A study on the Sasaki–Sebata controversy:

This study aimed to examine the Sasaki-Sebata controversy between Kentaro Sasaki and Shiro Sebata, said to have been the first postwar dispute regarding the practice of physical education.Previous studies have examined mainly the practices of Sasaki and Sebata as well as the differences between them, but in terms of actual historical proof, the positioning of the 2 has been quite ambiguous.By contrast, the present study examined the essence of physical education as considered by Sasaki and Sebata from a historical perspective and sought to clarify their fundamental differences.According to Sasaki, the purpose of physical education was labor, whereas Sebata considered that physical education facilitated a physically active lifestyle separate from labor.Despite this difference, when exploring the practices of the 2, it was found that both had similarly placed value in the aim of breaking away from alienated physical education and maintaining ties with society by fostering the development of children who would be able to change it.