Change and Expansion of Research Questions in Education for Young Learners of Japanese

Toward the Reconstruction of Schools and Education

Abstract

　The purpose of this study is to review the research papers on Japanese language education for young learners over the past 40 years and to suggest the future prospects of the field. In addition, it examines the frameworks within which the research has developed, with particular attention to the dynamics of the research paradigm since the 1990s. We will present the challenges and prospects for future research on Japanese language education for young learners. For these purposes, we extracted research papers related to Japanese language education for the younger generation from six peer-reviewed journals, categorized the research topics, and analyzed how they have developed in the past. As a result, it became clear that research on Japanese language education for young learners since the 1980s has progressively extended its reach and diversified its perspectives, due to the raising of issues by academic societies and their materialization through case studies, as well as the epistemological influence of postmodernism. On the other hand, we point out that a reconstruction of “school” and “teaching” will be an important for the future.