of principles or information, they should become inextricably involved withthe cooperative actions of people for whom those values are intimately bound to life intheir various local communities. However, development education has not yet reached
the point of adequately presenting the theories and concrete methods needed for that
purpose.
The fourth point is related to international cooperation activities, which on paper solicit
participation from the perspective of "relationships with a recognizable human face"and "cooperation as partners." Perhaps because these are lacking in the perspective of
determined delving into the problems of development found right at home, however,these are one-directionally assistance-oriented, and development education has not yet
reached the point of adequately presenting the perspective of cooperation in which
common issues are dealt with by both sides acting as parties that have direct
first-person involvement, nor the perspective of inter-local community cooperation thatconnects together one local community with another.
The fifth point has to do with how development education has been interconnected withlocal development programs that have been implemented to date as non-governmental
education movements and educational activities in the various areas of Japan. In
learning from those movements and coordinating with them, development education
has not adequately adopted the perspective of mutual effort to advance education.
As indicated by the above, when development education as it has been to date isreconceived from the perspective of the local community and an attempt is made todescribe what development education of the future will be like, then it becomesabsolutely essential to engage in actual practice and to create theory that connects withthe world by means of the local community as the axis of approach.
This is not to say, however, that development education as practiced to now has notdiscussed the local community at all. A reexamination of how the notion of the local
developed in development education to date will show that, in many cases, education
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toward a structural perception of problems of development that called urgently forsolution, such as north-south problems and poverty as found in the developing
countries, and toward participation in the resolution of such problems, was envisioned
as being implemented in the local communities of Japan. That development education
can be said to have placed value on approaches leading from the global to the local.
Given the seriousness of the problems seen in the world, there is no doubt that this wasan important approach for development education. There is the other approach,however, that goes from the local to the global—or in other words, "digs into the local
and connects it to the world"—and education cannot be considered to have been at alladequate with regard to this approach. Perhaps there is a need to create an integrated
relationship between the approach from the global to the local and that from the local to
the global in which the two are mutually complementary.
Consequently, the present research on development education curricula is founded uponcritical awareness of development education viewed from the above perspective of thelocal, and it takes into consideration the results achieved by curriculum research to date.
With that, and learning from the actual practice in local communities, it attempts topresent the perspective that is demanded for the creation of a new curriculum and theperspective that is demanded for a new notion of learning.
1. The local
The kind of critical awareness described above could aim to construct a development
education that has practice and theory connecting to the world with the local as an axis
of approach. If this is done, then the question is how the local would need to beunderstood. This is a good point at which to confirm the meaning of the local indevelopment education.
The local community can be understood to mean a living space built up on acooperative basis by residents who traditionally take their relationship to the place or
their relationships by blood as their center. However, the local is a polysemic term, and
it is also used sometimes to mean a definite societal space that is delineated in the way
a government administrative district or school district is, as well as to mean outlying
regions in contradistinction to the center, or the peripheral in contradistinction to thecentral. The expression "coordination between the school and the local community"
indicates that the term is also used to point collectively to the individuals, groups,
traditionally inherited culture, cultural heritage, environmental resources, and othersuch elements that surround the school.
The point is not to understand the local as a certain determinate space. It can also be
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understood as something variable, that depends on the problems or issues involved. In
other words, if the local community is to be understood as "a living space formed on
the basis of cooperation among residents for the resolution of a specific problem or
exploration of a specific issue," then as pointed out by Yuichi Moritomo in thefollowing, the type of issues involved and the residents who are the main actors in themcan be taken as the starting point, so that the scope of the local can be expanded andcontracted at will. It is also possible to perceive the local community itself in a
multi-layered manner.
The debate over how to define the scope of the local is decided on the basisof issues that should be reformed. In that sense, the scope of the local iselastic, and it would be appropriate to understand it by taking as a starting
point the human groups of the people who are the main actors, and byviewing them as constituting multiple levels. The problem is not to demarcate
the scope of the local. What is most important in grasping the local is themethod of problematizing perception that wonders objectively how to reformthe actual reality of the local community.(2)This way of grasping the local is particularly important for development education andother education on the problem resolution pattern. That is because the local is a living
space that enfolds politics, the economy, culture, the natural environment, and othersuch elements. Those elements are dynamically intertangled with one another in waysthat go beyond the conventional, determinate local. In that context, for the purpose of
examining the problems and the measures for resolving those problems that exist there,
the perspective that takes the local in a manner more freely expandable and contractible,
flexible, and multiply-layered, is important from the perspective of specificity inlearning, as well as specificity in actions for resolution.
Take, for example, the 20th National Research Conference on Development Education
held in Kyoto in August 2002. In the final plenary session, Hiroshi Kanda (who at thattime was Secretary General of the People's Forum on Water) proposed the idea that
local communities should be considered in units of watersheds, taking the circulation ofwater as the axis of approach. This is a specific instance of the local community being
viewed in terms of issues that have water conditions and the water environment inmind.
2. Perspective of creation of a curriculum that "digs into the local and connects it to theworld"The Development Education Curriculum Study Group has discussed a curriculum that4

