Social Justice in and through Mathematics Education: For Improving the Quality of Mathematics Teaching and Internalising Students’ Character Building

Aside from being one of the systematically arranged disciplines, mathematics is also a social construction that views humans as active subjects in building knowledge through interaction with the surrounding environment.　Therefore, in addition to being a medium to enhance students’ understanding of mathematical concepts, mathematics education should also apply the principles of social activity while linking mathematical concepts to social issues.　This research is intended to reform mathematics learning so that it does not merely focus on students’ understanding of mathematical concepts, but also improve their quality through the application of ‘social justice in mathematics education’, while at the same time internalising issues related to social justice through the application of ‘social justice through mathematics education’ concepts.　This study used action research as the research methodology considering its actionbased themes and characteristics, where the teacher performed and simultaneously reflected learning activities.　The findings obtained from this study are: (i) several challenges related to the application of ‘social justice in and through mathematics education’ in mathematics learning area, among others, include the difficulty of changing the teacher’s mindset on how to teach mathematics to students equitably (socially) and how to foster teacher sensitivity in designing mathematics learning that integrated justice issues into mathematics learning; (ii) the implementation of the principle of ‘social justice in and through mathematics education’ in order to improve the quality of mathematics learning is felt to be ineffective because of the teacher’s ability to design and implement mathematics learning involving ‘social justice in mathematics learning’ and ‘social justice through mathematics learning’ remains adequate; and (iii) the application of ‘social justice in and through mathematics education’ has a significant effect on student involvement in mathematics learning.　It is characterized by more active students in learning and more enthusiastic students in learning activities, because the material that is discussed very closely with students’ daily experiences.　 Furthermore, the findings of this study are expected to contribute to the reform of mathematics education, especially those related to productive mathematics learning, the planting of effective mathematical concepts in students, equitable mathematics learning, and simultaneously internalizing social justice issues through the application of concepts, such as building students’ character.　By using the elements in the planning and reflection of lessons, teachers are able to develop a comprehensive guide for improving the quality of their lessons and at the same time internalize students’ character building by using social justice issues

Effect of Kampo treatment on chronic viral hepatitis on the basis of traditional diagnosis

We investigated the effect of Kampo treatment on 47 patients with chronic viral hepatitis on the basis of traditional diagnosis. The number of patients with hepatitis B and C were 8 and 39, respectively. An improvement in serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) was observed in 75 % of hepatitis B patients and 44 % of hepatitis C patients after six months of treatment. Symptoms such as easy fatigability and general malaise were improved in 90 % of the patients. Comparing the prognosis of 18 hepatitis C patients treated for more than 3 years with reports on the natural course of the disease following a mean 8.8 years after their first visits, the rate of liver cirrhosis was lower, but the rate of hepatocellular carcinoma and the rate of normalization of liver function were similar. Among the major prescriptions used in this investigation was one that included Bupleuri Radix. Many hepatitis C patients showed a good initial response, but their condition later changed to one indicating prescriptions corresponding to Ki-deficiency. Thus, two kinds of prescriptions could display their effectiveness at different stages of hepatitis C. Following six months of administration of Hochu-ekki-to (補中益気湯; a typical prescription corresponding to Ki-deficiency) to 20 patients with hepatitis C, an improvement of transaminases was observed in the group with a higher Ki-deficiency score, but not in the group with the lower score. These finding were thought to be important for the design of a prospective control study while making the best use of traditional medicine. 慢性B型およぴC型肝炎47症例(B型8例,C型39例)に対する和漢葉随証治療の効果について検討した。治療6ケ月時の血清ALT値の改善はB型75%,C型44%であった。易疲労,倦息感などの症状は両型とも約9割の症例で改善された。治療期間3年以上の18例について平均8.8年の時点で自然経過報告と比較してみると肝硬変への移行率は少なかったが肝細胞痛の発生頻度と臨床的治癒の率は同等であった。使用方剤は両型ともに柴胡剤が多いが,C型の証は柴胡剤で始まり肝障害の進行とともに補剤に変化する傾向を認めた。柴胡剤と補剤には便用すべき時期に相違があるように考えられた。そこで別のC型20例に対して補中益気湯を6ケ月投与したところ,トランスアミナーゼ値は気虚スコア高値群で低下したが,スコア低値群においては変化しなかった。これらの知見を活かしたcontrol studyを企画していく上で重要と考えられた

Presence of 3d Quadrupole Moment in LaTiO3 Studied by 47,49Ti NMR

Ti NMR spectra of LaTiO3 are reexamined and the orbital state of this compound is discussed. The NMR spectra of LaTiO3 taken at 1.5 K under zero external field indicate a large nuclear quadrupole splitting. This splitting is ascribed to the presence of the rather large quadrupole moment of 3d electrons at Ti sites, suggesting that the orbital liquid model proposed for LaTiO3 is inappropriate. The NMR spectra are well explained by the orbital ordering model expressed approximately as $1/\sqrt{3}(d_{xy}+d_{yz}+d_{zx})$ originating from a crystal field effect. It is also shown that most of the orbital moment is quenched.Comment: 4 pages, 3 fugures; to appear in Phys. Rev. Let