Hokkaido University Faculty of Education/Graduate School
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Staff Profile

 KAWATA Manabu

E-mail

kawata*edu.hokudai.ac.jp
Please replace * to @.

Seminar

Early Child Development and
Educational Practice

Undergraduate School Affiliation

Psychology of Education

Graduate School Affiliation

Educational Psychology

Message

I love to pursue the development, mechanisms and functions of things. Developmental psychology is a comprehensive study. Babies and children should be viewed from two different perspectives: one as having connections with roadside dandelions and earthworms as well as dogs and monkeys, and the other as being inseparably related to certain time periods or contexts. We have a lot to learn and must work with other researchers to prevent us from becoming entrenched in our own views. Why not joint me in considering the development of humans?

Areas of Expertise

Developmental psychology, early childhood care and education

Research Subjects

– Developmental relationship between self-consciousness and awareness of others in infancy and early childhood
– Relationship between human development and educational systems in day care centers/kindergartens
– Coupling of children in infancy/early childhood and those in other age periods (e.g., puberty) during development
– Childcare/child rearing environments
– History of thought on human development

Research Keywords

Infants and young children, the self, others, social cognition, emotion, imitation, early childhood care and education, environment, coupling of children in different age periods during development

Research Overview

My research interests are focused on elucidating developmental processes for the dual nature of the self – a mental makeup with seemingly contradictory aspects of self-consciousness and cooperativeness with others. I believe the most distinctive feature of humans is the self-formation process during which they experience becoming “the imagined other.” I think this basic makeup is established within two or three years of birth. I also believe the formation of self-consciousness is a developmental aspect that enables education as a human agency.
Previously, I was also engaged in research on the development of children with disabilities (e.g., autism) based on observations and experiments from their neonatal to early childhood periods. More recently, I have shifted the main focus of my research to more complex, practical areas – those for group childcare (e.g., kindergartens and day care centers), child-rearing support and multi-generational exchanges. In such areas, I am studying theoretical frameworks for comprehensive understanding of (1) physical/spatial, temporal and communicative environments and (2) development of children and adults who grow, play and live in such environments.

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