Learning to Be Adolescent Growing Up in U.S. and Japanese Middle Schools Gerald K. LeTendre

?LeTendre fills his fascinating comparison of adolescence in Japanese and American middle schools with wonderful ethnographic detail.??Merry White, author of The Japanese Educational Challenge and The Material Child"A fascinating study of adolescents and their schools in two countries whose education systems are often compared. The book should interest a wide audience?from those interested in international education studies, such as TIMSS, to anyone who has raised an adolescent."?Susan Fuhrman, University of Pennsylvania

?[C]learly written, methodologically solid.??J. A. Ganradt, Choice

?An insightful comparative analysis of the ways cultural logic intersects with the construction of educational institutions and reform agendas. His emphasis on how schools run and what teachers believe casts important light on the largely neglected role of culture in shaping middle school structure and goals and their impact on students. . . . A valuable resource for scholars, policy makers, and educators. . . . In addition, it will be helpful for teachers with students from a variety of linguistic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds.??James J. Shields, Comparative Education Review

?The book is a fine example of comparative research based on an ethnography of institutions in two societies, the United States and Japan. The outcome is a reader-friendly, vivid account that illuminates striking differences between the United States and Japan in the notions of adolescence, which guide how schooling is organized and how the young are expected to acquire ?maturity?. . . . This book makes important contributions to our understanding of Japanese schooling and how it relates to wider society. . . . The book offers fascinating new insights into this crucial period of youth development. . . . The study would also interest those who study general theories of adolescence (both psychological and sociological), and scholars and social theorists who want to explore the modern sense of self and individuality beyond that of an autonomous and inwardly turned self which tends to remain pervasive in the West.??Kaori H. Okano, Journal of Japanese Studies