Gota Matsui

The Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan updated from 2013 to 2030 (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021) prioritises the developmental aspects of children with developmental disabilities. In r...

This study examines the discovery of children's intrapersonal diversity through interactions between home and kindergarten, emphasising early childhood education's focus on student diversity. A case study was conducted with a child with a disability and his mother at a kindergarten in Japan. Utilising the e-portfolio tool Storypark, qualitative analysis was performed on posted records, responses and interview content. This study uses Dialogical Self Theory as its conceptual framework for examining the child's identity through the polyphony and dialogue of research participants. Findings revealed that sharing records from both the kindergarten and the home provided valuable insights into different aspects of the child's identity. Additionally, the involvement of teachers and the mother evolved over time. The study suggested that viewing records on Storypark and engaging in discussions about the content benefitted the child, enhancing understanding of his intrapersonal diversity and strengthening teacher–parent collaboration.

This study explored options for pedagogical photo documentation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) practices to hear the voices of children, parents, and guardians in ways that make developing the documentation manageable for practitioners. Two Japanese kindergartens participated in an action research project entitled ‘Wall Newspapers for Children’. Classroom teachers composed and provided daily pedagogical photo documentation focused on children’s free play and later shared it with the children and their parents or guardians. A total of 194 parents and guardians completed a questionnaire about the documentation’s influence. Narrative episodes of children’s play revealed that the documentation mediated the following dispositions of children’s participation: (1) encouraging children to participate in their new environment and get involved in subsequent play activities for several days, and (2) getting the children to develop and create play activities by themselves. The questionnaire results showed that the documentation enhanced the parents’ and guardians’ communication with their children and with other parents, practitioners, and children in the classroom, encouraging them to talk about their children’s play and learning. The implications of these findings for capturing and improving the quality of ECEC through meaning-making discourse are discussed.

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’ perspectives on imitation paper, teachers’ thoughts and reflections at conferences and during interviews, visual material, and narrative observations of children’s play. Children’s voices stimulate teachers’ reflection and provide deeper insights about diversity among children. The discussions at the conference about children’s voices showed teachers’ learning in four aspects: beliefs of play, environmental setting, understanding of children, and child–teacher relationships. In the act of listening to children’s voices, each teacher was influenced by their job positions and by the relationship within teacher groups in reflection at teacher conferences. Teachers appeared to understand each other’s beliefs by engaging in regular dialogue at conferences. This study contributed to the improvement of in-service training methods in early childhood education and care.