Studying Indigenization and Localization of Self-Study in Japan

Self-study has marked a ten-year history in Japan. This study explores its indigenization and localization through the reflections of three “first-generation educators.” The authors navigate diverse professional contexts: Hiro is a teacher educator at a local public university with open teacher education in Northern Japan. Kazu works at a core teacher education university in Western Japan, supervising doctoral candidates. Meg, based in Iceland, acts as a critical friend and catalyst for the community’s development. The data for this research includes reflective journals, Zoom meeting records, and field notes from visits to Iceland, as well as arts-based methods such as tanka and senryu poetry. Three major impacts emerged: (1) revealing divergent professional positionality as teacher educators, (2) developing a self-focused research culture, (3) uncovering the “weak self” (vulnerability) for the empowerment of practitioners. While these findings cannot be simply evaluated or generalized across Japan’s diverse teacher education landscape—which spans over 600 universities—they highlight the strategic agency of these authors. Occupying positions as “double outsiders,” they have organically cultivated a loose community through dialogue. This journey represents a culturally responsive path toward developing a uniquely Japanese form of self-study.