Minorities and Education in Multicultural Japan: An Interactive Perspective

Minorities and Education in Multicultural Japan

This volume examines how Japan’s increasingly multicultural population has impacted on the lives of minority children and their peers at school, and how schools are responding to this trend in terms of providing minority children with opportunities and preparing them for the adult society. The contributors focus on interactions between individuals and among groups representing diverse cultural backgrounds, and explore how such interactions are changing the landscape of education in increasingly multicultural Japan. Drawing on detailed micro-level studies of schooling, the chapters reveal the ways in which these individuals and groups (long-existing minority groups, newcomers, and the ‘mainstream Japanese’) interact, and the significant consequences of such interactions on learning at school and the system of education as a whole. While the educational achievement of children of varying minority groups continues to reflect their places in the social hierarchy, the boundaries of individual and group categories are negotiated by mutual interactions and remain fluid and situational. Minorities and Education in Multicultural Japan provides important insights into bottom-up policy-making processes and consciously brings together English and Japanese scholarship. As such, it will be an important resource for those interested in education and minority issues in Japan. Ryoko Tsuneyoshi is a Professor of comparative education at the Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo. Kaori H. Okano is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Australia. Sarane Spence Boocock is an Emeritus Professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University.

Minorities and Education in Multicultural Japan An interactive perspective

Edited by Ryoko Tsuneyoshi, Kaori H. Okano and Sarane Boocock

First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 editorial selection and matter, Ryoko Tsuneyoshi, Kaori H. Okano and Sarane Boocock. Individual chapters, the contributor. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Minorities and multiculturalism in Japanese education: an interactive perspective edited by Ryoko Tsuneyoshi, Kaori H. Okano and Sarane Boocock. p. cm. 1. Children of minorities – Education – Japan. 2. Multicultural education – Japan. 3. Multiculturalism – Japan. I. Tsuneyoshi, Ryoko Kato. II. Okano, Kaori H. III. Boocock, Sarane Spence. LC3737.J3M56 2010 371.82900952 – dc22 2009051975

ISBN 0-203-84919-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN: 978–0–415–55938–6 (hbk) ISBN: 978–0–203–84919–4 (ebk)

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on contributors 1

Introduction: an interactive perspective for understanding minorities and education in Japan

vii ix xi

1

KAORI H. OKANO AND RYOKO TSUNEYOSHI

PART I

Long-existing minorities 2

Long-existing minorities and education

27 29

KAORI H. OKANO

3

The schooling of buraku children: overcoming the legacy of stereotyping and discrimination

44

SARANE SPENCE BOOCOCK

4

Schooling and identity in Okinawa: Okinawans and Amerasians in Okinawa

77

NAOMI NOIRI

5

Ethnic Koreans in Japanese schools: shifting boundaries and collaboration with other groups

100

KAORI H. OKANO

PART II

‘Newcomer’ groups 6

The “newcomers” and Japanese society RYOKO TSUNEYOSHI

127 129

vi 7

Contents The ‘new’ foreigners and the social reconstruction of difference: the cultural diversification of Japanese education

149

RYOKO TSUNEYOSHI

8

Schools, communities, and ‘newcomer’ children: a case study of a public housing complex

173

MUTSUMI SHIMIZU

9

(Mis)managing diversity in non-metropolitan public schools: the lack of state-sponsored support for ‘newcomer’ children

191

CHRIS BURGESS

10

The kikokushijo: negotiating boundaries within and without

213

MISAKO NUKAGA AND RYOKO TSUNEYOSHI

11

Concluding remarks: implications for educational research and reform

242

SARANE SPENCE BOOCOCK

Appendix 1 Article 26 of the Constitution of Japan

259

Appendix 2 The Primary School Course of Study Guide 2008 (Shōgakkō Gakushū Shidōyōryō Kaisetsu, Sōsokuhen)

260

Appendix 3 Guide for foreign students to start school (Procedures for entering Japanese schools)

261

Index

263

Illustrations

Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 6.1 6.2 8.1

8.2 10.1 10.2 10.3 A3.1

Map of Japan and Taiwan, with cities discussed in this book Registered foreigners by nationality, 1989–2008 The number of foreign national students at school, 1991–2006 Number of pupils/students by mother tongue, 1999–2008 Number of children who require instruction in Japanese per school, 1999–2008 The number of participants in the ‘International elective’ subject by ethnic background, Shimofukuda Junior High School, 2000–05 Stand-By-Me newsletter, March 2008 Changes in the number of Japanese school-age children abroad, 1971–2008 Japanese school-age children abroad by place of residence and type of school attended, 2008 Returnees at Hayama Elementary by place of residence abroad, 2000 Guide for foreign students to start school (procedures for entering Japanese schools)

7 9 10 137 137

179 184 214 221 225 261

Tables 1.1 2.1 2.2 3.1 7.1 7.2

The estimated populations of the groups studied in the book Ainu children’s retention rate to upper secondary schools compared with their non-Ainu cohort, 1972–2006 Ainu children’s retention rate to universities compared with their non-Ainu cohort, 1979–2006 Preschools and elementary schools observed, 1995–96 The number of returnees (kaigai kikoku jidō seito) by ward, Kawasaki City, 2001 The number of foreign children by ward, Kawasaki City, 2002

6 34 34 55 159 159

viii Illustrations 7.3 8.1 9.1 9.2

The number of foreign children who require instruction in Japanese language by ward, Kawasaki City, 2002 The ‘International elective’ curriculum, Shimofukuda Junior High School, 2001 Registered foreigners in Japan and Yamagata by number, 1996–2006 Foreign students who need Japanese instruction, showing mother tongue and school level, Yamagata Prefecture, 2007

160 180 197 198

Acknowledgements

The idea of this volume arose when we organised a panel at the Association of Asian Studies annual meeting in Chicago in 2001, entitled, ‘Diversity and the experience of minorities and foreigners in Japanese schools: Toward a multicultural framework’. Gerald LeTendre chaired the panel, and Hidetaka Shimizu was our discussant. Since then we have moved far from our initial interpretation of education in multicultural Japan, as we have continued to research in our specific areas and to discuss our emerging interpretations. Initially, we had identified specific minority groups, laying out their characteristics, and analysed multicultural Japan in terms of the sum of these groups and ‘the Japanese’, as was customary in previous research. We have since moved towards a ‘multicultural interactive framework’. We have also welcomed into our discussion additional contributors who have extensive fieldwork experience in diverse settings. We would like to thank the many educators, administrators and students, from both minority and majority backgrounds, who have responded to each of the chapters. We also extend our appreciation to the following funding sources: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 21530873; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Ministry of Education (Tsuneyoshi); the Japan Foundation Fellowship (which enabled Okano to research at Kobe University for a year) and research grants from La Trobe University (Okano); and the Rutgers Graduate School of Education (Boocock). Last but not least, we would like to thank our editor at Routledge, Stephanie Rogers, and Mark Selden for their assistance in bringing this book to fruition. Ryoko Tsuneyoshi (in Tokyo, Japan) Kaori H. Okano (in Melbourne, Australia) Sarane Boocock (in New Brunswick, USA)

Notes on contributors

Sarane Spence Boocock is an Emeritus Professor of sociology in the Graduate School of Education and the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University. Previously, she was a research scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, taught at Yale University, University of Southern California, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Japan. Her recent research and publications focus on the sociological study of children and childhood, changing patterns of family life, and cross-national comparisons of early childhood care and education. Chris Burgess completed his Ph.D. at Monash University, Melbourne, in March 2004. His thesis, entitled ‘(Re)constructing identities: international marriage migrants as potential agents of social change in a rapidly globalising Japan’, looked at how seventeen women of foreign origin grappled with and made sense of their identities after migrating to Yamagata, northeast Japan. He is currently Associate Professor at Tsuda College, Tokyo, where he teaches Japanese and Australian studies. His research focuses on migration, globalisation and multiculturalism in contemporary Japan. Naomi Noiri is an Associate Professor in the faculty of Law and Letters, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan. She researches education for minority students in Japan, Amerasians in Okinawa, and life history interviews in ethnic studies. Her major publications include: ‘Two worlds: the Amerasian and Okinawan’ in Social Process in Hawaii: Uchinanchu Diaspora. Vol.42 (2007), University of Hawaii. Misako Nukaga is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Education, Wako University, Tokyo, Japan. Her research interests include multicultural education policy and practices, childcare in migrant families, and children’s identity formation in multicultural social spaces. She has published articles in the International Journal of Japanese Sociology and Journal of Contemporary Ethnography based on her fieldwork at multi-ethnic schools in Japan and America. She recently completed her dissertation in sociology at UCLA on transnational practices among Japanese families in Los Angeles.

xii

Contributors

Kaori H. Okano, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor/ Reader in the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She researches education and social inequality, multiculturalism, transitions to adulthood, and the impact of globlisation on education. Her major publications include: Young women in Japan: transitions to adulthood (Routledge, 2009), Language and schools in Asia (2006), Pendidikan modern Jepun: Ketaksmaan dan Kepelbagaian (ITNMB, 2004), Education in contemporary Japan (with M.Tsuchiya, Cambridge University Press, 1999) and School to work transition in Japan (Multilingual Matters, 1993). Mutsumi Shimizu is an Associate Professor in the teacher-training course, Tokyo University of Science, Chiba, Japan. She researches the process of adaptation of ‘newcomer’ children in Japan. Her major publications include: Nyūkamā no Kodomotachi (2006), Gaikokujin Seito no tame no Karikyuramu (with Kojima, 2006) and Icho Danchi hatsu! Gaikokujin no kodomotachi no chosen (with Stand-By-Me, 2009). Ryoko Tsuneyoshi is a Professor of comparative education at the Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University. Her research includes cross-national comparisons of schooling, multicultural education, educational reform and fieldwork in educational settings. Major publications include: The Japanese model of schooling: comparisons with the United States (RoutledgeFalmer, 2001), Kodomotachi no mitsu no ‘kiki’ (The three ‘crisis’ of children, Keiso Shobo, 2008) and ‘Kyoiku hokai’ saisei e no puroguramu (Combatting educational failure, Tokyo Shoseki, 1999).

1

Introduction An interactive perspective for understanding minorities and education in Japan Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi

Culturally diverse groups are part of the landscape of all contemporary nationstates. We are now well aware that Japan has been a multi-ethnic and multicultural entity since pre-modern times, as studies have challenged the popular image of homogeneity and advanced what might be called a ‘multicultural Japan’ thesis (see, for example, Lie 2001). In the last two decades in particular, Japanese society has become increasingly diverse, with the arrival of guest workers and various types of foreigner. The aim of this book is to examine the ways in which the rapid diversification of Japanese society has affected the lives of minority children and their peers at school. In the face of this diversification, how are schools providing children with opportunities and preparing them for the adult world?

Beyond the ‘multicultural Japan’ thesis The image of Japan as culturally homogeneous (tanitsu bunka) has been promoted in a wide range of publications and media coverage. It is reflected in Ruth Benedict’s popular book, The chrysanthemum and the sword (1946), in other international bestsellers about Japanese society (Nakane 1970; Vogel 1979), and in statements by Japanese politicians. Scholarship in recent decades has been busy shattering the myth of Japanese homogeneity. A notable example can be seen in the crusade targeting the so-called nihonjinron – a controversial genre depicting what constitutes ‘Japaneseness’. The nihonjinron literature has been attacked by its critics for its alleged assumptions that Japanese society is homogeneous and unique (Mouer and Sugimoto 1986; Befu 2001; Sugimoto 2009). Today, we might even venture to say that the opposite is in vogue, that is, that Japan is a multicultural society, and such assertions find many supporters inside Japan. Challenging the image of Japanese homogeneity, English-language books on multicultural Japan have tended to focus on certain minority groups or on describing Japanese society as consisting of certain relatively independent minority/foreigner groups. Early works of the former category include pioneering work on the buraku people (De Vos and Wagatsuma 1967; Shimahara 1971, 1984) and Koreans (Mitchell 1967; Lee and De Vos 1981). Since the 1980s, studies have enabled us to further understand specific groups, both in an individual sense

2 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi (see, for example, Shimahara 1971; Siddle 1996; Hicks 1997; Ryang 1997; Weiner and Hanami 1998; Fukuoka 2000; Roth 2002; De Carvalho 2003; Douglas and Roberts 2003; Goodman et al. 2003; Hein and Selden 2003) and collectively (including Mouer and Sugimoto 1986; Maher and Macdonald 1995; Maher and Yashiro 1995; Denoon et al. 1996; Lie 2000; Noguchi and Fotos 2001; Douglas and Roberts 2003; Weiner 2008; Wills and Murphy-Shigematsu 2008). Some works have focused specifically on education (Rohlen 1981; Hawkins 1983; Chapter 4 of Okano and Tsuchiya 1999). Inside Japan, too, while the post-war myth of homogeneity remains influential in popular and official thinking, many scholars and educators no longer find the ‘multicultural Japan’ thesis novel. There are now a fair number of books about multicultural education (tabunka kyōiku) or multicultural coexistence (tabunka kyōsei) (Kobayashi and Ebuchi 1985; Okuda and Tajima 1991, 1993; Watanabe 1995; Hirota 1996; Tanaka 1996; Nakajima 1998; Oguma 1998; Ehara 2000; Ebuchi 2001; Shimizu and Shimizu 2001; Shimizu 2006). There are also studies introducing multicultural education, multilingual education, intercultural education, and multiculturalism/multilingualism in other places, such as the United States (Hirasawa 1994; Tanaka 1996), Canada, Australia (Sekiguchi 1988; Nishikawa et al. 1997), Europe and elsewhere (Sakuma 1993; Hatsuse 1996; Amano 1997). Multicultural education is also discussed in relation to international students (Kurachi 1998) and to wider issues of the internationalization of Japanese society (Tsuneyoshi 1998, 2002). From our analysis of the existing literature on minorities and education in Japan, however, we take two observations as our point of departure. First, there is the tendency to discuss each minority group as a separate entity, placed individually or collectively in dichotomy to the ‘majority Japanese’. This contrast is based on characteristics such as nationality, ‘ethnic background’, ‘caste’, ‘race’, or any combination of them. We suggest that such a dichotomy is increasingly inadequate for understanding the present realities of Japanese society and education. There are now greater internal variations within and between minority/foreigner groups, and the boundaries are contested, as we shall show later in this chapter. This brings us to the second point. The existing literature does not pay sufficient attention to interactions among individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds and inter-group multicultural interactions. Such interactions, latent and manifest, influence how people identified as members of a certain group are treated, as well as the strategies adopted by those individuals who are so categorized. In a period of increasing diversification, boundaries of difference are being constructed and reconstructed through interaction. As Japan’s multicultural landscape becomes more complex as a result of recent immigration, there is growing need to focus on the interactive processes of the changing landscape (Lie 2000; Chan-Tiberghien 2004; Graburn et al. 2008; Willis and Murphy-Shigematsu 2008). One consequence of rapid change is that we often find it difficult to identify minority individuals and groups in terms of the categories already available in the public discourse. Some local governments have responded by creating new terms, such as ‘children with foreign roots’ (to refer to Japanese nationals of

Understanding minorities and education

3

foreign descent, newcomers/old-timers who have taken up Japanese citizenship, foreign nationals). Others choose to redefine the existing terminology and categorization. For example, the term ‘zainichi Korean’ is a legal category that denotes Korean nationals residing in Japan as a result of Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula, and was initially used as such. However, in the last two decades, many of them have acquired Japanese nationality, either through naturalization or as a result of mixed parentage. In spite of giving up Korean nationality, many still use the term as an identity category, rather than as a legal term. In view of this, many scholars in Japan and elsewhere follow the inclusive use of the term zainichi Korean.1 Advancing beyond the ‘multicultural Japan’ thesis, we focus on interactions between individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds and among multiple groups. With this emphasis on interactions both visible and latent, we try to de-emphasize a dichotomous framework of minorities versus the ‘majority Japanese’ (for example, a dichotomy between Koreans and Japanese and between burakumin and nonburakumin) and examine how such interactions are shaping the emerging landscape of multicultural Japan. We pose three questions at the outset: 1

2 3

How and why do individuals and groups representing diverse cultural backgrounds interact with one another in a rapidly diversifying Japanese society? To what extent has the diversification of Japanese society changed the lives of minority and majority peoples, and the relations among them? How well does the Japanese education system prepare all children to benefit from, and contribute to, Japanese society?

We uncover an interface among individuals of minority/foreign backgrounds in order to explore how such direct and indirect interrelations have shaped the context in which these groups exist. Before explaining what we mean by multicultural interactions, we clarify some of the main points that this book addresses.

Minorities, culture and education The minorities/foreigners that this book concerns are popularly defined with reference to the ‘majority Japanese’ (an elusive construct, which we discuss below). The popular understanding assumes that minorities and foreigners possess a ‘culture’ rooted in certain characteristics different from the ‘majority Japanese’, and they are considered to be marginalized because of the differences, although the nature of the marginalization and other accompanying features varies greatly (according to, for example, nationality, ethnicity, socio-economic background, physical characteristics). ‘Culture’ does not constitute some essential and primordial disposition, but rather shared ways of interpreting the world that are constantly created and modified in response to changing circumstances.

4

Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi

The boundaries of groups with distinctive cultures are created and redrawn – by the groups themselves in search of what they see as potential benefits, and/or by others (including by governments and (non-governmental organizations (NGOs)) – in changing circumstances. The term ‘newcomers’ emerged to refer to a wide range of peoples who began to arrive in the 1980s, in order to distinguish them from other, long-existing minority groups. A previously more uniform minority group, ‘ethnic Koreans’, now contains important boundaries within it, in terms of Japanese citizenship and whether or not they are ‘newcomers’. Japanese returnee children who have spent several years abroad may be a transient ‘cultural’ group, because, despite facing initial alienation and marginalization owing to their unfamiliarity with Japanese society, many of them settle into mainstream society within several years, assisted by well-resourced parents. The ‘majority Japanese’, against whom minorities/foreigners are often juxtaposed and defined, is an arbitrary and elusive concept. This becomes obvious when we learn that degrees of ‘Japaneseness’ can be measured by various factors, none of which hold up under scrutiny (see Sugimoto 2003). For example, Japanese returnees are likely to be considered closer to the majority Japanese than monolingual, Japanese-speaking, Japan-born, fourth-generation non-citizens of Korean descent; and the latter tend to be considered closer to the majority Japanese than newly arrived, Portuguese-speaking South Americans of Japanese descent or mixed parentage. Many would disagree with this view, and there would be even less consensus on how indigenous peoples such as Ainu are considered in their proximity to the ‘majority Japanese’. We can perhaps visualize the gradations of ‘majority Japanese’ on a continuum, with one end signifying those who would be popularly considered ‘the majority’: able, heterosexual persons born to middleclass parents who are Japanese nationals of ‘Japanese descent’ in mainland Japan. That said, and fully aware of the limitations, we use the term ‘majority Japanese’ as popularly, if vaguely, understood. For this reason, we maintain quotation marks throughout the volume. Used without quotation marks in this book, the Japanese refers to Japanese nationals. The minorities that this volume studies all possess (or claim and are regarded to possess) certain ‘cultures’ or characteristics, and are marginalized from the mainstream society, although the extent and duration of the marginalizations vary. They include: indigenous peoples such as the Ainu, Okinawans,2 descendants of Koreans and Chinese who arrived in Japan during colonial times, buraku people (descendants of former outcast groups), Amerasians (children of American soldiers and local women), South East Asian refugees, immigrants and guest workers who arrived from many Asian countries since the 1980s, so-called returnees from China (women and orphans of Japanese families who left north-eastern China at the end of the war and their descendants), so-called Japanese returnees (children of Japanese families who have returned from a long-term stay overseas) and South Americans of Japanese descent. Those from Europe and North America are not discussed in this book. This is because their children commonly attend international schools rather than mainstream schooling, which is the focus of this study.

Understanding minorities and education

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These distinctive cultures are popularly considered to derive from race, ethnicity and caste, in combination with socio-economic status. In keeping with current usage, we make the following distinctions on the basis of race, ethnicity, caste and socio-economic status, though it should be noted that these terms have been variously defined and that the boundaries between them are ‘not nearly as sharp and fixed as many people assume’ (McLemore 1994: 11). Race refers more or less to ‘a person’s or a group’s physical heritage, of which skin color, facial features and other characteristics of physical appearance are major indicators’, though which characteristics are noticed and how they are interpreted depends on the context; ethnicity refers mainly to a person’s or a group’s sociocultural heritage, based on such characteristics as common or shared national origin, language, religion, dietary preferences, dress and manners, and other traits that denote a common ancestry; caste refers to membership of a politically created group that does not necessarily have a distinctive physical or sociocultural heritage; outcast groups are defined by dominant members in the society as inferior, even sub-human, and are likely to be ostracized through enforced residential, occupational and social segregation; socio-economic status refers to a person’s or a group’s location in the social hierarchy, generally based on income, amount and type of education, and occupational level and prestige (Boocock and Scott 2005: 148–9, 163–4). As in the discussion about culture, we learn from the constructivist discussions that these categories are fluid, changeable and multilayered (Hall 1996; Jenkins 1997; Barth 1998 (1969); Brubaker and Cooper 2006; Nukaga 2008). The process of boundary-making is inevitably intertwined with social categorization, interpersonal and inter-group interactions, and power. We do not, however, dispense with the terms ethnicity, race, caste and identity altogether. This is because they are useful for understanding the diverse experiences of schooling by minority children, which are strongly affected by structural factors. The educational experiences and outcomes of children of various minority groups have been influenced by, and reflect, their places in a social hierarchy in which resources are unequally distributed (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999; Warikoo and Carter 2009). Keeping these studies of differential educational outcomes in mind, we look at how boundaries are obscured through interactions between individuals of varying backgrounds, and how diversity is created and evolves. Several chapters (Chapters 7, 8 and 10) focus squarely on the social context rather than on any specific group, because the actors from different groups intersect in complex ways. The groups studied in this book and their estimated sizes are provided in Table 1.1. The relevant locations of these groups are shown on the map (Figure 1.1). The data and their complexity are discussed in detail in the chapters that follow. Some of these groups include both Japanese and non-Japanese nationals. While government statistics of non-Japanese nationals comprising these groups are reasonably accurate, those for group members having Japanese nationality are not. This is because the Japanese government does not document information on the descent (heritage) of its citizens. Once a Korean, Chinese or Brazilian national takes up Japanese citizenship by naturalization or

Exact number unknown (3.93–5.70 million or moreo)

Exact number unknown (12,000 returned in 2008m) 2,152,973p

952,595 (including 316,967 Brazilians and 202,592 Filipinos)

593,489 (2007)

606, 889 (2007)

Non-Japanese citizens living in Japana

Notes: a Japan-Hōmushō-Nyūkoku-Kanrikyoku, Japan (2008). b Hokkaidō-chō. (2006) Ainu seikatsu jittai chōsa. Available online at: www.pref.hokkaido.lg.jp/ks/sum/somuka/ainu/jittai.htm (accessed 1 June 2008). c Sjoberg (1993: 152) d Okinawa-ken (2008). e Taira (1997: 142) estimates Okinawans in other parts of Japan to be 300,000. f Chapter 4 in this volume. g Takagi (1991: 281). McLauchlan (2003: 24–30) explains the uncertainty in various statistics regarding buraku people. The government estimates their population to be 1.5 million while the Buraku Liberation League claims 3 million. h Duan, Yaozhong (2005:132). The figure estimated by the Chinese language newspaper with the highest circulation in Japan, Chūbun Dōhō (6 September 2007) is the minimum 100,000. Qiu (2010) estimates, based on Hōmushō statistics, that 73,084 Chinese nationals took up Japanese citizenship in 1989–2008. i Qiu’s (2010) estimation is based on Kōseirōdōshō jinkōdōtai tōkei figures. Also see Qiu (2005). j The figure of 1.2 million is provided by Zenkoku Zainichi Chōsenjin Kyōiku Kenkyūkai, Kyoto (1993: 7). k The estimation by Zainihon Chōsenjin Jinken Kyōkai (2009:72–4), based on Hōmushō data and Kōseirōdōshō jinkkōdōtai tōkei (1 May 2009). Mindan’s figure for the same period is 296,168 naturalized (Mindan, 2010). l Ibid. m MEXT (2010). CLARINET e yōkoso. Available online at www.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/clarinet/220/00/htm. (accessed 10 May 2010). This is the MEXT figure for school-age children who returned during the 2008 school year from abroad, but the total kikokushijo population depends on its definition (see Chapter 10). n Based on the figures in this table, the total number of minority group members would be 5.78 million (minimum) to 7.85 million or more (maximum). Sugimoto (2010: 7, 191–5) suggests the figure to be 6 to 7 million as a conservative estimate, while emphasizing that the number would expand or contract depending upon whether minority groups are defined inclusively or exclusively. Lie (2001: 4) estimates the figure to be 4–5 million. o These minimum and maximum figures are based on the addition, respectively, of all the lowest and highest numbers in the column, Japanese citizens. p The number does not include unregistered foreign nationals.

Totals

n

Children of mixed descent where one parent is a Japanese citizen Japanese returnees

Registered foreigners – excluding Chinese and Koreans Naturalized Japanese citizens

Ethnic Koreansj

Amerasians in Okinawa People of buraku descent Ethnic Chinese

Exact number unknown (133,684 in 1952–2008, excluding ethnic Chinese and Koreansl) Exact number unknown

Exact number unknown (24,000 self-categorized in Hokkaidob; 300,000 in Japanc) Exact number unknown (1.37 million in Okinawa-prefectured; 300,000 in other parts of Japane) Exact number unknownf Exact number unknown (estimated 1.5–3 million)g Exact number unknown (88,123 naturalized 1972–2003h; 55,708 children of Chinese-Japanese marriages 1986–2005i) Exact number unknown (320,232 naturalized 1952–2008; 263,996 Korean-Japanese marriages 1955–2007; 133,253 children of Korean-Japanese marriages 1985–2007k)

Ainu (indigenous)

Okinawan

Japanese citizens

Minority groups

Table 1.1 The estimated populations of the groups studied in the book

Understanding minorities and education

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Figure 1.1 Map of Japan and Taiwan, with cities discussed in this book

marriage, he or she disappears into the category of ‘Japanese’, with no further reference to ethnic heritage. Children of mixed descent who have one parent who is a Japanese national gain Japanese citizenship at birth, but their numbers are not documented either. The children with dual nationalities have to make a choice at the age of twenty-one (as the Japanese government does not allow dual nationalities).

The actors in this book What we call long-existing minorities (as distinct from newcomers) in this book include Ainu, Okinawans, buraku people, and ethnic Koreans and Chinese whose ancestors arrived before the end of the Second World War. These groups were mainly created by the deliberate policies of the state (e.g. the caste system,

8 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi colonization and forced labour) and have been structurally marginalized in Japanese society. Although granted Japanese nationality, they held an inferior status to the mainstream Japanese, which restricted their entitlements. An exception is the ‘overseas Chinese’, who arrived to set up their own businesses. These days, the members of these groups are outwardly indistinguishable from the ‘majority Japanese’ in terms of physical appearance, language use and social interaction. All groups were subject to a pre-war schooling system that imposed assimilation. This led many to abandon their own language and to internalize the dominant Japanese view that they are inferior (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999: 110–40). Postwar ‘democratic’ schooling did not recognize the special needs of these groups, except to provide extra resources to buraku people and the Ainu so that they could catch up with the majority Japanese (See Chapter 2). Below, we briefly explain the various categories of minorities that this book examines, as detailed discussion follows in the overview chapters (Chapters 2 and 6). The first identifiable populations are the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido (the Ainu or Moshir), and the Okinawans. They were annexed in the late nineteenth century (Murphy-Shigematsu 2002) and now reside in their regions of origin and as a diaspora in metropolitan cities. The post-war US occupation of Okinawa until 1972 and the continuing existence of US bases since Okinawa’s return to Japan created another minority – the children of US servicemen and local women, popularly called Amerasians (see Chapter 4), who have counterparts around the world. Also discussed are those who are commonly called the ‘oldcomer’ ethnic Koreans and Chinese. They are the descendants of former colonial subjects who were brought or came voluntarily to Japan, some in pursuit of further education and employment, others as forced labour, during Japan’s colonial occupation of those territories. An interactive perspective, however, leads us to emphasize the diversity that is contained within a single category of ethnicity, as well as the variations in interaction patterns that surround it. The so-called ethnic ‘newcomer’ Koreans or Chinese who came to Japan for economic reasons in recent years as guest labourers, as well as those who married Japanese, are indicative of the diversification of ethnic categories that is occurring in Japan. With the increase in citizenship in recent years, there are said to be almost as many Japanese nationals of Korean (or mixed Korean) descent as Korean residents. The identification of nationality with ethnicity, a long-held assumption in post-war Japan, is therefore contested. Internal differences among those of Korean descent are also observed in terms of generation, affiliation with North and South Korean organizations, regions of residence and social class. As the official categorization continues to be based on nationality (not ethnicity), the number of Korean nationals has declined in recent years. The percentage of registered foreigners who are Korean nationals declined from 50 per cent in 1994 to less than 28 per cent in 2007 (see Figure 1.2), but the number of Japanese nationals of Korean descent increased in the same period. Another major category is the buraku people, descended from the outcasts of the feudal system. The institutional caste system was abandoned in the late

Understanding minorities and education

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Figure 1.2 Registered foreigners by nationality, 1989–2008 Source: Immigration Bureau of Japan, Ministry of Justice, Japan (2009) Heisei 20-nenmatsu genzai ni okeru gaikokujin tourokusha tōkei ni tsuite. Online. Available: www.moj.go.jp/PRESS/090710-1/ 090710-1.html (accessed 10 September 2009).

nineteenth century, but prejudice and marginalization persist in employment and marriage. Civil rights movements initiated by buraku organizations have resulted in improvements in terms of living conditions and educational achievements of their young. Buraku activism has served as one prototype of human rights-oriented reform, as has the Korean movement in Japan (see Chapter 3). In addition to these long-existing minorities, we also discuss the new inflows that have diversified Japanese society since the 1980s. With the expansion of Japanese companies abroad, increasing numbers of Japanese families worked abroad and eventually returned with their school-age children, who became the kikokushijo (Japanese returnees). They are discussed in Chapter 10, alongside the ‘new’ foreigners. Returnees from China (war-displaced Japanese and their families from China) and Indo-Chinese refugees have formed small but identifiable groups in certain localities, which have often become increasingly multicultural with the emergence of new entrants. Japan’s economic boom also brought inflows of foreign labour from Asia and South America. A turning point for one group of foreign labourers was the implementation of the revised 1990 immigration law, which opened the door for descendants of Japanese migrants to South America to work in Japan legally as unskilled labour. South Americans make up the fastest growing group of ‘newcomers’. The South American Nikkeijin are the descendents of Japanese who left for South America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, backed by a government policy to alleviate Japan’s overpopulation at the time. The revision of the immigration law, allowing these South Americans to work legally as unskilled labour, created an exception to the general rule that the Japanese

10 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi government does not officially accept unskilled migrant workers. Japanese language classrooms have been erected for the Nikkeijin, but low achievement, dropping out and other educational problems are fast becoming marked in the Nikkei community (see Chapter 6). The major characteristic of ‘new’ foreigners is that they have come mostly as voluntary labour or immigrants, rather than populations recruited through direct colonization – though there are plenty of cases of exploitation, by brokers and employers. They are also more likely to come and go than the long-existing minorities. Some ‘newcomers’ remain in Japan permanently, including the Indo-Chinese refugees; others originally intended to return to their home countries with substantial savings after a few years working in Japan, but have ended up being long-term residents. Many are new to the country and do not speak Japanese. Thus, the service provided by schools to this population tends to focus on language assistance and adaptation to Japan. Again, the figures broken down by nationality obscure the diversity within a single nationality category. Figure 1.3 shows the number of foreigners in government schools; this number includes Japan-born ‘oldcomers.’ This brief illustration of minority diversity presents a picture of uncertain, complex and shifting categories. These categories and boundaries are constructed and negotiated by different agents, from authoritative institutions such as the national government at one end to the minorities (the categorized) and laypersons at the other, leaving local governments and NGOs somewhere in between, each with different degrees of power with which to impose their own categorizations on public discourse.

Figure 1.3 The number of foreign national students at school, 1991–2006 Note: Data were as of 1 May in each year. Bold and italicized numbers indicate the total numbers of students in each year. Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (2009) Kōritsugakkōni shūgaku suru gaikokujin jidōseito no suii. Online. Available: www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chousa/ shotou/042/houkoku/08070301/009/002.htm (accessed 10 September 2009).

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The national government employs two main categorizations, based on (a) citizenship/nationality (and the legal status of residents) and (b) the requirement of assistance in Japanese language instruction. By providing figures on the number of registered foreigners (Figure 1.2) and the number of foreign children in government schools (Figure 1.3) through its classification scheme, the national government has framed the discussion on diversity in schools. Some local governments have chosen to create other categorizations, such as long-term residents (rather than permanent residents) and children with foreign roots (for Japanese citizens of ‘foreign’ descent, including fourth-generation ethnic Koreans). Or, at the school level, some educators use the term ‘students in the international class’, for example, to refer to Japanese returnees and ‘newcomers’. Non-government organizations may also create a category simply through the organization’s name. These terms have become official to differing degrees, in the sense that they become legitimate in the public’s perception. For example, the expression tabunka kyōsei (multicultural coexistence) emerged among residents in Kobe after the 1995 earthquake, when volunteers and activists discussed how to assist ethnic minority survivors; and an NGO, which started as the Foreigners’ Earthquake Information Center (Gaikokujin Jishin Jōhō Sentā), adopted the name Tabunka Kyōsei Sentā (Multicultural Coexistence Centre) (Takezawa 2008: 32–5). There are currently many organizations that have tabunka kyōsei in their names.3 The term tabunka kyōsei is now widely adopted in local and national government documents.4 However, exactly what is meant by the term tabunka kyōsei varies and is dependent on the interpretations of respective organizations. ‘Japanese’ laypersons use lay categories to refer to minority groups such as ‘residents in the eastern part of XYZ housing complex’ or ‘people from over there’ (mukō no hito). And, of course, the categorized themselves negotiate their own boundaries, as groups and as individuals. With all these agents involved, categorizations remain situational, but the negotiations about categorization do not occur on a level playing field. There are always differences in power. We see in the following chapters how this process plays out in schools.

Multicultural education and multicultural society in the Japanese context What is the dominant Japanese understanding of multicultural education? Although it is naturally diverse, as is the case elsewhere, we can identify some trends by looking at the terminology used in the nation-wide discourse. After briefly discussing multicultural education in the anglophone West, we analyse the Japanese debate in the global context. So-called multicultural education emerged when minorities questioned white, mainstream hegemony in anglophone industrialized countries (Banks 1994, 1997, 2001; Gollnick and Chinn 1998). ‘Multicultural’ education replaced the hitherto prevalent approaches of ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’ for dealing with diverse student populations, because assimilation and integrative approaches promoted cultural adaptation to the mainstream while remaining unconcerned about the mono-cultural nature of the curriculum. Cultural pluralism, which underpins multicultural education, on the other hand, celebrates diversity as a positive asset

12 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi for education of the young as a whole and advocates maintenance of the diverse cultures and heritages of different groups. This includes the addition of diverse minority perspectives and content to curriculum and after-school clubs, and the active promotion of teachers of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Under the broad banner of multicultural education, approaches to address diverse student populations varied in different countries (see Grant and Lei 2001). In all cases, support for multicultural education initially came from ground-level practitioners and minorities who questioned the fairness of an assimilationist approach, and it was subsequently taken up by local authorities. Canada and Australia are widely considered to have been most interventionist, in that federal legislation was enacted to enforce cultural pluralism in education. Over time, multicultural education has evolved into different forms, reflective of local context, and has come under closer scrutiny. Vocal critics of cultural pluralism and multicultural education have come from two directions. On one hand, conservative critics (for example, Schlesinger, 1992) have expressed concern that the ‘racial/ethnic’ elements of the curriculum have gone too far, to the extent of destabilizing national unity and distracting students from ‘core studies’. On the other hand, radical (that is, anti-racist) critics have accused multicultural education of not going far enough, as it leaves unchanged the place of the dominant culture in the curriculum, along with the structurally unequal relations within and outside schools (see, in the UK, Troyna 1993; Gillborn, 1995; in the US, Giroux 1993; McLaren 1995; Apple 1996; in Australia, Rizvi 1993). They charge, for example, that ‘benevolent multiculturalism’ advocates respect for the lifestyles of minority children but limits their access to opportunities (Gibson 1984). Worse still, it is said simply to appease minorities, in a form of palliative care, while doing little to enable minority children to learn to negotiate with dominant groups and to succeed in mainstream society (Bullivant 1986: 42). These radical critics’ arguments are persuasive, but they rarely spell out concrete alternatives to the practice of liberal multicultural education. Critiques of liberal multicultural education have evolved into debate about ‘critical multicultural education’, which continues to-date (Kanpol and McLaren 1995; May 1999; Ladson-Billings and Gillborn 2004). Multicultural education is a complex concept that is multidimensional and dynamic and involves a diverse range of practices specific to local circumstances. It cannot be expected to deliver the desired outcome in the short term and instead is likely to evolve in many different ways (Nieto 1999). These debates illuminate two central elements of multicultural education. One is the celebration of cultural diversity in a society and globally. The other is the pursuit of equity by individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds and the promotion of universal human rights. Understanding of equity varies, however: some argue for equal educational opportunity, while others go further, seeking changes to the existing system in order to achieve equal educational outcomes. These two elements of multicultural education are relevant to understanding what we see in Japan. As is explained later, the long-existing minorities initially demanded opportunities for better life chances in order to escape from discrimination (the

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equity and human rights elements), while education in districts with many ‘newcomers’ initially tended to emphasize the celebration of cultural difference (the former of the central elements). Current practice in districts across Japan encompasses both elements, but initial differences remain observable in terms of emphasis. Japanese terminology for multicultural education can generally be divided into three clusters. The first cluster centres on ‘international understanding education’ (kokusai rikai kyōiku), the umbrella term for education related to intercultural/ multicultural issues in Japan. This is used in such a flexible way today that it can contain almost anything. One line of practice with a long history, which we call ‘Olympic-style international understanding education’, adheres to the framework of the nation-state. In this context, inter-‘national’ understanding is just that – promoting understanding between Japanese and people of other nations, Olympic style, by learning about other nations, engaging in international exchange and inviting foreign visitors to talk about their country. This framework assumes that the ‘foreigners’ and ‘the Japanese’ are mutually exclusive. In general, the ‘foreigners’ whom Japanese nationals should get to know and coexist with in international society are assumed to be either in their own countries, or visiting Japan temporarily as guests. The framework of the nation-state assumes internal homogeneity within the country, and the perspective is outward looking. This line of thought is not the one we assume in this book, although ‘Olympicstyle’ international understanding has its strengths. Even less central to our discussions are the types of international understanding activity that focus on the acquisition of English. A prime example is the English activities (eigo katsudō) that have become very popular in Japanese primary schools with the introduction of the integrated studies period, which are practised as part of ‘international understanding’ (kokusai rikai). Besides, the assumption of internal homogeneity in the ‘Olympic-style’ international understanding has long been challenged in districts with a concentration of long-existing minorities or foreigners, such as the buraku population, Ainu and Koreans. Backed by activism, such districts remind the Japanese of something that most of them may be unaware of – the existence of minorities and foreigners within Japan who are permanent members of Japanese society. The second cluster of terminologies related to multicultural education includes ‘egalitarian/equity education’ (dōwa kyōiku), ‘emancipation education’ (kaihō kyōiku), ‘ethnic education’ (minzoku kyōiku) and the umbrella term, ‘human rights education’ (jinken kyōiku). These have emerged in districts where many longterm minorities reside. Activists in these districts have all advocated strong anti-discrimination messages and argued for the protection of human rights. Over the years, human rights education has to come to include other groups that suffer discrimination, for example, the disabled and women (Sakai et al. 1998; Ebuchi 2001). These categories favour education with a strong emphasis on the social equity and human rights elements of multicultural education. The third cluster of terms relates to the academic translation of multicultural education, tabunka kyōiku, and multiculturalism, tabunkashugi. We emphasize

14 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi that these terms are academic constructions that scholars in the field have employed (see Kobayashi and Ebuchi 1985; Nakajima 1998; Ehara 2000; Watado and Kawamura 2002). Japanese practitioners, schools, local governments, communities and NGOs prefer different terminology, such as ‘multicultural coexistence’ (tabunka kyōsei), ‘society for multicultural coexistence’ (tabunka kyōsei shakai) and ‘education for multicultural coexistence’ (tanbuka kyōsei kyōiku), when discussing internal diversity and the need to accommodate returnees and foreigners within their schools and communities. ‘Multicultural coexistence’ is most often adopted by schools or districts that have large populations of overtly different cultures. Typically, the new multicultural districts in this category have a concentration of so-called ‘newcomers’, such as foreign workers, Indo-Chinese refugees and spouses of Japanese. Some of these districts have little history of human rights activism by long-existing minorities. Districts with long-existing minorities have also taken up the terminology of multicultural coexistence (see Chapter 7). The three clusters of terms are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The relative emphasis of these three approaches varies, depending on districts and communities. For example, buraku activism, the zainichi Korean movement and the antidiscriminatory human rights messages they convey intersect with the calls for multicultural coexistence actively pursued in districts experiencing inflows of ‘newcomers’. Researchers of long-existing minorities/foreigners have made efforts to link, for example, dōwa education and multicultural education as human rights education (Sowa 2000), or to place the ‘oldcomer’ Koreans at the centre of concepts of multicultural education in Japan (Nakajima 1993). Indeed, education for multicultural existence in districts such as Osaka and Kawasaki (see Chapters 2 and 7), which have active buraku and/or Korean movements, follows this pattern, because the long-existing minorities/foreigners have set the tone. The chapters in this book each focus on how diversity is played out and evolving in key districts. In a book such as this, which examines the evolving landscape of diversity in Japan, it is especially important to come down to the local level. Compared with states that have adopted a multicultural framework at the national level, the Japanese education system has shown relatively little interest in addressing the needs of a diverse student population at the national level. It is the local governments, education boards, individual schools and communities that have taken initiatives to manage and benefit from diverse populaces, particularly in the areas where large minority/foreign populations live (see Chapter 7). Prefectural, metropolitan and municipal government policies for the education of minority groups attest to this (Okano 2006), as do the individual chapters to follow. It is at this level that visions of homogeneity have given way, and various actors are interacting daily, constructing a complex picture of multicultural Japan.

An interactive perspective Multicultural interactions occur both between individuals of diverse groups and between groups. In areas where there are few people from the same group,

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interactions in the community or the school are more likely to be understood as personal affairs. In those districts with a concentration of people associated with a certain minority category, there is likely to be a more group-based set of interactions. The visibility of multicultural interactions varies from the most direct and overt to the most indirect and latent. Interactions may be explicit and direct, as in the case of direct, face-to-face interactions. They may be explicit but indirect, as in the case of activists for ‘newcomer’ rights modelling themselves on the longexisting minorities’ activism, without having much direct interaction with the latter. Or multicultural interactions may be latent and indirect, in a manner that even the players themselves are not conscious of, seen, for example, in local policy implementation. Multicultural interactions occur at diverse sites. To facilitate our analysis, we tentatively distinguish between three types of multicultural interactive space: (A) spaces unintended for such interactions but where, nonetheless, interactions occur; (B) spaces deliberately designed for such interactions; and (C) policy spaces. In Type A spaces, although not created for multicultural interactions, shared needs, recategorizations and the like bring members of different groups together, most often by the increase or incorporation of a new minority group into a space that was formally created for and occupied by another. There are many examples of this. Japanese as a second language (JSL) classes in schools were initially created for Japanese returnees, but now serve two culturally different groups – Japanese returnees from local schools abroad and ‘newcomer’ foreign children with little Japanese language proficiency – if both are in the same school. The Japanese returnees were the first population to emerge as a target of remedial assistance and ‘adaptation’ (later to be replaced by a less assimilationist approach), but the model was later applied to the ‘newcomer’ children, albeit with an emphasis on the acquisition of Japanese language. Though these groups are dissimilar, they meet and interact in a common institutional space as a result of their overlapping needs and a recategorization that combines both ‘newcomers’ and returnees under the umbrella category of ‘internationalization’ (see Chapters 6 and 10). Another example is local schools in neighbourhoods with public housing complexes (kōei jūtaku). These complexes tend to have a mixture of culturally different, low-income populations. When a certain ethnic/national group becomes concentrated in a particular public housing complex, ethnic shops and restaurants tend to sprout. These spaces also start to meet the ethnic needs of the new entrants. We see this across Japan. Icho Housing, a prefectural housing complex in Kanagawa prefecture near a former settlement centre for refugees, is home to a large number of Indo-Chinese refugees, Chinese returnees and Nikkeijin (see Chapter 8). In Toyohashi City (Aichi prefecture), the Iwata Public Housing Complex is home to many Brazilians, who arrived to take up unskilled jobs in the automobile industry. In Ikebukuro in central Tokyo, many ‘newcomers’ reside in old wooden apartments that used to house single Japanese workers (Okuda and Tajima 1991). The Shinryōdai prefectural housing complex in Kobe City has a concentration of Chinese returnees, leading a local school to offer bilingual

16 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi JSL-Mandarin classes. In the eastern parts of Osaka prefecture, numerous small factories and cheap housing (both private and public) have attracted a large number of Indo-Chinese refugees, Chinese returnees and South East Asian guest workers. Such residential compositions are subsequently reflected in the increased number of minority children in local government schools. In a similar manner, free, community-based, adult Japanese literacy classes offer spaces where old minorities meet the ‘new’ minorities/foreigners, and ‘new’ minorities/foreigners meet each other. Districts with a concentration of Koreans have long offered Japanese literacy classes to first- and second-generation Koreans in their old age. Although many elderly Koreans speak Japanese fluently, some lack reading and writing skills as a result of leaving school prematurely owing to poverty and bullying. As the population of ‘new’ foreigners surged, these classes often experienced increased enrolments of these ‘newcomers’, such as Asian brides wanting to learn daily Japanese, as is the case in Kawasaki (see Chapter 7). Recognizing different needs, the public centre in Kawasaki separated classes and extended their resources. Where resources are abundant, the services can expand. Where they are lacking, the ‘newcomers’ can be regarded as competitors for limited resources. ‘Newcomers’ not only take places in Japanese literacy classes (shikiji gakkyū) initially set up for the Koreans, but also in similar classes for the other long-existing minority, the buraku population, many of whose members also missed out on formal schooling in their youth (Akuzawa and Enoi 1992: 131–2). We see a similar pattern at the evening junior high school, initially established for Japanese who were forced, by poverty, to abandon compulsory schooling for immediate employment. Enrolments went down as the society became gradually more affluent, but the school has now become a multicultural site comprising such diverse populations as returnees from China, elderly, firstgeneration Koreans and young Japanese students with day-school attendance problems. For the ‘newcomers’, the institution offers a place to study Japanese. For non-attending Japanese students (futōkō), it provides a second chance to receive schooling. Though their purposes differ, both come from the margins of Japanese education. Type B interactive space is that deliberately designed for multicultural interaction. Some spaces had such intentions from the start; others, although initially created for one particular group, later reinvented themselves to include other groups and now see the target population as being multicultural. Most players in such spaces are non-profit organizations (NPOs), NGOs and local civil movements. For the NGOs operating in districts where diversity is already a given condition, the target population might be multicultural from the start. Such organizations often have names such as ‘centre for multicultural coexistence’, which immediately signals a multicultural focus. The annual nation-wide meetings of ethnic schools, the Multi-ethnic Education Forum (Tabunka Kyōsei Foramu), which began in 2005, for example, targeted all minority groups from the outset. International schools in Japan might be said to offer such a space from their inception and differ from mainstream schools and schools associated with a certain ethnicity or nationality. Some schools, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan

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Kokusai High School, have been established in order to foster multicultural interaction. In many cases, however, local activist organizations and NGOs in support of a specific group interact with those of another group or decide to absorb the interests and concerns of another group by expanding the boundaries of its target population. This can result in empowerment of the organization or, alternatively, create internal conflicts. We see examples in the teachers’ professional organization for the education of Koreans deciding to take up the concerns of the ‘newcomers’ and renaming itself by replacing ‘Koreans’ with ‘foreign nationals’ (see Chapter 5); or in the Okinawan civil movement, which started in order to obtain Japanese citizenship for Amerasian children (who had held no nationality without paternal recognition). It later gained wider support, in particular from those who married foreign nationals (including ‘oldcomer’ Koreans and Chinese), and became a civil movement to replace the system of patrilineal inheritance of Japanese citizenship to children with a bilateral inheritance (see Chapter 4). One of the impacts of the revised Nationality Law was a sudden increase in Japanese nationals of (mixed) Korean and ‘newcomer’ descent. Buraku activism, which has waged the most powerful challenge to mainstream Japanese society to date, influenced how Korean activism took up their human rights issues (see Chapters 3 and 5). As established, long-existing, minority activism focused on human rights, rather than cultural diversity, the centres of such activism (including Kawasaki and the Kansai region) responded to ‘newcomers’ with a human rights-based discourse. This contrasts with most cases, where the discourse on the ‘newcomers’ tends to revolve around social problems (such as high Asian foreigner crime) or in education, intercultural themes of getting to know a different culture rather than human rights (see Chapter 10). This process of a space expanding its target population and becoming more inclusive is also observed in institutional spaces now designated for multicultural interaction. The local junior high school described in Chapter 8 created a multicultural space (class) in order to bring together foreigners (and children with foreign parents) and ‘majority Japanese’ in the same classroom. First, it brought Indo-Chinese and ‘majority Japanese’ together, and later diversified to include South Americans and returnees from China. Schools are designated by the locality or the ministry to cater for diverse student populations. These schools and others have special spaces for these students (for example, kokusai kyōshitsu) and develop the kind of curriculum that capitalizes on a diverse student population for the benefit of all students. Many metropolitan governments (including Kawasaki, Osaka, Kobe and Hiroshima) run a ‘centre for coexistence’ (a community centre designed to promote the harmonious coexistence of foreign nationals and Japanese). Many of them were initially created in response to the activism of long-existing minority groups, but later adapted to accommodate the needs of ‘newcomers’ as well (see Chapter 7). Type C interactive space is policy-making and implementation, where policies regarding minorities are addressed at national, local and school levels. Here, too, we see similar processes of an initial policy expanding its target population. The

18 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi policy framework guiding the education of Japanese returnees – language acquisition, adapting to Japan and, later, encouraging the child to maintain positive aspects acquired abroad – served as a major model to accommodate the returnees from China, as well as the JSL population. The Ministry of Education’s (MEXT) amended regulations for non-attending students later began to be applied to Amerasian children who refused to attend mainstream schools, in favour of the Amerasian school, an alternative school established by the community, which now allows Amerasian children to complete compulsory schooling without attending a mainstream school (see Chapter 4). Another central policy interaction involved the MEXT’s 2003 controversy over treatment of graduates of ethnic schools. Initially, it announced that it would allow respective national universities the discretionary power to grant eligibility for university entry to graduates from a list of ethnic or special schools (including international schools and some Brazilian ethnic schools), but excluded North Korean schools, despite their being the largest in number. The MEXT later included them, after professional organizations, intellectuals and the North Korean schools protested this decision. At the local government level, policies for one group expanded, or served as a reference for another. For example, policies regarding the education of Korean residents began to include ‘newcomer’ children, in the name of ‘foreign nationals’. The local policies were initially created for Koreans, based on those already existing for burakumin in Osaka in the 1970s. The human rights education units within local education boards collectively address the issues of buraku and Korean children (see Chapter 5). The nature of interactions can vary; individuals and groups may interact superficially without many mutual interests. This can be the case when people of diverse backgrounds first find themselves together in a place for a shared purpose, for example, at a local seminar on schooling. After the seminar, they may not meet again. Continuous interactions in a space can lead individuals and groups to cooperate and collaborate when they perceive a benefit in terms of instrumental gains and emotional support. On the other hand, interactions may involve conflictual relations, for example, when minority groups compete among themselves for limited resources. We are interested to see how the spaces of multicultural interactions are evolving. What are the consequences for those involved? How does adopting a multicultural, interactive perspective assist us to understand Japanese society? Specific questions that we ask are: What are the policies and practices regarding respective minority groups at the national, local and school levels? How has the education system served minority/foreign children, by promoting their life chances on one hand and cultural maintenance on the other? What are the sites where groups interact with one another? How, and by whom, are these sites chosen or created? In what ways do multicultural actors interact on the continuum of conflict– indifference–solidarity? What is the impact of such interactions on group boundarymaking, group and individual identities, and access to life chances (or power)? Schooling, as the centre of multicultural interplay for children, provides a special opportunity to explore these questions. Public schooling is an arena in which

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interactions between multicultural actors inevitably occur, as individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds are brought together artificially, and where families, educators and communities debate what is best for children. People of minority backgrounds may live quite separately from the ‘majority Japanese’ and those of other minority backgrounds, and they may rarely encounter each other directly, but schools bring the different populations together. Moreover, schools are designed to ‘educate’ in a group situation and, as such, necessitate intersection between what are considered the boundaries of groups. As sites of this interaction, schools are subject to diverse expectations. At the national policy level, the state is not responsible for providing education for foreign nationals (although this has been challenged by civil activist groups, on the basis of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) (see Chapters 2, 6 and 8). From the position of the central government, remote from the everyday activities of the classroom, the distinction between a Japanese national and a ‘foreigner’ may be apparent. However, for educators, once foreign children are admitted to school, they are part of a class and in this sense are equal members requiring their attention. Thus, teachers encountering such diversity are led to respond to the individual needs of these populations at the grass-roots level (see Chapter 8). We have tried to make distinctive contributions in this book. First, we adopt a multicultural interaction framework to understand changes taking place in Japanese society that increasingly cannot fully be understood in isolation. Second, this book documents some of the initial stages of a society responding to a rapidly changing, multicultural landscape in certain locations. Many anglophone, post-industrial countries experienced this process earlier in history, when circumstances differed greatly from the present globalized world. Third, in examining what occurs at the local grass-roots level, the book provides insights into bottom-up policy-making processes and complements the existing literature of educational policy-making at the centre (see, for example, Schoppa, 1991; Hoods, 2001). Fourth, the book consciously brings together English and Japanese scholarship in the area and tries to bridge the gap between them. Lastly, our focus, schooling, is an extremely important arena for studying these processes because of the unique place it occupies in society. Schools are one of the few public institutions and spaces where children of various backgrounds in a neighbourhood are together on a daily basis for an extended period of time, involving all children of compulsory education age. It is where young people are socialized and prepare themselves for the adult world. Schools are expected to provide all children with opportunities to develop their potential. What schools teach is widely considered ‘legitimate’ by the public. What occurs in schools is expected to reflect the society and is a prism of social change. It is a place where many types of adult have an invested interest as parents, as members of the community, as policymakers and as educators. Thus, almost any problem pertaining to children is translated into an education problem. Our focus on the interplay among members of different groups, the reconstruction of boundaries and the consequences for individuals in Japanese schooling assists us to understand

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the multicultural changes occurring in contemporary Japanese society. With this focus, we explore concrete multicultural approaches that schools can pursue to help maximize the benefits that minority children gain from education.

