Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited: China, Japan and the United States

Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited: China, Japan and the United States By Tobin Joseph, Hsueh Yeh, Karasawa Mayumi Chicago : University of Chicago Press , 2009 ISBN 9780226805030 , 265 pp, £27.00 (hb) The 2010 Pacific Early Childhood Education Association Annual Conference opened in Hangzhou China in late July. When I was considering the keynote speaker of the conference, the candidates who first came to my mind were Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh and Mayumi Karasawa, the three authors of the book Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited. This masterpiece is what I want to recommend to over 600 attendees from more than 10 countries and regions. I believe that the publication of this book will have a significant impact on the theories and practices of preschool education around the Pacific Rim. In 1987, Tobin and his colleagues conducted comparative research on preschool education in three different cultural contexts, China, Japan and America respectively. In 1989, the results of the research, entitled Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited, were published and the book captured the attention of preschool specialists worldwide. In 2003, Tobin and his colleagues conducted the comparative research again in these three cultures. As Tobin said, one important motive for him to retake this research was related to the revolutionary changes Chinese culture and economy had gone through in the past 12 years, which led to significant changes taking place in the preschool education practices in China. I assisted Tobin and his colleagues during his research in China, where I first watched the video clips they shot in China, Japan and America in 2003 and then reviewed the ones they took in 1987. I still remember the 2004 international seminar in Arizona State University, where specialists from all over the world who watched the videos Tobin took on the conference, showed special interest in the clips taken in China and raised many questions with me on site. Besides their questions about the relationship between culture and preschool education, their interest reminded me of two other issues. The first was that, during the reform of preschool education in the past two decades, the curriculum of Chinese kindergartens had for sure undergone remarkable changes, and this deeply attracted some foreign scholars who were following western values but still keeping an old image of China, which they got from the 1987 clips. The other issue was that, in the video displayed, there must be the essence of Chinese kindergarten curriculum, which they could learn and from which they could discover in their own culture and reflect on the counterparts in theirs that needed improvement. Culture is the most difficult thing to change, although it is always substantially influencing our education, including preschool education. As the saying goes, a fish is the last one to know that it is living in water — it is easy for scholars in preschool education to overlook the issues related to cultural ecology in studying preschool education, hence many problems in decision-making and practices. I believe the latest publication of Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited will enlighten us enormously on this issue. Besides, what is worth recommendation is the study method used in Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited. When the first edition was published in the 1980s, American curriculum expert Dr J.D. McNeil from the University of California, Los Angeles, was giving lectures in my university. When he knew I was studying preschool education, he referred me to an article in the Harvard Educational Review about the recommendation of Tobin’s book, especially the introduction of the study approach. One week later, I unexpectedly received this book from my American friend Dr D.E. Day, who had long dedicated himself to educational ecology in the University of Massachusetts. He also mentioned several times the study method of this book in his correspondence to me. In the materials I read from then on, I found many times people regard this approach as the testimony of qualitative research. In the revised version this time, the researchers developed their method plus historical clues, which further enriched the qualitative study method. I expect that this book will bring new inspirations to both domestic and foreign scholars of preschool education, and it will help them view the revolution and development of preschool education from a more holistic and rational perspective.