Contemporary Perspectives on Research on Immigration in Early Childhood Education, 2023
As children of immigrant families have increased in early childhood education centers and schools... more As children of immigrant families have increased in early childhood education centers and schools, understanding immigrant children’s experiences and ensuring their education has become a pressing need in Japan. This chapter examines and presents current research and reports on immigrant children’s early preprimary and primary school experiences in Japan. We first describe demographic patterns related to immigrants and immigrant children and their educational experiences in Japan. After briefly explaining Japan’s early childhood education system, we present early childhood education practitioners’ views related to immigrant children, especially their perceived “issues” and “challenges.” We then examine teaching practices and embedded cultural beliefs and their impact on immigrant children’s ECE and school experiences. Lastly, we present a wealth of research on “empowering schools” with a rich history of bringing culturally responsive practices derived from human rights education to minority and immigrant children in Japan. We conclude with implications for culturally responsive practices in early childhood education.
Sustainability, Diversity, and Equality: Key Challenges for Japan, 2023
Education has played a fundamental role in people’s long-held view of Japan as a meritocratic soc... more Education has played a fundamental role in people’s long-held view of Japan as a meritocratic society. The post-war educational system aimed to reduce educational inequality associated with family backgrounds. However, economic changes over the last few decades brought societal and media attention to disparities, especially educational inequalities related to family backgrounds. This chapter aims to present students’ educational opportunities and experiences related to family socioeconomic status (SES) in Japan. The chapter first provides an overview of Japanese education and educational outcomes associated with SES. Then it highlights theories that explain academic gaps depending on SES. Particularly, it focuses on economic and cultural capital as elements of creating different educational opportunities and experiences. This chapter does not bring a deficit-oriented view and does not conceptualize lower-SES families as lacking capital. The chapter also illuminates strengths displayed in lower-SES families and the meanings of education in community and life contexts. After describing the intersection of gender and SES and the impact of COVID-19 on students’ educational process, the chapter concludes with a discussion about implications and future directions.
Despite growing recognition of diverse forms of parental involvement, scarce research exists onth... more Despite growing recognition of diverse forms of parental involvement, scarce research exists onthe critical influence of sociocultural contexts on parental involvement in their children’s educa-tion. Building on and modifying Hoover-Dempsey’s parental involvement model, this article pro-poses a new sociocultural model to explain Chinese immigrant parents’motivations for school-based and home-based involvement. Within the discussion of the model, each component isdetailed but the emphasis is directed to three general components: the Chinese cultural model oflearning, parental role construction, and school-family relations, including teachers’parentalinvolvement practices that differ from the U.S. mainstream culture’s model. This review demon-strates that Chinese immigrant parents tend to be more involved in some types of school-basedactivities (e.g., attending parent-teacher conferences and school events) than others (e.g., volun-teering in classrooms and attending PTO meetings/school council). Chinese immigrant parents’involvement processes also interact with family socioeconomic status and immigrant contexts. Thearticle concludes with implications for research and educational practice.
Japanese women tend to be well educated, compared to their counterparts in many other societies. ... more Japanese women tend to be well educated, compared to their counterparts in many other societies. Approximately 50 percent of eligible women pursued a college education in 2000, while 18 percent of women did so in 1970. However, only a third of Japanese women attended a four-year college after graduating from high school in 2000, as compared to half of men. Japanese women are still far more likely than men to attend two-year programs. Furthermore, women and men differ significantly as far as the subjects that they study in college. For example, one third of young women majored in literature and arts at college while less than 10 percent of young men did so. Only 5 percent of females compared to 27 percent of males studied engineering (Inoue & Ehara, 1999). While the gender gap in four year college attainment has been getting narrower in the past decade, surveys of mothers currently raising young children nevertheless suggest that mothers are not as likely to expect and prepare their daughters for college as they are their sons. A survey conducted in 1997 found that while 74 percent of women expected boys to attend college, only 41 percent of them expected girls to do so (Inoue & Ehara, 1999). Our research team at UC Berkeley has been studying a group of Japanese mothers and their children for the past few years. We have been conducting surveys and interviews with these women-all of whom had a child in preschool at the beginning of the study-in order to learn more about their beliefs about the role of mother, their sense of self confidence in approaching this role, the ways in which they feel supported or undermined by friends and family, and the actions they are taking to support their children's achievement in school. In this paper, we describe some of our findings about mothers' views on gender, and examine how mothers' expectations and goals for their children's future lives depend on whether their child is a boy or a girl. In particular, we address the following questions:
In this paper, we review research on parental expectations and their effects on student achieveme... more In this paper, we review research on parental expectations and their effects on student achievement within and across diverse racial and ethnic groups. Our review suggests that the level of parental expectations varies by racial/ethnic group, and that students' previous academic performance is a less influential determinant of parental expectations among racial/ethnic minority parents than among European American parents. To explain this pattern, we identify three processes associated with race/ethnicity that moderate the relation between students' previous performance and parental expectations. Our review also indicates that the relation of parental expectations to concurrent or future student achievement outcomes is weaker for racial/ethnic minority families than for European American families. We describe four mediating processes by which high parental expectations may influence children's academic trajectories and show how these processes are associated with racial/ethnic status. The article concludes with a discussion of educational implications as well as suggestions for future research.
