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Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China and the United States
“This book should be required reading for professionals in early education and makes thought-provoking reading for anyone aware of his or her own cultural blinkers.”—Penelope Leach, New York Times Book Review
"[An] important study of the way preschools both reflect and affect social change. . . . A must read for those who take social issues seriously."—Carole C. Kemmerer, Los Angeles Times
As the numbers of mothers in the workforce grows, the role of the extended family diminishes, and parents feel under greater pressure to give their children an educational headstart, industrialized societies are increasingly turning to preschools to nurture, educate, and socialize young children. Drawing on their backgrounds in anthropology, human development, and education, Tobin, Wu, and Davidson present a unique comparison of the practices and philosophies of Japanese, Chinese, and American preschool education and discuss how changes in childcare both reflect and affect larger social change. The method used is the authors first videotaped a preschool in each culture, then showed the tapes to preschool staff, parents, and child development experts. Through their vivid descriptions of a day in each country's preschools, photographs made from their videotapes, and Chinese, Japanese, and American evaluations of their own and each other's schools, we are drawn into a multicultural discussion of such issues as freedom, conformity, creativity, and discipline.
"[An] important study of the way preschools both reflect and affect social change. . . . A must read for those who take social issues seriously."—Carole C. Kemmerer, Los Angeles Times
As the numbers of mothers in the workforce grows, the role of the extended family diminishes, and parents feel under greater pressure to give their children an educational headstart, industrialized societies are increasingly turning to preschools to nurture, educate, and socialize young children. Drawing on their backgrounds in anthropology, human development, and education, Tobin, Wu, and Davidson present a unique comparison of the practices and philosophies of Japanese, Chinese, and American preschool education and discuss how changes in childcare both reflect and affect larger social change. The method used is the authors first videotaped a preschool in each culture, then showed the tapes to preschool staff, parents, and child development experts. Through their vivid descriptions of a day in each country's preschools, photographs made from their videotapes, and Chinese, Japanese, and American evaluations of their own and each other's schools, we are drawn into a multicultural discussion of such issues as freedom, conformity, creativity, and discipline.
248 pages, Paperback
First published July 19, 1989
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April 23, 2024
Insightful, well-researched, and prismatic comparison of preschools in the United States, China, and Japan.
Joseph Tobin knows his stuff and articulates it well. The book reads pedantically at first, but the observations of preschools in the three countries are spot-on and objective. Having grown up in all three cultures myself, I can attest to the environments described in this book. (Although the CD of captured video that should have accompanied the text didn’t come with my Amazon order!)
Each country’s chapter begins with a description of the typical day, followed by interviews with the staff and parents. A holistic comparison follows all three chapters, describing the challenges in each country.
I like how Joseph Tobin and his penetrating questions dispel common misconceptions. I also like how he includes teacher and parent interviews verbatim, with many terms in their native language (hoikuen, yōchien, giri, kyōiku mama, etc.). The comparison takes many angles, not only from academics and culture but also from the economics and business of keeping schools afloat, such as teacher tuitions and government subsidies. Most importantly, he prismatically defines the mission statement and purpose of preschool, as told from the mouths and minds of the parents paying for them, and the teachers staffing them. These are all important factors that differentiate the schools.
I found the following quotes the most enlightening and memorable:
1.) The typical yōchien mother selects a preschool for her child that she believes will start him on the road to a kaisha-in lifestyle of his own. This usually means finding a yōchien where the other children come from "good" (meaning kaisha-in) families and where an enriched educational program is offered. (47)
2.) The kyōiku mama is feared by her own children, blamed by the press for school phobias and youth suicides, and envied and resented by the mothers of children who study less and fare less well on exams. (55)
3.) First in prestige come esukareta (escalator) or fuzoku yōchien, preschools attached to top universities that also run respected elementary, junior high, and high schools. These attached preschools, which use tests and interviews to select three- and four-year-old entrants from large pools of applicants, serve as an early-admissions route to academic and thus professional success, a first sure step up the education escalator (Vogel, 1971). (55)
4.) Thus, despite the common American perception of Japan as a country where young children are driven academically at the expense of their happiness, physical well-being, and social development, there is relatively little explicit academic pressure in most Japanese preschools… There are preschools in Japan that cater chiefly to kyōiku mamas by offering a curriculum that is more academically rigorous than Komatsudani’s, and there are also preschools that assiduously avoid all formal academic activities and scorn the kind of workbooks children at Komatsudani use several times a week. But these schools at the curricular and pedagogical extremes are clearly in the minority. (57)
5.) Many, perhaps most, Japanese children learn to read at home (Merry White, 1987). Japanese parents feel that there are many crucial pre-primary school skills they cannot easily teach their children at home, including how to play, share, and empathize with other children, how to be a member of a group, and socialization to the role of student. But most parents feel they can teach reading at home. (57)
… Reading speed and comprehension grow rapidly as books written entirely in hiragana and aimed at prereaders are read at home with parents and grandparents. (58)
