About CEDEP
The Center for Early Childhood Development, Education, and Policy Research
Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo
The significance of the quality of early childhood environment and children’s experiences during early years are widely noticed. Brain science research in the last two decades has shown that the type of education and care a person receives during early childhood is of paramount importance to lead a healthy and happy life. However, there were no single national research organizations in Japan focusing specifically on ECEC (early childhood care and education) from infancy to preschool age. Empirical researches on early childhood environment quality and child development in Japanese contexts are urgently needed to generate evidence basis for ECEC policy and practice.
To address this lack, CEDEP was founded in 2015 as the first national academic organization to to establish a new interdisciplinary research field, “Comprehensive research for early childhood education and care (ECEC) practice and policy,” which combines research on early childhood development, ECEC practice and public policies.
CEDEP aims to contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary research field on early development and early childhood education and care (ECEC). The CEDEP is carrying out various research activities to establish a research excellence initiative focused on children who will play a leading role in shaping our future. The projects are as follows:
- Collaboration with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as well as research institutes from countries and regions such as China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia for fostering a global network on ECEC research;
- Longitudinal study on relations between early childhood development and the quality of care and education at home and at ECEC settings; the construction of research database; and the development of ECEC quality assessment tools;
- Development of IoT-based information analysis and transmission system, called “Smart ECEC System.” This project is currently intended to develop new technologies for data collection and analysis on various environmental properties in ECEC settings, lifelog on food intake, children’s physical movement and other factors related to early childhood development;
- Research on practical wisdom of early childhood educators and middle-leaders, and the creation of training programs for their professional development;
- Policy proposals based on economics and public policy research on early childhood education and care, and the development of training programs for ECEC administrators;
- Experimental studies on infants’ sleep and physical movement from the standpoint of developmental neuroscience to reveal the mechanism of early childhood development
UTokyo Future Society InitiativeSDGs｜Projects
The Center for Early Childhood Development, Education, and Policy Research (CEDEP)
The Future Society Initiative SDGs Project lists research projects at the University of Tokyo that contribute to the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals, with the aim of promoting synergies between research activities and ensuring the social impact of value created by these projects. See our project page.
The Center for Early Childhood Development, Education, and Policy Research (CEDEP)
All academic disciplines lead to child education and care
Pamphlet｜CEDEP 2022
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