CESE calls for applicants from the doctorate students in the School of Education to encourage young researchers to conduct research projects with diverse perspectives. We support five research projects this year under the topic of “School Education in the Globalization Era”.

The final report seminar was held as student session in the international symposium “Education in the Era of Globalization: Towards the Realization of Sustainable Future” on February 24, 2016 at the Department of Education, Stockholm University that has an academic exchange agreement with the Graduate School of Education, the University of Tokyo.

There were culturally diverse participants including exchange students from both Stockholm University and University of Tokyo. Also, the presentations covered a wide range of methods and topics under the common theme of “School Education in the Globalization Era”. To present in English was a challenging since the majority of presenters were not native speakers of English. But the students presented well and were actively involved in Question and Answer sessions.

One of the participants of Young Scholar Training Program, Tetsuya Obayashi, reflected his experience of participating in the training.

I decided to join the training program in Sweden since I wanted to try presenting in an international conference. Since I worked for my research during the past six months, it was not easy to summarize and present the findings in ten minutes. Especially for Q&A, I had to be spontaneous so I was very nervous. Also, presenting our research to the international audience who were not familiar with the Japanese education system was not easy and involved a lot of efforts.

However, I was really happy that the participants were very attentive and supportive to our presentation, and we were able to have fruitful discussions overcoming language issues across disciplinary boundaries. I realized that listening carefully to one another is very important as well as to reflect to improve my presentation skill. I learned through this experience that in order to “realize education for sustainable future in the era of globalization,” which is also the theme of the international seminar, starts from listening carefully to the voices of people with different backgrounds.

In addition to the final report seminar, the study tour to Stockholm also included the campus tour in Stockholm University, and the visit to schools and the Ministry of Education. The volunteers from Stockholm University accompanied the students from University of Tokyo and they could communicate about their college life and issues in school education. It was jointly organized with the “Global Leadership Program in Sweden” for the undergraduate students in Department of Education. It was an excellent opportunity for learning and for international exchange both for the graduate and undergraduate students from Tokyo University and Stockholm University.

The results of the students’ research will be released as working paper of CESE. The students are expected to work further to develop the research and to write journal papers.

Please visit the Stockholm University website for their report of this seminar and tour in Stockholm.

Message from Mr. Brian Berry (Academic Writing Support Desk Coordinator)

Report from Stockholm University

(Tetsuya Obayashi, Master Student and the participant of Young Scholar Training Program, and Kanako Kusanagi, Project Researcher of Center for Excellence in School Education）