This study aims to examine pedagogical meanings of the Mimamoru approach frequently used by Japanese early childhood educators in children’s physical fights. Mimamoru is a strategy in which educators intentionally withhold an intervention, while carefully observing children, to foster children’s voluntary participation in their own learning, socially and cognitively. In this report, we examine why Japanese educators tend not to intervene, and how they determine whether their intervention is necessary. Using methods from Tobin’s video cued multi-vocal ethnography, we conducted focus groups at 9 early childhood education and care facilities (7 in Japan and 2 in the U.S.) with a total of 34 Japanese and 12 U.S. educators. They watched a short video clip in which a mid-career male teacher, one of the Japanese participants, used the Mimamoru approach with two children involved in a physical fight. Educators, then, discussed their interpretations of the teacher’s responses to children. The analyses of the participants’ discussion suggest that educators’ non-intervention, an important feature of the Mimamoru approach, provides children with opportunities to autonomously learn interpersonal skills, for example, through the experiences of feeling guilty and solving problems by themselves. Yet educators do intervene when they determine that the risk of physical harm caused by fighting is greater than the benefit for children to learn. Implications of the Mimamoru approach, including in other cultural contexts, are discussed.

这项研究旨在检验日本幼儿教育工作者在儿童打架中经常使用的Mimamoru方法的教学意义。御守这是一种策略，在这种策略中，教育工作者有意保留干预措施，同时认真观察儿童，以促进儿童自愿参与社会和认知活动。在这份报告中，我们研究了为什么日本的教育工作者倾向于不进行干预，以及他们如何确定是否需要干预。利用Tobin的视频提示的多民族志民族志方法，我们在9个幼儿教育和护理机构（日本为7个，美国为2个）中进行了焦点小组讨论，共有34名日本人和12名美国教育者参加。他们观看了一段短片，其中一位日本参与者是职业中期的男老师使用了Mimamoru有两个孩子参加肉搏战的方法。然后，教育者讨论了他们对老师对孩子的反应的解释。对参与者讨论的分析表明，教育者的不干预是Mimamoru方法的重要特征，它为孩子提供了自主学习人际交往能力的机会，例如，通过感到内gui和自己解决问题的经验。然而，当教育工作者确定战斗引起的身体伤害的风险大于儿童学习的利益时，他们还是会进行干预。讨论了Mimamoru方法的含义，包括在其他文化环境中的含义。