A Critical Analysis of Curriculum Studies in Nursery Education : Mainly Concerned with Curriculum Studies Articles on Nursery Education in Japan after the World War II

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to consider nursery education curriculum studies in Japan after the World War II, and to find new directions of nursery education curriculum studies. Therefore this paper concentrates its consideration on flexible development of nursery education curriculum. First of all, current studies of nursery education curriculum gived weight to curriculum construction principles and organizing the nursery educational content, so that kindergarten and day-care center's practices were occurred confusion. And then this paper critical analyzed on practical curriculum studies. All these things maked it clear that only few attempts have so far been made at the studies on flexible development in nursery education curriculum. Finally, I sum up new directions of nursery education curriculum studies as follows: (1) Clear the conception of professional warker in nursery education (2) Clear the concrete process of curriculum development (3) Clear the hidden curriculum It is suggested that these three points will become more important on flexible development of nursery education curriculum in the future.