Early Childhood Education In Three Cultures

Published twenty years ago, the original Preschool in Three Cultures was a landmark in the study of education: a profoundly enlightening exploration of the different ways preschoolers are taught in China, Japan, and the United States. Here, lead author Joseph Tobin—along with new collaborators Yeh Hsueh and Mayumi Karasawa—revisits his original research to discover how two decades of globalization and sweeping social transformation have affected the way these three cultures educate and care for their youngest pupils. Putting their subjects’ responses into historical perspective, Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa analyze the pressures put on schools to evolve and to stay the same, discuss how the teachers adapt to these demands, and examine the patterns and processes of continuity and change in each country. Featuring nearly one hundred stills from the videotapes, Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited artfully and insightfully illustrates the surprising, illuminating, and at times entertaining experiences of four-year-olds—and their teachers—on both sides of the Pacific.

This book, written by an international team of experienced researchers, investigates unique and dynamic approaches to key issues in policy transformation, curriculum reforms and teacher training in three cultures – China, Japan and the United States – in a globalized world. By examining their respective policy choices and evidence-based practices, the authors show how best to provide for young children based on their needs and interests, and the three countries’ strategies for doing so. This book provides the latest information on the rapid developments already underway and further changes to be expected in these diverse cultures.

Compares preschool education in the three countries, discusses how child care reflects social change and considers the issues of freedom, creativity, and discipline

Early childhood education programs are expected to provide exemplary care for all children—poor and affluent, children of color and White children—while also adapting care to include children’s families and cultures. These two sets of expectations are often difficult for teachers and programs to meet. In this book, Carollee Howes shows how high-quality programs successfully adapt child development guidelines within cultural contexts, and why quality needs to be and can be measured in culturally specific ways. This important book: Closely examines ECE programs considered exemplary for low-income children of color. Shows how directors and teachers successfully use practices derived from their cultural communities to implement universal standards of child care. Identifies the commonalities in good early childhood programs that are shared across class, race, and ethnic communities. Offers best practices based on extensive assessments, interviews, and observations. “Will have immediate relevance for policy debates, for understanding the mechanisms of program effects, and for educators who wish to deepen their knowledge of practice.” —Robert C. Pianta, University of Virginia “I urge all higher education faculty, in-service teacher trainers, accreditation observers, researchers, text-book writers and policymakers of standards to read this book.” —From the Foreword by Louise Derman-Sparks

The videos, which were shot in 2004, are of Komatsudani Hoikuen (Daycare Center) in Kyoto, Japan; Daguan Youeryuan (Kindergarten) in Kunming, China; St. Timothy's Child Center, in Honolulu, Hawaii; Madoka Yochien (Kindergarten) in Tokyo, Japan; Sinanlu Youeryuan (Kindergarten) in Shanghai, China; and Alhambra Preschool in Phoenix, Arizona. The first three preschools are sites which we first filmed in 1984 for the original Preschool in Three Cultures Study. The other three are of preschools we selected for the new study to reflect new directions in each country's approach to early childhood education. In this study, the videos function primarily as interviewing tools. We call this approach "video cued multivocal ethnography" (or the Preschool in three cultures method). In this method, it is the responses of informants to these images, rather than the images themselves, that are the core data of the study and the primary source of meaning. By showing and discussing the videotapes with hundreds of preschool teachers and directors in each country, we were able to learn something about the variation to be found in each country's approach. The book Preschool in three cultures revisited presents our analysis of teachers' reflections on their own and each others' cultural practices. The narration track of this video presents Chinese, Japanese, and U.S. teachers' reflections on key scenes in the videos. A disclaimer: clearly no one preschool can be representative of the preschools of an entire city much less of an entire country. We do not claim that the preschools in these videos are representative, except in the sense that they are not unrepresentative. Each is an example of just one of the many kinds of preschools to be found in its country.

The long-awaited new edition of NAEYC's book Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs is here, fully revised and updated! Since the first edition in 1987, it has been an essential resource for the early childhood education field. Early childhood educators have a professional responsibility to plan and implement intentional, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that promote the social and emotional development, physical development and health, cognitive development, and general learning competencies of each child served. But what is developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)? DAP is a framework designed to promote young children's optimal learning and development through a strengths-based approach to joyful, engaged learning. As educators make decisions to support each child's learning and development, they consider what they know about (1) commonality in children's development and learning, (2) each child as an individual (within the context of their family and community), and (3) everything discernible about the social and cultural contexts for each child, each educator, and the program as a whole. This latest edition of the book is fully revised to underscore the critical role social and cultural contexts play in child development and learning, including new research about implicit bias and teachers' own context and consideration of advances in neuroscience. Educators implement developmentally appropriate practice by recognizing the many assets all young children bring to the early learning program as individuals and as members of families and communities. They also develop an awareness of their own context. Building on each child's strengths, educators design and implement learning settings to help each child achieve their full potential across all domains of development and across all content areas.

Bridging Cultures in Early Care and Education: A Training Module is a resource designed to help pre-service and in-service early childhood educators, including infant-toddler caregivers, understand the role of culture in their programs. It is also intended for professionals who work with children and their families in a variety of other roles, such as social workers, special educators, and early interventionists, and for use in college courses focused on early childhood education and child development. The module explains and illustrates how early childhood educators can use the organizing concepts of individualism and collectivism as a means of understanding cultural conflict and difference. These concepts have been shown to be highly useful in improving home-school understanding across cultures. Based on real-life examples of cultural dilemmas in early care and education settings, participants engage the concepts of individualism and collectivism to solve a variety of scenarios in a dynamic and engaging manner. *Chapter 1 introduces the Bridging Cultures for Early Care and Education approach, provides a brief history, and explains the training module. It presents the conceptual framework of individualism and collectivism, which is at the heart of the training. *Chapter 2 provides the information needed for a two-hour workshop, including a script and notes to the facilitator. The script is not meant to be read word for word. Rather, it is offered as a guide, based on a pilot-tested approach. Appendices at the end of the book contain transparency masters for the overheads referenced in the script, and masters for suggested handouts. *Chapter 3 offers ideas for augmenting the basic two-hour training by expanding it over a longer time period. It also identifies additional diversity resources that can complement the Bridging Cultures training. *Appendices providing additional information, data, and bibliographic resources are included. This module originated as part of the Bridging Cultures Project at WestEd--a nonprofit research, development, and service agency working with education and other communities to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults.

A new edition of the best-selling guide to multicultural education for young children.

This open access book examines the educational conditions that support cultures of exploration in kindergartens. It conceptualises cultures of exploration, whether those cultures are created through children’s own engagement or are demanded of them through undertaking specific tasks within different institutional settings. It shows how the conditions for children’s exploration form a web of activities in different settings with social relationships, local landscapes and artefacts. The book builds on the understanding of cultural traditions as deeply implicated in the developmental processes, meaning that local considerations must be reflected in education for sustainable futures. Therefore the book examines and conceptualises exploration and cultural formation through locally situated cases and navigates toward global educational concepts. The book provides different windows into how children may explore in everyday practice settings in kindergarten, and contributes to a loci-based, ecological, integral knowledge relevant for early childhood education.