Interrelationality and Embodiment in a Japanese Daycare's Transition Routines

• In Event: Reimagining Early Childhood Education Research Using Video-Cued Ethnography

Abstract

Drawing on six months of participant-observation fieldwork, microanalysis of video recordings (Tobin & Hayashi, 2015), and video-cued ethnographic interviews (Adair & Kurban, 2019a; Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989), this presentation explores transition times in infant and toddler classrooms at a daycare in Japan, specifically attending to the bodily routine of responding to having one’s name called during transition times. This project is part of a larger study on transition times in a Japanese daycare that explores time and routine to question commonly held assumptions about transition practices in early childhood education such as ideas of (in)efficiency and behavior problems (e.g., Guardino & Fullerton, 2014; Olive, 2004; Sainato, Strain, Lefebvre, & Rapp, 1987). Video recording allowed for microanalysis of temporality in the classroom in ways that other modes of data would not afford, and using short video clips to conduct video-cued interviews with the daycare teachers enabled us to closely attend to and discuss those moments of interest that might otherwise be lost in the shuffle of activity during transition times.

A group of two-year-olds in the focal daycare were seated around their teacher as story time ended and they transitioned to naptime. The seated toddlers waited as each child’s name was called. “Mari,” called the teacher. Mari raised her hand high, smiled and responded “hai” (yes), gave her teacher a hug as they said “rest well” to each other, and found her mat for nap. This routine repeated for each of the children in the group. Nobody fussed, got up before their turn, or clambered to be called though many of the children moved a bit as they waited.

The scene above could be described using terms such as order, discipline, and compliance. In fact, stereotypes of Japan often invoke these notions. However, using video of this scene as a cue for a semi-structured interview, I found that infant and toddler teachers in the school had a strikingly different characterization of the activity. In fact, there was no mention of such Foucauldian notions. Instead, the teachers discussed the anticipation and joy of having one’s name called—being recognized as a self among the group. They talked about how the ritual of calling children by their names one-by-one and of having one’s name called is the foundation of the teacher-child relationship in daycare.

Employing the Japanese notion of aida (間; betweenness or interrelationality of time, space, and/or human relationships; Kimura, 2005) and notions of pedagogical practice, I suggest that rather than being ordered routines of bodily discipline that require compliance to rules and expectations, in this context these routines are temporal and bodily rituals of being in-between (in-connection, interrelated) during transition times. I suggest that while the same routine might be used to elicit compliance in some contexts, that seeing the potential for transition rituals to bring joy rather than be a site of control and discipline may help to re-envision the possibilities for transition times to foster moments of connection and engagement in early childhood classrooms.

Author

• Stephanie Yagata, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies