János Gordon Győri: Some special features of pre-service and in-service teacher training in Japan

The article has a double aim: (1) to solve the "paradox of Japanese teacher training"; (2) to put the Japanese model of teacher education into a broader framework of changes in the paradigms of education and the teachers' role. The paradox of teacher training in Japan comes from two separate facts. On one hand, students have achieved excellent results in education in international comparisons for a long time (TIMSS etc.). On the other hand, pre-service teacher training lacks any really special characteristics in international comparison, except for the comparatively short field practice for the student teachers. So the question that emerges is: How can Japanese teachers be so effective in practice if there is not a great emphasis on the practical part of their training, partly because their pre-service field training is so short? Following Morris and Williamson's and Wray's statements, the author argues that this paradox can be solved if we take into consideration the very structured and rich set of different types of in-service teacher training in Japan and also those culturally shaped types of teacher development (socialization) that are partly spontaneously and partly deliberately followed in Japanese schools. The author gives a detailed introduction to these different types of inservice teacher training and the socialization processes of teachers in Japan. He also compares the Japanese and the Hungarian model of teacher training (which puts higher emphasis on pre-service teacher training and comparatively less on the in-service types). Then the author introduces Hargreaves's model of the periods in the history of the professionalization of teaching and compares the Japanese and Hungarian pre-service and inservice teacher training in this light.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 102. Number 4. 491-515. (2002)

Levelezési cím / Address for correspondence: ELTE Radnóti Miklós Training School, H­1146 Budapest, Chazar A. u. 10

 
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