6.) Japanese and preschool parents and teachers are careful not to say anything to each other that could be construed in any way as a criticism or complaint. Mothers are hesitant to speak of unhappiness or difficulties their children might be experiencing at school for fear that their comments might sound like a criticism. Teachers are similarly reluctant to share concerns about children’s behavior that could be taken as a suggestion that parents are deficient in their parenting. (64)
7.) The average age of teachers in the preschools participating in our study was twenty-five, as compared to an average age of thirty-one in the United States and thirty-seven in China. And it’s a young twenty-five at that, as unmarried preschool teachers, like unmarried women in other occupations, are expected to act young—to be cute, energetic, unwifely, and nonmatronly (buriko). (70)
8.) Aspects of the Japanese preschool including teacher/student ratio, class size, teachers’ career paths, and techniques of classroom management and instruction are all structured so as to promote the development of a group identity and group skills in young children and to preclude teachers from interacting with children in intense, emotionally complex, mother-like ways. Japanese preschools are set up to make clear to children the distinctions between school and home and between mothers and teachers. (70)
9.) To be Japanese is not to suppress or sacrifice the self to the demands of the group but rather to find a balance between individualism and groupism, between giri (obligation) and ninjō (human feeling). The task of the Japanese preschool is to help children find this balance, to help them integrate the individual and group dimensions of self, to teach them how to move comfortably back and forth between the worlds of home and school, family and society. (71)
10.) Americans who viewed our three tapes generally found the Chinese preschool "too controlled," the Japanese preschool "too uncontrolled," and the American preschool "just right." (142)
11.) Most of the Chinese we spoke with made it clear that they view preschool as a place for serious learning; it is fine if children are happy in their learning, but happiness is not an important goal of school. (153)
12.) In Japan many preschool teachers and administrators told that they see the most important function of preschool as producing kodomo-rashii (literally, childlike children) children who are innocent, straightforward, and bright… Japanese believe children can be most childlike in a loosely structured (albeit carefully planned) environment where energetic, friendly teachers who facilitate, but stay on the fringes of, children’s play. (154)
13.) Among the three countries in our study, child abduction and abuse are uniquely American concerns. (162)
14.) With little government regulation and minimal public financial support, the quality and availability of preschool care in America vary dramatically along class lines. (177)
15.) Instead of moving ahead as a nation to institute a comprehensive child-care system, Americans fight and refight, study and restudy the issue of whether various forms of paid, nonparental child care are harmful to children. (180)
16.) American preschool teachers are made to feel that parents as well as children are their clients. Many parents who need advice, counseling, or just someone to talk to about their children and themselves turn to preschool teachers. (183)
17.) We heard about the need for consistency between home and school much more frequently from parents, teachers, and administrators in the United States than in China, where preschools are expected to correct parents’ mistakes, or in Japan, where preschools are expected to provide experiences children cannot get at home. (184)
18.) Japanese are spending little time reading, writing, and counting in their preschools… In a society worried about kyōiku mamas driving their children to succeed academically, preschools are seen as havens from academic pressure and competition. Japanese preschool teachers do not need to teach reading since the majority of children in their charge learn to read at home. (191)
19.) In general, academic instruction is stressed more in China, play is stressed more in Japan, and the picture is mixed in the United States. (195)
20.) Valuing interpersonal skills as a key to economic success as well as to personal happiness, Japanese parents see providing children with the chance to play with other children as essential to the mission of the preschool. (202)
21.) Many, perhaps even most, Japanese parents are not committed wholeheartedly to pushing their children into and through "examination hell," but there are many parents who commit virtually all of their spare time, energy, money, and even space in their home into directly or directly subsidizing their children’s academic careers (Vogel, 1971). (208)
22.) Currently, approximately two-thirds of Japanese children are enrolled in half-day nursery school and kindergarten programs (yōchien), one-third in full-time day-care programs (hoikuen), which serve working mothers. (209)
23.) Compared to preschool in China and the United States, and even compared to Japanese hoikuen, yōchien both give more to and require more of mothers. But in all three cultures, in one way or another, preschools serve parents as well as children. (211)
24.) The significance here is less that one group of children is getting a better preschool education than the other than that a process of sorting out has begun. Familiries intent on helping their children over the examination hurdles that must be cleared on the way to the top begin with their choice of a preschool to distinguish themselves from families unable or unwilling to compete on this level. Most enriched preschool programs offer less a fast academic start than an introduction to upper-middle-class life. (217)
25.) In an era in which family size has shrunk and extended-family and community networks of kin, neighbors, and friends are feared to be unraveling, large class size with large ratios and letting children fight a little in preschools are important strategies for promoting what is believed to be the traditionally Japanese value of groupism and for combatting what is believed to be the danger of Western-style individualism. (220)
The main problem with the book is how long the chapters feel, with no breaks or transitions to punctuate the long chapter on each country.
