ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Japanese first graders' views on well-being in the domain of schooling and school learning. It also examines schooling and learning among Japanese first graders from both middle-class and working-class backgrounds. The chapter aims to understand young students' subjective experiences of schooling and learning, students' views about schooling in relation to their well-being, and any difference in students' experiences of and views about schooling depending on their family backgrounds. The children's voluntary narratives demonstrated that first graders have already developed complex and unique ideas about well-being in the domain of school learning. Children also expressed an existential dimension of well-being such as the value and meaning of their school life and an interpersonal dimension such as social benefits, in addition to a sense of obligation related to school learning. Children may tend to highlight future well-being more than adults because of their unique developmental stages that encourage them to foresee their future.
