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The author examines the experiences of learning about Japanese elementary education from the perspective of a Canadian teacher. She suggests through a year-long study in a Japanese third grade classroom that the teaching practices and philosophies underlying curricular and pedagogical decisions made by teachers are shaped by the culture and society of which schools are part, such that learning about Japanese schooling highlights the influence of social, societal, cultural, linguistic factors outside, as well as inside, school. In line with narrative inquiry research practices, the author also acknowledges her own stance as a certified elementary level teacher who was educated and certified in Canada, in contributing to shaping her analysis of teacher knowledge of her teacher participants. She argues that the process of learning about schooling in a country or culture different from the one in which an individual was educated and learned to teach, involves immersing oneself into the research context to learn about the experience from the perspective an insider. Realization of the extent to which this expansive interweaving of school and society is apparent in many aspects of schooling in Japan, in turn, reinforces the idea that this interconnection may also underlie schooling in other societies as well, such that one's experiences in one's own culture may form the foundation for understanding and interpreting knowledge gained about schooling in another culture or community. The notion of cross-cultural teacher knowledge, then, may be grounded in personal and professional experience of teaching and being taught in one's own culture.

This paper reports on the ways in which a group of middle school students who received character education in elementary school define and experience character. The research was designed to improve our understanding of the meanings that the children ascribe to their character lessons in the long term, and to determine whether they see connections between these lessons and their experiences with character in middle school. The data come from interviews with 24 children who attended five different elementary schools in one town that used the Character Counts! curriculum at the time of the study. The students were questioned about their understanding of the curriculum and their own personal experiences with character-related issues in middle school. The results demonstrate that the elementary school character lessons are carried forward. Children are able to recall the formal meaning of many of the character traits that they studied. As they graduate to middle school, however, peer culture assumes an increasingly important role and their lived experience of character become more complex. Thus, the preteens studied here are actively working to reconcile the differences between character as a “learned,” and then a “lived” experience. While maturation and character lessons received beyond school may confound these findings, the results presented here suggest the need to bridge, and then perhaps adapt character programming to empower adolescent input and embrace the role of peer culture in defining and then redefining character.

In 2007, the authors conducted a case study of 13 teachers across seven elementary schools. We learned that, due to pressures of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2002) and state mandated testing, these schools were akin to reading academies—focused chiefly on the teaching of reading skills. They promised to share their results with local administrators and teachers, initiating the reconsideration of elementary social studies. To this end, they revisited school sites, revealed their findings, and offered to “fit into” ongoing discussions of curricular change. They attempted to engage teachers in courageous conversations, or honest, frank appraisal of current conditions. Eventually, they talked with approximately 100 K-6 teachers, principals, and district administrators. Framing their inquiry in Giddens (1984) theory of structuration, they present their efforts to build collaborative relationships in three cases of narrative inquiry. They follow it with dilemmas and insights for the field organized into five considerations: courageous conversation, curricular control, integration, social studies advocacy, and courting schools.

How can the author, as social studies methods instructors, assist future elementary teachers develop the knowledge and skills to engage young students in critical examinations of race and racism, and feel empowered to take action against racial oppression? The purpose of this paper is to share one of many possible ways of “doing race” in elementary social studies teacher education.

First, the author proposes the topic of school segregation as a relevant and engaging inroad for elementary students to learn about race and racism. Then, the author outlines and problematizes a dominant approach to teaching about school segregation in elementary classrooms and suggests an alternative approach informed by critical race theories. Next, the author provides counterstories to dispel the dominant narrative of school segregation from an Asian critical race theory perspective. This is followed by an explanation of the lesson the author teaches in the author’s elementary social studies methods course that utilizes these perspectives and counterstories.

By using Asian-American counterstories of school segregation, the lesson seeks to assist preservice elementary teachers in disrupting the dominant teaching practices and discourses around school segregation and helps preservice teachers develop the critical understandings and competencies needed to successfully teach about race and racism in elementary classrooms.

The author concludes by discussing the possibilities and implications of the lesson.

The purpose of this paper is to compare teachers' wellbeing in different types of schools (elementary, lower secondary and unified school) and to analyze how gender, type of employment, working hours and time served as a teacher affected teachers' wellbeing and perceptions of questions concerning leadership practices and work organization in school.

The holistic school wellbeing evaluation tool was used to study the wellbeing of 1,294 Finnish teachers. The questions covered four categories of wellbeing: school conditions, social relationships, means for self‐fulfillment and health status. Quantitative methodology was used for analysis.

The general picture was that teachers' wellbeing was highest in elementary schools and lowest in lower secondary schools. The wellbeing of a male teacher, a teacher who had fixed‐term employment and a teacher who worked part‐time was higher than that of a female teacher, a permanent teacher and a full‐time teacher. Single questions concerning work organization and leadership practices followed mainly the same lines. Teachers in unified schools had the lowest ratings when questions relating to obtaining help from the principal, or the possibility of receiving further education and equal treatment were asked.

More attention needs to be paid to permanent teachers employed over a long time with regards to enhancing their wellbeing. In the unifying process of schools, equal treatment, obtaining the principal's help for the teachers and the likelihood of updating education are especially important aspects.

The paper presents a theory‐based evaluation of teachers' wellbeing as well as focal points for school development both from the wellbeing and administrative points of view.