Furthermore, the interviews can feel stilted and rife with complaints. I can reason and relate to the worries, but as Tobin points out by saying "Americans fight and refight, study and restudy the issue of whether various forms of paid, nonparental child care are harmful to children," much of the worry and stats seem irrelevant if the result is unknown or unmeasured. Yes, we know what parents expect or want from their schools. But what about the kids? Do they grow up into people that realize their fullest potential, and did preschool play a part in empowering or limiting that? Let the results speak for themselves. That’s the most important question!
There’s almost no follow-up as to the effect of the preschool on results, not just academically but societally.
What happened to these children? What accomplishments or character flaws tie back to the preschool environment? I would have appreciated a few stories that followed up with children that grew up in each system, to provide more context about the efficacy of these schools.
Overall, the American section was obvious, the Chinese section was depressing, and the Japanese section was most insightful. Read for research and knowledge, but complement with other books, many of which the author lists in a helpful bibliography.
Joseph Tobin knows his stuff and articulates it well. The book reads pedantically at first, but the observations of preschools in the three countries are spot-on and objective. Having grown up in all three cultures myself, I can attest to the environments described in this book. (Although the CD of captured video that should have accompanied the text didn’t come with my Amazon order!)
Each country’s chapter begins with a description of the typical day, followed by interviews with the staff and parents. A holistic comparison follows all three chapters, describing the challenges in each country.
I like how Joseph Tobin and his penetrating questions dispel common misconceptions. I also like how he includes teacher and parent interviews verbatim, with many terms in their native language (hoikuen, yōchien, giri, kyōiku mama, etc.). The comparison takes many angles, not only from academics and culture but also from the economics and business of keeping schools afloat, such as teacher tuitions and government subsidies. Most importantly, he prismatically defines the mission statement and purpose of preschool, as told from the mouths and minds of the parents paying for them, and the teachers staffing them. These are all important factors that differentiate the schools.
I found the following quotes the most enlightening and memorable:
1.) The typical yōchien mother selects a preschool for her child that she believes will start him on the road to a kaisha-in lifestyle of his own. This usually means finding a yōchien where the other children come from "good" (meaning kaisha-in) families and where an enriched educational program is offered. (47)
2.) The kyōiku mama is feared by her own children, blamed by the press for school phobias and youth suicides, and envied and resented by the mothers of children who study less and fare less well on exams. (55)
3.) First in prestige come esukareta (escalator) or fuzoku yōchien, preschools attached to top universities that also run respected elementary, junior high, and high schools. These attached preschools, which use tests and interviews to select three- and four-year-old entrants from large pools of applicants, serve as an early-admissions route to academic and thus professional success, a first sure step up the education escalator (Vogel, 1971). (55)
4.) Thus, despite the common American perception of Japan as a country where young children are driven academically at the expense of their happiness, physical well-being, and social development, there is relatively little explicit academic pressure in most Japanese preschools… There are preschools in Japan that cater chiefly to kyōiku mamas by offering a curriculum that is more academically rigorous than Komatsudani’s, and there are also preschools that assiduously avoid all formal academic activities and scorn the kind of workbooks children at Komatsudani use several times a week. But these schools at the curricular and pedagogical extremes are clearly in the minority. (57)
5.) Many, perhaps most, Japanese children learn to read at home (Merry White, 1987). Japanese parents feel that there are many crucial pre-primary school skills they cannot easily teach their children at home, including how to play, share, and empathize with other children, how to be a member of a group, and socialization to the role of student. But most parents feel they can teach reading at home. (57)
… Reading speed and comprehension grow rapidly as books written entirely in hiragana and aimed at prereaders are read at home with parents and grandparents. (58)
6.) Japanese and preschool parents and teachers are careful not to say anything to each other that could be construed in any way as a criticism or complaint. Mothers are hesitant to speak of unhappiness or difficulties their children might be experiencing at school for fear that their comments might sound like a criticism. Teachers are similarly reluctant to share concerns about children’s behavior that could be taken as a suggestion that parents are deficient in their parenting. (64)
7.) The average age of teachers in the preschools participating in our study was twenty-five, as compared to an average age of thirty-one in the United States and thirty-seven in China. And it’s a young twenty-five at that, as unmarried preschool teachers, like unmarried women in other occupations, are expected to act young—to be cute, energetic, unwifely, and nonmatronly (buriko). (70)
8.) Aspects of the Japanese preschool including teacher/student ratio, class size, teachers’ career paths, and techniques of classroom management and instruction are all structured so as to promote the development of a group identity and group skills in young children and to preclude teachers from interacting with children in intense, emotionally complex, mother-like ways. Japanese preschools are set up to make clear to children the distinctions between school and home and between mothers and teachers. (70)
