Abstract:
Educational reform has been emerging in Japan. Issues are related to current rapid changes including globalization, socio-economy, technology, transportation, politics, and culture. The wave of the educational reform movement has included the physical education field. The purpose of this study is to investigate how and why national physical education curriculum has been reformed in Japan. A second purpose is to understand how current Japanese physical education curriculum is implemented in an actual school. The participants of this study were four stakeholders including three focus groups -- policymaker, an administrator, and two physical education teachers. The data including the interviews, governmental publications and other documents were gathered through naturalistic inquiry. The data analysis process involved the systematic organizing of interview transcripts and other documentations which assisted in defining the claims, concerns, and issues related to the current physical education curriculum. As the result of this qualitative analysis, several claims, concerns and issues were identified by the researcher.In conclusion, under globalized society, current educational reform in physical education has been affected by other nations' education systems. In Japan, physical education was recognized as a significant part of public school education by all stakeholders in this study; however, there were several factors including time, facility, and finance, which made to provide high quality physical education programs. Confusions toward new contents, Karada Tsukuri Undo and Karada Hogushi were found. Also, there was a contradictory opinion about lifelong sports between policymaker and educational professionals. Moreover, the researcher created recommendations for current Japanese physical education and future study.