Contributing chapters The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 covers the long-existing minority/ foreigner groups, and Part 2, ‘newcomer’ groups. Part 1 begins with Okano’s overview of the long-existing minorities in Japanese society. The chapters that follow it each provide detailed analysis of a particular minority group, with a view to how that group is situated in relation to other minority/foreigner groups and to Japanese society in this period of increased diversification. Specifically, in Chapter 3, Boocock focuses on the burakumin and their endeavours to end discriminatory practices through education. Such dōwa education efforts have paved the way for other human rights education. In Chapter 4, Noiri shows how Amerasians in Okinawa (in a sense, double minorities, as Okinawa itself is marginalized in Japanese society) have organized to better their education. This has had an impact on other unlikely groups, such as non-attending students and those children of mixed marriages, on a larger scale. In Chapter 5, Okano describes how the Korean movement for equality in educational opportunity has evolved, benefitting from the buraku movement, while at the same time providing an existing framework in some districts for ‘newcomers’. The framework within which the ‘oldcomer’ Korean population has been discussed – human rights, lack of citizenship and cultural maintenance in particular – provides a model for understanding the ‘newcomers’. The other framework is the discourse of ‘internationalization’ alongside the returnees in Part 2. In Part 2, Tsuneyoshi presents an overview of ‘new’ minorities/foreigners in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7, she takes the example of Kawasaki, an urban district in Japan with a concentration of Koreans that is experiencing so-called internal internationalization with the emergence of the returnees and the ‘newcomers’, and she shows how the increase in diversity is pressuring existing boundaries of difference and how the society is responding. In Chapter 8, Shimizu presents a case study of one of the most famous ‘newcomer’ districts for Indo-Chinese refugees. Using an action-research approach, she illustrates how the successions of ‘newcomers’ – Indo-Chinese refugees, returnees from China and the Nikkeijin – have created a mutually dependent, multicultural landscape. In Chapter 9, Burgess studies an example of a well-known initiative in Japanese rural communities to recruit Asian wives. Ironically, such organized recruitment has ‘internationalized’ the most unlikely places – farm communities that are losing their youth to the cities. In Chapter 10, Nukaga and Tsuneyoshi examine the Japanese returnees in relation to other minorities. This group, though not a minority in the popular sense of the word, is deliberately included in this volume as it is a representative group associated with ‘internationalization’ in the Japanese context (others being the international students and the ‘newcomers’) and has served as a major reference point for how the other ‘international’ groups are addressed.

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The chapters in this volume collectively present a vision of Japanese society that is not a sum of different groups situated against the ‘majority Japanese’, but a vision in which such groups interact both directly and indirectly, constantly rewriting their boundaries and jointly constructing an evolving multicultural Japan. We offer this vision, drawing on our detailed observations of the microlevel practices of schooling and the surrounding districts that children experience daily. It is these children who will be Japan’s next generation of adults.

Notes 1

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3

4

For example, see Harajiri (1998: 5); Park (1999: 236); Kim (1999:6); Hester (2008:145); and John Lie (2008:169). This is partly because the terms ‘Korean–Japanese’ (kankokukei/ chōsenkei nihonjinn) and ‘Japanese national Korean’ (nihon kokuseiki kankokujin/ chōsenjin/ korian) have not yet gained popular currency. A more generic term, zainichi gaikokujin (foreign residents in Japan), is a legal and official category denoting all foreigners residing in Japan; but in this case the term is not inclusive of those who have gained Japanese citizenship. The notion of indigenous peoples remains tenuous. So does who constitutes Japan’s indigenous peoples and ‘Japanese’ (Oguma 1998). In 2008, the Japanese government officially acknowledged as indigenous the Ainu people, who resided in Hokkaidō before the modern Japanese state annexed the land. This recognition came after a series of Ainu lobbying and subsequent to its alliance with the international organization of indigenous peoples. To date, Okinawans do not hold such an official status. Kodomo Tabunka Kyōsei Center (its English name is Multicultural Children’s Centre): www.hyogo-c.ed.jp/~mc-center/; Tabunka Kyōsei Sentā (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo): www.tabunka.jp/; Shinjuku Tabunka Kyōsei Puraza (its English name is Shinjuku Multicultural Plaza): www.shinjukubunka.or.jp/tabunka/japanese/index.html For example, see www.pref.gunma.jp/cts/PortalServlet;jsessionid=8ED5C954911 E273E03FA8FFC260B1EAA?DISPLAY_ID=DIRECT&NEXT_DISPLAY_ID=U000 004&CONTENTS_ID=4170 (Gunma prefecture), and www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/ s-news/2006/060307_2.html (Sōmu-shō).

References Akuzawa, M. and Enoi, Y. (1992) ‘Uchinaru kokusaika to kyōiku jissen no kadai (internal internationalization and educational practice)’, in T. Sakai (ed.) Kokusai Rikai to Kyōiku Jissen: Ajia, uchinaru kokusaika, kyōshitsu (International Understanding and Educational practice), Tokyo: Emti Shuppan. Amano, M. (1997) Doitsu no Ibunkakan Kyōiku (intercultural education in Germany), Tokyo: Tomagawa Daigaku Shuppan. Apple, M. (1996) Cultural politics and education, Buckingham: Open University Press. Banks, J. A. (1994) Multiethnic education: theory and practice, 3rd edn, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. –––– (1997) Educating citizens in a multicultural society, New York: Teachers College Press. –––– (2001) Cultural diversity and education: foundations, curriculum and teaching, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Barth, F. (ed.) (1998 (1969)) Ethnic groups and boundaries: the social organization of culture difference, 2nd edn, Long Grove, Ill: Waveland Press. Befu, H. (2001) Hegemony of homogeneity: an anthropological analysis of nihonjinron, Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.

22 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi Benedict, R. (1946) The chrysanthemum and the sword: patterns of Japanese culture, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Boocock, S. S. and Scott, K. A. (2005) Kids in context: the sociological study of children and childhoods, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Brubaker, R. and Cooper, F. (2006) ‘Beyond “identity”’, Theory and Society, 29: 1–47. Bullivant, B. (1986) ‘Towards radical multiculturalism: resolving tensions in curriculum and educational planning’, in S. Modgil, G. Verma, K. Mallick and C. Modgil (eds), Multicultural education: the interminable debate, Lewes: Falmer Press. Chan-Tiberghien, J. (2004) Gender and human rights politics in Japan: global norms and domestic networks, Stanford: Stanford University Press. De Carvalho, D. (2003) Migrants and identity in Japan and Brazil: the Nikkeijin, London: Routledge. Denoon, D., Hudson, M., McCormack, G. and Morris-Suzuki, T. (eds) (1996) Multicultural Japan: palaeolithic to postmodern, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Douglas, M. and Roberts, G. (eds) (2003) Japan and global migration: foreign workers and the advent of a multicultural society, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Duan, Y. (2005) ‘Henyōsuru nihon no kajinshakai’ (‘Changes in the Chinese-Japanese community in Japan’), in Yamashita, K. (ed.), Kajin shakai ga wakaru hon (The ChineseJapanese community in Japan), Tokyo: Akashishoten. Ebuchi, K. (ed.) (2001) Kyōsei no Jidai o Ikiru (In the age of coexistence), Tokyo: Hōsō Daigaku Kyōiku Shinkō-kai. Ehara, T. (ed.) (2000) Tabuka Kyōiku no Kokusai Hikaku (International comparisons of multicultural education), Tokyo: Tamagawa Daigaku Shuppan. Fukuoka, Y. (2000) Lives of young Koreans in Japan, Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press. Gibson, M. (1984) ‘Approaches to multicultural education in the United States: some concepts and assumptions’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 15: 94–119. Gillborn, D. (1995) Racism and antiracism in real schools, Buckingham: Open University Press. Giroux, H. A. (1993) Living dangerously: multiculturalism and the politics of difference, New York: Peter Lang. Gollnick, D. M. and Chinn, P. C. (1998) Multicultural education in pluralistic society, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, an imprint of Prentice Hall. Goodman, R., Peach, C., Takenaka, A. and White, P. (eds) (2003) Global Japan: the experience of Japan’s new immigrant and overseas communities, London: RoutledgeCurzon. Graburn, N. H. H., Ertl, J. and Tierney, R. K. (eds) (2008) Multiculturalism in the new Japan: crossing the boundaries within, New York and Oxford: Bergahn Books. Grant, C. A. and Lei, J. L. (eds) (2001) Global constructions of multicultural education: theories and realities, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hall, S. (1996) ‘Introduction: who needs “identity”?’, in S. Hall and P. du Gay (eds), Questions of cultural identity, London: Sage. Harajiri, H. (1998) ‘Zainichi’ toshiteno Korian (Koreans as ‘zainichi’), Tokyo: Kōdansha. Hatsue, R. (ed.) (1996) Esunishiti to Tabunkashugi (Ethnicity and multiculturalism), Tokyo: Dōbunkan. Hawkins, J. N. (1983) ‘Educational demands and institutional response: dōwa education in Japan’, Comparative Education Review, 27(2): 204–26. Hein, L. and Selden, M. (eds) (2003) Islands of discontent: Okinawan responses to Japanese and American power, Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. Hester, J. T. (2008) ‘Datsu Zainichi-ron: An emerging discourse on belonging among ethnic Koreans in Japan’, in N. H. H. Graburn, J. Ertl and R. K. Tierney (eds), Multiculturalism in the new Japan: crossing the boundaries within, New York: Berghahn Books.

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Hicks, G. (1997) Japan’s hidden apartheid: the Korean minority and the Japanese, London: Ashgate. Hirasawa, Y. (1994) Amerika no Tabunka Kyōiku ni Manabu (Learning from multicultural education in America), Tokyo: Meiji Tosho. Hirota, Y. (ed.) (1996) Tabunkashugi to Tabunka Kyōiku (Multiculturalism and multicultural education), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Hokkaidō-chō (2006) Ainu seikatsu jittai chōsa (Socioeconomic Survey of Ainu People), vol. 2008, Sapporo: Hokkaidō-chō. Hoods, C. (2001) Japanese education reform: Nakasone’s legacy, London: Routledge. Japan-Hōmushō-Nyūkokukanri-kyoku (2008) Heisei 19-nendomatsu Genzai ni okeru Gaikokujin Tourokusha Tōkei ni tsuite (Statistics on Registered Foreigners in 2007), Tokyo: Hōmushō. Jenkins, R. (1997) Rethinking ethnicity: arguments and explorations, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kanpol, B. and McLaren, P. (eds) (1995) Critical multiculturalism: uncommon voices in a common struggle, Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Kim, T. Y. (1999) Aidentitī Poritikusu o koete: Zainichichōsenjin no esunishitī (Beyond identity politics: the ethnicity of Korean residents in Japan), Kyoto: Sekaishisōsha. Kobayashi, T. and Ebuchi, K. (1985) Tabunka kyōiku no hikaku Kenkyū: kyōiku ni okeru bunkateki dōka to tayōka (A comparative study of multicultural education), Tokyo: Kyūshū Daigaku Shuppankai. Kurachi, A. (1998) Tabunka kyōsei no kyōiku (Education for multicultural coexistence), Tokyo: Keisō Shobō. Ladson-Bellings, G. and Gillborn, D. (eds) (2004) The RoutledgeFalmer reader in multicultural education, London: RoutledgeFalmer. Lee, C. and De Vos, G. (eds) (1981) Koreans in Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lie, J. (2001) Multiethnic Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lie, J. (2008) ‘The end of the road? The post-zainichi generation’, in S. Ryang and J. Lie (eds), Diaspora without homeland: being Korean in Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. McLaren, P. (1995) Critical pedagogy and predatory culture, New York: Routledge. McLauchlan, A. (2003) Prejudice and discrimination in Japan: the buraku issue, Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. McLemore, S. D. (1994) Racial and ethnic relations in America, 4th edn, Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Maher, J. and Macdonald, G. (eds) (1995) Diversity in Japanese culture and language, London: Kegan Paul International. Maher, J. C. and Yashiro, K. (eds) (1995) Multilingual Japan, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. May, S. (ed.) (1999) Critical multiculturalism: rethinking multicultural and antiracist education, London: Falmer Press. Mindan (Korean Residents Union in Japan) (2010) Tōkei. Online. Available: www.mindan. org/toukei.php (accessed 13 May 2010). Mitchell, R. H. (1967) The Korean minority in Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mouer, R. and Sugimoto, Y. (1986) Images of Japanese society, London: Kegan Paul International.

24 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2002) Amerasian no Kodomotachi: shirarezaru minoriti mondai (The Amerasian children), Tokyo: Shūeisha. Nakajima, T. (1993) ‘Nihon no tabunka kyōiku to zainichi kankoku/chōsenjin kyōiku’, Ibunkakan Kyōiku, 7: 69–84. –––– (ed.) (1998) Tabunka kyōiku: kyōsei no tame no kyōikugaku (Multicultural education), Tokyo: Akasho Shoten. Nakane, C. (1970) Japanese society, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Nieto, S. (1999) The light in their eyes: creating multicultural learning communities, New York: Teachers College Press. Nishikawa, N., Watanabe, K. and McCormack, G. (eds) (1997) Tabunkashugi Tagengoshugi no genzai: Kanada, Osutoraria, soshite Nihon (The present state of multiculturalism and multilingualism: Canada, Australia and Japan), Tokyo: Junbun Shoin. Noguchi, M. G. and Fotos, S. (eds) (2001) Studies in Japanese bilingualism, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Nukaga, M. (2008) ‘The underlife of kids’ school lunchtime: negotiating ethnic boundaries and identity in food exchange’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 37: 342–80. Oguma, E. (1998) Nihonjin no kyōkai: Okinawa, Ainu, Taiwan, Chōsen, shokuminchi shihai kara fukki undō made (Boundaries of Japanese people) Tokyo: Shinyosha. Okano, K. (2006) ‘The global–local interface in multicultural education policies in Japan’, Comparative Education, 42(2): 473–91. Okano, K. and Tsuchiya, M. (1999) Education in contemporary Japan: inequality and diversity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Okinawa-ken (2008) Okinawaken no Gaikyō (A snapshot of Okinawa), Vol. 2008, Naha: Okinawa. Okuda, M. and Tajima, J. (eds) (1991) Ikebukuro no Ajia-kei Gaikokujin: shakaigakuteki jittai hōkoku (Foreigners from Asia in Ikebukuro), Tokyo: Meken. –––– (1993) Shinjuku no Ajia-kei Gaikokujin: Shakaigakuteki jittai hōkoku (Foreigners from Asia in Shinjuku), Tokyo: Mekon. Park, I. (1999) Zainichi toiu Ikikata: Sai to Byōdō no Jirenma (Living as a zainichi: a dilemma between differences and equaltiy), Tokyo: Kodansha. Qiu, Xiaolan (2005) ‘1990 nendai igo nihon ni okeru kakyō kajin kyōiku no dōkō to tenkai: shinseiki terebi chūbun gakkō o chūshin ni’ (‘Trends in the education of ethnic Chinese in Japan since the 1990s’), Gakujutsu Kenkyū, 53: 29–41. —— (2010) Personal Communications. 17th and 23rd April 2010. Waseda University, Tokyo. Rizvi, F. (1993) ‘Children and the grammar of popular racism’, in McCarthy, W. (ed.) Race, identity and representation in education, New York: Routledge. Rohlen, T. (1981) ‘Education: policies and prospects’, in C. Lee and G. De Vos (eds), Koreans in Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Roth, J. H. (2002) Brokered homeland: Japanese Brazilian migrants in Japan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ryang, S. (1997) North Koreans in Japan, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sakai, Y., Sato, M., Hamada, S. and Kurosaki, I. (eds) 1998 Kyōsei no kyōiku (Education of coexistence), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Sakuma, K. (1993) Igirisu no Tabunka/taminzoku Kyōiku: Ajiakei gaikokujin rōdōsha no seikatsu/bunka/shūkyō (Multicultural/multiethnic education in the United Kingdom), Tokyo: Kokudosha. Schlesinger, A. (1992) The disuniting of America: reflections on a multicultural society, New York: W.W. Norton and Co. Schoppa, L. J. (1991) Education reform in Japan: a case of immobilist politics, London: Routledge.

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Sekiguchi, R. (ed.) (1988) Kanada tabunkashugi kyōiku ni kansuru gakusaiteki kenkyū (An interdisciplinary study of multicultural education in Canada), Tokyo: Tōyōkan Shuppansha. Shimahara, N. (1971) Burakumin: a Japanese minority and education, Martinus Nijhoff. –––– (1984) ‘Toward the equality of a Japanese minority: the case of burakumin’, Comparative Education, 20: 339–53. Shimizu, K. and Shimizu, M. (eds) (2001) Nyūkamā to kyōiku (Newcomers and Education), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimuzu, M. (2006) Gaikokujin seito no tameno karikyuramu: gakkō bunka no henkaku no kanōsei o saguru (Curriculum design for foreign students: the possibility of transforming school culture), Tokyo: Sagano Shoin. Siddle, R. (1996) Race, resistance and the Ainu of Japan, New York: Routledge. Sjoberg, K. (1993) The return of the Ainu: cultural mobilization and the practice of ethnicity in Japan, Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic. Sowa, S. (2000) Jinken kyōiku to shite no ‘dōwa’ kyōiku to tabunka kyōiku (dōwa education and multicultural education as human rights education), Tokyo: Akashi shoten. Sugimoto, Y. (2003) An Introduction to Japanese society. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. –––– (ed.) (2009) The Cambridge companion to modern Japanese culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (2010) An Introduction to Japanese Society. Third edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taira, K. (1997) ‘Troubled national identity: the Ryukuans/Okinawans’, in M. Weiner (ed.), Japan’s minorities: the illusion of homogeneity, London: Routledge. Takagi, M. (1991) ‘A living legacy of discrimination’, Japan Quarterly, 38(3): 283–90. Takezawa, Y. (2008) ‘The great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake and town-making towards multiculturalism’, in N. H. H. Graburn, J. Ertl, and R. K. Tierney (eds), Multiculturalism in the new Japan: crossing the boundaries within, New York: Gerghahn Books. Tanaka, K. (1996) Tabunka kyōiku no sekaiteki chōryū (Global trends in multicultural education), Tokyo: Nakashiya Shuppan. Troyna, B. (1993) Racism and education, Buckingham: Open University Press. Tsuneyoshi, R. (1998) ‘Nyūkamā no kodomo to nihon no kyōiku (Newcomer children and Japanese education)’, in M. Sato (ed.) Kokusaika jidai no kyōiku (Education in an age of internationalization), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. –––– (2002) ‘Kyōiku no kokusaika to tayō na ‘tabunka kyōiku: Nichibei no kyōshitsu kara (The internationalization of education and diverse models of multicultural education)’, in T. Kajita (ed.), Kokusaika to Aidentiti (Internationalization and identity), Tokyo: Mineruva Shobo. Vogel, E. (1979) Japan as number one: lessons for America, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vos, G. and Wagatsuma, S. (1967) Japan’s invisible race: caste in culture and personality, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Warikoo, N. and Carter, P. (2009) ‘Cultural explanations for racial and ethnic stratification in academic achievement: a call for a new and improved theory’, Review of Educational Research, 29(1): 366–94. Watado, I. and Kawamura, C. (eds) (2002) Tabunka kyōiku o hiraku: maruchikaruchuraku na nihon no genjitsu no nakade (Promoting multicultural education), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Watanabe, M. (ed.) (1995) Dekasegi Nikkei Burajirujin (Japanese Brazilian labourers in Japan), Tokyo: Akasho Shoten.

26 Kaori H. Okano and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi Weiner, M. (ed.) (2008) Japan’s minorities: the illusion of homogeneity, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Weiner, M. and Hanami, T. (eds) (1998) Temporary workers or future citizens? Japanese and U.S. migration policies, New York: New York University Press. Willis, D. B. and Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (eds) (2008) Transcultural Japan: at the borderlands of race, gender, and identity, New York: Routledge. Zainihon Chōsenjin Jinken Kyōkai (2009b) ‘Shiryō’, Jinken to Seikatsu, 29: 72–80. Zenkoku-zainichi-chōsenjin-kyōiku-kenkyūkai-Kyoto (1993) Zainichi no ima Kyōto-hatsu (Koreans in Japan), Kyoto: Zenkoku-zainichi-chōsenjin-kyōiku-kenkyūkai-Kyoto.

Part I

Long-existing minorities

2

Long-existing minorities and education Kaori H. Okano

This chapter opens Part 1 on ‘long-existing minorities’ by locating these groups in Japan’s modern history and in contemporary society, where they coexist with ‘new minorities’. By ‘long-existing minorities’, we mean minorities whose origin predates the end of the Second World War. The aim is to provide an overview as an aid to a better understanding of the specific groups discussed in the following chapters. We begin with the background social circumstances and describe the individual groups – indigenous Ainu, Okinawans, people of buraku descent, ethnic Chinese and ethnic Koreans. As Chapters 3–5, in Part 1, cover Okinawans, burakumin and Koreans in detail, in this chapter I provide a more expanded illustration of Ainu and ethnic Chinese. When modern nation-states started emerging in Europe, they came with an idealized notion of a state comprised of homogeneous people, but in reality many European nation-states contained peoples of diverse backgrounds. This was also the case with Japan. The geographical and territorial entity now called Japan had been inhabited by peoples of diverse backgrounds since pre-modern times (e.g. Macdonald 1995; Denoon et al. 1996; Maher and Weiner 1997; Oguma 1998; Lie 2000). Opening its door to the world in the mid nineteenth century, Japan allowed into port cities Chinese merchants and workers whose descendants remain ‘overseas Chinese’ (kakyō) to date. The subsequent creation of the modern Japanese state politically incorporated the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido (the Ainu) and Okinawans as Japanese subjects. As the Japanese empire expanded its territory, people living in the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan also became imperial subjects, some of whom migrated to, or were mobilized for labour in, mainland Japan. I must emphasize at the outset that the exact number of individuals of these minority groups is uncertain, in particular in the case of the long-existing minority groups that Part 1 examines. This is because the Japanese census does not collect information on descent from Japanese citizens, unlike in some countries where the census seeks self-categorization of a person’s ethnic background. We know the population of self-proclaimed indigenous Ainu in Hokkaido, but many Ainu reside outside Hokkaido. Similarly, we know the population of Okinawa prefecture, but many people of Okinawan descent live outside Okinawa. Once a Korean, Chinese or Taiwanese national takes up Japanese citizenship, he or she is absorbed into the category of ‘Japanese’. His or her descendants are ‘the Japanese’.

30 Kaori H. Okano The lack of concrete data on diversity among Japanese citizens has had two outcomes. One is that discussion of domestic diversity is framed in the discourse of ‘foreigners in Japan’ (zainichi gaikokujin). For example, when the media discuss increasing ethnic diversity, they list the number of registered foreign nationals and their nationalities. Ethnic schools are called ‘schools for foreigners’ (gaikokujin gakkō) (that is, Korean, Chinese, Brazilian, Peruvian), even though these schools also accommodate many Japanese nationals of varying heritage (Okano 2008: 5–20). As the majority of ‘long-existing minorities’ are Japanese citizens (including indigenous peoples), such discussions make the presence of diversity among Japanese citizens more invisible in public discussions. Some local governments, including in Osaka prefecture, acknowledge the existence of Japanese citizens of minority descent and have begun to use expressions such as ‘children with foreign roots’ (gaikoku ni rūtsu no aru jidō) and ‘children with special relationships with foreign countries’ (gaikoku to tokubetsuna kankeino aru jidō). But again, the reference point is ‘foreign country’. The modern system of state education has had a profound impact on longexisting minorities: it has effectively forced children to abandon the languages and cultures of their parents, to learn to see the world in ways determined by the mainstream Japanese (including that they occupy an inferior status), and to conform to what has long been considered the ‘Japanese way’ (including nationalist ideology). Assimilation was imposed by the central government. However, at certain historical times, minorities themselves have actively promoted assimilation, as in the case of Okinawans. Resistance to this assimilation was countered by the establishment of ethnic schools, rather than by challenges to mainstream schooling. A challenge to mainstream schooling came from buraku activism, which demanded ‘fair’ treatment of their children, anti-discrimination measures and human rights. Gaining inspiration from radical buraku activism, both Koreans and Ainu later started to make similar demands. All these groups were marginalized, both in terms of institutions (such as employment and schooling) and interpersonal interactions, in many different ways. But minority groups began to mobilize themselves against this marginalization before the Second World War. Buraku activism emerged in the earliest stages and was able to achieve the greatest progress, through alliance with political parties on the left and the radical measures it took in the 1970s, thereby setting examples for other groups to follow. Indeed, both Ainu and ethnic Korean activism, separately, have adopted similar tactics since the 1980s. Buraku activism also targeted mainstream schooling as one of the most significant ways to challenge the status quo. Although these movements forged alliances with the left, ethnic Chinese activism has taken a different route, perhaps owing to differences in the class composition of this community, as I explain below.

Indigenous Ainu, and Okinawans Ainu and Okinawans both see themselves as indigenous peoples of Japan; just like other indigenous peoples in the first world, they experienced internal

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colonization, were dispossessed of their land, were mobilized as cheap labour and remain marginalized to this day.1 Such perceptions resulted from their participation in global indigenous peoples’ movements that emerged in the 1980s. Until forty years ago, they saw themselves quite differently. The Ainu people were perceived as a ‘dying race’. The trajectories of Ainu and Okinawan peoples since their integration into the Japanese state share many features with other indigenous peoples around the world, one of which is the role played by the state education system. As Chapter 4 closely examines Okinawans, here I offer a brief examination of Ainu people. The population of the self-claimed Ainu people in Hokkaido was approximately 24,000 in 2006 (Hokkaido-chō 2007). There are said to be many more people of Ainu descent in other parts of Japan, but the number is unknown, as the national census does not collect such data. The existence of Ainu organizations in metropolitan cities suggests a significant number of people of Ainu descent living outside Hokkaido. Active interactions between the ‘majority Japanese’ and Hokkaido Ainu began in the fifteenth century when many medieval fiefdoms fought over mainland territories. Trading settlements were created by ‘majority Japanese’ from the mainland in the southern part of Ezogashima/Hokkaido around that time. After a series of conflicts between these settlements and the Ainu, agreement was reached between the most powerful family and the local Ainu. This family was later to rule the Matsumae domain, a minor fiefdom of the Tokugawa regime in Tokyo (then called Edo), when the Tokugawa family consolidated its rule over the Japanese archipelago. Under this regime (which lasted 250 years), a large part of what is now called Hokkaido remained ‘foreign land’ (Ezochi – literally, barbarian’s land). The Matsumae domain profited from trading with the Ainu in the resource-rich land. Alarmed by Russian expansion southwards in the late eighteenth century, the Tokugawa regime annexed Ezochi and placed it under its direct control, later granting it to the Matsumae domain. This resulted in Ainu resettlement and forced labour mobilization. With the establishment of the modern Japanese state in the mid nineteenth century, Ezochi formally became a part of the Japanese state. The Kaitakushi (Development–Colonization Commission 1869) was to oversee the ‘development’ of what the state regarded as a terra nullius, rich in natural resources. A large number of migrants from the mainland settled in Hokkaido, which was then systematically ‘developed’. Ainu people (who until then had depended for their livelihood on the forests and waterways) were forced to resettle and seek employment as cheap labour for the migrants. Informed by the social Darwinist view of ‘race’ prevalent at the time, the government enacted the Hokkaido Native Protection Act (Dojin hō) in 1899. It was expected that Ainu people would become small farmers and ‘Japanese citizens’. To this end, the authorities provided Ainu children with what they believed was required for Ainu lives – rudimentary education in Japanese literacy and numeracy. With the Native Protection Act came the Rules on Native Education (Dojin Jidō Kyōiku Kitei). Ainu children initially attended ‘native Ainu schools’, separate from schools for children of mainland migrants, and received a shorter

32 Kaori H. Okano and lower level of school education. They also gradually lost their Ainu language and sense of identity (Ueno 2005: 293). Later, Ainu children were schooled with non-Ainu children, but records suggest that Ainu children suffered bullying and discrimination from both classmates and uninformed teachers. Such experiences, and family poverty, often led to children dropping out of school early (Ueno 2001: 46). This in turn meant that Ainu people were restricted from bettering themselves in mainstream society. It was not that Ainu people passively accepted their situation: activists took up the poor state of Ainu in the 1920s and 1930s, which resulted in the creation of the first Ainu organization, the Ainu Association (Ainu Kyōkai) in 1930. It operated with an assimilationist framework, in cooperation with local government. The Association renamed itself the Utari Association in 1961, since by then Ainu people felt that the term ‘Ainu’ had acquired a derogatory meaning. Ainu people were divided about what roles it should play, and debate continued among them. At the outset, the Utari Association, along with the government, saw welfare measures as central to solving the problems of Ainu people. The subsequent government’s measures to address Ainu issues also centred on welfare measures. In 1961, the Utari special welfare project was implemented to improve living conditions, and employment and education levels. When it was subsequently found that Ainu living conditions remained inferior to those of non-Ainu, another welfare package, the First Hokkaido Utari Welfare Measures, was implemented, at a cost of 12 billion yen over the period 1971–80 (Siddle 1996: 33). These measures resembled the ten-year Special Measures for Regional Improvement for buraku people (1969, and renewed in 1979 and 1989), as Ainu activists gained inspiration from what the Buraku Liberation League had achieved. The Utari Welfare Measures are still being implemented, having been repeatedly renewed since their initial implementation in 1971 (renewals took place in 1981–7, 1988–94, 1995–2001, 2002–8) (Hokaidō-chō-kankyōseisaku-bu 2008). Education has been considered one of the pillars for improvement of Ainu lives, and the measures taken have provided financial assistance to Ainu children to attend upper secondary schools and tertiary institutions. Ainu activism underwent significant changes in the 1970s. Young Ainu activists no longer accepted that assimilation and working within the government institutional structure (that is, the Utari Association) formed the most effective course of action. Influenced by left-leaning students, buraku and human rights movements at the time, they wanted to assert their Ainu identity and so created new organizations, such as the Ainu Liberation League and an urban-centred Tokyo Utari Association. The activists not only gained inspiration from the Buraku Liberation League (BLL), but also adopted the BLL’s strategies of an uncompromising stance, confrontation and denunciation (Siddle 1996: 38, 29). They were also able to gain support from political parties on the left (the Japan Socialist Party and the Japan Communist Party), which enabled their activism to be seen as a mainstream civil movement. In the field of education, concerned teachers began to take the issue of teaching Ainu children seriously and produced a guidebook in 1982, entitled ‘Discussing

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minorities in Japan with students: the current situation and guides for teaching’ (Hokkaido-kōtōgakkō-kyōshokuin-kumiai (Hokkaido High School Teachers Union) 1982). Furthermore, the Research Association for Ainu Education was established within the Hokkaido Education Board in 1983, in response to lobbying by the Utari Association. First, the Association saw problems with some of the depictions of Ainu in school textbooks and readers, and it debated what should be taught, both in the classroom and in teacher training courses. Second, it also began to see ignorance, among teachers, of the reasons behind the bullying of Ainu students and their truancy. The Research Association involved academics and practitioners and produced two publications to guide teachers in the teaching of Ainu history in primary and middle schools (in 1984) and in senior high schools (in 1991) (Ueno 2001: 46–7). The 1980s saw Ainu activists connecting with other human rights movements in Japan, based on a shared concern for the human rights of minorities. Ainu activists attended buraku meetings (Siddle 1996: 39) and made alliances with indigenous people’s movements in other countries. They attended the Third World Conference of Indigenous People in Australia in 1981. As a globally recognized indigenous people, Ainu participated in the opening ceremony of the UN International Year of the World Indigenous Peoples in 1992. Such recognition and participation fostered Ainu self-perceptions as a culturally distinct group with a specific history of colonization and a distinct set of rights. This global alliance gave them a means to challenge domestic marginalization in the global arena, appealing to international covenants (Sjoberg 2006). Educational participation among Ainu children has increased over the years and in particular since the series of Utari Welfare Measures were instituted in 1971. Ainu children’s retention rates to upper secondary schooling (that is, beyond compulsory schooling) are gradually catching up to those of their non-Ainu counterparts, with a 5 per cent gap remaining in 1999 and 2006. However, there remains a significant difference in rates of entry into universities – in 2006, less than 18 per cent of Ainu students went on to university, whereas nearly 40 per cent of non-Ainu students took up tertiary study (see Tables 2.1 and 2.2). The difference can be explained by the relative poverty of Ainu families. The same 2006 survey on Ainu living conditions reports that 38.4 per cent of Ainu families receive the government living protection allowance (seikatsu hogo) for low-income families, compared with 24.6 per cent of non-Ainu families. Ainu parents want their children to receive education: for example, 43 per cent of parents want their children to complete tertiary education, and 45 per cent senior high school. The gap between parental aspirations and children’s achievements may be due to the children’s negative experiences with schooling, such as bullying and discrimination, which not only affect academic performance but also alienate them from school (Ueno 2005: 295). It may also be due to a relative lack of rolemodel adults who have built their careers on success at school. If the series of welfare measures have been addressing Ainu children’s access to life chances in the mainstream society through financial assistance and making school a more comfortable place for them, how and to what extent has cultural

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Table 2.1 Ainu children’s retention rate to upper secondary schools compared with their non-Ainu cohort, 1972–2006 Year

1972

1979

1986

1993

1999

2006

Ainu (%) Non-Ainu in the same township (%)

41.5 78.2

69.3 90.6

78.4 94.0

87.4 96.3

95.2 97.0

93.5 98.3

Source: Hokkaidō-chō, Kankyōseikatsu-bu (2006) Heisei 18-nendo Hokkaidō Ainu seikatsu jittai chōsa hōkokusho, Sapporo: Hokkaidō-chō.

Table 2.2 Ainu children’s retention rate to universities compared with their non-Ainu cohort, 1979–2006 Year

1979

1986

1993

1999

2006

Ainu (%) Non-Ainu in the same township (%)

3.8 31.1

8.1 27.4

11.8 27.5

16.1 34.5

17.4 38.5

Source: Hokkaidō-chō, Kankyōseikatsu-bu (2006) Heisei 18-nendo Hokkaidō Ainu seikatsu jittai chōsa hōkokusho, Sapporo: Hokkaidō-chō.

maintenance or revitalization been addressed? I would suggest that very little has been done, but the 1997 Ainu Culture Act (Law for the Promotion of the Ainu Culture and for the Dissemination and Advocacy for the Traditions of the Ainu and the Ainu Culture) offers the potential to progress these goals (Siddle 2006). The vast majority of Ainu children speak Japanese as their first language. Those wanting to learn the Ainu language must attend classes organized outside school. The number of students is increasing, in part owing to the new Ainu Culture Act and to a general ethnic revitalization. The 2006 survey suggests that a significant number of Ainu maintain an interest in learning the Ainu language. The debates on the new Act and the Ainu’s identification with global indigenous peoples’ movements have domestically promoted public recognition of Ainu, which has prompted more schools to include aspects of Ainu culture and issues in subjects across the curriculum – in history, civics, Japanese, arts and social studies (Ueno 2001: 45). With the introduction of a compulsory integrated study subject in 2002 under the national curriculum reforms, more students are likely to learn about Ainu issues, in particular in schools in Hokkaido and in schools that adopt themes such as human rights, diversity and globalization (Ueno 2005: 299). The homepages of the Ainu Bunka Shinkō Kenkyū Kikō (The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture), the Hokkaido Education Board and the Hokkaido Utari Association all offer a wide range of relevant teaching materials. Ainu people have not mobilized themselves for the education of the young, as the burakumin and ethnic Koreans have done. The buraku civil movements have centred on improvement of material conditions and human rights without asserting ‘differences’. The ethnic Koreans fought for access to both education and life chances in mainstream society, focusing on their lack of citizenship, and for

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cultural maintenance through the provision of ethnic education, offered in separate ethnic schools and in government schools. Though they have established themselves as Japan’s indigenous people, it remains to be seen what Ainu people decide they want for their children’s education and what strategies they devise to achieve them. They now have more resources than ever before. People of Okinawan descent (the topic of Chapter 4) currently reside across Japan. The population in Okinawa prefecture, formally called the Ryukyu Islands, was 1.37 million in 2008 (Okinawa-ken 2008). The exact extent of Okinawan diaspora in other parts of Japan is not known, although we know that a large number of Okinawans live in Osaka’s Taisho ward and in nearby Amagasaki City in the Hyogo prefecture. There are also associations of Okinawan people (Okinawa kenjinkai) in many prefectures, and we know that many Okinawans left for South America as migrants, some of whose descendants have now returned to Japan as guest workers. Okinawa was once the independent kingdom of Ryukyu. The kingdom maintained trading relationships with China, South East Asia and mainland Japan. In the early seventeenth century, when the Tokugawa regime established its rule over most of the Japanese archipelago, one of the minor fiefs at the southern tip of Kyushu, the Satsuma domain (han), absorbed the Ryukyu Islands. The Satsuma domain deliberately maintained these islands as a kingdom in order to benefit from its trade with China and South East Asia. The Meiji government officially annexed the kingdom in 1879 (at about the same time that the Ainu faced a similar fate in the north) and adopted an assimilationist policy. The modern system of education ensured that locals learned Japanese and the imperial ideology. Although the locals initially saw little value in this imposed assimilation and resented it, Japan’s victory over China in 1894 led them to see some desirability in an alliance with Japan. Local leaders (including school teachers) then began an assimilation movement from below, in the belief that it would eventually benefit the local population. Okinawans were actively involved in Japan’s colonization of Taiwan as Japanese subjects. The end of the Second World War saw the Ryukyu Islands come under American rule, which meant that the Okinawans’ post-war trajectory was quite different from that of the Ainu. Local teachers were unhappy with what they saw as the American occupation authority’s lack of enthusiasm for schooling (although it tried to design an Okinawa-centred curriculum) and the widening gap in academic achievement and subsequent life chances between Okinawan and mainland children. Teachers again initiated an assimilation education movement and demanded that Okinawan children receive the same education as mainland children. Thus, American rule heightened their grass-roots desire to become ‘Japanese’. With the continued existence of many US bases on the island after its return to Japan in 1972, Okinawans have developed an identity distinct from ‘majority Japanese’, in which they see themselves as victims of the state policies and the attitudes of the majority. Okinawa’s post-war experience has produced another minority, Amerasians (the children of American soldiers and local women). Chapter 4 examines both Okinawans and Amerasians in more detail.

36 Kaori H. Okano

People of buraku descent People of buraku descent (the topic of Chapter 3) are estimated to number 3 million and to maintain 6,000 communities across the country. The origin of the burakumin dates back to medieval times, when they were engaged in certain occupations popularly considered undesirable, for example, tanning and leatherwork, and lived in specified areas. With the hereditary class system institutionalized by the Tokugawa regime in the early seventeenth century, these groups of people were treated as outcasts, located at the bottom of the hierarchy. The class system was abolished in 1871 by the Meiji government as part of modernization initiatives, at around the same time that both Ainu and the Okinawans were formally incorporated into the Japanese empire. Despite this, buraku marginalization continues to this day. During the post-war period, the BLL pursued the elimination of discrimination against burakumin and improvement in their social and material conditions. In response to activism, the government implemented the ten-year Special Measures for Regional Improvement in 1969, to improve housing, employment, education and welfare. This was renewed in 1979 and 1989 for two more decades. The 1969 measures put Dōwa Education programmes (literally, egalitarian education), which had been pursued by the BLL, on the national agenda and had the national government fund it. It has been popularly held that buraku people do not form an ethnic group, as they cannot be identified by outwardly distinctive features associated with what is commonly understood to be ethnicity, such as language, religion or dress. Do burakumin then possess a distinctive ‘culture’? If we understand ‘culture’ to be a package of values, beliefs and ways of seeing the world, as well as distinctive characteristics such as language use, activities and customs, then we can say that they have a distinctive ‘culture’, which has developed as a result of their historical experiences of specific material and social conditions (including poverty and limited occupational opportunities) and exclusion from mainstream society. This includes particular diet, language use and marriage patterns, for example, as documented by Wagatsuma and De Vos (1984). In relation to institutional schooling, burakumin have tended to see schooling in a negative light. For example, schooling was considered to be a luxury before the Special Measures raised their living conditions, because the young needed to earn a living rather than attend school. School learning and qualifications were considered to be irrelevant or unnecessary, as burakumin faced discrimination in the mainstream employment market and eventually gained jobs in their own communities. Schooling was also alienating and oppressive, with frequent bullying. It is because of the distinctive nature of buraku culture that one of the buraku community preschools (studied in Chapter 3) adopted a particular philosophy to make school more conducive to children’s learning. Buraku activism, however, has not asserted a particular buraku ‘culture’. It has continuously adopted the universal language of human rights since the beginning of their activism in the early twentieth century, arguing that they deserve equal treatment because they are also ‘Japanese’.

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Ethnic Chinese There are important divisions between ethnic Chinese residing in Japan. As in other parts of the world, a distinction exists between Japanese nationals of Chinese descent (called kajin) and those who are citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or Taiwan (called overseas Chinese, kakyo) (Guo 1999: 7). There are no reliable data for the number of kajin, for reasons already mentioned. Among Chinese residents themselves, a further distinction is made between old ethnic Chinese (rō-kakyō) and new ethnic Chinese (shin-kakyō). The latter arrived in Japan after Japan’s normalization of relations with the PRC in 1972 (Guo 1999: 9) and display greater internal variations than old ethnic Chinese – ranging from established, professional, permanent residents to illegal workers. ‘Newcomer’ Chinese are examined in more detail in Part 2. Chinese traders had resided in port towns in Japan since the sixteenth century. Under the Tokugawa regime’s isolationist policy, Chinese traders were allowed to reside in Nagasaki, the only port open to the outside world, from the beginning of the seventeenth century. With the opening of Japan to the West in 1853, Europeans started to arrive in several ports designated for international trading. As employees of these European traders, more Chinese workers arrived, which in turn led to chain migration through family and provincial reunions. At the same time, long-established Chinese traders in Nagasaki moved to other port cities in pursuit of expanded opportunities. The ethnic Chinese population in Japan has fluctuated over time, responding to ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors. These included Japanese government policy, and economic conditions and employment opportunities in both countries. For example, the Sino-Japanese War (1894–5) led to a reduction in the number of resident Chinese. The Japanese authorities initially discouraged unskilled labour migration for fear of opium use among the Chinese, which resulted in the relatively middleclass nature of the Chinese community (Vasishth 1997: 125). Japan’s colonization of Taiwan in 1895 increased the Taiwanese population in Japan, from 2,400 in 1922 to 7,000 in 1942 (Tsurumi 1984: 125). The Taiwanese received Japanese schooling at modern schools established by the colonial authorities (Tsurumi 1977), and some of these graduates went on to universities in Japan. During and prior to the Second World War, forced labour conscripts arrived from Korea and north-eastern China, although to a lesser extent than those from Taiwan. There is significant evidence of exploitation of Chinese labourers during this time. After the end of the Second World War, both Taiwanese and Chinese were repatriated by the occupation authority. About half of the 28,000 Taiwanese decided to remain in Japan. In 1948, the total number of Chinese residents was 34,000, of which 40 per cent were of Taiwanese descent (Vasishth 1997: 131). Compared with other countries, there has always been a relatively large proportion of Taiwanese among Chinese residents of Japan. The Taiwanese were more educated and did not face Japanese language problems, which meant that they were able to enter a wider range of occupations in post-war Japan (Vasishth 1997: 132–3).

