This study aims to clarify whether the early graduation system in Japan is socially equitable. Specifically, it ascertains whether socioeconomic, geographical, and gender disparities exist in the distribution of early graduation systems, specifically the system that allows gifted and talented students to graduate university in three or three and a…

Focusing on North American and European countries, previous studies have documented how heteronormativity operates in higher education institutions, but little is known about the degree to which these results reflect the Western context and the ways in which campus heteronormativity operates in other countries. To help answer these questions, the…

Teachers with gender stereotypes are particularly likely to engage in gender-biased teaching practices and to transmit biased gender norms to students. Examining teachers' gender stereotypes is important for understanding gender transmission in schools and gender inequality in educational attainments. Using data from a questionnaire survey of…

Comprehensive Sexuality Education has been acknowledged globally for its role in advancing young people's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. Yet, notable variation exists in definitions and interpretations of what comprehensive means, exposing tensions between international and local values and agendas. This research focused on the…

This paper explores the admissions practices of an 'Elite Traditional International School' (ETIS) in a large city in Japan. The school is seeing falling enrolment from its traditional clients e.g.'transnational capitalist class' families working for Embassies and its alumnus, whilst attracting an emergent aspiring locally-based body of parents…

The present study investigated whether Japanese 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children exhibit a yes bias to questions from a physically present humanoid robot, Nao. The robot asked the children yes-no questions about familiar and unfamiliar objects. To both types of questions, the 3-year-old children exhibited a yes bias while the 5-year-old children…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore doctoral candidates' ethical work in writing the acknowledgements section of their theses. With interest in the formation of academic identities/subjectivities, the authors explore acknowledgements writing as always potentially a form of parrhesia or risky truth-telling, through which the candidate places…

The purpose of this study was to describe and explain in-service Japanese elementary classroom teachers' experiences with parental involvement of immigrant parents as it pertains to physical education (PE). The study was framed using the theory of teacher development. This study used a descriptive-qualitative methodology and an explanatory case…

Despite posing challenges for teachers and students in English-medium instruction (EMI) contexts, materials are a relatively under-researched area of EMI. Our preliminary study takes a humanistic perspective to examine the extent of English-language material use, and faculty and student perceptions of materials used for EMI in Japan and China.…

The iterative process of ethnography not only constructs theory, but its methodology should embody theory. Developing a theoretical framework often demands adjustments in methodology, to leverage previous work and to avoid assumptions compounding through the magnification of blind spots. New theory in policy-engaged ethnography has emphasised the…

Children with severe multiple disabilities face numerous possibilities for enjoying music and participating in performance activities; however, the research practice for realizing these possibilities involves various difficulties. To understand the disabilities of children and their engagement with music, awareness of one's perception of…

Raters vary from each other in their severity and leniency in rating performance. This study examined the factors affecting rater severity in peer assessments of oral presentations in English as a Foreign Language (EFL), focusing on peer raters' self-construal and presentation abilities. Japanese university students enrolled in EFL classes…

The purpose of this study was to investigate Japanese adult learners' experiences in online recurrent education modules with a focus on race, ethnicity, disability, assessment, and multicultural education to raise social justice and diversity awareness among adult learners, and promote positive change through sport and physical activity. This…

It is well established within the field of Critical Whiteness Studies that white privilege routinely materialises in Western universities. Yet, even though a third wave of Critical Whiteness Studies is increasingly focussing on whiteness in non-Western contexts, there has been insufficient attention toward whether white privilege also exists in…

Although there is abundant evidence for the use of first-language (L1) knowledge by bilinguals when using a second language (L2), investigation into the impact of L1 knowledge in large-scale L2 language assessments and discussion of how such impact may be controlled has received little attention in the language assessment literature. This study…