US-Japan Comparative Studies on Teachers' Perceptions on Early Childhood Education : Analysis through Video Stimulation Methods

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This study is about to conduct cultural comparative studies on early childhood educators' perception of their practices. Through this three-years-grant period, we developed a video-stimulated method adopted a multivocal ethnography (cf., Tobin, 1989) and produced video clips from early childhood education facilities in Japan, US, and Germany. Then, we asked early childhood educators in three countries to respond to the video clips. Those responses have been compared and analyzed in order to speculate their similarities and differences among three cultures, comparing their professionalism in their own contexts. The followings are two major results in this study :1. Examining a nature of "good practices"Analyzing the Japanese, German, and US preschool teachers' responses and discourse through the developed method, elements of "good practices" were depicted. Examining an image of Japanese preschool teachers' perception of "good preschool teachers", in particular, it is suggested that imag … More es of "good preschool teachers" were tied to an idea of "child-centered-oriented" practices (Noguchi, et al.,2005).2. Depicting preschool teachers' tacit practical knowledge and beliefs in practical contextTo examine and compare perceptions tacit practical knowledge of Japanese and German early childhood educators with the video-cued multi-vocal ethnography, we interpreted the data with identifying key words included most frequently in the discourse of the preschool teachers, and categorizing the contents of sentences that include those key words. In doing so, one can speculate that which key words are commonly used between cultures of Japanese and German early childhood education, and what is argued by those terminologies. The central themes of each culture's own shared perception and practical knowledge regarding early childhood education are depicted through such analysis. As a result, three common themes are found:(1) respect for children's autonomy and independence/opposition to teachers' instruction(2) standpoint of emphasizing children's social development', and(3) concern for safety'However, the internal structures of those perspectives are different from Japanese to German concepts, reflecting each country's history, culture, and system of early childhood education (Ashida, et al., 2006). Less