38 Kaori H. Okano When Japan normalized its relations with the PRC in 1972, a large number of Taiwanese took Japanese citizenship. When the PRC began to allow its citizens to study and work in Japan, the number of ‘newcomer’ Chinese increased rapidly, changing the internal composition of the overseas Chinese community. In 1974, those from Taiwan numbered 24,000 and accounted for just over half of the Chinese residents in Japan. The corresponding figures are 33,000 and 48 per cent in 1984, and 39,000 and 13 per cent in 1997 (Guo 1999: 60–1). By 2001, almost four in five Chinese residents in Japan were newcomer Chinese from the PRC (Qiu 2004a: 128). The increasing dominance of these among Chinese residents in Japan was brought about by, not only a large number of new arrivals, but also an increase in the number of Chinese marrying Japanese nationals. Almost 90 per cent of Chinese marriages are with Japanese citizens, and their children are born with Japanese citizenship (Qiu 2004a: 128). Chinese children had two options for schooling – mainstream Japanese schools and full-time ethnic schools. The first modern, ethnic Chinese school was established by Chinese merchants in Yokohama in 1897, before the government of Qing China established its own school system in 1901, modelled on the modern system of education in Meiji Japan (Yen 2002: 178–9). The school was also the first modern, overseas Chinese school in the world and was later a model for overseas Chinese schools in South East Asia (Qiu 2004a: 128). Similar schools were subsequently established in Kobe, Osaka, Tokyo and Nagasaki, and numbered ten by the end of the Second World War. After the war, the schools replaced provincial languages with Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction, creating a sense of solidarity in Chinese communities. The division of the PRC and Taiwan led most schools to choose affiliation, except for the Kobe ethnic Chinese school, which made a conscious decision to accommodate both. The 1970s saw a decline in the demand for Chinese schooling, with many residents taking up Japanese citizenship. Currently, five schools operate as full-time ‘ethnic’ schools, offering locally relevant curricula (including Japanese and English), with Mandarin as the medium of instruction. In 1948, about 70 per cent of school-age Chinese residents attended one of the ethnic Chinese schools (Qiu 2004b: 216). The current figure is 10 per cent; the great majority of Chinese children attend mainstream Japanese schools (Qiu 2004b: 225). There have been few studies on ‘old Chinese’ children at mainstream schools. I suspect that this is partly because they perform well, and because the transition from ethnic Chinese middle school to mainstream high school has been a smooth one for many. In recent years, ethnic Chinese schools have gained a reputation for providing a more rigorous academic education (especially given the opportunity to learn three languages) than local government schools and have attracted non-Chinese children. The nature of ethnic Chinese schools has changed over the years, in particular from the 1990s, when ethnic Chinese communities became more diverse. Studies of five Chinese schools suggest that they all see their mission as teaching Chinese language and academic achievement comparable with mainstream Japanese schools, as well as the promotion of trilingualism (Chinese, Japanese and English),

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and an ‘international education’, something akin to that offered by Englishmedium international schools (Qiu 2004b: 216–22). Since the 1990s, the predominance of old Chinese among the student population has changed; for example, the majority of the Yokohama Chinese school enrolment is newcomer Chinese children, which has prompted it to institute JSL classes. The number of students with no Chinese background also increased, accounting for 22 per cent and 11 per cent of students in schools in Yokohama and Kobe, respectively (Qiu 2004a: 128–9). Old ethnic Chinese (who arrived before 1972) have established a network of organizations. There are thirty-seven main organizations for those from the mainland, represented by a peak national body. Most of them exclude those who have taken Japanese citizenship. Old ethnic Chinese from Taiwan are represented by thirty-four major organizations and a peak national body, which also welcome naturalized members. Among them, the Kobe Chinese organization (Kobe Kakyō Sōkai) is an exception in that it accommodates members regardless of their origins (Guo 1999: 68). Other than these, there exist many other associations based on such features as provinces of origin, occupations and commerce. Newcomer Chinese generally do not have meaningful interaction with these old ethnic Chinese and their organizations (Vasishth 1997: 135–6; Guo 1999: 212), and they depend on NGOs and NPOs established for newcomers. So, we have old ethnic Chinese who are established, educated and relatively wealthy on the one hand and, on the other, newcomer Chinese with little Japanese language proficiency who face challenges similar to newcomers from other parts of the world. Interactions such as occur between old Chinese and newcomer Chinese deserve further study.

Ethnic Koreans Like ethnic Chinese, ethnic Koreans exhibit internal variations. A major division exists between ‘old-timer’ Koreans, who are the descendants of those who arrived in Japan before the end of the Second World War as imperial subjects, and ‘newcomer Koreans’, who arrived during the post-war period. ‘Old-timer’ ethnic Koreans were granted special permanent residency, but an increasing number of them are now Japanese citizens. Korean residents in Japan number 600,000, and an almost equal number of Japanese citizens of Korean descent are said to live in Japan. Although a small number of Koreans lived as artisans working for pre-modern domains in Japan, the number of Korean arrivals jumped after Japan’s colonization of the Korean peninsula in 1910. A large number of peasants, having had their land taken by the colonial authorities, migrated to Japan to work in low-paid employment in factories, mines and construction work during the country’s rapid industrialization (Weiner 1994). Later, from 1939, labour conscription led to further Korean immigration. Their predominantly working-class background distinguished them from ethnic Chinese migrants. Korean children attended Japanese schools, but, with the end of the war, many ethnic schools sprang up in order to prepare them for repatriation to Korea. Those

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families who decided to remain in Japan had the choice of sending their children to either North Korean ethnic schools or mainstream schools. Since the early 1990s, almost 90 per cent of school-age Korean children attend mainstream schools. As Chapter 5 reveals, studies of Korean students in mainstream schools suggest that their experience of schooling has become quite comfortable, but that the national policies do not address the needs of Koreans who do not outwardly display ‘difference’. It is at the level of local government that policies are developed to address ethnic Korean needs. In recent decades, these policies have been adjusted to address the needs of newcomer minority children as well.

Education and long-existing minorities All long-existing minority groups have been incorporated into the modern Japanese state as marginalized groups. Except for the early Chinese merchants, the incorporation was imposed. Although some people migrated from the Korean peninsula, Taiwan and north-eastern China to Japan, it was because they lost their livelihoods after the colonial authorities had expropriated their land. Despite divergence in the processes of incorporation, there are shared characteristics among the long-existing minorities. For a start, all now have Japanese as their dominant language. Language is not a barrier in the educational and employment spheres. There has not been the pressing need to adapt to the ‘Japanese lifestyle’, as there is for new minorities. Furthermore, all groups maintain long-established associations and social networks to meet the needs of the community and promote their interests. In terms of legal entitlement to education, however, the position of foreignnational Korean children differs from that of the other long-existing minority children (Ainu, Okinawans and buraku) who are Japanese citizens. There is continuing debate over foreign nationals’ entitlements to education and the national government’s duty to provide it. On one hand, the post-war Japanese constitution, in employing the term kokumin (literally, Japanese citizens) refers exclusively to Japanese citizens in relation to education (Article 26), which has led to an interpretation that foreign nationals are not entitled to education and that the government has no duty of provision. Such an interpretation is not, however, conveyed in the English language version of the Constitution provided on the government homepage (Appendix 1). This translated version is misleading, in particular in light of recent civil movements that have demanded that the term kokumin be replaced with nanibito (people) in order to ensure every child’s entitlement to education, regardless of his or her nationality. It was because of this constitutional restriction on the education of foreignnational Korean children that, in 1953, 1965 and 1991, the national government issued circulars regarding their education (see details in Chapter 5). The current legal stance, which derives from the 1965 circular, is that foreign-national children are entitled to the same free education and financial assistance as Japanese children. In the 1991 circular, the ministry softened its prior insistence that government schools not provide any special treatment based on ethnicity and

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acknowledged the value of after-school ethnic classes for Koreans (which had long existed in schools in Osaka). It also stated that this would also apply to newcomer foreign-national children, for the first time drawing a link between ‘oldtimer’ Koreans and newcomer children in education. We see a further change in the ministry's position in the new Primary School Course of Study (announced in 2008 but yet to be implemented), when it acknowledged the benefits that they bring to learning in mainstream classes (see Appendix 2). There are several important matters to highlight in relation to education and long-existing minorities. The first concerns the roles of long-established minority groups’ associations and networks. These associations have long taken initiatives to promote the education of their children in negotiation with local and national governments and other interest groups. Interactions among these associations have a basis in a shared language of human rights. A large number of the NGOs and NPOs that have emerged in more recent years accommodate multiple groups, including new minorities. In this increasingly complex picture of activism, we ask, what roles do each of the long-existing minorities’ associations and activist groups play, both independently and collectively, in promoting children’s education? The second point is the relative emphasis on access to life chances, or cultural maintenance/revitalization. These groups’ earlier concerns about schooling have leaned more towards improving access to life chances in mainstream society than to cultural maintenance/revitalization. Seeing their children receive ‘inferior’ schooling and the gap in achievement in education and employment relative to the mainstream, they pursued improvement through scholarships, affirmative action, government funding and special educational programmes. They also challenged what they considered inappropriate and discriminatory practices at mainstream school. Cultural maintenance and revitalization were left to ethnic schools (operating outside the mainstream schools), which were available from pre-war times for ethnic Chinese and from the late 1940s for ethnic Koreans. Later initiatives, influenced by identity politics in the 1970s, involved asserting their differences and arguing for cultural maintenance through mainstream schooling. More parents began to lobby mainstream schools (which now accommodate 90 per cent of school-age children of Chinese and Korean descent) to address the special needs of their children and to educate ‘majority Japanese’ children about diversity. The fact that educated minority young people increasingly choose to assert their minority identity rather than deliberately ‘passing’ as mainstream Japanese suggests intergenerational change. Third, Ainu and Okinawans now possess greater potential than ever to assert the special status of indigenous peoples and their distinctive entitlements, by forging alliances with the global indigenous peoples’ movements and citing international conventions. How indigenous minority groups strategically align with other long-existing minorities to promote their interests remains to be seen. Interactions of this kind have occurred, such as an Ainu representative giving a speech at a buraku conference and the broadcasting of Hokkaido Ainu radio programmes in regular timeslots on Kobe’s multilingual FM radio. Buraku

42 Kaori H. Okano activism has provided inspiration and guidance for practical strategies to Ainu and Korean activism. Korean organizations have conducted educational seminars on indigenous peoples and burakumin. The potential for collaboration among individual groups to have an impact on mainstream schooling deserves attention. The next three chapters illustrate the contemporary situations of three longlasting minority groups: burakumin, Okinawans and ethnic Koreans. We also see how these groups with a long-standing presence in Japan have interacted with each other before and since the arrival of newcomers.

Note 1

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the notion of indigenous peoples remains tenuous. So does the issue of who constitutes Japan’s indigenous peoples and the ‘Japanese’ (Oguma 1998). Although the Ainu people are now officially recognized as indigenous by the Japanese government, Okinawans do not currently hold such a status.

References Denoon, D., Hudson, M., McCormack, G. and Morris-Suzuki, T. (1996) Multicultural Japan: palaeolithic to postmodern, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guo, F. (1999) Zainichi kakyō no aidentitei no henyō: Kakyō no tagenteki kyōsei (The changing identity of Chinese in Japan: their multidimensional acculturation), Tokyo: Toshindo. Hokkaidō-cho (2007) Keizaiteki shakaiteki chii no kōjō o hakarutameno sōgōtekina sesaku no suishin. Available online at www.pref.hokkaido.lg.jp/ks/sum/soumuka/ainu/ suishinhousaku.html (accessed 4 June 2007). Hokkaidō-chō-kankyōseisaku-bu (2008) Heisei 18-nendo Hoddaidō Ainu seikatsu jittai chōsa hōkokusho. Available online at www.pref.hokkaido.lg.jp/ks/sum/somuka/ainu/ jittai.htm. (accessed 10 June 2008). Hokkaidō-Kōtōgakkō-kyōshokuin-kumiai (Hokkaido High School Teachers Union) (1982) Seito to tomoni kangaeru nihon no shōsū minzoku: sono genjō to shidō no tebiki (Discussing minorities in Japan with students: the current situation and guides for teaching), Sapporo: Hokkaidō-Kōtōgakkō-kyōshokuin-kumiai. Lie, J. (2000) Multiethnic Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Maher, J. and Macdonald, G. (1995) Diversity in Japanese culture and language, London: Kegan Paul International. Oguma, E. (1998) Nihonjin no kyōkai: Okinawa, Ainu, Taiwan, Chōsen shokuminchi shihai kara fukki undō made (The boundaries of Japanese), Tokyo: Shinyosha. Okano, K. (2008) ‘Interactions amongst ethnic minority groups in schooling in Japan: the global–local interface’, in T. Hamashita, P. Kent, A. Iwatani and A. Uya (eds), Changing identities and networks in the globalising world, Afrasian Centre for Peace and Development Studies, Ryukoku University. Okinawa-ken (2008) Okinawa-ken no gaikyō, Okinawa-kencho, Naha. Qiu, X. (2004a) ‘Kakyō kajin kyōiku no henyō ni kansuru ichi kōsatsu: Nihon to indoneshia o chūshin ni’, Waseda Daigaku Daigakuin Kyōikugakukenkyūka Kiyō, 11 (March): 127–37.

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–––– (2004b) ‘Nihon shakai niokeru kakyō kyōiku no jittai nitsuite: Zen-nissei kakyōgakkō o chūshin ni’, Waseda Daigaku Daigakuin Kyōikugakukenkyūka Kiyō, 12 (September): 215–26. Siddle, R. (1996) Race, resistance and the Ainu of Japan, New York: Routledge. –––– (2006) ‘The making of Ainu moshiri: Japan’s indigenous nationalism and its cultural fictions’, in N. Shimazu (ed.), Nationalisms in Japan, London: Routledge. Sjoberg, K. (2006) ‘Redefining the past, taking charge of the present, appropriating the future: the Hokkaido Ainu case’, in B. Sautman (ed.), Cultural genocide and Asian state peripheries, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tsurumi, P. (1977) Japanese colonial education in Taiwan 1895–1945, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. –––– (1984) ‘Colonial education in Korea and Taiwan’, in R. Myers (ed.), The Japanese colonial empire 1895–1945, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ueno, Masayuki (2001) ‘Ainu minzoku o meguru kyōiku ni kansuru ichikōsatsu’, Waseda Daigaku Daigakuin Kyouikugaku Kenkyūka Kiyō, 9: 45–56. –––– (2005) ‘Ainu minzoku to kyōikuken no hoshō nitsuiteno kōsatsu’, Waseda Daigaku Daigakuin Kyouikugaku Kenkyūka Kiyō, 13: 293–303. Vasishth, A. (1997) ‘A model minority: the Chinese community in Japan’, in M. Weiner (ed.), Japan’s minorities: the illusion of homogeneity, London: Routledge. Wagatsuma, H. and De Vos, H. (1984) Heritage of endurance: family patterns and delinquent formation in Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press. Weiner, M. (1994) Race and migration in imperial Japan, London: Routledge. –––– (1997) Japan’s minorities: the illusion of homogeneity, London: Routledge. Yen, C. (2002) The ethnic Chinese in East and Southeast Asia: business, culture and politics, Singapore: Times Academic Press.

3

The schooling of buraku children Overcoming the legacy of stereotyping and discrimination Sarane Spence Boocock You know, I am poor in school performance. Because my grandpa and grandma didn’t go to school, and my pa and ma barely graduated middle school. I am their child. So, I can’t be smart in school. Buraku ninth grader I am a buraku person and I am not proud of my position. But I hope to be more proud after listening to other buraku people. Knowing about people in weaker positions and doing something for them is important for us. As a burakumin I can relate to other minorities and I can understand their position . . . I would like everyone to know about my worries for my future but I fear that I will be discriminated against. Buraku middle-school student Buraku kids can’t concentrate. Elementary school principal Buraku liberation begins and ends in education. Buraku Liberation Research Institute (Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūjo)

The buraku people, or burakumin, constitute one of Japan’s largest discriminated against minority group.1 Like indigenous peoples discussed in this book, the buraku people are neither newcomers nor oldcomers—their residence in Japan parallels that of majority Japanese. Nor are they a distinct racial or ethnic group— they do not differ from majority or mainstream Japanese in skin color, facial features, or any other characteristics of physical appearance, nor do they share a distinctive language, religion, or other characteristics of sociocultural heritage. Yet, as George De Vos, the American anthropologist who conducted some of the first in-depth studies of buraku communities, has pointed out, “nonvisible features can be used with equal force to segregate off a portion of a society as essentially inferior, or in religious terms, ‘impure’” (De Vos and Suarez-Orozco 1990: 171). Many social scientists regard burakumin as members of a politically created caste, or outcaste, group, though some (for example, Shimahara 1984) argue that, lacking a distinctive culture, contemporary burakumin do not meet all criteria of

The schooling of buraku children 45 outcaste status. Racial, ethnic, and caste definitions and classifications can, of course, be highly subjective, and boundaries between groups are rarely clear and fixed. Failing to find a “neat and simple” definition, the author of a review of research on buraku origins and issues concluded that the “only consistent identifying feature of burakumin is that they are discriminated against” (Su-LanReber 1999: 4). Not surprisingly, the educational accomplishments of buraku children, the subject of this chapter, reflect their status as members of a group that was for centuries treated as a pariah sub-population. Thus, I’ll begin with a brief overview of the history of the buraku people and the most pressing problems that continue to impede their social mobility and wellbeing. The next section contains a review of educational trends, including efforts by government agencies and buraku activists to reform the Japanese educational system and statistics tracing the scholastic progress of buraku children compared with that of their counterparts in other groups, majority and minority. This review will serve as background for my discussion of findings from a long-term research project conducted in one of Osaka’s largest buraku communities. My assignment was to study the preschools attended by buraku children and the transition from preschool to elementary school. Although my small sample of schools precludes systematic data analysis and generalization, the data offer glimpses into school life as it is experienced by students that point to some of the sources of the persisting inequalities in the Japanese educational system and the factors that promote or hinder children’s academic performance. In the discussion that ends this chapter, I’ll consider the implications of my research for educational policy and practice in an increasingly diverse society.

Historical overview The history of the buraku people is long and complicated, and there appears to be no single, agreed-upon explanation of their origins, though it is clear that they have suffered from ostracism and severe discrimination since at least the beginning of the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), when they were designated as eta (literally, abundant filth) and/or hinin (non-human), assigned to occupations that not only placed them at the bottom of the social hierarchy, but were considered polluted and polluting because they involved direct contact with blood, death, or dirt (for example, butchering, leather work, grave digging, and sewage removal). Excluded from mainstream society, these outcastes were also subject to government regulations prescribing their place of residence (usually segregated slums, villages, or settlements), clothing and hair styles (to distinguish them from “real” or “human” Japanese), freedom of movement, and relations with others (for example, exchanges of money and goods had to be managed in such a way as to preclude physical contact). Even after the Meiji government, in the Emancipation Edict of 1871, abolished the status of eta and declared them emancipated “new commoners” (Shin-Heimin), and they came to be known by the less derogatory if euphemistic appellation Buraku-min (literally, people of the buraku, or village),

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they continued to be regarded as inferior to “real” Japanese, and discrimination continued almost unabated.2 Though spontaneous protests erupted from time to time, organized resistance by buraku activists did not emerge until the twentieth century. The Suiheisha (Levelers Society) was created in 1922 with the aim of achieving full emancipation by exposing all forms of discrimination. A highly controversial tactic introduced by Suiheisha was denunciation and retribution (kyūdan tōsō), which forced perpetrators of hate speech and injurious acts toward burakumin to apologize and offer compensation. After World War II, new organizations arose that tended to favor a “tactical shift from individual retaliation to attack on the broader issues of social and economic inequality,” by gaining government support for improved living conditions and elimination of specific discriminatory practices in housing, education, and employment (Shimahara 1984: 341). Since the 1990s, buraku activists have been lobbying for a comprehensive national law on buraku rights and cooperating with international organizations and networks fighting for minority rights worldwide. It should be kept in mind, however, that the buraku liberation movement is not encompassed in a single monolithic organization, but is more accurately viewed as a collection of organizations that share a commitment to ending discrimination against buraku people but are highly diverse in: •

•

•

ideology: disagreements continue to arise over whether anti-buraku discrimination should be broadly or narrowly defined, and should be viewed as a caste-based or class-based problem; strategy: disagreements continue to arise over whether it is more advantageous to work through regular government channels and seek legal remedies to specific problems or to use more aggressive tactics and seek “a transformation of Japanese society that will liberate all oppressed Japanese” (Su-Lan Reber 1999: 34); membership: organizations differ considerably in the social status of members, the number of non-buraku members, and the political affiliation of members (some welcome members who also belong to communist or socialist parties, others explicitly exclude them).3

The status of burakumin today Although anti-buraku discrimination has been officially abolished, and widely held beliefs about the inferiority of burakumin have been discredited by scientific research since the 1970s, prejudice is difficult to eradicate. A New Zealand scholar who engaged in extensive ethnographic research in a buraku community in Osaka argues that the belief that there is something inherently “wrong” with burakumin and something shameful about having buraku ancestry remains strong and continues to be transmitted from one generation to the next among many mainstream Japanese and some burakumin as well (McLauchlan 2002: 91–2). Another scholar concluded that “discrimination has not so much disappeared as taken on new, more subtle forms” that continue to relegate burakumin to inferior

The schooling of buraku children 47 social status and limit their opportunities (Monnet 2001: xi). Among the constraints on social mobility and wellbeing, often referred to collectively as buraku mondai, the following are perhaps the most tenacious. Living conditions Many buraku communities today bear little physical resemblance to the ghettoes of the past (see, for example, the photographs of dilapidated housing and unkempt inhabitants, and verbal descriptions of drunkenness and violent behavior in De Vos and Wagatsuma’s Japan’s invisible race (1967), an ethnographic study conducted during the 1960s). Since passage of the Special Measures Laws of 1969, substantial infusions of government funds into designated buraku communities have produced impressive improvements in housing and communal facilities— though, at the end of the twentieth century, approximately a thousand buraku communities had yet to be officially recognized as such and thus become eligible for financial assistance. Still, the visibility of improved living conditions in many communities has generated resentment and claims of reverse discrimination, especially among less affluent majority Japanese who have not benefited either from Japan’s rapid economic growth or from minority entitlements, and these entitlements are now being phased out (Kitaguchi 1999: Chapter 6; Su-Lan Reber 1999: 46–7; McLauchlan 2002: 91–2, 2003: 36–7). Employment Though employment rates and wages have gone up since the 1970s, buraku adults are still twice as likely as majority adults, to work in dangerous, insecure and dirty areas of demolition and construction, more than twice as likely to be unemployed, only half as likely to work for the “bigger and better” companies with 300 or more employees on the payroll, only half as likely to receive promotion, and almost forty per cent less likely to be earning above national average pay rates. (McLauchlan 2002: 88) Their wages may have gone up, but so have everyone else’s, the latter usually more. They’re still more likely to be hired on a “last on, first off” basis, and the ratio of buraku welfare recipients to non-buraku welfare recipients has remained about 6:1 since the 1970s (McLauchlan 2003: 53–4, 62). Marriage On the one hand, the number of mixed marriages increased steadily and substantially throughout the twentieth century, from around 3 percent of all buraku marriages in 1919, to 34 percent in 1963, and 57.5 percent in 1993, with marriages between non-buraku men and buraku women averaging two to three times those

48 Sarane Spence Boocock between buraku men and non-buraku women. On the other hand, surveys taken during the 1980s and 1990s indicated that acceptance of such marriages was far from universal: a 1993 study of mixed marriages in Kyoto prefecture showed, for example, that a third of these marriages had been opposed by parents, siblings, and/or other relatives, and that only about two-thirds of the couples visited their parents regularly after the marriage (McLauchlan 1999: 8–10). Burakumin may experience rejection from other minorities as well as from majority Japanese. A buraku parent interviewed by McLauchlan (2003: 139) recalled receiving a phone call from the parents of a Korean man their daughter was dating, who told them, “I’m sorry to say this but we are quite proud of our Korean ancestry so we would never allow our son to marry a buraku girl.” An indicator of the persistence of anti-buraku discrimination in employment and marriage is the extensive availability and use of chimei sōkan, directories listing the names and addresses, and sometimes occupations and other background information, of burakumin throughout Japan. Though illegal since 1969, chimei sōkan continue to be compiled and to be used by corporations and families for background checks of potential employees and marriage candidates (Su-Lan Reber 1999: 13). Family and temple registers are also used to screen potential marriage candidates, though this too is illegal. Since the late 1990s, ordinances prohibiting businesses from using discriminatory criteria when hiring new employees have been passed in Osaka and in several prefectures, though it is too soon to assess their effectiveness (McLauchlan 1999: 7). Discriminatory acts and attitudes Investigations of anti-buraku discrimination in the Osaka area carried out in the late 1990s showed an increase in the total number of discriminatory public statements, as well as threatening graffiti, posters and stickers, and harassing telephone calls, letters and Internet messages. A report published in the Buraku Kaihō Shimbun included photographs of graffiti and posters with the following messages: “Burakumin cause AIDS,” “Drop atomic bombs on burakumin neighborhoods,” and “Die eta filth.” Remarks posted on the Internet included: “Kill all the buraku people” and “Put buraku people into poison gas cells and liquidate them.” Though the reports concluded that incitement to abuse of burakumin has been increasing in many parts of Japan, it is unclear from the evidence available whether there has been an actual increase in discriminatory acts or an increase in the reporting of such acts as a result of recent legal prohibitions (Ishikawa 2001; McLauchlan 2003). In a 1993 nationwide survey of some 24,000 people that included questions designed to measure mainstream attitudes toward buraku and awareness of buraku mondai, it was found that over a third of the respondents were unaware that buraku people and communities were politically created, though awareness varied by region (from 95 percent in the Kinki region, to 73 percent in the Kantō region, to only 41 percent of those living in Hokkaidō and Tōhoku). About 10 percent of majority Japanese claimed never to have come into contact with a buraku

The schooling of buraku children 49 person, and a similar proportion believed that burakumin differ racially from other Japanese. When asked how they would react to learning that a close neighbor came from a buraku community, nearly all (88 percent) claimed, “I wouldn’t care and I would preserve our close relationship,” but less than half said that they would “respect the will of my child” if that child were to marry someone from a buraku community. Ironically, residents of regions with the highest proportion of residents who were well informed about buraku issues had the most negative attitudes toward intermarriage—knowledge per se did not appear to erase prejudice. Finally, only about one-fourth of the respondents felt positive toward teaching about buraku issues in schools (Su-Lan Reber 1999: 39; Akuzawa 2003; McLauchlan 2003: 12). If many mainstream Japanese are unaware of buraku mondai, many others believe (or prefer to believe) that they will eventually solve themselves or simply disappear, as a result of social change and greater tolerance of diversity, and as burakumin become more like “real” Japanese. The view that the buraku problem is best left alone is encapsulated in the often-quoted phrase: Neta ko wa sono mama (Don’t wake a sleeping baby). The implication is that further discussion of the inequalities suffered by burakumin and further actions designed to rectify them “only serve to perpetuate a problem which, if ignored, would disappear” (Neary 1997: 63). Coping with buraku mondai Faced with the limitations and stresses associated with their minority status, burakumin have tended to adopt one of the following strategies: •

•

•

Strategy 1: Stay in the buraku community and seek security among relatives and friends (“self-segregation” or “protective cocoon” strategy). Among the buraku residents interviewed by McLauchlan (2003) and Shimahara (1995), the most common reasons for staying there were variations of the following: “I feel safe,” “I belong here,” “We have a community where close relations are maintained,” or “I could make my way on the outside, but it is so much easier here.” Su-Lan Reber (1999: 57) found that: “Many parents do not want their children to enter the outside world for fear that they will have to face the harsh realities of discrimination.” Strategy 2: Embrace buraku identity and take an active part in the liberation movement for full emancipation (“activist” or “tōsō” (struggle) strategy). Buraku activist groups are generally concerned with improving social as well as material conditions, though, as noted above, there are disagreements between groups over the most effective tactics to combat discriminatory practices and attitudes. Strategy 3: Abandon buraku identity and relocate someplace where people don’t know or don’t care about one’s former identity (“passing” strategy). McLauchlan (2003: 26) believes that the numbers of burakumin who have passed successfully into mainstream society are substantial and increasing

50

Sarane Spence Boocock rapidly, though he acknowledges that, given the secrecy associated with this strategy (people attempting to pass are by definition reluctant to reveal their identity to potential employers or marriage partners, or to researchers), the data needed to test this claim do not exist. A second form of passing is emigration to another country, where the disadvantages suffered in their home country may decrease or disappear altogether. John Ogbu points to the relative success of burakumin in the United States as an example of the benefits of voluntary migration: “no longer overwhelmed by the traditional prejudice and discrimination associated with caste status, (buraku immigrants) have as much opportunity as the other Japanese immigrants to improve their social and occupational status through individual efforts” (Ogbu 1978: 320). He goes on to argue that this finding discredits theories that attribute the gaps between burakumin and mainstream Japanese to genetic or cultural differences. This argument is, however, weakened by the fact that it is based primarily upon a single study carried out in the 1960s, with a very limited sample (Itō 1967).4

Given the lack of comparable empirical evidence, one can only speculate on the numbers of burakumin who have chosen each of these strategies and their relative effectiveness. Since the 1980s, moreover, the status of burakumin has been further complicated by increasing within-group social stratification, which has bifurcated many buraku communities into a two-tiered class structure, with a few at the top who have been able to advance by taking advantage of new economic, educational, and occupational opportunities, and a much greater number, some very poor, at the bottom who lack the economic or cultural capital to advance (Ikeda 2001; Hawkins 1989). Dōwa education Under the slogan “Buraku liberation begins and ends in education,” the BLL has sought a variety of reforms under the general rubric of dōwa education.5 Originally conceived as a vehicle for eliminating discrimination and poverty by informing children about their own history, as well as enhancing their cognitive abilities and social skills, dōwa education today is an umbrella concept covering a wide range of educational initiatives, by governmental agencies as well as by the buraku liberation movement, though the two institutions tend to define the problem somewhat differently and propose somewhat different solutions. Government policies and programs have generally focused on: • •

improving facilities and services and schools attended by buraku children, including assigning additional teachers to provide compensatory education; distributing curricular materials about buraku history and government measures to overcome discrimination against burakumin (though these materials are generally offered in special classes for buraku children, rather than being required for all students);

The schooling of buraku children 51 • •

providing financial aid to buraku students; supporting community activities for buraku children and youth.

For the buraku liberation movement, dōwa education is defined more broadly, from attaining parity in education achievement and in rates of enrollment in secondary and post-secondary educational institutions, to the ultimate goal of “democratizing the whole society to attain true equality of opportunity for buraku and other oppressed populations” (Hirasawa and Nabeshima 1995: 3; italics added). All schools, including but not limited to, those attended by buraku children should: • • • •

•

develop the learning capacities of all students and ensure that all achieve the level of literacy expected of citizens of a highly developed industrial nation; deepen students’ knowledge about the history of the buraku people and the nature of anti-buraku discrimination; cultivate caring and cooperative relations among children; develop human rights awareness and sensitivities among children so that they regard the issue of eradicating discrimination, not as someone else’s responsibility, but as their own concern; promote community involvement in setting the school agenda.

Embedded in dōwa goals and teaching practices is the concept of inclusiveness. All minority students, not just buraku students, are to be enabled to succeed in school, and all students, not just minority students, are to be sensitized and informed about the history and extensiveness of discrimination and ways to fight it. Achievement of these objectives clearly requires fundamental changes in teaching principles and practices and in curriculum. Thus, buraku activists in one school district demanded district-wide adoption of a set of texts, compiled and edited by Buraku Kaihō Dōmei, containing readings on a broad range of human rights issues and including poems and essays authored by buraku children. Many dōwa educators are opposed to any form of tracking that divides children on the basis of test scores or other so-called “objective” measures of ability or merit, or that separates children with physical or mental disabilities from their age mates, arguing that multiple intelligences and diverse potentials of students should be acknowledged and accommodated in all classrooms (Hawkins 1989: 205; Hirasawa and Nabeshima 1995: 21–2, 59–60). In the next section, we’ll turn to a brief consideration of the major shifts in educational outcomes since the introduction of dōwa education.

Educational trends: progress and problems As educational opportunities for buraku children have opened up nationwide, there have been concomitant improvements in their educational performance. At the same time, they continue to lag behind majority Japanese students on virtually all measures of academic attainment and achievement, to manifest more

52 Sarane Spence Boocock psychological and behavior problems, and to be negatively stereotyped by other kids, as well as by teachers and other adults. Educational enrollment The overall picture is of improved school attendance, with total years of schooling and levels of literacy increasing with each successive generation of buraku children. Yet the rate of persistent, long-term absenteeism among buraku children is almost twice the national averages from primary through junior high school. Overall, the entry of buraku children into senior high school is close to that of the mainstream, 91.8 percent, compared with over 96 percent for the non-buraku samples, but high school drop-out rates, although declining since the 1970s, remain two to three times as high as for majority children. Similarly, access to higher education has improved considerably, but still only half as many buraku as non-buraku students (about 20 percent and 40 percent, respectively) advance to university or college.

Educational achievement Here, too, there has been significant progress since the 1970s, to the extent that: “Average discrepancies in statistics in educational achievement between burakumin and mainstream society are mostly well below 10 percent.” At the same time, “there are almost no recorded situations where the statistics for buraku education surpass, or even match those of mainstream society” (McLauchlan 1999: 16). Moreover, the discrepancy between buraku and majority students becomes greater as they progress through the school system—analysis of data from three large-scale projects carried out during the 1990s in the Osaka area showed that, the higher the grade, the greater the gap in test scores and other performance indicators (Neary 1997: 70–1; Ikeda 2001; McLauchlan 2003: 38–43). Emotional problems Although the achievement gap remains stubbornly resistant to recent efforts to erase or at least reduce it substantially, differences between buraku and majority students on indicators of low self-esteem, high anxiety and other emotional disturbances, and negative relationships with teachers and classmates, all significantly greater among buraku children at the elementary school level, became less evident at the middle school level and insignificant by adolescence. Moreover, the correlation between self-esteem and academic achievement, also substantial at the elementary level, was no longer significant among middle school students. Ikeda attributes the buraku adolescents’ relatively high self-esteem to peer group support that may “nullify the negative effects of their school experience” (Ikeda 2001: 89–91).

The schooling of buraku children 53 Behavior problems In recent years, the phenomenon of gakkyū hōkai (breakdown of classroom order resulting from students refusing to follow rules or instructions, fighting among themselves, and insulting, threatening, or even assaulting their teachers) has been increasing throughout Japan, affecting as many as 10 percent of elementary and middle schools in some regions. Although gakkyū hōkai is now viewed as a national problem, buraku students, especially boys, account for a disproportionate amount of disruptive and delinquent behavior in and outside of school. In one of the two elementary schools where I did fieldwork in 1996, buraku students had collectively defied their teachers, creating such chaos in one fifth-grade class that the teacher, a man with many years of teaching experience, was forced to turn over the class to another teacher in the middle of the school year (Ikeda 2001: 84). Discrimination (sabetsu) and stereotyping (kimetsuke) Buraku children today are unlikely to experience the kind of rejection that was still fresh in the memory of a woman now in her thirties. Arriving at school the day after her buraku origins had been revealed to a non-buraku classmate, she found that: My desk had been pushed into the corridor and all my pencils and things had been tipped out on the teacher’s desk. From that day on, I was teased until I became completely isolated. I was never prevented from going to school as such, but I really hated it . . . I would leave home each day and say I was going to school, but I didn’t go. (McLauchlan 2003: 127) While such blatant, overt discrimination may be largely a thing of the past, more subtle forms persist. Shimahara (1980, Chapter 4) and McLauchlan (2003, Chapter 5) both report examples of teachers’ reluctance to participate in dōwa or other human rights education programs. I was unprepared for the extent of stigmatizing of buraku kids by teachers and administrators and their readiness to shift the blame for students’ school failures to their homes and communities. Within the first few minutes of our introductory meeting with the principal of an elementary school in which about 40 percent of the students were burakumin, we were told that the problem with the buraku children was that they run around a lot, make too much noise, and can’t concentrate. Among the non-buraku teachers and day care personnel I interviewed, the most frequent complaints were that parents (or grandparents) spoiled the kids, failed to provide adequate supervision and discipline, didn’t feed them properly, let them stay up too late and watch too much television, and didn’t get them to school on time. Poor childrearing was also attributed to the parents’ drinking too much and spending too many evenings in karaoke bars.

54 Sarane Spence Boocock Buraku leaders are more likely to view continuing discrimination rather than shortcomings in buraku families and culture as the source of school problems. Kimetsuke (stereotyping), a key concept in dōwa educational theory, came up often in my conversations with dōwa educators and researchers, who believe that it is an important factor in children’s personal development and relations with others, that it begins in infancy, and that it explains buraku kids’ greater likelihood of being discriminated against and their greater likelihood both to be bullied and to bully other kids. Another indicator of continuing discrimination is ekkyō (literally “going beyond the border”), the tendency of majority parents to transfer their kids to schools with few or no buraku or other minority students, a phenomenon that continues despite passage of a law requiring children to attend their neighborhood schools. Finally, it is worth keeping in mind that, even in a rich society such as Japan, problems associated with poverty remain and are not evenly distributed, and that buraku children are still more likely than majority children to suffer from malnutrition and a variety of other health problems that interfere with their school performance (Hirasawa and Nabeshima 1995). Ikeda reminds us, however, that, owing to the growing status gap among burakumin, variations in all educational outcomes are as great among buraku students as are the differences between buraku students and majority students: “In spite of the fact that discrimination persists, we commit the error of oversimplifying the present state of buraku children and youth if we do not take social diversification into account” (Ikeda 2001: 79).

The Kanda Project6 The Osaka metropolitan area is home to the largest concentration of buraku people in Japan (about 12 percent of the total population of Osaka) and relatively large numbers of several other minorities as well. Most of the following discussion is based upon an in-depth study of one of Osaka’s largest buraku communities. In physical appearance, Kanda does not differ noticeably from neighboring communities, and a visitor unfamiliar with the area’s history might not be aware that they were in a formerly segregated, outcaste community. Government subsidies in support of housing, employment, education, community facilities, and health care have raised the standard of living, though average household income remains somewhat lower than that of the surrounding majority communities. In the 1990s, a relatively high proportion of burakumin were employed in the public sector, and more than half the residents lived in public housing units that could be passed on from one generation to their children, an entitlement not available to non-buraku public housing residents. There is a well-established local branch of the BLL, which maintains close relationships with the schools in the community, as well as offering a variety of recreational and educational activities for children and their families. Despite various forms of government support to the dōwa preschools and the elementary school in Kanda, the academic performance of the buraku students

The schooling of buraku children 55 continued to be lower than that of their non-buraku counterparts, and they also accounted for a disproportionate number of behavior problems, including the incident mentioned earlier in which a fifth-grade teacher lost control of his class and was forced to quit midyear. In an effort to address the difficult educational problems they were facing, Kanda educators and officials of the BLL local office sought the advice of Professor Hiroshi Ikeda and colleagues at Osaka University, which had since the 1980s been a center for research on the education of buraku and other Japanese minority children, resulting in a collaborative project between the university and the community. A small group of researchers at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, headed by Nobuo Shimahara, joined the project during the late spring and early summer of 1995 and 1996. As a member of the Rutgers research team, I focused on early childhood care and education and the transition from preschool to elementary school. Table 3.1 lists the sites where my observations were made. Schools that had been designated as dōwa schools or programs and were thus eligible for government entitlements enabling them to hire extra staff and maintain smaller class sizes are indicated with a b. In my first year of fieldwork, I spent several hours a day, three or more days a week, in Preschool A, a dōwa hoiku-sho (day care center) in which all of the children currently enrolled were burakumin. For purposes of comparison, I made Table 3.1 Preschools and elementary schools observed, 1995–96 Preschoolsa

Elementary schoolsa

Preschool A: Kanda Dai-2 Hoiku-shob Ages: 3–5 Buraku enrolment: almost 100%

School A: Kanda Elementary Schoolb Grades: 1–6 Buraku enrolment: about 40%

Preschool B: Kanda Yōchien Ages: 3–5 Buraku enrolment: 5% or less

School B: Tomita Elementary School Grades: 1–6 Buraku enrolment: 5% or less

Preschool C: Kanda Dai-1 Hoiku-shob Ages: 0–2 Buraku enrolment: almost 100% Preschool D: Shiawase Hoiku-shob Ages: 0–5 Buraku enrolment: almost 100% Preschool E: Tokiwa Yōchienb Ages: 5 Buraku enrolment: 100% Preschool F: Hotaru Hoiku-shob Ages: 0–5 Buraku enrolment: 5–10% Notes: a All names of schools and communities are pseudonyms. b Designated dōwa educational programme.

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briefer observations at Preschool B, a yōchien (kindergarten) in the same community that was not a dōwa preschool but that enrolled children of the same age range as Preschool A, including a few buraku children.7 I also visited Kanda’s dōwa day care center for children from infancy through age two (Preschool C). In my second year of fieldwork, I focused upon the two first-grade classes at Kanda Elementary School (School A), where some of the children I had observed in Preschool A the previous year were now enrolled. For comparison, I spent several days in an elementary school (School B) in a neighboring community. I also visited three preschools elsewhere in the Osaka area, chosen to provide variation in the proportion of buraku children enrolled and the extent to which the curriculum and modes of teaching incorporated dōwa educational principles and practices. At the end of the second year, I revisited the Kanda day care centers and met with their staff to exchange ideas about strengthening their programs. In both years, I also interviewed teachers and caretakers, school principals and preschool directors, and community leaders. Background information about buraku educational issues and dōwa early childhood care and education was obtained through interviews and informal conversations with staff members of the Buraku Liberation Research Institute, in Osaka, and through use of their library. Daily life in two preschools McLauchlan notes that buraku children are more than twice as likely as their majority counterparts to be placed in hoiku-sho, a difference he attributes to a higher proportion of dual-working parents among burakumin, but that is also undoubtedly because, unlike majority Japanese, they are entitled to enroll their children in government-subsidized day care even if both parents are not employed outside the home (another buraku entitlement now being phased out). This was certainly the case in Kanda, where nearly all of the kids in the dōwa day care program were buraku and nearly all the kids in the kindergarten were non-buraku. McLauchlan goes on to argue that, by attending full-day hoiku-sho rather than the more expensive, though mainly half-day, yōchien, buraku kids are “thereby missing out on the Japanese kindergarten emphasis on curriculum and formal learning” (McLauchlan 2003: 39; italics added). While my observations in these two preschools did not allow a systemic test of McLauchlan’s supposition, it did stimulate me to explore what children gain and lose in each type of preschool. Kanda Dai-2 Hoiku-sho (Preschool A) was a two-storied, L-shaped building that occupied a corner lot of a quiet residential street a couple blocks from Kanda’s main thoroughfare. The ground floor contained, in addition to classrooms, the administrative offices and a kitchen where the children’s lunches were prepared. On the second floor was a gymnasium, large enough to hold the entire student body and staff, and storage and laundry rooms. The building and grounds were surrounded by a fence with a single entrance gate. The space between the building and the entrance provided a large outdoor play area. At the outer corner of the property, surrounded by another metal fence with a padlocked gate, was

The schooling of buraku children 57 the swimming pool, essentially a large wading pool, where each class went for about thirty minutes on days when the weather permitted. As a dōwa preschool, Kanda Dai-2 Hoiku-sho received extra public funding that enabled it to have a high teacher-to-child ratio. In 1995, there was one class each of three-year-olds (twenty-five children), four-year-olds (twenty-four children), and five-year-olds (twenty-one children), each of which had two fulltime hobo-san. Two of the six hobo-san were burakumin. A few blocks away and bordering on Kanda Elementary School was Kanda Yōchien (Preschool B), a single-storied, L-shaped building. From the administrative office at one end near the building entrance, a corridor led to the gymnasium/ all-purpose room, and past that a right turn led to a row of classrooms. Like Preschool A, Preschool B had one class each of three-, four-, and five-year-olds, but here class size was between thirty and thirty-five children, with a single teacher for each class. Preschool B now enrolled “a few” buraku children, though there has apparently been no systematic effort on the school’s part to recruit more. In contrast to my Rutgers colleagues observing in Kanda Elementary School, who often returned from a day of fieldwork disheartened by what they saw, my days at the preschools were enjoyable as well as engrossing. For the most part, the daily routines I observed were familiar, similar to those I had seen elsewhere in Japan and in other nations as well. As I spent more time in Preschools A and B, however, I began to notice differences in the two environments, particularly with respect to: 1.

2.

the relative emphasis placed upon good interpersonal relationships (taijin kankei) and harmonious group life (shūdan seikatsu), as opposed to preparing children to succeed academically in school (junbi kyōiku); the relative effort devoted to avoiding all forms of discrimination (sabetsu) and stereotyping (kimetsuke) and including all children in the daily routines of preschool life.

