A comparative study of women's consciousness represented in narratives about childbirth and childcare experiences:A comparative study among the UK, the U.S. and Japan

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This study aims to explore the normative consciousness of Japanese women and the society in which they live in order to explore the nature of the environment which helps women to comfortably give birth to and raise their children. In order to accomplish this purpose, a series of interviews in an active interview format were conducted with Japanese women living inside and outside Japan. Multi-modal and narrative analysis from a linguistic-anthropological and sociolinguistic perspective was taken as the method of analysis. The study reveals that it is the adequate internalization of the normative consciousness - a belief in which all individual in society should take active parts in child rearing - that constitutes the positive self-image of women as mothers. And that it is the positive self-image that leads to the sense of comfort in childbirth and child raising experiences.