Doing Educational Research by Taking Seriously Chen's Account of“Asia as Method”:In a Korean Case of Modern Schooling

Purpose:This paper aims to exemplify how Chen's idea of"Asia as method"can be employed in a case study on Korean experiences of modern schooling.Design/Approach/Methods:It does so by focusing on the author's personal experiences of modern schooling as both a student and a teacher in modern Korea.In this description,the author makes two seemingly contradictory moves:a move toward decolonialization by keeping a critical distance from her own native culture and a move toward deimperialization by keeping her distance from the West.Findings:This shows the challenges and tensions in the Korean experience of modern schooling as a student or teacher dealing with different moral languages such as Confucian and rationalist or rationalistandpost-rationalist.OriginalityValue:This experimental work suggests the possibility of forming a uniquely East Asian subjectivity while showing how educational research in East Asia can be performative in the sense that it changes the way East Asians understand themselves and the world around them.

A Thrice-Told Tale of Japanese Staffrooms and a Transformative Journey in Searching for East Asia as Method

Purpose:This study aims to search for fitting lenses to view and interpret teacher learning in a Japanese secondary school teacher staffroom and capture the reconstituting of researcher subjectivities in this process.Design/Approach/Methods:A narrative approach chronically documents the findings and use of the lenses in analyzing the staffroom daily interactions and traces the journey of transformation inour researcher subjectivities.Findings:The telling of a Japanese staffroom(shokuinshitsu)as a thrice-told tale under the three lenses—cultural-historic activity theory,contextualism,and intimacy orientationeach uncovers a unique interpretation of the learning going on in the daily life of the Japanese staffroom.While complementary,Western-lenses are found to be unable to explain the nature of the everyday practices in the staffroom formed under the worldviews and ethics of East Asia.Our critical examination of the major academic encounters involved in the past two decades illuminates the complex dynamism behind our research perspectives,awakens us to the dominance of Western-centralism in our researcher subjectivities,transforms our worldviews,and returns us to our cultural roots to build alternative frames of reference as East Asia as Method.OriginalityValue:This study not only uniquely demonstrates what decentered,alternative,and diversified frames of reference would look like in studying East Asian practices but also what it would take for scholars to move toward East Asia as Method.Additionally,going beyond the three lenses,it contributes to our understanding of how space(staffroom as an entity)mediates forming of the character of those who are dwellers of the shokuinshitsu.

How to Create“Asianism”:A Reading of Takeuchi Yoshimi’s “Asia as Method”and“Prospects for Asianism”

Takeuchi Yoshimi is one of the very few postwar Japanese intellectuals to openly engage in discussions on Asia intricacy and to deal with the most complicated component of the Japan-Asia relationship:problems of emotion.One key feature of Takeuchi^approach lies in the fact that he is not only a profound thinker but also a sensitive litterateur.For this reason,in addition to the fact that it is already very difficult to form an objective and widely agreed view on Takeuchi and his approach,it is hard to avoid the emotional aspect when evaluating his thoughts.This essay does not aim to discuss his rights and wrongs;rather,it is an attempt to analyze the inner logic of Takeuchi^thoughts,to understand and grasp the intensity and structure of his thoughts and emotions,and to demonstrate where his sense of urgency lies,thereby allowing to view the examination of the diverse and complex nature of discourses on Asianism in Japan in a new light.

The Educator Standing on Chinese Cultural Ground:A Case Study of Chinese Basic Education Pedagogical Research

Purpose:Chinese Educators,referred to as Jiaoyujia(教育家)in Chinese,are esteemed indivi-duals dedicated to education with extensive expertise in theory and practice.Despite their influ-ential pedagogical research,they have received limited scholarly attention.This study aimed to fll the gap by focusing on jilin Li's(李吉林)contextualized teaching research informed by Chinese educational traditions.Design/Approach/Methods:A case study format was adopted,and data were thematically ana-lyzed using NVivo I2.In light of Kuan-Hsing Chen's"Asia as method"idea,the analysis drew par-ticular attention to the Asian resources employed in the pedagogical studies of interest.Findings:Focusing on how Educators utilize diverse educational traditions,this paper presents three functions of Chinese educational traditions applicable to Li's case.The chosen case study demonstrates that elements of Chinese educational traditions still actively inform Educators working in a modern Western-style education system.This paper analyzes how Li combined Chinese and foreign traditions and reveals an element of subjectivity with its own strengths and deficiencies.

A Harmony-Based Approach to Student Diversity

Purpose:Inspired by Kuan-Hsing Chen's“Asia as method,”this study investigates a multicultural approach to education.Using East Asia as the frame of reference,this study explores multicultur-alism in middle school classrooms in Chinese Taiwan.Design/Approach/Methods:Semistructured interviews were conducted with principals,admin-istrators,and teachers at a middle school known for its diversity work.Data were coded based on the conceptual framework and emergent themes analyzed using NVivo.Findings:Findings elucidate the harmony-oriented multicultural approach adopted by administrators and teachers to empower the youth to embrace their ethnic heritage.This approach was characterized by three Confucian-influenced features:whole-person develop-ment,strengthening of the collective school unit,and a school decision-making approach prioritizing“fairness.”OriginalityValue:This study investigates the multicultural responses of teachers and schools to student diversity through a nondeficit lens in East Asia,revealing the harmony-oriented prac-tices adopted in this respect.In addition to establishing a foundation for East Asian scholars to explore how teachers respond to student diversity in their respective contexts through an asset lens,the findings of this study advance our understanding of how to recognize differences and maintain social cohesion.