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The fragmentation of academic work and its uneven distribution among academic staff have produced particular challenges for new entrants to teaching in Higher Education, Early Career Teachers [ECTs]. In this paper, documentary analysis of the narratives of fourteen ECTs, who worked across six different continents, was undertaken. The findings highlight the diverse forms of precarity that ECTs face, which cut across migratory, identitarian, economic, and ideological dimensions. It discusses ECTs' reflections on their expectations of teaching and their adaptation to the demands of neoliberal Higher Education. Drawing from their narratives and Sevil Sümer's theories of differentiated academic citizenship, ECTs are recognised as 'precarious academic citizens'. This has important implications for revealing the unique circumstances of this group, thereby opening further questions as regards their mentoring and support to enable them to be situated more equally as citizens of the academy.

Taking the UK and Japan as contrasting national case studies, this article supplements existing research into student migration by consolidating a regulatory perspective with individual narrative accounts. Reported here are the results of a mixed-methods two-phase study. Phase 1 is a concerted trajectory analysis of student migration policy in the UK and Japan from 2004 to 2018, while phase 2 draws on biographical-narrative interviews with 26 student-migrants. The paper reveals tangible effects of the receptivity, stability, and transparency of regulatory frameworks in student-migrants' trajectories, while also demonstrating that seemingly receptive regulatory environments do not necessarily equate to smooth and risk-free post-study transitions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the legal issues of simultaneous Internet transmission of broadcasting programs of the Open University of Japan (OUJ) and to take legal measures to promote the mutual utilization of open university courses in Japan, the UK, China and Korea. Design/methodology/approach: The author examines the legal relationship regarding Internet simultaneous distribution of broadcast courses at the OUJ. The author then considers the legal relationship between the UK, China and South Korea regarding the simultaneous transmission of broadcast courses over the internet. Based on that consideration, this paper clarifies legal measures to promote its utilization. Findings: Internet transmission of broadcasting courses will be webcasting. Arguably, it can be assumed to be streaming and on-demand, albeit controversial. Webcasting will be publicly transmitted, but there is only an on-demand provision for Internet transmission. As webcasting is streaming and on-demand, it involves reproduction of broadcasting courses. Therefore, webcasting needs to provide streaming provision for public transmission rights and associate them with reproduction right. Originality/value: The originality of this paper lies in clarifying the legal response of the object, subject and rights of webcasting from the perspective of the OUJ, in order to dispel legal problems that may arise in the future against this unexplored phenomenon. Additionally, this paper is valuable in that it presents legal consistency from the point of view of the comparative laws of Japan, the UK, China and South Korea, based on an examination of the legal response in Japan.

This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment Programme during the 2014-2015 survey) using a multi-stage sampling method. The study employed multi-level latent class analysis and three-step analysis in order to determine both the number of multi-level latent classes of educators' literacy scores as well as the selected independent variables' success in predicting those latent classes. The analysis revealed that educators in Germany constituted the group with the highest literacy skills while educators from Singapore comprised the group with the lowest literacy skills. [This study was presented at the 9th International Congress of Educational Research. Ordu University, Ordu, Turkey.]

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There is a growing consensus in political science research that higher education systems are classifiable into stable distinct types that reflect dominant trends in government partisanship. There is also a large body of higher education research that argues that higher education systems are changing and converging upon a neoliberal type, which is not yet reflected in the political science literature. This paper seeks to reconcile these two positions by looking at both the development of higher education systems in the post-war period and subsequent systemic reforms that have been identified as neoliberal. There have been two main targets of reform: (a) the role the state plays in funding and targeting research, and (b) student finance regimes consisting of tuition fees and the system of financial aid. This paper provides an in-depth look at the cases of Japan and the United Kingdom, which developed into very different systems in the post-war period but have since shown slight convergence on the back of neoliberal reforms.

This case study explores the challenges that Master's students encounter when learning to write in academic English as part of a UK postgraduate course, after having achieved the required IELTS entry score. Interviews with six Chinese and Japanese learners at different stages of the Master's study revealed more sophisticated writing difficulties than they had previously experienced. Although students were largely managing their written work overall, there were recurring challenges with critical thinking, the transition to full academic compositions, using reading to inform academic writing, presenting evidence and conveying a clear written message over demonstrating lexical or grammatical range as required in IELTS writing. Furthermore, candidates on non-standard courses (e.g. film or finance) found their assignments to be quite unfamiliar; the use of one academic test for all disciplines may be disadvantageous to some. In summary, although IELTS had provided an important first step to help students develop basic writing skills, meeting university assessment expectations necessitated considerable further progress. The required support to achieve this may be somewhat underdeveloped in the existing model of international postgraduate study, for the participants in this paper. This research follows as part of a larger project, which focussed on IELTS test preparation in China and Japan (Clark 2018).