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incorporates the new perspective described as digging into the local and connecting itto the world. In that process, they proposed the following five perspectives for thecreation of a new curriculum. These five perspectives also represent the structural
incorporation of perspectives that would be considered of importance in the actual
practice of ESD. In other words, as shown in Figure 3-1, while taking "<1> Digging
into the local" as an axis of approach, the perspectives of "<2> Connecting up withpeople," "<3> Connecting up with history," and "<4> Connecting up with the world"interrelate one with the other and further indicate "<5> Participating," which leads toaction. These are envisioned as forming a whole in which the parts circulate one
through the other. These perspectives also fulfill the function of basic indicators whenreading and explicating instances to date of practices, curricula, and other such mattersin individual local communities, and when formulating new practices and curricula.
Brief explanations of the several perspectives will be added below.
<5> Participating<3> Connecting up with history<4> Connecting up with the world<1> Digging into the local<2> Connecting up with people

Figure 3-1. The perspective of creation of a curriculum that "digs into the local andconnects it to the world"(1) Digging into the local: Read and explicate the local community and clarify theissuesThe questions of how to know and understand the current situation and status of issues
in the local community, and how to clarify the issues that impinge on ESD, shape the
key approaches to curriculum and practice. ESD points toward two perspectives forknowing and explicating the local state of affairs. They are environmental suitability
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DEAR / Development Education Association and Resource Centerand social fairness. Koyu Furusawa cites two distinguishing characteristic ofdevelopment patterns that are found in civilization on a 20th-century model and thatshould be reexamined. One is growth that expands without limit, the other is thetendency toward localized maldistribution of that growth and expansion in humansociety, and the two are interrelated.(3) The current status of society today with regard to
the former is that it exposes the increasing seriousness of environmental problems, thedestruction of biological diversity, the depletion of resources, and other suchenvironmental unsuitabilities. With regard to the latter, it points to conditions ofincreasing disparity and inequality and other such societal unfairness. When viewed ata world level, critical awareness appears to be gradually growing stronger with regard
to both. With regard to environmental suitability, in particular, the numerical targets
being defined at international conferences and other such resolution measures can beseen to be growing more specific. As to the status of social fairness problems, they aresteadily growing more serious and measures to deal with them are inadequate, in part
because they require approaches informed by ethics and values. Meanwhile, a look at
the local community shows entirely too many problematic aspects, even within Japan,
with expansion of disparities between localities and classes, impoverishment of primaryindustry, destruction of the environment, structures of discrimination and exclusionary
consciousness regarding other ethnic groups and other cultures, gender discrimination,and so on. Another point is that those problems do not by any means exist solitarily.
They are related one to another, and they exist in multilayered form. There is a need tolook again from both perspectives at the current situation in the local community and at
the status of problems in the local community, to read and explicate them in a
multilayered manner at the level of the residents' lives, and to clarify the issues with aview to ESD.
(2) Connecting up with people: Give rise to cooperativenessIf, as discussed above, the local community is to be understood as "a living space
formed on the basis of cooperation among residents for the resolution of a specificproblem or exploration of a specific issue," then it becomes necessary to inquire into
the person-to-person connections, the organization-to-organization connections, and thecircumstances of cooperativeness seen there, approaching these matters along the axisof local problems and issues (the perspective of section (1) above). It is widely
recognized that these connections are becoming tenuous and broken. In examining
these connections, it can be borne in mind that the local community, as the definitionindicates, gave rise to a cooperative quality among the residents in the course of the6DEAR / Development Education Association and Resource Center

