School Leadership and Lesson Study for Effective and Equitable Teaching in Japan

• In Event: International Perspectives on School Leadership

Abstract

Lesson study is a collaborative inquiry model practiced by teachers in Japan and has been associated with high-performing systems that support content-focused and coherent teacher professional development. This study provides a roadmap for identifying and explaining the contextual factors specific to the Japanese learning setting, and examines the role of leadership in maximizing the impact of teacher collaborative practices. Through a research-informed conceptual analysis, we draw from the indigenous literature base and examine the role of lesson study in Japanese schools, unpack how school leadership is shaped by the needs, opportunities and constraints of the contextual dimensions of Japanese educational system, and identify instructional management factors that are associate with teacher collaborative practices using school-level data from a national survey.

Authors

• Xiu Cravens, Vanderbilt University

• Kenta Nagasawa, Japan International Cooperation Agency