The purpose of this study was to examine Japanese children’s beliefs about school learning in the... more The purpose of this study was to examine Japanese children’s beliefs about school learning in the first year of primary school depending on culture and socioeconomic status. For the current study, data collected from 150 first graders aged 6 or 7 attending public school in Japan and the United States (50 low SES and 50 middle SES in Japan, and 50 middle SES in the U.S. as a comparative group) were analyzed. In individual interviews, the children provided narrative responses to story beginnings related to school attendance and learning. These narrative responses were coded and quantitatively analyzed. There were eight content codes that demonstrated children’s beliefs related to the benefits of school learning, attitudes and affect toward school learning, or social awareness related to school learning. Results of analyses of covariance demonstrated that Japanese children expressed more valuation of school learning and fear of not achieving, whereas American children expressed more intellectual benefit, achievement and economic benefit, and obligation to attend school and learn. There was no socioeconomic difference in any of the learning belief variables among Japanese children. These findings are discussed in light of the Japanese educational system, school contexts, and cultural models of learning.
Contemporary research on motivation in early childhood education , 2019
The Japanese concept of ganbari, which means the exertion of hard work and effort, is considered ... more The Japanese concept of ganbari, which means the exertion of hard work and effort, is considered to be a virtue and attitude shaping an individual’s long-term learning motivation in Japan. In this chapter, we explore the role of ganbari in children’s motivation and learning processes and how Japanese teachers and schools try to cultivate ganbari in young children by examining and reviewing interdisciplinary studies. We first explain the concept of ganbari, including its definitions, meanings, and its relationship to learning motivation. We also explain the structure of early childhood education in Japan and the role of ganbari in children’s educational processes. Then, we elaborate on how early childhood education teachers implicitly and explicitly cultivate ganbari in young children. We conclude with a discussion focusing on what we can learn from our examination of ganbari, as well as the drawbacks and challenges associated with the concept itself.
Gender inequality is prevalent and has a large impact on children's development and educational p... more Gender inequality is prevalent and has a large impact on children's development and educational processes in Japan. As a key element leading to children's gendered aspirations and educational processes, we conducted a study examining the effects of gender and mothers' educational levels on Japanese mothers' aspirations and expectations regarding their children's educational attainment. Participants consisted of 109 mothers with a first grader (age 6 or 7) who attended public school in Osaka, Japan. We analyzed quantitative and qualitative data collected through surveys and interviews for this study. Results revealed significant main effects of gender and mothers' educational levels, as well as a significant interaction between the two factors on mothers' educational aspirations. Gender had a significant effect on mothers' realistic educational expectations, but mothers' educational levels demonstrated a marginal effect. Maternal educational aspirations and expectations were higher for sons than for daughters. Regardless of gender, mothers with college education tended to demonstrate higher educational aspirations than mothers with partial or no college education. We also provided qualitative evidence pertaining to quantitative results found in mothers' aspirations and expectations regarding their children's education. *
Families’ academic socialization mediates how socioeconomic status (SES) affects children’s achie... more Families’ academic socialization mediates how socioeconomic status (SES) affects children’s achievement. However, little is known about whether cultural values and family cohesion could buffer negative effects of low SES. We examined parental academic socialization and children’s achievement in 220 low- and middle-SES Chinese immigrant families with four-year-olds. Low-SES parents showed less stressful family environments and stronger beliefs about parental responsibility for education. However, middle-SES parents provided more reading engagement and enrichment activities. Reading engagement and SES were significantly associated with children’s academic performance. These findings demonstrate low-SES families’ strengths but suggest the need to provide more support for such families.
