The Journal of Social Studies Education in Asia, Vol.7, pp.115-124, 2018

Ideal Japanese Social Studies Researchers:
Researcher as a Supporter for Teachers’ Aims Talk and theirGatekeeping
Tatsuya Watanabe

Tokyo Gakugei University
What is the aim which social studies researchers have in relation to research the teaching andlearning of social studies and develop theories? The answers to this question would be diverse within
any individuals. Although it is almost impossible for me to generalize all Japanese social studies
researchers’ purposes for their own research, a number of Japanese researchers tended to share asimilar interest for teacher’s aims talk or his/her good gatekeeping. The concepts of “a teacher as a
curricula-instructional gatekeeper” and “aims talk” were introduced into Japan in 2012 when the USsocial studies scholar, Stephen Thornton’s book Teaching Social Studies That Matters (2005) wastranslated into Japanese. After translated book was published, many Japanese social studies
researchers began to use these terms such as, “gatekeeping (gatekeeper)” in Japan since 2012 (e.g.,
Horita, 2015; Yasuda, 2014). However, it seems that many Japanese researchers had already had asimilar concern without using these terms before 2012. This study’s purpose is to review someJapanese essays that are focused on gatekeeping or aims talk, and to discuss why we have beeninterested in these concepts for decades.

Two stages of teacher’s transformation
In order to identify the Japanese social studies researchers’ concern, I would like to focus two
essays. One essay was written by the US educational psychologist, Bransford (2000), on how goodteachers transform subject matter into their lesson designs and demonstrate their pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK). The other was written by a Japanese social studies researcher, Kusahara (2017), on
good teachers’ curricular-instructional gatekeeping. Transforming and gatekeeping are very similar
concepts because both focus on the teacher’s creativity in regard to lesson designing based on subject
contents or themes.
However, we found some different between Kusahara(2017) and Bransford (2000).
Bransford’s discussion emphasized how to take appropriate steps to address students’misunderstanding (conceptual barrier) in order to teach the subject matter. On the other hand, Kusahara(2017) focused on teaching practices as creating democratic citizens. He emphasized the importanceof social studies practices which could contribute to the social studies educational goal.
Kusahara (2006) also referred the relationship between rationale and practice. He proposed“Four Stage Theory” and the feature of the theory is to divide four process of lesson designing and115

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distinguish between teachers’ “how to teach” talk and their “why we teach” talk. By using
Kusahara’s stage theory, Bransford’s discussion mainly focused on the top two (“practice” and “plan”)
stages, while Kusahara’s discussion focus bottom two (“model” and “theory”) stages.
The below is the long quote from Kusahara (2006, 37-42).
※
What is “the practice for teaching school subject?” Simply put, it meansa group of classified teaching hypotheses that teachers have for practicing(figure1). When teaching a school subject, every teacher possesses his or her
own teaching hypotheses which, he or she thinks, will provide the mosteffective lessons to students. Throughout a series of lesson practice, eachteacher tests these hypotheses either deliberately or tacitly. Some teaching
hypotheses originate from the teacher's long experience in class and othersfrom secondhand information provided by teacher’s manuals or pedagogicaltextbooks. Some hypotheses are elaborate and systematic, while others are
not so. Regardless of these factors, no lesson should proceed without suchteaching hypotheses.

Figure1: teaching hypotheses that teachers have for practicing
The final performance which results from these teaching hypothesis may
be referred to as “real practice.” Positioned before this is most detailed andcontextualized hypothesis which may be referred to as “specific lesson plan.”
It is sometimes document-based (for example, detailed lesson guidelines,
teaching memos, and blackboard planning of teachers), but frequently it issimply formed in the mind of the teacher. It focused on not only students’misunderstanding, concerns, and personality, but also time-schedule, regional
culture, parents’ concern, and educational resources.
This conclusive teaching hypothesis does not originate haphazardly. It
depends on a reliable pre-staged teaching hypothesis, “instructional model.”Many teachers may learn this “instruction model” in university lectures, inworkshops conducted by pedagogical research groups, in discussions withcolleagues at school, and from pedagogical textbooks. This is the idealteaching styles or model type for specific instruction of school subjects. It is not

