The purpose of this study is to investigate personality trait terms regarding young workers in the context of flourished and slackened growth, taking the social agenda of understanding the employee in workplaces and the theoretical framework of Big Five into consideration. Two research questions were formulated in this report. First, is there communality between Big Five scales and the personality traits of young workers? Second, is there uniqueness in the personality traits of young workers? Interviews were conducted with 22 participants from six companies. Altogether, 249 personality trait terms were extracted. In comparison with Big Five scales, 104, 139, 119, 144, and 151 traits were confirmed as similar constructs with the TIPI–J, Big Five, FFPQ–50, BFS, and Japanese NEO–PI–R. A uniqueness of personality with regard to young workers was verified through 69 extracted trait terms that have different constructs in those scales. Based on these findings, this paper presents the necessity of understanding young workers in the context of workplaces not only through Big Five scales but using unique personality trait terms for them.

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In nursery schools, childcare is carried out in a state that considers children’s emotional well–being. However, in temporary childcare settings, which children use temporarily or intermittently, their emotions may not be as stable, because they are in an unfamiliar nursery school environment. For this reason, nursery teachers must have expertise in stably guiding children's emotions. In this study, we clarify some of expertise when nursery teachers at temporary childcare facilities use, or choose not to use, hugging and cuddling, explaining the rationales behind their decisions to stabilize children's emotions. The research method is a Video–cued Multivocal Ethnography and the qualitative analysis was conducted using Steps for Coding and Theorization. We reveal the three characteristics for the guidance of children’s stable emotional well– being as used by nursery teachers as a professional tactic: 1. Carrying out childcare according to the child's family culture. 2. The system for children to select teachers. 3. Verbalizing to colleagues their thoughts about their child while working in temporary childcare.

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Recently, attention in Japan has been focused on cancer survivors of the AYA generation. These individuals face not only medical challenges but also social problems in areas such as education and employment. It is important to understand these problems from the viewpoint of the cancer survivors. Therefore, in this study, I conducted an interview with Mr. K, a cancer survivor of the AYA generation, with the aim of gathering information that respected his individuality. The data from the interview were reconstructed using the life history method to describe Mr. K’s experience. Based on the experiences he described, I focused on Mr. K’s resilience. Through this analysis, a narrative emerged showing Mr. K’s goal of striving for independence while remaining involved with others, even in a situation where his life and independence were threatened. In addition to Mr. K’s resilience, his relationships with those around him, his ability to find positive meaning in the experience, and the power to embody the positive possibility of the event became clear.

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The aim of this paper is to clarify the goals and methods of life history study in social science. Life history is a process to record, in detail, the life course of a specific person through interviews and documented materials. The following two points are described following the examination of the characteristics of interviews and interpretations in life history study: (1) the goal of life history study is to create a new interpretation that is different from conventional ideas shared by the public; and (2) in order to achieve the goal of life history study, it is necessary to obtain a narration that concretely depicts events experienced by the person being interviewed. Based on the above, a variety of issues related to the interviewer’s skill are discussed, as well as issues regarding the description of life history based on the narration content in the interview. This paper concludes that life history study could contribute to the creation and enrichment of new interpretations through verbal communication between the narrator, the interviewer and the readers.

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In Japan, free schools have been characterized as safe spaces for school refusers. Previous studies have regarded free schools positively because they offer an alternative to the public school system and the problems contained in the system. However, many free schools closed within 10 years. This study examines why free schools closed down through an analysis of individual cases. The researcher conducted semi–structured interviews with two men who founded their own free school and ran it for more than 10 years before closing it down. An analysis of the interview data using trajectory equifinality modeling showed that their ideal of running their own free school was ambiguous. The ideal positively impacted the establishment and running of their own free school. However, in their case, there was a gap between the ideal and reality, and they shut their own school to pursue a new field where they had a better chance to realize their ideal.

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Clinical nurses develop learning behaviors daily to improve their nursing practice ability. This study clarified key learning behaviors that contribute to improving practical nursing competence. Anonymous paper-based openended questionnaires were distributed to 522 nurses. Of the 253 respondents, 227 nurses with more than 5 years of clinical experience provided valid responses, which were extracted and analyzed using text mining. The most frequently cited nouns were “oneself,” “training,” “senior nurses,” “practice,” “study session,” “experience,” and “conference.” Further, the most frequently cited verbs were “act,” “reflect,” “know,” “ask,” and “check.” Using principal component analysis and cluster analysis, these data were classified into the following categories: “learning through patient-centered nursing care practice,” “learning through acts of examining and asking,” “learning through utilizing knowledge, techniques, and communication skills,” “actively advancing one’s knowledge,” “learning in the workplace environment created by the nurse manager and senior nurses,” and “learning through failure.” Active behaviors exhibited during practice contributed to improving practical nursing competence. Particularly, “learning through acts of examining and asking” emerged as the most important category contributing to such improvement.

