The concept of "leadership" is currently regarded as one of the most important ideas for School-Based Curriculum Development (SBCD). Based on the prevailing trend of SBCD, the authors have been paying attention to the theories and practices of curriculum leadership. Besides, the authors have tried to clarify the relationships between curriculum leadership and Professional Learning Community, which is a conceptual framework of teacher development. In the research, it revealed that the teachers who play a key role of coordinating SBCD in individual schools, so called "leading teachers," have few opportunities to learn the theories on and practices for curriculum development as professionals engaged in it. In order for the teachers to cope with the problem, the authors developed a self-learning tool with which leading teachers are able to get knowledge about SBCD from a professional's perspective. It was the handbook titled "Handbook for the leading teachers in charge of School-Based Curriculum Development: to learn theories on and practices for it" (The Handbook). In Japan, teacher leaders have a great chance to demonstrate their initiative in SBCD. The Handbook is designed for them to link its contents with the practices at their own schools. The Handbook mentioned above consists of the following 7 chapters; Chapter1: Theories on and models of curriculum development Chapter2: Practical trends of curriculum development Chapter3: Excellent cases of curriculum practices in Japan Chapter4: Exercise for decision-making in the process of curriculum practices Chapter5: Reflection on the curriculum practices of your school Chapter6: Important references for curriculum development Chapter7: Recommendations for further studies on curriculum development These chapters were constructed based on the requirements as follows; 1) Leading teachers can learn both academic theories on and practices for curriculum development in balance. In addition, they can understand the theories in relation to the practices. 2) Leading teachers can learn the practices based on curriculum leadership deeply. 3) Readers (leading teachers) are provided the tool for evaluation with which they can reflect their own curriculum practices. 4) Leading teachers are encouraged to learn more and more on curriculum practices. In order to improve the handbook with the use for curriculum development in view, the authors asked 22 leading teachers for SBCD (including the persons who had the same experiences in the past) as participants to evaluate the validity of the contents and the practical usefulness and so on of The Handbook in April 2012. The authors used two kinds of method for evaluation. One is asking 4-scale rating on 4 items. They are as follows; 1. Good for learning curriculum and curriculum development deeply 2. Suitable for clarifying the actions of leading teachers for SBCD 3. Useful for grasping the state of affairs on curriculum practices in your own school 4. Helpful for understanding how to develop curriculum practices of your own school The other method is asking free comments on 5 questions about the good and bad points of The Handbook, its originalities and so forth. Judging from the respondents' evaluation, The Handbook by and large achieved its aim of providing a tool for leading teachers to learn curriculum development theoretically and practically, indicating that it satisfied the first three of the four requirements; balancing theories and practical cases, devising to deepen learning, functioning as an evaluation tool for reflection, encouraging further learning. However, the fourth requirement proved to be satisfied insufficiently. It is concluded that The Handbook contributed leading teachers' knowledge-based learning and that it did not cover their practical and reflective learning for problem-solving,
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Generally speaking, Social Studies, the school subject, was organized in the early 20^th century within the USA. In the beginning, civics played the central role in the social studies curriculum. At that time, civics was called "Community Civics", which emphasized the relationship between community and citizenship. And, Arthur William Dunn was a famous civics leader during the formative stages of social studies. This paper attempts to focus on his civic educational theory. So far, historical educational researchers have regarded Dunn's Civics educational theory as one which emphasizes community participation by students. Besides this fact, there are some researchers that regarded Dunn as a pioneer of Service-Learning. On the contrary, there are other researchers who evaluated the civics theories in those days as educational theories which emphasized the assimilation into American culture. Those researchers' interpretation was that community civics in those days decreased the importance of political participation. For those researchers, community participation meant that citizens were made to be obedient. However, those two types of interpretations: research which evaluated Dunn as a pioneer of the social participation and research which regarded Dunn as an educator aiming to assimilate, mostly focused on the Dunn's civics textbook. So, those previous researchers didn't focus on his civics' lessons and the actual social situation where he worked in those days. To evaluate Dunn's theory as active education or assimilating education, it is necessary to prove the features of his actual lessons in his social context. That is why, this paper aims to prove the features of community participation in the formation of the subject of the social studies by analyzing the case of civics' lessons created by Dunn. Through the analysis of Dunn's lessons, this paper describes that Dunn's lessens followed four points: First, they considered ways children could participate; second, they involved learning through social participation; third, they incorporated changes to the beauty of their city by children; fourth, they also extended the value of citizenship to the people in their city. In conclusion, this paper demonstrates that community civics had the feature of active involvement for improvement of living standards of people within the community. This result was obtained from the lessons of Arthur William Dunn. His lessons promoted the critical thinking and active, direct participation in the community. And, such features of these lessons have to be judged in the special context of those days, such as the Americanization movement. Finally, this paper suggests that we need to focus more on the features of the lessons in evaluating Dunn's theory.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the traits of the ideas on the classroom management by Sawa Tadashi (1882-1920) in the latter Meiji period, the man acknowledged as the first advocate on the autonomy of elementary school teacher in the educational activities. On the new movement in education, analyzing both traditional and progressive education, he insisted that neither the old education nor the new education is appropriate. Neither of them were sufficient on its own. Both educations contained the fundamental elements. He did not take one side or the other, so he attempted the simpler and deepened education involving both sides of the value of education. Analyzing his most important statement Classroom management and his many articles, it is clarified that his ideas did not consist of training only, but all components of education. The characteristics of his classroom management ideas are mentioned as follows: 1) The intellectual and moral and physical education for the harmonious growth of the personality. He attempted to study both the subject-matter for the instruction and the materials for the extra-education activities, so he takes them in practice. 2) The group study with the teachers in the communities At that time, many attached elementary school teachers were interested in their own study on philosophy and practice of the new education for introducing their own school activities, but on the other he directed the public elementary school teachers and proceeded to study and practice with them. This was his unique contribution that he aimed the qualitative improvement not only in his own school but also all over the region. According to the finding above, the ideas of classroom management by Sawa Tadashi contained the basis of the curriculum thoughts in his practice and theory of the classroom management.

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This study clarifies the realization of competency-based history learning by considering a model of competency as well as analyzing the history curriculum and textbooks in Sachen-Anhalt, Germany. Competency-based history learning in Germany primarily aims at standardizing history education on the basis of the standard of education as well as competency-based curriculums and textbooks. However, current history learning in Germany does not achieve such competency-based learning. Therefore, this study elucidates the means to realize such history learning by verifying the hypothesis that it is difficult to realize competency-based curriculums and textbooks through such learning. In addition, this study performs a series of analyses that further elucidates the means for this realization. First, an analysis of Pandel's model of competency proves that competency-based history learning considers a future in which certain social problems and controversies are solved by constructing a history and reflecting upon both the present and future. Second, an analysis of the curriculum clarifies that the reason why it is difficult to realize such history learning is that the construction of the curriculum tends to follow a traditional approach instead of a competent design. Third, an analysis of the textbooks shows that the reason for such difficulty is that the construction of the curriculum units continues to be based on traditional textbooks. The results of this study show that the means to realize competency-based history learning is to view history in teams of the various learning contents and curriculums and implement essential reforms for establishing competent curriculums based on this view.

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