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so contextualized, not so tied up with personalities and characters of each
students.
The process of designing the “instruction model” needs to be supported
by another clearly defined teaching hypothesis. This hypothesis is called the“instructional theory” which explains the principle of combining educational
aims or ideal goal, subject matter and method.
“The practice for teaching school subjects” can be regarded as a seriesof classified teaching hypotheses. In figure1, the upper stage contains themore specific, concrete, and temporary hypothesis that is only applicable ina limited area and limited period; meanwhile, the lower stage contains themore general, abstract, and universal hypothesis that is widely applicable. The
intellectual process of transforming a more general and abstract hypothesis
into a more specific and concrete hypothesis is commonly called “creating”
while the analytical process of extracting a more general and abstract
hypothesis from a more specific and concrete hypothesis may be referred toas “explaining.”
First, as in the lower two boxes, the instructional “theory” and “model” arethe explanatory framework in an ideal circumstance. This circumstanceexcludes the emotion of persons concerned and the extenuating conditionsin the particular classroom. This theory and model can be described as a
general design of the implemented “practice” as well as an intentional “plan.”
In other words, they could be regarded as a conceptual system that explains
the following: (1) the theoretical purposes of the school subject; (2) areasonable method for realizing them; (3) the reasonable teaching-learning
process that is modeled by that method; and (4) the effect that process will
have on the learners.
However, the teachers’ knowledge of the instructional “theory” and“model” is one thing; their ability to apply the “theory” and “model” in theirown classrooms is an entirely different matter.
In the second box, the “specific lesson plan” is a detailed teaching plottransformed from the instructional “theory” and “model” on the supposition of
specific instructional situations. Classroom practices for teaching school
subjects are conditioned not only by the purposefulness of the educationalaim, but also by the teacher’s and learner’s surroundings, for example, thereadiness of the learners, needs of the learners or their parents, governmental
educational policies, governmental curriculum guidelines, and so on. Allteachers design their lesson plan and implement the “practice” whileconsidering these conditions simultaneously.
Moreover, although teachers can design a useful “plan;” whether they
can put this plan into practice or not is a different question. Even if teachers
design a rational and realistic “plan,” not all teachers can improvise andimplement it into classroom practice.
In the top box, “real practice” is the teacher’s embodied performance ofthe curriculum and instruction plan. This takes place while communicating
freely with learners as if they were co-workers.
(Kusahara, 2006: 37-42)

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Why Japanese social studies researchers emphasize “aims talk”
Reason (1): “learnification” of education
Bransford, and the first PCK advocate Shulman (1987, 2004) tended to lack the consciousness
that their educational discussion does not include any humanities goals. This is to say, their educational
goal is to understand subject matters itself. Their education is called “education for understanding.”
Understanding is not the same as comprehension. Understanding in this sense is used to describe deeplearning through academic professional inquiry, or problem-solving. “Education for understanding”
means deep, higher order, and disciplined learning for all students. Many learning psychologists
advocate this conception, yet some educational philosophers, especially citizenship education
supporters, criticize this conception. One of the most famous active leaders of these critics could be
Gert Biesta. Biesta (2015) criticized how recent learning psychologists’ discussions are prone to focus
only on “how to teach” talk (learning talk) but avoid “why we teach” talk (teaching talk). He said somelearning psychologists regard thinking as to why we teach as an un-academic question since this is not
an empirical theme (like Bransfords called “speculative talk.”) Biesta called this phycologists’ trend
the “learnification” of education.
Thornton (2005) focuses on “why we teach” talk, namely “aims talk.” When Kusahara and I
met him in the 2009 National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) conference, he pointed out that the“learnification” trend appeared in recent US social studies research. Moreover, he told us that there
are many works that had a little concern for conventional social studies and the history of social studies.
It seems that similar situation was happened in Japan. Nowadays, US learning psychologists’ articles
and books, including Bransford (Ed.) (2000). How People Learn, were translated into Japanese. Thesetranslations brought into Japan not only a learning-psychology-centered academic trend but also the“learnification” of education from the US. The most dangerous problem could be that the researchers
have developed a de-politicized mind, or in other words, an insensitivity to (or mindlessness of)ideology or the latent value that each academic disciplines has. Many leaning psychologists must be
unable to select which academic disciplines or contents are valid for making a good democratic citizen
because they think that all academic disciplines are equally valid for all human life and society. They
have no idea that some discipline contribute to democratic society while others do not (for example,
geographic education based on de-politicized static topography usually falls into environmentalism,
which has little affordance to a democratic society). Perhaps, it is only because it is “academic
discipline” that they welcome, rather than criticize, a de-politicized geographic curriculum covered
with static topographic learning activities or a history curriculum occupied by “history for its own”
learning (only if this type of curriculum gives students deep-understanding of the nature of thedisciplines).

