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This paper tells a story about the design, development and impact of a post-graduate Masters-level module aimed at (1) enabling groups of teachers within schools to develop innovative approaches to teaching and learning on the basis of their own Lesson Studies and (2) creating a school network of excellence for Lesson Study in the area as a context for building a cumulative evidence-base, which focuses on identifying and resolving enduring problems of teaching and learning in schools. The first part of the paper outlines the curriculum for the module and sets the innovative conceptual framework that underpins its design. This framework is innovative because it connects and unifies a number of distinct pedagogical perspectives. It links the methodology of Japanese Lesson Study with Stenhouse's idea of 'the teacher as a researcher' and his 'process model' of curriculum development as an alternative to the globally dominant 'objectives model'. Then in turn, the framework incorporates Marton and Booth's pedagogical theory of 'variation'. The paper argues that linking and fusing Lesson Study methodology with this wider context of pedagogical ideas unambiguously renders teacher research as learning study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As constraints on government funding to public universities become a trend in higher education internationally, clarifying the impact of government policies on donor behavior from a comparative perspective is an issue of higher education research. This paper aims to explore the impact of government appropriations and tax policies on macro trends in donations to public research universities in Japan and USA. Panel data of donation revenue to public research universities in both countries is used to answer the following two research questions: (1) whether the trends in capital markets affect the donation revenue of public research universities operating under different tax systems in Japan and USA, and (2) how the level of government support to higher education affects donations to American and Japanese public research universities. The primary finding is that stock prices are positively associated with donations in USA; however, there is no evidence that stock prices have a positive impact on donations to Japanese public research universities. These contrasting results imply that higher stock prices do not always induce donations to universities and that it is important to consider each country's tax structure when looking for possible links between stock prices and donations to universities. Also, donor behavior is independent of the amount of government appropriations received by universities in both Japan and USA; therefore, the recent decreasing trends in government appropriations in both countries do not necessarily attract donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the close of World War II, Japan’s ouster from Malaya led to the resumption of British control and a new outlook toward political independence. Higher education would play a central role in this complex transition, where the forces of decolonization and nation-building converged with drives toward both interethnic competition and multiethnic cooperation. These tensions stimulated a multiplicity of new rhetorics and new networks for universities and university students. This paper uses the framework of governance to uncover the contrasting rhetorics and networks produced by postwar Singapore’s new universities. By examining their structures and mechanisms of governance, the paper demonstrates how the sudden catapulting of university education to a crucial socio-political position redefined the intersections between education, language, culture, and nation. In doing so, it reveals that these redefinitions forecasted contemporary discourse and mechanisms in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In research on gender and teaching in higher education, the experiences of male teachers as men, and of whiteness in a non-majority-white context have received little attention. As one step towards addressing this gap in the literature, this paper analyses interview accounts of white Western men working as English language teachers in Japanese higher education. The paper demonstrates, first, ways in which disembodied academic identities are constructed by erasing the men's racialised gender and sexuality. Second, it shows how favourable images of white Western male teachers are produced through a series of negative contrasts based on gender and race. Third, it suggests that men's homosocial networks may serve to facilitate male predominance in the Japanese university system. The analysis contributes to current understandings about the construction of white Western masculinities in academic institutions, in international education, and in English language teaching as a globalised industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to identify key challenges facing Japan's higher education since the early 1990s and their impacts on major research themes. In this paper key challenges include those resulting from the decline in the 18-year population, the cultivation of high-quality university graduates, the incorporation of national universities, the diversification of higher education systems, and globalization and internationalization of higher education. The paper concludes by arguing that challenges facing Japan's higher education and research are unquestionable and considerable. Because several challenges are different from that of any other countries, Japan has to find out solutions to tackle them by its own efforts. Furthermore, in response to these challenges, there has seen an evident transformation in a vast majority of higher education research institutes and centers from a purely academic-based research to more practical and operational research. Besides, at a policy level, numerous research themes and agenda have been developed and implemented by the Japanese government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a framework of this study, modern society may be explained by a paradigm transformation from ascription to achievement and also from particularism to universalism. According to this hypothesis, Japanese university society has not developed successfully for more than the closed society to the opened society. This paper intends to deal with the Japanese differentiated university stratification, which has been formed among these value orientations by connection of particularism and ascription, with a focus on its effects on the academic productivity including both research and teaching productivity. For example, a closed academic structure with an inbreeding mechanism in tate-shakai (vertical society) has brought about a great deal of effect either positively or negatively on academic system throughout the country. We intend to discuss the reasons behind the declining symptom of academic productivity of the university on the basis of the given framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to strengthen their international presence, universities pursuing a world-class status are striving to increase their internationalization. Internationalization implies a transformation of university governance, especially for universities in a non-English-speaking system such as Japan's. This paper examines the challenges of internationalization for Japan's top universities as a transformation process of these universities' governance. First, the historical background of Japanese higher education as an early front-runner in Asia is discussed, along with the dynamics of national identity and global trends. Second, a series of government-funded programs for research and internationalization are examined from the viewpoint of governance reform. The construction of 'world-class' universities not only implies concentrated financial investment but also a comprehensive transformation of university governance in a global context. The major challenges for top Japanese research universities in terms of maintaining and improving their international presence are also highlighted. This article suggests the importance of examining the historical and current context of university governance in East Asian higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a survey that investigated the practice and experience of task management of university students. A total of 202 tasks identified by 24 university students were analyzed. The results suggest that participants had a reasonable sense of priority of tasks, that they tend to perceive a task as a big chunk, not a series of small chunks, that estimated time can be a good indicator of task completion, that time management and loss of coordination are the major factors for uncompleted or non-started tasks, and finally that their notion of task grouping was dominated by task themes or topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]