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The first part of the questionnaire addressed Research Question 1 (i): “What do participants understand by ‘good citizenship’?” Teachers were asked to rate the importance of various personal attributes to Japanese citizenship.

Section I was designed as an introduction to the themes of the research. At the piloting stage, several teachers expressed doubts as to whether JTEs would be familiar with the term shitizunshippu kyouiku (シティズンシップ教 育), or “citizenship education”. The list of “good citizen” attributes in Section I was intended to orient participants to the topic by illustrating the potential scope of citizenship education

The draft version of Section I included 35 “good citizen” attributes, and teachers were asked to rate the importance of each one to Japanese citizenship.

The attributes were based on an extensive review of the literature (in particular, Davies et al., 1999; Heater, 2004; W. O. Lee & Fouts, 2005; McLaughlin, 1992; QCA, 1998; Rauner, 1999), and designed to provide a comprehensive, though not exhaustive, set of concepts for thinking about citizenship. The following dimensions were identified as being particularly useful for characterizing different views of citizenship (Chapter 2 provided a more detailed discussion of these concepts):

a) National vs. post-national views – national views of citizenship are concerned

with the rights and responsibilities of citizens in the context of the nation state. They are likely to stress such aspects as patriotism, preservation of a strong national identity, and the prioritizing of national interests abroad. In contrast, post-national views tend to stress global citizenship, placing greater emphasis on international law and universal human rights; they can also include the

cosmopolitan notion that citizens have multiple identities reflecting memberships of communities at the local, national, regional and global levels.

Items intended to tap into teachers’ views on the national–post-national dimension include those referring to “national” sentiments such as “being patriotic” (item 11) and “wishing to promote Japan’s national interests in the world” (item 13), and those that refer to “post-national” inclinations such as “feeling a sense of responsibility as a member of a global society” (item 16).

b) Rights and responsibilities – as outlined earlier, the balance between rights

and responsibilities continues to shape the discourse on citizenship. Liberal views emphasize individual rights, seeking to maximize personal freedoms and keep duties to a minimum. In contrast, the civic republican tradition sees citizenship as involving a “thicker” set of responsibilities, and a commitment to collective welfare rather than the pursuit of individual interests.

Examples of survey items that address the rights–responsibilities

dimension include item 1, “understanding one’s own rights and how to exercise them”, and item 3, “being willing to obey people in authority”.

c) Participation – this dimension concerns the extent to which citizenship is

to the rights and responsibilities dimension. Republicans see active involvement in public life as a civic duty, whereas liberals are more likely to think in terms of the right to participate, and the right to a private life. The questionnaire

emphasized participation as a separate dimension, because, particularly in the context of citizenship education, views differ not only on the extent of a citizen’s right or duty to participate, but also on the skills required for effective

participation. Items that sought teachers’ views on these participatory skills include item 22, “being able to communicate with people from other cultures”, and item 25, “being able to gather and analyse information using various kinds of media”.

d) A moral dimension – As Davies, Gregory and Riley (1999) found in their

survey of UK teachers, there is a common perception that being a good citizen is a matter of personal morality, or being a good neighbour. Items in the

questionnaire that addressed this moral dimension include item 2, “being willing to put the public interest ahead of one’s own private interest”, and item 30, “behaving in a moral and ethical way”.

In addition to the English-language literature, I also consulted Japanese sources (e.g. Ikeno, 2011; Keizai Sangyousho, 2006) to ensure the dimensions outlined above were relevant to the discourse on citizenship in Japan.

Finally, reflecting the survey’s emphasis on education for citizenship, the attributes listed in Section I covered the three main aspects discussed in the literature: knowledge, values and skills.

