Abstract
The aim of early childhood education in China is that preschoolers should be able to communicate well with each other. In Japanese group nursing, there is a concept of dietary education which emphasizes that preschoolers become familiar with and deepen relationships with others by eating together. The purpose of this study is to examine the Chinese child care workers’ perceptions of eating as compared with those held by their Japanese counterparts. In Chinese schools there are both child-care workers and assistant child-care workers. The questionnaire involved 107 Japanese child-care workers, 97 Chinese child-care workers and108 assistant child-care workers, and was designed with the three objectives of ‘nutrition’, ‘manners’ and ‘communication’. The results of the survey may be summarized as follows:(1) as to the role of the kindergarten, the majority of Chinese child-care workers did not regard it as a venue for preschoolers to communicate with others.(2) Chinese child care workers’ views of the kindergarten did not always coincide with the views of Chinese assistant child care workers’.