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

Higher education systems globally have seen major increases in women's participation and the overall trend in OECD countries has been a transition from the traditional male majority in enrolments to a substantial female majority. Prompted by a recent reversal of this trend, this paper explores gender differences in participation in higher education in 27 OECD countries between 1971 and 2015. While increased participation by women was thought to be part of the solution to persistent gender inequalities we argue that this is not an inevitable outcome. Our argument is based on an analysis of changes in the gender composition of the student population, using available secondary data. We explore how changing gender differentials are linked to the concurrent massification of HE, changing distribution of enrolments by field of study, changes in sex segregation by field, features of national education systems and wider social structural differences related to gender. Our analysis examines the complex interaction between discipline-specific levels of sex segregation and overall levels of gender parity. We argue that that sex segregation needs to be considered alongside women's long-standing higher participation rates to understand why the latter has not triggered a transformation in the gendered division of labour.

Student learning outcomes assessment examines whether programs cover the material stated in their learning goals, whether students are learning the material, and the impact on student retention, graduation, post-graduation outcomes, and institutional accreditation, with the aim of providing faculty with data that can be used to help programs evolve or improve. While there is a plethora of research regarding effective methods of assessment used in the United States, little has been written regarding cross-national comparisons of assessment methodologies. This paper examines the current state of assessment in several nations and regions, and draws parallels in practices across countries. A literature search using the term "outcomes assessment" yielded 228 articles, of which, only 35 described practices outside the United States. Generally, searches on the terms "outcomes assessment" and "global" tend to return studies of outcomes assessment of teaching about global issues as it is practiced in the United States, rather than results about outcomes assessment practices used in other countries.

The article examines current trends in the development of the national models of higher education in Russia and European countries. The paper reveals the key problems of their functioning in the context of the processes of globalization, standardization, and integration into the pan-European and global educational space. These processes are described through the prism of the national interests of the states. Emerging from the comparative description, content presentation and qualitative analysis, the article assesses the level of development of the national models of higher education, i.e., Russian, European and American. This allowed identifying key similarities, as well as the most important differences, which mainly stem from the difference in the state regulation of national educational systems. It is the role of the state that is leading in the formation of national educational systems and the creation of high-quality models of higher education. The state is also responsible for the transformation and adaptation of these models. The models target providing the national and world labor market with highly professional human resources. Based on the comparative aspects outlined in the article, as well as on the qualitative analysis data, the authors have come to the following main conclusions regarding the trends and prospects for the development of the Russian higher education sector: a) Firstly, the Russian model of higher education was built during an accelerated transition from a one-level to a multilevel education. The result of this shift is the labor market disbalance, which nowadays does not allow the formation of the adequate perception of specialists holding a "bachelor's degree" which is unfamiliar and obscure to many employers; b) Secondly, the Russian educational system, and the higher education model, replicate the Western European and American approaches without considering the realities of the national educational market and the labor market. Therefore, the high proportion of the population with higher education cannot provide the necessary socio-economic development potential of the country; c) Thirdly, the reform of the Russian model of higher education should continue but not in terms of accelerating the processes of its integration into the world educational system. There is much evidence that the correct direction lies within the domain of creating incentives and conditions that will ensure the training of highly skilled professionals correlating with the market demand.

East Asian dominance in international large-scale assessments is widely known. This is often explained as an outcome of highly competitive, exam-oriented education systems in East Asia, wherein students partake in a fierce competition for limited college entrance. Although achievement scores may be comparatively higher, the argument goes, the relative success comes at a steep price, with the emphasis on high-stakes tests heightening student stress and anxiety. In this paper we refute this persistent and out-dated stereotype by focusing on changes in Japanese education over the past several decades. The two original studies we report herein show that not only do Japanese students feel less school-related anxiety and stress than they once did, but these levels are now comparable to students in America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. In showing that stereotypes do not match empirical realities, we seek to open a richer discussion around East Asian student achievement. We conclude by extending the discussion to recent changes in China, Taiwan, and South Korea. We then raise the possibility that fundamentally different outlooks on the learning process explain both differences in achievement and the persistence of the West's distorted images of Japanese and East Asian education.

