Although there has been much interest in the United States about Japanese education, few studies have examined the Japanese school system from the teachers' perspective. This study investigated 143 Japanese and 386 U.S. high school teachers' attitudes concerning their work conditions, roles and responsibilities, and work experiences. An attitudinal survey was used to record views on their professional situations from 143 Japanese and 386 U.S. teachers. Teachers in the United States scored higher on every item concerning job satisfaction than did the teachers in Japan. The cause of the Japanese teachers' dissatisfaction appeared to be rooted in their expectations of the job before becoming a teacher. While U.S. teachers reported more job centrality than did Japanese teachers, job centrality took on much more negative attributes in the United States than in Japan. In the area of job stress, the only item significant for the Japanese teachers was concern over the ability of teachers to get control of the curriculum and materials being used in their classrooms, while U.S. teachers were concerned with the concrete problems of their jobs, class size and after-school work, and the general morale of the staff. Differences in concerns between teachers in the two countries appeared to result from the teachers' need to give their students the best possible preparation for becoming a productive person in the society and, therefore, reflected what society felt those prerequisites for entrance should be. (Author/NB)