Reason (2): discipline- centered national curriculum
In Japan, the national curriculum has had considerable power over subject teachers since 1955

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when conservative politicians entered the administration. The national curriculum tends to reflect
conservative values and perspectives, and many Japanese educational researchers and politicalscientists have criticized this tendency. For example, Moriwake (1996) pointed out the conservative
nature of Japan’s elementary social studies curriculum by comparing 3rd grade social studies state
curricula and textbooks in the US with those in Japan. During the 1970’s, US environmental expanding
curriculum, especially that of 3rd grade, were changed from one-area study to multi-area-comparative
study. This change came about from the US social studies theorist, Paul Hanna’s curriculum theory.
Kusahara (1997) also analyzed curriculum materials developed by Hanna, and explained the rationale
for the curriculum structure designed to promote more democratic environment for students. The
purposes of their essays were not only to criticize the conservative nature of the social studies national
curriculum but also to suggest a new approach toward curriculum organization, thereby promoting amore progressive structure. Many other Japanese social studies researchers also became interested in
US social studies curriculum materials, especially for the new social studies era. Of interest were
MACOS, Harvard Social Studies, HSGP, and so on. The number of analyzed US social studies
curriculum materials is at least 100 in Japan.
Many researchers got interest in these curriculum materials because Japanese teachers havelittle chance of changing the national curriculum structure radically, though the Japanese government
has not invaded academia freely. Among Japanese colleges and universities, college educators andresearchers retain the right to say “no” to the government. Some sensible school teachers havesupported this researchers’ culture because it is difficult for them to say “no.” And another reason isthat many US curricula seemed more radical and purposeful for cultivating democratic citizenship toJapanese researchers.
Since 1998, the Japanese government has pushed for deregulation of the national curriculum.
Without some exceptions (e.g. territorial problems), compelling force of the national social studies
curriculum over teachers has weakened. Naturally this change has allowed teachers to have greater
control over the design of their lessons than they had previously. Accordingly, it has placed a burden
on teachers. On the other hand, during this decade, the Japanese government has begun to promotecollaboration between university, high school and junior high school, emphasizing discipline-andcompetency centered curricula in all subject areas. If these changes meet with teachers’ discontent asthey design their lessons, many teachers and ―considering that Japanese learning psychologists are
indifference to aims talk (say, their all-discipline-welcome tendency) ― many educational researchers
may welcome this curriculum change uncritically. Thus, they will be more indifferent to aims talk thanthey were before, and they will not be able to recognize the latent values of the national curriculum
because its academic and de-politicized face seems “objective” or “value-free.” If the Japanese
government changes the social studies national curriculum to be more de-politicized (e.g., develops
discipline-centered curriculum based on personal ethics or micro-economic problems, historical topics
not relevant to our life, or static topographical topics), many researchers who are indifferent to aims
talk will be supporters, not critics, of this conservative curriculum change.