This paper discusses the issue of tolerance of silence within university tutorials from a cross-cultural, comparative perspective. A mixed methods, quasi-experimental approach was employed to measure the length of silence which individual students from samples in Japan and the UK tolerated during a one-to-one staged encounter with their instructor. The comparison groups consisted of two first-year intact classes, one in Japan (n = 20) and one in the UK (n = 15), both of whom were studying for a Bachelor degree in English. During the tutorial encounter, the instructor refrained from speech from a set point in the meeting. Participants' reactions to the period of silence which ensued were examined in detail using non-verbal coding and their length of silence tolerance was measured precisely. Contrary to the popular notion of the silent "East" versus the garrulous "West", the study's quantitative findings revealed there was no significant difference in the length of silence students from both groups could tolerate during tutorials. Furthermore, self-reported feelings of discomfort during the silence were relatively high for both Japanese and UK participants, but length of silence was not found to be correlated with degree of discomfort. Qualitative data were collected from retrospective interviews examining what participants were thinking and feeling whilst the silent encounter was in progress. Testimony illustrating acute feelings of anxiety on the part of both UK and Japanese students was the primary theme to emerge in this phase of data collection. We propose the construct "situational silence anxiety" to describe such feelings of apprehension during situated encounters in which talk is expected but does not occur.

Since 2000, the number of students trained abroad has increased 100%. This statistic shows how not only many students but also how future employers value this training. It gives students an additional skill, which can be called "internationality". Accordingly a large number of countries intend to rapidly increase the number of students studying abroad. This trend leads to a model of international student mobility that would be perfect if, first, all students could benefit from it; second, if this model did not create some inequalities; and finally, if it did not cause some distortions in the world that may be economic or academic in nature. This paper shows that this is not the case. It is therefore important to analyse these phenomena in order to find solutions to improve the current model of international student mobility.

This paper examines the distribution of students in tertiary education across six broad cognate areas of study. Using data collected by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics since 1999, it suggests that there is neither uniformity across countries, nor obvious signs of convergence toward uniformity, either globally or regionally. This empirical evidence is placed in a context that views institutions as complex, self-organising systems, capable of selecting those external stimuli that will affect their development, and ignoring those that will not. This view of organisations emphasises the importance of their histories in shaping what they are likely to do in the future, with national systems of higher education, for example, showing strong tendencies to continue past patterns into the future. These observations have important implications for how educational institutions are managed, and how policy is developed.

University admissions are vital issues for secondary schools both in the United Kingdom and Japan; however, the qualifications for applicants are disparate in the two countries. Universities in the United Kingdom require applicants' academic performance as well as various achievements that relate to their chosen courses, while Japanese universities place great importance on entrance examination marks. This disparity in university admissions naturally contributes to the different types of secondary school education. This paper, whose author was born and raised in Japan, focuses on a British independent secondary school's evaluation method. The research clarifies the school evaluates a wide range of academic and non-academic activities through multiple open means which is in explicit contrast with Japanese schools' closed evaluation methods. In addition, by interviewing Japanese pupils who have experienced both Japanese and British education demonstrates the effectiveness of the British visible appreciation leading pupils to successful academic career paths.

In this study, the variables having impact on the student motivation have been analyzed based on the articles, conference papers, master's theses and doctoral dissertations published in the years 2000-2017. A total of 165 research papers were selected for the research material and the data were collected through qualitative research techniques through document review and content analysis. According to the research results, the most important factors affecting student motivation are the fields of teacher, teachers' classroom management skills and their teaching methods. In this research, factors having less influence on the student motivation are parental communication, student characteristics and study fields. In addition, relational search type was used more than others, mostly students were selected as the study group and most researches were conducted in USA and Turkey.

Internationalising higher education (HE) shows tensions between recruiting international students as a means of securing income and meeting their particular educational needs towards practices of caring for their social, psychological, intercultural and educational well-being. This paper briefly outlines the extent of current HE internationalisation and collaboration networks worldwide. It presents an argument, evidenced with research data, for the need to include cultures of learning in policies and practises to sustain internationalisation in HE. Staff (academic, administrative and technical) and students (home and international) need to appreciate and practise a variety of cultural approaches and intercultural communication strategies to advance teaching and learning. Staff need to have this intercultural awareness for their professional development and to consider further how the curriculum and learning environments could provide more opportunities for (inter)national students to be productively engaged in academic learning in intercultural contexts and embrace more internationalised content and learning processes. Suggestions for such developments are proposed.