Shūdan seikatsu versus junbi kyōiku The general atmosphere at Dai-2 Hoiku-sho could be characterized as warm, cheerful, and comfortable. “Correct” or “good” behavior was seldom taught in a formal way; rather, the hobo-san drew upon what seemed an endless repertoire of singing games and other enjoyable ways to teach personal habits such as brushing teeth and changing clothes. They often played with the kids rather than just supervising their play, and they orchestrated the lengthy day by alternating periods of vigorous physical activity with interludes of quiet play, listening to stories, and rest (each child had her own futon and blanket and changed into pajamas for a post-lunch nap). Little time was spent in disciplining children. Kids were not scolded for mishaps such as spilling paint or food; in most cases they cleaned up after themselves with little or no adult supervision. Fights were rare, and I saw no temper tantrums or bullying (ijime), the latter acknowledged to be a problem in Kanda Yōchien as

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well as in the elementary school. Crying children received prompt attention and comforting, with no effort to identify and punish a culprit. In most of the activities I observed, there seemed to be greater emphasis on having a good time with one’s classmates than on developing specific physical or cognitive skills. For example, the daily sessions at the “swimming” pool began and ended with a few minutes of free play, during which most of the kids simply milled about in the water screaming happily. There was no formal swimming instruction. Hobo-sans sometimes provided informal coaching on arm or leg movements, but I never saw a child actually swim more than a few tentative strokes. Group activities might require children to work in pairs or teams—for example, walking across the pool and back holding hands with a partner, or joining with teammates to retrieve colored plastic disks thrown into the pool by a hobo-san— but none required actual swimming, and there were no winners or losers. Kids who were awaiting or had finished their turn were led by the hobo-san in yelling encouragement to the kids in the water and applauding them when they completed their task. The sessions sometimes ended with a brief ritual—for example, in one class, children and hobo-san joined hands and circled in the water, chanting in unison and ending with a cheer. Most of the arts and crafts periods I observed were informal. Children were seldom given a topic or any technical instruction. For example, in one drawing session in the age-four class, children picked up a sheet of paper from a pile and chose their own workspace, some at tables, others on the floor, a few on a bench in the hall outside the classroom. One boy circulated with a can of magic markers that were shared by all. Most of the girls drew pictures of girls, some with detailed renderings of facial expressions, clothing, and jewelry, a few showing considerable skill. Most of the boys’ drawings were more rudimentary renderings of spacecrafts, military vehicles, and explosions. Finished drawings were taken to a hobo-san, who wrote the artist’s name on the drawing and usually said something like “Well done,” but did not provide further comment or evaluation. The children appeared to be enjoying themselves, and many chatted as they worked. No one complained about the limited resources, and there was no squabbling over space or materials. By comparison, at Kanda Yōchien (Preschool B), the priorities seemed to be reversed. Though the director of Kanda Yōchien denied that they engage in junbi kyōiku, in the class for five-year-olds that I observed, the teacher led her thirtythree students through a series of counting songs and chants, during which kids were called upon to form groups of varying numbers. She then displayed and discussed a series of colorful paintings, which, I later learned, had been created by the kids working in han (more or less permanent classroom groups of five or six children who worked together on numerous tasks). Each of the paintings illustrated an episode from an obake (ghost) story that had been read to the class, and the children were preparing to use the paintings in a re-enactment of this story at an all-school assembly. The difference in expectations and levels of accomplishment was evident when the five-year-olds from Kanda Yōchien visited their age-mates at Dai-2 Hoikusho, and each of the two classes provided an entertainment for the other. While

The schooling of buraku children 59 both groups performed routines that involved vigorous bodily movements done in time to recorded music with a disco beat, the yōchien performance was longer, involved more complicated moves, and had the kind of polish that suggested it had been thoroughly rehearsed. The hoikyu-sho kids were more self-conscious about performing before an audience, some seemed barely familiar with the routine, and a few dropped out before the end. Although good group life was also a stated goal of Kanda Yōchien, I observed more misbehavior and less attention to the quality of interpersonal relations than in Preschool A. During classroom clean-up times, shifts from one activity to another, and passage to and from assembly, there was a lot of pushing and shoving and a few fights. The all-school assembly where the five-year-old class re-enacted the obake story was chaotic: the room was so noisy it was difficult to hear what was going on. Kids in the back of the room talked and fooled around throughout the program, and roughhousing by several pairs of boys had to be broken up by an adult staff member. Though I did not myself observe any instance of ijime, when I asked the director whether bullying was a problem, she said that it happened and that it was usually directed against a child who cried a lot, had an unusually small or weak body, or was otherwise “different.” Avoiding stereotypes, encouraging inclusiveness The effects of downplaying gender differences, a basic principle of dōwa education, were especially evident on the few occasions when I could compare Preschool A kids and Preschool B kids directly, for example, on the day the Preschool B five-year-olds visited Preschool A. During a period of outdoor play, I stationed myself near the sandbox area where a group of about fifteen kids from both preschools were constructing an ambitious mountain landscape surrounded by a moat, under the supervision of a hobo-san, a buraku woman who is a wellknown lecturer and writer about dōwa early childhood care and education as well as a full-time caretaker-teacher at Preschool A. At first, boys and girls alike dug vigorously and took pleasure in using the hose to spray each other as well as to fill the moat, but the girls from the yōchien soon withdrew to one side of the sandbox, where they sat down in pairs or small groups and spent the rest of the time creating play meals using some of the sandbox toys as dishes. I asked the hobo-san whether the girls and boys she taught engaged in the cross-sex avoidance and teasing that is reported in research on American preschools and elementary schools (for example, Paley 1984; Thorne 1993; Scott 2002, 2003). She seemed puzzled by the question and could not recall any such incidents. When I later asked the director of Preschool B the same question, she acknowledged that boys and girls tended to play separately, and characterized girl–boy relations from about age four as “exclusionary.” Some other practices designed to avoid gender stereotyping were more subtle, and I might have missed them had they not been pointed out to me by Professor Ryoko Kimura, a specialist in gender studies who accompanied me on several preschool visits. For example, at Kanda Dai-2 Hoiku-sho, the toothbrushes, cups,

60 Sarane Spence Boocock and other personal items provided by the school were all of the same color, rather than differentiating girls’ and boys’ items by color. At role call, children’s names were called in alphabetic order, instead of all boys’ names being called before girls’ names, as was formerly the custom in most Japanese classrooms. Sex segregation at lunchtime was avoided by assigning kids to tables that mixed girls and boys. During outdoor free play, I observed no instances of groups of one sex teasing or chasing kids of the opposite sex or calling them names. Older boys tended to chase each other, grouping and regrouping constantly, though they did not prevent girls from joining them. I frequently saw boys jumping rope with girls. The dōwa principle of inclusiveness meant, among other things, that the entire group, children and adults alike, were responsible for the wellbeing of all group members. During my second year of fieldwork, I observed two striking examples of the application of this principle to teaching practice. The first occurred during a visit to Hotaru Hoiku-sho (Preschool F), which had been identified by the specialist in dōwa preschool education at the Buraku Liberation Research Institute as the best preschool in Osaka at which buraku children were enrolled. (Ironically, Hotaru Hoiku-sho, a dōwa preschool that had “integrated,” now enrolled more non-buraku than buraku children.) When I entered the age-four class, the kids were seated in a circle engaged in the morning “conversation,” except for one little girl who was crying. Getting no response to her asking what was wrong, the hobo-san (a twenty-one-year-old woman in her first year of teaching) went to sit behind the girl, putting her arms around her. She then asked the group why they thought their friend was crying and what they might do about it. A number of suggestions were offered. One boy went to the sink, wet a towel, brought it back, and wiped the crying girl’s face. Finally, two girls suggested that their classmate might feel better if she could play in her favorite place and, with the hobo-san’s permission, they led her off to the play-house corner. The crying stopped almost immediately, and the rest of the group was released to their various activities. I was impressed by the skill with which a relatively inexperienced teacher involved the whole group in seeking a solution to the problem, encouraging them to empathize with an unhappy friend while making no effort to establish blame. Children with disabilities were few in number in any of the preschools I observed. At Preschool A, government funds provided for an assistant to aid in the care of a girl in the age-four class who was not able to walk or speak and a special buggy that enabled her to accompany her classmates on their daily round of activities. At nap time, the children in charge of laying out the futons and blankets placed hers in the center of the group so that she would be surrounded by her classmates during their rest period. The most impressive efforts at inclusiveness that I witnessed occurred during a visit to Preschool E, a yōchien for thirty-six five-year-olds located in an old and still largely segregated buraku neighborhood. As the rainy weather did not permit outdoor play, the kids were engaged in free play in the gym/multipurpose room, which had been turned into a kind of open classroom with a variety of play areas. Immediately upon the arrival of a very small girl whose disabilities have severely retarded her physical

The schooling of buraku children 61 development, two of her classmates came up to her, took her by the hand, and, talking all the while, led her to the “store” they had organized in one corner of the room. A little later, a teacher supervising play on the gymnastic equipment laid the girl gently on the trampoline, and several boys who had been jumping vigorously took turns bouncing gently so that she might share in their play without fear or injury. At no time during the morning was she without companions. Over lunch, I complimented the director and teachers on their success at integrating the girl into the daily life of the yōchien. They looked pleased and agreed that they have worked hard to accomplish this. The director said that, even though the girl does not speak yet and they don’t know whether she understands what is said to her, they feel that they can at least communicate with her emotionally. She also emphasized that all the students benefited from being a playmate to a disabled classmate. Summary of findings Though similar in many respects, the preschools I observed differed in the weight given to socializing young children to treat each other decently and play together harmoniously, versus preparing them for the next stage of their educational careers, where cognitive skills and the ability to work independently would be required. It’s difficult to assess the extent to which the differences I observed reflect differences in (a) curriculum and modes of teaching; (b) class sizes and student-to-teacher ratios (much higher in the yōchien); and/or (c) composition of the student body. While nearly all of the children enrolled in the Kanda Hoikusho were buraku whose parents were employed in working-class or low-level civil services occupations, the few buraku children enrolled in the yōchien generally came from higher-status families; their parents were more likely to have middleclass occupations and incomes and less likely to identify with, or associate much with, the buraku community in Kanda.8 Daily life in two elementary schools Kanda Elementary School (School A), my primary research site in 1996, is a threestory building housing two classes each for grades 1–6, plus administrative offices, a teachers’ room with a desk for each teacher (a desk was also made available to me for the duration of my fieldwork), a large gymnasium, a number of multipurpose rooms (for meetings as well as for music and other special classes), and a kitchen where the lunches for students and their teachers were prepared (to be wheeled to each classroom and distributed by a pair of students assigned to the task). Though considerably larger than the Kanda preschools I had studied the previous year, the building was similar in construction and general appearance. The school grounds contained playing fields and several playground areas equipped with slides, swings, jungle gyms, and parallel bars. Most of my time in School A was spent in the two first-grade classes, each of which had a total enrollment of twenty-eight students, with eleven buraku children

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in one class and nine in the other. As in the previous year, I also visited a second school in the vicinity for comparative purposes. Tomita Elementary School (School B) enrolled a small number of buraku children but had not been designated as a dōwa school or program. As Preschool A is a feeder school for School A, I was able to observe how some of the kids I had gotten to know in the Dai-2 Hoiku-sho age-five group were getting along in first grade. Although only a few blocks separated Preschool A and School A, in many ways they seemed worlds apart, and it appeared that the transition from preschool to elementary school was not going smoothly for some of the buraku children. By the third month of first grade, when I began my observations, a few of the boys were already considered to have serious behavior problems. The girls, who had seemed so lively and sociable at Dai-2 Hoiku-sho, were now virtually silent and frequently inattentive in class. Although many factors may have contributed to the striking differences between life in preschool and life in elementary school, it seems noteworthy that, for most of the buraku kids, entering first grade at School A meant encountering for the first time: 1. 2. 3.

an unchallenging curriculum, with mainly isseijugyō (whole-class) and drillfocused modes of teaching; a frequently chaotic learning environment (gakkyū hōkai), requiring considerable time to be devoted to disciplining students; awareness of their status as members of a minority group that is not well regarded by many majority Japanese.

As we’ll see, School A also differed from School B with regard to these three factors—indicating that they are not universal or inevitable aspects of elementary school life. Curriculum and teaching methods Although a government-approved, uniform curriculum for all Japanese elementary schools is mandated by the Ministry of Education, comparisons of Kanda Elementary School and Tomita Elementary School revealed striking differences in curriculum and modes of teaching and classroom management. My notes on School A contain frequent references to the “barebones” curriculum, lack of stimulating tasks, and slow pace of instruction. The Kanda first graders spent much of the day seated at their desks facing front, being drilled on a pair of hiragana (phonetic characters of the Japanese syllabic alphabet) and a pair of numbers. In both classes, the teachers worked hard to make their presentations clear and lively, and they sometimes enlisted a student to assist them in pantomiming a word or picture that used that day’s hiragana or numbers, but the students’ role was largely passive—they answered questions when called upon, worked individually in workbooks or on handouts from the teacher, and waited for their written work to be checked. Boys frequently broke the class rule against shouting answers without

The schooling of buraku children 63 being called upon or got into trouble for fighting or horsing around. The girls, who rarely misbehaved, received less of the teacher’s attention. The lessons were boring, and time dragged. I often had a hard time staying awake. In general, I saw little use of the much-vaunted Japanese practice of smallgroup (han) work, with the exception of a project in which students working in teams jointly created a large mural of the sea featuring a variety of fish and underwater plant life. This was one of the few occasions when most of the kids seemed thoroughly involved in their work, and their obvious pride in the outcome (the mural was incorporated into class discussions for several days and then hung in the hall) made me wonder why more of their class work was not structured in this way. As part of the effort to reduce the gap in academic competence between buraku children and non-buraku children, a director of dōwa education was employed at Kanda Elementary School. Though a few buraku students were now in the top third of their class, the school had not succeeded in narrowing the gap overall, and the director took issue with those: who suggest that when we maintain the same level of gap it is an accomplishment of the school. It is extremely difficult to say what the school has accomplished through dōwa education. I can say that perhaps buraku children’s school achievement would have deteriorated without our efforts. I cannot really suggest that buraku children have gained significantly in terms of school achievement. (Shimahara, interview with Director of dōwa education, Kanda Elementary School, July 25, 1995) All they could claim to have done, she concluded, was to maintain the status quo. Just a few blocks away, the first graders at Tomita Elementary School, which enrolled a small number of buraku children whose identity was not known to all the school personnel, were enjoying a far richer educational environment. By the time of my visits, they had learned all of the hiragana and were already reading stories (when I left in early July, the Kanda first graders had not yet progressed from simple, mainly two-syllable, words to sentences, let alone stories). In one class, the students recited the entire hiragana syllabary in the form of a song, after which four of them were asked to stand up and, one by one, repeat the song solo. At the end of each solo, the teacher asked the rest of the class for its assessment of the performance, and only after it agreed that the song had been correctly rendered did she give the signal to applaud the singer. During my second visit to School B, the other first-grade class was in the midst of a reading lesson on two stories of three or four pages each. For the first story, the teacher had individual students read a passage aloud, emphasizing that they should speak loudly (ōkina koe de) and clearly (hakkiri) and asking those who spoke softly or inaudibly to repeat the passage. The second story was acted out by the students. One scene called for a monkey character to leave the room and come back carrying a large ring of keys. This pantomime appeared to be a favorite

64 Sarane Spence Boocock with the students, and they were allowed to repeat it several times with different kids in the monkey role. The teacher took time to work individually with a handicapped boy (who was also assigned a classroom aide) on his part in the pantomime and gave him a big hug when he performed it successfully. The lesson ended with a dictation exercise in which the student and teacher roles were reversed—students read out sentences from the monkey story, and the teacher wrote them on the board. Finally, he asked me to tell the class the English words for some of the words in the story and had the students repeat them after me ōkina koe de. Chaotic classrooms (gakkyū hōkai) The buraku children who had attended a dōwa preschool moved from an environment in which good behavior and pleasant interpersonal relations were the norm to an environment in which students disrupted their classes, bullied and fought each other, and left the classroom or school building without permission. Owing to its reputation as a “difficult” school, few of the teachers at Kanda Elementary School had chosen to teach there; in the past years, three teachers had taken leave from the school in the middle of the academic year owing to fatigue and stress. Although student misbehavior was not considered as problematic in the lower grades as the higher ones, in both first-grade classes I observed, considerable class time was spent maintaining order and disciplining students. In both classes, the noise level was sometimes high enough to give me a headache, and fights occurred almost daily among boys (most, though not all, buraku). Both first-grade teachers impressed me as hard-working and committed professionals, but they seemed to lack effective strategies for dealing with the problems they confronted, and both looked exhausted by the end of the school day. The school’s director of dōwa education regularly patrolled the school corridors and sometimes dropped in to the class I was observing. She generally hovered behind the back row of seats, stepping in to monitor the behavior of boys who were not sitting correctly or paying attention and occasionally to break up a fight. The misbehavior of a few children and the disproportionate amount of teacher time and attention directed to them caused me for some time to overlook the fact that most of the children were behaving well—if behaving well is defined as not making trouble. Indeed, I was impressed, though also saddened, by the stoicism with which they endured the long school day and repetitive tasks set for them. On one particularly discomforting occasion, the female teacher spent half an hour trying (unsuccessfully) to get one boy to confess to hitting another boy and calling him insulting names, throughout which the other children sat in silence, almost motionless, staring into space. The atmosphere was palpably different in School B, where almost no class time was spent disciplining students—perhaps because there were frequent breaks throughout the day during which the kids were allowed to let off steam by running up and down the corridors, yelling, banging on an old upright piano, and joking

The schooling of buraku children 65 with the teachers. I saw no fights, and the kids returned to their classrooms after each break with scant adult intervention. Awareness of minority status From being virtually 100 percent of the enrollment in the dōwa hoiku-sho in Kanda, the buraku children who entered Kanda Elementary School now constituted a minority, albeit a sizeable one. Parents interviewed by Shimahara (1995) believed that their children had not encountered the kinds of prejudice they themselves had experienced. At the same time, they worried that kids today lacked confidence in themselves as buraku and courage to fight discrimination. One parent recalled that her children not only concealed their identity, but discouraged their parents from attending parent–teacher meetings at their school for fear they would reveal their buraku origins. Kanda as a community was criticized, by BLL officials as well as by school personnel, for allowing its children “to stay wrapped in the cocoon of the community,” and thereby failing to prepare them for the world outside. Research in other buraku communities has documented the difficulties kids experience when they leave the cocoon. Okano and Tsuchiya (1999: 127) found that buraku children living in segregated villages or neighborhoods may be unaware of anti-buraku attitudes and discrimination until they enter schools, where for the first time they “come into direct contact with the dominant culture.” Bondy (2004) posited a discontinuity between life in buraku communities where the liberation movement has been especially active and residents have become accustomed to subsidized housing, guaranteed jobs, and other affirmative action perks, and mainstream Japanese educational institutions, which are unlikely to embrace buraku liberation goals and values. Similarly, Nishida (1992) concluded that the kind of upbringing that enables buraku kids to “acquire a positive identity within a protective setting” may render them more vulnerable to discrimination once outside that setting—and may, eventually, motivate them to take the “easier” path of passing into majority society. From his in-depth studies of ninth-grade buraku boys, Ikeda proposed a more nuanced conceptualization of their social development and educational performance. In contrast to Ogbu’s cultural reproduction theory, which postulates that children of an “involuntary minority” develop an “oppositional culture” that is an inevitable outgrowth of their cultural background, Ikeda’s reinvention theory underscores the diversity, or non-homogeneity, among buraku boys (as among burakumin generally), which he views as an inevitable result of the increasing social differentiation between and within buraku communities. As their economic conditions and social environment have changed, including the appearance of class stratification based on income, solidarity within the buraku community has gradually broken down. Social consciousness among buraku people has accordingly begun to diverge, and likewise, the response of the buraku youth to school culture has varied as well. (Ikeda 2001: 82)

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A typology developed by Ikeda classified boys according to the following four categories: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Delinquent boys, who are often truant from school, are likely to be members of gangs that engage in reckless or deviant behavior (e. g., speeding on motorcycles), and do not aspire to go on to senior high school. Corner boys, who are more interested in and better at sports than academics, do not openly rebel against school and teachers but may harbor ill feelings toward them. College boys, who perform well in school and intend to go on to college, are generally from relatively affluent families and do not socialize much with other buraku boys, either at school or in the community. Liberatory boys, who are active in the children’s group activities at the buraku community center (often their parents work for or are otherwise active in the BLL), do not excel academically but attend school regularly and do not engage in disruptive behavior.

While granting their shared history of oppression as a “common denominator” for all buraku kids, Ikeda maintains that: It is only one of the essential attributes that influence their social perspectives. Their identities are not mere reflections of their history and their community culture. Instead, their self-concepts are relatively autonomous, created through their encounters with school culture. Minority youth reinvent themselves in their own ways. (Ikeda 2001: 95; italics added) While Ikeda’s typology focused on the school experiences of buraku boys, my observations indicated that girls too were affected by their shift from majority to minority status. If the boys tended to respond to their new environment with disruptive behavior, the girls became more passive. They talked less than the boys in class and made no trouble during the tedious classroom drills, even when they had already mastered the material covered (it was only when I accompanied the class on a trip to the local library that I discovered that several of the girls knew how to read). The discussion periods that ended the school day (owari-no-kai), supposedly led by the student monitors, one male the other female, for that week, tended to be male dominated, especially in the class with a male teacher. In one owari-no-kai, the girl monitor, one of the smaller kids in the class, strove to give girls who raised their hands a chance to speak, but her voice was drowned out by boys who spoke out of turn or simply ignored her. The teacher overlooked most of the boys’ violations of the class rule against speaking out of turn and, on one occasion, called on a boy after the girl monitor had already recognized a girl—in effect taking over the monitor’s role as well as over-ruling her decision. Teachers and other school personnel did not appear to notice either the accomplishments of individual girls or their disengagement from classroom life.

The schooling of buraku children 67 For example, when I asked about a buraku girl who did outstanding art work, finished most seatwork assignments ahead of her classmates (and thus spent a fair amount of time waiting for the rest of the class to catch up), and clearly outperformed them on the playground apparatus (she was the only one who could jump over a row of barrels or swing across the parallel bars quickly, rhythmically and without pause), they did not seem much interested. The most thoughtful response I received was from a buraku official who acknowledged that, although dōwa ideology emphasizes equality for everyone, in fact, women remain subordinate to men in the liberation movement as well as in Japanese society, and that school life undoubtedly reflects this. The resilience of stereotypical beliefs Some recent ethnographic research in American elementary schools documents stereotyping of African American and Latina children similar to the stereotyping of buraku children I observed in Kanda. In one California elementary school, Ann Ferguson (2000) found the low-track classes in which the African American boys were routinely placed mind-numbingly boring. Students never initiated activities, and the tasks assigned were simplistic and repetitive, encouraging rudimentary levels of thinking and allowing no creative efforts by the students. The teachers’ low expectations, negative stereotyping, and disrespectful treatment of many of these boys set them apart from other students on a path that led inexorably toward school failure. In another school, Amanda Lewis (2003) found that Latina girls were also stereotyped, in the opposite direction from the African American boys, but, she felt, with equally damaging consequences. Lewis’s description of the Latina girls’ demeanor also seems applicable to the buraku girls in Kanda Elementary School: Latinas expressed their alienation from school as silently as African American boys did loudly. In many ways their silence was just as potent and destructive as the negative attention black boys got: these girls’ needs still were not recognized or addressed [and their] silence went beyond good behavior to a particular kind of nonparticipation, a pattern that did not receive much attention because the girls were not interrupting or getting in anyone’s way. (Lewis 2003: 80) According to Ferguson, the school personnel she studied used stereotyping to create “a powerful seamless story that reinforced a ‘natural’ connection between certain groups of children and certain outcomes,” a story, she adds, that was based more on hearsay than on first-hand evidence (Ferguson 2000: 45). I heard similar stories about the buraku children of Kanda. Like their counterparts at the preschool level, teachers and administrators at Kanda Elementary School tended to explain the academic problems of the buraku students in terms of cultural deficits in their families and communities. Again and again, I was told about parents who did not value education, who spoiled

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their children, and who failed to take responsibility for their misbehavior. By keeping its children “wrapped in the cocoon of the community,” Kanda failed to offer them sufficient inducements to become self-reliant. Evidence that contradicted the “seamless story” tended to be overlooked. For example, upon examining the sign-in sheets for parents’ visiting day, I discovered that all first graders except one sick child were represented by at least one relative, usually the mother, though a few fathers and grandparents were also in attendance, and several younger brothers and sisters accompanied their parents or grandparents. As far as I could tell, the adults not only attended visiting day but also stayed to the end (mid-afternoon), certainly not an indicator of parental disinterest and irresponsibility. Summary of findings Like the preschools I observed in 1995, the elementary schools I observed in 1996 differed in curriculum, classroom organization, modes of teaching, and composition of the student body. In first-grade classes with relatively high proportions of buraku students from relatively low-status families, there was more rote learning, less time in han activities, more disorderly behavior, and more time spent on disciplining students than in first-grade classes with relatively fewer buraku students. Clearly, the transition from preschool to first grade was not a smooth one for many of the buraku children of Kanda, and a disproportionate number of boys already had serious learning and behavior problems. Interviews with teachers and other school staff at Kanda Elementary School revealed that many held low expectations for buraku children and attributed their low achievement to deficient upbringing. The emphasis on happy group life that was the centerpiece of dōwa educational and recreational programs was also viewed by some as problematic. A thoughtful assessment of the continuities and discontinuities experienced by buraku children moving from a dōwa preschool into a mainstream elementary school was provided by the director of dōwa education: From the time they are born they are placed in the daycare center, the school, and the Youth center. In other words, they are constantly in group settings. [Because] they are together in the same setting for a long time, they seem to develop common characteristics, which are reflected in their behavior when they are enrolled in first grade. These characteristics are both positive and negative. For example, a good characteristic is that because they know each other they readily offer assistance to each other when it is needed . . . they are very sensitive, friendly and affectionate [hito natsukoi]. [On the other hand, they] tend to lack confidence in defining their own self and abilities [jiko ninshin] [and] have difficulty deciding how to behave as individuals. (Shimahara, interview with director of dōwa education, Kanda Elementary School, July 25, 1995)

The schooling of buraku children 69

Discussion How could two elementary schools just a few blocks apart provide such profoundly different educational environments, with commensurate differences in outcomes? And why did extensive preschool experience, which is positively correlated with subsequent school success in virtually all nations for which data are available (Boocock 1998), not seem to reap similar benefits for the buraku children of Kanda? Explanations for these differences tend to emphasize one of the following: (1) inadequate parenting; (2) systemic or societal inequalities; or (3) outmoded or ineffective teaching practices. Inadequate parenting Many of the people interviewed in connection with the Kanda Project viewed the buraku children’s lack of school success as a buraku problem—that is, as caused by shortcomings in buraku homes and communities. Parents did not socialize their children adequately and failed to take sufficient responsibility for their educational performance. The solution according to this perspective is kateino kyoikuryoku, or greater parental responsibility and accountability. In keeping with this perspective, a manual advising parents on how to improve their parenting skills, produced by the Kanda branch office of the BLL, was being distributed in the summer of 1996. Similar arguments have been made in the United States and other countries in support of efforts to abolish or scale back affirmative action programs and to shift responsibility for children’s achievement and wellbeing “back to the family.” Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these initiatives is scarce. Evaluations of “Responsible Parenthood” and other intervention programs targeted primarily at low-income and minority families have indicated that the most effective programs are too costly to reach most of the parents who might benefit from them, and, furthermore, that policies designed to enforce parental “involvement” and “accountability” are unlikely to have the desired results as long as they (a) sidestep the thorny issue of the vast differences in families’ social resources and power, and (b) fail to accommodate alternative forms of “involvement”—in particular, the kinship networks through which many working- and lower-class families exchange information and assistance (Lareau and Shumar 1996; Ambert 1997). Systemic inequalities Critics of the kateino kyoikuryoku approach are likely to point to the detrimental effects of inequalities in the educational system. Just as Thomas Rohlen (1983) found a clear rank ordering of Japanese high schools that was strongly associated with the composition of the student bodies, so differences in the quality of preschools and elementary schools attended by buraku children tended to reflect differences in students’ social backgrounds. Thus, the academic problems of Kanda first graders cannot be understood without taking into account that the

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elementary school they attend is at or near the bottom of the educational ladder, at least in part because a substantial and growing proportion of the students’ parents are both buraku and lower- or working-class. By comparison, Tomita Elementary School enrolled more students from higher-status families, and the buraku children who attended, though few in number, were likely to benefit from the higher educational expectations and outcomes characteristic of a school higher up on the educational ladder. Solutions based upon a systemic or contextual perspective would require addressing the great inequalities in social status and the distribution of social capital in Japanese society and, increasingly, among burakumin themselves. It would also require attacking the stereotyping that underlies anti-buraku discrimination; in particular, discrediting the “seamless stories” many educators and policymakers tell themselves and each other to explain buraku students’ failure to close the academic achievement gap. Until then, disproportionate numbers of buraku children will continue to suffer a kind of double jeopardy when they enter the mainstream educational system. Coming from families that possess less of the educational, occupational, income, and other kinds of social capital that are associated with school success, they will continue to be relegated to schools low on the educational ladder, where the unchallenging curricula and monotonous modes of instruction will dampen their academic aspirations and accomplishments and narrow their future opportunities. If they are not likely to encounter the overt discrimination experienced by their parents, buraku kids are also unlikely to escape the more subtle, less visible forms of discrimination still pervasive enough in the culture of their schools to make them reluctant or unwilling to reveal their identity as burakumin.9 Ineffective teaching A third way of explaining the differences between the two elementary schools is that they embody two divergent pedagogical models. Tomita Elementary School fits in most respects what has come to be known as the Japanese model of schooling. As explicated by Tsuneyoshi (2001, Chapter 2) and C. Lewis (1995, Chapters 3 and 4), this is first and foremost a “whole child” or “child-centered” model, the most important elements of which are: •

• •

•

equal importance of academic and non-academic pursuits (the latter to include not only art and music classes, but “civic” activities such as class meetings, lunch and cleaning duties, and school-wide activities such as Arts Day, Tanabata Festival, and overnight field trips); group—especially han, or small group—activities as the heart of classroom life; a spirit of communalism that engenders a sense of belonging or “togetherness” (issei-taisei), close, empathic interpersonal relations (omoiyari), and ‘voluntary cooperation’ (jihatsuteki no kyoryoku); individual behavior governed by the values of friendliness, helpfulness, persistence, and responsibility.

The schooling of buraku children 71 In combination, these elements can be expected to create “eager, motivated learners and caring, responsible citizens” in a system that “is likely to connect all children positively to schooling” (Lewis 1995: 71–2). Lewis acknowledges that this model of schooling gives way to “monotonous lectures and authoritarian control” in many Japanese middle schools, a shift that appeared to have occurred much earlier in Kanda Elementary School, which bears less resemblance to the Japanese ideal than to the daily grind model of schooling proposed by Philip Jackson (1968). Like the American elementary school students on which Jackson based his model, the Kanda first graders sat for long periods of time listening to their teacher, doing repetitive deskwork, or simply waiting—to have their work checked; for the teacher to finish disciplining someone; for school to be over. Not surprisingly, Jackson concluded that the most useful quality a student can acquire is patience, a quality that many Kanda first graders seemed to have mastered within the first few months.10 From this perspective, the solution would be greater adherence to the Japanese model of schooling, allowing more children—especially minority children—to benefit from the “whole child” approach to education. Thus, it seems ironic that the dōwa educational principles and practices that seem most congruent with the Japanese ideal of schooling are viewed as part of the problem. The director and other staff members of the Kanda office of the BLL we interviewed felt that the original purpose of dōwa day care—to provide total care in a safe, pleasant group setting for children from deeply impoverished homes, who might otherwise have to accompany their parents while they labored at physically draining jobs in substandard, often dangerous workplaces for substandard pay—no longer coincided with the needs of children and their families. They favored a shift in focus, with less emphasis on group life, more emphasis on preparing children to adapt to the more cognitively oriented and highly competitive educational settings that are viewed as a necessary prelude to success in contemporary Japan. This shift in orientation was evident in my 1996 revisits to the Dai-2 Hoikusho, where a year-long effort to revise the curriculum had resulted in more activities designed to strengthen children’s cognitive competence (gakuryoku) and self-awareness (shisei). In the four-year-old class, the hobo-san went around the room accompanied by a cute doll who tapped kids on the head as a signal for them to carry chairs to one side of the room and arrange them in three rows. She then led them briskly through a twenty-minute lesson on colors and shapes—holding a batch of colored papers behind her back and bringing them out one at a time, asking: Is this an orange circle? Is this a yellow square? And so on. To the kids’ delight, she purposely misidentified some of the papers—for example, holding up a red circle, asking, “Is this an orange square?”, and allowing them to shout out the correct answer. Each child was also assigned a “personal” color and shape and given a notebook with her name and logo on the cover. The children’s response to these new “lessons” certainly contradicted the pervasive stereotype of buraku children as uninterested in learning and unable to concentrate well enough to master academic tasks. Moreover, the addition of

72 Sarane Spence Boocock school readiness activities seemed to have been accomplished without foregoing other important aspects of dōwa education—in particular, its emphasis on cultivating caring and cooperative relations among young children, qualities that often seemed to be missing in Kanda Yōchien and Kanda Elementary School. Buraku activists, among the first to challenge the “official” vision of Japan as an ethnically homogeneous society, were also pioneers in showing how diversity could be accommodated in the schools. Curricula developed by dōwa educators provided the first teaching materials designed to deepen students’ awareness of the extent of discrimination suffered by various oppressed peoples in Japan and to show how it could be eradicated. Whether an educational model originated by and for descendants of an outcaste minority group that is still held in low regard by many Japanese can enter the educational mainstream and be applied to the educational problems of other minority children remains to be seen.

Acknowledgements Support for this research from the Japanese Ministry of Education and the Rutgers Graduate School of Education is gratefully acknowledged. During the project that is the main source of empirical data for this chapter, I was privileged to work with two renowned scholars, both of whom did pioneering research on the buraku people. Professor Nobuo Shimahara, a Rutgers colleague and friend of many years, has been an invaluable source of advice and encouragement since the mid 1980s when I began my first studies of early childhood care and education in Japan. Accompanying him on informal walks through Kanda as well as on our more formal school visits afforded me an unparalleled opportunity to observe a master ethnographer at work. Professor Hiroshi Ikeda, under whose leadership Osaka University became a center of research on the education of Japanese minority children, and who initiated and oversaw every aspect of the Kanda Project, ensured that our research group was welcomed in the community and given free access to the schools. Professor Ikeda’s untimely death in 2004 was a great loss to the field. This chapter is dedicated to both of them.

Notes 1 The exact number of buraku people is unknown, with current estimates ranging from 1 million to over 3 million. These discrepancies stem from multiple causes that are themselves related. First, population estimates depend upon who is doing the counting. Government estimates tend to be considerably lower (less than half on average) than those made by buraku organizations, and, according to McLauchlan (2002): “Both sides could be equally accused of using those statistics which best suit their own agenda” (84). Second, there is no consensus about who is a buraku, and definitions can be vague; for example, those people “who are believed to be burakumin by nonburaku people,” or, more inclusively, those people who were born, brought up and living in buraku; those who were not from burakumin family but came to live in buraku in the recent past; or those who are living outside buraku but have blood relationship with burakumin. (Hirasawa and Nabeshima 1995: 5)

The schooling of buraku children 73

2

3 4

5

6 7

Note that the latter definition implies not only a fluctuating membership but also a contamination effect—you can become buraku just by living in close proximity with burakumin. Third, an unknown but believed-to-be substantial and growing number of burakumin have sought to better their life chances by “passing” into mainstream society, in Japan or elsewhere. The status of burakumin has been compared to that of other minorities whose subordinate social position has been justified on the grounds of their alleged physical, mental, or cultural inferiority, such as Korean-Japanese or African-Americans. In origins and the descent-based discrimination they have experienced, the buraku people of Japan are probably most comparable to the Untouchable castes of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, now often referred to as Dalit, Harijan, or other alternative terms thought to be less insulting, more morally neutral. Though not a distinct racial group, Indian Untouchables, like their Japanese counterparts, have been defined as permanently polluted people largely as a result of the “unclean” work they perform, such as butchering, skinning animal carcasses, tanning leather and making shoes, removing human waste, washing clothes, and preparing bodies for cremation—basically the same kinds of defiling occupation associated with burakumin and their social ostracism. Legislation that abolished segregation in public schools and established caste-based quotas for admission to some federally financed university programs and some jobs in the public sector has enabled a few Untouchables to rise to middle-class status, but disproportionate numbers remain at the lowest levels of their society (Mendelsohn and Vicziany 2000, Chapter 1). It is also noteworthy that, of the twenty nations identified in an international review as practicing “descent-based caste discrimination,” only two—Japan and India—called for exclusion of this topic from the deliberations of the 2000 International Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Human Rights Watch 2001; Gill 2004). For fuller accounts of buraku origins and history, including the movement for buraku liberation, see Shimahara 1980, 1984; Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūsho 1991; Kitaguchi 1999; Okano and Tsuchiya 1999; Su-Lan Reber 1999; Ikeda 2001; McLauchlan 2002, 2003. Similar findings have been reported with regard to Korean-Japanese, who, like burakumin, are discriminated against in Japan and whose kids do poorly in Japanese schools, but whose accomplishments in the US equal or surpass those of other Americans (for example, Lee 1991). The term “dōwa” combines the two kanji for “same” (dō) and “harmony” (wa). Dōwa education is generally translated as equalitarian or assimilation education. Some buraku activists prefer the term “Kaihō Kyōiku” (liberation education) (Hawkins 1989: 195, 210; Hirasawa and Nabeshima 1995: 2). The name of this community is a pseudonym, as are the names of all the schools and preschools discussed in this chapter. Hoiku-sho, which are under the authority of the Ministry of Welfare, offer full-day care for the infants and young children of working parents. Yōchien, under the authority of the Ministry of Education, combine elements of American nursery schools and kindergartens. Most are half-day programs, though many now have optional afternoon activities. Both kinds of facility may be public or private; all that meet government licensing standards are eligible for government support. Most yōchien teachers and hoiku-sho caretakers (known as hobo-san) are credentialed professionals who have graduated from a demanding two-year training program and are paid at levels comparable with other civil service employees. Although day care was originally intended for the children of poor or working-class families, and nursery schools for children from middle- or upper-class families, in recent years, the educational component of the former has been expanded, and the social class distinctions between the two types of preschool have diminished if not disappeared. (For more comprehensive discussions on the Japanese preschool system, see Boocock 1991; Peak 1991; Holloway 2000.)

74 Sarane Spence Boocock 8 Similar patterns have been found in recent American research. For example, a major finding of an ethnographic study comparing family life, childrearing practices, and academic achievement in an affluent suburb and a lower-income one is that social class explained more of the differences than race—that is, higher-income African American families were more similar to higher-income White families than to lowerincome African American families (Larau 2003). 9 Mendelsohn and Vicziany reached similar conclusions regarding the extent to which educational equity for outcaste groups has been achieved in India: Even now that desegregation of the schools is substantially complete, it is not possible to conclude that all school-based discrimination against Untouchables has disappeared. There remain serious questions about equal treatment in terms of the appropriateness of the curriculum and the sensitivity and diligence of teachers towards their Untouchable students. And there is also the matter of how caste Hindu children treat their Untouchable class fellows. Do they play with them in the schoolyard? And, if the discriminatory attitudes of adults are enacted by their children, is this from the earliest years of schooling or only later once they have thoroughly learnt the culture of Untouchability? There is insufficient research on these questions [but] clearly, in many respects India is still far away from possessing an appropriately democratic and rigorously non-discriminatory system of education. (2000: 126) 10 I do not mean to imply that schools with high proportions of buraku or other minority children are the only ones to deviate from the Japanese model of schooling. A Japanese writer who attended a mainstream fourth-grade class for several months found himself counting the minutes until recess when he could get a drink of water, play tag with his “classmates,” and regain enough energy “to endure the next 45 minutes in class.” In contrast to Lewis’s upbeat analysis, Jiro (1999) concluded facetiously that: “It is really due to the incredible patience of children that the Japanese educational system has somehow survived to this day” (85).

References Akuzawa, M. (2003) Dōwa education and reforms in human rights education in Japan: access, content, and what’s beyond, Osaka: HuRights Osaka. Ambert, A.-M. (1997) Parents, children and adolescents: interactive relationships and development in context, New York: Haworth Press. Bondy, C. (2004) “Hide and seek: gaining a buraku identity and the process of passing.” Paper presented at Japan Studies Graduate Seminar Series, Japan Cultural Center, University of Hawaii, November 4, 2004. Boocock, S. S. (1991) “The Japanese preschool system,” in E. R. Beauchamp (ed.), Windows on Japanese education, New York and London: Greenwood Press, pp. 97–125. –––– (1998) “Long-term outcomes in other nations,” in W. S. Barnett and S. S. Boocock (eds), Early care and education for children in poverty: promises, programs, and longterm results, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 45–76. Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūsho (Buraku Liberation Research Institute) (1991) The reality of buraku discrimination in Japan, Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūsho. De Vos, G. A. and Suarez-Orozco, M. (1990) Status inequality: the self in culture, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. De Vos, G. A. and Wagatsuma, H. (1967) Japan’s invisible race, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

The schooling of buraku children 75 Ferguson, A. A. (2000) Bad boys: public schools in the making of black masculinity, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Gill, T. (2004) “Executive Summary,” International Consultation on Caste-Based Discrimination, Kathmandu, Nepal, November 29 to December 1. Hawkins, J. N. (1989) “Educational demands and institutional response: Dōwa education in Japan,” in J. J. Shields (ed.), Japanese schooling: patterns of socialization, equality, and political control, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, pp. 194–211. Hirasawa, Y. and Nabeshima, Y. (1995) Dōwa education: educational challenge toward a discrimination-free Japan, Osaka: Buraku Kaihō Kenkyūsho. Holloway, S. D. (2000) Contested childhood: diversity and change in Japanese preschools, New York and London: Routledge. Human Rights Watch (2001) “Racial discrimination and related intolerance,” in Human Rights Watch World Report 2001, New York: Human Rights Watch, pp. 1–13. Ikeda, H. (2001) “Buraku students and cultural identity: the case of a Japanese minority,” in N. K. Shimahara, I. Z. Holowinsky, and S. Tomlinson-Clarke (eds), Ethnicity, Race, And Nationality In Education: A global perspective, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 77–96. Ishikawa, Y. (2001) “Rights activists and rights violation: the burakumin case in Japan.” Paper prepared for Global Conference against Racism and Caste Based Discrimination, New Delhi, India, March 1–4, 2001. Itō, H. (1967) “Japan’s outcastes in the United States,” in G. A. De Vos and H. Wagatsuma (eds), Japan’s invisible race, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 200–21. Jackson, P. (1968) Life in classrooms, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Jiro, S. (1999) “Grownups should listen to kids,” Japan Quarterly, 46: 83–8. Kitaguchi, S. (1999) An introduction to the buraku issue: questions and answers, trans. A. McLauchlan, Folkenstone, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press. Lareau, A. (2003) Unequal childhoods: class, race, and family life, Berkeley: University of California Press. Lareau, A. and Shumar, W. (1996) “The problem of individualism in family-school policies,” Sociology of Education, Extra Issue: 24–39. Lee, Y. (1991) “Koreans in Japan and the United States,” in M. A. Gordon and J. U. Ogbu (eds), Minority status and schooling: a comparative study of immigrant and involuntary minorities, New York and London: Garland, pp. 131–67. Lewis, A. (2003) Race in the schoolyard: negotiating the color line in classrooms and communities, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Lewis, C. C. (1995) Educating hearts and minds: reflections on Japanese preschool and elementary school education, New York: Cambridge University Press. McLauchlan, A. (1999) “Introduction,” in S. Kitaguchi, Nyumon Buraku Mondai: Ichimon ittō, Osaka: Japan Library, pp. 1–38. –––– (2002) “Mainstream attitudes towards burakujumin,” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 4: 84–118. ——(2003) Prejudice and discrimination in Japan: the buraku issue, Lewiston, NY, Ontario, Canada, and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press. Mendelsohn, O. and Vicziany, M. (2000) The Untouchables: subordination, poverty and the state in modern India, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Monnet, J. (2001) “Introduction,” in S. Sumii, My life: living, loving, and fighting, trans. Ashi Translation Society, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, pp. ix–xix.

76 Sarane Spence Boocock Neary, I. (1997) “Burakumin in contemporary Japan,” in M. Weiner (ed.), Japan’s minorities, London: Routledge, pp. 50–78. Nishida, Y. (1992) “Identity in identity politics: analysis of life histories of buraku people,” Soshiorojī, 37: 3–19. Ogbu, J. (1978) Minority education and caste: the American system in cross-cultural perspective, New York: Harcourt-Brace. Okano, K. and Tsuchiya, M. (1999) Education in contemporary Japan: inequality and diversity, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Paley, V. (1984) Boys and girls: superheroes in the doll corner, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Peak, L. (1991) Learning to go to school in Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rohlen, T. P. (1983) Japan’s high schools, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Scott, K. A. (2002) “You want to be a girl and not my friend? African-American girls’ play activities with and without boys,” Childhood, 9: 397–414. –––– (2003) “In girls, out girls, and always Black: African-American friendships,” Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, 9: 179–207. Shimahara, N. (1980) Oppressed Japanese: burakumin, Tokyo: Yachiyō Press. –––– (1984) “Toward the equality of a Japanese minority: the case of burakumin,” Comparative Education, 20: 339–53. ——(1995) Interviews with Buraku parents (July 7) and Director of Dōwa Education, Kanda Elementary School (July 25). Su-Lan Reber, E. A. (1999) “Buraku mondai in Japan: historical and modern perspectives and directions for the future,” Harvard Human Rights Journal, 12: 1–59. Thorne, B. (1993) Gender play: girls and boys in school, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Tsuneyoshi, R. (2001) The Japanese model of schooling, New York and London: RoutledgeFalmer.

4

Schooling and identity in Okinawa Okinawans and Amerasians in Okinawa Naomi Noiri

Okinawa is currently one of Japan’s 42 prefectures and consists of numerous small islands located in the southernmost part of the country. Prior to their annexation by Meiji Japan in the late nineteenth century, the islands formed an independent kingdom, the Ryūkyū kingdom, which had its own language and culture and an independent trading relationship with China. Okinawa was thus internally colonised by modern Japan and shared its plight with another indigenous people, the Ainu of northern Japan. The indigenous people of Okinawa were forced to assimilate to mainland Japan under the pre-Second World War government. The area suffered greatly in the Battle of Okinawa at the end of that war, and, even after Japan regained sovereignty, remained under the rule of the US occupation, which developed extensive military bases on the islands. Even after Okinawa’s return to Japan in 1972, its people remained marginalised in Japanese society and have maintained a strong Okinawan identity, as distinct from Japanese. Okinawans are thus a minority group in Japan. Within this minority group, however, there exists a further minority group, Amerasians, who are children of American soldiers (including ex-soldiers) and local women – a direct consequence of the US bases that are disproportionately concentrated in Okinawa. This chapter focuses on these two minorities: Okinawans and Amerasians in Okinawa. The aims of this chapter are threefold. First, it examines how schooling, until recently, has acted as a powerful tool to marginalise Okinawans in Japan; how and why this process was assisted and/or countered by local grass-roots activism; and how the process has influenced the formation of an ambivalent Okinawan identity. Second, the same questions are asked about Amerasians in relation to the Okinawan society. Third, the connections between the two groups, as well as the implications for other minorities, are uncovered, and the possibility of schooling as a source of empowerment is explored. I contend that pre-war Okinawa internalised the imposed Japanese state ideology, and that schooling played an important role in this process. Although the pre-war assimilation was initially enforced from above, locals later learned to accept it, and furthermore willingly promoted it, through education. Okinawans under the post-war US rule initiated their own grass-roots activism to promote assimilationist education, which they saw as necessary for integration into mainland Japan. In this process of promoting assimilation to mainland Japan, first

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imposed and later voluntary, Okinawans seem to have internalised Japan’s view of Okinawa as marginalised, and developed ambivalent identities. Later, after Okinawa’s return to Japan, locals were sympathetic to ‘stateless’ Amerasians, who were excluded from Japanese citizenship, and organised a grassroots activism to ensure that all mixed-race children obtained Japanese citizenship. When this was achieved, however, interest in Amerasian children diminished, despite their continued marginalisation in schooling and beyond. This drove concerned parents to establish the AmerAsian School of Okinawa specifically for Amerasian children. Bureaucratic difficulties faced by these parents reveal the attitude of the Okinawa Department of Education, as well as the notion of ‘difference’ that official discourse adopts. I consider the accommodation of Amerasians in local schools to be one of the most challenging tasks faced by Okinawa’s government schools, and that such coexistence is most likely to be achieved once local people reflect on their own experience of marginalisation, both past and present, both institutionalised and otherwise, and relate this to that of Amerasians. In revealing the intra-group diversity of Okinawans, this chapter underscores the changing nature of Okinawan identity over time, in response to political and social circumstances. The study is important in that it reveals another, seldom examined aspect of Japanese schooling. Although Okinawa recently emerged as a much-discussed topic, and various aspects of Okinawan society have been studied (e.g. Johnson 1999; Nakasone 2002; Hein and Selden 2003; Hook and Siddle 2003), the schooling experienced by Okinawans (including Amerasians in Okinawa) has received scant attention. For example, the pre-war assimilation policy in education was studied by Rabson (1999), and Allen’s ethnography of an outer Okinawan island community (2001) mentions a considerable autonomy that local education boards maintained from the central ministry. This chapter shows how schooling has historically responded to perceived ‘differences’, what the consequences of this were, and how grass-roots activism has influenced schooling processes. It thus assists us to understand current educational policies and practice in responding to newly defined differences brought by immigrant children and to long-standing differences maintained by older, culturally distinct groups of indigenous people and ethnic Koreans/Chinese. This chapter begins by examining how Okinawans experienced modern schooling over three distinct phases: subordination to pre-war Japan, the US occupation, and after Okinawa’s return to Japan. Second, it studies Amerasian children’s experience of schooling during the latter two phases in relation to that of other Okinawans, including the effective civil movement to save ‘stateless children’. Last, the discussion shifts to the continuing marginalisation of Amerasian children, even after the civil movement ensured Japanese citizenship to all Amerasian children,1 and to the process leading to the establishment of the AmerAsian School. The connection between the two minority groups in question is explored in terms of their shared experience and the potential this implies.

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Schooling under Japanese colonial rule: the first subordination The existence of a single shared language has long acted as a powerful justification for the claim that Japan is an ethnically homogeneous nation-state (Yoshino 1992: 24–5). Linguistics studies, however, suggest that the Ryukuan language is not so much a dialect as a separate language, and that the difference between the Japanese language and the Ryukuan language is like that between German and English and between French and Italian (Matsumori 1995: 20). Contemporary young Okinawan people do not have functional knowledge of the Ryukuan language. The shift in their language use was swift. Kawai, an author born in 1950, recalls that the generation before hers was able to think in the Ryukuan language and write in the Japanese language, but that generations younger than hers are no longer able to even think in the Ryukuan language (Kawai 2003). This section examines two of the factors that contributed to the language loss: schooling and identity (others being government and patriarchy). The annexation of the Ryūkyū kingdom to mainland Japan was not a sudden action by the expansionist Japanese state; it occurred gradually from the beginning of the seventeenth century. At that time, in mainland Japan, many fiefdoms, after a period of fighting among themselves, finally came under the rule of the family located in Tokyo. Fiefdoms became domains (hans), maintaining relative autonomy in their internal management but expected to be loyal to the Tokugawa family. In 1609, the Satsuma domain (the present Kagaoshima prefecture located at the south end of Kyushu Island) placed the Ryūkyū islands under its rule. Prior to this, the Ryūkyū kingdom was an independent entity that maintained an emissary relationship with China. The Tokugawa Shogunate successfully ruled the country until modern Japan emerged in the mid nineteenth century. The Satsuma domain kept the name of the Ryūkyū kingdom and let it continue its trade with China. This was a strange arrangement in that the kingdom maintained loyalties to both Satsuma and China until its integration into modern Japan, but served the interests of the Satsuma domain, which wanted to exploit the taxation potential of the Ryūkyū kingdom’s trade. Iha (1928: 28–31) suggests that this was the beginning of the Okinawans’ ambivalent identity. The Satsuma authorities maintained a deliberate policy of keeping indigenous Okinawans distinct from mainland Japanese by prohibiting them from adopting Japanese-sounding names and wearing Japanese clothes, although some locals wanted to assimilate. The Satsuma authorities even took the Ryūkyū king and his servants, dressed in Chinese-looking clothes, to the capital, Edo, in order to display the Satsuma’s power to the Shōgun. The Ryūkyū people became confused about their identity in relation to Chinese and Japanese (Iha 1928: 29). They had a more favourable feeling towards China, which only wanted a voluntary emissary relationship; China had no intention of annexing the islands by fighting against the Satsuma. After losing the Opium War in 1840, China had no power do to so, in any case. After modern Meiji Japan was established in the mid nineteenth century, the Ryūkyū kingdom remained under the control of Kagoshima prefecture

80 Naomi Noiri (previously Satsuma), a new local administrative unit. Its integration into modern Japan was considered too costly for the few perceived benefits to be gained by such an action (Oguma 1998:20). In 1879, the Ryūkyū kingdom was officially integrated into Japan and became the Okinawa prefecture. The Japanese government then started seeing the Ryūkyū Islands as geopolitically important. Okinawans were thus unilaterally made ‘Japanese’ subjects by the Japanese government in order to serve its expansionist interests in Asia, in particular the colonisation of Taiwan. The central Japanese government established primary and middle schools and teachers’ colleges in Okinawa in order to promote ‘Japanese’ modern schooling. It realised that many locals did not understand the standard Japanese language and the notion of the emperor, and was concerned that this might threaten national security. Teachers’ colleges were given photographs of the emperor and the empress. Students were taught the ideology of the divine emperor and loyalty to this, as well as standard Japanese language. The authorities wanted locals to cultivate a Japanese identity. Initially, Okinawans saw little value in schooling provided from above. They mocked schools, and few were willing to send their children to learn standard Japanese, which was seen as locally useless. Their reluctance was reflected in the school attendance rate in the 1880s: only 3 per cent, compared with the national average of 40 per cent. As the people still sought their spiritual foundation in China and disliked Japan for dissolving their kingdom, China’s defeat in the SinoJapanese War in 1894 had a profound influence on Okinawan identity. At that point, people realised that they could no longer depend on China in reviving their own kingdom. Meanwhile, the patriotism of the Japanese Empire reached the islands. By 1901, primary school attendance had reached 70 per cent, and 90 per cent in 1906 (Ōta 1976: 79). The Japanese authorities continued to adopt the policy of assimilation and of deliberately not nurturing leaders among local inhabitants; the same policy was later applied to other colonised peoples, such as in Taiwan. Higher education institutions were not established in Okinawa (teachers’ colleges were not considered higher education at the time). Even though some locals successfully learned to be assimilated by believing in the imperial ideology and speaking perfect standard Japanese, the rulers of Okinawa were nevertheless dispatched from mainland Japan. Okinawans could not become members of parliament until 1912, and even after that could not become prefectural governors. Okinawans were forced to become ‘Japanese’, but were to be discriminated as ‘Okinawans’, a contradiction that led to identity confusion. The government discouraged indigenous language and cultural practices. School authorities considered the local language a shameful, primitive dialect and prohibited its use; students who spoke the local language were given a card called a ‘dialect placard’ (hōgenfuda) to place around their necks as a punishment (Yamashiro and Sakuda 1983: 404–5), a similar tactic in relation to a minority language to that adopted in France (Giordan 1987 (1984)). Local cultural practices were also denigrated as barbaric under the slogan ‘Improve Customs Movement’

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(fūzoku kairyō undō). When national conscription started, Okinawan males were instructed to abandon their traditional hair style (Iha 1928), and the traditional custom of tattooing women’s hands was also prohibited. It was an imperial policy to control the bodies of its subjects: namely, men were to be able soldiers and women to be producers of soldiers. Okinawans initially resisted what they considered to be a discriminatory educational policy from above. For example, local students were outraged when the Syuri Middle School Japanese principal removed English from the school curriculum on the grounds that English was a luxury for the locals, who, he claimed, should first learn the standard Japanese language. Students boycotted classes and demanded the principal’s removal, which resulted in the subject’s return to the curriculum (Kerr 2000: 442). The principal and students involved in the boycott were also removed from the school. On the other hand, Okinawans gradually learned to see value in assimilation, especially after Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese war, which made locals favour Japan over China. Noting that Okinawans in mainland Japan suffered from discrimination, at least partly because of their dialect, some Okinawans began to think that mastering standard Japanese might bring fairer treatment and better life chances (Rabson 1999). This led to what I call a voluntary assimilation movement initiated by local teachers. The bottom-up assimilation movement led to Okinawans’ transferring their own oppressive experience onto Taiwan, which became a Japanese colony in 1895. In relation to Taiwan, Okinawans held superior power as the ruling Japanese. The Japanese government promoted Okinawans, an old ruled people, to colonise the Taiwanese, a new ruled people, by sending Okinawan teachers, government officials, army officers and police officers there (Matayoshi1990). It seems that the Empire used Okinawans as disposable foot soldiers of colonial governance in Taiwan. Okinawans were still looked down on by the Japanese and the Taiwanese in Taiwan. This status of ‘double minority’ (Arasaki 2000: 38) contributed to identity conflicts for many Okinawans. Meanwhile, Okinawan government officers were sent to areas where local resistance against Japanese colonialism was strongest and where they faced heavy casualties. Okinawans volunteered for the mission of transforming local Taiwanese, whom they considered less civilised than themselves, into Japanese subjects. They believed that ‘Okinawa along with Taiwan was the important south gate to the Empire’, a phrase that emphasised the unique contributions that the two could make to the Empire. Events during the Second World War also troubled Okinawan identity. On landing, the American army found many civilian dead – forced to commit suicide by the Japanese army. Twice as many Okinawans as Japanese soldiers were killed in the Battle of Okinawa (James and Tamamori 1995).

