The present study examined cultural practices governing succession processes, obtaining data from the students in a university seminar organized according to a pair system, in order to obtain information relevant to the theory of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP).  Based on the notion in that theory of continuity-displacement contradiction, the present research explored how norms related to communities of practice were reproduced, and how conflicts between generations were resolved.  University students (35 juniors and seniors) who were in the seminar on this topic participated in semi-structured interviews.  Qualitative analysis of the narrative data revealed 6 categories of succession patterns : legitimate succession, developmental succession, non-intentional succession, non-succession, succession-improvement, and succession-failure.  The data also revealed 1 pattern, penetration of cultural values, by which norms were reproduced.  Additionally, the results of the present study illustrated how the categories of succession patterns developed by the juniors and seniors reflected differences in norms.  Finally, the seminar used a pair system in order to explore the penetration of cultural values underpinning the revolutionary processes governing succession, which were mediated by the production and dissolution of conflicts between the juniors and the seniors.  The possible use of legitimate peripheral participation as a theory of succession was discussed.

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  The present study explored the influence of perceived parental expectations on internal adjustment of junior high school students.  In Study 1, a self-report instrument, the Perceived Parental Expectations Scale (PPES), was developed for use with adolescents.  The scale consisted of 3 subscales : positive perceptions, burdensome perceptions, and desire to avoid disappointment.  Analysis of data from 383 junior high school students confirmed that the scale had adequate reliability and validity.  In Study 2, junior high school students (seventh grade, 59 boys, 52 girls; eighth grade, 87 boys, 94 girls; ninth grade, 37 boys, 54 girls) completed a battery of questionnaires, including the Perceived Parental Expectations Scale.  Hierarchical regression analysis was used to investigate effects on internal adjustment of estimated strength of parental expectations, perceived parental expectations, and the interaction of these two.  The results suggested that perceived parental expectations were a better predictor of internal adjustment than was estimated strength of parental expectations.  A positive perception of parental expectations promoted internal adjustment, such as general self worth, whereas burdensome perceptions promoted many aspects of reactions to stress, including aggression, depressed moods, anxiety, apathy, and somatic complaints.

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  The purpose of the present study was to examine the motivation of classroom teachers who collaborate with school counselors (SC), from the viewpoint of the classroom teachers.  Semi-structured interviews conducted with 16 junior high school teachers were analyzed with the Grounded Theory Approach., resulting in the generation of 5 hypothetical ideas and a hypothetical model.  The classroom teachers were found to categorize causes of students’ worrisome acts as (a) the students’ difficulties, (b) problems faced by the students’ guardians that were influencing the students’ acts, or (c) unknown.  When classroom teachers provide guidance for students who engage in difficult behavior, the teachers sometimes feel constrained by their position.  This seemed to motivate them to collaborate with the school counselors.  In their collaboration, the classroom teachers had 3 kinds of expectations for the school counselors : (a) meeting with the students and/or their guardians, (b) providing consultation, and (c) providing helpful information in dealing with the students’ problems.

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  The use of course evaluations by students has increased over the last few decades.  However, because some teachers have made negative comments about this procedure, classes should be evaluated from both the students’ and the teacher’s point of view.  In addition, rating scales make it difficult to deal with data reflecting the strength of the students’ responses.  The purpose of the present study was to propose a model for course evaluation that extends the Group Analytic Hierarchy Process by structural equation modeling (Group AHP by SEM, or GAS; Toyoda, Yonemura, & Saito, 2004, in Japanese), so as to remove effects of the strength of the students’ ratings and make comparisons between classes possible.  The proposed model can be used to estimate an overall evaluation that considers differences in importance of criteria between students and teachers. In the present study, university students from 23 classes and their teachers completed questionnaires, after which the proposed model was applied to the data.  The results suggested a difference in the importance of criteria between the students and the teachers, but little difference was found in the overall evaluations.

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  The present study investigated influences of the Japanese language on young Japanese and Chinese children’s ability to repeat English nonwords orally.  Young Japanese children (n=46), young Chinese children (n=63), and young Japanese children attending an international kindergarten (n=29) were asked to repeat orally English nonwords composed of 2 to 5 syllables.  As the number of syllables of the nonwords increased, the young Chinese children made fewer perfect responses, but they recalled more syllables of the nonwords.  In contrast, with the 3-syllable nonwords, the young Japanese children’s responses showed a ceiling or floor effect in the decrease in the number of perfect responses and the increase in recalled syllables.  In addition, the Japanese children who were attending an international kindergarten made as many perfect responses on the 2- and 3-syllable nonwords as same-age English native speakers, but they had fewer perfect responses for 5-syllable nonwords than the native speakers did.  The number of syllables that they recalled for the 4- and 5-syllable nonwords was approximately the same as for the 3-syllable nonwords.  These results suggest that young Japanese children should engage in more demanding phonological processing for the repetition of English nonwords.

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  The present study of junior high school students examined the relation between psychological factors, problem behavior, and pro-school behavior, and the relation between instructional style, problem behavior, and pro-school behavior.  “Problem behavior” was defined as a teacher having reported that a student’s attitude was a problem ; “pro-school behavior” was defined as a teacher having reported that a student’s attitude was desirable.  After Japanese junior high school students (N=2,133) completed a questionnaire about problem behavior, the students were divided into 2 groups : those with and those without problem behavior.  A comparison of the 2 groups of students suggested that aggression and self-control influenced problem behavior.  Consciousness of norms influenced both problem behavior and pro-school behavior.  A passive instructional style inhibited problem behavior, whereas, in contrast, an aggressive instructional style promoted pro-school behavior.  Implications for intervention for problem behavior and pro-school behavior were discussed.

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  The present study examined the influence of individuals’ mother tongue on the semantic processing of Japanese spoken words by kanji-area Japanese learners, from the point of view of cognates between Chinese and Japanese.  In Experiment 1, the Japanese words were presented aurally, and the Chinese words, visually.  The participants were instructed to judge whether the Chinese word seen was a translation of the Japanese word heard.  The results indicated that reaction time for the cognates was shorter than that for the non-cognates, irrespective of the frequency of the stimulus and the participants’ proficiency in Japanese.  In Experiment 2, the Chinese words were presented aurally.  The reaction time for the cognates was longer than that for the non-cognates in the low-frequency conditions.  Moreover, a frequency effect was found only for the cognates.  These results suggest that the superiority of the semantic processing of the cognates observed in Experiment 1 could be attributed to the orthographic information in the Chinese words, and that the phonological acquisition of Japanese is slower for cognates than for non-cognates.

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  Because it is often not possible to understand someone’s explanation by listening to it only one time, it is generally helpful, in order to deepen one’s understanding, to prepare for an explanation and to review relevant materials.  Effective learning may consist of pre- and post-learning phases, in addition to the actual receipt of the new material.  From that viewpoint, learning can be considered to be the continuum of those 3 phases.  From the perspective of these phases of learning, previous studies of learning strategies can be divided into the following types : (a) studies in which use of learning strategies was examined regardless of learning phase, that is, the learning phase was not specified, (b) studies in which the phase was specified, and (c) studies that showed the effect of one phase on another.  The present paper reviews the published literature in this area, concluding that the previous studies provided insufficient information on the relations between learning phases.  Prospects for future research on learning strategies were discussed, and the academic and practical significance of this work was described.

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