The Effect of a Video Produced by Young African People on Perceptions of Japanese Pupils about Africa

This paper examines whether a video produced by young African people could serve the goal of education for understanding ‘others’ in the context of Japan. This was investigated by assessing Japanese pupils’ perceptions of Africa before and after viewing a video produced by Kenyan students. Data were gathered from Japanese pupils’ drawings. The result suggests that, after seeing the test video, the pupils changed their perceptions of Africa significantly. This concluded that video can contribute to the goal of education for understanding ‘others’, but the effect must be reinforced by providing more information concerning Africa and encouraging interactions between Africa and Japan     

National trends in changes in special education classification among pre-elementary education children

Classification changes are common in special education. Using the first four years of the Pre-elementary Education Longitudinal Study data set (N = 3000), we investigated national trends in classification changes among young children with disabilities, the relationship between classification changes and children’s demographic information, and the relations between classification changes and children’s performance outcomes over time. The results revealed that declassification rates ranged from 35.6% for the three-year-old cohort to 46.3% for the five-year-old cohort. Approximately 25% to 35% of the children in each age cohort were reclassified at least once. The results showed that the prevalence rates of de/reclassification differed according to children’s demographic characteristics without consistent pattern. The study also revealed that reclassified children consistently exhibited lower performance than those without classification changes over time. The results suggest that reclassification did not help children “catch up” with those who remained in the same disability categories.     

Mobile agency and relational webs in women’s narratives of international study

Higher Education - Internationalisation and forced migration are rarely thought about as related phenomena in higher education (HE) literature. Internationalisation is associated with movement,...     

Differentiation as measured by the Classroom Practices Survey: a validity study updating the original instrument

The Classroom Practices Survey assesses educators’ use of differentiated instruction with students achieving at average and high levels. The purposes of this study were to investigate if the Classroom Practices Survey (1) yields reliable and valid data from the groups for which it was originally designed and (2) can be used to evaluate teachers’ differentiation practices for students who achieve at low levels. Participants included 648 elementary teachers who completed the Classroom Practices Survey for students achieving at high, average and low levels. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the original six-factor model was not supported by the current data. Model fit was improved with a four-factor model, but did not reach the recommended values for good model fit. Further research and possibly modifications are needed before this tool is used by researchers and schools. This study highlights the importance of periodically evaluating instruments and revising them if necessary.

     

Teacher education and its reform in contemporary Japan

This article aims to describe the general framework of the teacher training system and its recent reform in Japan. As elsewhere, Japanese society is moving into an era of mass higher education provision. Since initial teacher training is provided by universities, the reform of teacher training is a part of the higher education restructuring that is also under way. At the same time, Japan is facing educational problems in compulsory education. The Educational Personnel Training Council of Japan is recommending reforms, which attempt to create a new type of teacher to cope with these educational problems. This opens the way for the Japanese state to develop more direct control over the curriculum and assessment of teaching staff in universities. The Ministry of Education is attempting to develop new control methods of 'Evaluative State' strategies. The reform of teacher education system exemplifies this shift.     

In search of the public and the private: Philosophy of education in post-war Japan

The focus of this paper is on Japanese philosophy of education in the post-war period. We begin with a historical account, concentrating on developments in ideas and their interrelation with policy, and then go on to discuss aspects of the contemporary scene. Central to our concerns here are the ways in which there has been an impoverishment of the public and private realms, especially with the collusion of private and national interests under the sway of neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologies. We conclude our discussion by identifying some current trends in Japanese philosophy of education, highlighting ways in which new developments in the subject may lay the way for restoring and enhancing the relationship between the private and the public.     

Academic Achievement and Perceptions of the Learning Environment in Virtual and Traditional Secondary Mathematics Classrooms

This study identified pre-entry variables related to course completion and noncompletion in university online distance education courses. Four hundred and sixty-four students who were enrolled in online distance education courses participated in the study. Discriminant analysis revealed six pre-entry variables were related to retention, including cumulative grade point average, class rank, number of previous courses completed online, searching the Internet training, operating systems and file management training, and Internet applications training. Results indicate prior educational experience and prior computer training may help distinguish between individuals who complete university online distance education courses and those who do not.     

CROSSING BORDERS WITHIN: STANLEY CAVELL AND THE POLITICS OF INTERPRETATION

The matter of crossing borders in the creation of democratic communities arises in ways that are pressing, both within the nation‐state and on a global scale. Tensions between tendencies toward nationalism and the cosmopolitan call for global understanding touch the heart of ideas of democracy as beginning at home—at political, psychological, and existential levels. Yet in both orientations there is a certain consolidation of what John Dewey called the “we.” In this essay Naoko Saito and Paul Standish address questions concerning the “I's” relation to the “we.” It is through an exploration of the apparently apolitical approach of Stanley Cavell, through what he calls the “politics of interpretation,” that Saito and Standish try to give substance to the critical destabilization of these terms and tensions that they believe to be necessary. Cavell's Wittgensteinian approach to skepticism and his account of the Emersonian sense of the tragic help to demonstrate the need to meet the political crisis of democracy with language of a more subtly critical kind. The antifoundationalism Cavell derives from these sources, with its concomitant notion of philosophy as translation, provides us with a language that answers to the problems of the “we.” This is, the authors conclude, a better formulation of, and a more hopeful response to, the challenge of crossing borders within. It touches despair but realizes within it the prophetic power of language. And it shows the political crisis in which democracy finds itself to be something that is not peculiar to our times but internal to the very nature of our (political) lives.     

Peers’ perceptions of Japanese returnees

Many studies have examined the reentry process of Japanese children raised abroad. Results suggest that “feeling different” is a key factor in describing their experiences. These studies, however, were based only on self-reports of returnees. The current study examined returnees’ peers’ perceptions and the factors that affected them. Results indicated that the returnees’ peers’ perceptions could be summarized by two factors: “advantage” and “difference/disadvantage.” Those who had studied abroad and who had known many returnees had a balanced perspective of the returnee experience. Women were more likely to perceive advantages while those who were older were more likely to perceive differences/disadvantages.