Schooling under the US occupation: the second subordination The US occupation remained on the island even after Japan regained sovereignty in 1951. The American army shared the Japanese authorities’ view that Okinawans

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were distinct from the Japanese people (Tozzer 1996: 4); General MacArthur mentioned that Okinawans were not against the American occupation of Okinawa, unlike Japan, as they were not ‘Japanese’ (Nakano 1969: 4). The USA gained Pacific islands formerly under Japanese rule as its trust territories; in gaining Okinawa it acquired extensive military bases from the Far East to the Pacific. The fortification of Okinawa was subsequently important in the Cold War and during the Vietnam War. The US Military Government of the Ryūkyū Islands became the US Civil Administration in 1950. American commissioners dominated the administration, decision-making and judiciary. A letter from the Far East Command to the Ryūkyūs Command in 1950 proclaimed that ‘the Ryukyuan people will be guaranteed, as far as is consistent with the military occupation, the basic liberties of democratic countries’ (Gekkan Okinawasha 1983: 54). In the early 1950s, the American Army started taking over land in order to build military bases. Locals were forced to agree to rent their lands to the Army below market price, ‘equivalent to one bottle of coke for twenty years rental’ (Nakano and Arasaki 1976: 75). Local farmers had no choice but to work as construction workers or employees of the base, or alternatively to become small-shop owners serving American soldiers. With American products entering Okinawa without duty, manufacturing industry did not develop. Thus Okinawa’s unique state of heavy economic dependence on the bases soon emerged and has remained to the present. The American authorities had no intention of making Okinawa a US territory and granting its people American citizenship. Okinawans were therefore neither American nor fully Japanese. The self-governing body’s police officers could not charge an American soldier who failed to stop at a traffic light and killed a young Okinawan boy.2 Okinawans were not granted voting rights and could not travel freely to mainland Japan. They thus experienced a process whereby Okinawa became dependent on the US bases. This affected their identity formation. As for schooling for locals, the American authority in Okinawa showed little enthusiasm, in contrast to mainland Japan where the American GHQ was keen to establish a democratic system of schooling. The 1945 announcement by the US authority in Okinawa merely mentioned that the new schooling would promote local language, history and art. Education policies formed a part of the ‘disassimilation’ campaign that military intelligence and propaganda embarked on in order to convince Okinawans that they were not Japanese (Rabson 1999: 145). Radio programmes in the Ryūkyūan language were funded but soon discontinued owing to the lack of Ryūkyūan-speaking broadcasters. The 1946 Primary School Act passed by the US military government suggested that schools teach American and Okinawan culture and celebrate Okinawans’ achievements. The curriculum in the same year included the history of Okinawa and oriental and occidental history centred on Okinawa (Okinawa-ken Kyōiku Iinkai 1977: 23). The emphasis on the unique nature of Ryūkyū culture was seen by locals as an American attempt to justify the separation of Okinawa from Japan. Many Okinawan teachers resisted the ‘Ryuky-ization’ campaign. Many teachers also left teaching owing to inadequate salaries.

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The American authority’s wish to consolidate their rule in the islands by separating Okinawans from Japanese was also seen in its attempt to produce proAmerica elites in Okinawa. The US authority established the system of offering scholarships to local youth to study in America, and created local elites who were preferentially appointed to the government in Okinawa on their return. It was often said: ‘Unless you studied in the US, you go nowhere in this government.’ The University of the Ryūkyūs, established in 1950, was also aimed at producing proAmerican elites (Yamashiro and Sakuda 1983: 125). In contrast to the poor conditions of local primary and secondary schools, the university provided free education in English through American lectures, with American books donated by the government as texts. Graduates of this university, however, later played crucial roles in Okinawa’s civil movement to demand a return to Japan. Primary and secondary schools, which the American authority showed little interest in, had to be rebuilt by local people. In 1946, ninety primary schools were operating, with 65,000 students. Because facilities had been destroyed during the war, teachers and students sat on the beach, substituting the sand for a blackboard. One year later, the number of students had increased to 156,000, but the old, prewar system of eight years in primary and four years in senior high school was still in operation. It was only in 1948 that the new system of six–three–three (three years in primary, three years in middle school and three years in senior high school) was introduced, following the mainland practice (Warner 1972: 43). The place of English was extensively debated in the curriculum for these schools. It looked as if the American rule was to be permanent. However, lengthy discussion resulted in the decision that the medium of instruction would be Japanese, and that English would be a compulsory subject from grade 1 (Okinawaken Kyōiku Iinkai 1977: 42–3). Why was this? First, local teachers were dissatisfied with the American Army’s policy of funding education only for proAmerican elites, and with what the teachers understood to be a policy of divide and rule by strengthening Ryūkyūan consciousness. Second, local teachers realised that the new system of education in mainland Japan was well funded, that the occupation authorities on mainland Japan showed much more enthusiasm for rebuilding the education system, and that Okinawa would benefit more from following the Japanese system. In 1959, the Okinawa Association of School Principals took a consensus request to the American Army that Okinawan schooling follow the mainland Japanese practice and that schools raise a Japanese flag (which the US authority prohibited at the time) and have the same national events as Japan. Although the request was rejected, local educationalists started studying the new schooling system of mainland Japan. Local movement for assimilationist schooling: ‘Kokumin kyōiku’ Local teachers thus became determined to promote assimilationist Japanese schooling. This was called ‘Kokumin kyōiku’ and involved cultivating an awareness of being a Japanese citizen in, and teaching standard Japanese language to, their students. A question emerges from this: Why did Okinawans so desperately

84 Naomi Noiri want mainland Japan’s schooling for their children? This is surprising when we recall that locals felt betrayed by Japan – they had been left under US rule despite the war casualties that they had suffered and their pre-war display of loyalty. Who were the main players in this movement, and what did they achieve in the end? The most significant reason was that the American Army, which in theory liberated them from Japan, did not show interest in local schooling, which, locals believed, led to poor academic performance by their young people. In the 1950 academic performance test, the Okinawan primary school mathematics average mark was less than 50 per cent, and the middle school English test average mark was just over 50 per cent. Okinawan government officials listed three reasons for the poor performance: increased use of dialect; decreased interest in Japanese culture due to different lifestyles; and inadequate facilities (Warner 1972: 86–7). The 1952 meeting of school principals also proposed an emphasis on standard Japanese and two other major goals: construction of school buildings and the establishment of an education act (Okinawa-ken Kyōiku Iinkai 1977: 57–8). Some local teachers took the risk of illegally sailing to Japan in order to study the new 6–3–3 system of schooling and to bring home textbooks. This movement later came to involve teachers in a wider civil movement, the ‘Return to Japan’ movement. The movement’s insistence on raising the Japanese flag at schools had two purposes. One was to request the Japanese conservative party in power to provide financial resources for educational facilities. The other was to stabilise Okinawan identity, which teachers feared suffered from confusion under the US rule of the islands. The Okinawa Teachers’ Union encouraged parents to raise the Japanese flag on New Year’s Day and bought from mainland Japan a large quantity of flags to sell to parents. The most important task for educationalists in Okinawa at the time was to establish something equivalent to the Fundamental Education Law (1947), which was in force in mainland Japan, and to declare that Okinawan schooling should follow the Japanese legislation. Drawing on the preamble to the Fundamental Education Law, the Okinawa Teachers’ Union drafted its own version of the law and submitted this to the US commissioner. It was rejected twice because of the wording ‘We as Japanese citizens’. Undeterred, Chobyo Yara, the union president, took the matter to the CIA headquarters, and in 1958 the Okinawa Fundamental Education Law was established (Okinawa-ken Kyōiku Iinkai 1977: 140). This was extremely significant for the ‘Return to Japan’ movement. Yara later recalled: ‘I thought that the Japanese government would have no choice but to acknowledge the Law which described Okinawans as being “Japanese citizens”’ (Yamashiro and Sakuda 1983: 668). It was a public announcement, both to the Japanese government and to the American authority, of Okinawans’ wish to return to Japan. Yara later became the first Okinawa prefectural governor after its return to Japan. At the classroom level, teachers encouraged the use of the standard Japanese language and cultivated the idea that students were Japanese. The 1957 primary school curriculum guidelines for Japanese stated that all students should be able to speak standard Japanese by the end of grade 2, and that grade 3 students should

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learn to notice infantile expressions, dialect and unacceptable accents in their speech.3 Teachers conducted surveys of standard Japanese language use among students and attempted to discourage the use of ‘unacceptable expressions’. Dialect placards, which had been used during pre-war times, re-emerged in classrooms (EDGE 2002: 69). Okinawan children learned to speak standard Japanese, even with some ‘unacceptable’ dialectical expressions. Some children learned to be silent or avoid communication altogether for fear of disgracing themselves with their ‘unacceptable’ expressions (EDGE 2002: 52). Such examples suggest that assimilationist schooling was more severely imposed, not by the Japanese authority as during the pre-war period, but by local Okinawan teachers themselves. These teachers believed that standard Japanese language would enable Okinawan children, not only to develop Japanese identity, but also improve their academic performance to the level of mainland Japanese children. The assimilationist schooling movement connected to the ‘Return to Japan’ movement was abandoned in the late 1960s. By then, the Japanese government had revealed concrete directions regarding Okinawa’s return to Japan, including the prospect that American bases would remain after the return. Okinawans’ wish that they would obtain the peace and prosperity enjoyed by mainland Japanese was shattered. The Okinawa Teachers’ Union decided to drop from its educational tasks the cultivation of Japanese identity and the promotion of the standard language. However, the legacy of a fifteen-year assimilationist education remained: a generation that no longer spoke the Ryūkyūan language. ‘Catch up with mainland Japan’ narrative and victimhood identity Okinawa returned to Japan in 1972. The return was made possible by Japan’s rapid economic growth and partly by the US’s failed involvement in Vietnam. The US wanted an affluent Japan to shoulder the military cost of maintaining the US bases. Okinawans who had wished that the post-war Japanese constitution would remove the US military bases were disappointed. Seventy per cent of the US military bases in Japan remained in Okinawa. Okinawa had 22,720 US soldiers in 2007 (Okinawa-ken-kichi-taisaku-ka 2007). The Japanese government employed a narrative emphasising the ‘gap between Okinawa and the mainland’ and justified measures to bring Okinawa to mainland standards. The three Okinawa Promotion and Development Plans enabled the central government to provide special financial resources until Okinawa had achieved development equivalent to mainland Japan. These measures could be seen as the government’s attempt to compensate Okinawa for being required to accommodate a disproportionate number of US bases. Okinawa prefecture has received $350 billion through this channel, which has, nevertheless, not achieved the goal (Arasaki 2000: 93). Okinawa’s unemployment rate remains twice the national average, and the prefecture has the lowest income level in the country. As long as the gap exists, however, the government will provide financial resources.

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Okinawans themselves contributed to fostering the gap narrative while also attempting to close the gap. The first Okinawa Prefectural Department of Education after Okinawa’s return to Japan set out to achieve academic performance equivalent to that in mainland Japan (Motohama 2002: 25–9). Although this was immediately criticised by the Okinawa Teachers’ Union for being biased towards narrow academic achievement, the goal was widely accepted. Teachers and students shared the view that Okinawans were poor academic achievers, as measured by uniform criteria such as retention rates or nationally available scores, and assessed their progress in terms of the extent to which they narrowed the gap. This resembled the post-war assimilationist schooling discussed above. I would suggest that teachers’ and students’ efforts stemming from this narrative quite inadvertently contributed to the maintenance of an Okinawan inferiority complex towards mainland Japan, although the attempts were driven by well-intentioned local teachers who strove to improve students’ academic achievement. Okinawans’ view of themselves as victims was, I suggest, influenced by the gap narrative. People developed a self-perception that they were unique victims in a prosperous and peaceful Japan. They were shown the continuing gap between Okinawa and the mainland in many aspects of their lives, despite the central government’s continued financial assistance. They were told of Okinawa’s unique and sad history of experiencing the battle and the resulting destruction, and of taking an unfair burden of US military bases for the US–Japan security treaty, which prevented local economic development. I would further suggest that the narratives of gap and victimhood have also retarded Okinawa’s ‘indigenous’ development. The narratives may have made it more difficult for Okinawans to recognise Amerasians as a marginalised minority among themselves (MurphyShigematsu 2002: 201). This victimhood view partially arose from, or was strengthened by, the special (sacred) place accorded to Okinawa in contemporary peace education in Japan. Many Japanese students on school overnight study trips and general tourists visit Okinawa to learn about the Battle of Okinawa and the effects of the US bases (Figal 2003). It is now a place of pilgrimage for peace education and attracts more visitors than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The project ‘Peace Appeal from Okinawa’ has been taken up repeatedly by local and national media. In the peace education narrative, Okinawa, which suffered the most in the past and is still suffering from US bases, is best equipped to convey the cruelty of war and the values of peace. Another factor contributing to the victim self-perception is the fact that Okinawans have not questioned their own assailant roles in Japan’s expansionist policy and practices, for example in Taiwan (Matayoshi 1990). In contrast to mainland Japan, where some public servants and teachers were purged of their responsibility for war deeds, the Okinawan parliament, after the end of the war, resolved that ‘All Okinawans were victims of the Second World War’ and did not purge any public servants (Shinjō 2001: 240). They have thus failed to question their own responsibility in promoting a post-war assimilationist education. We have seen the Okinawans’ lasting inferiority complex towards mainland Japan, their pride in appealing for peace and their self-perception as victims.

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Okinawans also struggled to form an identity in relation to Japan and the US army. Okinawans and Amerasians in Okinawa thus share a minority status. How have the former responded to the latter?

Amerasians: a minority within Okinawa In Okinawa, the term Amerasian gained currency when parents started a civil movement for their Amerasian children’s rights to education after 1997. Until then, Amerasian children were variously called ‘mixed-race children’, ‘international children’ or ‘stateless children’. The Amerasian experience of schooling, the success of the movement to save stateless children, and the continued marginalisation of Amerasian children in Okinawa are discussed in the following section. ‘Mixed-race children’ prior to Okinawa’s return to Japan The US government was concerned that Asian women, and Amerasian children born as a result of the women’s relationships with American soldiers, would gain American citizenship after the war. When Congress allowed Asian women to enter the US as spouses in 1947, the first official marriage between an American soldier and a local woman took place in Okinawa. Sources reported varying figures for mixed-race children in Okinawa, in part owing to inconsistent definitions of mixedrace children. The Ministry of Welfare reported 5,013 based on its survey of gynaecologists (1952); the Ministry of Education reported 2,401 based on its survey of students (1950); and the US World and World Report 11,000 (1955) (Namihira 1970: 80). During this period, local women’s relationships with American soldiers were based on subordination factors such as violence, economic dependence, rape, prostitution and extra-marital affairs. Some local women who gave birth to mixedrace children were blamed by their own relatives and local community and were often excluded from interdependent support networks. In particular, local women and their mixed-race children who were abandoned by American soldiers were viewed as a negative image of Okinawans: under the American Army’s rule but neither American nor Japanese, and deprived of human rights. Although international relationships and marriages became more common, the social stigma attached to mixed-race children and their mothers continued in Okinawa. Support for these local women and their children was provided by the International Social Service (ISS). The ISS was a non-government social welfare body established in 1958. The American Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA) on the US base provided funding and was initially headed by an American priest (Kokusai Fukushi Sōdansho 1983). In 1961, a local Okinawan became its deputy director. Its main activities included counselling regarding international relationships, marriage and divorce, and the adoption of mixed-race children by American couples. The ISS arranged 699 adoptions to American couples in the period 1958–1968 (Kokusai Fukushi Sōdansho 1983: 151). However, the number

88 Naomi Noiri of abandoned children was so large that most Amerasian children grew up in Okinawa. After the return to Japan, the ISS became a social welfare corporation, International Social Assistance Okinawa Inc. (ISAO), and received funding from the Okinawan prefectural government. It continued to arrange the adoption of mixed-race children while shifting its emphasis to assistance to children who were growing up in Okinawa. This is where the movement to save stateless children started. ‘Save stateless children’ movement before 1985 With the 1972 return of Okinawa to Japan, the Japanese Immigration Act and the Nationality Act began to be applied to Okinawans. These acts resolved the contentious legal status of those Okinawans who were not American citizens despite being under US army rule and who had not received the benefits of the post-war Japanese constitution. However, many Amerasian children could not gain Japanese citizenship, or, worse still, had no nationality at all, as the pre-1985 Nationality Law had adopted the patrilineal system whereby mixed-race children did not gain Japanese citizenship by birth to a Japanese mother. The number of mixed-race children in Okinawa was estimated to be 3,000 according to ISAO’s 1970 survey. Of these, 80 per cent were in single-mother families, and 10 per cent were being brought up by someone other than their own parents (often relatives and friends). Amerasian children who did not hold Japanese citizenship were not eligible to receive social welfare and education. This contributed to poverty and was also exacerbated by their fathers’ abandonment. For example, these families were unable to access the national health insurance scheme and were not entitled to a parenting allowance offered to single-mother families, nor to a special parenting allowance for disabled children. Amerasian children without Japanese citizenship were not notified by local government about entry into primary schools, were required to pay for school textbooks (which were free to citizens) and for local government health check-ups and vaccination, and were not eligible to enter the national pension scheme. Consequently, mothers faced an increased financial burden, which often forced them to seek employment in the entertainment industry (for American soldiers). Thus, mixed-race children became stigmatised for their mothers’ participation in the entertainment industry (water trade) and for not having both parents. Their lives were associated with poverty. If local women legally married American soldiers, their children gained American citizenship but lost their eligibility for Japanese nationality. If a local woman gave birth outside wedlock, the child gained Japanese nationality but was officially recorded as an ‘illegitimate child’ in the family registration (koseki) (See Sugimoto 2003: 156–63), which also carried a social stigma. The worst case was when these children became what were known as ‘stateless children’ through failure to gain American citizenship at birth from their fathers. This situation resulted from several scenarios: for example, if American fathers failed to report the birth to the American Consulate, or if recently naturalised

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fathers had not lived in the US for the length of time required to give American citizenship to their children. If a local woman married an American man but was abandoned and later gave birth to a child with a local man, the child was still stateless, as that child was considered to have American citizenship from the stillvalid marriage. There were cases where births were unreported to local councils; as a result, the children’s names were not even entered on the resident cards maintained by local governments (jūminhyō). Faced with the plight of these children, Okinawa began a civil movement to save them after the return to Japan. This lasted until 1985, when the Nationality Act was finally revised. This civil movement involved ISAO, the Okinawa Prefectural Department of Education and the Association of Lawyers (bengoshi rengōkai), and focused on saving Amerasian ‘stateless children’. It successfully persuaded cities, towns and villages in Okinawa to issue local ordinances that entitled mothers of mixed-race children without Japanese citizenship to receive a single-mother parenting allowance. It also emphasised the problem of ‘stateless children’ as a human rights issue resulting from the concentration of US bases in Okinawa, and vigorously lobbied for the revision of the existing Nationality Law. The core revision that they sought was to guarantee all ‘mixedrace children’ Japanese nationality at birth from either Japanese mothers or fathers (Ōshiro 1979). Okinawans, having recently experienced the US Army rule, were sympathetic to these children’s plight and showed strong support for the movement. The movement focused on Japanese citizenship as a means to secure the welfare of these children, partly owing to the American authorities’ lack of interest. American soldiers often did not contribute maintenance costs, a problem about which the US Army could do little. The army did, however, establish a family service centre and started holding monthly preparation courses for international marriage. Soldiers and their local fiancées were required to attend a course, where army priests, social workers and legal workers lectured on both emotional and legal preparation. The course is still offered, but, to date, has not functioned as a deterrent to soldiers’ abandonment of their wives and children. Japanese courts were unable to extract maintenance from American soldiers under the Japan–US Status Agreement. The US Army provided soldiers with family allowances, but there was no way to ensure that this money would reach the family. Once soldiers had left Okinawa, the abandoned women and their children had no way to trace them. Annette Eddie-Callagain started working towards obtaining maintenance from US soldiers in the 1990s. However, there has been no US–Japan agreement regarding child support. In 1977, a court case was launched in Tokyo to request Japanese nationality for ‘stateless children’. The appeal from Okinawa gained support from the women’s liberation movement and human rights movements and evolved into an effective civil movement. In the end, in response to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and an international agreement to dismantle gender inequality, the Nationality Law was revised in 1985. It enabled children of a Japanese parent (father or mother) to receive Japanese nationality. ‘Mixed-race

90 Naomi Noiri children’ often possess dual nationalities until they decide on one at the age of twenty or twenty-two. The revision of the Nationality Act affected the state of another minority group—the Koreans in Japan. Since the majority of Koreans in Japan marry Japanese nationals, this led to an increase in the number of ‘Japanese’ nationals of Korean descent, as the child of the mixed marriage could now acquire Japanese citizenship from either parent, not just the father. On the one hand, this has presented a dilemma for those in the Korean civil rights movement who see Korean identity in terms of not holding Japanese nationality. One the other hand, others, especially many young Japan-born Koreans, saw this as a welcome opportunity to reconsider the nature of Japanese citizenship and Japan-born Korean identity (Okano’s Chapter 5 in this volume). Okinawan people were proud of their achievement. I suspect that the enthusiasm and commitment displayed by locals in the movement arose at least partially from their own marginalised experience: They had suffered from similar legal status during the US occupation and used to travel to mainland Japan with passports issued by the government of the Ryūkyū Islands. Even after the return to Japan, Okinawans were forced to accommodate US military bases. The ‘stateless children’ movement was initiated by the marginalised for the sake of the even more marginalised within Okinawan society and connected two marginalised groups: Okinawans in relation to mainland Japan, and stateless children in relation to Okinawan society. Continued marginalisation after gaining Japanese citizenship The civil movement to support mixed-race children quickly dissolved after the 1985 revision of the Nationality Act. Surveys of Amerasian schooling, which had been conducted frequently in the 1970s, were no longer conducted after the 1981 Japan Federation of Bar Associations presented a report. In 1990, the ISAO ceased to exist owing to financial difficulties. After that, there were no agencies for Amerasians in Okinawa until 1998, when the AmerAsian School in Okinawa was established. I suggest that, because of its narrow focus on the visible and tangible issue of the acquisition of Japanese citizenship, Okinawans felt that their mission had been accomplished. However, Amerasians continued to be marginalised in their daily experiences of schooling and beyond. Why was this? ‘International children’ (kokusai-ji) – as they started to be called in the 1980s – and their mothers still faced marginalisation within Okinawan society. They continued to suffer from harassment, verbal abuse and exclusion, for example being excluded from family asset inheritance and being denied burial in family graves (Nihon Bengoshi Rengōkai 1981: 19). In particular, Amerasians with Afro-American background faced constant bullying at school and outside (Fukuchi 1980: 45–6). While activists fought for stateless children to gain Japanese nationality, the general public failed to see the unfairness in the Amerasians’ daily lives. The 1981 survey by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations revealed that, when respondents reported cases of bullying of Amerasians by other children, for

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example, being called ‘American!’, such bullying was considered normal (Nihon Bengoshi Rengōkai 1981:20). It seems that, in 1981, people took the situation faced by Amerasian children for granted. Teachers also failed to recognise the seriousness of the problem of marginalised Amerasians at the level of classroom interaction. The same survey posed the question to schools: ‘Do you have difficulties for teaching international children in your schools, and if so how have you responded to date?’. Major responses were: (1) Okinawan children have few discriminatory attitudes, which is educationally desirable; (2) when international children notice their unique background in senior years of primary school, they develop an inferiority complex; and (3) schools provide individualised guidance, and try to nurture the idea of human rights that everyone is equal (Nihon Bengoshi Rengōkai 1981: 20). Forms of marginalisation suffered by Amerasian children at local schools varied. Besides general bullying based on visual differences, they also experienced unpleasant actions triggered by lessons in peace education, for example on the anniversary of the ending of the Battle of Okinawa. A mother explained: My child’s teacher showed a video on the Okinawa Battle. Kids saw that Americans dropped bombs and killed many people in Okinawa. Other kids started saying, ‘Bang Bang Yankees go home’ pretending to shoot my child. My kid started crying and didn’t want to go to school any more. I talked to his teachers, who said ‘It may be better for him to go to American school.’ I felt she didn’t care. (TBS 1998) The anti-American feeling, in particular the antipathy towards the American military bases, was another source of unpleasant experiences for Amerasian children. This feeling was escalated by incidents such as the sexual assault of a local girl by US marines in 1995. When civil movements questioned the US bases in Okinawa, Amerasian children and their families faced antagonism in their daily lives. A woman commented: We used to visit this bar very often. Then suddenly we were told that we couldn’t go there anymore. I said, ‘Why? My husband is not a soldier but a teacher.’ They said, ‘I’m sorry. Americans are Americans.’ (TBS 1998) The family of the abovementioned boy who was bullied on the Battle of Okinawa anniversary eventually disintegrated after the 1995 incident. The father could no longer bear the hostile environment and returned to the US with his elder son. Thus, even after the revised legislation granted all Amerasian children Japanese citizenship and ‘legal equality’, the children continued to be marginalised in Okinawan society. Discriminatory comments and unpleasant treatment were triggered by peace studies classes about the Battle of Okinawa and by US soldiers’ crimes against locals. In this context, Amerasians represented ‘Yankees’, who

92 Naomi Noiri killed Okinawans and made Okinawa suffer. Parents of Amerasian children did not think that local teachers in government schools sufficiently problematised the state of their children in their classrooms. This is one of the reasons that drove mothers to initiate a movement to establish the AmerAsian School. Why did the organised civil movement for Amerasian children fail to go beyond the acquisition of Japanese citizenship? Given the past experiences of marginalisation that they had suffered, Okinawans were in a better position to understand the plight of Amerasian children. The organised civil movement for Amerasian children failed to contemplate how Amerasian children would manage their difficulties after gaining Japanese citizenship. This was precisely the question that Okinawans failed to raise about themselves during the post-war civil movement for Okinawa’s return to Japan, and during the post-war assimilationist schooling movement: How should they manage their own marginalised status after obtaining what they had wanted, that is, legal status as Japanese? I share the view that Okinawans’ ongoing perception of themselves as victims has made it difficult for them to recognise their own prejudice against others and to consider that others could be victims, too (Murphy-Shigematsu 2002). Continuing to perceive themselves as victims and as oppressed, they seemed to be content when Amerasian children were officially considered equal to them. Subsequently, after the revision of the Nationality Act, the voices of Amerasians were silenced for thirteen years, until a school for Amerasians was established.

The AmerAsian School in Okinawa: grass-roots activism The majority of Amerasian children currently attend local government schools. Some attend the Department of Defense Dependents School (DoDDS) on the US base, and a small number now attend the AmerAsian School in Okinawa (henceforth called the AmerAsian School), a non-government school established in 1998. The two capitals in the school’s title symbolise its ideal: respecting the American and Asian cultures equally and offering ‘education for doubles’. An examination of the AmerAsian School, the grass-roots activism leading to its establishment, and the Okinawa prefectural government’s response to Amerasians in its system of education reveals the government’s perception of Amerasians. This perception is also discussed in relation to the history of marginalisation of Okinawans in general. The AmerAsian School was established by five mothers of Amerasian children as a community-based alternative school. In 2009, its enrolment was thirteen in kindergarten, fifty-four at primary school level and fourteen at middle school level. Its establishment was triggered when eighty students left a private missionary international school when a serious environmental hazard was discovered in the school grounds. There were also some American children, especially those who had no access to the DoDDS on the US base and whose parents wanted them to receive schooling in the English language medium. Those children did not want to transfer to local government schools, perhaps because they knew some of their friends were being harassed or were unable to keep up with lessons conducted in

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the Japanese language. These children then started attending small alternative schools in English or receiving home schooling. Such measures were unsatisfactory. They were expensive and, more seriously, did not make the children eligible to proceed to higher schooling, because the schools were unregistered. Parents formed a group and requested the Okinawa Prefecture Department of Education to establish ‘international classes’ in government schools (Terumoto 2001).4 Parents wanted these classes to offer education in the English language medium for Amerasians who had been schooled in English. The department replied that it could not immediately offer special education for foreigners in government schools. Most Amerasian children possessed Japanese citizenship (including dual citizenship), but the authorities, realising that these children had been schooled in English, were reluctant to provide special programmes for them. The parent group then asked the US government, through the Okinawa prefecture governor, that all Amerasian children be entitled to free education at the DoDDS on the base, but received the response that the US government could not make exceptions for Amerasians in Okinawa. Parents thus learned that Amerasians did not enjoy the benefits of having American citizenship either. While lobbying, the parent group started to use the term ‘Amerasian’. First, they felt that ‘international children’ (kokusai-ji) did not represent those children accurately. Amerasian children could be Japanese citizens or American citizens or both. The term ‘international children’ had the nuance, in the public’s perception, that the children were not Japanese but foreign citizens and tended to exclude Amerasian children of Japanese citizenship. The term, the parent group felt, did not adequately reflect the nature of children who were living in two societies (Japan and the US). Second, by adopting the term Amerasian, the parent group hoped that their children would be able to develop solidarity with Amerasians overseas. ‘Amerasian children’, in Okinawa, implied not only a minority group in Japan but also a global minority group existing in different parts of Asia. Indeed, the AmerAsian School started an exchange programme with an Amerasian Christian Academy in South Korea in the third year of its operation. The parent group thus defined itself as the ‘Study Group for AmerAsian’s Educational Rights’ (Amerashian no kyōikuken o kangaeru kai) and started to prepare for the establishment of the school. Parents wanted their children to grow up to be proud of their double cultures rather than see themselves as ‘a half (person)’ – the term used to describe a mixed-race child with only half of each culture – and thus marginalised. Education for ‘double children’ was intended to raise their self-esteem. Many of the mothers were sole parents, but their lifestyles and financial situations had become diverse compared with the 1970s. Core members of the parent group were professional, bilingual women, who negotiated with the Okinawa prefectural government and the central Ministry of Education. Symbolism of English language proficiency The language spoken by students of the AmerAsian School varies. Some of them have English as their strongest language, but can use Japanese in daily life. The

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school operates four groups: kindergarten, lower grade, middle grade and higher grade, up to the end of middle school (age fifteen). Approximately 80 per cent of the subjects are taught in English by American homeroom teachers, with teaching materials developed in the Department of Defence Dependents School and their own materials. The school uses English as the medium of instruction in language, art, mathematics, science, social studies, physics and ESL, and Japanese as the medium of instruction in Japanese, social studies (Japanese history and society), integrated studies (environment, human rights, Okinawa), information technology and JSL. The school also has three full-time Japanese teachers and several volunteer teachers, often local university students. It also offers supplementary classes for those who intend to proceed to local high schools.5 The emphasis on English language at the school is deliberate. English language proficiency has a particular meaning for these children, in that it ranks Amerasians into two groups in Okinawan society. This significance is derived from characteristics of Okinawan society. First, local people in Okinawa often equate foreigners with Americans, and with American soldiers in particular, as only 8,914 foreigners and 48,490 American army staff and their families resided in Okinawa prefecture in 2007 (Hōmu-shō 2007; Okinawa-ken-kichi-taisaku-ka 2007). Unlike many other prefectures, Okinawa has very few foreign labourers, as it has little viable manufacturing industry. The second largest ethnic group is Taiwanese, many of whom have taken up Japanese citizenship and assimilated into mainstream Okinawan society. The third group is female Philippine dancers in the entertainment district, who are on transient visas and do not interact with locals. Second, locals have maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the US base and the US in general. While having anti-US base feelings, locals also maintain a kind of yearning and envy for the English language and for the material affluence observed at the base. For example, some locals are eager to obtain American products, sold only on the base, through their friends who work there. Expressions such as ‘Are you a hāfu (Amerasian)? Lucky you can speak English’ are often uttered. However, this envy and yearning can be turned against Amerasian children who do not have English language proficiency. English language proficiency for Amerasian children is not only a communication skill and a valuable asset in the labour market (this applies to everyone), but is also a form of cultural capital in the sense that Bourdieu (1984) suggests. It acts as an indicator of family background and circumstances. Those with English language proficiency are assumed to live with both parents, to have free access to the US base and to have the future prospect of living in the US. In contrast, those without English language proficiency are often assumed to have been abandoned by American fathers, to live in a poor, single-mother family and to have no access to the US base and no connection with the US. The latter are sometimes pejoratively called ‘an island half’ (shima hāfu), which implies that they do not have the positives of being Amerasian. Whenever Amerasians are introduced to new people or are interviewed for employment, they are asked if they speak English. Upon responding negatively, they notice disappointment and sympathy. Because of this, the emphasis on the English language in the AmerAsian

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School is aimed at promoting Amerasian children’s self-esteem and at giving them both the skills to communicate with their relatives and also an asset in the labour market. Response from the Okinawa’s educational administration The parent group faced challenges in its attempt to establish the AmerAsian School. These challenges and difficulties reveal the nature of both the educational administration and the Okinawan society. The most difficult task was to have children’s attendance in the AmerAsian School recognised as attendance in compulsory schooling. As the school was an unregistered, alternative institution, students who completed nine years of schooling there could not receive a certificate of completion of compulsory schooling, nor were they eligible to sit an entrance examination to senior high school. The parent group appealed to the Okinawa Prefectural Department of Education, to local education boards (at city, town and village level) and to individual government schools, and achieved a new arrangement for Japanese citizens for 1999 and for American citizens in 2001. Under this arrangement, the number of days that students attend the AmerAsian School is reported to a local government school at which the students are registered; the AmerAsian School term reports are also forwarded to the government school. Based on this arrangement, attendance at the AmerAsian School is counted as attendance at the government school, and students receive a graduation certificate from the government school and become eligible to sit entrance examinations to local senior high schools (Terumoto 2001). This new arrangement had been originally set up by the central Ministry of Education for children who suffered from long-term school nonattendance (futōkō). The instances of school nonattendance in mainstream schools increased in the 1990s for various reasons (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999: 194–207). To manage this, the Ministry of Education decided to allow certain private, unregistered educational institutions to provide these children with schooling if their normal schools were unable to offer suitable programmes, the aim being that the children would eventually return to the mainstream schools (Gakkō futekiō taisaku chōsa kenkyū kyōryokusha kaigi 1999). Following this guideline, the Okinawa Department of Education officially acknowledged the AmerAsian School as a non-governmental educational institution that would temporarily accept ‘ill-adjusted children’ who do not attend school and those who were unlikely to adjust to mainstream schooling. To equate Amerasian children with school nonattendance was problematic, in that it contradicted the aim of the AmerAsian School to foster the potential of double cultures, but the bureaucratic recognition was convenient. Here we see how both central and local government defined the schooling needs of Amerasian children. Comparison with government responses to ‘newcomer’ migrant children (see Tsuneyoshi’s Chapter 5 in this volume) is helpful for understanding this. ‘Newcomer’ immigrant children have been officially seen as possessing different language backgrounds and therefore different cultural backgrounds and are accordingly categorised as ‘students who require Japanese

96 Naomi Noiri as a second language teaching’. The public education system provides this language assistance to targeted groups. Neither Amerasians nor long-standing ethnic Koreans and Chinese receive such group-specific recognition and treatment equivalent to those given to newcomer children. The government policy neither institutionally values the fact that Amerasian children have another language, nor promotes their language proficiency. It seems that government schools continue to provide education for children so that they grow up to be ‘Japanese’. Those who do not, or do not wish to, do so are considered as ‘ill-adjusted’ in relation to mainstream schooling. When the new arrangement was implemented, the Okinawa prefectural government agreed to provide assistance to the AmerAsian School by sending two Japanese language teachers. However, as the Okinawa Department of Education opposed this assistance on the grounds that it could not offer special treatment to the AmerAsian School only, the prefectural government decided to treat the case as a women’s problem arising from the US base, and to have its Women’s Centre dispatch the teachers. Just as treating the Amerasian children’s case as school nonattendance was problematic, so did the prefectural bureaucratic process of dispatching teachers underscore the complicated and peculiar nature of the AmerAsian School in the hands of the Okinawa prefecture’s educational administration. The central government offered a one-off funding for development in local areas where the US bases were concentrated. With this funding, the AmerAsian School shifted its site from a family house to the first floor of the Ginowan City Human Development Centre, which enabled the school to increase its intake. The costs of maintenance and teaching materials have never been funded by either the central government or the Okinawa prefecture. It seems that the Okinawa Department of Education, while diligently following the central government’s directions, failed to understand the educational needs of local Amerasian children. This picture reminds us of the ‘Kokumin kyōiku’ promoted in the 1950s and 1960s, in which the Okinawans desperately attempted to become ‘Japanese’ and yet failed to gain their wish – Okinawa’s return to Japan without the US bases. While the annual provision of the central government’s development fund to Okinawa has raised Okinawans’ standard of living and consumption, they remain marginalised in Japanese society – as least that is how locals perceive it. The existence of the Amerasians continues to pose a peculiar problem for Okinawans: they conform neither to the conventional category of ‘Japanese’ (even less so than do Okinawans) nor to the victimised view of Okinawans who sacrificed so much for the sake of Japan.

Conclusion We have seen that pre-war Okinawa internalised the Japanese state ideology and contributed to the latter’s expansionist policy, and that schooling played an important role in this process. Post-war Okinawa, in contrast, did not respond in the same way to the new schooling devised by the US authorities, which led local teachers to organise a grass-roots movement for assimilationist schooling. While

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promoting assimilation to mainland Japan, first imposed and later voluntary, locals seem to have internalised Japan’s view of Okinawa as marginalised and developed ambiguous identities. This shared sense of marginalisation and of identity uncertainty made locals sympathetic to stateless Amerasians and led to a civil movement to ensure that all mixed-race children be granted Japanese citizenship. Once the movement had succeeded in 1985, however, the grass-roots activism in support of Amerasian children diminished. I contend that this was because of the movement’s limited focus on Japanese citizenship and also because locals maintained a victimhood view of themselves to a large extent. The voluntary assimilation education movement in post-war Okinawa might have also contributed to Okinawan’s intolerance of diversity within Okinawa. In the face of the lack of support for Amerasian children, a parent group finally established the AmerAsian School thirteen years after the 1985 Nationality Act Reform. The group faced difficulties in gaining support from government and adopted strategies to circumvent them, both of which aspects illuminate the attitude of the Okinawa Department of Education in relation to Amerasians. One of the urgent challenges facing local schools in Okinawa is the effective accommodation of Amerasians. I suggest that this accommodation is most likely to be achieved when locals reflect on their own experience of marginalisation, both past and present, both institutionalised and otherwise, and relate this experience to that of Amerasians. Only then will the narratives of Okinawans as a marginalised group in Japan and of Amerasians as a marginalised group within Okinawa again make a meaningful connection. This will, I suspect, also act to empower both groups, just as the movement to save stateless children did. By focusing on the experiences of Okinawans, an indigenous population that underwent subjugation to two rulers (Japan and the US), and of Amerasians in Okinawa, the chapter highlighted how the official discourse of schools has variously construed ‘difference’ in student populations. By revealing how governments at various levels have devised ways of responding to perceived differences, how grass-roots activism has affected schooling, and what the consequences of these various actions have been, it was hoped to further our understanding of the relative autonomy of schooling at school level. While the new diversity has been extensively discussed both in the public and policy arenas, we are reminded of the diversity that has long existed in Japan, how this diversity has been addressed in schools, and what the long-term consequences have been.

Notes 1

2

The 1985 reform of the Nationality Act did not resolve all cases. For example, if Amerasian children (with a US soldier or serviceman father) born outside Japan are not registered at a Japanese consulate within three months, they face serious difficulty in obtaining Japanese citizenship. In 1963, a US army truck ran over middle school students walking on a pedestrian crossing with a green light. The truck driver was arrested by the Military Police and court-martialled. Three months later, he was declared not guilty (Arasaki 2000: 79).

98 Naomi Noiri 3 4 5

The details are described in the proceedings of the third research conference of the Okinawa Teachers’ Union ‘Okinawa Kyōiku’ (volume 5, 1957). They are reproduced in EDGE’s publication (2002: 52). See for details of the process leading to the establishment of the school, see Terumoto (2001). See for further discussion on the school’s curriculum, see Noiri (2000).

References Allen, M. (2001) Identity and resistance in Okinawa, Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield. Arasaki, M. (2000) Profile of Okinawa, Tokyo: Techno Marketing Center. Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. and J.-C. Passeron (1977) Reproduction in education, society and culture, London: Sage. EDGE (2002) Sōzō no kyōdōtai nihon: Okinawa no kora wa dono yō ni nihonjin ni nattaka, Naha: Art Produce Okinawa. Figal, G. (2003) ‘Waging peace on Okinawa’, in L. Hein and M. Selden (eds), Islands of discontent, Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield. Fukuchi, H. (1980) Okinawa no konketsuji to haha tachi, Naha: Aoi-umi Shuppan. Gakkō futekiō taisaku chōsa kenkyū kyōryokusha kaigi (1999) Minkan-shisetsu ni tsuite no gaidorain, Ministry of Education. Gekkan Okinawasha (ed.) (1983) Laws and regulations during the U.S. administration of Okinawa 1945–1972, Naha: Ikemiya Syōkai. Giordan, H. (1987) Shitagerareta gengo no fukken, Tokyo: Hihyosha (translated from Par les langues de France (1984), Centre Georges Pompidou). Hein, L. and Selden, M. (eds) (2003) Islands of discontent: Okinawan responses to Japanese and American power, Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield. Hōmu-sho (2007) Todōken betsu gaikokujinn tourokushasū. Available at www.e-stat.go.jp/ SG1/estat/List.do?lid=000001031723 (accessed on 1 September 2009). Hook, G. and Siddle, R. (eds) (2003) Japan and Okinawa: structure and subjectivity, London: RoutledgeCurzon. Iha, F. (1928) Okinawa yo doko e, Tokyo: Sekaisha. James, J.C. and Tamamori, T. (2000) Okinawa: society and economy, Naha: Bank of the Ryūkyū International Foundation. Johnson, C. (1999) Okinawa: cold-war island, Cardiff, CA: Japan Policy Research Institute. Kawai, T. (2003) ‘Naha onna to iu watashi: Kotoba o ryakudatsu sareta daishō to shite’, Okinawa Times, 24 April. Kerr, G.H. (2000) Okinawa: The history of an island people, Boston: Tuttle Publishing (original print in 1958). Kokusai Fukushi Sōdansho (1983) Kokusai fukushi sōdansho sōritsu 29 shunen kinenshi, Ginowan: Shakai funkushi hōjin kokusai fukushi kai. Matayoshi, M. (1989) ‘Taiwan ryōyū to okinawa’, in Ryūcyū rekishi kankei kokusai gakujyutsu kaigi jikkō iinkai (ed.), Dai nikai ryūcyū rekishi kankei ronbun shū, Naha: Ryūcyū rekishi kankei kokusai gakujyutsu kaigi jikkō iinkai. –––– (1990) Nihon shokuminchika no taiwan to okinawa, Ginowan: Okinawa Aki Shobō. Matsumori, A. (1995) ‘Ryūkyūan: past, present and future’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 16: 19–44.

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Motohama, H. (2002) ‘Gakuryoku-kakusa to shite no kokugo’, in EDGE (ed.), Sōzō no kyōdōtai nihon: Okinawa no kora wa donoyōni nihonjin ni nattaka, Naha: Art Produce Okinawa. Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2002) Amerasian no kodomotachi: Shirarezaru mainoritī mondai, Tokyo: Shūeisha. Nakano, Y. (ed.) (1969) Sengo shiryō okinawa, Tokyo: Nihon hyōronsha. Nakano, Y. and Arasaki, M. (1976) Okinawa sengoshi, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Nakasone, R. (2002) Okinawan diaspora, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Namihira, I. (1970) ‘Konkentsuji no kenkyū, No. 1’, Okinawa kokusai daigaku ronshū, 10(1): 77–160. Nihon Bengoshi Rengōkai, dai 6-ji okinawa chōsadan (1981) Okinawa mukokusekiji mondai chōsa hōkokusho, Tokyo: Nihon bengoshi rengōkai. Noiri, N. (2000) ‘Okinawa no amerasian’, in M. Yamamoto (ed.), Nihon no bairingaru kyōiku, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Oguma, E. (1998) Nihonjin no kyōkai: Okinawa, Ainu, Taiwan, Shōsen, shokuminchi shiahai kara fukki undō made, Tokyo: Shinyōsha. Okano, K. and Tsuchiya, M. (1999) Education in contemporary Japan: diversity and inequality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Okinawa-ken-kichi-taisaku-ka (Military Base Affairs Division, Okinawa prefectural government) (2007) Okinawa no Beigunn oyobi Jieitai Kichi Tōkeishiryōshū Heisei 21 nendo. Available online at www3.pref.okinawa.jp/site/view/contview.jsp?cateid=14&id= 19687&page=1 (accessed 1 September 2009). Okinawa-ken Kyōiku Iinkai (ed.) (1977) Okinawa no sengo kyōikushi, Naha: Okinawaken kyōiku iinkai. Ōshiro, Y. (1979) Kokusai jidō nen: Okinawa kara no teigen. Quoted in Kokusai fukushi sōdansho (1983) Kokusai fukushi sōdansho sōritsu 29 shūnen kinenshi, Ginowan: Shakai funkushi hojin kokusai fukushikai. Ōta, C. (1976) Okinawa kensei 50 nen, Naha: Ryuon kokako (Original print in 1932). Rabson, S. (1999) ‘Assimilation policy in Okinawa: promotion, resistance, and “reconstruction” ’, in C. Johnson (ed.), Okinawa: cold-war island, Cardiff, US: Japan Policy Research Institute. Shinjō, T. (2001) Ryūkyū okinawa shi, Ginowan: Tōyō Kikaku. Sugimoto, Y. (2003) An introduction to Japanese society, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. TBS (1998) ‘Mō hitotsu no okinawa no genjitsu: Amerasian’, Tsukushi Tetsuya no Nyūsu 23 (aired on 13 August). Terumoto, H. (ed.) (2001) AmerAsian School: Kyōsei no chihei o okinawa kara, Tokyo: Fukinotō Shobō. Tozzer, A. (1996) ‘Ryūkyū rettō no okinawa-jin’, in Okinawa kenritsu toshokan shiryō henshū shitau (ed.), Okinawa ken shi shiryō ni, Naha: Okinawa-ken kyōiku iinkai. Warner, G. (1972) History of education in postwar Okinawa, Tokyo: Nihon bunka kagakusha. Yamashiro, Z. and Sakuda, S. (eds) (1983) Okinawa koto hajime: Sesōshi jiten, Naha: Gekkan Okinawasha. Yoshino, K. (1992) Cultural nationalism in contemporary Japan, London: Routledge.

