The purpose of this study was to examine similarities and differences of American, Japanese, and Taiwanese kindergarten teachers' perspectives about clean-up time. The participants consisted of two female American kindergarten teachers in the southeastern US, two female Japanese kindergarten teachers on the main island, and two female Taiwanese…

Creative Cities are facing the big challenges due to the demographical, environmental and economic issues. In this study we considered to create the educational fieldworks inside the creative city and raise the awareness in youth about the importance of the biocultural preservations to sustain the city's creativity and sustainability. Our…

The purpose of the study was to examine Japanese and Korean kindergarteners' perspectives by asking them to photograph play and explain why their photos represent play (photo elicitation interviews). The participants consisted of 50 kindergarteners on Japan's main island and 50 kindergarteners in South Korea. Japanese and Korean kindergartners…

In a time of growing competition for tertiary education, international students represent an important resource. However, more work is required to detail the factors that influence destination choice in study abroad. Drawing from a representative sample (n = 620) of the adult population over 19 in the Republic of Korea, the present study examined…

We compared three methods for increasing reading amount and reading self-efficacy among L2 learners. (1) We required a word-target group to read at least 2,500 words a week outside class. (2) We required a sustained silent reading (SSR) group to do (a) in class SSR for 15 minutes every week, and (b) to read one book per week. (3) We required a…

The purpose of this study was to describe and explain Asian international doctoral students' sojourn experiences into Adapted Physical Education (APE) programs at two universities. The participants were six doctoral students from Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. This case study was conceptualized within sojourner theory (Siu, 1952). The data…

The transfer of vocational education and training (VET) systems is currently the subject of lively international debate, but there has so far been very little documentation of the process or analysis of how such transfers are achieved in practical terms. This paper therefore considers the potential for transferring Germany's "dual"…

Over the last four decades, considerable research has been done comparing the relative achievement in mathematics by students in the United States and Japan. The current study focuses on one possible factor influencing student achievement: parental influence. The researcher interviewed a small group of teachers in the two countries regarding their…

This paper briefly reviews theories of embodiment and then provides an example from our recent work on how we use video in our comparative studies of preschools to highlight embodied and implicit cultural pedagogies. The example we present focuses on how Japanese preschool teachers use the Japanese cultural practice of "mimamoru"…

The growing number of young children around the world learning English has resulted in an increase in research in the field. Many of the studies have investigated approaches to learning and teaching, with a particular emphasis on effective pedagogies (e.g. Harley 1998; Shak and Gardner 2008). Other studies have focused on the linguistic gains of…

With the shift in language teaching towards a more learner-centered approach, there is now an emphasis on considering learners' views on what goes on in the classroom. Involving learners in selecting and evaluating classroom activities as well as listening to their voices and preferences can be helpful for teachers in planning lesson and designing…

This qualitative study explores the meaning of global competence for global managers in three different countries. Thirty interviews were conducted with global managers in India, Japan and the Netherlands through Skype, an internet based software. Findings are reported by country in five major categories: country background, personal…

Although the term "radiation" has a fixed place in everyday life as well as in the media, there is very little empirical research on students' conceptions about this topic. In our study we wanted to find out what students associate with this term. In 2009, we asked 509 students (between grade 4 and grade 6) from seven different schools…

We report on international research that compares linguistic ecosystems, that is, socially constructed public attitudes and ideologies concerned with foreign-language (FL) learning, in Canada and Japan. Analyzing responses to three interview questions from 125 interviews with five categories of respondent in each country, we suggest that there are…

In this article, the authors argue that to understand the very low incidence of outside-of-marriage childbearing in contemporary Japan one needs to take into account perceptions of all possible solutions to a premarital pregnancy: marriage, abortion, and childbearing outside wedlock. To demonstrate the particular impact of these perceptions in…