According to the revised School Education Act enacted in April 2007, special needs schools in Japan are to provide education for enrolled students as well as any necessary advice or assistance requested by local kindergartens, elementary, junior high, and other schools so that they may educate students who require special educational support. This means that special needs schools must take on the role of special needs education (SNE) centers in the community. Specific assistance that can enhance SNE at elementary, junior high, or other schools, such as promoting understanding of students with disabilities, providing specialized guidance in the form of educational content and methods, and establishing a school support system, may be obtained from special needs schools. In elementary, junior high, and other schools, the number of faculty members and state of facilities and equipment are not always sufficient, and each school has limited support. Therefore, collaboration with special needs schools and medical and welfare institutions is important. This chapter provides a brief overview of the current SNE system in Japan and introduces the roles of SNE coordinators, current issues facing the system, and future perspectives of collaboration to better serve SNE.

Aims to examine and present the beliefs of elementary and secondary school principals and teachers concerning their school’s climate. Investigates four parameters related to school climate, namely: communication, collaboration, organizational structure, and students. Both elementary and secondary principals and teachers indicated that the climate in their particular schools is satisfactory with an overall mean of 2.33 on a three‐point Likert‐type scale. The lowest mean was given to the parameter organizational structure (2.26), the second to the parameter students (2.29) and the third to the parameter collaboration (2.31). Therefore, one could conclude that the above areas are in most need of improvement. Based on gender, one general comment would be that men seemed to feel worse about their particular school’s climate than women. Further, more experienced teachers had slightly different views when compared with less experienced teachers in two parameters of the questionnaire (organizational structure and students).

The purposes of this study were (1) to examine the characteristics of teacher involvement in the decision making process in schools; (2) to examine the degree of loyalty to principals in schools; (3) to test the relationship between teacher decisional status and loyalty to the principal; and (4) to explore the dynamics of teacher decision‐making so that a better understanding of the underlying structure of decision‐making in schools can be developed. Data were collected at regularly scheduled faculty meetings in ten elementary and five secondary schools in New Jersey. In general, analysis of variance was utilized as the basis of statistical analysis. Further, a factor analysis was performed in an attempt to understand the underlying structure of the data. Four major conclusions were drawn from the study: (1) Teacher satisfaction with their decisional status was related to loyalty to the principal; (2) no significant differences were found between elementary and secondary schools with regard to satisfaction with their decisional status; (3) elementary school teachers exhibited a greater degree of loyalty to their principals than did teachers in secondary schools; and (4) teachers' desires to participate in decision‐making are strongest in those areas that are closely related to the teaching‐learning process.

In both elementary schools and elementary teacher education programs, social studies is marginalized while standards require increasingly more ambitious reasoning, reading, and writing in social studies than has historically been documented in American elementary schools. The purpose of this paper is to explain the challenges that elementary social studies teacher educators face in preparing elementary school teachers to facilitate the kind of ambitious social studies envisioned in the NCSS’s C3 Framework and advocate an approach to successfully address these challenges.

This paper articulates a targeted and ambitious approach to elementary social studies teacher education. The authors describe five recommendations from the teacher education literature for supporting preservice teachers in learning disciplinary-oriented social studies teaching, recommendations that guided the redesign of the social studies methods course. The authors then highlight key aspects of the redesigned methods course and demonstrate how the authors engaged the challenges inherent in the work of elementary social studies teacher education.

Although this paper is not arranged in such a way as to substantiate empirical findings, the purpose of the paper is to demonstrate an approach to elementary social studies education aligned with extant literature on preparing teachers to engage in reform teaching practices, specifically those disciplinary oriented practices suggested in NCSS’s C3 Framework. As such, the paper should be read as a perspective on practice.

The type of disciplinary-oriented approach described here is increasingly under investigation in secondary teacher education research and similar approaches are under investigation in elementary math and science education research. To the authors’ knowledge, the approach is novel in elementary social studies education. Furthermore, the authors believe it offers a direction for researchers interested in gaps in the literature related to practice based teacher education and disciplinary-oriented social studies teacher education.

The approach described here offers specific guidance and resources for teacher educators who are struggling with the challenges of the contemporary social studies education landscape and/or who wish to focus methods courses in disciplinary ways.

Research in social studied education has demonstrated that when students are exposed to disciplinary practices in social studies, their literacy skills improve and they learn analytical skills that support their development as citizens (consumption of media, participation in public discourse, ability to discern arguments).

As noted above, the approach described here is novel in elementary social studies education. Combining a disciplinary approach with a practice-based frame in elementary social studies represents an opportunity for empirical research and offers new approaches to the practice of teacher education and early career professional development.

The purpose of this chapter is to present a summary of the literature related to homework. First, information on the search procedures is provided, including the criteria for inclusion in this review. Second, a historical overview of homework in the United States is provided, including definitions and major changes in public opinion over time. The third section addresses the difficulties experienced by students with emotional disabilities in regard to homework. The fourth section reviews the homework policies presently in place at local school districts across the U.S. The fifth section discusses the effects of homework when basic classroom strategies, cooperative homework teams, self-management and goal setting, and assignment completion strategies are used. The sixth section describes the homework practices used, as reported by teachers and students. The seventh section describes the problems experienced by students with disabilities, from the perspective of teachers, parents, and students. A final section describes the kinds of problems associated with home-school communication.