We conducted a school-wide training for Japanese preschool teachers based on the behavioral and functional approach to children with problem behaviors. Twenty-five Japanese teachers at a kindergarten and nursery school participated in the program, attending six training sessions and four case-study meetings. The training sessions consisted of (a)…

The Early Childhood Education Quality (ECEQ) initiative is a pioneering approach toward supporting ongoing, self-organized professional development in the private kindergarten sector in Japan. The purpose of this study is to examine how kindergarten teachers and ECEQ coordinators experience this approach and view the ECEQ process. Online…

This study examines the effectiveness of a simultaneous intervention in kindergarten and home to improve ball skills in children. Two kindergartens in Ibaraki, Japan, were divided into intervention (N = 98, mean age = 5.5 [0.6] years) and control groups (N = 88, mean age = 5.6 [0.6] years). The intervention was for 4 weeks. Parents received emails…

Children's authentic participation is increasingly recognized in early childhood education as a basis for improving children's engagement and learning outcomes. This study explored the implementation of the Photo Projective Method in a kindergarten in Japan. Participants were two teachers and 35 children, aged 5 years, enrolled in one kindergarten…

Using action research, this study examined the professional development of teachers through the reflections that kindergarten teachers obtain from children's voices and the relevance between the working environment and teachers' reflection at teacher conferences in Japan. Four teachers participated in the study. Data sources included teachers'…

This study reports an analysis of how children in a Japanese kindergarten are scaffolded when facing the challenge of collaboratively retelling a "kitsune" story they have been told. What is referred to as a "kitsune" story is an example of a trickster tale with foxes as anthropomorphised animals. The participants were ten…

This guidebook aspires to build a community where learning for sustainable development takes place everywhere for everyone as an ongoing practice. It introduces you to "Reflect-Share-Act," a process to discover and define sustainable development in your own contexts together with others in your community. The guide compiles resources…

This study addresses children's Kyoiku (education) as it is explored by two kindergartens in Japan. It reports how the teachers, parents and children defined and experienced children's education and draws on the sociocultural concepts to understand their perspectives. Situated in the personal, educational, and sociocultural landscape of the…

Numerous research has shown that quality of interactions between early childhood teachers and children contribute significantly to children's holistic development. Most literature on this topic comes from developed/Western countries and little is known about the kind of interactions occurring within the Soka kindergarten model. This article, based…

Language teacher education is widely identified as one of the most important areas that needs addressing in order to improve early language instruction, yet research into teacher education for early language teachers remains relatively sparse. This volume responds to this gap by compiling studies with diverse methodological tenets from a wide…

The quality of early childhood education has dominated current debates in the ways educators develop and implement learning programs for children yet conceptions of quality vary contextually and culturally. This qualitative case study explored the insider perspectives of six early childhood educators in Sapporo, Japan regarding their conceptions…

This study explored Japanese day nursery and kindergarten teachers' beliefs and practices regarding developmentally appropriate practices. Data were collected using in-depth interviews. Teacher interviews provided insights into the merger of the childcare and education systems of Japan. Six themes emerged from the analysis of the day nursery and…

In this article, the author presents the challenges faced by early childhood education in 29 countries, according to the World Forum National Representatives and Global Leaders for Young Children. The countries represented in these responses include: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Fiji, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan,…