The present study explores foreign English teachers' (FETs) personal experiences with stereotypes and their use of critical cultural competence (CCC) building activities in Japanese university English as a foreign language (EFL) classes. The data was obtained through open-ended interviews with Japanese university FETs from diverse ethnic and…

In Japan, the gender gap in attendance at 4-year universities is narrowing, yet significantly fewer women apply to selective colleges. A growing body of literature suggests that gendered expectations of educational returns and cultural stereotypes, most compellingly reflected in parental influence, are pivotal in shaping children's college…

Teachers with gender stereotypes are particularly likely to engage in gender-biased teaching practices and to transmit biased gender norms to students. Examining teachers' gender stereotypes is important for understanding gender transmission in schools and gender inequality in educational attainments. Using data from a questionnaire survey of…

In this article, we cast a critical eye over a culturally dominant ideology--"native-speakerism." This ideology postulates that those deemed to be native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) are preferable over non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs), both as legitimate language models of English and as effective practitioners of…

Scholarship has neglected relationships between the "hidden curriculum" and environmental sustainability. The prevalence of ELT worldwide coupled with the importance of behavioral norms in sustainability makes such examinations necessary. In response, the objective of this project was to investigate depictions of norms with implications…

The purpose of the study is to understand how Japanese women become social entrepreneurs. The challenges in fostering women's entrepreneurship include socio-cultural traditional views on women's roles and expectations and insufficient support systems. Despite such challenges, the rise of Japanese women as social entrepreneurs has been observed in…

The proportion of women in Japanese higher education has gradually increased, but men still dominate in majors such as science and engineering. As a background to this gender segregation, some survey results show that even before entering high school, there is a tendency for boys to evaluate themselves as the "science type" and girls as…

Upon encountering unfamiliar words or observing local practices in study abroad contexts, second language learners may discuss aspects of the target language and culture with their peers -- 'non-native' friends from the same cultural background or 'natives' of the target culture. Such mediations are instrumental in elaborating understandings, but…

The OECD's Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) 2023 represents the largest global initiative to gather comparable data on the development of social and emotional skills -- including creativity, empathy, achievement motivation, responsibility and collaboration skills -- among 10- and 15-year-old students. The report -- Nurturing Social and…

The Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) has instigated domestic policy debate aimed at improving education systems' quality and efficiency. Its high performers are often described as knowledge-based legitimation tools that have become reference societies. This article analyses if and the extent to which PISA affects the choice of…

Various research studies in the field of psychology have shown that the phenomenon of stereotype threat is real and has a consistent and measurable negative effect on individuals' performance on cognitively demanding tasks in a variety of areas. Currently, the relationship between stereotype threat and second language acquisition has not been…

Objectives: Care providers are key agents in the lives of individuals with an intellectual disability (ID). The quality of their support can be affected by manifestations of stigma. This scoping review was conducted to explore studies that provide indications of care providers' stigmatization of people with ID. Methods: A structured search was…

This study, based on a series of surveys conducted at a national university in Western Japan examines perceptions of homosexual men in contemporary Japanese society specifically from the perspective of college students. Through the investigation of a variety of elements that shape attitudes among the younger generation such as personal background…

This study empirically investigated the invisibility, or symbolic annihilation, in Japanese English education of social groups at risk of marginalization. To do so, I assembled a corpus of 3746 English teaching materials selected because they involved world social group representation and because they were disseminated through the JET Program, a…

While listeners tend to downgrade speakers' accent and comprehensibility when they perceive them to be from a different language community--a process known as reverse linguistic stereotyping (RLS)--research has generally relied solely on quantitative data such as Likert scale ratings. The current study sought to extend the analysis further by…