Family contexts of academic socialization have received growing attention as a way to facilitate ... more Family contexts of academic socialization have received growing attention as a way to facilitate the educational development of children and adolescents. The goal of this special issue is to present comparative and complex perspectives about the roles of culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES) in multifaceted academic socialization processes from preschool to college. This introduction discusses the roles of culture, ethnicity, and SES in family academic socialization processes, summarizes various themes across the five articles in this issue, presents brief overviews of each article, and addresses future directions of these lines of research.
In spite of evidence indicating the benefits of parental engagement for chil-dren's achievement, ... more In spite of evidence indicating the benefits of parental engagement for chil-dren's achievement, little is known about the factors that contribute to parental engagement in countries outside the United States. In this study, we addressed this gap in the literature by examining teachers' outreach in addition to maternal psychological elements (maternal role construction and parenting self-efficacy) in predicting Japanese and American mothers' home-and school-based engagement at the second grade level. We found that these factors uniquely and significantly contributed to home-based engagement (homework supervision and engagement in cognitive activities) and school-based engagement in both countries. Furthermore, these factors accounted for between-country differences in the extent of home-based engagement. Between-country differences in school-based engagement remained significant even after the three factors were entered, suggesting a need for additional theorizing in contexts outside the U.S. Findings of this study also highlight the importance of teacher invitations in stimulating parents' engagement.
Why should American early childhood educators study the preparation and practices of teachers in ... more Why should American early childhood educators study the preparation and practices of teachers in Japan? One reason is to identify "best practices" that may be relevant and useful for American schools. The Japanese preschool and child-care system serve nearly all of the nation's children. The elementary schools have received international praise for supporting achievement while honoring the "whole child," a goal shared by many Americans. But this is not the only reason, although perhaps it is the most commonly given one for studying another society as successful as Japan has been.
Contemporary Perspectives on Research on Immigration in Early Childhood Education, 2023
As children of immigrant families have increased in early childhood education centers and schools... more As children of immigrant families have increased in early childhood education centers and schools, understanding immigrant children’s experiences and ensuring their education has become a pressing need in Japan. This chapter examines and presents current research and reports on immigrant children’s early preprimary and primary school experiences in Japan. We first describe demographic patterns related to immigrants and immigrant children and their educational experiences in Japan. After briefly explaining Japan’s early childhood education system, we present early childhood education practitioners’ views related to immigrant children, especially their perceived “issues” and “challenges.” We then examine teaching practices and embedded cultural beliefs and their impact on immigrant children’s ECE and school experiences. Lastly, we present a wealth of research on “empowering schools” with a rich history of bringing culturally responsive practices derived from human rights education to minority and immigrant children in Japan. We conclude with implications for culturally responsive practices in early childhood education.
Sustainability, Diversity, and Equality: Key Challenges for Japan, 2023
Education has played a fundamental role in people’s long-held view of Japan as a meritocratic soc... more Education has played a fundamental role in people’s long-held view of Japan as a meritocratic society. The post-war educational system aimed to reduce educational inequality associated with family backgrounds. However, economic changes over the last few decades brought societal and media attention to disparities, especially educational inequalities related to family backgrounds. This chapter aims to present students’ educational opportunities and experiences related to family socioeconomic status (SES) in Japan. The chapter first provides an overview of Japanese education and educational outcomes associated with SES. Then it highlights theories that explain academic gaps depending on SES. Particularly, it focuses on economic and cultural capital as elements of creating different educational opportunities and experiences. This chapter does not bring a deficit-oriented view and does not conceptualize lower-SES families as lacking capital. The chapter also illuminates strengths displayed in lower-SES families and the meanings of education in community and life contexts. After describing the intersection of gender and SES and the impact of COVID-19 on students’ educational process, the chapter concludes with a discussion about implications and future directions.
