Curriculum reforms often fail because teachers are asked to implement approaches to teaching and learning that are contrary to their beliefs about students and how to teach them. Since curriculum reforms are attempts to resolve particular educational problems, failures in implementation produce parallel failures to resolve the problem for which…

Background: Despite years of intense criticism of contrastive (intercultural) rhetoric, theoretical debate, and controversy, there has been a recent resurgence in the number of high quality pedagogical studies concerning the teaching of intercultural rhetoric in university writing classes for East-Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) writers.…

This article examines the goals and consequences of an educational reform introduced in all Japanese schools beginning in 2002. The Integrated Studies (IS) programme was designed to increase teacher autonomy and to augment student interest in learning. The reform has the potential to alter significantly the way education is organised and delivered…