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The book, The History of the Ouinkai, was published in 1940 as a commemorative project for the 60th anniversary of the Tokyo Higher Normal School for Women (THNSW). The purpose of this article is to illustrate the type of data collected in the surveys and their findings, to explore some of the activities of the association, and to discuss how the Ouinkai alumni association, in collaboration with THNSW, worked with female teachers nationwide. The paper traces some of the multi-norms and multi-roles for female teachers that THNSW promoted and their relation to norms thought to characterise 'ideal' Japanese women. The publication of The History of the Ouinkai was a milestone in Japanese women's education because it demonstrated the Ouinkai's successes in respect of Japanese educational policy for women as well as the leadership that the Ouinkai provided to female graduate teachers, whom it organised with skill. [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]

Based on case studies of China and Japan, this study undertakes comparative research on major aspects of university curriculum and instruction-teaching activities of academics, their role in curriculum development, and their perceptions of these activities-between a mass and a universal higher education system. Major findings from the APA (Academic Profession in Asia) surveys administered in the two countries in 2011-2012 with a similar questionnaire provide hard data. However, the study also explores other contextual factors and drivers which might have affected the teaching activities undertaken by academics, their involvement in curriculum development, and their views of relevant activities. The paper argues that, although differences can be found in some aspects of the curriculum and instruction and academics' participation in these activities during the shift from the mass to universal phase of higher education, seen from the two case studies, it is less clear that the differences show the impact of transforming from mass to universal education. The national contextual factors, especially the origins of higher education and ongoing national policies in both countries, appear to play a significant role in how current academics perceived the curriculum development and instruction, and their participation in these activities. More importantly, as fundamental changes do not necessarily occur in all aspects of the curriculum and instruction, as well as the academics' views across universal and mass higher education systems, Trow's research can only be partly applied to the analysis of the curriculum and instruction in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]