Despite growing recognition of diverse forms of parental involvement, scarce research exists onth... more Despite growing recognition of diverse forms of parental involvement, scarce research exists onthe critical influence of sociocultural contexts on parental involvement in their children’s educa-tion. Building on and modifying Hoover-Dempsey’s parental involvement model, this article pro-poses a new sociocultural model to explain Chinese immigrant parents’motivations for school-based and home-based involvement. Within the discussion of the model, each component isdetailed but the emphasis is directed to three general components: the Chinese cultural model oflearning, parental role construction, and school-family relations, including teachers’parentalinvolvement practices that differ from the U.S. mainstream culture’s model. This review demon-strates that Chinese immigrant parents tend to be more involved in some types of school-basedactivities (e.g., attending parent-teacher conferences and school events) than others (e.g., volun-teering in classrooms and attending PTO meetings/school council). Chinese immigrant parents’involvement processes also interact with family socioeconomic status and immigrant contexts. Thearticle concludes with implications for research and educational practice.
Japanese women tend to be well educated, compared to their counterparts in many other societies. ... more Japanese women tend to be well educated, compared to their counterparts in many other societies. Approximately 50 percent of eligible women pursued a college education in 2000, while 18 percent of women did so in 1970. However, only a third of Japanese women attended a four-year college after graduating from high school in 2000, as compared to half of men. Japanese women are still far more likely than men to attend two-year programs. Furthermore, women and men differ significantly as far as the subjects that they study in college. For example, one third of young women majored in literature and arts at college while less than 10 percent of young men did so. Only 5 percent of females compared to 27 percent of males studied engineering (Inoue & Ehara, 1999). While the gender gap in four year college attainment has been getting narrower in the past decade, surveys of mothers currently raising young children nevertheless suggest that mothers are not as likely to expect and prepare their daughters for college as they are their sons. A survey conducted in 1997 found that while 74 percent of women expected boys to attend college, only 41 percent of them expected girls to do so (Inoue & Ehara, 1999). Our research team at UC Berkeley has been studying a group of Japanese mothers and their children for the past few years. We have been conducting surveys and interviews with these women-all of whom had a child in preschool at the beginning of the study-in order to learn more about their beliefs about the role of mother, their sense of self confidence in approaching this role, the ways in which they feel supported or undermined by friends and family, and the actions they are taking to support their children's achievement in school. In this paper, we describe some of our findings about mothers' views on gender, and examine how mothers' expectations and goals for their children's future lives depend on whether their child is a boy or a girl. In particular, we address the following questions:
In this paper, we review research on parental expectations and their effects on student achieveme... more In this paper, we review research on parental expectations and their effects on student achievement within and across diverse racial and ethnic groups. Our review suggests that the level of parental expectations varies by racial/ethnic group, and that students' previous academic performance is a less influential determinant of parental expectations among racial/ethnic minority parents than among European American parents. To explain this pattern, we identify three processes associated with race/ethnicity that moderate the relation between students' previous performance and parental expectations. Our review also indicates that the relation of parental expectations to concurrent or future student achievement outcomes is weaker for racial/ethnic minority families than for European American families. We describe four mediating processes by which high parental expectations may influence children's academic trajectories and show how these processes are associated with racial/ethnic status. The article concludes with a discussion of educational implications as well as suggestions for future research.
The purpose of this study was to examine Japanese children’s beliefs about school learning in the... more The purpose of this study was to examine Japanese children’s beliefs about school learning in the first year of primary school depending on culture and socioeconomic status. For the current study, data collected from 150 first graders aged 6 or 7 attending public school in Japan and the United States (50 low SES and 50 middle SES in Japan, and 50 middle SES in the U.S. as a comparative group) were analyzed. In individual interviews, the children provided narrative responses to story beginnings related to school attendance and learning. These narrative responses were coded and quantitatively analyzed. There were eight content codes that demonstrated children’s beliefs related to the benefits of school learning, attitudes and affect toward school learning, or social awareness related to school learning. Results of analyses of covariance demonstrated that Japanese children expressed more valuation of school learning and fear of not achieving, whereas American children expressed more intellectual benefit, achievement and economic benefit, and obligation to attend school and learn. There was no socioeconomic difference in any of the learning belief variables among Japanese children. These findings are discussed in light of the Japanese educational system, school contexts, and cultural models of learning.
