Qualitative Data Analysis and Systematic Research Method Based on Japanese Cultural Context

Tomomi Kubota, Zeyu Lang, Masahiro Arimoto

Japanese schools have been found to develop their school-based curriculum and pedagogy. Based on Japan's social culture and the educational trends of the 1980s, which became the prototype for the school's organizational culture, the school had a consistently complex assessment. Therefore, we focused on their narrative data. However, lesson studies are only methodology and not theorized. Japan is no exception; each school’s lesson practice records are individualized, and the knowledge is buried. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the productivity of lesson study by interpreting the data theoretically and raising its level of abstraction. This study aims to establish a methodology for conceptualizing narrative data using qualitative analysis software. Lessons were regarded as a system, which comes from cybernetics to clarify the complex relationship between various factors in the classroom. Coding was conducted based on a frame (“kizuki”, “nakama”) from the narrative data, which was based on the concept of Japanese cultural context. The accumulation of such approaches will contribute to knowledge management in lesson study.

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