Abstract
This paper focuses on the process by which a German-Japanese girl in the third-fourth grades of elementary school
performed homework assigned by local and supplementary schools. Qualitative analyses of data consisting primarily
of 2.5 years of diary entries by the student’s Japanese mother were undertaken from the perspective of parent-child
collaboration, revealing four findings. First, the girl was helped primarily by her mother when performing homework
for both schools. Second, both mother-daughter interactions and support from her German father increased while
performing homework assigned by her local school after the fifth period, whereas these phenomena remained unchanged
while performing homework for the supplementary school. Third, as the girl’s proficiency in German approached that
of her mother, her mother found it difficult to help her daughter, especially with vocabulary and composition, after the
fifth period. Fourth, although the girl was able to perform Japanese composition assignments almost independently,
she experienced difficulty performing Kanji exercises. These findings suggest that parents should offer flexible and
complementary support according to the difficulties encountered by parent and child.