pursuit of solutions to specific problems or exploration of specific issues, so that theconnections and cooperative quality found here are not just formalities by any means.
They are brought into being as a matter of necessity due to the issue involved. It is,therefore, important to ask what kind of cooperative quality will be brought into beingin accordance with the various and diverse issues involved.
In considering the relationships this cooperativeness and these people have with social
activities, it is effective to look at the relationships between the public, the communal,
and the private as three sectors that make up society. In other words, society contains
public activities that operate on the principle of the public good and that are primarily
operated by government and other public administration; communal activities that
operate on the principle of the common benefit and that are operated by a diversity of
citizen's organizations and groups; and private activities that operate on the principle ofprivate benefit and that are operated by enterprises and individual people. Problems arebeing identified now in terms of the destruction of local and regional society and theweakening of local ties because, in many cases, the public activities have frozen into
rigidity and private activities have ballooned while communal activities are destroyed
or weakened. The social activities of NPOs and NGOs, which are gaining new attention
now as civic organizations, and the social service activities by corporations, can betaken as part of a movement that is truly communal in nature and that works toward arenaissance of the common good. The vitalization of the communal will cause new
movement in the state of public and private activities as well as in the relationships ofthe three sectors.
There is a need to inquire into the connections from person to person and fromorganization to organization, as well as connections among public, communal, andprivate, that arise out of the issues involved in realizing ESD, and in so doing to giverise to a diversity of cooperativeness that arises out of necessity.
(3) Connecting up with history: Learn from the wisdom of those who went before andpicture the future
The history of development in the modern period, and in the case of Japan, the time of
the Meiji Period (1868-1912) and after, in particular, is not the history of development
as it should have been in light of the word's meaning, to release from a sealed-in state.
On the contrary, it can be said to have been directly connected to a history that caused
destruction of local communities and gave rise to structures of domination and disparity.
These structures are being still further amplified under advancing globalization. Thereis a need to understand the history of development at the national level and world level7

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critically in this way while reconceiving local problems and issues historically. The
reason is that much of the wisdom accumulated through the problem-solving of people
who went before as a long-term historical undertaking in local communities has been
enfolded into culture (regionality, folkways, customs, etc.) as well as in food culture,
traditional industries, and so on, which so often are and were alive in people's lives andlivelihoods. Taking issues as axes of approach to learn once again from the forebears'
wisdom that can be seen in the cultures of local communities, to draw images of asustainable future, and to acquire a future orientation as part of oneself are basic andimportant matters for humans as historical beings. This is something of greatsignificance in terms of rethinking school education and school culture, which eventoday tend to produce learning that is cut off from regionality, having been brought into
the local community as a system from the outside in a form that is severed fromtraditional teachings and upbringing.
(4) Connecting up with the world: Resist globalization and coordinate with other local
communities
Local problems and issues do not exist independent of the locality. They exist amid
mutual interconnections with other localities. Moreover, the curriculum here is goingfrom the local to the world; or in other words, taking the local community as the axis ofapproach to read and interpret the circumstances there and the status of the problem, inwhich the definition of the issues is informed by their inevitability. The curriculum, inthat context, attaches importance to approaches that obtain a concrete and structural
grasp of connections with other local communities. When the local community
connects with the world, however, it may display a diversity of connections with otherlocal communities that depend on the problems and issues the local community isundergoing, and the orientation of its solutions. In other words, it will display the stateof its connections, which sometimes resist and sometimes cooperate one with the other.
For example, the progress of globalization in the economy constitutes a worldwide
push toward homogenizing and ranking based on the values of efficiency andcompetition. The liberalization of finance and the liberalization of multinational
corporate activities is further enlarging the disparity between local communities thatenjoy the benefits of such liberalization and those local communities that do not.
Meanwhile, the movement to resist this globalization that is not sustainable and to workon creating sustainable societies based upon new values may not be large in scale, but it
can be observed in a number of local communities.
The regional currencies that have been coming into being in every region of the world8

