The purpose of this research is to clarify what kind of frame the preschool teacher uses to understand the child's behavior and correspond to the child in free play. Relationship with the children of three preschool teachers in free play was recorded on video. Then, a semi - structured interview was held with the preschool teacher. As a result, the following three points were shown.

(1) The teacher constituted the problem from the situation with the frame, the teacher then responded to solve the problem.

(2) The teacher constituted multiple problems from one situation with multiple frames.

(3) The teacher's frame was influenced by expectations and wishes based on the children's understanding and developmental view.

This study examines how operational quality of childcare for one-year-old children is associated with conflicts such as physically aggressive behaviors. A questionnaire on operational quality and childcare schedules was administrated to all authorized nursery centers in Z prefecture.

Conflicts increase when children arrive at nursery centers and leave for home, and activity time is around 10AM. The number of children per nursery teacher during the month of April and the type of free play activity also affected incidents. Conflicts increased when nursery teachers left to assist children at toilets. It is effective to delay shift changes at peak times when children arrive and leave during the first half of the year. It is important to improve teacher-child ratios to enable children to do independent activities and receive attentive support.

Japan currently promotes the marketization of early childhood education and care (ECEC) to meet increasing demand, and some local governments are rapidly privatizing public childcare centers. Consequently, childcare centers consigned to corporations providing services at lower cost are increasing. How does such alternation of providers affect childcare quality and children separated from familiar caregivers? This case study describes declining quality of childcare services in a public hospital outsourced to private enterprise, demonstrating that it negatively influences children's emotional stability. This paper concludes that childcare quality assurance requires the extension of contract periods; the regulation of the price of outsourcing; the clarification of new and previous providers' obligations; and improvement of caregivers' wages.

This paper aims to analyze to what degree wage levels cause nursery teachers shortages focusing on government policy trends in Japan and previous research in the U.S. and the U.K. Recently, the Japanese government has promoted the unification of kindergartens and nursery schools, and their staff/teacher qualifications have been interchangeable under special measures. In this paper, the analysis of national wage survey suggests that the wage level of nursery teachers is lower than that of kindergarten teachers and several other medical or social welfare professionals, while nursery teachers' educational levels have increased during the past 30 years. Finally, this paper refers to the importance of research accumulation regarding the relationship between the quality of nursery schools and their teachers' wage levels.

This study aimed to identify the characteristics of the “New Early Childhood Education (1947),” developed and practiced at the Kindergarten attached to Chiba Normal School, after the enactment of the School Education Law, based on the available practical materials. The results highlighted the following three characteristic aspects of the “New Early Childhood Education”: a focus on and embodiment of “appropriate environments” provided in the School Education Law; the structure of daily lives based on the voluntary activities of children, induced in relation to environments; and the adoption of care and education forms that ensure adequate development of children's voluntary activities and reconstruction of the “guiding child care theory,” attempted at the kindergarten since before the war.

Making a summary of historical changes in the studies of child care and education with “children concerned” which means “children in need of some special attention”, this study is trying to research the contemporary problems in this field. In the postwar period, these children and handicapped ones had been regarded as “problem children”. With the institutionalization of care and education for handicapped children, however, some children without any handicaps have been marked as “children concerned”. In cooperation with the policy for promoting the education of handicapped children, the studies on these “children concerned” in relation to developmental disorders have markedly increased in number. This study indicates the necessity of creating group child care and education including “children concerned” to make development by themselves all together.

This study aims to analyze Jürgen Moysich's thoughts and his practices before his idea of Babyklappe (baby box) in 1999 and to describe the dynamism of his thought related to the early childhood education in Germany. His main works are published exclusively in the nineties, those contexts belong to seventies and eighties pedagogy in Germany, especially “progressive education” and “anti-authoritarian education”. However, in the nineties he was interested in the issue of “education after Auschwitz” put forward by Theodor W. Adorno and had radically carried out his own early child care and education. The results suggest that there is a concept of anti-authoritarian pedagogical mediation coherently in the heart of his thought, and that his idea of Babyklappe should be interpreted in this context.

