Search

For the past six years the authors have been working together on a major study of early childhood education in China, Japan, and the United States. This study, "Continuity and Change in Preschools in Three Cultures," is a sequel to "Preschools in Three Cultures," a book by Joseph Tobin, David Wu, and Dana Davidson that was published in 1989. In the new study, as in the original one, the authors have found major differences in how these three countries approach the education and care of young children. In this paper, the authors present examples of preschool practices from China and Japan that they suggest can be used to improve early childhood education in the US. They call these examples lessons for the US, but they are not suggesting that American early childhood educators should copy these approaches. Instead, they are hoping that American teachers who have read this paper and had the opportunity to reflect on the logic of the Chinese and Japanese approaches will find that they have a new way of thinking about their practice.