Preschool in 3 Japan, China & the U.S.

Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China, and the United States is an ethnographic study of the differences and commonalities among three societies with regard to preschool practices. As the authors state, their ethnographic study reveals as much about the reviewer/researchers as their research does about the children and their teachers; either way, Japanese, Chinese, and American culture are examined from political, cultural, sociological, psychological, and educational points of view. What emerges is literally a three dimensional video record (the authors videotape their subjects, and show the results to all three groups being studied) of preschool practices in three distinct cultures. A basic overview of the book will be given, as well as its basic strengths, and in closing, a recommendation to others regarding its use.

An overview of the book reveals that the preschool is an important means of inculcating societal values in the very young. Values along the spectrum of traditional, right-wing cultural mores to progressive, left-wing cultural agendas can be transmitted to children of a most impressionable age. Life-long values which have been instilled even on a subconscious level can resurface as leading cultural attitudes for years to come. For example, the Japanese propensity for large preschool classes and a large (compared to the United States) teacher-student ratio reflects that culture's desire to inculcate attitudes of groupism, coupled with the social fea

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As has been pointed out, groupism is emphasized. In America, preschool is less of an option to parents because of cost. American culture leaves the education of children more to chance--the economic well-being of parents being the single, most important factor in whether or not their child receives daycare, as we call it in this country. In America, even if a child's parents can afford daycare, the child may be getting inferior instruction. U.S. daycare instructors have little or no education, in many cases, and the educational welfare of the child is left to chance. The book quotes conservative Orrin Hatch as having eventually come around to realizing the benefit to the nation of good quality childcare. He has come to realize that adults cannot productively function in the workplace if they have to be concerned about their children's welfare during the day. Daycare in America has come to mean "the freeing up of parents" as much as it has "the education of the preschooler." This writer is in agreement with the critics who bemoan the commercialization of childcare in America. As the authors point out in "St. Timothy's: An American Preschool," "Although the tuition they charge parents is high, nearly all American prescho

Category: Psychology - P