Online students use highly emotional language to describe their experiences, indicating that learners do feel a great deal online. This paper draws on Wetherell's exploration of affective practice to theorise learners' responses to the pedagogical and technological online environment. Findings of a research project that focused on two cohorts of online doctoral students are presented, including survey responses and interview data. Thematic analysis indicates that participants experienced positive and negative affects circulating around three sites of intensity: a sense of progression; community interaction and assignment feedback. However, narrative analysis of extracts from the interviews reveal a further level of complexity to the data, drawing attention to the unfinished and shifting character of these affects. The paper concludes by pointing to the implications of this research for designing the online environment in ways that will allow students to experience the full potential of online learning.

In 2004, Ray Land produced extensive literature on the 12 orientations of academic developers. These orientations provided academic developers with a useful tool through which they have been able to better articulate their roles and their place in academia. We have used the orientations model to establish, compare, and contrast the identity of sixteen academic developers from the UK and from Japan. The findings reveal that research is a key orientation recognised by both groups, although is expressed differently by academic developers from the two countries. The political strategist orientation was considered important amongst managers irrespective of their cultural backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can active citizenship be learned? In recent years, teaching citizenship issues are becoming popular in schools across various parts of the world. This paper makes reference to India as an example. It argues the need for a pedagogical debate on what makes an active citizen. The complex questions it begins to address are these: who is a citizen?; what does it mean to be an active citizen?; and under what social, political or educational scenario does a person become a citizen? Surely, the question is not just about learning citizenship but also in taking action as a citizen that education within schools needs to address. Based on a published book, this paper makes an eclectic enquiry into the example of the intercultural thinkers Mahatma Gandhi of India and his Japanese contemporary, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who had both contributed to lead their respective societies into a new trajectory of change. Secondly, this paper discusses innovative methods and activities in teaching citizenship education and the current use of this published research in a post-graduate certificate course in the UK. In addition, this paper argues that there is still a paucity of literature, which develops a broader understanding of thinkers from the East.

Cross-border higher education institutions are considered a main way to fulfill the educational internalization in Mainland China; to some extent they represent the attitude of entering the international market. In this paper, the history, status quo, and future of Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run schools are analyzed and discussed. Cross-border higher education institutions in Mainland China have experienced the process from accidental and disorder to a systematic and quality orientation.

Literacy studies approaches have tended to adopt a position which enables ethnographic explorations of a wide range of "literacies". An important issue arising is the new challenge required for researchers to capture, manage, and analyse data that highlight the unique character of practices around texts in digital environments. Such inquiries, we argue, require multiple elements of data to be captured and analysed as part of effective literacy ethnographies. These include such things as the unfolding of digital texts, the activities around them, and features of the surrounding social and material environment. This paper addresses these methodological issues drawing from three educationally focused studies, and reporting their experiences and insights within uniquely different contexts. We deal with the issue of adopting new digital methods for literacy research through the notion of a "deep dive" to explore educational tasks in classrooms. Through a discussion of how we approached the capture and analysis of our data, we present methods to better understand digital literacies in education. We then outline challenges posed by our methods, how they can be used more broadly for researching interaction in digital environments, and how they augment transdisciplinary debates and trends in research methods.

This paper empirically examines the impact of academic research on high-tech manufacturing growth of 28 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and emerging countries over the 1991-2005 period. A standard research and development (R&D) expenditure based measure is found to be too general to capture the input in high-tech research. To overcome this problem, a novel proxy for high-tech research investment--the supercomputer capacity--is proposed. Empirical evidence strongly supports this choice of variable. It is also found that academic R&D exerts a larger growth effect on high-tech output than its industry and government counterparts, but only the impact differential between academic and government R&D is statistically significant.

Many writers have argued that undergraduate students' volunteering to take part in community-based civic engagement activities is making an increasingly important contribution to citizenship education within society. This study used a questionnaire to explore the motives towards such volunteering for a sample of 120 undergraduate students in England and 137 undergraduate students in Japan. Their responses indicated that in both countries influential motives reported dealt with the activity being enjoyable and interesting and the activity helping others; in both countries just over half of the sample rated these two motives as 'very important'. However, an even more important motive for the students in Japan was that the activity enabled them to develop as a person, which was rated as 'very important' by nearly two-thirds of the students in Japan, compared with about one-third of those in England. The students in Japan were also much more likely than those in England to cite the opportunity to socialise with others, whereas the students in England were much more likely than those in Japan to cite the opportunity to develop new skills. At a time when there has been a huge increase in the number of volunteering activities that are promoted within higher education in many countries, it is interesting to note that students' motives for volunteering are complex and varied, and may be subject to national and cultural differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a synthesis of the pedagogical practices of e-learning teacher experts into a four-part framework of approaches: out-of-class, blended language practice, blended Web 2.0 projects, and online. Examples of each approach are illustrated with short extracts from case studies of the participant teachers. It is hoped that these four approaches will be useful as a means for an individual teacher or institution to objectively assess the level of integration of technology within their teaching context and might also serve as a framework for technology-minded language teachers to communicate with other teachers or administrators who might not share a similar mindset.