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over the past several years are one case in point. These regional currencies were created
to be used by small groups in specific localities, but they are not money, so they are notsubject to use for speculation or saving. They are used in exchanges for services
relating to the environment, social welfare, education, and other specific themes, andfor buying and selling goods. One of their distinctive characteristics is that they areused in direct, face-to-face relationships between people. The regional currency
movement places value on local residents helping each other and supporting each other,even on a small scale, and one can imagine the possibility that this movement could
provide a bond that ties together a single local collectivity.
Apart from regional currencies, attempts to build sustainable local communities basedon new values can also be seen in the fair trade movement,(4) community businessprogram,(5) and other such activities. Those attempts take the unique movements ofeach locality as their foundation even as they go on to connect with other localities andcoordinate with one another, without stopping in one locality, and it can be envisionedthat they would function to build up a new society that has sent its roots down in thelocal communities. The work of promoting ESD from within the local community willneed to inquire into the kind of connections that should be formed with other local
communities whether in Japan or in other countries.
(5) Participating: A multifaceted, multilayered understanding of participation
Participation is a key term in development education. Participation has been taken as amultifaceted activity to date, including participation in the learning process,participation in problem solving, and participation in community building. The pointthat should be considered carefully here is that, just as local communities and local
issues are perceived as multilayered, so also participation is perceived as multilayered.
Considering, for example, that a regional society contains the elements of politics, theeconomy, and culture within itself, then participation in society will mean politicalparticipation, economic participation, and cultural participation. The societal activities
that are subject to participation can be partitioned, as pointed out in connection with
<2> Linking up with people, into the three sectors of public, communal, and private. In
this case, participation emerges in the form of activities in public, communal, andprivate sectors. Moreover, it has been pointed out in the debate over citizenhood that
there are four citizens, which can be understood as residents of the local community,
citizens of the nation, citizens of Asia, and citizens of the earth. This understanding
indicates the multilayered quality of citizenhood as well as of the condition ofparticipation. In this way, participation shows itself to be both important andmultilayered in redefining the local, and it presents possibilities for a corresponding
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diversity of actions.
The perspective of linking to the world in participation also leads to an interrogation of
aspects of cooperation. If the investigation of a problem does not dig deeply enough,and if the perspectives of definition and pursuit of the issue, as well as of participation,
are unclear, then the one-directional assistance directed toward problem resolution cangive rise to numerous problems at the levels of the nation, group, and populace, as iswell known. What is needed at the local community level is for the local residents toshare the problem conditions and issues of their respective local communities, and bymeans of their respective participation, to give rise to a state of cooperation that isbidirectional, mutually complementary, and diverse.
3. A design for learning delineated by five perspectives
A local community is actually less to be taken as a portion cut out of the world or asociety and can be taken more as a basic societal unit that includes within itself
multiple layers of elements considered necessary for human beings to continue living,such as politics, the economy, culture, history, natural environments, and so on.
Development education is an attempt to approach, from education, the realization of asustainable society of which the principles are fairness, harmonious coexistence, andresolution of poverty, economic disparity, and other such problems that are surfacing in
the world and becoming increasingly serious. Many of the aspects of those problems
are visible in the local communities that are our own immediate surroundings. It isdifficult to imagine how a desirable society could be realized in the world in theabsence of any undertaking from the local community that is close to home to lookclosely at those aspects, to depict the conditions of a desirable society, and toparticipate in its realization. This is truly a matter that calls for actual practice from thelocal community.
The present paper, taking this kind of critical awareness as its foundation, will identify
the following three points as distinctive characteristics of learning that is delineated by
the perspective of curriculum creation discussed here.
The first distinctive characteristic is an essential and basic point in terms ofconsideration of the desired form of education and learning. It is that this kind oflearning seeks to establish the wholeness of human existence itself as the foundation for
theories of education and learning. This paper has presented a number of connections asperspectives for the creation of a curriculum. With those connections as a foundation,
this approach encompasses a perception that seeks to grasp in a whole the state ofhuman existence as a natural being, a social being, and a historical being. In other10