5

Ethnic Koreans in Japanese schools Shifting boundaries and collaboration with other groups1 Kaori H. Okano

The Koreans are one of the largest ethnic minority groups in contemporary Japan. They are diverse in terms of citizenship and residential status, length of stay in Japan, political affiliation, reasons for arrival, generation and social class. Building on the preceding chapters on long-existing minority groups viewed collectively (i.e. indigenous groups, ex-colonial subjects of Korean and Taiwanese descent, and buraku peoples), I now turn specifically to ethnic Koreans. (In ‘ethnic Koreans’, I include Japanese citizens with Korean ethnic background, as well as non-citizens.) The focus is on those Koreans in mainstream Japanese schools, that is, the majority (almost 90 per cent) of school-age ethnic Koreans (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999). Although ethnic schools play a significant role in shaping the futures of ethnic Koreans (in particular, North Koreans), I shall leave that discussion to other studies (e.g. Ryang 1997). This chapter aims to examine the interactions and collaborations of ethnic Koreans with other minority groups and the majority Japanese, the consequences of these, and the fluid group boundaries that result at least partially from such interactions. I suggest that the central government’s policies to address the special needs of Korean children in government schools have been minimal, but that local governments with large numbers of Korean residents have responded to grassroots demands, eventually formulating policies for the education of Koreans from the early 1970s. Seen as ‘multicultural education policies’, these policies display two distinctive features: a main focus on human rights (rather than celebration of cultural diversity) and the use of the term ‘foreigners’. Classroom-level experience reveals that schools are more willing to accommodate special needs of Koreans in mainstream schools, and that Korean students now experience schooling more positively than did their parents’ generation. At least partially because of changes at school, the nature of the ethnic Koreans’ relationship with schools has undergone a significant transformation, and these changes continue to have a long-term influence on students’ and the Korean community’s beliefs about mainstream schools. While the use of the terms ‘foreign nationals’ or ‘Korean residents’ in public discourse illuminates the dominant categorization of peoples based on mono-ethnic Japanese citizenship, students create their own, more inclusive, understanding of being ‘Japanese’, based on the daily interaction among peers. Ethnic Koreans collectively present an ambiguity that challenges the existing

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dominant categorizations of difference. Japan-born Korean residents do not quite fit the perceived category of ‘foreigners’, while Japanese citizens with Korean background fail to meet the dominant perception of Japanese citizenship. Young people, along with local governments and community activism (which have displayed relative autonomy from the central government in responding to the education of Koreans), may pave the way to a multi-ethnic understanding of Japanese citizenship in schools. This chapter’s significance is threefold. First, it underscores the importance of the less-publicized grass-roots activism that has sustained school-level activities for the education of ‘invisible’ ethnic minorities, and the considerable independence displayed by local governments. Second, it uncovers hitherto unstudied ‘multicultural education’ goals in the local policies. Third, it reveals how changing perceptions of group boundaries in the student population (beyond the foreigner versus Japanese dichotomy) have developed in Japanese schools in recent years. The study draws on central and local government policy documents, several surveys on ethnic Koreans and foreign nationals in Japan, and my own fieldwork observations. Beginning with a brief description of the diversity of ethnic Koreans, I examine policies regarding the education of Koreans in Japanese government schools at the central government level, and then at local levels in relation to grass-roots activism. My focus then turns to micro-level experience of mainstream schooling in government schools (Korean students’ interaction with teachers and with non-Korean students, the school–employment link, academic achievement and the meaning of schooling, and ‘ethnic classes’). I shall then explore how ‘differences’ are attached to ethnic Koreans in relation to cultural/ethnic differences, Japanese citizenship, residential status (permanent or otherwise) and marginalized status.

Diverse Koreans Korean nationals numbered 589,239 in 2008 (Japan, Hōmu-shō 2009). When naturalized ethnic Koreans, their descendants, and Japanese nationals with a Korean parent are included, the number is said to be approximately 1.2 million (Zenkoku Zainichi Chōsenjin Kyōiku Kenkyūkai Kyoto (ZZCKKK) 1993: 7). Among these 1.2 million ethnic Koreans, considerable diversity exists. This diversity is a significant factor when studying their educational choices. The first aspect of the diversity is the difference between ‘oldcomers’ and ‘newcomers’. The oldcomers, the majority of ethnic Koreans, are the descendants of Koreans who have resided in Japan since the time of Japan’s colonization of the Korean peninsula (1910–45) and who hold special permanent resident status (tokubetsu eijūsha). In 2007, there were approximately 430,000 Koreans with such status (Japan, Hōmu-shō 2008: 19). They have popularly been referred to as ‘zainichi kankoku chōsenjin’ (zainichi, in short). The newcomers were born and mostly educated in South Korea and came to Japan for economic reasons in recent years. The existence of the oldcomer Koreans in contemporary Japan is a

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direct result of Japan’s colonization of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. As with other peoples newly integrated into the Japanese Empire, Koreans in both Korea and Japan were Japanese nationals. The original Koreans fled to Japanese cities in pursuit of employment after being dispossessed of their farming lands by the Japanese colonial authorities, or, from 1937, were shipped to Japan as forced labour to fill an acute shortage of workers in the war economy (Lee and De Vos 1981). The Korean population in Japan at the end of the Second World War was almost 2.3 million, but about three-quarters of them returned to Korea within a year of the end of the war (Tanaka 1991: 57). For those who stayed on longer in Japan, repatriation became more difficult with the division of Korea in 1948 and the outbreak of the Korean War. After a period of ambiguous citizenship status, when Japan regained its sovereignty in 1952, Koreans living in Japan suddenly and unilaterally became foreign nationals. They were subsequently forced to choose either South Korea or North Korea as their homeland. Among oldcomer Koreans, further divisions exist between Japanese citizens and non-citizens. The number of ex-Koreans who were naturalized in the period 1952–96 is estimated to be over 200,000 (Jyung 2000: 63). The younger generations have been more willing to take up Japanese citizenship (Youn 1992: 135–6). Marriages between Japanese and Koreans have increased over time and now account for over 80 per cent of marriages involving Koreans (Fukuoka 2000: 35). Bilineal inheritance of Japanese nationality replaced patrimonial inheritance in 1985 owing to the revision of the Nationality Law. The revision resulted from a civil movement to protect Okinawa’s Amerasian children of American soldiers and local women who did not hold citizenship of any country (see Noiri’s chapter in this volume). When this change took effect, children of such mixed marriages who were under the age of twenty were able to gain Japanese nationality upon their parents’ application. This change has, and will in the future, increase the number of Japanese nationals with a Korean background. Among non-Japanese citizens, differences are observable in terms of political affiliations. Each group is represented by an organization acting as the centre of each community: the South Koreans by Mindan, and the North Koreans by Chongryun. The North Korean organization operates newspapers, banks and other businesses, as well as a network of schools, in order to meet the needs of its members. In 2005, these North Korean schools consisted of sixty-five primary schools, forty-one middle schools, twelve high schools and one university (Zainichi Chōsenjin Kyōikukai 2005). As ‘miscellaneous schools’, they are not required to comply with the central government regulations for registered schools, and they maintain the autonomy to conduct bilingual teaching in the Korean language and foster a North Korean ethnic identity among their students (Ryang 1997; Motani 2002). The curriculum supports the Pyongyang regime, and until recently was based on the assumption that the students would eventually return to a united Korea rather than see Japan as a place of permanent residence (see Ryang 1997, for more details). In contrast, South Korean schools (only four exist) conduct lessons in Japanese, only teaching Korean for several hours a week.

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Since the late 1980s, less than 15 per cent of school-age Koreans have been enrolled in ethnic schools (Son 2000: 90; Sugitani 1993: 43). In 1986, 86 per cent of school-age Korean nationals (which included a small number of South Korean expatriates’ children) attended Japanese schools, 13 per cent North Korean schools, and 1 per cent South Korean schools (Fukuoka 2000: 26). The enrolment in North Korean schools has been in decline, and now reportedly attracts less than 10 per cent of school-age Korean residents (Park 1999: 232). Explanations of the decline in enrolment in North Korean schools vary. First, the schools do not provide their students with full access to Japanese universities and to scholarships (ZZCKKK 1993: 33–4).2 Second, existing students and their parents feel uncomfortable with the ideological schooling aimed at producing loyal followers of Kim Il Sung, and think that it ill-prepares the graduates for participation in Japanese society (Lee 1998: 126; Park 1999: 232–3). Although the schools introduced changes to the curriculum to address these concerns in the 1990s (Ryang 1997), the relative benefits of North Korean schools (e.g. provision of a protective environment and peer group, encouragement of ethnic pride, fostering of the language) are an ongoing topic among Koreans. Changes over generations are observable. The younger generations are more willing to take up Japanese citizenship. Among those Koreans naturalized in 1987, over three-quarters were in their 20s and 30s (Youn 1992: 135–6). Marriages between Japanese and Koreans have increased. Whereas just over 30 per cent of Korean marriages involved Japanese partners in 1960, in 1995 the figure was 82.2 per cent (Fukuoka 2000: 35). The increasing incidence of mixed marriage will produce more Japanese nationals with a Korean ethnic background. With this internal diversity, debate has continued over what it means to be ethnic Korean in Japan. The majority of second- and third-generation Koreans neither have functional Korean language skills (Kanehara et al. 1986; Lim 1993: 64), nor do they use their Korean names in daily life (e.g. Osaka-fu Kyōiku Iinkai 2000: 5). This has led, according to Kajita, a leading Japanese sociologist, to argue that zainichi Koreans are ‘sociologically Japanese’ (1998: 131). Many Koreans, however, consider that they practise ‘the Korean way of life’ (Fukuoka and Kim 1997: 37–9) and have maintained their ‘ethnicity’ as defined by themselves. As the proportion of Japanese nationals of Korean heritage has increased within the general Korean population, some Koreans have argued for the use of a new, hyphenated identity category, ‘Korean-Japanese’ (Kaneko 1996; Kawa 2001; Tei 2001), and have urged more Koreans to take up Japanese citizenship, as this new category would allow for a separate identity among Japanese nationals. In spite of this, the term ‘Korean-Japanese’ still seems to remain an academic construct and is not widely employed by Koreans themselves. On the other hand, others argue for a more inclusive definition of zainichi Korean (Kim 1999; Jyung 2000) that would include Koreans with Japanese citizenship, building on this widely used, existing identity category. At the ground level, in the late 1980s, many parents already distinguished between Korean ethnicity and Korean nationality and were more concerned that their children maintain their ethnicity ahead of their Korean nationality (Nakajima and Hong 1990: 46).

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Policies for the education of ethnic Koreans Significant differences continue to exist between the national government and local governments in their policies for the education of ethnic Koreans. Central government policies: continuity from Koreans to newcomers While Koreans in Japan were required to attend Japanese schools as imperial subjects during the colonial period, as soon as they were ‘liberated’, they organized schools to teach the Korean language and culture throughout Japan, in order to prepare for repatriation to Korea. These individual efforts later received support and guidance from the League of Koreans in Japan, which was established in October 1945 to protect Korean interests. At the end of 1946, 525 Korean schools were operating throughout Japan (Mitchell 1967: 113). Initially, the Ministry of Education allowed prefectural governments to register Korean schools. In 1948, however, the Ministry ordered that school-age Korean children receive compulsory education specified by the 1947 School Education Law, and that Korean ethnic schools comply with the 1947 School Education Law if they wished to continue offering full-time schooling (Monbu-shō Gakkō Kyōikukyokuchō tsūtatsu, Chōsenjin setsuritu gakkō no toriatsukai ni tsuite 24/1/1948). It further ordered the closure of Korean schools that did not comply (Chōsengakkō heisarei, 24 March 1948). These orders severely restricted Korean children in receiving Korean ethnic education, which prompted protests, conflict and negotiations among interested parties (including the League). In the end, fearing communism, the Japanese authorities dissolved the League, which had by then publicly supported the Pyongyang regime. The closure of Korean schools forced Korean children to attend Japanese government schools. Although ethnic schools re-emerged when the Association of North Koreans in Japan (Chongryun) created their own schools and had them approved as ‘miscellaneous schools’ in 1955, the majority of ethnic Korean children have attended local Japanese schools, including over 85 per cent of school-age Koreans since the mid 1980s (Sugitani 1993: 43; Son 2000: 90). Extensive protests against the forced closure of the ethnic Korean schools resulted in an agreement between the Osaka prefectural governor and an ethnic Korean organization in 1948. This agreement allowed government schools with Korean students representing 30 per cent or more of the school population to employ full-time or fractional teachers funded by the prefecture to teach ethnic classes as well as other subjects. The subsequent central government policy (Chōsenjin no gimukyōiku shōgakkō eno shūgaku ni tsuite, 11 February 1953) stated that Korean permanent residents were to be treated in the same way as Japanese students: schools were to accept them with the provision that the Korean students follow Japanese laws, and that they pay school fees (which did not apply to Japanese nationals). Free compulsory schooling for Koreans came in 1965. After an agreement between Japan and South Korea, the Ministry of Education issued a circular (28 December 1965) to prefectural education boards to the effect that Korean residents must receive the

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same financial assistance as Japanese students (i.e. school fees for compulsory education and subsidized text books), and that government schools were not to give any special treatment based on their ethnicity (28 December 1965). Although most Japanese schools did not actively take the presence of Koreans into consideration and treated them in the same way as Japanese children, many teachers, in particular at schools with a large number of Korean students, soon questioned this simple equality principle, and have long supported such activities as ethnic lessons and Korean cultural study clubs, as I shall discuss later. The Ministry remained silent on the education of Koreans in Japanese schools for the next twenty-five years until 1991, when it sent out another circular to local education boards. In it, for the first time, the Ministry formally acknowledged that ethnic classes for Koreans existed at government schools under local government discretion and approved their continuation, stating that ‘ethnic classes during extracurricular hours are exempt from the no special treatment clause in the 1965 circular’. It also suggested that local governments send the parents of Korean children of school starting age a letter informing them about local school entry, as was the practice for their Japanese counterparts. The circular also stipulated that this approach be extended to other foreign nationals, including newcomer children, as we shall see in Part 2. The central government’s responses to Koreans have thus been minimal in comparison with those aimed at addressing the special needs of new immigrant and guest workers’ children.3 Local activism: continuity from buraku to Koreans to newcomers Despite the Ministry’s policy of ‘treating all in the same way’, Korean parents and organizations and concerned teachers questioned this policy; teachers initiated various activities at the classroom level, for example, volunteering to conduct after-school ethnic classes and providing guidance specific to Korean children. These individual classroom-level activities resulted in the formation of inter-school professional groups, later recognized by local governments, which began to provide financial assistance for such activities. Below, I shall examine specifically a grass-roots activist and professional group, the National Association for Research into the Education of Resident Koreans in Japan, local government education bodies and local education board policies for the education of foreign children in government schools. While after-school ethnic education existed in Japanese mainstream schools, those involved did not actively seek public recognition of ‘difference’ until the 1970s. For example, Korean ethnic classes were conducted at government schools in Osaka prefecture under the 1948 agreement, and, by the late 1960s, concerned parents and teachers in schools with large numbers of Korean students in neighbouring prefectures had begun to run similar classes. Local and school level policy and practice in relation to education for Korean residents underwent profound changes in the 1970s. These came from two directions. On the one hand, a series of civil movements and court cases regarding education in the 1960s caused lively discussion about students’ rights to education and teachers’ rights

106 Kaori H. Okano to oppose what was considered to be central government intervention. On the other hand, the powerful activism of a minority organization, the Buraku Liberation League, and the subsequent installation of dōwa education programmes (Hawkins 1983) forced schools to re-examine their hitherto taken-for-granted assumptions and educational practice in relation to first buraku, and later Korean, students. Subsequently, dōwa education covered the human rights of students generally, including newcomers and those with disabilities. This movement brought about acceptance of the principle of ‘no discrimination’ that was actively taught in schools through dōwa education by schools, students and society in general. A grass-roots activist and professional group, Zenkoku Zainichi Chōsenjin Kyōiku Kenkyūkyōgikai (ZZCKKK) (National Association for Research into the Education of Resident Koreans in Japan) was formed by practitioners engaged in school-based ethnic classes (often on a voluntary basis) (Nakajima 2004). In the late 1960s, concerned parents and teachers in mainstream schools with large numbers of Korean students in Kyoto and Osaka began to implement programmes such as after-school ethnic education classes and consultations. Wishing to exchange ideas on practice and develop new strategies, these practitioners held their first annual conference in 1979, established ZZCKKK as the organizer of these meetings in 1983, and started involving practitioners from other regions. The association became an important agent in disseminating knowledge about education for Koreans and in illuminating the situation of Koreans in Japanese schools and their special needs. In the late 1990s, the association held lengthy discussions and eventually decided also to be an advocate for newcomer children, a point I elaborate later. Concerned teachers initiated inter-school bodies in order to support the ethnic education of ‘foreign nationals’ (most of whom were Koreans), around the time that dōwa education was gaining legitimacy in the policy discourse. The first of these bodies, the Osaka City Committee for Research in the Education of Foreign Nationals (Osaka shi gaikokujin kyōiku kenkyū kyōgikai, or Osaka Shigaikyō), was formed in 1972 by interested teachers as the city education board’s research body (kenkyū itaku kikan) (Sugitani 1993: 44). All government primary and middle schools in Osaka City participate in this body, which over the years has created a series of supplementary texts (salam) for teaching Japanese students about Korea. These texts have been used at 80 per cent of the schools in Osaka City (Sugitani 1993: 46). Similar bodies were created by other local governments in the 1990s. Local government multicultural education policies: Koreans, buraku and newcomers As of 2007, about eighty local governments have announced ‘policies for the education of foreign nationals (mainly Koreans) in Japanese schools’ (zainichi gaikokujin kyōiku hōshin or shishin) (Zenkoku Zainichi Gaikokujinn Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai 2007: 26–8). How and why did these policies come to be formulated by local governments, despite the Ministry’s policy of ‘treating all in

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the same way’? I examine the local policies issued by forty-seven local governments4 in four respects: background to the formulation of the policies; the naming of the target groups (Koreans or foreign nationals or both); the effectiveness of the policies; and major shared elements. In 1970, the Osaka City Education Board was the first to create its own policy for the education of foreign children in government schools (with special reference being made to Koreans) (‘Zainichi Gaikokujin Kyōiku Hōshin Shishin’), in response to demand from teachers, and later with assistance from the Osaka City Committee for Research in the Education of Foreign Nationals. The policy has been revised several times since then to respond to changing needs. It focuses on human rights, maintenance of Korean ethnic identity, and promotion of Japanese understanding of Koreans, and has encouraged individual schools to develop policies regarding foreign national students. Twelve local governments followed with similar policies in the 1980s, thirty-three in the 1990s, and two since 2000. Many of these areas have ethnic-Korean populations. The naming of these policies reveals the essential assumption that prevails about Japanese citizenship – mono-ethnicity (Okano 2006). Citizenship in this case is not conceived of as independent of one’s ethnicity. There are four types of wording for these policies: 1 2 3 4

‘foreign nationals in Japan (mainly Korean nationals)’ (twenty-seven cases); ‘foreign nationals in Japan’ (thirteen cases); ‘Korean nationals in Japan’ (six cases); and ‘Korean nationals (foreign nationals) in Japan’ (one case).

All policies start with reference to Korean residents in Japan in their main texts. The earlier policies tended to refer only to ‘Koreans’; but in the 1980s we started seeing ‘foreign nationals (mainly Koreans)’, a shift from the Korean-only reference to ‘foreigners’. I suspect that this resulted from a compromise to appease all parties involved. The policies were initiated by local and professional activism for the education of Korean residents, and Korean residents remain the majority among foreign residents. Local governments would have been obliged to acknowledge in the policies the Koreans’ desire that their special place be recognized in relation to new immigrants, in that the Koreans’ existence and marginalization resulted directly from the state’s colonial policies. The effectiveness of these policies for the education of foreign residents in Japan is difficult to measure and is dependent on how individual schools implement them. Parents can always report concerns about their children to teachers and school authorities, but the institutionalization of policies by education boards is expected to assist the process. With such policies in place, teachers feel that their activities for the education of Koreans (e.g. participation in various workshops and professional organizations) are more legitimate as professional development. There are seven common elements in most of the forty-seven policies that I examined. The first four elements concern the education of all students (both ‘foreign’ and Japanese); the next two specifically give consideration to ‘foreign’

108 Kaori H. Okano students in Japanese schools; and the last addresses the professional development of teachers implementing the first six elements. All policies start with the premise that the task of educating Koreans and other foreign nationals in Japanese government schools necessarily involves the whole school, not just those minority students. This requires the dissemination of accurate knowledge about Korean residents in contemporary Japan, how Japan’s past colonial policies resulted in the present existence of Korean residents, and how they have long suffered from marginalization by the dominant society. In explaining Korean marginalization in Japan, schools are urged to reflect on the pre-war social Darwinist idea that Asian people and civilizations are inferior to their Western counterparts, and that the Japanese are somehow superior to other Asians. According to these policies, this idea still has some currency in Japan, not only in relation to Koreans, but also to other newcomer foreigners, many of whom come from the Third World. The third element is respect for cultural and language differences. Fourth, all policies advocate the need to cultivate greater awareness of human rights among all students. Here, the Japanese constitution, the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights and dōwa education principles of the 1970s are variously mentioned. Schools are expected to address the special needs of Korean and foreign students by nurturing ethnic pride through creating opportunities for them to learn ethnic languages and family histories. In relation to Korean residents, most policies urge schools to encourage Koreans to adopt ‘real (Korean) names’ (instead of Japanese names), and to create the kind of school environment and subculture that would enable Korean students to feel comfortable in doing this. In addition, schools are required to recognize the disadvantages that Korean and foreign students face at school, in obtaining employment and in the wider society, and to devise teaching and learning in both academic and social fields, as well as guidance for life after school, that reflect this recognition. In this context, some policies refer to one of the dōwa education slogans, ‘Guidance for life-after-school is the ultimate culmination of what schools can do for these children’s future – safely placing them in the adult world’. Schools with considerable numbers of Korean students implement such policies to ensure that all minority students obtain permanent full-time jobs (Okano 1997). Local education boards often conduct surveys of post-high school destinations for Korean residents (e.g. Osaka-fu 2000). The education of other foreign nationals (new immigrants) features in seven of the local government policies, but remains supplementary. New immigrants are described as needing specific Japanese as a second language instruction. For example, Mie prefecture’s policy for the education of foreign nationals in government schools (2003) has a separate section on new immigrants and identifies three specific needs that schools need to address: JSL, adaptation to the Japanese school environment, and maintenance of the mother tongue. The Mie prefectural education board has developed JSL materials and employs JSL teachers and Portuguese-speaking counsellors. Osaka municipal government policy (1994 version) states that the principles for the education of Korean residents are

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applicable to new immigrants in its preamble, and urges schools not to repeat the ‘mistake’ made with Korean students of treating them in the same way as their Japanese peers. A later document (2003) lists more effectively the distinctive needs of immigrants. These seven shared elements are widely observed in so called ‘multicultural education’ goals elsewhere (Australian Schools Commission 1979; Mitchell and Salsbury 1996; Banks 2004: 5) and can be considered to be multicultural education policies. These policies display two distinctive features: their focus on human rights, and the use of the term ‘foreigners’. I shall take this up in a later discussion on perceived ‘differences’.

Ethnic Koreans’ classroom experience of schooling The majority of Korean pupils in Japanese schools are said to become aware of their Korean background by grade 3, mostly from their parents. Fifty-seven per cent know about their ethnicity before entering primary school (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 31). Many Korean children use their Japanese names at school and elsewhere. For example, among those who attended Japanese government primary and middle schools in Osaka City in 1999, only 13.8 per cent used Korean names (Son 2000: 88). In a survey undertaken in urban parts of Hyōgo prefecture, 20 per cent used their Korean name, and this percentage rose among families headed by university graduate fathers (29 per cent) (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 39, 155). Korean students with Japanese names in Japanese schools are overtly invisible to a casual observer (e.g. Rohlen 1981; Okano 1993, 1997; Miyauchi 1998). This is partly because these Koreans, having grown up in Japan, possess mannerisms, mores and a physical appearance that are not distinctive from those of their Japanese peers. In the case of schools with very few Koreans, the invisibility is partly because Korean students are skilful in concealing their ethnicity from their Japanese classmates. In the case of schools with a considerable number of Koreans, such as the two schools I studied in Saki City (a pseudonym to maintain anonymity), the invisibility derives from the fact that Japanese students behave as if all their classmates were Japanese, in spite of knowing that particular classmates are Korean, and they try not to touch on that aspect of the student, assuming that Korean students want it that way. Korean students’ interaction with teachers Teachers vary in their knowledge of, and commitment to, minority issues, both across schools and within their own schools. Most teachers obtain guidance in relation to minority students from their schools’ committees for the promotion of dōwa education (dōwa kyōiku suishin iinkai). Every Saki City high school has such a committee, including the schools in which I conducted fieldwork. This committee implements the school’s policy on human rights and minorities, which include students from buraku, Korean and sole-parent families; tries to raise awareness of human rights issues among students; and encourages minority

110 Kaori H. Okano students to apply for various scholarships available specifically for them. Often, the teacher in charge of the Korean cultural study club is a member of the committee. The level of activities within a school is influenced by the membership of the committee and the head teacher; that is to say, the characters of the teachers in charge make a significant difference. At both schools in Saki City, teachers were generally sympathetic about the disadvantages that Korean students face in society. Korean students’ interactions with teachers were amicable and no different from those of their Japanese counterparts. When Korean students talked about being Korean, for example in relation to employment, they did so in private with the teachers that they considered approachable and trustworthy. Often it was their homeroom teachers, with whom they felt the closest association, whom they consulted. When students were active in sports clubs, their club teachers played a similar role. The head teacher and experienced members of the above-mentioned committee were often consulted by homeroom teachers. Special treatment of Korean students was thus not noticeable to casual observers, but did take place. Besides affirmative action policies and protective arrangements that the two schools had instituted in relation to job acquisition, Korean students were informed of the assistance or guidance available within the school from the outset. At one school that I studied, homeroom teachers of Korean students and the Korean cultural study club teacher together visited students’ homes and encouraged families to apply for Korean scholarships, as well as city scholarships and tuition exemption, which were extended to include Koreans in the mid 1970s owing to active civil movements. They also invited the students to join the Korean cultural study club. At the other school in my fieldwork, the dean normally gathered new Korean students together soon after they entered the school and advised them that, although they would be treated equally with the Japanese cohort while at school, they should be aware that they would face ‘reality’ when applying for jobs. The dean further recommended various ways to cope with this reality, by accumulating good academic marks and aiming for university study. Korean students’ interaction with Japanese students To what extent Korean students are open about their ethnic origin varies considerably, depending on the culture of each school. Even between the two schools that I studied there was a noticeable difference. Whereas none of the Korean students at one school concealed their Korean identity (in spite of adopting Japanese names), at the other school some students chose to conceal their identity completely. The relative openness at the former school could have been due to a larger number of Korean students (5.9 per cent, as opposed to 2.9 per cent); and/or to the prevalence of girls, who tend to discuss their identity more frequently (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 48, 81). Many Korean students with Japanese names confess their ethnic identity to their Japanese friends. In the 1994 survey, 65 per cent of Korean students with Japanese names directly revealed their identity to their Japanese friends (Tsujimoto

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et al. 1994: 48). After doing so, Korean students responded that 24 per cent of their Japanese friends had already known about their Korean identity through other sources (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 49). Tomoe is a third-generation Korean twelfthgrader: I haven’t publicly announced at school that I’m Korean, but I’ve never tried to hide it. I know some Korean students at other schools completely hide it. But eventually people will find out about your Korean background. If that happens and your friends start to discriminate against you, then they’ll no longer be your friends. I’m not embarrassed about being a Korean, and haven’t felt any kind of pressure because it. (Interview, 1 December 1989) Many Japanese students at the two schools knew the Korean backgrounds of their classmates. The 1994 survey revealed that 56 per cent of Japanese students had experienced classmates directly revealing their ethnic identity to them (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 219), and that only 15 per cent of the Koreans with Japanese names considered that no classmates knew their ethnic identity (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 47). Korean students at the two schools all had close Japanese friends. All belonged to different friendship groups made up of Japanese and Korean students. Having close Korean friends seemed to influence Japanese students in one way or another. Koemi had been close to her classmate Asako, a Korean girl, since her first year at high school: Before I became close to Asako and came to know about her Korean background, I had hardly known about zainichi people. I’d never thought about it. One day she said to me ‘Actually I am a Korean’. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I think I only said ‘Is that so?’ It didn’t change our friendship. Since then she has talked about her experience of being zainichi and zainichi problems in general, and took me to the Korean cultural study club. There I listened to gaiseki (foreign national) boys, and have learned a lot. I thought I had a great friend. She opened my eyes to an unknown world. (Interview, 4 December 1989) The Korean students at both schools claimed that they felt comfortable being at school and had not experienced direct discrimination there. But they were also aware of differences across schools, either through their own experiences or from what they had heard from their friends. Below is a conversation between three Korean girls. Noshie:

Orie:

When you’re living in Sakura-ward, where Koreans are concentrated, you don’t notice the barrier (between zainichi and Japanese). But once you are outside, it’s another story. Exactly. When I was living in [Matsu-town] (of Saki City), there were a few Koreans. I never talked about being Korean in the

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Akemi:

Noshie:

classroom at [Matsu] Middle School. In fact it is incredible that we are talking like this. I hear that in Momo-ward, there is on average only one Korean student in each class. Then you can’t talk about it at all. You just hide the fact that you are Korean. That’s why people don’t move out of Sakura-ward. It’s more comfortable to live in a Korean-concentrated area. (Fieldnotes, 19 January 1990)

Positive comments made by Korean students on the two schools did not, however, preclude incidents where Korean students were hurt by Japanese classmates’ actions. Some of the Japanese students made insensitive and derogatory utterances in relation to Koreans in the presence of Korean students, often without malicious intent. The following extract from an essay that was displayed by the Korean cultural study club at the school’s cultural festival day highlights such an interaction: I again heard the term ‘chonko’ (a derogatory term for a Korean) in our classroom. I hate hearing it. I know these classmates are not referring specifically to me, but I feel that they are. I was very disappointed since I hadn’t thought they would use the term, knowing that I am Korean. I was frightened, in particular, to see my friend also using the term. I felt angry and wanted to tell them not to use it, but I couldn’t. Because I was afraid of losing friends, afraid that they may no longer like me. Are they my friends? Do I want to see them when I leave school? Perhaps not many of my classmates. But I need to be with them for the rest of the year, and I don’t want to have awkward relationships with them. When I talked about this to my parents, they said, ‘Don’t get upset so much by such a trivial thing. The world outside the school is even worse. You need to learn to live with it – ignore it’. I want to keep on good terms with my classmates, but I can’t respect people who use that word. (Fieldnotes, 19 November 1989) The Korean students’ understanding of, and attitudes towards, their Japanese classmates are thus constructed through daily interactions with Japanese students and differ from those of their parents and grandparents. Similarly, the Japanese students’ understanding of, and attitudes towards, Koreans also differ from those of their parents and grandparents. Korean students often have close Japanese friends, as was shown at the two schools. The 1994 survey reveals that one-quarter of students had close ‘foreign’ friends, over 60 per cent of whom were Korean (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 219), and that the real proportion of Japanese students with ethnic Korean friends was higher, as many Japanese students did not consider that Japan-born ethnic Koreans were foreigners. Nor did Japanese students object to Koreans using Korean names. Over 20 per cent of them considered it appropriate for Koreans to adopt Korean names at school, while 53 per cent felt that either

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way was acceptable (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 256). Having Korean friends seems to influence how Japanese students see Koreans. The Japanese students who have close Korean friends are more likely than those without to maintain positive attitudes towards, and a healthy curiosity about, Koreans and Korea (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 241–53). Based on daily interaction with Korean students, young Japanese students’ understanding of nationality is inclusive and defies the official one. For example, two-thirds of the students believed that birth in Japan confers Japanese nationality, while 40 per cent selected ‘residence in Japan’ as qualifiying people for Japanese nationality (they were asked to choose two out of seven options) (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 241). I have suggested that the relative comfort that Korean students now feel among less hostile Japanese classmates, and the relatively better understanding that Japanese schools show towards the needs of Koreans, contribute to transforming Koreans’ relationship with Japanese schools. Another contributing factor to this transformation is the Koreans’ ‘instrumental beliefs about schooling’, the perception that the qualifications gained from school have some value in the adult world, a point that I now turn to. School–employment link Japanese schools protect minority students from blatant discrimination by regulating the employee recruitment process through a school-based job referral system (Okano 1997). Under this system, each school develops and maintains a long-term social network with employers throughout the year, receives recruitment cards for available positions from employers in July, processes the employment data, and then provides market contacts and relevant data to all its students. The system enables the school to provide job opportunities and related information equally to all students, regardless of their family backgrounds (Okano 1997). In this process, schools actively intervene in the Korean students’ decisions about, and acquisition of, employment by offering a system of protection, practical assistance and affirmative action, with the goal of ensuring that Korean students obtain jobs at mainstream Japanese companies. Survey results show that 61 per cent of Korean high school students obtained jobs through school referrals (Osaka-fu Kyōiku Iinkai 2000: 13), and that they felt that school-based job referral protected them from discrimination (Osaka-fu Kyōiku Iinkai 2000: 27). Those who entered the workforce via school referral were less likely to quit their first job than those who did not, and school referral is used more extensively by Korean students these days than by their fathers’ generation (Zainichi Kōrai Rōdōsha Renmei 1992: 14). This suggests that Korean students have come to derive greater benefit from Japanese schools in their entry into the workforce. When school intervention enables a Korean student to obtain the same kind of position as a Japanese counterpart, this is not only a triumph for the individual Korean student concerned; it has a more lasting significance in two ways. The first is the positive impact on the Korean community’s belief about the instrumental

114 Kaori H. Okano value of Japanese government schooling, what Ogbu and Simons (1998: 156) call ‘instrumental beliefs about schooling’; that is, possessing school qualifications accords them the same benefits in obtaining employment as mainstream Japanese. The second is the positive impact on the Korean community’s perception of their relationship with schools and those in authority – ‘relational beliefs about schooling’ in Ogbu and Simon’s words (1998: 156). Having experienced school intervention and its success, the parents are more likely to see schools as offering pragmatic care for their children’s specific needs and to trust schools and teachers. Academic achievement and the meaning of schooling There are some very successful Koreans, but, overall, Korean young people have performed less well compared with their Japanese counterparts. The available survey results suggest that a gap between Korean and Japanese students exists but has decreased over the last decade (Rohlen 1981: 194–7). In Kyoto, 84.9 per cent of Korean students (in comparison with the city average of 92.5 per cent) went beyond compulsory schooling in 1978; in 1990 the respective figures were 89.7 per cent and 95.3 per cent (Nakajima 1994: 33). The most recent 1993 survey on zainichi South Koreans (aged eighteen to thirty) reveals that the education level of those surveyed is not significantly different from the Japanese average. Further analysis suggests that this result derives from a combination of two opposing effects. First, a smaller proportion of zainichi children of parents in professional and managerial positions went on to tertiary education than their Japanese counterparts (Fukuoka and Kim 1997: 20), suggesting that tertiary-educated zainichi parents who did not receive meritocratic benefits based on their academic qualifications did not encourage their children to proceed to university as much as did their Japanese counterparts. Next, a larger proportion of children of zainichi parents in manual labour, relative to similarly situated mainstream Japanese children, went to university (Fukuoka and Kim 1997: 20), suggesting that parents encouraged their children to gain further education that they had been denied owing to economic circumstances. The former is a typical pattern exhibited by Ogbu’s involuntary minority, whereas the latter represents the pattern frequently observed among Ogbu’s immigrant (voluntary) minority (Ogbu 1987: 320–1). The finding suggests that oldcomer Koreans, who were once exclusively considered to be an involuntary minority, have become a more diverse group. The educational level of zainichi fathers is a significant factor in guiding their children’s education. Universityeducated fathers tend to want their children to use their Korean names at school and have higher expectations of what Japanese schools can arrange in terms of ethnic education and enlightening the Japanese students about zainichi issues (Tsujimoto et al. 1994: 149, 165–8). Schools’ adoption of the simple equality principle of treating Korean and Japanese children in the same way has not meant that Korean students obtain the same benefit from schooling as their Japanese counterparts. While schools espouse the meritocracy and achievement ideology (hard work and good education leading

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to reward in the adult world) and egalitarianism, Korean children have learnt from their direct experience of schooling (including interaction with other children) and from their community members that what schools preach does not necessarily apply to themselves in either the workforce or the marriage market. Some Korean children have learnt, through schooling processes, that being Korean is negative, and decide to hide their Korean identity (Fukuoka 2000: 45). The curriculum assumed that students were Japanese citizens of Japanese lineage and did not acknowledge the existence of Korean children. Many Korean extracurricular clubs were not funded by the government until 1992, which may have sent a message that such clubs were not worthwhile activities. Thus, it is understandable that the Korean community developed an ambivalent feeling towards, and attached a different meaning to, Japanese schools. Ethnic education within mainstream schooling There have been efforts to promote Korean children’s ethnic education within mainstream schooling. Typically, schools with a reasonable number of ethnic Korean students take up such programmes. There are: (1) school-based ethnic classes or ethnic Korean clubs; (2) community-based Korean clubs; and (3) high school Korean cultural study clubs. Although these programmes often have a lasting impact on individual participants (e.g. Fukuoka 2000), I shall argue that their most important aspect is their positive influence on the Korean community’s perception of schools. First, minzoku gakkyū (ethnic classes) or minzoku kurabu (ethnic clubs) are offered for Korean students at primary and middle schools with a relatively large number of Koreans. As of April 1999, such activities were offered at eighty-one government schools in Osaka City (Son 2000: 106). The origins and forms of these classes vary, from highly organized lessons to more informal clubs where Korean students and community members meet and have discussions. For example, an Osaka primary school where half of the students are Korean provides highly systematic ethnic education in the form of weekly classes after school, at all grades for all Korean students, delivered by a Korean instructor (Son 2000: 106–19). The curriculum covers language and Korean history and society and includes equal opportunity and related human rights issues. The school also runs kokusai rikai kyōiku lessons (literally, ‘education for international understanding’) for Japanese students. In other schools, ethnic classes are extracurricular activities where Korean students meet other Koreans to learn about their culture and explore their identities (Suzuki 1997: 115). Many schools with an insufficient number of Korean students to organize such a school-based programme join a regional programme catering for several schools in the area. There are three types, based on the differing processes of their establishment, their financial arrangements and the employment status of the teachers. •

Type 1: Based on a 1948 agreement between the Osaka prefectural governor and an ethnic Korean organization that resisted the central government’s order

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•

•

to close ethnic schools, schools with a large number of Korean students (30–65 per cent of the student population) employ full-time or fractional teachers who are funded by the prefecture to teach ethnic classes as well as other subjects. Some of these teachers are in charge of coordinating foreign students within the school and are, in theory, fully integrated in the daily operation of schooling and policy development (Usui 1998: 97). Type 2: Since 1972, in the context of dōwa education at schools with a large number of buraku children, concerned Japanese teachers, as well as volunteer Korean parents and Korean community members, have run ethnic classes. In 1992, Osaka began paying these volunteers as sessional club instructors (kurabu shidōin). The Type 2 approach has been more successful than Type 1 in involving the whole school, despite the sessional status of the ethnic education teachers, because Type 2 schools, having already committed to dōwa education, were more able to integrate ethnic education programmes into teaching across the curriculum (Usui, 1998: 104–7). Type 3: In 1992, the Osaka City government started funding club instructors, in response to the 1991 Ministry of Education circular mentioned earlier (Usui 1998: 98).

Second, other than school-based ethnic clubs, some communities formed clubs for their Korean children (chiiki kodomokai). For example, community members created the Mukuge Club in a Korean-dense area of Takatsuki City in the 1970s and expanded their activities to other areas. These children’s club activities are now financially supported by the city (Kim 1999: 137–91). Third, high schools with a substantial number of Korean students often have Korean cultural study clubs (chōbunken). The club provides a place where Korean students share their experience of being Korean and learn about the Korean language, culture, zainichi history and human rights, often under the leadership of a teacher committed to equality issues. Commonly, only a few zainichi students (always senior students) join the club, as joining means ‘coming out’. Nonetheless, the clubs’ influence on individual members can be enormous: such clubs have helped some young Koreans come to terms with their Korean identity and to use their real (Korean) name in public. The process of ‘coming out’ involves courage and determination on the part of those concerned (ZZCKKK 1993). The immediate impact of these efforts is difficult to measure in terms of the students’ awareness, their zainichi identity and their academic performance. The most important impact of these programmes, however, is symbolic. Korean children and parents see that the school acknowledges the existence of ethnic Korean children and what they bring to school from home. The existence of government-funded ethnic teachers, for example, may suggest to the Koreans that government schools take their existence more seriously than before, as may teachers encouraging zainichi students to use their Korean names. Seeing schools taking some interest in the Korean culture and language and in zainichi history, the Korean community is likely to develop a belief that schools are not about rejecting or undermining their Korean identity. Ogbu and Simon call this ‘symbolic

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beliefs about schooling’ (1998: 156). This in turn affects the community’s perception of its relationship with schools. They may place more trust in schools and those in authority and see schooling less as a process of subordination (Okano 2004).

Koreans’ interactions with other minorities, and understanding differences I have suggested earlier that Japanese local multicultural education policies have two distinctive features: their focus on human rights and the use of the term ‘foreigners’. Taking up these features again, I now discuss how ethnic Korean activism has interacted with other minorities, and how boundaries of ‘differences’ continue to shift. All these local education boards’ policies are presented in the framework of human rights education. Respect for, and acceptance of, other ethnic cultures are briefly mentioned, but remain marginal to human rights. In this regard, these policies differ from multicultural education policies initially developed elsewhere, for example in Australia in the 1970s, the focus of which was the celebration of the cultural differences of immigrants and their benefit to the whole community (Welch 1996: 105–10). Indigenous peoples were not included in the national multicultural education policy (Australia, Schools Commission Committee on Multicultural Education 1979) because, according to Hill and Allan (2004: 980), indigenous leaders wanted to emphasize their peoples’ special place in Australian society. This exclusion of the most disadvantaged might have contributed to the focus on cultural difference rather than human rights. The dominant focus on human rights in the Japanese policies has, I suspect, two reasons. First, rather than seek recognition of difference, many Korean residents have long chosen to not assert or display their ethnicity markers in order to pass as Japanese. This was initially because many saw their stay in Japan as temporary (before they would eventually return to their homeland) and formed their ethnic identity in terms of their allegiance to their homeland (North or South Korea). The Japanese government also saw Koreans as transient residents and differentiated Koreans from Japanese citizens. Given the physiological similarities and the continued marginalization in employment and social relations, many Koreans judged this strategy to be more effective for avoiding discrimination. Subsequently, the majority of Korean residents in Japan do not have a functional knowledge of the Korean language and have acquired Japanese mannerisms and lifestyles, but we cannot interpret this as willing assimilation. Second, and more importantly, activism for the education of Koreans was influenced by the long-existing push for the education of buraku people in the 1970s. Most of the Japanese teachers active in the promotion of buraku education became sympathetic to the cause of education for Koreans in Japanese schools. Activism for buraku people began in the late nineteenth century when the buraku people realized that the Meiji abolition of the class system had not ended the marginalization. The first organization was formed in 1922. Post-war activism

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for buraku people (the BLL was formed in 1955) sought to remove marginalization and social stigmatization by asserting their Japaneseness (rather than differences) and focused on human rights, in order to counter continuing allegations of their racial, ethnic and language distinctiveness. The active dōwa education movements influenced the push for the education of Koreans in three ways: 1 2 3

through the voluntary creation of ethnic classes at the individual school level; via the process of local policy formulation; and through local policy implementation mechanisms.

It was in the context of dōwa education that the second wave of Korean ethnic classes was started in 1972, by concerned Japanese teachers as well as volunteer Korean parents and Korean community members, at schools with a large number of buraku children in Osaka. (The first wave of ethnic classes in Japanese government schools resulted from the 1948 agreement between the Osaka prefectural governor and an ethnic Korean organization, after the central government order to close ethnic schools.) The third wave of ethnic classes started in 1992, when the Osaka City government began funding club instructors, in response to the 1991 Ministry of Education circular mentioned earlier (Usui 1998: 98). The ethnic classes that thus emerged at dōwa education-active schools were more successful in involving the whole school than those established during the other waves mentioned above. This was because these schools, having already committed themselves to dōwa education, were more able to integrate ethnic education programmes into teaching across the curriculum (Usui 1998: 104–7). Second, when participants were formulating policies for the education of Korean and foreign nationals, they looked to dōwa education policies for reference. Some local policies now state specifically that the education of foreign nationals is based on the local government’s existing framework of ‘human rights education policies’. Following their formulation locally, the policies were implemented through institutional mechanisms and infrastructure that had already been established for dōwa education at the local government and individual school levels. For example, teachers generally obtain guidance in relation to minority students from their school’s committee to promote dōwa education (dōwa kyōiku suishin iinkai). The head of each school’s committee is a member of a city-wide professional organization, in this case the Saki Municipal High School Dōwa Education Study Society. This organization is active in disseminating the latest information on scholarships and on national and local level policies affecting minority students, through regular publications to schools, and through opposing or supporting changes in policies and lobbying local governments and other institutions. The continued use of the term ‘foreign residents in Japan’ in these local policies by government ministries and the media has long signalled particular boundaries that have led to grouping Japan-born ethnic Koreans and newcomers together and distinguishing them from indigenous peoples and buraku people. Although most Japanese would associate the term ‘foreign residents’ with someone born outside

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Japan and residing temporarily in Japan, until 1990 the majority of foreigners residing in Japan comprised permanent resident ethnic Koreans born in Japan, with Japanese as their first language. Therefore, there was an assumption that schools with relatively large numbers of foreigners would have many ethnic Koreans enrolled. Conversely, schools without foreigners would not necessarily have ethnically homogeneous student populations, because there are large numbers of ethnic Koreans who have taken up Japanese citizenship and children of Japanese–Korean marriages. These terms exclude ‘ex-foreigners’, who have taken up Japanese citizenship, and children of Koreans and/or foreigners who are granted Japanese citizenship at birth. Once a foreigner takes up Japanese citizenship, he or she simply disappears into the Japanese citizen category. His or her ethnic background ceases to exist in the official discourse. However, an increasing number of ethnic Koreans now possess Japanese citizenship through naturalization or as a result of mixed marriages, an outcome of the 1985 revision to the Nationality Act. Although, officially, they have ceased to be Korean, a sense of ethnic identity and marginalization continues to exist. The term ‘foreign nationals’ also excludes indigenous peoples (Okinawans and Ainu) who are Japanese citizens. There are no official documents detailing the ethnic composition of the Japanese population nationwide. This contrasts with, for example, a country such as Australia, which collects such information in each national census. The use of these terms in the policies does not acknowledge the diverse ethnic ancestry of Japanese citizens. Only a few local governments recognize multi-ethnic citizenship in the student population and advise that the same policies be applied to Japanese nationals with nonJapanese ethnicity. It is in this shared experience of being non-Japanese citizens that Japan-born ethnic Koreans and newcomers interact in non-governmental organizations as well. For example, the National Association for Research into the Education of Resident Koreans in Japan (Zenkoku Zainichi Chōsenjin Kyōiku Kenkyūkai) is a grass-roots activist and professional group that has studied and discussed the situation of Koreans in Japanese schools since the 1970s. Its responses to newcomers have been mixed and have revealed how teachers who were long involved in ethnic Korean activities reacted to the new situation. The association’s members were initially cautious and had mixed opinions regarding the public treatment of the issue of newcomers’ education. On the one hand, some were cynical about the sensational media coverage of newcomers’ ‘problems’, the sudden ‘discovery’ of ‘ethnic diversity’ in Japanese schools, and the central government’s measures to address the ‘problems’ faced by newcomers. They felt that these responses reinforced the myth that Japanese schools had previously had homogeneous student populations. Others felt that the public discourse trivialized the issues and the promotion of the education of Korean students that they had long pursued as human rights matters (Matsunami 2004: 182). The overt nature of the public’s and the central government’s responses to newcomers, in contrast to those towards ethnic Koreans, is often attributed to the fact that Koreans have no JSL needs and are invisible in the eyes of many (Matsunami 2004: 182). I suspect that it also

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derives from the fact that the public, as well as the central government, does not feel as uncomfortable discussing newcomers as it does ethnic Koreans, a minority created by the state and marginalized by society. On the other hand, presenters at the association’s annual meetings were convinced that, having been actively involved in the education of Koreans since the 1970s when the issue was silenced in the public discourse, they had something to offer. Papers on newcomers emphasized the danger of assimilating them. According to a paper presented in 1993: We cannot allow the children to be deprived of their ethnic cultures when placing a priority on their JSL teaching. We have learned this lesson from our past experiences with Koreans. We need to constantly check what we do when teaching newcomers, to make sure that our teaching is not about ‘cultural adaptation’ which ends up forcing ‘assimilation’ . . . On the other hand, oldcomer Koreans and newcomer children differ in terms of the reasons for their arrival in Japan and the social background. Their needs are different. (Quoted in Matsunami 2004: 185) These teachers seem to value the potential to learn about the differences and similarities in the needs of oldcomer Koreans and newcomer students, and see the potential for fruitful interaction between the two. In 2002, the association renamed itself Zenkoku Zainichi Gaikokujin Kyōiku Kenkyūkyōgikai (National Association for Research into the Education of Resident Foreigners in Japan), by replacing ‘Koreans’ with ‘resident foreigners’ (Nakajima 2004: 8). This change not only reflects the focus of the annual conferences, which increasingly have included papers on newcomers, but also signals the association’s intention to focus officially on the issues of both groups. The change was cautiously finalized after careful debate: it initially adopted a transitory name, which inserted ‘foreigners’ after ‘Koreans’ in 1997, and debated the matter until 2002. Papers on newcomers were first presented at the 1992 annual meeting, and their number has gradually increased to account for half the papers in the 2002 conference (Matsunami 2004).

