Visualizing the Images of "Foreigners-as-Contributors" in Japanese Junior High School History Textbooks: A critical discourse analysis

This study aims to clarify how the images of "foreigners-as-contributors" in middle school history textbooks are reproduced in Japanese junior high school history textbooks. In Japan, also in many other countries, foreigners are requested to contribute to the benefit of the country. Those who cannot serve the function tend to be shunned by the community; in other words, they are oppressed by the majority Japanese. To tackle the mentioned oppression, the authors decided how the oppressive discourse is reproduced in Japanese society. For doing that, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of how history textbooks select and describe others from abroad. We choose history textbooks than civics’ because history does not deal with foreigners directly; therefore, students might absorb the narrative about them without much doubt. We discovered that the descriptions of "Toraijin," "Jianzhen (Ganjin in Japanese)," and "Foreign government advisors in Meiji Japan (Oyatoi-gaikokujin in Japanese)" aligned with the oppressing structure of the non-contributable foreigners. The details will be discussed in the paper

Evolution of the Fe-3dd impurity band state as the origin of high Curie temperature in p-type ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Fe)Sb

(Ga$_{1-x}$,Fe$_x$)Sb is one of the promising ferromagnetic semiconductors for spintronic device applications because its Curie temperature ($T_{\rm C}$) is above 300 K when the Fe concentration $x$ is equal to or higher than ~0.20. However, the origin of the high $T_{\rm C}$ in (Ga,Fe)Sb remains to be elucidated. To address this issue, we use resonant photoemission spectroscopy (RPES) and first-principles calculations to investigate the $x$ dependence of the Fe 3$d$ states in (Ga$_{1-x}$,Fe$_x$)Sb ($x$ = 0.05, 0.15, and 0.25) thin films. The observed Fe 2$p$-3$d$ RPES spectra reveal that the Fe-3$d$ impurity band (IB) crossing the Fermi level becomes broader with increasing $x$, which is qualitatively consistent with the picture of double-exchange interaction. Comparison between the obtained Fe-3$d$ partial density of states and the first-principles calculations suggests that the Fe-3$d$ IB originates from the minority-spin ($\downarrow$) $e$ states. The results indicate that enhancement of the interaction between $e_\downarrow$ electrons with increasing $x$ is the origin of the high $T_{\rm C}$ in (Ga,Fe)Sb

Competitive Binding Assay with an Umbelliferone-Based Fluorescent Rexinoid for Retinoid X Receptor Ligand Screening

Ligands for retinoid X receptors (RXRs), "rexinoids", are attracting interest as candidates for therapy of type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. However, current screening methods for rexinoids are slow and require special apparatus or facilities. Here, we created 7-hydroxy-2-oxo-6-(3,5,5,8,8-pentamethyl-5,6,7,8-tetrahydronaphthalen-2-yl)-2H-chromene-3-carboxylic acid (10, CU-6PMN) as a new fluorescent RXR agonist and developed a screening system of rexinoids using 10. Compound 10 was designed based on the fact that umbelliferone emits strong fluorescence in a hydrophilic environment, but the fluorescence intensity decreases in hydrophobic environments such as the interior of proteins. The developed assay using 10 enabled screening of rexinoids to be performed easily within a few hours by monitoring changes of fluorescence intensity with widely available fluorescence microplate readers, without the need for processes such as filtration

A Japanese History lesson for understanding diversity

This study proposes the Japanese history lesson aiming for promoting deeper understanding diversity because the previous studies in relation to historical inquiry in Japan did not mention about connection with diversity. After conducting the lessons, we found that students mentioned the differences of people’s value between past and present based on the social structure and notions. At the end of study we suggested the reform of history education have more possibilities to develop democratic citizenship

Concept-based teaching and learning for reconstructing the meaning of peace: a practice of integrated study in Hiroshima Global Academy

The aim of this study is to design the peace education unit, which support the students to achieve the two goals: (1) to reconstruct their own notions of peace, and (2) to acquire interdisciplinary concepts and apply them to find and describe the (non-)peaceful situations in our usual life. Therefore, we developed and implemented a concept based inquiry unit (18 class hours) at Hiroshima Global Academy (HiGA) middle school by contextualize the previous unit plan into the integrated learning program on “Global Justice.” As a result, we could choose the six concepts explaining a nonviolent but threatening the peaceful governance, human relation, and agency, demonstrate the social examples to apply them, and set a controversy defining the criteria of peace. The first outcome of this study is that we show the curricular-instructional gatekeeping adjusting to the school context of HiGA. The second is to find the relations between the students' learning of peace concepts and the reconstruction of peace notion

Analysis for the units of regional geography on UK’s geography textbook: The case study of “Geog 4th edition”

In Britain, the volume of “Regional Geography” was decreased in “the National Curriculum”. The aim of this paper is to cralify the contents of “Regional Geography” in Britain. We analyzed the geographical school textbook “Geog 4th edition” by Oxfor University Press. We find that “Geog” has only 2 or 3 case studies in each grade. The students don’t learn all of the world in geographical class. That is because it is important to learn the geographical skill