Abstract
Adopting a comparative methodology, this study attempts to identify similarities and differences in children’s expectations and concerns for the future between Japan and China. Fourth-grade elementary-school children were invited to describe three future events that they expected and three future events that they were concerned about. Qualitative analysis was conducted on the response contents. Comparison analysis revealed that, to some extent, responses related to both expectations and concerns about the future were very similar. For example, both them listed most events about the principal developmental task such as future occupation, education and family. Besides the topics about themselves, they both mentioned more concerns about societal or global affairs. For the difference, first Chinese children have more active and motivated attitudes towards their futures than Japanese children. Moreover, Chinese children also have much clearer images about what they want to be in the future than the Japanese children. The study argues that differences in the traditional cultures and the current social environments between two countries may contribute to these results.
Author Information
Jingjing Chen, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Tsutomu Nagasaki, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Ichiko Shouji, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Yuji Moro, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Paper Information
Conference: ACCS2014
Stream: Cultural Studies
This paper is part of the ACCS2014 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Chen J., Nagasaki T., Shouji I., & Moro Y. (2014) Future Perspectives within Japanese and Chinese Children: A Comparative Study about Children’s Expectations and Concerns for the Future ISSN: 2187-4751 – The Asian Conference on Cultural Studies 2014 – Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/2187-4751.20140065
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/2187-4751.20140065
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