Introduction

This chapter explores how teachers learn to construct the process of teaching in two cultures, the United States and Japan. It offers a cross-cultural perspective on teaching. It focuses on beginning elementary schoolteachers in both cultures so that we may appreciate from their perspectives the process of learning to teach. The cultural knowledge of teaching that they acquire through the inter-subjective process in their workplace is unique to their culture. Ministry-sponsored proposals to re-educate teachers had been made since the late 1950s. Learning to teach is part and parcel of the socialization of beginning teachers. Encouraging research initiatives on teacher socialization in years have attempted to surpass methodological and paradigmatic limitations. The chapter explains an ethnographic method as the major methodological approach for data collection. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.