9.) To be Japanese is not to suppress or sacrifice the self to the demands of the group but rather to find a balance between individualism and groupism, between giri (obligation) and ninjō (human feeling). The task of the Japanese preschool is to help children find this balance, to help them integrate the individual and group dimensions of self, to teach them how to move comfortably back and forth between the worlds of home and school, family and society. (71)
10.) Americans who viewed our three tapes generally found the Chinese preschool "too controlled," the Japanese preschool "too uncontrolled," and the American preschool "just right." (142)
11.) Most of the Chinese we spoke with made it clear that they view preschool as a place for serious learning; it is fine if children are happy in their learning, but happiness is not an important goal of school. (153)
12.) In Japan many preschool teachers and administrators told that they see the most important function of preschool as producing kodomo-rashii (literally, childlike children) children who are innocent, straightforward, and bright… Japanese believe children can be most childlike in a loosely structured (albeit carefully planned) environment where energetic, friendly teachers who facilitate, but stay on the fringes of, children’s play. (154)
13.) Among the three countries in our study, child abduction and abuse are uniquely American concerns. (162)
14.) With little government regulation and minimal public financial support, the quality and availability of preschool care in America vary dramatically along class lines. (177)
15.) Instead of moving ahead as a nation to institute a comprehensive child-care system, Americans fight and refight, study and restudy the issue of whether various forms of paid, nonparental child care are harmful to children. (180)
16.) American preschool teachers are made to feel that parents as well as children are their clients. Many parents who need advice, counseling, or just someone to talk to about their children and themselves turn to preschool teachers. (183)
17.) We heard about the need for consistency between home and school much more frequently from parents, teachers, and administrators in the United States than in China, where preschools are expected to correct parents’ mistakes, or in Japan, where preschools are expected to provide experiences children cannot get at home. (184)
18.) Japanese are spending little time reading, writing, and counting in their preschools… In a society worried about kyōiku mamas driving their children to succeed academically, preschools are seen as havens from academic pressure and competition. Japanese preschool teachers do not need to teach reading since the majority of children in their charge learn to read at home. (191)
19.) In general, academic instruction is stressed more in China, play is stressed more in Japan, and the picture is mixed in the United States. (195)
20.) Valuing interpersonal skills as a key to economic success as well as to personal happiness, Japanese parents see providing children with the chance to play with other children as essential to the mission of the preschool. (202)
21.) Many, perhaps even most, Japanese parents are not committed wholeheartedly to pushing their children into and through "examination hell," but there are many parents who commit virtually all of their spare time, energy, money, and even space in their home into directly or directly subsidizing their children’s academic careers (Vogel, 1971). (208)
22.) Currently, approximately two-thirds of Japanese children are enrolled in half-day nursery school and kindergarten programs (yōchien), one-third in full-time day-care programs (hoikuen), which serve working mothers. (209)
23.) Compared to preschool in China and the United States, and even compared to Japanese hoikuen, yōchien both give more to and require more of mothers. But in all three cultures, in one way or another, preschools serve parents as well as children. (211)
24.) The significance here is less that one group of children is getting a better preschool education than the other than that a process of sorting out has begun. Familiries intent on helping their children over the examination hurdles that must be cleared on the way to the top begin with their choice of a preschool to distinguish themselves from families unable or unwilling to compete on this level. Most enriched preschool programs offer less a fast academic start than an introduction to upper-middle-class life. (217)
25.) In an era in which family size has shrunk and extended-family and community networks of kin, neighbors, and friends are feared to be unraveling, large class size with large ratios and letting children fight a little in preschools are important strategies for promoting what is believed to be the traditionally Japanese value of groupism and for combatting what is believed to be the danger of Western-style individualism. (220)
The main problem with the book is how long the chapters feel, with no breaks or transitions to punctuate the long chapter on each country.
Furthermore, the interviews can feel stilted and rife with complaints. I can reason and relate to the worries, but as Tobin points out by saying "Americans fight and refight, study and restudy the issue of whether various forms of paid, nonparental child care are harmful to children," much of the worry and stats seem irrelevant if the result is unknown or unmeasured. Yes, we know what parents expect or want from their schools. But what about the kids? Do they grow up into people that realize their fullest potential, and did preschool play a part in empowering or limiting that? Let the results speak for themselves. That’s the most important question!
There’s almost no follow-up as to the effect of the preschool on results, not just academically but societally.
What happened to these children? What accomplishments or character flaws tie back to the preschool environment? I would have appreciated a few stories that followed up with children that grew up in each system, to provide more context about the efficacy of these schools.
Overall, the American section was obvious, the Chinese section was depressing, and the Japanese section was most insightful. Read for research and knowledge, but complement with other books, many of which the author lists in a helpful bibliography.
Want to read
October 1, 2007 I learned this book on the recommendation of my totur at first,but in china,it's hard to buy it now，because there is no chinese edition yet.
