Child Welfare and Development: A Japanese Case Study

Bamba and Haight provide an in-depth understanding of the everyday experiences and perspectives of maltreated children and their substitute caregivers and teachers in Japan. Their innovative research program combines strategies from developmental psychology, ethnography, and action research. Although child advocates from around the world share certain goals and challenges, there is substantial cultural variation in how child maltreatment is understood, its origins, impact on children and families, as well as societal responses deemed appropriate. The authors step outside of the Western cultural context to illustrate creative ecologically- and developmentally-based strategies for supporting the psychosocial well-being of maltreated children in state care, provide an alternative but complementary model to the prevalent large-scale survey strategies for conducting international research in child welfare, and provide a resource for educators to enhance the international content of human development, education, social work, and child welfare courses.

An in-depth understanding of the everyday experiences and perspectives of maltreated children and their substitute caregivers and teachers in Japan.

Sachiko Bamba received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, School of Social Work. She received her Master of Science in Social Administration from Case Western Reserve University and Master of Sociology from Kwansei Gakuin University. Dr Bamba has published a number of articles on children's socialization in child care institutions in Japanese and English, including in Children and Youth Services Review and Social Work.Wendy L. Haight received her B.A. from Reed College and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where she studied developmental psychology. She was selected as an Associate in the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2010. Haight has authored or co-authored over fifty chapters and journal articles, as well as five previous books including Pretending at Home: Early Development in a Sociocultural Context (1993), The Socialization of African-American Children at Church: A Sociocultural Perspective (2002), Raise Up a Child: Human Development in an African-American Family (2003, 2009), Human Behavior for Social Work Practice: A Developmental-Ecological Perspective (2007) and Children of Methamphetamine-Involved Families: The Case of Rural Illinois (2009).

1. Childrearing at a residential child care institution: watching with long eyes; 2. Japanese contexts and concepts: Jidou Yougo Shisetsu, Ibasho and Mimamori; 3. The research program; 4. A developmental goal for maltreated children: Ibasho creation; 5. Challenges to maltreated children's Ibasho creation; 6. Socialization practices underlying Ibasho creation: Mimamori; 7. Children's lives and experiences of Ibasho and Mimamori; 8. Mr Watanabe's responses to the intervention; 9. Reflections on some challenges of field research; 10. The emerging child welfare context of Jidou Yougo Shisetsu; 11. Conclusion: some lessons for culturally-sensitive child welfare.