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Kindergarteners experienced the dissolution of old classes and admission to new classes when they are promoted from grades one to grade two. Changes in peer relationships among second–grade kindergarteners, who experienced a class shuffle were investigated to clarify the meaning shuffling classes for the children. The results indicated various changes in peer relationships after the classes were shuffled. These included developing new peer relationships with new classmates, maintaining old peer relationships with old classmates, and developing peer relationships regardless of the class. It is suggested that children’s desire to maintain existing peer relationships and teachers’ perspectives of the loose boundary between classes could interact in the background to this process, which might have resulted in developing a distinctive peer culture in second graders, in which children in different classes interact with one another. It is concluded that class shuffles might provide opportunities for expanding children’s peer relationships.

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This study examined the subjective experience of the roles played by transitional objects not addressed in previous quantitative studies. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze narratives about ten adolescent women's transitional objects. Results showed that the subjective roles of transitional objects followed the change from childhood to adolescence. In addition, the core category was generated as "a process that strengthens the sense of self and promotes individuation through transitional objects."Thus, the role of a transitional object is not only to aid in separation from the mother in infancy, which has been discussed in prior research on transitional objects. Various subjective roles also emerge during infancy or later; for example, transitional objects can be used for emotional adjustment, and their unique existence can contribute to the acquisition of self–efficacy and the enhancement of sense of self. Results suggest that adolescence plays a role in promoting the independence of individuals in the period from childhood to adulthood. This suggests that transitional objects are not necessarily intended to be used throughout cultural activities.

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In investigating the characteristics of literature discussion group that support critical thinking disposition, this study provides an ethnographic description of the extra–curricular circular reading practices of university students. As a result, three things were established: first, the formation of critical thinking disposition, including the "emphasis on evidence," was confirmed for the participants, demonstrating the usefulness of ethnography in the study of critical thinking disposition; second, it was revealed that the necessity and sharing of the use of evidence, and critical social thinking arising from the extra– curricular learning environment, supported the formation of critical thinking disposition, demonstrating the significance of focusing on communal relationships among the participants; third, it was suggested that the extra–curricular learning environment contributes to the formation of critical social thinking.

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This study is to active amateur vocalists’ making shape of life derived from singing by examining their life stories. The participants are three elderly amateur vocalists. Since they have been enjoying their lives by singing, their way of living can be one of the examples of “successful aging”. New common self–recognition among those vocalists was found by comparing the life stories about their singing, their way of living and thinking, and how they are engaged in music. As a result, they showed seven common characteristics despite the differences on how they have been engaged in singing. For example, they set small goals in singing to achieve. They expressed the narratives about a common perspective was found that the singing activities brings a spiritual change of looking to the future. These are determined as successful aging derived from singing and it is one of making shape of life that any generation can aim at.

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This paper aims to investigate what elementary school pupils experience during ordinary listening periods and to consider the pedagogical significance of using a “listening diary” developed from the “sound diary” as a case study. Two agenda items were drawn from findings of previous studies and problems teachers were aware of: (i) what are the fundamentals needed to classify targets and find common ground to ensure they listen to conversations and music separately? (ii) how do we teach elementary school third graders to experience ordinary listening inclusively? In light of the first agenda, we obtained four phenomenology– focused points of view: existing and non– existing, music and non–music, linguistic and non–linguistic expressiveness, and directivity. For the second agenda, we drew up a worksheet with changing the name and the non–example. The results showed: (i) 16 specific patterns of how children listen and (ii) that various ordinary listening experiences occur under the four points of view based on the description and Ihde’s phenomenological ideas. In conclusion, these findings provide useful suggestions for further pedagogical practices.

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In the Sakura–Nursery School, the process of the target subject, Akane, serving her own meal was longitudinally observed using ethnography, and the focus was on the serving activities at the lunch buffet provided by the school. The analytical framework used in this study incorporates Rogoff's concept of “guided participation” and focuses on the basic process of using cultural tools and the mutual bridging of meaning. As a result, the interaction between teachers and Akane, as well as the unique method of providing meals at a socio– cultural level was clarified. Specifically, “tableware” is viewed as a cultural tool rather than a merely practical implement. “Tableware” can therefore also refer to the “cooking” served, or “a container that measures the amount of serving” or “a tool for communication”. Additionally, there was a mutual bridging of meaning in which the message: “You can only serve as much as you can eat,” was received by Akane as the children were serving their own meals.

