Published papers

In this paper, Teaching Expertise in Three Countries project is used as an example to show the significance and contribution of international comparative research and to think about the possible implications for policy in early childhood education. The project studied the development of expertise in preschool teaching in Japan, China, and the United States by employing ‘video-cued multivocal ethnography’ to explore how teaching expertise is defined in each of these countries and what processes help teachers acquire advanced teaching skills. This project has shown similarities and culturally specific notions, in what the participants have to say about characteristics of less and more experienced teachers. These research findings raise issues and challenges in early childhood education that resonate with the situation not only in the three countries but also possibly in other countries, such as problematizing the role of remembering and reflection in professional practice and the value of experience.

School-based Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs emerged in North America and have not traditionally focused on embodied learning processes that are situated in the learners’ contexts and lived experiences. Thus, we present evidence and advance the case that transferable social-emotional competencies are inherently culturally responsive or situated in learners’ authentic experiences and are inherently embodied. We also introduce a conceptual model grounded in bioecological and embodied theoretical frameworks to help guide future research and practice for culturally relevant SEL. Research findings: We used parts of the scoping review methodology to search and screen the published empirical literature on SEL and embodied learning. Findings highlight the increase in SEL research over the past 2 decades but with extremely limited work done outside of North America, particularly in Japan and South Africa. Consequently, we explored what culturally responsive, situated, and embodied SEL would look like across three different cultural contexts (i.e., in North America, Japan, and South Africa). Practice or Policy: While the principles, goals, and key skills of SEL might apply to most or even all cultures, an emic approach where culture-specific values, beliefs, or customs drive the development and implementation of SEL curriculum, and incorporates the meaningful inclusion of key community members is needed to be effective for specific groups of students. To implement and facilitate effective SEL programs within diverse and multicultural settings, policies and practices related to SEL curriculum need to consider the backgrounds and needs of the children, families, and communities that are being served.

This personal, tentative, self-reflective essay explores some Japanese ways of conducting comparative educational research. In this essay, I not only describe a Japanese style of conducting comparative education research but also do so in a Japanese way. The four key elements I discuss are: daijini (taking care), soboku (simplicity), nagaime (long perspective) and shuudan-sei and kanjin shugi (collectivism and contextualism). Like Rappleye’s and Takayama’s recent contributions in the 2020 special issue of this journal, my paper challenges the taken-for-grantedness of the Western philosophies, theories, and methods characteristic of Anglophone comparative educational scholarship. Like those contributions, this paper argues for the value Japanese perspectives hold for comparative educational research. For me, this means arguing for the value of research methods that are not inseparable from my being Japanese.

Among the lessons to be learned in Japanese preschool is how to experience, present, and respond to feelings. We suggest that the feeling most emphasized in Japanese preschools is sabishiisa (loneliness). Japanese preschool educators draw attention to feelings of sabishiisa, or loneliness, to promote a desire in young children for social connection. This social connection is built on a foundation of amae (expressions of dependency needs) and omoiyari (responding empathically to expressions of amae). Using examples from everyday life in a Japanese preschool, we argue that the Japanese preschool's pedagogy of feeling emphasizes learning to respond empathetically to loneliness and other expressions of need. Our analysis suggests that sabishiisa, amae, and omoiyari (loneliness, dependence, and empathy) form a triad of emotional exchange, which, although not unique to Japan or to the Japanese preschool, have a particular cultural patterning and salience in Japan and in the Japanese approach to the socialization of emotions in early childhood. © 2009 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.