保育の社会的環境における「境の場所」に関する研究 : 子どものテラス利用に対する保育者の意識

Concerning the social environment in an ECCE context, there is one point of view that suggests that a teacher’s norms and customs affect how he or she teaches students. In such environments, boundary places that connect the main instructional areas to each other function as Asyl in a way that allows children to behave as individuals. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationships and conditions for such functions; this is established by analyzing ECCE teachers’ ideas about children and the time spent in boundary places. As a method, the study began with a group interview of six ECCE teachers at the target nursery. Then, we presented the case of children who use a terrace as a boundary place at this nursery. Then, interview data were analyzed using SCAT to conduct a qualitative data analysis. As a result, the following two conditions about ECCE teachers allowing children to behave as individuals in the boundary place emerged. One condition is that the layout and size of the space must allow for constant observation of all students, even if the teacher is in the classroom and the child is in a boundary place. Another is ECCE teachers’ understanding and empathy for children’s behaviors and the ECCE institution’s policies that promote them. When these conditions are satisfied, boundary places provide a symbiotic relationship between the individual and group or ECCE teachers and children.