May 17, 2024
So interesting and genuinely captivating, such good writing
September 29, 2012
Totally fascinating! I was a little apprehensive after reading some of the reviews stating it was hard to read and very much like an academic paper, but I did not find that to be the case. It read easily enough and I found so much to be very interesting. From the way the societal values of each culture play out in the way preschools are run to the history of preschools in each country and the impact this has on them today.
This book/study is written by three people of slightly different backgrounds (education, child development, social work and anthropology) and takes an anthropological approach to looking at preschool in the three countries. They filmed a typical day in typical preschools in all three countries. They then screened the films to to parents, teachers and children from the schools as well as other education experts and parents from the countries to elicit their responses and opinions about what goes on in all three preschools.
I found it especially interesting that the Japanese preschools have such large teacher-student ratios, for the most part a hands-off approach to child-child interactions and conflict, and the day mostly consisting of free-play rather than education goals like learning to read and math, yet at the time of the study (in the 1980s, not sure what things are currently) the Japanese were outperforming Americans academically and economically. I also found the section that discusses the impact Christianity and foreign missionaries have had on their education system to be really interesting. This quote from a Japanese Christian/social worker/educator in response to the American preschool film was very interesting, "...what I am trying to explain to you is that while I and others find something very attractive about the American psychological, personalized approach to discipline, I feel something about it isn't quite right or appropriate or feasible for Japanese. For my tastes there is something about the American approach, the approach you've shown us in your film, that is a bit too heavy, too adult like, too severe and controlled for young children. The way Americans deal with children's disagreements by agonizing about motivation and guilt and atonement--it's all very Judeo-Christian in a way which is very foreign to most Japanese. It's based on a very different notion of original sin and conscience and guilt and individuality and especially of the efficacy of words than we have in Japan." I have to wonder what things might have looked like if Eastern Christianity had been exported worldwide at the levels that Western Christianity has and what that would look like played out here.
As an American, the way the way the authors showed how traditional American values such as individualism, self actualization, self expression, justice and the pursuit of happiness come into play in how the preschools operate was extremely interesting especially in contrast to Japanese and Chinese values of groupism and the collective good and how that played out in those countries' preschools. It is slightly crazy to me that four-year-olds already have a sense of these values and even have them slightly ingrained as the section entitled "Justice" shows, "Justice in American preschools is negotiated daily with children playing the roles of plaintiff, defendant, and attorney, and teachers playing the role of judge. As in the dispute we filmed in the block corner, teachers at St. Timothy's deal with conflict by leading children step by step through the process of litigation and arbitration. As soon as Cheryl arrived in the block corner to break up the fight, the trial began. In this case, each of the parties chose to represent himself. Under Cheryl's direction, Stu and Mike each testified, offered evidence, referred to precedents, and objected to aspects of each other's testimony... Where do children at St. Timothy's and other American preschools learn these techniques of jurisprudence? Many children with siblings have experience pleading similar cases at home, with parents playing the part of judge and siblings the part of co-litigant. For children without siblings and for children growing up in homes that do not encourage this basically middle-class American approach to conflict resolution, the preschool is an important classroom for learning how to defend oneself from accusations and to seek redress when one feels wronged. Key lessons to be learned about justice in American preschools are that words and reason are preferable to fists in conflict resolution; that, with patience, justice can emerge out of adversarial positions; and that one is innocent (and thus unpunishable) until proven guilty."
I also thought the analysis of lower fertility rates, whether self- or in the case of China government-imposed, the narrowing of the child's world to the nuclear family from the collective village/society or extended family, and increasing mother working rates and how preschool seeks to fill that void was poignant. In all three societies, under funded preschools and underpaid preschool teachers (some of the lowest paid workers of all three societies) are charged with meeting a huge variety of needs including parental counseling, rearing children, socializing them, educating them academically, teaching them early on how to be good citizens, feeding them, teaching hygiene and health and in some cases much more. All these things were once taken care of by parents, extended family members and neighbors. "In all three societies, the rise of preschool is viewed, for better or worse, as a radical departure from traditional modes of caring for young children. And yet our interviews and observations lead us to view preschools more as agents of cultural conservation than change... preschools provide children with a fictive version of the community of concerned others (the kinjō) in which children enjoyed growing up in the past, and they provide isolated suburban mothers with links to others missing from modern commuting communities... Preschools, although a relatively new invention, are more a force of cultural continuity than cultural change. Preschools work more to instill than to subvert the values parents in China, Japan, and the United States wish to pass on to their children. With family size and patterns of women's work dramatically changing in all three cultures in the last twenty years, Chinese, Japanese, and American parents look to preschools to play the essentially compensatory and conservative role of minimizing the undesired effects of these wrenching changes on the lives of young children."
