This article clarifies the characteristics of sustained reform in individual schools by investigating two questions. First, in which ways does a teacher who initiated school reform leave the sustainable school reformation process at individual schools? Second, what kind of implications does he get from the experiences of having the partner teachers who had led the sustained reform with him leave the reform process?

Interviews with this individual indicate that the teacher left this sustained school reform process actively by always assuming the school's perspective and after being observed to be of low value and not being viewed with significance by the other teachers he built cultural collaboration with. Moreover, after the partner teachers left, he predicts and prevents the probability that the school will return to its former situation. This teacher keeps attempting to initiate school reform and is planning to build cultural collaboration with the other teachers to develop sustainable school reform. The characteristic of sustained school reform is the interaction between these two results.

The concept of pain is widely discussed as a psychological uncertainty in the learning process by many adult education scholars and practitioners in the field of transformative learning. In this paper, transformative learning theory is re-examined from the perspective of the concept of pain by focusing on the specific meanings of pain and on how pain is dealt with by educators and learners. The study shows that researchers attached various meanings to pain in the course of the evolution of transformative leaning theory. In early discussions, pain was the target of oppression, while in recent years pain has become the subject of interactions. Therefore, transformative learning theory can be reinterpreted to recognize our world as interactions between educators and learners. The interaction process tends to be emphasized as time passes in order to defuse any criticism against transformative learning. This study contributes to the development of the theoretical study of transformative learning by exploring the various roles of educators and learners from a novel perspective and allowing for a theoretical comparison of discussions about transformative learning in adult education and other various fields.

Japan has been implemented of school leader education initiatives aimed at enhancing management capacity of students. When examining these school leader education initiatives, it is important to consider them from the viewpoint of strategic management because enhancing management capacity related to formulating strategies is the aim of these initiatives. In the first place, the management capacity required for school leaders and the educational methods to enhance capacity change by strategic management assuming school leader education initiatives. From the viewpoint of strategic management, many school leader education initiatives were based on analytical strategic management, wherein leaders formulate strategies and organization members implement them. To explore alternatives to such school leader education, this article examined Philip Hallinger's (1995, 1997, 2003, 2007) theory of school leader education. First, I examine the problems in school leader education based on analytical strategic management using Hallinger's theory. Second, I explain how Hallinger's theory assumes evolutionary strategic management, and how his theoretical goal is to enhance the capacity to "manage for action". Third, I examine the characteristics of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) to enhance its capacity. Finally, I provide two suggestions, based on Hallinger's work, for improving school leader education in Japan.

The purpose of this paper is to update the achievements and limitations associated with second language learners' indirect speech act comprehension, with focus on the conventionality of indirect speech acts. Conventional and nonconventional indirect speech acts can be differentiated on the basis of inferential load. Native speakers access the meaning of conventional indirect speech acts more quickly and easily than nonconventional ones. However, research which has employed conventionality as the foundation of an analytic framework used to assess second language learners' comprehension of indirect speech acts have reported varying results. Recent research has tended to move away from the use of directives and towards expressives when investigating such speech acts. Moreover, the definition and identification of conventionality have also varied paper-by-paper. Some investigation methods used to assess the effect of conventionality on second language learners' comprehension have been implausible. In order to clarify the conflicts and to establish a common conceptualization of conventionality, previous research using conventionality, both in second language learners and native speakers, is summarized in this paper. Suggestions for future research on indirect speech act comprehension in second language learners are also offered.