Biography

Eiji Tsuchikura is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social  Sciences, Hosei University in Japan. He examines people's activities and lives from a cultural perspective. 

He has worked on three main research projects. The first is fieldwork on movie making to identify the characteristics of the creative process. Thiese studies focused on the role of resources and interactions in clarifying the characteristics of the creative process. The second is action research on "learning by doing" by those who experience childcare activities. These studies focused on the utterances and actions of the caregivers that support the learning of the experiencers. The third is practical studies on the implementation of events called Science Café. These events focused on public dialogue about science. 

These research projects share a common interest in cultural practices, which are achieved through the appropriation or transformation of pre-existing cultural resources. In other words, they focus on people's learning and creation. 

People are invited into existing cultural practices. The learning and development arising from this has been viewed in terms of participation in cultural practices. While the phrase 'learning and development' may suggest that it pertains solely to children, it is applicable to individuals of all ages. For instance, becoming a parent can be seen as participation in a new cultural practice. "Doing parent” means encountering new resources in a cultural environment and learning, appropriating and creating ways of using them. Therefore, different cultural resources will change the way of 'doing parent' and parental identity. 

In this way, he has approached subjects that psychology has viewed as mental processes, as research that focuses on people's activities and lives as cultural practices.


Academic Career

Research Interests

Eiji Tsuchikura is currently working on three main research projects.

The first is field research on places where people feel comfortable. It is important to have a place to feel comfortable in life. Unfortunately, however, this is not easy. Therefore, he tries to find out how such places work. His focus is on what are commonly called community cafe in Japan.

The second is field research that takes a cultural perspective on 'parenting' or child rearing. The study focuses on how parenting relates to cultural resources and others. 

The third is research to clarify the career and family formation processes of childcare workers. In Japan, childcare workers face difficulties in balancing career development and family formation.  This study has been conducting with Professor Yoshinori Wakao and Mieko Ikegaya.　

His interest lies in the enrichment of human relationships and lives. He draws on cultural psychology, sociocultural theory, situated approach, situated learning theory and cultural-historical activity theory to investigate people's everyday lives. His research methods include fieldwork and interviews. 

Academic Societies

Publications

Articles(in Japanese)

Presentations (in English)