This article examines emotionally challenging expectations in the relationships beginning teachers have with students' parents. The data consist of narrative interviews with 17 Japanese beginning teachers. Due to strong cultural and social norms prescribing appropriate social interactions, Japanese teachers have little leeway in negotiating…

During teacher-centred classroom interaction, teachers often fail to solicit volunteer turn-takers. Even if students display their unwillingness to take a turn at the moment, teachers sometimes have no choice but to allocate them the turn, to move forward with the ongoing pedagogical activity. In such a moment, there can be a conflict between the…

Two influential tragic incidents in 2011 are discussed in connection with the cultivation of morality in Japan. One is the suicide of a junior high school student due to bullying in his school--a scandal which eventually led to the country's redefinition of the status of moral education in the school curriculum. The other is the huge earthquake…