Conclusion The chapter deliberately adopted the term ‘ethnic Koreans’ in the most inclusive sense, in response to the changing demography of ethnic Koreans in Japan. They include Japanese citizens with ethnic Korean background, non-citizens and new migrants. The former group is now denoted as ‘students with Korean roots’ by some local education administrations, as distinct from ‘foreign nationals’ (gaikokuseki) (Okano 1993). The central government’s policies to address the special needs of Korean children in government schools have been minimal, in comparison with those for new migrants. Grass-roots activities for ethnic Koreans in mainstream schools demanded that local governments with large numbers of Korean residents assist

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in such activities, which resulted in local education boards not only providing financial assistance but also formulating policies for the education of Koreans. I have suggested that they are ‘multicultural education policies’, as observed elsewhere, but that these policies display two distinctive features: a focus on human rights (rather than the celebration of cultural diversity) and the use of the term ‘foreigners’. At the classroom level, ethnic Korean students now experience schooling more positively than did their parents’ generation, and their relationship with schools has undergone a significant transformation, at least partially because of more accommodating schools. I suspect that the changing nature of the relationship will continue to have a long-term influence on the beliefs of students and the Korean community about mainstream schools. Although the public discourse’s use of the term ‘foreign resident in Japan’ reinforces the notion of mono-ethnic Japanese citizenship, students, through daily, personal interaction in classrooms, create their own, more inclusive understanding of being ‘Japanese’. Along with local governments and activism, which have displayed relative autonomy from the central government, these young people may contribute to the cultivation of a multi-ethnic understanding of Japanese citizenship in schools. The human rights focus in local policies for the education of Koreans in government schools is a legacy of ethnic Korean activists’ long interaction with buraku activism. Korean education movements were influenced by the more established buraku movements, which asserted ‘Japaneseness’, and were implemented at schools through the administrative channels and infrastructures already in place for the latter. With the arrival of new migrants, who bring visibly distinctive cultural and language differences, and the central government’s responses to address these visible differences, ethnic Koreans now seem more willing to assert their cultural and ethnic differences. New migrants, on the other hand, are drawing on what ethnic Korean movements have struggled to achieve, as can be seen in the decision by the Association for Research into the Education of Resident Koreans in Japan to include new migrants under its umbrella, and in the inclusion of new migrants in some of the local policies for the education of Koreans. How effectively the three parties (ethnic Koreans, buraku and new migrants) will collectively enhance their power to pursue their interests remains in their hands and those of educational practitioners. Students’ awareness of human rights and cultural diversity in mainstream schooling will no doubt be raised by the parties’ collaboration in making their presence known and in pursuing their rights.

Notes 1 2

Some sections of this chapter have appeared in the following publications: Okano (2004, 2006). In mid 2003, the central government overturned the existing policy and permitted national universities to accept graduates from what had been designated ‘miscellaneous schools’ (e.g. American-style international schools, ethnic schools for South American migrants of Japanese descent, and North Korean ethnic schools). North Korean schools

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were at first excluded from this new arrangement, but public protests eventually led to their inclusion. This is an example of globalization favourably impacting on a longexisting minority group. The Ministry of Education’s first response in 1991 was to start conducting a survey of ‘foreign students who require JSL’. This survey was subsequently conducted every two years until 1999, when it became annual. Besides the regular survey, to date the central government has instituted ‘measures to respond to the special needs of foreign students and returnee students from China’ (Kikoku Gaikokujin Jidōseito Kyōiku ni kansuru Shisaku) (Japan, Monbukagaku-shō 2004). For example, it started funding JSL teachers in 1992, and in 1993 began conducting in-service professional development courses in JSL for teachers and members of local education boards with responsibility for these students (Gaikokujin jidō seitonado nihongo shidōkōshūkai). In 1999, the Ministry started a specialized counsellor dispatching programme (Gaikokujin jidō seito sōdanin haken jigyō), funding educational counsellors with proficiency in the students’ mother tongue in designated local areas (e.g. seventy-one areas in 2004). The Ministry established the Committee for Research in the Education of Returnee and Foreign Students (Kikoku Gaikokujin Jidō Seito Kyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai) in 2001, where local practitioners and education board members discuss and research practice and policies. (This body resembled a committee formed by Osaka City as far back as 1972 to support ethnic Koreans, as discussed.) In the same year, the Ministry started the Internationalization of Education Promotion District Programme (Kikoku Gaikokujin Jidō Seito to Tomoni Susumeru Kyōiku no Kokusaika Suishin Chiki jigyō). Selected schools in designated districts (to date, fifty-six) study and implement measures to promote education for international understanding through interaction between returnee/foreign students and local students. Individual education board reports on this project reveal details of undertakings at schools with substantial numbers of newcomer children. Building on five series of JSL teaching materials that it had published since 1989 (including a multimedia set), the Ministry launched an extensive curriculum development of JSL in 2003. In addition, published guidelines and manuals on ‘cultural adaptation’ were created for teachers involved with returnee and foreign students (Japan, Monbukagaku-shō 2004). In addition to those included in Chung’s volume (Chung et al. 1996), I examined three policies that I found on the Internet: Midokoro City (Midokoro-shi Kyōiku Iinkai 1995), Mie prefecture (Mie-ken Kyōiku Iinkai 2003) and Hyōgo prefecture (Hyogo-ken Kyōiku Iinkai 2002).

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Part II

‘Newcomer’ groups

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The “newcomers” and Japanese society Ryoko Tsuneyoshi

The following chapters, in Part 2, deal with the inflow of the so-called “newcomers”—foreign workers, foreign spouses of Japanese, Indo-Chinese refugees, and others who have come to Japan since the late 1970s to the 1980s. Japan today presents an interesting case for observing the process of social diversification and the negotiating of boundaries from this angle, as it is a society with a homogeneous self-image, but is now being pushed to recognize the diversity within. Now, there is something ironical about introducing official categories of the “newcomers” in a section that looks at interaction between multicultural actors and how boundaries of difference are, in reality, fluid. However, this section, as well as Chapter 2, lays out such officially defined categories of difference to familiarize the readers to the point of reference for most policymakers, educators, and indeed, researchers in this field on Japan to date. It is important to keep in mind, however, that these official categories are subject to change, that the official categories are not necessarily those that are used in everyday interactions, and that individuals can manipulate such categories in their daily life (Brubaker et al. 2004: 35), as some of the following fieldworks illustrate. Now, in the United States, and other countries where “race” and “ethnicity” are major axes of defining boundaries, one’s perceived “race” and/or “ethnicity” has been discussed widely in relation to how minorities see themselves, the interactions they experience, and what it means to be categorized as a certain “race” and/or “ethnicity.” In present-day Japan, the counterpart of “race” in this sense is nationality, and “ethnicity” is also used. States are powerful social categorizers, as they can impose their categories on other agents, and the official discourse influences policymaking as well as the allocation of resources (Jenkins 1997: 69; Brubaker and Cooper 2000). In the Japanese context, the state statistics most often categorize according to nationality. Thus, one is a “Japanese” national or a “Korean,” “Chinese,” or a “Brazilian.” In fact, the lack of other categories, such as selfprofessed ethnicity, as mentioned in Chapter 2, means that a Korean in Japan (“oldcomer”) and a Brazilian (“newcomer”) both disappear into the official category of “Japanese” if they acquire a Japanese nationality. Furthermore, the non-Japanese nationals are clustered together as “foreigners” (gaikokujin).

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Thus, if we take such officially defined categories as the starting point, and were asked who the “newcomers” were, we could very generally describe them as follows. First, for the most part, “newcomers” are nationals of Asian countries. The foreign population itself is largely Asian. In 2007 (Nyūkan Kyōkai 2008), there were 2,152,973 registered foreigners in Japan, constituting 1.69 percent of Japan’s total population, up 45.2 percent from a decade ago, and a record high (this does not include those who reside without legal status). Of these, 74.5 percent are from Asia, and another 18.3 percent are from South America, together constituting over 90 percent of the registered foreign population in Japan. For the first time in 2007, those with Chinese nationality (28.2 percent of the registered foreigners) surpassed those with a Korean nationality (27.6 percent), followed by Brazilians (14.7 percent). Those with a Korean nationality had long been Japan’s largest registered foreign nationality population, but the percentages in the total have been going down for more than a decade and fell below 50 percent in the mid 1990s. This figure naturally does not include ethnic minorities with Japanese nationality. Second, compared with the political and historical reasons associated with the presence of long-existing minorities/foreigners as colonized populations in Japanese society, economic reasons are more marked with the “newcomer” populations. The Japanese government has played a major role in transforming the multicultural composition of Japan in this sense, through changes in its immigration policies. For example, with the 1990 implementation of the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, the South Americans of Japanese descent (Nikkeijin) increased as foreign laborers, and their children emerged as the single largest “newcomer” group in Japanese schools. The consequences of such policies, however, were multifaceted, surfacing in ways that were not predicted by even the officials implementing the policies (e.g., high non-attendance).

The background How did the “newcomers” start to appear in Japanese society? Who exactly are the “newcomers”? Today, more than sixty years have passed since the end of World War II. For the post-war generation of Japanese, the presence of the longexisting minorities/foreigners in their midst was something they might have learnt about in school, or seen on TV, but possibly remember little of, except if they were brought up in districts where minority/foreign populations are concentrated (which I call diversity points). It was against this background of hidden or forgotten diversity that the “new” foreigners started to emerge; hidden, in the sense that the presence of the longexisting minorities/foreigners was hidden from the public eye except in diversity points (e.g., becoming visible through activism, surfacing in everyday interaction, etc.); and forgotten, because there was a conscious and perhaps unconscious post-war effort to create a vision of ethnic homogeneity (Oguma 1995; Lie 2001, Chapter 5).

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The 1970s was a turning point, and the media started to depict images of Japanese society internationalizing within: Asian women in the entertainment industry, foreign workers, the Islamic population during the terrorist attacks on the United States, alienated “newcomer” youth joining gang groups . . . Sometimes, owing to a strange twist of events, certain images of the “foreigners” suddenly emerged, such as the fascination of Japanese with South Korean movie stars (called the hanryū boom) in the 2000s. This brought unlikely Japanese visitors (e.g., middle-aged women) to areas with a concentration of Korean shops. These images of the “foreigners” within Japanese society were sparse and wide apart, yet, they periodically reminded Japanese, at least the ones that noticed, that Japanese society was diversifying. As we saw in earlier chapters, the so-called “oldcomers” have lived in Japan for generations (Japan colonized Korea in 1910). After Japan’s defeat in World War II, a segment of this population remained and, eventually, was deprived of its Japanese citizenship with the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The Koreans thus became Japan’s largest foreign population, foreign nationals although they were permanent residents of Japanese society. However, such “oldcomer” Koreans (and, one might add, the Chinese) were, according to sociologist Kajita (1998), “sociologically Japanese,” as they looked “Japanese,” spoke “Japanese,” most used Japanese names, and acted no differently from “Japanese.” The long-existing foreign children were indistinguishable from the majority, even in the classroom. In addition, as mentioned in Chapter 2, the majority of long-existing foreigners marry Japanese nationals—their children acquiring Japanese nationality. This was not the case with the “new” types of foreigner that started to flow into Japan from around the late 1970s to the 1980s. Sometimes, the “new” foreigners stood out visibly, owing to physical differences (e.g., skin color) or characteristic customs (e.g., practice of Islam). In most cases, an alien language set them apart. For the long-existing foreigners, Japanese is their daily language. However, most “new” Koreans and Chinese would be speaking in their mother tongue if they had come to Japan recently, and messages to them in their native language, in department stores, on the platforms, or in banks, started to remind the Japanese of the existence of “foreigners” in their midst. These new inflows were linked in the Japanese mind with Japan’s labor shortage, bubble economy, and its aftermath, Japan’s relative affluence compared with its Asian neighbors, and with so-called internationalization in general. Though, for the post-war Japanese generation, such changes in Japanese society may seem entirely novel, scholars stress that the recent inflow of foreign labor is actually not that new. Yamawaki (2000), for example, argues that it is important not to forget that there were quite a number of migrant workers from Korea and China by the turn of the nineteenth century to the twentieth, before the forced labor began—a point that is lost in most discussions of the recent foreign laborers. Pre-war Japan was an imperial colonizer, and, as Lie sums it up, “whatever else empires may be, they are not monoethnic” (2001: 122). As was mentioned in Chapter 2, there are well-established China towns in certain locations (e.g., Yokohama and Kobe). It might also be added that, though the image of “Japanese

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overseas” in the Japanese mind may be the post-war businessmen families stationed abroad, historically speaking, there were also a number of emigrants to South America and other regions. In a way, the present inflow of the descendents of these Japanese immigrants into Japan as foreign laborers is an awakening for Japanese society to the fact that there are persons of Japanese origins (Nikkeijin) in other continents who are not temporary businesspersons. The year 2008 was the one-hundredth anniversary for Japanese immigration to Brazil, the country that boasts the largest number of Nikkeijin outside of Japan. Most of the English literature on minorities in Japan is written by researchers in countries where ethnicity and race are central social issues. On the other hand, post-war Japan is characterized by an ideology of homogeneity. For example, observers have noticed that Japanese teachers often maintain that children are all the same, wherever they come from, whether they are Japanese or Chinese, and thus should be treated “the same” (Tsuneyoshi 1995; Shimizu and Shimizu 2001; Shimizu 2006). Unlike western countries that colonized societies very different from themselves, thus creating visible minorities, observers of Japanese society have often noted that the minorities in Japan do not “stand out.” The theme of the “invisible” minorities has been advanced in relation to the buraku poplation (De Vos and Wagatsuma 1967), the Koreans (Nakajima 1993), and now, even to the East Asian “newcomers” (Shimizu and Shimizu 2001, Chapter 1). In any case, the illusion of homogeneity and the assimilationist ideology underlining it have managed to continue; the fact that minorities may require different treatment (e.g., teaching about their ethnic background) in order to enjoy equal educational opportunity is forgotten. It is against this background of hidden diversity that the following “newcomers” emerged.

The inflow of the “newcomers” In this section, some major categories of the “newcomers” in the official sense will be introduced to pave the way for the individual chapters that follow. New inflows into society, whether because of colonization, migration, etc., change the multicultural composition of a society and challenge existing boundaries. Now, preceding the wave of “newcomers,” the returnees emerged as symbols of “internationalization” (kokusaika) in Japan. Japan’s high economic growth period from the 1950s to the 1970s signaled a new economic era; Japanese companies expanded their activities abroad, and more Japanese school-age children were educated in other countries. The education of the children of Japanese employees sent abroad, and their education upon re-entry into Japanese society, thus became newly problematic. The Japanese returnees, especially those coming back from countries where the child had been educated in a local school, were the first group of culturally (e.g., language, behavior) different children that teachers of the post-war generation, outside of the traditional, long-existing minority/foreigner districts, came in touch with. The emergence of this “international” population encouraged many teachers to take an interest in international understanding education. The government started

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sending teachers to Japanese schools abroad, and those who returned are often active in promoting international understanding education in Japan. The returnees are not a historically discriminated-against group, but were included in this book because of the way they have been linked to the “newcomers” via the concept of internationalization. The two have been put together in official categories (see Chapter 10), as well as in practice. For example, the nationwide NPO for practitioners in international understanding education, the All Japan International Educational Research Conference (Zenkoku Kaigaishijyokyōiku Kokusairikaikyōiku Kenkyū Kyōgikai, translation by the NPO), literally translated as “the national research association for the education of Japanese children overseas and international understanding education,” which was established in 1974, first did not have the “international understanding education” in its title, but renamed itself with its present title in 1992, widening its target population; today, it not only focuses on the Japanese overseas and returnees, but also on the foreign children and their Japanese language education.1 The fieldwork in Chapter 10 illustrates how the boundaries of difference between the returnee “newcomers” and “Japanese” are challenged as the “newcomers”—more “different” from the majority than the returnees—enter the scene. Identification with the returnee category is multilayered and situational (Nagel 1994: 155), and the returnee status is renegotiated in relation to the “newcomers.” Because nothing sets them apart from other Japanese except the fact that they were raised abroad, the returnees are in a strong position to utilize their returnee category strategically compared with many others in our book. On the other hand, in cases of stigmatized categories, the category may basically be imposed on individuals by more powerful others, and the categorized may try to reconstruct the category in the process of empowerment. The war-displaced orphans The first group of “newcomers” discussed here are the war-displaced Japanese and their families from the northeastern parts of China. The official definition of the war-displaced Japanese stands for those who were led to remain in China because of the confusion following the entry of the Soviet Union into World War II on August 9, 1945. Of this population, those approximately under thirteen years of age at that period, those who cannot identify their Japanese family origin, were classified as the “Chūgoku zanryū koji” (war-displaced orphans in China), and those that were thirteen or over, mostly women, were classified as “Chūgoku zanryū fujin,” and others (war-displaced women in China and others) (Kōseirōdoshō 2005). At the end of World War II, most of the young Japanese men in the area were taken by the army, and so those left behind were largely the elderly, women, and children. In 1945, with the sudden entry of the Soviet Union into the war, many of these Japanese fled in confusion. In the midst of this chaos, many Japanese children became orphans, or were taken in by Chinese families; some of the Japanese women were led to remain in China and married Chinese. The former

134 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi are the war-displaced orphans in China, and the latter are the war-displaced women in China. Including some others who were also left behind, these groups became categorized jointly as the “Chūgoku zanryū hōjin” (war-displaced Japanese). After 1972, with the normalization of relationships between Japan and China, these war-displaced Japanese and their families (including school-age children) started to return to Japan. Among the policies taken up to support these returnees from China was priority for public housing, and the population is clustered in these housing complexes. Indo-Chinese and South Americans also tend to be overrepresented in public housing, and the public schools within public housing districts became center schools for these populations (see fieldwork in Chapter 8). In education, just as the government designated schools to research Japanese returnees, certain schools were designated to focus on the returnees from China. Japanese interpreters were sent by the board of education, teaching materials were developed, and additional teachers (kahai) were sent to schools with a number of such students. Japanese as a second language classrooms were erected, and some high schools and colleges started to make special provisions for entrance, as they had for the returnees, such as extending the test time and offering special slots (tokubetsu waku) (Kōseishō Engokyoku 1987). This pattern was repeated with other new arrivals from abroad. The readjustment promotion center in Tokorozawa (Chūgoku Kikokusha Teichaku Sokushin Senta), a center where the returnees from China are sent in the initial period of their entry to Japan, provides information on the availability of special admissions. Most prefectures answer that they have adopted some kind of special measure for the returnees from China, but the contents vary. Such prefectures also tend to have similar provisions for foreign students in general.2 As of February 1, 2008, a total of 6,363 war-displaced Japanese had returned to Japan permanently, assisted by the Japanese government after the normalization of China–Japan relationships. Among these, 2,523 were war-displaced orphans who had permanently returned to Japan, and 3,840 were the war-displaced women and others, the total including family members was 20,382 persons. Another 5,644 (9,381 including family members) have visited Japan temporarily.3 The survey of war-displaced persons conducted by the government in 2003–4 included both the war-displaced orphans and the war-displaced women (a total of 5,208, excluding those who had died); 4, 094 responded, and the figures confirmed what previous studies had already indicated—the population was aged, dependent on welfare, and struggling, both economically and socially. The average age of the war-displaced orphans was 61.5; that of the war-displaced women and others was 70.0. The majority, 61.4 percent of war-displaced orphan households, depended on public assistance (seikatsu hogo); for the war-displaced women and others, the percentage was 55.2. In addition, 64.6 percent of the war-displaced orphan households answered that “they were economically struggling” (kurushi) or “somewhat struggling” (yaya kurushi); 82.1 percent of the surveyed households were in public housing (Kōseirōdoshō 2005). This group, with the assistance of lawyers, citizen’s groups, and the media, sued the Japanese government (kokka baishō) in various localities, accusing it of

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neglecting its duties. More than 2,000 war-displaced orphans were involved in the suits. Though individual suit results differed, the movement succeeded in creating public support for the betterment of the lives of the war-displaced Japanese, and, in 2007, the revised law (the original law was issued in 1994) for assisting the lives of the war-displaced Japanese passed the Congress.4 This law promised full national pensions (rōrei kiso nenkin) and other measures to assist this population; the system started in January 2008 (Kōseirōdoshō n.d.). The handful of war-displaced Japanese from Karafuto (Karafuto zanryū hōjin) form a similar group, and assistance includes this group. Chinese nationals constitute the largest registered foreign nationality group in Japan today, and it is a group with “oldcomers” as well as “newcomers,” so there are many variations to the nationality theme. The war-displaced Japanese and their families are associated with the concept of “returning,” like the otherwise very different Japanese “returnees” and the South Americans as “return” labor. For the first-generation war-displaced Japanese, Japan may be perceived as their homeland. But what is Japan for the later generations, their children, their grandchildren? The nationalities of the returnees from China differ, challenging the dichotomous category of Japanese versus foreigner. So, are later generation returnees from China more Chinese compared with the “oldcomer” Chinese? How about compared with the “newcomer” Chinese child of a foreign worker, or the child of a mixed marriage with a Chinese parent? Such questions are indicative of the increasing complexity of boundaries in multicultural Japan today. The alienation of second- and later-generation returnees of China from Japanese society has been sensationalized by reports on crime—to take an example, the establishment of a youth gang consisting mainly of returnees from China, the ‘doragon,’5 and their likely future as members of the underworld in Japan. The Indo-Chinese refugees In 1975, the political turmoil in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos led a number of people to leave these areas, and, in the same year, the first boat people landed on Japanese shores temporarily. In 1978, the Japanese government decided to permit permanent residence (teijyū) for Vietnamese refugees (later to others), and, from 1978 to 2006, the government accepted 11,319 Indo-Chinese refugees. In recent years, those entering are mostly family members reuniting with their families.6 There is now a generation of children of Indo-Chinese refugees growing up in Japan who do not have difficulty in using daily Japanese. However, studies show that their Japanese vocabulary and achievement levels still tend to lag behind those of the majority Japanese children.7 Unlike the foreign workers, the Indo-Chinese permanently reside in Japan. A district where the Indo-Chinese refugees are overrepresented, and a famous spot among scholars in the field, is the Icho Housing discussed in Chapter 8. The Icho Housing is a large public housing complex extending from the Izumi ward to the Yamato ward in Yokohama City. Characteristic of these diversity points is the existence of NGOs.

136 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi In areas where the “newcomer” populations cluster, it is now commonplace to find many support groups, intersecting with each other (Roberts 2003). In 1998, three years after the Hanshin earthquake triggered new interest in the activities of NGOs and NPOs, the NPO Act (Tokutei Hieirikatsudō Sokushin-hō) was put into place.8 The emergence of the Indo-Chinese refugees was a turning point for Japanese international cooperation-oriented NGOs, and, in the 1980s, many NGOs were erected; this was also a time when international NGOs with their headquarters in the West opened Japanese branches or formed partnerships with Japanese NGOs. At the end of the 1980s, the Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC), a network of NGOs, was formed.9 During this period, those associations that had focused solely on developing countries started to notice that “Asia” was not just in some other continent, but was also within Japan itself. These NGOs and NPOs now coexist in complex ways and are an important part of the Japanese multicultural landscape (Numao 1996; see also Chapters 7 and 8). Other “newcomers” and their children The war-displaced Japanese and the Indo-Chinese refugees were closely followed by an increasing number of Asian foreign workers and, especially after 1990, the South Americans of Japanese descent—the Nikkeijin. In 1990, the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act opened the door for younger generation Nikkeijin to take unskilled work legally in Japan. This led to a visible increase in the number of South Americans. There were other identifiable types of foreign national, such as foreign spouses of Japanese and children of intermarriages (see Chapter 9). The Ministry of Education started to compile data from 1991 on “foreign pupils and children who need Japanese language instruction,” one year after the revised immigration law. The definition of a student who requires instruction in the Japanese language is as follows: Pupils or students who have not mastered everyday conversation, or who can manage everyday conversation, but who lack terms necessary for study at the grade level, and thus have trouble participating in learning activities, and who require instruction in the Japanese language. (Monbukagakushō 2009a) According to government, in 2008 (Monbukagakushō 2009a), there were a total of 28,575 foreign children in Japan’s public primary or secondary schools who needed instruction in the Japanese language; 19,504 are at the primary level, 7,576 at junior high school, and 1,365 are in high school; the remainder are in other types of school. Of these children, 39.8 percent are those whose mother tongue is Portuguese, 20.4 percent Chinese, 12.7 percent Spanish. In other words, those whose mother tongue is Portuguese or Spanish, the South Americans, total more than half (see Figures 6.1 and 6.2).

Figure 6.1 Number of pupils/students by mother tongue, 1999–2008 Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (2009a).

Figure 6.2 Number of children who require instruction in Japanese per school, 1999–2008 Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (2009a).

138 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi All of these groups, distinguished by their nationality and language, are building blocks of a society where diversity is becoming more visible in a growing number of districts. The Nikkeijin The South Americans of Japanese descent (the Nikkeijin) are representative of the emerging groups of “newcomers.” Brazilians are the third largest foreign nationality group in Japan overall, following Chinese and Koreans (Nyūkan Kyōkai 2008). Most of the South American laborers come from Brazil, indeed, it is a country with the most Nikkeijin; about 1,500,000 Nikkeijin are estimated to live in Brazil, constituting about 60 percent of all Nikkeijin abroad.10 Upon “returning” to Japan, they have become Japan’s most visible “newcomer” group. The pre-war Japanese emigration to North America was followed at the turn of the century by that to South America. After the end of World War II, emigration to South America was resumed, until the last group of Japanese immigrants left in the early 1970s (Befu 2002; De Carvalho 2003). In the last several decades, a reverse flow from South America to Japan has been evident, with inflation and economic hardship in South America, the huge wage gap between South America and Japan, and Japan’s labor shortage. There had already been some Nikkeijin coming into Japan in the 1980s among the first generation who had a Japanese nationality or among those who had dual citizenship, but the flow of Nikkeijin increased visibly after the implementation of the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act in 1990, which opened the door to later-generation Nikkeijin. Brokers stood between the workers and the employers, constructing a broker business. Nikkeijin communities started to emerge in locations where there were manufacturing companies (e.g., subcontractors of automobile companies), such as Toyota City and Toyohashi City in Aichi prefecture, Oizumi and Ōta in Gunma prefecture, and Hamamatsu City in Shizuoka prefecture. As the second and third generations came to Japan, the nikkei population diversified. The fact that Nikkeijin were more likely to come in family units than the other “newcomers” meant that schools in districts where there was a concentration of the Nikkeijin found that they were suddenly faced with a number of children who could not speak Japanese. These are not the same regions/schools that had a high proportion of the Koreans in Japan, though districts with longexisting minorities/foreigners are also experiencing “newcomer” inflows (see Chapter 7). The adaptation of the Nikkeijin to Japanese society has been far from easy. In the Nikkeijin districts, there is a similar pattern of alienation from Japanese schooling. The Nikkeijin child is sent to a public elementary school, and his/her parents say that they are returning to their country in a few years. But, for various reasons, the several years become extended. The child grows up in Japan and he/she reaches adolescence, unsure where he/she belongs, unsure of the future. The child graduates from elementary school and, if lucky, from junior high and

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enters high school, but, somewhere after that, the child disappears from the public school scene. Academic difficulties (e.g., learning the subject in Japanese), especially if the child came to Japan after fifth grade, the confusion of not being able to plan one’s future, as it is unclear to the child how long he/she will stay in Japan, economic hardship, family problems, no sense of belonging, lack of information, and structural problems are routinely cited (Gunmaken Oizumichō 2003; Osaka Daigaku et al. 2003; Shimizu 2008). Structural problems commonly cited include, for example, the fact that compulsory education is not compulsory for foreigners, but is granted on request, that the status of many Brazilian schools as private juku (shijyuku) is weak and prevents them from receiving public funding, and that outdated rules such as that the board is not required to accept those over the compulsory education age (fifteen) do not fit the reality of the “newcomers” (Miyajima and Ōta 2005). Just passing the exam to high school is an accomplishment; getting into a “good” high school seems out of reach of most of the Nikkeijin students (Sakuma 2006). There are now a number of Brazilian schools in Nikkeijin districts, but these require fees. Imazu and his team in Nagoya University, for example, have undertaken an investigation of the state of these Brazilian schools in the Tokai district (around Toyota, etc.), and, according to their report (Imazu and Matsumoto 2001), the monthly fees (from 30,000 to 40,000 yen in 2002) are not a small amount for many Brazilian families. Imazu et al. note that the first Brazilian school in the district opened in 1995, and the numbers attending these schools rose after it became known in the local newspapers that the Brazilian government had started to license these schools, so that their graduates would have the same qualifications as a graduate from their counterpart in Brazil. However, many face financial difficulty, and, with Japan’s economic recession, according to a Ministry of Education survey, there were ninety Brazilian schools in December 2008, but eighty-six in February 2009, and the number of Brazilian students (the equivalent of Japanese elementary–high school) attending Brazilian schools fell 34.9 percent from 6,373 to 3,881 during this period (Monbukagakushō 2009b). Compulsory education is not “compulsory” for non-Japanese nationals, and, being a transient population, South Americans often move without notice; thus, the number of South American school-age children who are not attending school is not accurately understood. Moreover, though the South American case is most discussed, the non-attendance problem is common to other “newcomer” groups. The data are as yet scarce, based on inconsistent methods of computation, and differ by locality. Especially problematic is the fact that a large proportion of students cannot be located in the first place. Despite such ambiguities, localities and NGOs agree on one thing—non-attendance among “newcomer” students is serious. To give some examples, the Japanese government asked localities with large numbers of “newcomers” to provide data on non-attendance. According to the 2005–6 figures, excluding students who were attending either a public school or a school for foreign children from the total number of registered foreign children

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of compulsory school age, the percentages that the localities could identify as non-attendant are low (several percentages), but adding those that cannot be contacted, the percentages can rise to over 20–30 percent, depending on the locality.11 The 2003 (two different periods) study of Kani City in Gifu prefecture shows a similar pattern: though less than 10 percent could be identified as truly not in school, when the figures for those who could not be located were added, the percentage goes up to above 30 percent—the city has implemented policies to combat non-attendance (Osaka Daigaku 2003; Gaikokujin Shūjyūtoshi Kaigi 2006: 8). In Oizumi City, where 14.5 percent of the residents were foreigners (mainly Brazilian) by 2003, a door-to-door investigation was conducted in 2002–3. Again, though those identified as non-attendant formed less than 6 percent, when those that could not be contacted were added, the percentages were over 30 percent (Gunmaken Oizumichō 2003). One of the reasons that such a situation is problematic to the Nikkeijin community is that it makes it difficult for the child to acquire the knowledge and abilities to find his/her place in either Japan or his/her country of origin. The South American youth is suspended in a limbo position, unable to find a place he/she can feel a part of, a place where he/she can be at home. This state seems to be one reason why, as was the case with the returnees from China stated previously, some Nikkeijin youth have been attracted to gangs and delinquency. Trying to fill in the gap, in Nikkeijin diversity points, there has emerged a network of concerned citizens ranging from local government officials, to local business, to NGOs. Being a transient population, and with long working hours, it is difficult for the Nikkeijin community to provide a stable environment for their children (Sekiguchi 2003: 137). Studies addressing the so-called “identity crisis” in various groups of people considered different from the majority include, in recent years, both the “oldcomers” and the “newcomers”: for example, research on the identity of returnees (Minoura 1984), Koreans (Fukuoka 1993), Chinese (Guo 1999), Amerasians (Murphy-Shigematsu 2002, Chapter 4), as well as Brazilians (Sekiguchi 2003) Now, the issue of identification is complex for Nikkeijin. Japan is the homeland of their ancestors, there is “Japanese” blood in them, but many observers have noted that often the image the first generation holds of Japan is more “Japanese” than Japan is today; thus, for them, Japanese reality comes as a cultural shock (De Carvalho 2003: 62). As for the younger generation, ironically, as Roth (2002: 5) points out, the process of rediscovering the “Brazilian” in themselves is taking place at the same time that Japan is becoming their extended country of residence. Some have also noted that the Nikkeijin find that they are, in the Japanese image, all “dekasegi” (foreign workers), regardless of what they did in Brazil. In a similar line of thought, Sekiguchi (2003) compares the image Japanese have of Japanese returnees (mostly children of businessperson families) and the Nikkeijin, and notes that, though both are linked to Japanese roots, the former are identified more with “a first world image,” “English,” and an “international elite” (e.g., active, smart, progressive), while the latter are identified with the image of a “developing country,” “Portuguese,” and “foreign workers” (Sekiguchi 2003: 92–3). There is, in other words, a clear status difference.

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Nikkei immigrants have had to face enormous changes in South America— they experienced the war and the defeat of their homeland and were eventually led to accept the reality that they were never to return to Japan (Smith 1979). Today, there is another twist to the Nikkei identity theme—that of the “return” laborer. Observers have commented on the first generation’s idealized memories of Japan, the image later-generation Brazilians have of Japanese society (e.g., the image they have heard from their grandparents, First World country), and the stark difference from the realities they face as marginalized foreign labor in Japan. In Brazil, Nikkeijin were “Japanese”; in Japan they are “gaijin” (foreigners), different in both (Linger 2001; De Carvalho 2003: 148). Another twist to the Nikkeijin identity theme is that of the Okinawan Nikkeijin. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Okinawa’s past as an independent kingdom, the American occupation, and the continued presence of the American Army in Okinawa set it apart from the mainland (Arakaki 2002). Since Okinawa sent many Nikkeijin abroad, Okinawa and Nikkeijin intersect, both addressing similar issues of marginalization and empowerment (see Chapter 7).

The “newcomers” and the changing context To summarize, some factors that influence the nature of the interaction between “newcomers” and “newcomers,” and “newcomers” and others, are worth mentioning here. First, it goes without saying that the national government and local governments play important roles in altering the existing multicultural landscape, as well as the interactions that occur within it. Immigration policies are one example; local initiatives are another. To give an example, in Ōta City in Gunma prefecture, previously cited, the local government supported the inflow of South American labor to combat a labor shortage, thus turning it into a representative Nikkei diversity point (Onai and Sakai 2001). To give another example, the official categories introduced in this chapter (e.g., the definition of who is a returnee from China), have important consequences for the categorized, not least because they are linked to the allocation of resources; thus, they influence the behavior of the categorized. “Newcomers” are clustered in certain districts, and it is no surprise that localities with large numbers of “newcomers” (diversity points) have been pushed to adopt more progressive policies than the government. For example, the Ministry of Education started the project to combat non-attendance in foreign students from 2005 (fushūgaku gaikokujin jidōseito shien jigyō), but, as seen previously, local governments in “newcomer” diversity points had been pushed to respond years earlier. In 2001, a network of cities with a concentration of the “newcomers” (Gaikokujin Shūjūtoshi Kaigi) was established in Hamamatsu City (counting twenty-eight cities in April 2008). Brazilian residents topped the list of the breakdown by nationality in all cities, followed by Filipinos, Chinese, and Koreans (presumably mostly “newcomer”). A key theme was to build “a society for

142 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi multicultural coexistence” (tabunka kyōsei shakai) as equal partners, as “foreigners and Japanese share the same rights and responsibilities as residents” (community unit 3, Gaikokujin Shūjyūtoshi Kaigi, Toyota sengen, 2004). This is different from the national context in which nationals and non-nationals are in markedly different positions. This association has issued a series of statements and requests to the government, local government, and to the business world. Messages issued from various documentation include calling for the need: to make education compulsory for foreign children in order to protect their rights; to establish a basic statement for the education of foreign children and to include that in the national Course of Study; to require learning about Japanese language instruction and education for multicultural coexistence as part of the requirements for becoming a teacher; to keep track of foreign households when they move; to strengthen the status of schools for foreigners so that public (both national and local) assistance can be provided, etc. (Gaikokujin Shūjyūtoshi Kaigi 2004, 2006). The basic factor influencing the nature of such multicultural negotiations is that there are now groups of “newcomers” and their families—notably the foreign spouse and children of mixed marriages, the war-displaced Japanese and their families, the Indo-Chinese refugees and their families, and the Nikkeijin—who are either in Japan to stay, or whose stay is extending (teijyuka) (Komai 1995; Jiyū Jinken Kyōkai 1997). New terms, such as “children who are linked to foreign countries” (gaikoku ni tsunagaru kodomo tachi) are being adopted, as was noted in Chapter 2, to overcome the dichotomous understanding of foreigners and Japanese as the multicultural population diversifies. As the children move through the Japanese educational system, the “newcomers” or “newcomer”-related children (e.g., parent is a “newcomer,” but child has Japanese nationality), are losing the language and culture of their parent(s)’ country of origin, struggling to define who they are, and are forced to face the realities of the Japanese examination system. Compulsory education ends at junior high in Japan, but almost all Japanese, over 97 percent, go onto high school, and high schools are ranked according to the standard deviation scores of the students. Passing the high school of one’s choice entails gathering information, attaining decent grades in junior high (public high schools look at junior high grades), and scoring sufficiently on written Japanese entrance examinations. The majority of junior high school seniors attend juku (cram schools), which offer assistance for a fee (Mongukagakushō 2007). It is hard enough for Japanese families; it goes without saying how difficult this process is for “newcomer” families who often do not have the means (e.g., financial ability to pay the cram school fees; Japanese language skills to assist homework and gather exam information) to help their children. Yet, with the exception of anecdotes, very few data are available; the percentage of “newcomers” going on to high school is nonexistent for most localities, and whatever is available varies so much that it is hard to be conclusive at this point (Inui 2008). In general, however, non-attendance and dropping out, as mentioned previously, have become major problems for practitioners in “newcomer” areas (Miyajima and Ōta 2005; Sakuma 2006), and scholars have

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begun to focus on “newcomers” in high school and how failure can be avoided (Shimizu 2008). Chapter 8 illustrates how junior high school teachers and citizens in a diversity point for “newcomers” have come to acknowledge the need to meaningfully convey information on why the child was relocated to Japan from his/her family’s country of origin, in an attempt to break the cycle of delinquency and alienation from Japanese schooling. The rise of civil society in such areas is also a consistent pattern. As parts of the “newcomer” population become permanent or long-term residents of Japanese society, and are, in effect, no longer new to Japanese society, the issues they raise overlap with those of the “oldcomers.” The sphere of interaction for the “newcomers” is thus inevitably expanding from the parents’ workplace, to family, to community, to the schools, and back to the workplace, this time the workplace of the next generation(s) of “newcomers.” Language is another factor influencing the nature of interaction that “newcomers” experience. The newly entering “newcomers” (not the long-time residents) have difficulty with the Japanese language. Thus, Japanese language instruction, together with help with their adjustment to Japan, is the form of assistance most frequently provided to these students by Japanese schools. This brings “newcomer” families in contact with not just the child’s classroom teacher and classmates, but other actors as well, such as the JSL teacher, interpreters, and other students being pulled out for JSL assistance (see Chapter 10). As for those “newcomers” who have grown up in Japan, the children lose the language of their parents in varying degrees, which gives rise to communication difficulties within the home. This is seen as linked to identity issues. Thus, there are various efforts by the civil society to teach the mother tongue and the culture of one’s origin. “Newcomers” were also subjected to various levels of recategorization. At the official level, there have been government attempts to categorize the returnees and foreigners together, as is seen in Chapters 7 and 10. “Newcomers” in particular are seen as sharing at least three characteristics with Japanese returnees—the need for the acquisition of the Japanese language (Nihongo shidō), unfamiliarity with Japanese ways (tekiō shidō), and, as “international” populations, both are resources for international understanding. The education of returnees has served as one model for the education of the “new” foreigners (Mabuchi 2002: 92), and, in 2001, when the Ministry of Education was reorganized, the unit for the education of Japanese children overseas and the Japanese returnees (Kaigai shijyo kyōiku ka) was reorganized under the international education unit (Kokusai kyōiku ka). Today, there is more emphasis on the fact that the foreigners and returnees are both assets for promoting international understanding education, and Chapter 10 provides a specific example. However, international understanding education (kokusai rikai kyōiku), Japan’s most mainstream education dealing with multicultural/intercultural issues, continues to be criticized for its inability to fully incorporate the experience of the long-existing minority/foreign populations in Japan (Nakajima 1988). These latter groups have rather been linked to human rights education, dōwa education (see Chapter 3), and other categories of practice that have a strong human rights

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focus, as compared with the “new” foreigners who have been more easily incorporated into the framework of understanding other nations and responding to “internationalization.” The reincorporation of Japanese returnees into society is seen as accomplished by: the acquisition of the Japanese language, readjusting to Japanese society, retaining the strengths of what they learnt abroad, and giving them a positive role in internationalizing Japanese society. As these returnees are usually middle-class Japanese nationals who have experienced another country, this framework worked well. When one applies this to the Nikkeijin, the framework has difficulty in incorporating issues related to ethnicity, nationality, and social class. Indeed, the situation of the Nikkeijin child may improve with the acquisition of the Japanese language, adapting to Japanese society, and valuing the Nikkeijin child’s experience abroad following the returnee model. But the model does not account for the discrimination that occurs in Japan based on ethnic background and nationality, nor does it take into consideration the fact that such foreign laborers tend to be at the bottom of Japanese society. The Southeast Asian case is similar in this sense, and one might add two other factors difficult to explain based on the returnee model—legal status (as there are many who lack legal status) and gender in the case of the Asian women. This is naturally problematic from the viewpoint of human rights education, as it is these areas (e.g., nationality, social class, gender) in which the problems these “newcomers” face are most serious. The rise of civil society also affects the interaction surrounding the “newcomers.” Though the involvement of Japanese citizens in assisting the rights of minorities is not limited to the “newcomers,” compared with the long-existing foreigners who have their historically established organizations and core members that are rooted in Japanese society (see Chapter 2), the “newcomers” are often not in a position to organize themselves. For example, in the case of foreign workers, they are often transient, as can be seen in the difficulty localities have in tracking down the addresses of “newcomer” students not in school. This has left a vacuum to be filled by civil society. In every “newcomer” diversity point, there are efforts by NGOs to organize and address the problems of the new entrants. Some groups are gender-specific, some target foreign workers specifically, and others are wider in their scope. In any case, such developments bring the Japanese and various “newcomers” together in a new context. In some cases, NGOs have found the need to support instruction of the mother tongue, as well as to provide Japanese language instruction to the parents. Chapter 9 shows how language is being targeted. There are more efforts by the “newcomers” themselves to organize, often assisted by Japanese (see Chapter 7). The rise of special schools for the foreigners also affects the context of multicultural interaction. The emergence of Brazilian schools is a prime example (Imazu and Matsumoto 2001). Though they separate “newcomer” children from Japanese society, they also provide an alternative for those who can pay the fees.

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With the Japanese recession, there have been efforts by concerned Japanese citizens to offer aid to struggling foreign families in an attempt to keep the foreign children in school.12 Brazilian schools highlight certain issues that overlap in part with the schools for long-existing foreigners. The representative schools for the long-existing foreigners are the North Korean schools. They do not qualify as regular schools (ichijōko) in Japan, and their presence has long questioned the meaning of public education in Japanese society through various themes: ethnicity and mother tongue education, segregation, assimilation and inclusion, and the meaning of national education and nationality. For the Brazilians in the Brazilian schools, the general assumption is that they will return, eventually, to their home country. However, the message that such schools send to Japanese society overlap in part with the messages that the “oldcomer” schools have long been posing to Japanese society. Many of the issues that are highlighted in studies or accounts of the “newcomers” are related to their status as relatively new entrants into Japanese society (e.g., the language issue), their mode of entry (e.g., entry to Japan as foreign labor, as spouse of Japanese), and their relationship with Japanese society (e.g., as laborers that were recruited by Japanese companies, as married to Japanese, etc.). These various threads loosely link the diverse group of foreigners (or those with total/partial foreign roots) to each other as “newcomers.” The situation of the “newcomers” differs by locality; therefore, the role of the local government is crucial. Indeed, as the Japanese government has played a major role in changing the composition of the national multicultural landscape, local governments have initiated, or at least responded to, changes in the local multicultural composition. Each chapter, like the parts of a puzzle, depicts a landscape of multicultural Japan that is diversifying, and shows where the relationship between the actors is undergoing change. Each population has a reason to exist in that area. In the traditional, rural Japan that Burgess describes in Chapter 9, a most unlikely site for foreign nationals, there was a conscious effort by the locality to recruit foreign wives. Metropolitan Kawasaki, in Chapter 7, shows the usual urban pattern of diversification—“newcomers” entering to find jobs. In each case, there is a renegotiating of boundaries, sometimes with the long-existing minorities/ foreigners, sometimes within “newcomers,” and always with the Japanese, whoever they may be. The interaction is often not visible at first sight, may not even be direct, but is present. It is a crucial component in making sense of the evolving landscape of multicultural Japan—a point that is made repeatedly within a specific context in the following chapters.

Acknowledgements Funding was provided by the Grants-in-Aid, Ministry of Education, kiban C, 21530873 (Nihonban torakkingu no kokusai hikaku kenkyū—kyōiku ni okeru kyōsei to shakaiteki kōsei no kōsatsu).

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Notes 1 See the Zenkaiken homepage: www.zenkaiken.net/ (accessed August 2009). 2 From the Center’s homepage: www.kikokusha-center.or.jp/joho/shingaku/daigaku/ shijowaku.htm (accessed May 2009). 3 From the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/engo/ seido02/index.html (accessed May 2009). 4 From the Congress homepage: www.shugiin.go.jp/ itdb_gian.nsf/html/gian/honbun/ houan/g16801004.htm (accessed April 2008). 5 For example, “ ‘Tokyo wa osoroshi’ Ibaragi no shone gurupu shūgeki, bōsozoku hachinin o taiho,” Sankei Newspaper(digital), March 6, 2009. Available at http:// sankei.ji.msn.com/affairs/crime/090306/cfm0903061157007–n1.htm (accessed August 2009). 6 Gaimushō (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan): www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/ namin/main3.html (accessed May 2009). 7 2003 study by the Nanmin Jigyō Honbu (Refugee Assistance Headquarters, RGQ) entrusted by the government to promote the resettlement of refugees. Available at www.rhq/gr.jp (accessed April 2005). 8 See the governmental Naikakufu (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan) NPO homepage: www.npo-homepage.go.jp/data/pref.html (accessed May 2009). The NPO Hojin database listed 37,198 submissions as given license from December 1, 1998 to March 31, 2009. 9 The Kokusai Kyoryoku NGO Senta (JANIC), Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation: www.janic.org/faq/faqngo/index.php#q6 (accessed May 2009). 10 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/brazil/ kankei.html (accessed August 2009). 11 The government homepage on returnees and foreigners: www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/ shotou/clarinet/003/001/012.htm (accessed May 2009). 12 For example, a Nagano coalition of business, local government, citizens: www.anpie. or.jp/santa_project/data.htm (accessed August 2009).

