Purpose: This article presents fieldwork perspectives and research reflexivity gained from the cross-national research team, with the aim of promoting better qualitative research practices in transnational research. It focuses on how the team incorporates diverse cultural perspectives and insider and outsider roles to enhance the research in the…

Diary methods have long been used as pedagogic tools in learning, and as part of reflective practice in teacher education, but less often as data collection instruments in educational research. This is in part due to implementation challenges emerging from the time and literacy demands they place on participants. To illustrate the use of diary…

International comparative ethnographic studies of ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) are difficult to conduct but worth the effort. Comparative studies featuring thick description and polysemic interpretations can challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, expand the menu of the possible, expose the provincialism of national approaches, and…

Scholars have called for ethnographers to reveal the emotional and controversial aspects of fieldwork. Through analysis of our fieldwork with teens in the United States and Japan, this article documents how we, two adult researchers, attempted to address adultism--a pervasive system of oppression that deems young people inferior. We discuss three…

This paper uses examples from research conducted in preschools in Japan, China, and the United States to illustrate the features and virtues of return interviews with informants with whom ethnographers have long research engagements. Return interviews and long research engagements are powerful research strategies that help the ethnographers ask…

Critical English language teaching (ELT) research is expanding in scope, covering topics such as linguistic imperialism, native-speakerism, and the intersections between issues of race, class, and gender. With this expansion comes a requirement for robust and rigorous methods of data collection and analysis for researchers to employ. This article…

Based on her fieldwork in post-disaster Fukushima, her hometown, the author reflects on how she negotiated insider and outsider identity as she navigated through multiple contested discourses and emotional spaces. In writing this reflective essay, she referred to the field notes she kept during her seven-month stay in Fukushima. The author…

Involvement of children in research processes requires various ethical considerations. In particular, while interviewing children, a researcher needs to take into consideration the power imbalance between a researcher and children as well as among children. This article suggests a possible way of mitigating potential risks, drawing on the idea and…

Results from research about language learners can be strengthened by including the learners themselves in the data analysis, and inviting them to check researcher interpretations to confirm the validity of the data, to search for alternative interpretations, and to delve deeper into their beliefs. Using critical participatory looping (CPL), the…

When "Preschool in Three Cultures" was published in 1989, it attracted great attention, as a result of the insights into the three cultures explored as well as the methodology that anchored the research. What made the book so intriguing to many scholars, regardless of their geographical areas of interest, however, was the unique…

The recent "Nationwide academic achievement and study situation survey" was clearly influenced by the idea of "authentic assessment", an educational assessment perspective focused on "quality" and "engagement". However, when "performance assessment", the assessment method corresponding to this…

"The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education" is the first authoritative reference work to provide an international analysis of the relationship between power, knowledge, education, and schooling. Rather than focusing solely on questions of how we teach efficiently and effectively, contributors to this volume push further…

An empirically based international business research project as a component in the capstone course in undergraduate business program can serve as an effective and integrative learning and teaching tool. Initiated and supervised by the instructor, conducted and completed by the students, the research project enables students working collaboratively…

The nature of the researcher-participant relationship in narrative inquiry is explored by reflecting on the researcher's own experience in such a relationship. It is argued that the researcher who wants to make a difference in the lives of participants must be open to change in return. Personal involvement with participants is an essential…

This paper notes the proliferation of literature about the characteristics of Japanese education and culture. Generalizations ranging from reports of remarkable progress in subject disciplines to praise of Japanese technology, social and individual behavior, and systematic accomplishments have been cited. It is contended in this study that some of…