2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Forms of Explanation in Japan, the United States, and France : Styles of Explanation and Understanding in Elementary Education
| Project/Area Number |
13610266
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
社会学(含社会福祉関係)
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| Research Institution | International Research Center for Japanese Studies |
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Principal Investigator |
WATANABE Masako Ema International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Office of Research Exchange, Associate Professor, 海外研究交流室, 助教授 (20312209)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2003
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| Keywords | Comparative Education / Comparative Culture / Language Arts Education / History Education / Communication Style / Sociology of Education / Sociology of Knowledge / Cognitive Sociology |
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| Research Abstract |
This research examined the styles of explanation in the three countries (Japan, the United States and France) and how these styles were taught in elementary schools. The research was conducted in ten elementary schools in the cities of Nagoya, New York, and Lyon, using picture task experiments and observations of history and language arts lessons.
The experiments revealed that in order to explain the series of same pictures, Japanese students showed a strong tendency to explain events in chronological order, with social and moral comments at the end, while American children tended to state the result first and identify causes in their explanations. In contrast, although French children had a strong tendency to explain events in chronological order, when identifying a cause they first stated an immediate and direct cause (as American children did), but they went on to supply information with chronological explanations or transformed the past events to the future events by adding new inte
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rpretations. In short, French children showed a tendency to situate a cause (or a certain event) in the totality, considering both synchronic and diachronic information.
Those tendencies corresponded to the principal form of writing and talking that had been taught in composition and history lessons. Japanese teachers instructed children to illustrate events in chronological order, using "empathetic" understanding of people and situations, while American teachers emphasized using "analytic and judgmental" skills to select information that is directly related to the result. French teachers, by contrast, encouraged children to gather a variety of information and critically examine different viewpoints, and finally to unify them. The ability to "integrate and synthesize" conflicting viewpoints was appreciated in French classrooms.
The results of research suggest that there is a strong relationship among the style of explanation, the competence that is considered as important in each country, and specific methods of teaching that cultivate those competences. Those three elements contribute to the socialization of children in each country. Less
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Research Products
(12 results)
