Some Thoughts on Designing a Global Studies Curriculum for a Japanese University

This paper sketches an undergraduate global studies program for a Japanese university. It first examines the context of the developing notions of global education and its current status. It then examines the appropriateness of the curriculum for global human resources development at Japanese universities, which passes widely as global education in Japan. It then shows why a new global studies program may be necessary by exposing the contradictions inherent in the programs of global human resources development taken as global education. The paper concludes by proposing a global studies curriculum to implement on the lower division level of a Japanese university.