This book/study is written by three people of slightly different backgrounds (education, child development, social work and anthropology) and takes an anthropological approach to looking at preschool in the three countries. They filmed a typical day in typical preschools in all three countries. They then screened the films to to parents, teachers and children from the schools as well as other education experts and parents from the countries to elicit their responses and opinions about what goes on in all three preschools.
I found it especially interesting that the Japanese preschools have such large teacher-student ratios, for the most part a hands-off approach to child-child interactions and conflict, and the day mostly consisting of free-play rather than education goals like learning to read and math, yet at the time of the study (in the 1980s, not sure what things are currently) the Japanese were outperforming Americans academically and economically. I also found the section that discusses the impact Christianity and foreign missionaries have had on their education system to be really interesting. This quote from a Japanese Christian/social worker/educator in response to the American preschool film was very interesting, "...what I am trying to explain to you is that while I and others find something very attractive about the American psychological, personalized approach to discipline, I feel something about it isn't quite right or appropriate or feasible for Japanese. For my tastes there is something about the American approach, the approach you've shown us in your film, that is a bit too heavy, too adult like, too severe and controlled for young children. The way Americans deal with children's disagreements by agonizing about motivation and guilt and atonement--it's all very Judeo-Christian in a way which is very foreign to most Japanese. It's based on a very different notion of original sin and conscience and guilt and individuality and especially of the efficacy of words than we have in Japan." I have to wonder what things might have looked like if Eastern Christianity had been exported worldwide at the levels that Western Christianity has and what that would look like played out here.
As an American, the way the way the authors showed how traditional American values such as individualism, self actualization, self expression, justice and the pursuit of happiness come into play in how the preschools operate was extremely interesting especially in contrast to Japanese and Chinese values of groupism and the collective good and how that played out in those countries' preschools. It is slightly crazy to me that four-year-olds already have a sense of these values and even have them slightly ingrained as the section entitled "Justice" shows, "Justice in American preschools is negotiated daily with children playing the roles of plaintiff, defendant, and attorney, and teachers playing the role of judge. As in the dispute we filmed in the block corner, teachers at St. Timothy's deal with conflict by leading children step by step through the process of litigation and arbitration. As soon as Cheryl arrived in the block corner to break up the fight, the trial began. In this case, each of the parties chose to represent himself. Under Cheryl's direction, Stu and Mike each testified, offered evidence, referred to precedents, and objected to aspects of each other's testimony... Where do children at St. Timothy's and other American preschools learn these techniques of jurisprudence? Many children with siblings have experience pleading similar cases at home, with parents playing the part of judge and siblings the part of co-litigant. For children without siblings and for children growing up in homes that do not encourage this basically middle-class American approach to conflict resolution, the preschool is an important classroom for learning how to defend oneself from accusations and to seek redress when one feels wronged. Key lessons to be learned about justice in American preschools are that words and reason are preferable to fists in conflict resolution; that, with patience, justice can emerge out of adversarial positions; and that one is innocent (and thus unpunishable) until proven guilty."
I also thought the analysis of lower fertility rates, whether self- or in the case of China government-imposed, the narrowing of the child's world to the nuclear family from the collective village/society or extended family, and increasing mother working rates and how preschool seeks to fill that void was poignant. In all three societies, under funded preschools and underpaid preschool teachers (some of the lowest paid workers of all three societies) are charged with meeting a huge variety of needs including parental counseling, rearing children, socializing them, educating them academically, teaching them early on how to be good citizens, feeding them, teaching hygiene and health and in some cases much more. All these things were once taken care of by parents, extended family members and neighbors. "In all three societies, the rise of preschool is viewed, for better or worse, as a radical departure from traditional modes of caring for young children. And yet our interviews and observations lead us to view preschools more as agents of cultural conservation than change... preschools provide children with a fictive version of the community of concerned others (the kinjō) in which children enjoyed growing up in the past, and they provide isolated suburban mothers with links to others missing from modern commuting communities... Preschools, although a relatively new invention, are more a force of cultural continuity than cultural change. Preschools work more to instill than to subvert the values parents in China, Japan, and the United States wish to pass on to their children. With family size and patterns of women's work dramatically changing in all three cultures in the last twenty years, Chinese, Japanese, and American parents look to preschools to play the essentially compensatory and conservative role of minimizing the undesired effects of these wrenching changes on the lives of young children."
September 5, 2024
Great book with valuable info!
April 10, 2014
As another reviewer said --- this was great ethnography that is excellent for de-privileging your viewpoint. I was able to get a much broader perspective on what people do to (raise) children, along with all sorts of culturally ingrained perspectives on group socialization, play and even philosophy like how to carry out justice.
There was a lot of dialogue at different levels: What actually happened when they observed classes, all the different people in the same culture who they interviewed and got comments about the film from, people from other cultures viewing the film, and then their comments on the comments.
