Ame Goes To School In Japan

Ame the Cat goes to school in Japan for the first time. Join him as he learns all about the interesting things that make school life in Japan so unique.

Ame the Cat travels back to the country of his birth, Japan.

This book examines why Japan has one of the highest enrolment rates in cram schools and private tutoring worldwide. It sheds light on the causes of this high dependence on ‘shadow education’ and its implications for social inequalities. The book provides a deep and extensive understanding of the role of this kind of education in Japan. It shows new ways to theoretically and empirically address this issue, and offers a comprehensive perspective on the impact of shadow education on social inequality formation that is based on reliable and convincing empirical analyses. Contrary to earlier studies, the book shows that shadow education does not inevitably result in increasing or persisting inequalities, but also inherits the potential to let students overcome their status-specific disadvantages and contributes to more opportunities in education. Against the background of the continuous expansion and the convergence of shadow education systems across the globe, the findings of this book call for similar works in other national contexts, particularly Western societies without traditional large-scale shadow education markets. The book emphasizes the importance and urgency to deal with the modern excesses of educational expansion and education as an institution, in which the shadow education industry has made itself (seemingly) indispensable.

**2012 Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice Award Winner!** A cultural adventure for kids, All About Japan offers a journey to a new place—and ways to bring it to life! Dive into stories, play some games from Japan, learn some Japanese songs. Two friends, a boy from the country and a girl from the city, take us on a tour of their beloved land through their eyes. They introduce us to their homes, families, favorite places, school life, holidays and more! Celebrate the cherry blossom festival Learn traditional Japanese songs and poems Make easy recipes like mochi (New Year's sweet rice cakes) and okonomiyaki (Japanese pizza or pancakes) Create origami frogs, samurai helmets and more! Beyond the fun and fascinating facts, you'll also learn about the spirit that makes Japan one-of-a-kind. This is a multicultural children's book for families to treasure together.

The 1970s and 1980s saw a revolution in Japanese literary criticism. A new generation of scholars and critics, many of them veterans of 1960s political activism, arose in revolt against the largely positivistic methodologies that had hitherto dominated postwar literary studies. Creatively refashioning approaches taken from the field of linguistics, the new scholarship challenged orthodox interpretations, often introducing new methodologies in the process: structuralism, semiotics, and phenomenological linguistics, among others. The radical changes introduced then continue to reverberate today, shaping the way Japanese literature is studied both at home and abroad. The Linguistic Turn in Contemporary Japanese Literary Studies is the first critical study of this revolution to appear in English. It includes translations of landmark essays published in the 1970s and 1980s by such influential figures as Noguchi Takehiko, Kamei Hideo, Mitani Kuniaki, and Hirata Yumi. It also collects nine new essays that reflect critically on the emergence of linguistics-based literary criticism and theory in Japan, exploring both the novel possibilities such theory created and the shortcomings that could not be overcome. Scholars from a variety of disciplines and fields probe the political and intellectual implications of this transformation and explore the exciting new pathways it opened up for the study of modern Japanese literature.

Gathers oral histories from Japanese immigrants, most of them women, that discuss leaving Japan, life as farmers and orchard workers, and the World War II relocation.

The balance between individual independence and social interdependence is a perennial debate in Japan. A series of educational reforms since 1990, including the implementation of a new curriculum in 2002, has been a source of fierce controversy. This book, based on an extended, detailed study of two primary schools in the Kinki district of Japan, discusses these debates, shows how reforms have been implemented at the school level, and explores how the balance between individuality and social interdependence is managed in practice. It discusses these complex issues in relation to personal identity within the class and within the school, in relation to gender issues, and in relation to the teaching of specific subjects, including language, literature and mathematics. The book concludes that, although recent reforms have tended to stress individuality and independence, teachers in primary schools continue to balance the encouragement of individuality and self-direction with the development of interdependence and empathy.

Have you ever been to Tokyo, Japan? Far away, in the Pacific Ocean, Tokyo is a busy city of color, activity, celebrations, gigantic buildings, and much more. Seven-year-old Mimiko lives in Tokyo, and here you can follow a year’s worth of fun, food and festivities in Mimiko’s life, month by month. Learn the right way to put on a kimono and see Mimiko’s top ten favorite meals—just try not to eat the pages featuring delicious wagashi!