Abstract

What kind of encyclopedia is this book? The editors (hereafter, “we”) assume it is an open space or a common where a circle of educators from Asian countries will meet each other and where readers may also join the circle to meet and encounter wisdom or knowledge of their predecessors or contemporaries from East, South, and Southeast Asia. We use the phrase “grammar of modernity”, which may suggest the common features of Asian modernized or modernizing education. We have selected some conceptions which can be representative for understanding Asian education from its beginnings (1850) to the present problems (2000). They are “nation-state”, “standard language”, “new womanhood”, and “peace education”. Observing the huge scale of globalization, we direct the readers’ attention to new connections or connectionism developing among people. This should necessitate reflections upon and innovative or radical reconceptualizations of “modern education”. Suggesting the “grammar of modernity” should be replaced by a “grammar of multitude”, we hope this Encyclopedia will not only serve and sustain the growing circle of readers who have just entered the common place of modern Asian educators but enrich academic and scholastic debates on educational historiography.