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Reason (3): lesson study cannot fill a gap between teachers and researchers
If teachers regard themselves as good curricular-instructional gatekeepers, the recent
deregulation of the national curriculum will give them a huge chance to make their enacted curriculum
more democratic and meaningful for their students. Aims talk will aid them in being good gatekeepers.
Barton and Levstik (2004) also claim that “aims talk” plays a large role than PCK in making good
gatekeepers. In their book Teaching History for the Common Good, they introduce the example of one
experienced history teacher they had taught in university. She had a doctor’s degree in history, hadgood PCK and other knowledge for teaching, and understood the nature of history. She was a good
performer when she was in their university. However, when she returned to high school, her teachingchanged to fit more conventional teaching style. Barton and Levstik argues that PCK did not give her
the motivation to change her teaching style. However, they claims that aims talk would give her more
motivation to change her style because commitment to an education goal is a strong incentive tochange teaching style, and aims talk provides this commitment. If we agree with their argument, weare left with one big problem: how should we teach aims talk to teachers?
One potential choice is holding “lesson study” for teachers. Lesson study is a concept thatoriginates in Japanese teachers’ culture, in recent times, many US educational researchers, for example
James Stigler (1999), have shown much interest in, and they introduced Japanese lesson study all over
the world. However, some Japanese researchers have reported that lesson study may not be a valid
method for teaching aims talk to teachers. For example, Nakao (2013) observed a social studies
focused lesson study held by some Japanese junior high teachers and concluded that their discussions
focused only on “how to teach” talk, and not “why we teach” talk.
Watanabe (2016) also did the similar experience as Nakao’s. In 2015, A DVD which isrecorded from a veteran famous Japanese social studies teacher’s practice was sent to seven people bya publisher. Within the seven people, four of them were teacher educators (including me), and theother three were veteran teachers. After watching the DVD, we analysed and evaluated the practicewithout any discussion with others and send the firal reports. Actually, this process was quite similar
to the approaches employed in a general lesson study. The DVD and the all of the report was publishedin 2016. After publishing, I found a big gap between the reports of the 3 veteran teachers and those of
the 4 teacher educators. The veteran teachers’ reports tended to show various viewpoints, but they did
not mention about “why do we teach this content using this method?” On the other hands, 3 of the 4teacher educators did ask this questions. Although most of Japanese veteran teachers certainly had anumber of lesson study, these findings would suggest that lesson study does not cultivate teachers’
aims talk. This is not a surprising result because lesson study tends to lure our attention toward detailed
teacher-student interactions. Lesson study may be valid for microscopic analysis, but it does not seemto be appropriate for macroscopic analysis. Lesson study among teachers may strengthen them “howto teach” talk, but it may fail to produce radical viewpoints.

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Difficulty of classification of teaching practices
Another effective alternative for teaching aims talk, which Barton and Levstik (2004)
recommend, is (1) introducing many repertoires of social studies teaching practice to teachers, (2)asking them to discuss which repertoire is more valid (or invalid) for making democratic citizens, and(3) asking them to discuss when and for whom this repertoire is the most valid. This procedure issomewhat similar to Japanese social studies conventional curriculum study approach. Comparing
many, sometimes unknown, teaching practices or theories will evoke teacher’s radical questions suchas “why we teach.” These questioning will be the first step for teachers to identify themselves as
curricula-instructional gatekeepers.
Here is one big problem: how can we rationally and effectively classify various kinds ofteaching practice?

According to Kusahara (2015), the answer could be different between the US andJapan. He explained that Japanese scholar tend to use top-down approach and the US scholar seem touse bottom up approach. To Kusahara (2015) explained many Japanese social studies researchers set
the possible purpose of subject teaching at the beginning. Then they develop the exemplar practice byusing “the purpose-rational instructional theory” (described as Figure 2). On the other hand, the US
scholar set the purpose after collecting and analyzing the practices (described Figure3). He named thisapproach, bottom-up approach.
The US bottom-up approach may be able to suggest more practicable teaching strategies thanJapanese top-down approach. On the other hands, Japanese conventional approach (e.g., Kusahara,
2004) may be able to suggest more radical teaching strategies than the US approach. It may be
impossible to decide one-side. Talk about aims talk all over the world will contribute not only toprogress of global educational research field but also to teachers’ autonomy much more.

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Educational purpose A (type A)→ purpose-rational instructional theory (1) → an example practice→ ――――――――――――――――(2) → ――――――――→ ――――――――――――――――(3) → ――――――――
Educational purpose B (type B)→ purpose-rational instructional theory (1) → an example practice→ ――――――――――――――――(2) → ――――――――→ ――――――――――――――――(3) → ――――――――
Educational purpose C (type C)→ purpose-rational instructional theory (1) → an example practice→ ――――――――――――――――(2) → ――――――――→ ――――――――――――――――(3) → ――――――――
Figure 2: Japanese approach of classification of the practices

Teaching Practice (stance A)→ feasible purpose (1)→ ――――――― (2)→ ――――――― (3)Teaching Practice (stance B)→ feasible purpose (1)→ ――――――― (2)→ ――――――― (3)Teaching Practice (stance C)

Socio-cultural conditions
and teaching tools necessary
for purpose→ feasible purpose (1)→ ――――――― (2)→ ――――――― (3)Figure 3: US approach of classification of the practices

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