DEAR / Development Education Association and Resource Centerwords, the human being is a natural being that lives its relationships with body, mind,
heredity, growth, and other such internal nature as well as with the external natureforming the environment enfolding the human being. It is also a social being that lives
its societal relationships with politics, the economy, culture, and so on, and it is ahistorical being that lives its relationships with past, present, and future. Those beings
are fundamentally connected together in a whole. SD (sustainable society) is a term
indicating the sustainability of the state of society in a multifaceted manner frompolitical, economic, cultural, and other perspectives. If ESD, then, seeks to describe thestate of the human being in the interest of moving toward that sustainable society bymeans of education, it is absolutely imperative that ESD have the state of the wholehuman being as a natural being, social being, and historical being solidly in place at its
foundation. The causes of the unsustainability visible in present-day society are in the
inclination toward efficiency, rationality, utility, or some other specific value or
principle. In the same way, it is clear that the problems of education in the present day
have their causes in an orientation toward some specific part of the human being or in atendency to grasp the human being in a fragmented manner. To have the wholeness ofthe human being solidly in place at their foundation is absolutely essential for linking
together the state of learning and education and the state of society, and for perceiving
totality there.
The second distinctive characteristic is that this kind of learning sought to findconnectedness in the ways of reading and interpreting local communities by means oflearning, and likewise in the ways of reading and interpreting the problems and issues
faced by local communities and the world. In other words, this has to do with the local
community and the world being living spaces that include in themselves political,
economic, cultural, historical, natural environmental, and other such elements that are
dynamically interrelated in ways transcending conventional fixed regions and nations.
In that context, it is important to examine the problems and issues found in local
communities and the world and to read and interpret them in terms of theirinterrelatedness from the perspectives of environmental suitability and social fairness inorder to give rise to a structural learning that has a sense of reality as well as to giverise to actions to achieve solutions to problems with a sense of reality and specificity.
Another point here is that when an attempt is made to grasp education and learningfrom the perspective of culture formation and culture creation, it becomes apparent that
culture itself is essentially a problem-solving measure that contains temporality andspatiality in itself. The configuration of problems and issues and the formation ofcooperativeness endow culture formation with specificity. In that light, learning andaction that take up the problems and issues found in local communities amid their
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temporal and spatial connectedness and, while reading and interpreting them with care,recombines them anew, will naturally come to be connected with the formation of aculture of sustainability, of fairness, and of harmonious coexistence.
The third distinctive characteristic is that this kind of learning, taking the above two
characteristics into account, sought to show the diversity of the educational approach.
In other words, the five perspectives (<1> Digging into the local, <2> Linking up withpeople, <3> Linking up with history, <4> Linking up with the world, <5> Participating)proposed for creation of a curriculum that digs into the local and links it to the world
variously indicate the diversity of the educational approach. What is meant by theeducational approach here is a concept that includes educational objectives andeducational methods in itself. Following perspectives <2> to <5>, this would be
education that gives rise to cooperativeness, education that learns from the past anddelineates the future, education that reads and interprets the relatedness of the local
community and the world, and education that aims for participation in society. This
concept, however, is greatly liberated from the conditions and paradigms of
conventional education, which was rather closed in terms of cooperativeness,
temporality, spatiality, activity, and so on. The educational approach here can be said toinclude within itself a diversity of approaches that transform those closed qualities.
Connectedness of issues seen inlocal communities and the world*Social fairness*Environmental suitability*Connectedness among issues

Diversity of educational approaches.

*Education that gives rises to cooperatives*Education that learns from the past anddelineates the future*Education that reads and interprets therelatedness of the local community andthe world*Education that aims for participation insociety

Wholeness of the human being*The human being as a natural being*The human being as a social being*The human being as a historical being

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Figure 3-2. Design of learning: Three distinguishing characteristics that are sought
In other words, the perspective of curriculum creation presented in this paper includes
three major distinguishing characteristics, which are that it is founded in the wholenessseen in the human being, it reads and interprets the connectedness seen in the problems
and issues faced by local communities and the world, and it gives rise to diversity in
educational approaches. As shown in Figure 3-2, connections form among thesecharacteristics, and this approach seeks to design new learning by means of thoseconnections.
[Yuji Yamanishi]
Notes(1) The expression "culture of peace" was first used publicly at the International Congress "Peace in the Minds ofMen" held in the Ivory Coast in 1989. Since then, work has been done at UNESCO, in particular, to define thatconcept and formulate action plans for its realization. For example, the United Nations designated 2000 theInternational Year for a Culture of Peace, and this international year was inherited by the International Decade fora Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World of 2001-2010.
(2) Yuichi Moritomo, Naihatsuteki hatten no mich—machizukuri, murazukuri no ronri to tenbo [The way ofendogenous growth: Logic and prospects of town building and village building] (Rural Culture Association, 1991), p.
28.
(3) Koyu Furusawa, "Jizoku kano shakai no kochiku to NGO no yakuwari—Shakai shisutemu no henkaku kara
posuto chikyu samitto o kangaeru" [Construction of a sustainable society and the role of the NGO: Thinking about
the post global summit from social system reform] in Kaihatsu Kyoiku [Development Education] No. 46(Development Education Association and Resource Center, 2002).
(4) Fair trade is a movement for import and purchase at fair prices of products and goods produced in developing
countries for the purpose of supporting the independence of the producers and reforming unfair trade structures.
(5) Community business can be understood as business that seeks to resolve local issues, encourage participation by
local residents, and contribute to development of the local community. The effects of such business, as cited by
Nobutaka Hosouchi, are restoration of humanity, resolution of social problems, transmission and creation of culture,and establishment of economic foundations. See Nobutaka Hosouchi, Komyunitei bijinesu [Community business](Chuo University Press, 1999).

From ESD Development Education Curriculum Study Group of the Development Education Association andResource Center (Specified Nonprofit Corporation), ed., Kaihatsu kyoiku de jissen suru ESD karikyuramu – chiiki ohorisage, sekai to tsunagaru manabi no dezain [ESD Curriculum Implemented in Development Education: Designfor Learning that Digs into the Local Community and Connects with the World] (Gakubunsha, 2010), pp. 40-52.

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