Abstract
The purposes of this article are to review recent research on early childhood education and care (ECEC) from international perspectives and to discern which issues should be addressed for future ECEC success in Japan. This article consists of three parts: it highlights the influences of globalization and the trends of international ECEC policy; it reviews the research on “quality beyond regulation” and the research on “beyond quality,” which are the dominant and alternative perspectives, respectively, regarding ECEC in the context of Japan; and it discusses three points from the results of the Starting Strong Survey 2018, including excellence, issues of Japanese ECEC, and the perspectives of children who are brought up in a society that lives in harmony with nature and includes diversity.