Contemporary research on motivation in early childhood education , 2019
The Japanese concept of ganbari, which means the exertion of hard work and effort, is considered ... more The Japanese concept of ganbari, which means the exertion of hard work and effort, is considered to be a virtue and attitude shaping an individual’s long-term learning motivation in Japan. In this chapter, we explore the role of ganbari in children’s motivation and learning processes and how Japanese teachers and schools try to cultivate ganbari in young children by examining and reviewing interdisciplinary studies. We first explain the concept of ganbari, including its definitions, meanings, and its relationship to learning motivation. We also explain the structure of early childhood education in Japan and the role of ganbari in children’s educational processes. Then, we elaborate on how early childhood education teachers implicitly and explicitly cultivate ganbari in young children. We conclude with a discussion focusing on what we can learn from our examination of ganbari, as well as the drawbacks and challenges associated with the concept itself.
Gender inequality is prevalent and has a large impact on children's development and educational p... more Gender inequality is prevalent and has a large impact on children's development and educational processes in Japan. As a key element leading to children's gendered aspirations and educational processes, we conducted a study examining the effects of gender and mothers' educational levels on Japanese mothers' aspirations and expectations regarding their children's educational attainment. Participants consisted of 109 mothers with a first grader (age 6 or 7) who attended public school in Osaka, Japan. We analyzed quantitative and qualitative data collected through surveys and interviews for this study. Results revealed significant main effects of gender and mothers' educational levels, as well as a significant interaction between the two factors on mothers' educational aspirations. Gender had a significant effect on mothers' realistic educational expectations, but mothers' educational levels demonstrated a marginal effect. Maternal educational aspirations and expectations were higher for sons than for daughters. Regardless of gender, mothers with college education tended to demonstrate higher educational aspirations than mothers with partial or no college education. We also provided qualitative evidence pertaining to quantitative results found in mothers' aspirations and expectations regarding their children's education. *
Families’ academic socialization mediates how socioeconomic status (SES) affects children’s achie... more Families’ academic socialization mediates how socioeconomic status (SES) affects children’s achievement. However, little is known about whether cultural values and family cohesion could buffer negative effects of low SES. We examined parental academic socialization and children’s achievement in 220 low- and middle-SES Chinese immigrant families with four-year-olds. Low-SES parents showed less stressful family environments and stronger beliefs about parental responsibility for education. However, middle-SES parents provided more reading engagement and enrichment activities. Reading engagement and SES were significantly associated with children’s academic performance. These findings demonstrate low-SES families’ strengths but suggest the need to provide more support for such families.
Family contexts of academic socialization have received growing attention as a way to facilitate ... more Family contexts of academic socialization have received growing attention as a way to facilitate the educational development of children and adolescents. The goal of this special issue is to present comparative and complex perspectives about the roles of culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES) in multifaceted academic socialization processes from preschool to college. This introduction discusses the roles of culture, ethnicity, and SES in family academic socialization processes, summarizes various themes across the five articles in this issue, presents brief overviews of each article, and addresses future directions of these lines of research.
In spite of evidence indicating the benefits of parental engagement for chil-dren's achievement, ... more In spite of evidence indicating the benefits of parental engagement for chil-dren's achievement, little is known about the factors that contribute to parental engagement in countries outside the United States. In this study, we addressed this gap in the literature by examining teachers' outreach in addition to maternal psychological elements (maternal role construction and parenting self-efficacy) in predicting Japanese and American mothers' home-and school-based engagement at the second grade level. We found that these factors uniquely and significantly contributed to home-based engagement (homework supervision and engagement in cognitive activities) and school-based engagement in both countries. Furthermore, these factors accounted for between-country differences in the extent of home-based engagement. Between-country differences in school-based engagement remained significant even after the three factors were entered, suggesting a need for additional theorizing in contexts outside the U.S. Findings of this study also highlight the importance of teacher invitations in stimulating parents' engagement.
Why should American early childhood educators study the preparation and practices of teachers in ... more Why should American early childhood educators study the preparation and practices of teachers in Japan? One reason is to identify "best practices" that may be relevant and useful for American schools. The Japanese preschool and child-care system serve nearly all of the nation's children. The elementary schools have received international praise for supporting achievement while honoring the "whole child," a goal shared by many Americans. But this is not the only reason, although perhaps it is the most commonly given one for studying another society as successful as Japan has been.
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