The teachers with whom I piloted the draft survey suggested that the questionnaire took too long to complete, and recommended that it be shortened. Based on their feedback, the number of items in Section I was reduced, from 35 to 30. “Being conscious of being a member of a global community” and “Having a responsibility to global society” were combined to create one new item,

“Feeling a sense of responsibility as a member of a global society”. Two other attributes – “a willingness to try and understand other people’s way of thinking”, and “knowledge of Japan’s political and legal systems” – were judged by all teachers to be either essential or very important, and thus deleted since they appeared to be uncontroversial. “Knowledge of international politics and

economics as they affect Japan” was deleted because teachers found the wording awkward, and I realized this aspect of citizenship was adequately covered by other items, including “wishing to protect/advance Japan’s interests in the world”. Finally, “knowledge needed for participating in the economic sphere (e.g. concerning market principles, and consumer rights and workers’ rights)”, which was originally taken from METI’s Declaration on Citizenship Education, was omitted since it addressed knowledge people might need as consumers rather than citizens, so did not fit neatly into any of the dimensions used to structure Section I.

3.6.2.2 Section II

Sections II – IV of the questionnaire addressed Research Question 1 (ii), asking participants to reflect on the links between citizenship education and teaching English.

Section II listed 25 teaching aims, each of which could be seen as

addressing one or more of the citizen attributes introduced in Section I. Together, the aims cover the three main dimensions of citizenship education – values, knowledge and skills. Teachers were asked to indicate how far they believed each aim could be furthered through high-school English classes in Japan. The draft questionnaire included an additional section (25 items) where teachers were asked to indicate how far they had been able to address each aim in their own

classes. Addressing concerns raised during piloting that the questionnaire took

too long to complete, this section was deleted and the open-ended item in Section IV amended to invite teachers to reflect on their own teaching experiences there.

When constructing the questionnaire, I used the word aims rather than

objectives (although in the thesis, I use these words interchangeably). Richards

and Schmidt (2002) make the distinction between aims, which they see as “long- term goals” or “the underlying reasons for or purposes of a course of instruction”, and objectives, which are more specific, “more detailed descriptions of exactly what the learner is expected to be able to do at the end of a period of instruction” (p. 370). JTEs usually teach a number of different English courses – some focusing on grammar, some on skills such as reading and speaking. They may also teach Integrated Studies. My interest was in how JTEs might have aims that

motivate them to seek ways of bringing citizenship into any of the courses they teach. In translating the questionnaire, I used the Japanese nerai (狙い; ねらい), which has the same general sense of teaching aims, as opposed to mokuteki (目 的) or mokuhyou (目標), which suggest more specific objectives (Kensui dayori, 2014). (Other issues of translation are dealt with in 3.6.3.)

3.6.2.3 Section III

Section III also addressed Research Question 1 ii), but whereas Section II focused on specific teaching objectives, Section III aimed to move participants towards more general conclusions. Teachers were presented with 10 statements concerning the links between citizenship and language teaching: for example, “Some skills that students acquire in English language classes are important for good citizenship” (item 2), and “Citizenship education belongs in subjects like social studies, not in English language classes” (item 4). Participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each statement.

3.6.2.4 Section IV

This open-ended item invited teachers to share their opinions about the possibilities of combining citizenship education with English teaching, and to describe anything they had done in their own classes that they believed was relevant to citizenship. I hoped that freely composed answers to this question would yield insights into teachers’ thinking and provide clues for interpreting responses in other sections. Bryman (2008) recommends that self-completion questionnaires include few open-ended items so participants are not deterred by the prospect of having to write long answers.

3.6.2.5 Section V

The final section asked for participants’ personal details, including age group, length of teaching experience, time spent at their current school, and courses they were responsible for. They were also asked to provide information about the kind

of school they were based at – for example, whether it was junior or senior high, private or public. I assumed any of these factors might influence teachers’ ability to incorporate citizenship-teaching objectives into their classes. For instance, I wondered whether teachers at private schools might have more freedom to diverge from MEXT’s Course of Study, and whether longer-serving teachers might have more freedom to innovate by reason of seniority. (Note that most public-school teachers are transferred regularly between schools. Typically, a teacher will stay only five or six years at any one institution). As explained later, in 4.1.3.2, the open-ended format of the question on school type resulted in missing data from some respondents and suggested that a checklist format might have been better.

3.6.3 Translation issues

As a native speaker of English conducting research with teachers whose first language was Japanese, I recognized that translation issues would be central to this study. The main issues are discussed below.