The purpose of this research is to clarify the teacher's perception of the work on the school bus and the behavior of the children that ride the school bus through an interview of the preschool teacher as a rider on the school bus. Additionally, the characteristics of the school bus as an early childhood care and educational environment will be considered. Through the qualitative analysis of the interview data, various considerations of teachers concerning the rewards and/or dissatisfaction regarding their work were revealed. Additionally, it was learned that on school buses, children shared their experiences from their classes and homes, resulting in relationships called “bus groups.” In these groups, children shared their customs and cultures with peers of different ages. However, teachers do not necessarily recognize school buses as ECCE environments.

This study aimed to clarify how 5-6-year-old children perceive their mealtimes at their ECEC institutions. 36 children from three institutions participated in this study. Each pair of children were asked to draw their mealtime experience while being interviewed. The content of their drawings were: 1) detail of meal; 2) meal place environment; 3) procedure of mealtime; and 4) their friends. The analysis showed that children, from the institutions where they have school lunch and decide by themselves how much they eat, drew rice, main, side dishes, and soup, which indicates that they recognized clearly what they had eaten. Also the children who participate in preparing meals and tidying up, understood well the procedures of mealtimes. It was suggested that children who show little interest in meals did not produce many drawings needed some support for eating.

The purpose of this research was to clarify by heart rate how infants respond to their mothers' heart beats by focusing on a sense of security. I measured a heart rate of 33 infants from 38.0 months to 74.0 months through hearing activity, hearing silence, mothers' heart beats sounds, and a music box sound. As a result, it was revealed that the mothers' heart beat sound, especially reduce the heart rate below the other sounds (silence or the music box). In this case, it was remarkable that hearing mothers' heart beats, especially decreased heart rates rather than silence. From the above results, I considered the effectiveness of mothers' heart beats in infants' places of development and showed the possibility of childcare practice.

This study aims to clarify collaboration with psychological professions from nursery teachers' perspectives. The authors interviewed 6 nursery teachers that had different amounts of experience. Qualitative data was analyzed using Steps for Coding and Theorization.

As a result, different perspectives for psychological professions were indicated by years of experience. Novice teachers perceived the psychological profession as a “teacher” who teaches psychology in school. As they experienced collaboration with psychological professions, collaboration was done closely. Experienced teachers internalized the viewpoint of psychological professions and understood children closely psychologically. In conclusion, nursery teachers' changes of perspectives for psychological professions were shown. Better collaboration was discussed.

This study described learning processes until the students became narrators of episodes through four years at a nursery school and kindergarten teacher training course. In study one, four fourth-year university students talked about episodes concerning early childhood care and education. Findings are as follows: 1) In the first year, they learned the episodes from university teachers; 2) In the second year, they felt it difficult to find episodes while watching children at nursery school and kindergarten; 3) In the third year, they began to understand how they should capture episodes; 4) In the fourth year, they became narrators about episodes by professional points of view. These results are supported by reviewing the portfolios of the students and questionnaires about episodes for 270 students in Study two.

This research assessed narratives to examine the transformation process of new preschool teachers building relationships with parents. Two private preschool teachers with one year of experience were included. The data were analyzed using M-GTA. Upon examining the relationship transformation process among new preschool teachers, the following considerations were raised: 1) New teachers' comments regarding relationships with parents could be divided into three periods: when teachers did not know what to say, when teachers did not know how to reply, and when two-way conversations were attained; 2) The presence of other teachers allowed new teachers to receive support in dealing with parents, but it also led new teachers to have feelings of inexperience and inadequacy; and 3) New teachers' narratives to parents changed depending on the age of children.

This study examines intersubjectivity in play among children up to two years old and its relationship with parental support. An analysis of 155 reports using the KH Coder software confirms that intersubjectivity in play changes according to the interest of the subjects as well as their age and their acquisition of physical movement. Analysis of the co-occurrence network clearly shows the parents' relationships with children' play changes with the age of the child. Parental support changes when seeing the child is immersed in his/her favorite play. This result suggests suitable childcare support room methods for children and parents.

This study aims to find how the children who grow up in a multicultural environment communicate with other people surrounding themselves during the new-language-learning process, and to clarify the situations when children switch between languages, especially under what circumstances and how often the children interact with others in different languages in multicultural kindergartens.

We observed eight children who were playing in a Chinese language kindergarten in Japan. The results showed that the Chinese-Japanese bilingual children usually take a more proactive stance on language switching rather than passive responding. Furthermore, they managed to switch to their dominant language when they didn't know an appropriate word in the other language in the kindergarten. The results that have been indicated by adult speakers in related research are confirmed in our study.