This study investigates the perception of peer conflict in toddlers using the new materialist approach. It conducts participatory observation in a class for children aged 1 or 2 years in a children's center. Data were collected using a video observation tool called CAVScene. A clip of a peer conflict is microscopically analyzed using intra-active pedagogy. The result indicates the occurrence of intense shouting among the toddlers, which was viewed as emergent in the intra-action with toys, children, and teachers. The children underwent a state of becoming-with the materials in the event. The discomfort expressed was produced with the entanglement of the toys and the sound “bappa!” The bodily actions and utterances of the teachers were perceived as rearranging the assemblage of the event using the given circumstances. The study suggests that the teachers view the children as producers of positive differences instead of immature beings in need.

Drawing on actor–network theory (ANT) pioneered by sociologists, such as Latour, this study aims to propose a framework for elucidating the relationship between children and digital technologies. The theory employs a methodology that perceives social phenomena as associations between humans and nonhuman elements. Analysis was undertaken using video-recorded vignettes of the daily life of a family consisting of parents and a nine-year-old male child. Analysis focuses on instances in which the subject interacted with a voice recognition technology to turn a ceiling light on. We describe these scenes as collaboration between the digital technology, which considers human voices and ambient sounds as equal inputs for its voice recognition function, and the human counterpart, who could eliminate the electrical supply to the light to interrupt the automatic functioning. The scenes can be described as associated actors assigning a new meaning to each other. Lastly, the study discusses the developmental and psychological implications of delineating these associations between children and digital technologies based on ANT.

To ensure a smooth transition from kindergarten to elementary school, continuous learning and development is important for children, such that scholars and teachers have proposed various practices. Alternatively, children experience a significant transformation in their manner of learning during this transition period. The transformation of learning involves interactions in the physical, linguistic and textual, and symbolic and mathematical dimensions. This study aims to examine the interaction between people and objects and the emergence of each agency. The study conducted fieldwork for 12 months on a first-grade class in elementary school and analyzed the interrelationship between objects and people. The results indicated that children moved toward decontextualized logical and abstract thinking while going back and forth among physical, linguistic and textual, and symbolic and mathematical spaces. In these processes, the study noted the interrelation of the agency of objects, people, and structures of places.

The Yuzuru party, a group of female weavers, fostered its agency to bear responsibility for ensuring that the next generation learns hand-weaving skills in producing traditional Matsusaka cotton. Through interactive activities with people, objects, machinery, and other communities regarding Matsusaka cotton, Yuzuru members have reshaped their agency. Based on ethnographic research, this study describes the process of the collective formation of agency, shaped by the hybridization of Yuzuru group members and sociotechnical arrangements. This study demonstrates that diverse forms of human agency are only understood through the dynamics of continuous reshaping brought about by the development of collective activities along with the reconfiguration of sociotechnical arrangements. Moreover, introducing the concept of agency and sociotechnical arrangements for developmental studies makes it possible to describe and analyze the details of the interactions among people, objects, and machinery in relevant cases.

This study examines the agency of elementary school students studying bunraku, a traditional puppet theater performance. They work on a year-long project to perform their own bunraku. Participatory observation and interviews reveal the formation of a new social network to support student learning. Specifically, the network includes not only school teachers and staff but also professional bunraku performers, alumni, parents, community members, and people working in the National Bunraku Theatre. Furthermore, analysis of the historical context of bunraku suggests multilayered and composite motives for professional performers to teach students bunraku. The historical situation of educational administration is also one of the preconditions that made a highly flexible project, such as children's bunraku, possible. Notably, student agency to learn bunraku is collectively achieved through the connection of diverse people, objects, and institutions. Finally, we discuss that collaboration between adults and students is essential for creating a positive learning environment to foster student agency.

