This essay will posit working principles for creating an environment and educational legalistic framework in Japan for better teachers, including at pre-school and nursery levels. In particular, it will focus diachronically on the third stage of teachers' education and training, or that of teachers' careers following their formal training: hitherto treated as “staff development,” “in-service training” and so forth. This is still important today; however, the more people become serious about “the best interests of the child,” (Art. 3. Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN 1989) the greater the necessity to drastically reform the instructional and living conditions of teachers to meet the new demands.

  To realize and protect the benefits of the child, the environment for better teachers should be reorganized according to the following principles. First, teachers should be respected for their humanity, i.e. before their status as professional teachers, they are entitled to the rights and working conditions necessary to maintain their humanity as citizens. Directly serving individual child development, teachers can thus contribute to present and future problems facing mankind. Second, teachers should only faithfully obey child development theory, science and culture. To these ends, the state has a duty for the “establishment and regulation of the various conditions” for the education and welfare of the child (Art. X. Fundamental Law of Education, 1947); and this also means providing a better instructional environment for teachers. The most important basis of teaching activities is a teacher's academic freedom within the school setting (Art. 23. Japanese Constitution, 1946). At this point it is important to recognize that teachers are professionals. Third, teachers should be more involved in the decision-making process at schools and the community. Furthermore, this involvement should be connected to educationalists' participation in decision making and the implementation of educational policies in the community. This will lead to a new principle of educational autonomy and a revival of democracy in education.

  The career-ladder system is a special form of monetary compensation which classifies teachers according to a multi-tiered ladder. Teachers receive extra compensation as they are promoted up this ladder.

  The aim of this paper is to examine the background and structure of the career-ladder system. I focused on Texas, since it played a major role in legislative reform of teacher education in the 1980s. The results of this study are as follows:

  First, the career-ladder system is aimed at resolving the problems of both teacher shortages and the decline in the quality of instruction. A serious teacher shortage developed as a result of low salaries. Thus, a better pay system was required to compensate competent teachers within restricted funding.

  Second, it reflects the view that teachers' abilities must be measured from many sides. Teachers are divided into four different ranks in the Texas career-ladder system. Ranks are determined by a teacher's certificates, career, teaching performance and higher academic training. Teachers must meet all requirements to promote his/her grade.

  Third, the fundamental principle of the career-ladder system is “effectiveness.” This means that performance-based salary increases effectively provide incentive for teachers to improve their teaching standards. But there are many problems. In the career-ladder system, salary increases remain a permanent part of teachers' salary. The costs will become enormous. It is difficult to see the “effectiveness” principle being realized in the long term. It will be important to develop a better teacher evaluation system and to reexamine the principles of teacher compensation.

  The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of “teacher education in universities” through the eyes of students ― candidates for “future teachers.” To clarify the characteristics of the relationship between students and teacher education in universities, I collected data from a series of four investigations, based on teaching evaluation questionnaires completed by students at Yamanashi University in 1993-1994.

  Responses to the questionnaires were analyzed mainly by cross calculation methods. As a result of the analysis, I obtained knowledge about the responses in the teaching evaluation by students and their characteristics.

  The main results are as follows: (1) students who are eager to study and attend class evaluate teachers' classroom instruction more positively, (2) students who intend to become teachers evaluate teachers' classroom instruction more positively, (3) levels of student achievement are affected by the methods teachers adopt, (4) the characteristics of students are determined by the geographic, administrative and political situations of each university.

  Considering these points, the concept of “teacher education in universities” should also be reexamined from the viewpoints of each class in each university. This will help in concrete terms the creation of the teacher education curriculum.

  Graduate schools for teacher education have been established in many teachers colleges to contribute to “in-service” teacher education. But graduate school education is conducted according to Article 14 of the Standard for Establishing Graduate Schools (Special Case of Education Method). Graduate school education is now in need of improvement to better provide for the development of professional skills of in-service teachers and general students.

  Our purpose is to assess graduate school education at the University of the Ryukyus' Graduate School of Education. For this purpose, a questionnaire was used to gather information from graduates and current students at the university. The items of the questionnaire concerned (1) student's expectations of graduate school and their own performance, (2) curriculums and teaching, (3) research and study, and (4) method of entrance examination. We found several interesting results from our study which have implications for graduate school education.

  This article aims to review recent papers concerning “life history” research into teachers' experiences, an emergent field of educational research during the 1980s.

  Three issues are considered. First, I considered the reasons why at the beginning of the 1980s some researchers began to focus their attention on teachers' biographies. The emergence was driven by drastic shifts in educational research, such as the shift away from researchers' interest in formal curriculum to an interest in the teaching process, and a shift away from taking a historical approach to studying teachers to adopting a “life history” approach.

  Second, I classified the contents and methodologies of the life history approach. In this paper, I abstract four methodological streams ― the sociological approach, “life cycle” research, the autobiographical approach, and the feminine approach. The sociological approach is rooted in the “New” Sociology of Education that flourished in England and America (the Chicago School) in the 1920s. Life cycle research is derived from lifelong developmental psychology and psycho-history. The autobiographical approach focuses on growth of a teacher's professional knowledge. And the feminine approach refers to the dilemmas female teachers face.

  The last segment involves the topics the life history researchers examine. This paper establishes three concepts: vocational socialization, teachers' career stages, and professional identity. For example, Knowles inquired into the relation of teachers' biographies and pre-socialization, Casey studied women teachers' “burn-out,” Huberman and Sykes subjectively examined teachers' career stages, and Butt focused on the processes of teachers' identity formulation, etc.

  Finally, I established three orientations and possibilities for the life history approach: studying teachers' worlds and their subjective growth processes; reconstructing the history of education from the viewpoint of teachers' life histories; and verifying the professional culture of teachers including the complexity and diversity of teachers' mental worlds.