A Study on the Common Knowledge of Foreign Kindergartens among Kindergarten Teachers in the Keihanshin Region in the Latter Part of the Meiji Era : By focusing on the knowledge transmitted by the Kindergarten Union Magazines

In the latter part of the Meiji era, Keihanshin (includes Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe) had the largest population of kindergartener and thus the teachers of the kindergartens at the region were very interested in how they treat the kindergarteners. One year after establishing Keihanshin Kindergarten Union, the Union decided to publish its own magazine for the sake of researching practical method and knowledge of the kindergarten, and distributed the first magazine in July 1898. Since the magazines includes a lot of discussions and opinions of kindergarten teachers, those contents were examined and reexamined from the viewpoints of educational system, qualification of teachers, educational methodology, gender issues, and issues in the connection between the kindergarten and the elementary school. Though investigating the knowledge about foreign kindergartens are vital to consider how the teachers in the region shifted their conservative method to new education method in the Taisho era, however, it was never considered thoroughly. After detecting articles in the magazines which mention foreign kindergartens, following characteristics of the information conveyed by the magazines, and how the teachers treated the foreign information are found. Firstly, they thought highly of American way of managing kindergarten than the other countries systems. Secondly they could know the other way of treating infants (e.g. the mother school in France) but didn't adopt because of social and economic restrictions