The Japanese section was most interesting, mainly because the American preschool was familiar, and the Chinese method wasn't interesting. Since the films were made in 1985, China was still relatively closed and there was a lot of communist sentiment left over. So the authors had trouble viewing the 'natural' state, as the Chinese kept trying to show extra regimentation (to the horror of the Japanese/Americans). The authors talk about the problem of figuring out what was communist culture, and what was Chinese culture. I expect things to be pretty different now that it's a wealthier country, and not very communist.
Japanese style is 'completely hands off'---they let the children be as wild and crazy as they like, without discipline from a higher authority. At first this idea seemed insane, but it appears to work out---they have their own system of a sort with more power and expectation given to other children in the group. Also, I could about Hiroki all day. What a crazy awesome kid.
W/ the Americans I mainly noted how there are all sorts of weird beliefs about justice and fairness and right to speak out and such that weren't present elsewhere. For example, psuedo-trial things w/ regards to who is right and wrong and what truly happened in a block dispute. The Japanese/Chinese thought that this was heavy handed, but were also interested in how the Americans talked about feelings and emotions with kids of such a young age. I also thought the other cultures commentary on how their kids do make believe just as well without all the physical toys was interesting.
It turns out there is a sequel that I would like to read.
There was a lot of dialogue at different levels: What actually happened when they observed classes, all the different people in the same culture who they interviewed and got comments about the film from, people from other cultures viewing the film, and then their comments on the comments.
The Japanese section was most interesting, mainly because the American preschool was familiar, and the Chinese method wasn't interesting. Since the films were made in 1985, China was still relatively closed and there was a lot of communist sentiment left over. So the authors had trouble viewing the 'natural' state, as the Chinese kept trying to show extra regimentation (to the horror of the Japanese/Americans). The authors talk about the problem of figuring out what was communist culture, and what was Chinese culture. I expect things to be pretty different now that it's a wealthier country, and not very communist.
Japanese style is 'completely hands off'---they let the children be as wild and crazy as they like, without discipline from a higher authority. At first this idea seemed insane, but it appears to work out---they have their own system of a sort with more power and expectation given to other children in the group. Also, I could about Hiroki all day. What a crazy awesome kid.
W/ the Americans I mainly noted how there are all sorts of weird beliefs about justice and fairness and right to speak out and such that weren't present elsewhere. For example, psuedo-trial things w/ regards to who is right and wrong and what truly happened in a block dispute. The Japanese/Chinese thought that this was heavy handed, but were also interested in how the Americans talked about feelings and emotions with kids of such a young age. I also thought the other cultures commentary on how their kids do make believe just as well without all the physical toys was interesting.
It turns out there is a sequel that I would like to read.
November 28, 2021
Những quan sát và phân tích rất thú vị. Sách ra đời 1989, nhưng hiện trạng về giáo dục mầm non ở Mỹ và TQ ko khác bây h là mấy. TQ rất giống VN về nhiều mặt, quá nhiều: trình độ gv, sự khác biệt giữa nông thôn, thành thị, giữa trí thức con quan và nông dân, công nhân các vùng công nghiệp nghèo, cơ sở vật chất, giữa sự thật bày ra và phía sau ống kính, mắt nhìn khách quan.
Rất thích các triết lý của Gv Nhật là tôn trọng sự độc lập, tự giải quyết, ít can thiệp vào các hoạt động của trẻ (nhưng có vẻ hơi quá cực đoan, có cách nào đó giảm bớt?), về sự vị tha, thấu cảm mà trẻ cần có trong một tập thể. Một lịch sử GDMN lâu đời với sự hỗ trợ của nhà nước, thật đáng khâm phục.
Nước Mỹ giàu có, nhiều học liệu, tỉ lệ gv/Hs thấp với nhiều rạn nứt và các vấn đề phức tạp về tinh thần, xh, thiếu sự tin cậy, tinh thần tập thể, một xã hội cạnh tranh, cô độc, bấp bênh và mệt mỏi, ko thể dựa vào ai: nhà nước ko, anh em họ hàng, cộng đồng cũng ko, mặc dù các chương trình học tập trung vào phát triển toàn diện: trí, cảm xúc, xã hội- những thứ mà hiện tại, cả thế giới đang lần theo vết chân các nhà nghiên cứu Mỹ để mang về nền văn hoá của mình.
Lại thấy các giá trị, ảnh hưởng của Phật giáo trong hệ thống GDMN Nhật là điều đáng học hỏi, cũng như tinh thần tập thể của TQ, Nhật, hay tính cá nhân nhất định (ko phải thái quá đến mức tôn thờ cô độc như hiện tại) của Mỹ là điều nên xem xét và đưa vào trong 1 chương trình GDMN hài hoà.
