Winners announced for the Fall 2018 Stanford e-Japan Award

Stanford e-Japan honoree Sakura Hayakawa presents her final research paper at her school Stanford e-Japan honoree Sakura Hayakawa presents her final research paper at her school

Stanford e-Japan is an online course that teaches Japanese high school students about American society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations. The course introduces students to both American and Japanese perspectives on many historical and contemporary issues. It is offered biannually by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE). The Fall 2018 cohort was the seventh group of students to complete Stanford e-Japan.


In August 2019, three of the top students of the Fall 2018 Stanford e-Japan distance-learning course will be honored at an event at Stanford University. The three Stanford e-Japan Day honorees—Sakura Hayakawa (Katoh Gakuen Gyoshu Senior High School), Ryotaro Homma (Kaisei Senior High School), and Taiki Yamamoto (Ritsumeikan Uji Senior High School)—will be recognized for their coursework and exceptional research essays that focused respectively on “Importance of Youth Political Participation and Citizenship Education,” “The Abolition of the Electoral College: A Synthesis of the Positive Aspects,” and “The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Is a New Framework Necessary?”

Mayu Fujinami (Keio Girls Senior High School) and Tatsuya Sugiyama (Saitama Prefectural Urawa High School) received Honorable Mentions for their research papers on “The Importance of Paternity Leave for Gender Equality” and “Design Thinking: Lessons from the U.S.,” respectively.

Applications for the next session of Stanford e-Japan (Spring 2019) are currently being accepted through February 24, 2019. More information is available at stanfordejapan.org.

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SPICE offers separate courses for U.S. high school students. For more information, please see the Reischauer Scholars Program (online course about Japan), Sejong Scholars Program (online course about Korea), or China Scholars Program (online course about China).