This paper explores the notions of globalization as embodied in Japanese educational reforms during the 1980s and 1990s. Modern institutional discourses of educational reform in Japan have shifted over time and all of these reform movements have been constructed by particular social and historical trajectories. Generally speaking, it has been taken for granted that the educational reform in Japan has been turning gradually toward globalization. However, this paper is trying to interrupt the notion that such globalization has constructed various notions of citizenship and nationalism.