This article sets out the context and rationale of a project on which the author is currently engaged in collaboration with Roy Lowe. It records a network of American, European and British scholars, including Lowe, who in the last four decades of the twentieth century developed research on the history of universities. At a personal level it recalls the entry into this research activity of one Japanese historian of higher education, and his encounter with Roy Lowe. The historiography and the relevance of Lowe’s contributions are recounted from a Japanese perspective, leading to a subsequent sharing of research questions and the launch of a project on which both individuals are currently engaged. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Changing Academic Profession (CAP) international survey was designed in part to consider the effects of globalization on the work context and activities of academics in 19 countries or regions around the world. This paper draws from a subset of these data to explore the extent to which academics are globally connected in their research and teaching, and the ways this connectedness relates to global migration. Across multiple measures, immigrant academics (i.e., academics working in countries where they were not born and did not receive their first degree) were more globally connected than national academics (i.e., those working in the countries of their birth and first degree). Global migration by academic staff is clearly a major contributor to the internationalization of higher education institutions, yet there was no evidence these contributions led to enhanced career progress or job satisfaction for immigrant academics relative to national academics. The international expertise and experience of immigrant academics may not be sufficiently recognized and valued by their institutions.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how active learning may help address the legitimacy and practicability issues inherent in introducing education for sustainability into business-related degree programs. Design/methodology/approach – The focus of this study is the experience of the authors in the development and implementation of education for sustainability within their business-related higher education programs. To address the inherent challenges of the task, they apply the principles of active learning, with substantial use of problem-based learning, in the classroom and engage in a process of staff development in their personal time. The method used is a simplified version of action research where the authors worked together over two years and then reflected on the experience through interviews and extensive discussions with each other, with their respective teaching teams, and with sustainability educators from outside of their programs. Findings – The findings suggest that active learning approaches move learners away from dependence on (possibly illegitimate and unprepared) educators and towards a personal responsibility approach. This also means accepting that learners are free to understand sustainability in a "global" sense or instead choose only its "business as usual" applications. Originality/value – The paper provides a useful insight into the practical value of active learning for educators grappling with the dilemma of delivering globally responsible business and/or management-related education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher Education is experiencing an increasingly diverse student population. Students bring a range of skills and experiences to their courses; they have different backgrounds and different needs. This fluidity requires an approach to teaching that encompasses the social aspects of learning. It has been suggested that authentic approaches to teaching and learning can assist in offering a perspective on learning which views learning as "enabling participation in knowing". We propose that the authentic learning practices developed in The Gift design project, discussed in this paper, constituted approaches which acknowledged that students' interests and experience are intrinsically bound up with motivation and engagement and, as such, have a major influence on the ways in which learning is constituted and developed. The Gift project has developed a range of innovative formative strategies which have provided both students and tutors with opportunities to become involved in peer assessment and review, peer feedback and reflection on learning outcomes. This re-conceptualisation of the assessment process has provided valuable insights into the development of learning skills such as problem solving, critical analysis, and the development of creativity and learner autonomy.

This paper is a macro study on higher education R&D and its impact on productivity growth. I measure the social rate of return on higher education R&D in 17 high-income OECD countries using country level data on the percentage of gross expenditure on R&D performed by higher education, business, and government sectors over the period 1981-2006. Empirical results suggest that lagged R&D performed by higher education is positively affecting productivity growth in all specifications. The long-run propensity of productivity growth to R&D performed by the higher education sector is also found to be positive and significant while it is found be insignificant to business R&D. (Contains 13 notes, 3 figures and 8 tables.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how active learning may help address the legitimacy and practicability issues inherent in introducing education for sustainability into business-related degree programs. Design/methodology/approach: The focus of this study is the experience of the authors in the development and implementation of education for sustainability within their business-related higher education programs. To address the inherent challenges of the task, they apply the principles of active learning, with substantial use of problem-based learning, in the classroom and engage in a process of staff development in their personal time. The method used is a simplified version of action research where the authors worked together over two years and then reflected on the experience through interviews and extensive discussions with each other, with their respective teaching teams, and with sustainability educators from outside of their programs. Findings: The findings suggest that active learning approaches move learners away from dependence on (possibly illegitimate and unprepared) educators and towards a personal responsibility approach. This also means accepting that learners are free to understand sustainability in a "global" sense or instead choose only its "business as usual" applications. Originality/value: The paper provides a useful insight into the practical value of active learning for educators grappling with the dilemma of delivering globally responsible business and/or management-related education programs. (Contains 1 table, 3 notes, 3 resources, and 6 online resources.)

