Research Around the World

While all three of these suggested international early childhood websites were informative and really interesting, the one that I learned the most about was the one that interestingly, I felt I related to the least, which was Child Research Net (https://www.childresearch.net/) a nonprofit organization located in Japan. The website was well laid out with easy tabs to open to find out what projects they are working on, essays you could read, data from projects that have been completed, and events and publications.

There were a large assortment of current international research topics to click on, including Q&A about Children’s Health, Child Research Network Asia (CRNA), Data based discussion on education and children in Japan, ECEC Around the World, Declining birth rate and child-rearing in Japan, among others.

One of the surprising facts to learn about was the declining birth rate and child-rearing in Japan. Japan has become an aging low birth-rate society, facing rapid demographic change. Since countermeasures for the declining birth rate are urgently required, the website looks into the issues of marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing in this section (Childresearch.net) One of the things they found was that while after giving birth and still being in the hospital, mothers will receive lots of support, but once they leave, there seems to be little places to find more information or help with child-rearing so families are seemingly stopping after one child in Japan. Problems that these mothers face with multiple child includes the high need for help “playing with the elder child,” “dropping off and picking up the elder child” and “staying at home when dropping off/picking up the elder child.” Newspapers increasingly cover the topic of postnatal support, but awareness in public is low. Some mothers will receive support from family and friends, but if they have their own children this also becomes difficult. Japan is now starting to put more projects in place to help these mothers (and fathers) in order to increase the birth rates and receive the help needed to keep a medium family afloat.

I chose this website, because while there have been Japanese students enrolled in my school, I have never had any in my classroom, although the prospect is there. I thought perusing this website would be most beneficial so that if/when I encounter these students and their families. Under the “papers and essays” tab I clicked on Multicultural Education which brought me to another page where I could narrow down my inquiries to find what I wanted more information on. I randomly chose to read about The Grandpals program that is set up in Japanese schools and I was hooked. The GrandPals program builds one-on-one friendships between elementary school children and seniors in their community. The pals meet weekly to discuss themes of interest across generations, share meals, or visit a museum. The program promotes empathy, the ability to understand another person who appears to be very different from themselves, which prevents prejudice. Although our children will become seniors one day, and may be working with seniors throughout their lives, few have close contacts with seniors during their formative years and understand what the lives and interests of seniors are like (Ritchie, 2018)

There were a lot of other great projects and articles to look through to learn more information about families, early childhood education, and projects that I greatly enjoyed looking through. This is definitely a website I will be keeping bookmarked for future reference!

References:

Child Research Net. (2020) https://www.childresearch.net/

Ritchie, Marlene. (2018). The Grandpals program promotes friendships between school kids and seniors through shared interests. Retrieved from https://www.childresearch.net/papers/school/2018_01.html