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

Published in 1989, the original Preschool in Three Cultures was a landmark in the study of education: a profoundly enlightening exploration of the different ways preschoolers are taught in China, Japan, and the United States. Here, lead author Joseph Tobin - along with new collaborators Yeh Hsueh and Mayumi Karasawa - revisits his original research to discover how two decades of globalization and sweeping social transformation have affected the way these three cultures educate and care for their youngest pupils.
In Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited the authors return to the three schools from the first book and also take a look at three new, progressive schools in each country - once again armed with a video camera to capture a typical day. They record the children saying goodbye to their parents, fighting, misbehaving, and playing, as well as moments of intimacy such as teachers comforting crying students. Then the authors show the three videos they shot in 1984 and the six new videos to the teachers and school directors whose reactions provide insight into their culture's approach to early childhood education. Putting their informants' responses into social and historical perspective, Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa analyze the pressures put on schools to evolve and to stay the same, discuss how the teachers adapt to these demands, and examine the patterns and processes of continuity and change in each country.
Featuring more than one hundred stills from the videotapes, Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited artfully and insightfully illustrates the surprising, illuminating, and at times entertaining experiences of four-year-olds - and their teachers - on both sides of the Pacific.

Joseph Tobin is the Nadine Mathis Basha Professor of early childhood education at Arizona State University and the author or editor of several books. Yeh Hsueh is associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Research at the University of Memphis. Mayumi Karasawa is professor of cultural psychology at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University.