Why Don\u2019t Japanese Early Childhood Educators Intervene in Children\u2019s Physical Fights? Some Characteristics of the Mimamoru Approach

Abstract

This study aims to examine pedagogical meanings of the Mimamoru approach frequently used by Japanese early childhood educators in children’s physical fights. Mimamoru is a strategy in which educators intentionally withhold an intervention, while carefully observing children, to foster children’s voluntary participation in their own learning, socially and cognitively. In this report, we examine why Japanese educators tend not to intervene, and how they determine whether their intervention is necessary. Using methods from Tobin’s video cued multi-vocal ethnography, we conducted focus groups at 9 early childhood education and care facilities (7 in Japan and 2 in the U.S.) with a total of 34 Japanese and 12 U.S. educators. They watched a short video clip in which a mid-career male teacher, one of the Japanese participants, used the Mimamoru approach with two children involved in a physical fight. Educators, then, discussed their interpretations of the teacher’s responses to children. The analyses of the participants’ discussion suggest that educators’ non-intervention, an important feature of the Mimamoru approach, provides children with opportunities to autonomously learn interpersonal skills, for example, through the experiences of feeling guilty and solving problems by themselves. Yet educators do intervene when they determine that the risk of physical harm caused by fighting is greater than the benefit for children to learn. Implications of the Mimamoru approach, including in other cultural contexts, are discussed.