Communication openness,satisfaction, and length of employment in Japanese organizations

Hypotheses were generated regarding the relationship among communication openness, satisfaction, and length of employment in Japanese organizations. A questionnaire was administered to employees of Japanese organizations in the Tokyo area. The data revealed that upward, downward, and lateral communication openness were associated positively with both relational and organizational satisfaction. Length of employment also was associated with downward and lateral communication openness and with both relational and organizational satisfaction. The relationships between length of employment and satisfaction differed for employees in large and small‐to‐moderate sized organizations. Lateral communication openness was associated positively with satisfaction variables and there was a relatively small association between length of employment and satisfaction.     

Consequences of a recent campaign of criticism against school sex education in Japan

This paper aims to provide insights into recent events concerning school sex education in Japan. A campaign of criticism against school sex education emerged in 2002 at both national and regional levels, and included a court case in Tokyo. Despite leaving a depressing atmosphere regarding sex education teaching practices, this campaign also functioned to generate new research, which not only brought together the first nationwide data on school sex education, but also revealed hitherto unknown facts. The evidence uncovered indicated that the campaign against school sex education was not supported by wider society, and restrained routine reactions by the central government served as a buffer against criticism to suspend it.     

International trends in health science librarianship part 11: Japan and Korea

This is the 11th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship. The previous article in this series looked at the Far East (Greater China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). The current issue surveys developments in Japan and Korea. The next issue will explore trends in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). Next year all four issues will be devoted to trends in four regions in Africa (Southern Africa, East Africa, West Africa and North Africa. JM     

Japanese intercultural communication competence and cross-cultural adjustment

This study explores the relationship between language and communication skills and patterns of success and failure in the cross-cultural adjustment of Japanese university students. Seven interpersonal communication skills which were selected by Ruben and Kealey as important to cross-cultural adjustment were examined: empathy, respect, role behavior flexibility, orientation to knowledge, interaction posture, interaction management, and tolerance for ambiguity. Besides these skills, language was taken into consideration as a major component influencing Japanese intercultural communication. The behavioral assessment method developed by Ruben was utilized to measure communicative performance and behaviors of Japanese university students who visited the United States for 4 weeks for their English training. In order to assess the language skills of these individuals, listening, speaking, structure and written expression, and vocabolary and reading comprehension skills were measured. At the end of their stay in the United States, the dimensions of culture shock, psychological adjustment, and interactional effectiveness were examined. Comparisons of pre- and post-test measures indicated that six out of the seven communication behaviors observed in the Japanese students did not predict success or failure in adjustment to the United States. Only ambiguity tolerance yielded correlation with culture shock. However, speaking and listening skills were closely correlated with interactional effectiveness.     

The concept of teaching: a reappraisal

This paper examines the concept of ‘teaching’ in early education and childcare and argues that the activity of teaching, broadly defined, concerns all adults who work in this area and occurs in all phases of the educational system. Bronfenbrenner's (1979 Bronfenbrenner U 1979 The ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press)  [Google Scholar]) ecological perspective on human development is applied to conceptualise teaching as (1) adults' attempts to extend children's current phenomenological perspectives of the world; and (2) as being based on adults' ability to capture children's momentum towards learning. The implications of current terms such as ‘practitioner’, and the ways in which ‘teaching’ in early childhood education has been conceptualised, are also discussed.     

Approaches to Global Education in the United States, The United Kingdom and Japan

This paper analyses approaches to global education in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. The paper begins by looking at movements that preceded global education, such as education for international understanding, development education, multicultural education, and peace education. The rise and fall of these earlier movements is analysed in terms of the interplay between the international and domestic politics of particular countries. To identify the world views which underpinned these pedagogic forms, the author discusses various discontinuities between the period up to the 1990s and thereafter. It is suggested that fresh forms of global education are emerging in - and because of - the changed world of the late 20th and early 21st century.