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The balance between individual independence and social interdependence is a perennial debate in Japan. A series of educational reforms since 1990, including the implementation of a new curriculum in 2002, has been a source of fierce controversy. This book, based on an extended, detailed study of two primary schools in the Kinki district of Japan, discusses these debates, shows how reforms have been implemented at the school level, and explores how the balance between individuality and social interdependence is managed in practice. It discusses these complex issues in relation to personal identity within the class and within the school, in relation to gender issues, and in relation to the teaching of specific subjects, including language, literature and mathematics. The book concludes that, although recent reforms have tended to stress individuality and independence, teachers in primary schools continue to balance the encouragement of individuality and self-direction with the development of interdependence and empathy.
This book is devoted to analysis of the issues surrounding major cross-national studies of educational attainment, especially in mathematics. It is concerned with many of the implications of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and includes contributions from internationally renowned scholars. It will be of considerable interest to all involved in the interpretation of the findings of major international surveys of attainment.
In this study, Aaron Gerow focuses on the early period in which the institutional and narrational structure of Japanese cinema was in flux, arguing that the transnational intertext is less important than the power-laden operations by which the meaning of cinema itself was discursively defined. Both progressive critics of the 'pure film' movement and the more conservative Japanese cultural bureaucrats demanded a unitary text that suppressed the hybrid and unpredictable meanings attendant on early Japanese cinema's informal exhibition contexts. Gerow points out the irony that the progressive and individualist pure film movement critics worked in concert with the Japanese state to undo the 'theft' of Japanese cinema, proposing to replace representations of Japan in Western films by exporting a Japanese cinema 'reformed' to emulate the international norm.
Recent years have witnessed an explosive growth in the literature published about Japan. Yet it seems that the more that is written about Japan and Japanism – its culture, society, people – the more mysterious it becomes. As well as exploring issues relating to advertising, tourism, women, festivals and the art world, the book depicts how the study of Japanese society contributes to anthropological theory and understanding. The editors use the term ‘unwrapping’ to provide insights into Japanese culture and relate these insights to broader problems and questions prevalent in contemporary anthropological discourse. The issues explored include the contribution of applied anthropology to theory; the relationship between tourism and nostalgia; the interplay of marginality and belonging; the role of advertising in gender relations; status in the art world and the place of Japanese genres of writing within anthropology texts.
In 2011, for the first time, the famous Job Descriptive Index (JDI) family of job satisfaction surveys were translated into Japanese by a team of four esteemed Japanese university professors. This book describes the forward-back translation of the surveys and the potential future of the JDI surveys in Japan once they have been validated. Any multinational Japanese company is herewith invited to participate in the validation of the surveys by offering a survey sample of both its Japan-based and USA-based employees. Once the surveys are validated in Japanese, they will be considered legitimate international surveys and a powerful new scientific set of tools will be available for use in Japan.
First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.
The International Polar Years and the International Geophysical Year represented a remarkable international collaborative scientific effort that has been largely neglected by historians. This groundbreaking collection seeks to redress that neglect and illuminate critical aspects of the last 150 years of international scientific endeavour.
It is a great pleasure to present this book, edited by a distinguished team at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and with excellent contributors from nine countries in the region and beyond. The book is a truly comparative work which significantly advances conceptual understanding. The comparisons undertaken are at many levels and with different units for analysis. One chapter undertakes comparison in two cities (Hong Kong and Guangzhou), three chapters make comparisons between two eountries (South Korea and Singapore; Solomon Islands and Vanuatu; South Korea and China); and five chapters undertake eomparisons across the whole region. Other on individual countries or, in one case, on a si...
In this dismantling of the myth of Japanese quality education, Brian J. McVeigh investigates what happens when state and corporate forces monopolize the purpose of education, and schooling becomes testing for employment, not learning. The book uses Japanese students' opinions and voices, not just statistics and official reports, to describe the problems and issues concerning higher education in Japan today. McVeigh (who has taught in Japan's higher education system for over eight years) shows that with so much weight given to examinations, students end up simulating much of their schooling. Grades reflect administrative expediency rather than academic achievement; class attendence substitutes for actual learning; and reforms attempts reenforce the problems. Thus although Japan's higher education system appears to successfully graduate students every year, it is actually a system of institutionalized mendacity that reproduces the less enviable traits of national statism.