Nói về nghiên cứu này: mình đã xem các video trên YouTube, và suy nghĩ tác giả có phần biased, thiên kiến khi chọn trường Mỹ hay TQ. TQ thì giống như thời tiền sử mông muội, Mỹ thì gv và khá nhiều trẻ là người Á, nên mình ko nghĩ nó phản ánh đúng, điển hình GDMN Mỹ, khi số dân Á, gv, hs, thường dưới 10%, và môi trường thì rất nhẹ nhàng, tích cực, các chê bai từ phía ph, hs, gv cũng ít hơn 2 nền vh kia (tinh thần tự phê rất cao).
Rất thích các triết lý của Gv Nhật là tôn trọng sự độc lập, tự giải quyết, ít can thiệp vào các hoạt động của trẻ (nhưng có vẻ hơi quá cực đoan, có cách nào đó giảm bớt?), về sự vị tha, thấu cảm mà trẻ cần có trong một tập thể. Một lịch sử GDMN lâu đời với sự hỗ trợ của nhà nước, thật đáng khâm phục.
Nước Mỹ giàu có, nhiều học liệu, tỉ lệ gv/Hs thấp với nhiều rạn nứt và các vấn đề phức tạp về tinh thần, xh, thiếu sự tin cậy, tinh thần tập thể, một xã hội cạnh tranh, cô độc, bấp bênh và mệt mỏi, ko thể dựa vào ai: nhà nước ko, anh em họ hàng, cộng đồng cũng ko, mặc dù các chương trình học tập trung vào phát triển toàn diện: trí, cảm xúc, xã hội- những thứ mà hiện tại, cả thế giới đang lần theo vết chân các nhà nghiên cứu Mỹ để mang về nền văn hoá của mình.
Lại thấy các giá trị, ảnh hưởng của Phật giáo trong hệ thống GDMN Nhật là điều đáng học hỏi, cũng như tinh thần tập thể của TQ, Nhật, hay tính cá nhân nhất định (ko phải thái quá đến mức tôn thờ cô độc như hiện tại) của Mỹ là điều nên xem xét và đưa vào trong 1 chương trình GDMN hài hoà.
Nói về nghiên cứu này: mình đã xem các video trên YouTube, và suy nghĩ tác giả có phần biased, thiên kiến khi chọn trường Mỹ hay TQ. TQ thì giống như thời tiền sử mông muội, Mỹ thì gv và khá nhiều trẻ là người Á, nên mình ko nghĩ nó phản ánh đúng, điển hình GDMN Mỹ, khi số dân Á, gv, hs, thường dưới 10%, và môi trường thì rất nhẹ nhàng, tích cực, các chê bai từ phía ph, hs, gv cũng ít hơn 2 nền vh kia (tinh thần tự phê rất cao).
October 5, 2007
I'm already kind of annoyed at the lofty attitude the researchers and the American teachers are taking over the Japanese high student/teacher ratio. "Small classes are sooooo much better for four-year-olds and what do you mean we have a higher teen suicide rate in the US?"
Read the Japanese part and skipped the rest. In my mind, preschool really doesn't seem to matter as much as these authors think it does.
Also, the authors seemed to neglect the fact that, in Japan, "preschool" is everything up until elementary school, whereas in America, preschool and kindergarten are separate entities. With that sort of set-up, I don't find it surprising that the Japanese have extended "typical" kindergarten activities to younger children (i.e. four-year-olds). They've also extended "typical" preschool activities to the five-year-olds, for example, free play. In the US however, preschool is for play and kindergarten is for pre-learning.
Read the Japanese part and skipped the rest. In my mind, preschool really doesn't seem to matter as much as these authors think it does.
Also, the authors seemed to neglect the fact that, in Japan, "preschool" is everything up until elementary school, whereas in America, preschool and kindergarten are separate entities. With that sort of set-up, I don't find it surprising that the Japanese have extended "typical" kindergarten activities to younger children (i.e. four-year-olds). They've also extended "typical" preschool activities to the five-year-olds, for example, free play. In the US however, preschool is for play and kindergarten is for pre-learning.
June 13, 2007
"Preschool in Three Cultures" should be a deep and fascinating examination of a fundamental and highly influential part of these societies, and it is. The level of detail and observation is incredible. The analysis - especially of the subtle causal relationships between behaviors - is insightful and well-expressed. It is also overwhelming. Where the writing should be clear in addition to perceptive, it is instead dense and overcomplicated. Where it should let us into foreign environments to explore and learn, it instead overwhelms us. Such an exhaustive study may make for good data for further analysis, but it does not make for good actual reading, and therefore it fails to fully make the many excellent points it contains.
May 20, 2016
May not be as relevant as before, since the study was done in the eighties (I think), but the main points are still valid, and Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited gives a pretty thorough update. This and Unequal Childhoods were probably my two favorite texts from sociology class last semester.
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August 7, 2011good ethnography - i think it's cool the way they show the video from each country to all the people in the same and other countries....helps to de-privilidge one viewpoint. it was cool to see the video in class too. you spend the whole time reading the book about it and then you can watch.
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