The relationship between shadow education and competition has been discussed and studied widely by educational experts and policy makers in Japan. One major topic has been the role that shadow education plays in social inequality by creating winners and losers. Another is related to competition and students' psychological health; and a third…

As public education faces multiple issues, including the surfacing of children's struggles in society and the formation of capabilities suited to the times, free schools are tasked with expectations for their role as a supplement to public education, leading to a change in the onetime structure of opposition. However, attention must be paid to the…

The author reflects on the history of technology in education and e-learning and introduces the iNtegrating Technology for inQuiry (NTeQ) model of lesson design authored by Morrison and Lowther (2005). The NTeQ model lesson design is a new pedagogy for academic instruction in response to the growth of the Internet and technological advancements in…

While shadow education, organized learning activities outside formal school, has grown greatly around the world, the relationship between formal schooling and shadow education has not been well investigated. This study is therefore intended to empirically test whether formal education's structure (i.e. tracking) affects students' shadow education…

The increase in the use of supplementary education, or "juku," in Japan by Japanese families in order to augment their children's chances of success in entering prestigious pre-tertiary and tertiary institutions is documented (Blumenthal in "Asian Surv" 32(5):448-460, 1992; Bray and Lykins in "Shadow education; private…

This study comes at an opportune moment for Japanese and U.S. educators, policymakers, and researchers given the trends of global policy and equity-based reform. Discussions of academic achievement in both societies allow us to examine accessibility in mathematics education in order to best prepare teachers to serve the needs of students.…

Considering the great impact the first PISA-results caused in Germany and Japan, this study seeks to provide an explanation for the continuous higher achievement rates of students in the PISA-winner country Japan compared to their German peers. Another great difference between the two participants that was detected in PISA is the correlation…

Prodigious growth in out-of-school, private educational activities meant to supplement formal schooling is observed worldwide. Why has shadow education expanded, and what does it mean for the future of education in postmodern society? Illustrated by the historical development and recent changes in the Japanese shadow education industry, it is…

The impact of social class backgrounds on young children's educational experiences has attracted increasing attention in early childhood research. However, few longitudinal studies related to social class and parental involvement in young children's education are available, especially in East Asian contexts. In this longitudinal qualitative study,…

Kariya (2009) proposes a concept of learning competencies to understand how social reproduction occurs in the current context of Japanese society; he argues that students learning competencies are not equally distributed but shaped by their family background, a foundation of unequal socioeconomic inequality. While he contends that learning…

Supplementary education is on the rise globally, taking many different forms, from private tutors to small schools and large corporations. These providers exist outside conventional public and private school systems, offering remedial education and tutoring, parallel instruction to conventional schools, and accelerated or more advanced…

This paper is an exploratory study of the childhood academic language environments (CALEs) of bilingual Japanese expatriate students. Student (n=28) and parent (n=67) surveys were adapted from the Life History Calendar (Caspi et al. 1996) to gather retrospective CALE data at a Japanese-English bilingual high school. Principal Components Analysis…

It is widely acknowledged that the private costs of education occupy a substantial part of the overall education cost and thus they have implications for quality and equity in education. The case of Japan demonstrates that access to basic education at junior high school level is unequal and inequitable when considering private costs of education…

Demonstrates that observations must not be limited to mathematics lessons in Japanese public schools when exploring the achievement of Japanese students. Focuses on mathematics education in Japanese elementary, junior high, and supplementary schools. Reveals that Japanese students spend more time on mathematics and receive more supervision and…

Private supplementary tutoring has long been a major phenomenon in parts of East Asia, including Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. In recent times it has grown dramatically in other parts of Asia and in Africa, Europe and North America. The factors underlying the growth of private tutoring vary, but in all settings it has major…