This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support activities as diverse as widening participation, e-learning, and business partnership. This in turn has implications for higher education governance and management structures and processes. Consideration is given to variables likely to affect institutional responses to such changes, and some suggestions are made as to possible ways forward in addressing the interests of an expanding range of professional groupings and stakeholders, as well as those of institutions as a whole. These are likely to involve the development of more flexible organisational frameworks in relation to, for instance, reward and incentive mechanisms and career pathways. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

This paper explores difficulties students may experience in giving opinions in class, drawing on data gleaned from the administration of questionnaires and interviews to Japanese and British students. The results show that the students from both groups regard highly of giving and exchanging opinions in class; however, there is a marked difference in their confidence in doing so, more Japanese students stating that they have difficulties even in their mother tongue situations than the British. The paper examines the background to these difficulties, drawing from detailed studies of the students' own accounts, comparing and contrasting them. (Contains 13 notes and 2 tables.)

This paper reports the results of a survey of 101 Japanese university students' perceptions of different varieties of English using an open-ended questionnaire. Participants indicated their first impressions of varieties of English that they had named. This methodology allows participants themselves to provide the specific varieties as well as the evaluative categories and avoids problems associated with using voice stimuli while capturing the stereotypes of the countries they name, a method of research well-established in perceptual dialectology. There were consistent patterns of evaluation of Englishes not found in similar research such as characterisations of US English as "authentic," the "default variety," a "familiar" or "easy" variety. Typically, when evaluating varieties of English, respondents attribute higher status to UK English than US English. Capturing the attitudes of non-native speakers to varieties of English provides understanding of the influences on the shape of English as a global language as attitudes are known to be a powerful influence on the usage and perceptions of language varieties. (Contains 4 tables and 4 notes.)

This paper reports on a cross-cultural outreach activity of the current UK "Spatial Literacy in Teaching" (SPLINT) Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), a past UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant, and shared interests in family names between Japanese and UK academics. It describes a pedagogic programme developed for Japanese postgraduates and advanced undergraduates that entailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the spatial distributions of Japanese family names. The authors describe some specific semantic, procedural and theoretical issues and, more generally, suggest how names analysis provides a common framework for engaging student interest in GIS. (Contains 5 figures and 2 notes.)

Although studies have begun to shed light on medical students' attitudes towards peer physical examination (PPE), they have been conducted at single sites, and have generally not examined changes in medical students' attitudes over time. Employing both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, the current study examines medical students' attitudes towards PPE at schools from different geographical and cultural regions and assess changes in their attitudes over their first year of medical study. Students at six schools (Peninsula, UK; Durham, UK; Auckland, New Zealand; Flinders, Australia; Sapporo, Japan and Li Ka Shing, Hong Kong) completed the Examining Fellow Students (EFS) questionnaire near the start of their academic year (T1), and students at four schools (Peninsula, Durham, Auckland and Flinders) completed the EFS for a second time, around the end of their academic year (T2). Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed a high level of acceptance for PPE of non-intimate body regions amongst medical students from all schools (greater than 83%, hips, at T1 and 94.5%, hips and upper body, at T2). At T1 and T2, students' willingness to engage in PPE was associated with their gender, ethnicity, religiosity and school. Typically, students least comfortable with PPE at T1 and T2 were female, non-white, religious and studying at Auckland. Although students' attitudes towards PPE were reasonably stable over their first year of study, and after exposure to PPE, we did find some statistically significant differences in attitudes between T1 and T2. Interestingly, attitude changes were consistently predicted by gender, even when controlling for school. While male students' attitudes towards PPE were relatively stable over time, females' attitudes were changeable. In this paper, we discuss our findings in light of existing research and theory, and discuss their implications for educational practice and further research.