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In this study, “suffering” felt by a young man who was born on the day of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and his process of recovery are discussed. He has no direct experience with the disaster. However, when he realized that his birthday falls on the day on which many people died, he felt peculiar stress. He came to avoid the topic of his birthday and was afraid of his birthday coming. Generally, talking about one’s own disaster experience plays an essential role in the recovery process from PTSD. However, in his case, it was most stressful that he could not talk to anybody about his birthday. Now, he is active in a group of storytellers. What changed the meaning of his birthday? He gradually acquired his own “expressive activities” through interactions with his parents and earthquake victims, especially bereaved families. This paper describes and analyzes the young man’s stress and the process of recovery as a personal history.

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We propose a method for dream research as a handmade science that can be undertaken by "non–experts". In §1, "Practical basics", a step–by–step method is proposed, beginning with creating a "dream diary" website, as suitable for this handmade science. This method, termed "narratological phenomenological analysis of dreams", consists of three steps: Jung’s story structure analysis, popular culture–inspired "different world" analysis, and phenomenological analysis based on the "dream world principle". Applying these steps to a dream sample taken from the author’s dream diary website, we arrive at the meaning of the dream. In §2, "Theoretical considerations", the origin of phenomenological dream analysis is sought in Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenology and Watanabe's dream analysis based on Husserl's intentional analysis. Lakoff’s theory of metaphor is also shown to be important. In §3, "Practical application", the analytical method proposed above is applied to a series of three dreams. In §4, "Discussion and conclusion", we examine the complementary relationship between the phenomenological analysis of dreams used in this paper and a neurocognitive theory of dreams.

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The objective of this study was to clarify the interactions, and processes underlying these interactions, between visiting nurses who provide foot lesion care and foot care recipients. Data were collected in interviews with 17 nurses with at least 5 years of home nursing experience and the analysis used a modified grounded theory approach (M–GTA). The nurses build relationships with the care recipients that enable the nurses to provide care by first ensuring that the care recipients feel secure in accepting home nursing, second carefully attempting to provide care. Then nurses establish such care as part of the care recipients’ lives by switching to methods of care that the care recipients can sustain while living in the manner they desire, and by eliciting or strengthening a desire to be healed, while at the same time providing expert support. Leaving the care to the care recipient while determining the risk of exacerbating the condition is important care that nurses can provide because of the very fact that they are nurses.

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For this qualitative case study fieldwork was conducted in Japanese nursery schools established by a nurse to investigate the system “inclusive practice” that enables caring for children requiring medical attention. Lack of childcare services is one of the major post–discharge challenges for children requiring medical care. Through fieldwork consisting of participant observation and interviews with the founding nurse of the nursery schools, the staff of the schools, and parents of children, we identified the following three aspects of the inclusive practice employed in these schools: children with disabilities and illnesses are not separated from other children, staff members are not distinguished based on their profession or work style, unnecessary restrictions are not imposed on their work. We also revealed the mechanisms and tools that support this practice, such as the presence of different employee work styles. Although nursery teachers provided limited medical care, the system wherein the staff care for all children together enabled nursery teachers to peripherally participate in nurses’ practice and play important care–related roles.

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In the field of second language classroom research, while many studies have focused on interactions from the teachers’ points of view, the learners’ utterances and interactions between learners tend to be treated as peripheral. Among such interactions between learners, focusing specifically on interactions between a learner nominated by the teacher and another learner, which are carried out to answer a question from the teacher, I examine how they occur in the central course of the lesson and what the learners are actually doing. Based on the method of conversation analysis, this study explores unfolding interactions moment by moment in terms of not only verbal but also non– verbal behaviors, such as gaze direction and physical movements, from the participants’ points of view. The analysis shows that the interactions have been carefully designed by participants, by paying attention to the IRE sequence started by the teacher to avoid trespassing into it.

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The present study introduced Interactive Biblio/Poetry therapy (bibliotherapy) into Japan for the first time. The aim was to reveal the process of how participants experience bibliotherapy. Five postgraduate students, all trained as professionals in human services underwent five sessions and two semi–structured interviews. The acquired data was analyzed using the modified grounded theory approach (M–GTA) method. Results revealed 31 concepts, 9 categories, and 5 sub–categories. The core process of bibliotherapy is as followed: Developing multiple awareness while the alternation between one’s internal and external world repeats. The researcher argued that the structure of bibliotherapy consists of three types of alternation between one’s internal and external world. Moreover, there seems to be a synergy between bibliotherapy and the narrative approach. The other aspects include the influence of non–participants who intruded into the session. In addition, the role for each internal factor for bibliotherapy, such as reading, metaphor, writing, discussion, and group poem was discussed. The current study revealed the significance of introducing and offering future insights for the practice of bibliotherapy in Japan.

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