This case study used the perspective of sociomateriality to elucidate the role of culture in reconstruction. The researchers observed a community affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and identified processes through which cultural experiences become associated with people and other societal phenomena. Using the stated approach, this study determined the types of agency that were elicited within people during the recovery process. Furthermore, it evaluated the role of culture in stimulating resilience. The secondary sources of this study comprised three research reports on the local performing arts of the Usuzawa community in Otsuchi Town, Iwate Prefecture. The analysis of these sourcesrevealed that (1) the cultural mechanisms or arrangements of people and objects that have sustained the traditional performing arts were transfigured directly into shelter management. The shelter became the backdrop for the local performing arts during the recovery process, empowering evacuees and village residents. (2) The celebration of cultural festivals evoked a relational subjectivity with the external world. (3) Finally, the collective agency is driven and manifested by arrangements of absence.

The individualization and isolation of teachers continue to be a problem. This situation makes the healthy development of teachers difficult. This study uses the sociomateriality approach to offer solutions for such problems from the perspective of the arrangement of people, objects, and institutions. To describe this arrangement, we first reconsider teachers as educational staff. Moreover, we collect discourses on homeroom teachers and personnel changes in relation to individualization and isolation and examine the type of systems, facilities, and equipment related to these discourses. We referred to government statistics, documents from administrative agencies, and previous studies in fields apart from psychology, such as educational management, for the analysis. The results demonstrate that the facts that the basic unit of school education is the class, the system of personnel changes is unclear, and the workplace environment is not arranged on the premise of personnel changes demonstrate agency and that the problems continue to be repetitive.

In the current rapidly evolving globalized society, traditional lifestyle standards are undergoing profound transformations, leading to increasingly diverse needs and necessitating adaptive living strategies. To address these challenges, the sociomaterial approach offers a valuable perspective. This approach rejects the presumption that the roles of humans, things, and institutions are self-evident; instead, it meticulously examines them as “effects of arrangement” . This study introduces a methodology for intervention research based on the sociomaterial approach, using specific cases. Two studies were conducted to detail the ongoing process of continuous arrangement: an intervention at a “local youth support station” (Study I) and an exploration of two dialogue practices derived from a doctoral dissertation based on Study I (Study II). The findings revealed that the intervention resulted in complex and diverse changes. Notably, although these changes did not efficiently resolve the challenges, they may act as an impetus for subsequent improvements.

This study had two purposes. First, it examined the effects of individual parenting styles (within level) and parenting styles of both parents (between level) on the development of problem behavior and self-regulation in children using dyadic data. Second, it investigated the relationship between problem behavior and self-regulation by typifying combinations of parenting styles. Multilevel structural equation modeling indicated that the effects on self-regulation and problem behavior differed within and between levels. Furthermore, positive rearing had an effect at all subscales of self-regulation within levels, and no effect was found between levels. The results of the cluster analysis suggested that the positive paternal encouragement, maternal reprimand, and difficulty raising a child were important factors for self-assertion and self-regulation. The different results for the within and between levels suggest that the individual and collective roles of parents may differ as per the relationship between parenting style and child's development.

【Research Impact】

This study empirically demonstrated effects of parenting style on children's problem behavior and self-regulation within and between levels, using multilevel structural equation modeling and longitudinal dyadic data. By examining combinations of parenting styles with fathers and mothers, it also showed effects among variables and suggested the possibility of complementary child-rearing styles.

This study aimed to cross-sectionally examine the association of work-related stressors and coping strategies with work engagement levels in a sample of nursery-school teachers. Questionnaires regarding work-related stressors, coping strategies, and work engagement were administered to 270 teachers. The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that the levels of stressors regarding understanding children and compensation and the coping strategy of giving up were negatively associated with work engagement levels. Work engagement levels were significantly associated with the problem-solving coping strategy and stressors related to understanding children and differences between individual beliefs and school policies. Particularly, teachers adopting the problem-solving coping strategy to a greater extent exhibited a significant negative association between stressors regarding understanding children and work engagement levels. These findings suggested that the problem-solving coping strategy does not effectively enhance work engagement levels among teachers with greater work-related stressors regarding understanding children. Therefore, this strategy may not always be suitable for nursery-school teachers.

【Research Impact】

This study examines how nursery-school teachers should cope with work-related problems for work motivation. The results indicate that any coping strategies used by teachers with difficulty in understanding the behavior of children may be ineffective. Therefore, interventions should target the entire nursery school and individual teachers to increase work engagement.