Japanese Concepts of Child Development from the Mid-17th to Mid-19th Century

Abstract

This paper summarizes beliefs and values about child-rearing and education in Japan at a time when direct Western influence was minimal. The chief materials for the analysis are documents written by experts of those times for the general public. Japanese writers argued that children are innately good rather than evil; environmental factors rather than innate ones account for differences among children; and children are autonomous learning beings rather than passive to experience. Goals were related either to maintenance of harmonious human relationships or to faithful performance of one's assigned task. The basic method of training was to observe children's maturation and assign age-appropriate tasks to them. Young infants were conceived as competent beings in the sensory and perceptual domain, but they were also thought to be unstable and fragile. Observational learning and internal regulation of behavior by older children were emphasized. Up to the age of seven, adults did not deal with boys and girls differently; both sexes were treated permissively, even indulgently.