With internationalisation continuing at an ever-increasing pace, Japan incentivises student mobility via study abroad (SA) programmes in the hope of cultivating the global human resources necessary for future economic growth. Against this background, proficiency in English emerges as a dominant linguistic and epistemic model, increasingly viewed…

This book explores the impacts on personal and professional, local and global forms of belonging in educational spaces amidst rapid changes shaped by globalization. Encouraging readers to consider the idea of belonging as an educational goal as much as a guiding educational strategy, this text forms a unique contribution to the field. Drawing on…

This volume offers a timely collection of research-based studies that engage with contemporary conditions of precarity across an array of locations, exploring how it is understood, experienced, and acted upon by educators in schools, universities, and nonformal educational spaces. Precarity presents as layered, unpredictable, destabilizing, and…

The old myth about the ability and variability of potential in children is a comforting myth, for those who are uneasy with the degree of inequality they see and would rather seek to justify it than confront it. The myth of inherent potential helps some explain to themselves why they are privileged. Extend the myth to believe in inherited ability…

International mathematics assessments have established students in East Asia as among the best in the world and their U.S. counterparts as mediocre. What is not clear is why this "achievement gap" exists. The last major study to address this question, Stevenson and Stigler's (1992) "The Learning Gap," was published prior to…

Although Japanese schools are generally considered to be one of the most gender-equitable social institutions in Japan, they play an important role in helping to reproduce and naturalize the notion of sex-based separate spheres, through endorsing the maintenance of such separate spheres in extracurricular sports clubs, such as baseball, where…

In the recent debate over education reform, Japanese conservative politicians and intellectuals have selectively appropriated a particular crisis-and-success narrative of British education reform to de-territorialize contentious policy changes. They assert that Britain achieved successful education reform by transforming the very same teaching…

Teachers have been understood in their functional role and collective agency in sociology. In this article, the author rethinks the structure and agency dimension of teaching in the context of Japanese school education in transition. The new curriculum in Japan puts emphasis on children's subjective experience of learning. This article explores…

Addresses the importance of emotions in relation to teachers' work in classrooms, to colleagues, and to communities, with implications for understanding the changing nature and organization of teaching in Japan. The paper analyzes five emotional geographies of teaching (moral, cultural, political, professional, and physical) in terms of Japanese…

Describes a longitudinal study of effects of cross-cultural education on attitudes and personality in 104 male Japanese graduate students. Their sojourn in America increased their appreciation of American culture, but did not lower their appreciation of their own background or alter their personalities. (Author)

This book, one of the Studies of the East Asian Institute at Columbia University, is an expanded and updated bibliography of an earlier work published in 1965 that attempts to bring together materials in English on education in Japan. Approximately 1500 selective items dated from 1876 to 1969 written by Americans and Japanese are grouped under the…

Analyzes the decision making process used by Japanese middle school students and their parents for choosing a high school. Reveals that these decisions are highly affected by placement counseling. This process defines the students' choices, inculcates values, and offers sets of rationales for students to account for their decisions. (MJP)

Asserts that the United States and Japan exist in a symbiotic partnership and that sociology courses provide an excellent opportunity to teach about multicultural issues. Describes a college-level course on the sociology of Japan. Discusses teaching methods, instructional materials, and the potential for team-teaching. (CFR)

Continuing concern regarding the quality and future of education in both America and Japan prompts many comparisons of their nation's educational systems. Chapter 1, "Japanese Schools' Higher Achievement, Literacy, Efficiency, Discipline, Classroom Management, and Strengths of Civilization," attempts to explain the superior performance…