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–––– (2006) Yokkaichi sengen—mirai o ninau kodomotachi no tameni. November 21. Available at http://homepage2.nifty.com/shujutoshi (accessed August 2009). Gunmaken Oizumichō (2003) “Kikoku/gaikokujin jidōseito to tomoni susumeru kyōiku no kokusaika suishin chiiki’ chukan hōkokusho.” Available at www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/ shotou/clarinet/003/001/006/005.pdf (accessed May 2009). Guo, F. (1999) Zainichi kakyo no aidentiti no henyō: kakyo no tagenteki kyōsei, Tokyo: Toshindo. Imazu, K. and Matsumoto, K. (eds) (2001) “Tōkai chiiki no shinrai gaikokujin gakkō,” unpublished report, Nagoya University. Inui, M. (2008) “Kōko shingaku to nyushi,” in K. Shimizu (ed.), Kōko o ikiru nyūkama— Osakafuritsu kōko ni miru kyōiku shien, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Jenkins, R. (1997) Rethinking ethnicity: arguments and explorations, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Jiyu Jinken Kyōkai (ed.) (1997) Nihon de kurasu gaikokujin no kodomotachi: teijyūka jidai to kodomo no kenri, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Kajita, T. (1998) “The challenge of incorporating foreigners in Japan: ‘Ethnic Japanese’ and ‘Sociological Japanese’,” in M. Weiner and T. Hanami (eds), Temporary workers or future citizens?: Japanese and US migration policies, Hampshire and London: MacMillan. Komai, H. (ed.) (1995) Teijyūka suru gaikokujin, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Kōseirōdoshō (shakai/engokyoku) (2005) Chūgoku kikokusha seikatsu jittai chōsa no kekka. March, 2005. Available at www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/kikokusya/03/ index.html (accessed April 2008). –––– (2007) “Chūgoku zanryū hōjin e no shien ni kansuru yūshikisha kaigi shiryō— sankoshiryō” (supplementary material for the governmental committee on war-displaced Japanese, May 15, reference material 4. Available at www.mhlw.go.jp/shingi/2007/ 05/s01517–3d.html (accessed April 2008). –––– (n.d.) Pamphlet on the revised law. “Eijyū kikoku shita Chūgoku zanryū hōjin, Karfuto zanryū hōjin no minasama e, ‘aratana shien’ ga sutato shimasu.” Kōseishō (Engokyoku) (ed.) (1987) Chugoku zanryū koji: koremade no sokuseki to korekarano michinori, Tokyo: Gyosei. Lie, J. (2001) Multiethnic Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Linger, D.T. (2001) No one home: Brazilian selves remade in Japan, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Mabuchi, H. (2002) “Ibunka rikai” no discosu: bunka honshitsushugi no otoshiana, Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Gakujyutsu Shuppankai. Minoura, Y. (1984) Kodomo no Ibunka taiken: jinkaku keisei katei no shinrijinruigakuteki kenkyū, Tokyo: Shisakusha. Miyajima, T. and Ōta, H. (2005) Gaikokujin no kodomo to Nihon no kyōiku: fushūgaku mondai to tabunka kyōsei no kadai, Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai. Monbukagakushō (2007) Heisei 19nendo Zenkoku gakuryoku/gakushūjyokyō chōsa chōsa kekka pointo. Available at www.nier.go/homepage/kyoutsuu/ tsyousakekka/tyousakekkapoint.pdf (accessed November 2007). –––– (2009a) “Nihongoshido ga hitsuyo na gaikokujin jidōseito no ukeire jyōkyo nado ni kansuru chōsa (Heisei 20 nendo)” no kekkanitsuite. Available at www.mext.go.jp/b_ menu/houdou/21/07/1279262.htm (accessed August 2009). –––– (2009b) “Burajirujin gakkō nado no jittaichōsa kenkyū kekka nitsuite.” March 27 report from the Ministry. Available at www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/21/03/_ics Files/afieldfile/2009/04/17/12595801.pdf (accessed May 2009).

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Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2002) Amerajian no kodomotachi: shirarezaru mainorit, Tokyo: Shueisha. Nagel, J. (1994) “Constructing ethnicity: creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture,” Social Problems, 41: 152–76. Nakajima, T. (1988) “‘Kokunai rikai’ to ‘kokusai rikai’,” Ibunkakan Kyōiku, 2: 58–67. –––– (1993) “Nihon no tabukna kyōiku to zainichi kankoku/chōsenjin kyōiku,” Ibunkakan Kyōiku, 7: 69–84. Numao, M. (ed.) (1996) Tabunka kyōsei o mezasu chiiki zukuri—Yokohama, Tsurumi, Shiota kara no hokoku, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Nyūkan Kyōkai (Japan Immigration Association) (2008) Zairyu gaikōkujin tōkei Heisei 20 nen ban (Statistics on the foreigners registered in Japan, 2008), Tokyo: Nyūkan Kyōkai. Oguma, E. (1995) Tanitsu minzoku shinwa no kigen—“Nihonjin” no jigazō no keifu, Tokyo: Shinchōsha. Onai, T. and Sakai, E. (2001) Nikei Burajirujin no teijyūka to chiiki shakai: Gunma-ken Ōta/Oizumi chiku o jirei to shite, Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobo. Osaka Daigaku Daigakuin Ningenkagaku Kenkyuka et al. (2003) Heisei 15 nendo Kōseirōdoshō rhōdokagaku kenkyuhi hojyokin kodomo katei shōgo kenkyū jigyhō “taminzoku bunka shakai ni okeru boshi no kenko ni kansuru kenkyū.”. Available at http://square.umin.ac.jp/boshiken/repo15/no8.1.pdf (accessed May 2009). Roberts, G. (2003) “NGO support for migrant labor in Japan,” in M. Douglass and G.S. Roberts (eds), Japan and global migration: foreign workers and the advent of a multicutural society, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Roth, J.H. (2002) Brokered homeland: Japanese Brazilian migrants in Japan, Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Sakuma, K. (2006) Gaikokujin no kodomo no fushūgaku, Tokyo: Keisō Shobō. Sekiguchi, T. (2003) Zainichi Nikkei Burajirujin no kodomotachi: ibunkakan ni sodatsu kodomo no aidentiti keisei, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimizu, K. (ed.) (2008) Kokō o ikiru nyūkama: Osaka furitsu kokō ni miru kyōiku shien, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimizu, K. and Shimizu, M. (eds) (2001) Nyūkama to kyōiku: gakkō bunka to esunisiti no kattō o megutte, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimizu, M. (2006) Nyūkama no kodomotachi: gakkō to kazoku no hazamano nichijyō sekai, Tokyo: Keisō Shobō. Smith, R. (1979) “The ethnic Japanese in Brazil,” The Journal of Japanese Studies, 5: 53–70. Tsuneyoshi, R. (1995) “Kyoshitsu to shakai—nyūkama no kodomo ga Nihon no kyōiku ni teiki surumono,” in M. Sato (ed.), Kyōshitsu to iu basho, Tokyo: Kokudosha. Yamawaki, K. (2000) “Foreign workers in Japan: a historical perspective,” in M. Douglass and G. Roberts (eds), Japan and global migration: foreign workers and the advent of a multicultural society, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

7

The ‘new’ foreigners and the social reconstruction of difference The cultural diversification of Japanese education1 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi

Introduction From the viewpoint that stresses the socially constructed nature of categories such as ethnicity and race, they are characterized by social boundaries that are constantly negotiated through interaction (Nagel 1994; Jenkins 1997; Barth 1998 (1969)). History suggests that the inflow of newcomers into a society has often been accompanied by a realignment of the relationships between existing groups and the redefining of social categories by various agents. For example, with the influx of the Irish, eastern, southern, and central European immigrants into the United States in the 1800s, the formerly unchallenged category of Whiteness became problematic, as the new white immigrants were defined as different, and furthermore as inferior, to the existing populations of whites (Oakes 1985; Fass 1989). According to Fass (1989): In the early twentieth century, analysts and journalists emphasized that immigration had become newly problematic because the sources of immigration had changed as Italy, Poland, Russia, and the Balkans replaced the British Isles, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries as the home of the majority of the newcomers. The groups composing the so-called ‘new immigration’ were portrayed as more alien, more transient, from more autocratic societies, less family-oriented, less skilled, less literate. In addition, they were often visibly darker and rarely worshipped any recognizably Protestant God. (Fass 1989: 16) However, this differentiation among whites disappeared in the twentieth century, and a single social category of ‘white’ emerged, as Whiteness now came to be understood in opposition to Blackness (Banks 2001, Chapter 8). Migrants sometimes find that they are aligned with others that they were previously not associated with. Winston (1996) shows that the Caribbean migrants to Britain find that, in their host country, the hierarchy that existed between the delicate differences in shades of skin in their homeland loses its meaning, and they are all regarded monolithically as ‘black’, ‘coloured’, etc.

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The arrival of newcomers challenges boundaries of ‘we’ and ‘them’. New categories, with differing degrees of stigma or privilege, are constructed and deconstructed, from the informal level of everyday interaction to the official categorization of the state (Buriel 1987). Such categories are significant, as they reflect how the boundaries of difference are being negotiated in a society. Categorization may differ by context, and the categorized does not necessarily have to accept these categories. However, as in the case of the nation-state placing certain individuals into categories that might then be linked to the acquisition or denial of resources, these categories carry consequences for individuals. Therefore, though ethnicity (and other similar categories) are subject to negotiation, ‘individual choices are circumscribed by the ethnic categories available at a particular time and place’ (Nagel 1994: 156), and for those placed in stigmatized categories, the choice may, in effect, be imposed on them. One characteristic aspect of our globalizing and increasingly multicultural world is that, even those societies that have held on to very homogeneous national/ethnic identities have been challenged to recognize the diversity within. In western countries, for example, inflows of foreign labour and/or new immigrants have renewed debates on multicultural coexistence. The examination of how these newcomers are understood shed light on our understanding of the social construction of difference. Japan is an interesting example in this sense, as it has long held on to either monolithic (e.g. Japanese) or dichotomous (e.g. foreigners versus Japanese) categories of the culturally different, and yet, with the diversification of Japanese society – dubbed ‘internal internationalization’ (uchinaru kokusaika) – new social categories are being constructed, as Japanese society attempts to situate the ‘different’ in the larger societal landscape. Needless to say, such boundary construction is interactive; thus, the process can be seen from both the side of the categorizers and that of the categorized. It is useful to note here that the purpose of this chapter is to understand how the ‘majority Japanese’ are responding to diversification; thus the emphasis is on the reasoning of the categorizers, albeit in an interactive context. The process of negotiation by the categorized would require a different type of approach (see Chapter 10). This chapter will explore this ongoing process of the social construction of categories of difference in Japan, as the society experiences its phase of ‘internal internationalization’, understood as the diversification of people within (Hatsuse 1996; Komai and Watado 1997). How is ‘internal internationalization’ challenging former social categories of difference? What role are the ‘new’ foreigners playing in this process? What implications does this have for a larger understanding of how social categories of difference are constructed in Japan? The chapter will explore these issues in the larger Japanese context, as well as in an urban diversity point – Kawasaki City.

Diversity points Japan is diversifying. But its diversification is not taking place across the board – at least not visibly. Japan may indeed be a multicultural society, but it is a

The cultural diversification of education 151 multicultural society where patches of visibly diverse districts (which I call ‘diversity points’) are scattered amidst a vast sea of seeming homogeneity. The total of Japan’s foreign registered population is below 2 per cent of the population. The fact that even Japan’s largest long-existing ethnic minority, the Koreans in Japan, is visibly indistinguishable from the ethnic Japanese, is under pressure to assimilate, has often adopted Japanese names, and speaks Japanese is symbolic of the fact that the cultural heterogeneity that exists in the Japanese context is often not of the visible sort that one can identify at a glance, thus adding to an illusion of homogeneity. However, there are some places in Japan – which I call ‘diversity points’ – that the dominant society acknowledges as diverse, because of a visible concentration of certain foreigners/minorities, or because the foreigners/minorities have acquired a voice that makes their presence visible. The diversity points in Japan provide insights into the dynamics of how a society built on images of homogeneity is facing cultural diversity. If one were to map out very generally the diversity points in Japan, first, there would be the districts that have been known from the pre-internal internationalization era for their diversity, whether it is because of a historical concentration of the Koreans or Chinese in Japan as a result of Japan’s colonial policies, or because of a concentration of the historically discriminated descendants of Japan’s feudal outcast population. Kawasaki, with a concentration of a Korean population, is an example of this type of category. Such districts are now experiencing new forms of diversity, giving rise to new types of interrelation among actors/groups, as will be detailed in the Kawasaki case below. A second type of diversity point is composed primarily of the new types of foreigner that have increased since Japan’s internal internationalization era, from around the 1980s. There is now a small but growing literature of research on these areas, especially those areas that have a relatively stable, ‘new’ foreigner population. Representative of this new type of diversity point are the towns with concentrations of Japan’s representative ‘new’ foreigner group, South Americans of Japanese descent. Today, districts such as Ōizumi and Ōta in the northern Gunma prefecture, and Hamamatsu City in Shizuoka are known as such diversity points (Matsuo 1997; Noyama 1997). These South Americans are typically recruited as foreign labourers. There are other types of ‘new’ foreigner as well. Certain public housing complexes are now known in relevant academic circles as areas with high concentrations of these ‘new’ foreigners (Shimizu and Shimizu 2001). Other diversity points include the concentration of Ainu in northern Japan and the children of international marriages of US Army personnel in Okinawa (see Chapter 4), urban areas with concentrations of Asian workers (Okuda and Tajima 1991, 1993), rural communities with Asian brides (Shibata 1997; see also Chapter 9), small concentrations of the Islamic population, and, some might add, college towns with many foreign students, and trendy areas that attract Western businesspersons. The Ōkubo area in Shinjuku ward, for example, near Japan’s representative night entertainment district, is known for its concentration of Asians. Research on these diversity points has been growing (Ebashi 1993;

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Tsuneyoshi 1995, 1996; Watanabe 1995; Shiramizu 1996; Komai and Watado 1997; Shimizu 2006). After outlining the larger picture of the social construction of the ‘foreigners’ in Japan, this chapter explores how this process is unfolding in one of these diversity points, a strategic urban district in Kawasaki City. Kawasaki is a nationally acknowledged diversity point for the Korean population around the larger Tokyo area. It is now experiencing its phase of internal internationalization. Against a background of a vocal Korean movement, it is also known nationally as a progressive district in Japan in terms of cultural diversity. Kawasaki is especially useful in analysing the process of negotiating and redefining social constructions of difference, as it enjoys a concentration of three major non-majority categories that have been said to have had a significant impact on the ‘internal internationalization’ of Japanese education: the Koreans, Japanese returnees, and the ‘new’ foreigners. Described as such, Kawasaki serves as a useful lens to examine aspects of this process, which can only usually be seen in a more fragmented or rudimentary form outside Kawasaki, with the exception of similar diversity points. The analysis relies on data gathered during a five-year period, from March 1997 to December 2002, in Kawasaki City, with occasional follow-up visits since then. The relationship of the author to Kawasaki City during this period was that of the ‘academic consultant for international education’ (kokusai kyōiku senmonin) for the city’s Educational Center (sōgō kyōiku sentā). The obligations involved consulting public school teachers and supervisors on education for international understanding. The consulting involved working with a team of elementary and secondary school teachers selected from the district, analysing their classes, and developing lesson plans; workshops to the whole area took place several times a year. The following sections are based on notes taken during these interactions (as an insider), as well as repeated interviews (both formal and informal) of key informants (e.g. principals of key schools, board members, activists, community representatives), classroom observation, and documentation obtained during the five years. The latter observations consisted of visits to key (in the sense that they had concentrations of foreigners/returnees and/or were active in promoting international understanding education) classrooms, schools, and organizations. The development of lesson plans with teachers and observations of their classes as part of the job of a consultant to the city totalled about twenty-five sessions during the period. Apart from this, there were approximately ten to fifteen interviews and five to ten observations of key classrooms per year for a five-year period, and an additional focused interviewing of the faculty body of one of the key, diverse elementary schools (described as A School below).

The internal internationalization of Japanese education Discovering ‘new’ diversity within The internal internationalization of Japanese education proceeded in overlapping phases. Prior to the visible emergence of the ‘new’ foreigners in Japanese schools

The cultural diversification of education 153 as a group, the Japanese mass media started to link internationalization to a ‘new’ type of Japanese – the returnee. The education of the Japanese returnees (kikokushijyo), who had been educated abroad, enjoyed a fair amount of media coverage from the 1970s, as the difficulties these children experienced when returning from foreign countries was highlighted, for example, in sensationalized television programmes on bullying (Goodman 1993; Minami 2000). Often depicted (misleadingly) as assertive, fluent in English, and unadjusted to the Japanese system, returnees played a role in challenging a monolithic ‘Japanese’ image and inspired many internationally oriented educators to start practising international understanding education in their classrooms (Sato 2001). From the 1980s to the 1990s, as Japan became a prosperous port for foreign labour, Japanese society also discovered that its foreign population was diversifying. Teachers were again challenged to incorporate the new diversity within. Prior to the inflow of the ‘new’ foreigners, the Koreans in Japan were the ‘foreigners’ in the human rights sense of the word. Japanese citizenship is not acquired by birthplace, but by parental nationality (by ‘blood’), and, in the Japanese context, it has been quite common to talk about ethnic/racial diversity in terms of the Japanese versus the ‘foreigners’ (gaikokujin), even though the Koreans in Japan reside permanently in Japan and are in their later generations.2 As Japan’s representative ‘involuntary immigrant’ group (Ogbu 1978, 1995), they continue to send a strong human rights message to Japanese society about a more just and equitable society. Thus, Japan in the 2000s finds itself diversifying, and internationalization has started to be reconceived in relation to the increased diversification within. Naming the ‘new’ diversity It is useful here to contemplate the nature of the visibility of diversity in the Japanese context as seen from the perspective of the dominant society. Various factors single a group out as different from the ‘majority Japanese’. On the surface, even the new entrants are similar to the majority Japanese – they are people from Asia, of Japanese descent, etc. If placed in a Western country, most would be categorized, together with the ‘majority Japanese’, under the same grouping of ‘Asian’, or some other, similar label. As mentioned in the previous chapter, though predominantly Asian, some groups of the ‘new’ foreigners tend to stand out compared with the existing foreigners in Japan. They speak a different everyday language, have foreign names, foreign customs, and some look different. For third-generation Koreans in Japan, for example, whose daily language is Japanese and who have been brought up in Japan, what would signal the visible difference from the majority would be nationality (which does not surface in everyday life) and a Korean name (which would surface in everyday interaction), as physically there is no difference between them and the ‘majority Japanese’. The Korean movement has traditionally stressed using one’s true name (the Korean name) – the prime visible factor that would immediately signal that one is of Korean origin. As mentioned in

154 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi Chapter 6, the arrival of the ‘new’ foreigners took place against a background of such subtle visibility of difference. The image of the ‘new’ foreigners changed with the diversification of the population. The implementation of the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Registration Act (shutsu nyūkoku kanri oyobi nanmin ninteiho) in 1990 targeted South Americans of Japanese descent and opened the route for latergeneration South Americans to work in Japan, thus leading to a surge of the so-called Nikkeijin. Thus, Japan saw an increase of migrants from South America as ‘Japanese spouse’ etc. (second generation) and ‘long-term residents’ (third generation) (Nyūkan Kyōkai 1998: 50). These Nikkeijin clustered in regions where there were small and medium-sized factories in manufacturing businesses, and new diversity points sprouted around the country. Faced with a need to differentiate among the foreign population, Japanese started to call the new foreign arrivals the ‘newcomers’ (nyūkamazu). This was an attempt to distinguish them from the Koreans and Chinese in Japan (referred to as the ‘oldcomers’), who had been residing in Japan for generations and who remained in Japan for very different reasons (colonialization) from the new foreigners who came into Japan as foreign labour, refugees, spouse of Japanese, etc. Indeed, some differences between the ‘foreigners’ could not be ignored, even by the dominant society. The ‘newcomers’ did not speak the Japanese language; sometimes they looked ‘different’; and they sometimes had very alien religions (e.g. Islam) that stood out in a secular society. Conflicts with the Japanese residents in the community took on a different dimension from those of the ‘oldcomers’. The ‘newcomers’ were unfamiliar with Japanese customs. It is interesting to note that one of the first things that happened in localities experiencing the influx of ‘newcomers’ was that directions of how to throw out the trash were translated into English and into several different Asian languages. This ‘newcomer’ versus ‘oldcomer’ dichotomy distinguishes foreigners by the period of entry into Japan, which is linked to the underlying reason for that entry. Thus, there are ‘newcomer’ Koreans and ‘oldcomer’ Koreans, though both are ethnically Korean. Therefore, somewhat confusingly, this category distinguishes foreigners even within the same ethnic group and retains the conventional category of Japanese versus foreigners, but distinguishes between the ‘foreigners’. Labels are often simplistic, masking crucial differences within categories. Nieto (1995) shows how the terms ‘Spanish origin’, ‘Hispanic’, ‘Latin American’, or ‘Latino’ are all used to refer to the same population, and can obscure the diverse historic, social-class, racial, and other factors among people in that group that are crucial in understanding the different reasons for school failure, poverty, etc. Similarly, the terms ‘newcomers’ and ‘oldcomers’ are simplistic. ‘Newcomer’ includes everyone from an adult foreign worker from an Islamic country to a Brazilian child growing up in Japan. The religion, family status, language, legal status, etc. are diverse, as are the needs. The ‘oldcomer’ category is simplistic as well. The homeland of the Koreans in Japan is divided – a situation that casts its shadow over which nation one affiliates with. There are also more Japanese nationals of Korean descent; there are generational variations as well. Moreover,

The cultural diversification of education 155 one might note that ‘newcomers’ are hardly newcomers in the true sense of the term, if the category has been in existence for several decades. There are now a number of ‘newcomers’ who simply do not fit the conventional newcomer category. In its attempt to identify the ‘newcomer’ children who do not speak Japanese, the Ministry of Education named them as ‘children who need assistance in Japanese instruction’ and started compiling figures on these children in 1991, when the increase in the influx of the South Americans began. This is an example in which an official category has been linked to resources (e.g. access to JSL instruction) and to statistical categories, but is unlikely to be a category the categorized use themselves. In fact, children categorized as ‘needing instruction in Japanese instruction’ fall out of this category as soon as they have acquired some working level of Japanese – thus this category is transient for any one individual. Today, as a generation of ‘newcomer’ children (or children of former ‘newcomers’) who have grown up in Japan and who do not require JSL assistance grows, the need to be more sensitive to the diversity within this category rises. More recently, some have preferred to use the term, ‘children linked to foreign countries’ (gaikoku ni tsunagaru kodomotachi), which does not identify foreign with a foreign nationality (see Chapters 2 and 6).

Challenges to the Japanese versus foreigner category and multicultural scholarship As was mentioned in Chapter 6, there are official recategorization efforts to place returnees and foreign students together. For example, the Ministry’s Internet service, CLARINET (Children Living Abroad and Returnees Internet), now has a section that provides information on both Japanese returnees and foreigners. Statistics on Japanese children abroad, Japanese returnees, and foreign students who are in need of Japanese language assistance can be accessed.3 On the margins of Japanese society, the category ‘foreigner’, a category contrasted with the ‘majority Japanese’, under the assumption that the two were mutually exclusive, has thus become newly problematic (Kajita 1998: 142). How does one categorize the fourth-generation Korean who speaks Japanese, was born and raised in Japan, looks just like the majority, but whose nationality and/or ethnic background is Korean? The concept of a hyphenated Japanese, such as a Korean-Japanese is still not acknowledged by the majority. Thus, there is a vast vacuum between ‘us’, Japanese, and ‘them’, foreigners, and a Korean national who acquires Japanese nationality lacks socially recognized labels to voice his/her duality. Where does one place the Japanese-Brazilian youth, who does not speak Japanese, whose identity is far from Japanese, but whose ancestors are Japanese? How about the Japanese returnee, who has been educated in a local school abroad, who may not yet be sure whether he/she is ‘Japanese’, but who is undoubtedly a Japanese national? The so-called ‘culturally different’ (in the sense that they are different from the mainstream Japanese) in Japan, though small in number and

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on the margins of society, thus now include a spectrum of different types. The dividing umbrella category continues to be Japanese versus foreigners. However, changes in society have made this simplistic distinction problematic. Such change has generated new interest in multicultural scholarship in Japanese educational research. Trying to capture the process of ‘internal internationalization’, discussions of ‘multicultural’ or ‘cultural diversity’ (tabunka) in education increasingly entered the terminology of scholars, activists, and certain localities. Terms such as global education, development education, environmental education, and other types of education pertaining to human rights, peace, and international understanding have also been promoted. As noted in Chapter 1, some scholars have attempted to critically apply multicultural education concepts to the Japanese context (Nakajima 1993, 1998a, b; Kobayashi and Ebuchi 1995; Tsuneyoshi 1995, 1996; Hirota 1996; Ehara 2000). Moreover, ‘multicultural coexistence’ (tabunka kyōsei) has emerged as a popular term to describe an integrated state of cultural diversity.4 Such terms sometimes carried the latent message that the Japanese versus foreigner dichotomy needed to be transcended.

The case of Kawasaki City: background Cultural diversification In this section, the social construction of difference in Japan will be examined more concretely in a specific context – Kawasaki City, a well-known diversity point for the Korean population. In the year 2004, 26,508 foreign residents (more than 2 per cent of Kawasaki residents) from 112 countries resided in Kawasaki, and, of them, 34.8 per cent were Koreans, mostly the ‘oldcomer’ Koreans.5 What is especially interesting about Kawasaki City is that it seems to provide an intensified picture of the evolving dynamics of diversity in Japanese society. Known for a concentration of the ‘oldcomer’ population, the district experienced an inflow of Japanese returnees, followed by the ‘newcomers’, during the era of Japan’s so-called internal internationalization. It is thus useful as a pioneering case. Similar to nationwide trends, in the 1970s (to 1980s), the vast majority of the foreign population in Kawasaki were the ‘oldcomer’ Koreans, and many of the measures to meet the needs of the ‘foreigners’ were targeted at this group. The 1970s and 1980s marked an increase in the visibility of the Koreans’ presence. For example, in 1978, Seikyūsha, a central Kawasaki-based organization that has promoted the rights of the Koreans in Japan, started literacy classes (shikiji gakkyū) for first-generation Koreans in Japan who were deprived of the right to education. In 1982, a coalition to promote the education of Koreans in Kawasaki (Kawasaki Zainichi Kankoku/Chōsenjin Kyōiku o Susumeru Kai) was established, and the city’s policy statement, the ‘Fundamental Education Policy for Kawasaki City Foreigners in Japan’ (Kawasaki Zainichi Gaikokujin Kyōiku Kihon Hōshin) was issued in 1986. Through majority–Korean negotiations, the pioneering public

The cultural diversification of education 157 community centre Fureaikan, whose purpose is to promote the coexistence between foreigners (Koreans) and Japanese, was built by Kawasaki City in 1988, and the Seikyūsha took over its management. Then, during the 1980s, the increase in the number of Japanese returnees also brought into the Kawasaki public schools more Japanese children who were educated outside the Japanese school system. Japanese language classrooms (Nihongo kaifuku kyōshitsu) were established to provide assistance in Japanese and to help the returnees adjust to Japanese society. The initial term that was used for these classrooms was classrooms for ‘readjustment’ (tekiō), with heavy assimilationist connotations that were later abandoned. Then, towards the 1990s, reflecting the internal-internationalization phase of the larger society, the area experienced what might be called its third phase of cultural diversification. The number of foreign children whose first language was not Japanese, the ‘newcomers’, started to rise, and the local government started to send interpreters into Kawasaki schools in 1988. Various community centres started Japanese language classes, the first being the Nakahara Community Centre in 1990. Similar developments can be seen around the country, as the ‘newcomers’ moved into the local communities. The shifting official discourse Within this context, the official diversity discourse of Kawasaki City seemed to move from Korean-focused to multicultural with a Korean core. When the board of Kawasaki City issued its pioneering statement on education for foreigners, ‘Kawasakishi Zainichi Gaikokujin Kyōiku Kihon Hōshin (Fundamental Education Policy for Kawasaki City Foreigners in Japan)’ in 1986, its subtitle, ‘shutoshite zainichi kankoku/chōsenjin kyōiku (mainly the education of Koreans in Japan)’, reflected the initial identification of ‘foreigners’ with the ‘oldcomer’ population. The 1986 policy statement was revised in 1998. The revised version, in response to the internal internationalization of the area, adopted the slogan ‘tabunka kyōsei (multicultural coexistence)’ and changed the subtitle to ‘tabunka kyōsei no (towards multicultural coexistence)’.6 The Korean voice had played a crucial role in the making of this pioneering statement. In its pamphlet explaining the spirit of the statement, which was sent to educators across Kawasaki City, the board of education confessed that the board had not truly understood the magnitude of Korean discrimination until the Zainichi Kankoku/Chōsenjin Kyōiku o Susumeru Kai (Coalition to Advance the Education of Koreans in Japan) presented its case to the board (Kawasakishi Zainichi Gaikokujin 1991, preface). This Korean core has been retained in the official documents, even after the impact of internal internationalization. For example, the Kawasaki local government, in its pamphlet addressed to non-Japanese parents and issued in several different languages, asks what education in a multicultural society means and lists the following: respect for each other regardless of ‘his or her nationality, race, culture, creed, and/or religious preference’, respect for ‘minority groups and

158 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi their cultures’, ‘a multicultural education which benefits both Japanese and nonJapanese’, prejudice awareness, recognition of cultural heritage, and the recognition of ‘the importance of cultural diversity in Japan and abroad’. The board asserts that it aims for a society where ‘students are able to use their own name, practice customs, and display a positive attitude about themselves without fear of discrimination and prejudice’, and that it is ‘particularly important to learn about the culture and history of Korea, because that can be a basis of international understanding and cooperation’ (Kawasaki Board of Education 2000: 3). Thus, as a whole, the internationalization of Kawasaki City took place in a context where the experience of the ‘oldcomers’ had existed as a basic factor, and where new arrivals diversified the scene. However, it is important to note, as is discussed below, that though this may be the larger picture in the city, the intercultural/multicultural experience of residents is localized. The mainstream Japanese attitude towards foreigners/ minorities, such as the descendants of Japan’s former outcast caste and the Koreans in Japan, has often been non-identification. Thus, it has been quite common in the past for foreign researchers observing Japanese schools to find that Japanese teachers would not (or could not) identify which children were of the groups above (LeTendre et al. 2003: 74). Textbooks still portray Japan to be largely homogeneous; media presentations on internal internationalization, though increasing, are still very limited in scope. In this context, access to images of diversity are strongly linked to one’s immediate experience. Variations in diversity Similar to the larger context of Japanese society, the cultural minorities in Kawasaki are not spread out evenly throughout the area. As is shown in the following tables, the returnees and foreigners are clustered in certain wards and schools – but not in the same ones. In 2001, there were 1,863 Japanese returnees in Kawasaki City – computed by the locality based on the Ministry of Education definition (see Table 7.1 notes) and there were more who were considered ‘returnees’ in the conventional sense – in other words, children who had spent any part of their life abroad (1,463 returnees at the primary school level, and 400 returnees at the lower secondary school level).7 The returnees, as can be seen in Table 7.1, are concentrated in certain northern wards. The highest concentration of returnees (Ministry of Education definition) is around the northern areas, clustered in two elementary schools, School A and School B. Elementary School A is the only school to have more than 200 returnees (218 returnee pupils), which is a little less than 8 per cent of the school population. However, based on interviews in the year 2000, each class, composed of thirty to forty pupils, had an average of six or seven children who had lived abroad. The junior high school with the highest concentration is Junior High C, with 113 returnees, the next highest school having only 28. Elementary School A has been designated as a returnee-focused (and eventually, returnee- and foreigner-focused)

The cultural diversification of education 159 Table 7.1 The number of returnees (kaigai kikoku jidō seito) by ward, Kawasaki City, 2001 Ward

Elementary schools

Junior high schools

Total

Kawasaki Saiwai Nakahara Takatsu Miyamae Tama Aso Total

24 78 280 114 521 145 301 1463

7 11 32 18 140 53 139 400

31 89 312 132 661 198 440 1863

Notes: The wards are listed from the south (starting from Kawasaki) to the north. From 2001, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, amended its definition of ‘returnees’ to ‘pupils and students who have been residing abroad for a year or more’. The previous definition included the stipulation that a returnee must have returned within the previous three years. Thus, data from 2001 are more inclusive than earlier figures. Source: Kawasaki Sōgō Kyōiku Sentō (2002) Kaigaikikoku/gaikokuseki jidō seito sō chōsa hōkoku (Returnees/foreign pupils and student statistics report), Kawasaki: Kawasaki Sōgō Kyōiku Sentō.

school alternatively by the Ministry of Education, prefecture, or city, since the late 1970s. On the other hand, the foreigners cluster in different wards. In 2001, twentyseven foreign nationalities were represented in Kawasaki public elementary and lower secondary schools, of which the top six were Korea, 43.4 per cent, China, 21.2 per cent, Philippines, 11.2 per cent, Brazil, 9.2 per cent, and Peru, 2.6 per cent (Kawasakishi Sogo Kyōiku Senta 2002). As can be seen from Table 7.2, foreign nationals are clustered in the southern wards. These wards contain very few returnees, and the area that contains the most returnees, referred to by residents as ‘the north’, and the southern areas with a concentration of the Koreans, Table 7.2 The number of foreign children by ward, Kawasaki City, 2002 Ward

Elementary schools

Junior high schools

Total

Kawasaki Saiwai Nakahara Takatsu Miyamae Tama Aso Total

215 71 37 71 85 43 18 540

114 30 33 14 20 11 3 225

329 101 70 85 105 54 21 765

Note: The wards are listed from the south (starting from Kawasaki) to the north. Source: Kawasaki Sōgō Kyōiku Sentō (2002) Kaigaikikoku/gaikokuseki jidō seito sō chōsa hōkoku (Returnees/foreign pupils and student statistics report), Kawasaki: Kawasaki Sōgō Kyōiku Sentō.

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known as ‘the south’, are marked by social class differences – the southern areas being more working class. The highest concentration of foreign nationals can be seen in the southern Elementary School D, with forty-four foreign children (around 15 per cent of the school population), and Junior High School D, with twenty-eight foreign students in 2001. This does not include children whose ethnic background may be (partially) non-Japanese, but who have a Japanese nationality, as this information was not to be disclosed. According to the principal, about half the Korean children in Elementary School D were using their real (Korean) names (principal, 4 December 2000). The human rights education at Elementary School D (called fureai education) has been continuing since the mid 1980s. In addition, there are small flows of new foreign children moving in (Table 7.3), diversifying the scene in both districts – a reflection of the internationalization of the Kawasaki City area in general. Even in Kawasaki, when the numbers are averaged across the city, the percentage of foreigners among the total elementary/lower secondary school population is less than 1 per cent, the returnees (based on the narrow official definition) constituting another 2 per cent. By Japanese standards, therefore, the above-stated schools (and wards) are the exception. This variance in the composition of the culturally different by district and school brings crucially different consequences to those involved. For those in the southern Elementary School D and Junior High School, the importance of the Japanese–Korean coexistence is a given condition. Teachers at Elementary School D describe the experience as very different from the usual Japanese situation where ethnicity is hidden. The Fureaikan, the centre for coexistence, lies in very close proximity to Elementary School D and is extremely active. The Korean movement from the southern districts has asked for human rights education, not just in the south, but throughout Kawasaki. Slogans such as ‘sending the message (to Kawasaki) from the south’ and ‘one is not qualified to Table 7.3 The number of foreign children who require instruction in Japanese language by ward, Kawasaki City, 2002 Ward

Elementary schools

Junior high schools

Total

Kawasaki Saiwai Nakahara Takatsu Miyamae Tama Aso Total

11 0 7 9 10 10 2 49

14 5 15 3 5 2 2 46

25 5 22 12 15 12 4 95

Note: The wards are listed from the south (starting from Kawasaki) to the north. Source: Kawasaki Sōgō Kyōiku Sentō (2002) Kaigaikikoku/gaikokuseki jidō seito sō chōsa hōkoku (Returnees/foreign pupils and student statistics report), Kawasaki: Kawasaki Sōgō Kyōiku Sentō.

The cultural diversification of education 161 talk about Kawasaki education without experiencing the southern schools can now be heard even from the Japanese staff of the local board of education. Thus, the ‘newcomer’ population that enters here is understood within this language of human rights, at least officially, and they are ‘newcomers’ in the true sense of the word, as the ‘oldcomers’ (Koreans) existed and had set the tone before them. On the other hand, for northern residents who live without a visible Korean presence, the definition of the ‘foreigners’ is different. Seen from the eyes of the dominant society, they see no distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ foreigners. For them, there is just a growing number of ‘foreigners’ from different countries – assumed to come and go. This is more typical of larger Japan. In the words of the head of the central NGO coordinating intercultural efforts in the northern schools and community: Around the Aso [northern] . . . area, your usual citizen has no image of the Korean in Japan. There is a Korean school near the M area, so people around there might be able to comprehend. But, in other areas, they do not understand. There are more westerners, or South East Asians, and so there are more programs for them, and the awareness is higher for them . . . If one were to say that one did not know of Koreans in Japan in the south, it would be considered outrageous . . . But in the northern . . . even in citizen’s classes, people would not come [if the topic were Korean]. On the other hand, if the theme is Asian countries such as Thai or the Philippines, there is interest. (11 June 2001 interview) In a model lesson held by the Kawasaki City’s Educational Centre research team of teachers on international understanding education in 2001, a Korean in Japan from the city’s coexistence centre was asked to serve as a guest speaker at the northern junior high school with the highest concentration of returnees. When asked how many in the class had a Korean friend, not one raised his/her hand. Even after the Korean speaker specifically talked about the colonization of Korea by Japan and her experience as a Korean in Japan, quite a few of the students did not understand the concept of the Koreans in Japan and continued to assume that the guest had come straight from Korea. This is revealing, as this upper-middle class junior high school is one of the most competitive public schools in the nation, and the majority of students are studying for the high school entrance examination for competitive private high schools; thus, students are studying history both in school and after school in private cram schools. Moreover, many of the students are returnees with experience in other countries. In a nation where images of diversity are prevalent – such as an immigrant nation built on images of immigration, or a multiethnic nation whose national unity is challenged and that is striving to bring its different people together – even if one’s immediate community is relatively homogeneous, images and messages of diversity float in the media, in textbooks, in visible political struggles, etc., on a nationwide scale. This is not so in Japan. The Kawasaki case suggests that, even in one of Japan’s most famous diversity points, from the majority viewpoint,

162 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi images of diversity are not automatically accessed, but are highly dependent on the immediate situation, as the larger picture of diversity is often hidden from public view. Recent research on ethnicity, identity, and race emphasizes their situational nature. The Japanese case is an extreme example of how context-bound such categories can be.

Differences in the internal internationalization experience The ‘oldcomers’ and internal internationalization: reacting to the new diversity As noted in Chapter 6, a common phenomenon in various Japanese diversity points, as seen from the evolving literature on internal internationalization, seems to be the emergence of networks of people in different sectors (Ibunkakan Kyōiku Gakkai 2003) that strive to negotiate how diversity is treated and voiced.8 Representative of the ‘oldcomer’ voice in Kawasaki is the previously mentioned centre for coexistence in the southern ward. Fureai, the word that is used both for this centre and for the human rights education around the district, would be literally translated as ‘getting to know each other’ (Koreans/foreigners and Japanese). The Fureaikan (meaning the centre for fureai) was established in 1988, and, naturally, the ideological foundations of the Fureaikan stressed social justice and Korean–Japanese coexistence (Fureaikan n.d.: 36). The Seikyūsha, which took over the management of the Fureaikan, has been active in empowering the Korean community. The Fureaikan visits schools, holds workshops, and represents the voice of the Korean community. Against this background of a strong Korean movement came the influx of the ‘newcomers’. Thus, it is not surprising that the ‘newcomers’ in Kawasaki are discussed against a human rights framework. This also seems to be true in other diversity districts where there is an existing, historically discriminated-against group that has set a human rights tone (Nakajima 2008). These are the exception in Japan, as most areas do not have this underlying social condition. Though it may be misleading to totally identify the views of the general Kawasaki Korean population with the above-stated opinion leaders, it can safely be said that the leaders have managed to frame the way in which ethnicity/nationality is discussed in the local political arena, as they have established themselves as the representatives of the Korean community. Today, however, the influence of internal internationalization is evident even in the strongholds of the ‘oldcomer’ community. In addition to the Korean club (called the kenari kurabu), which every Saturday gathers together ethnic Korean children, trying to enable ‘children whose cultural roots are Korean to form friendships transcending schools’ (pamphlet of the centre 2000), the above-stated coexistence centre newly acquired a Filipino club (called the dagat kurabu) in the 1990s, for ‘children whose cultural roots lie in the Philippines’. The head of the Fureaikan explained this as a natural consequence of the cultural diversification

The cultural diversification of education 163 of the people using the facilities. As ‘newcomer’ Filipino children entered the after-school programme, they acquired a Filipino staff member. The realities of cultural diversity are challenging what used to be the boundaries of ‘foreigners’ in the community, in other words, the Koreans in Japan, in contrast to the Japanese. Literacy classes at this centre were originally established for first-generation Koreans who were deprived of their right to read and write. However, with the influx of ‘newcomers’ into the district, Japanese classes started to attract ‘newcomers’ looking for a place where they could learn Japanese. Both groups wanted to learn Japanese, but for different reasons. The centre adjusted, and, on the days that the Japanese language classes are given, observers witness a diverse situation – one classroom with first-generation Koreans, one classroom with foreign (Asian) mothers with their children, and a classroom with foreigners without children, while Japanese volunteers and staff help with the childcare and the teaching. This is a pattern that is being repeated in other such areas. With the ageing of the firstgeneration Korean population in the community, the needs of the elderly are another emerging focus of the Fureaikan. As a result of the diversification of the district, the practices have become, in effect, more multicultural.9 However, the adjustment to multiple cultures is not without dilemmas, especially when the issue is that between ‘foreigners’ and ‘Japanese’. The centre started out with a Korean identity in a district with a concentration of the ‘oldcomers’. It symbolized the need for ‘the majority Japanese’ to coexist with the Koreans in Japan. The head admits that he is concerned about the culturally relativistic way ‘multicultural coexistence’ (tabunka kyōsei) is often used, and that losing a keen Korean focus may water down the original human rights message – though he also added that some of the younger-generation staff think his approach is a little old-fashioned. The head describes how Japanese teachers, when asked to focus on Koreans and human rights issues, would say it is too ‘omoi, kurai’ (too heavy, too serious). The term ‘tabunka’ (many cultures) then provides an escape, where teachers can talk about various foreign cultures, Korean culture as one of them, without discussing the sensitive history of the Koreans in Japan. By placing different cultures side by side, the Korean culture being defined as but one of the many cultures in the world, this approach undermines the unique position Koreans in Japan have held in Japanese history, and dilutes the message that an examination of the Korean situation would bring to the education for diversity (interview, 14 November 2000). If this centre is the organized ‘oldcomer’ voice of the community, Elementary School D and Junior High School D are the central schools of the ‘oldcomer’ community. Here, again, the impact of internal internationalization can be felt. Elementary School D has been a central school in Kawasaki for a human rights education for coexistence (fureai education) since the 1980s. As seen in its 1984 research goal, it strives to move ‘towards an education which recognizes the human rights of each – especially through the fureai (mingling) with the Koreans in Japan’ (from School D documents). The two categories ‘Koreans’ and ‘Japanese’ have been the central categories for coexistence.

164 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi Elementary School D holds school events for the community called the fureai festival, where various groups (including ethnic) in the community can participate, and has periods called fureai time when guests are invited from the community. The fureai festival for the year 2000 included presentations by the fourth graders who had focused on Korea as a year-long project, Korean dancing, and Korean food. It is almost impossible not to notice the Korean presence in the area, with the Korean names on the signs, the Korean dolls on display in the school, and the focus of the school itself. The arrival of the ‘newcomers’ brought in another axis of difference. At the time of the observations, there were parents who had been voicing their concern that this was a ‘Japanese’ school, and that the school was too Korean-focused. Naturally, there were also others that wanted the human rights message taken further. With the arrival of the ‘newcomers’, some teachers displayed a concern that the cultures of the ‘newcomers’ were not being represented in the school with its focus on the Japan–Korea relationship. Others wanted the Korean focus to remain. The voices were far from single. The returnees and internal internationalization Japanese returnee children are a direct product of Japan’s internationalization. When focusing on the returnees we are, however, in effect, focusing on different districts from those discussed above. In these areas, with the inflow of returnees, additional assistance started to be provided for the returnee children who had attended local schools abroad and thus were behind in their language and studies. With the influx of the ‘newcomers’, the ‘newcomers’ and the returnees were placed in the same pull-out classroom.10 In observing these classrooms, however, the realities of the ‘newcomers’ and the returnees were quite, if not entirely, different. The returnees in the pull-out Japanese instruction room at Elementary School A, for example, with very few exceptions, were from middle-class businessmen families whose mothers had taken great pains to maintain the child’s Japanese and educational level while abroad. According to the Japanese specialist in the pull-out room, almost all pupils had studied in supplementary Japanese schools and/or had taken correspondence courses from Japan in addition to attending a local school when abroad. The mothers of this school had a reputation in Kawasaki as being highly vocal and upwardly mobile, pushing their children to pass the competitive private junior high school entrance examinations. The returnee mothers fitted this general image, forming their own self-help group for mothers of returnees, and were very engaged in their children’s education. On the other hand, the ‘newcomers’, though diverse among themselves, were in a totally different situation. Parents lacked Japanese language skills or/and familiarity with subjects, so they could not help their children at home. The South American children were from families who worked in the factory in the district, thus, not only did they not speak Japanese, but they were of a different social class from the majority of the children in this upper-middle-class neighbourhood – at least

The cultural diversification of education 165 in Japan, though perhaps not in their home country. Both parents worked late, and the child was often alone after school, while the majority of the other pupils, especially from fourth grade onward, were attending cram schools. Yet, as with the pull-out classrooms, the two different populations were often combined under the same label. School A had been designated (linked to allocation of resources) as a ‘returnee education’ school, later as a returnee- and foreignerfocused school, since the 1970s by various public entities including the Ministry of Education. ‘Internationalization’ is used as an umbrella term to combine the Japanese returnees and the ‘foreigners’. However, this usage of ‘internationalization’, instead of, for example, multicultural, is not without problems, as internationalization may fit the image of populations newly entering Japan, such as recently arrived ‘newcomers’, but it is less able to describe the state of foreigner/minority populations that are already a part of the existing landscape of Japanese society, such as the ‘oldcomers’ (Chapter 6). The ‘newcomers’ and internal internationalization What is the place of ‘newcomers’ in this whole picture? As ‘foreigners’, they are in the same category as the Koreans in Japan. As has already been described, in the ‘oldcomer’ district, ‘newcomers’ are at times in the position of being helped by the established ‘foreigners’ of the community. In the ‘majority Japanese’ and returnee districts, they are sometimes simply ‘foreigners’, without any images of ‘new’ or ‘old’; at other times, they are put together with a segment of the Japanese majority – the Japanese returnees – as symbols of ‘internationalization’. Here, they are divided from their fellow foreigners (oldcomers), to be placed in a different category. There is a symbolic divide between ‘oldcomer’ and ‘newcomer’ representation in the Kawasaki schools that provides food for thought about where the line of difference is being drawn. Kawasaki City established a Minzoku Bunka Kōshi Fureai Jigyō (Ethnic Culture Guest Lecturer Fureai Project) in 1997 to fund foreigners (and other speakers) to serve as guest lecturers in Japanese public schools. This is one of the direct means by which foreigners display their cultures in Kawasaki schools. When there is the need for ‘oldcomer’ Koreans to introduce Korean culture, or their experience as Koreans in Japan, the Fureaikan (abovementioned centre) personnel take the initiative. The Fureaikan has an impressive set of Korean instruments, ethnic clothing, etc., which the staff can utilize for such occasions. In the eyes of an observer, the staff are very experienced, with a clear view of their human rights mission. On the other hand, when the Japanese schools ask for ‘newcomer’ guest lecturers, there is another group, which I will call here the Volunteer Association, that works with the board to arrange the visits. This is a group that was started in 1990 by Japanese parents (mothers) of returnee students at Junior High School C, the previously mentioned northern junior high school with the highest concentration of Japanese returnees from abroad. In other words, in this case, a segment of the Japanese majority takes the lead.

166 Ryoko Tsuneyoshi The Association first started by focusing on bettering the situation of the Japanese returnees – a natural concern given that the children of the founders are returnees. The head of the Association described the genesis of the group in these terms: In the beginning, there was the parents’ group of returnees at Junior High School C. There are many Japanese returnees in Kawasaki. We heard stories of how difficult a time the mothers of these returnees were having . . . so we decided to form a network of mothers for all Kawasaki. When we were abroad, the local people helped us, and we were also involved in volunteer work abroad, so let us do that type of volunteer work [in Japan], was the idea. So we decided to try to help foreigners in Japan, and to give advice to people [Japanese] who were going to be stationed abroad. And since it seemed that people [Japanese educators] did not seem to understand what international understanding meant, we thought we should convey accurate information of other countries to them. (Interview with the head, 11 June 2001) The initial stages of the returnee phenomenon were sensationalized in the media and lacked accurate information, and teachers tended to have an assimilationist attitude. Faced with the reality of returnees suffering from re-entry shock, the initial members of the group, seven mothers, set out to send Japanese schools a message. They launched panel discussions; compiled information on returnees; made a booklet that they named the ‘Rainbow’ as a symbol of a multicultural society; donated their own money; and distributed the booklet to public elementary and junior high schools in Kawasaki free of charge. According to the head, the reaction was immediate. The media reacted, and telephone calls came from companies and from the local government. Donations came. The group grew quickly. Two points are particularly noteworthy: The influence of western multicultural ideas that the mothers learned abroad is evident. Second, though the returnees are different from the ‘mainstream Japanese’, the strong standing of the mothers representing the voices of the returnees is also apparent. They are middleto upper-middle-class Japanese housewives, with both the time and the means to volunteer work. With the influx of the ‘newcomers’, the group expanded their target. The group now works with the Kawasaki board to arrange interpreters for the ‘newcomer’ children entering Kawasaki schools; it offers Japanese language lessons on its own as well. As an example of public–citizenship collaboration, the Volunteer Association plans and operates the ‘Rainbow Club,’ a support group for ‘newcomer’ foreign mothers and their children that started in 1995 (Ogura 1998: 71). It is noteworthy that, in comparison with the ‘oldcomer’ Korean community that voices itself through its own established organizations, the ‘newcomer’ voice is mediated by segments of the dominant society that empathize for some reason (e.g. sharing an intercultural experience because of life abroad) with the situation

The cultural diversification of education 167 of the ‘newcomers’. As mentioned previously, this seems to be the general pattern in ‘newcomer’ diversity points nationwide, given their often transient and uprooted situation. There are, however, also signs of more self-organization by the ‘newcomers’ in Kawasaki. In the year 2000, a ‘newcomer’ group, which I will call here the Foreign Volunteer Group, was founded mainly by the members of the first- and second-term Kawasaki City Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents. The first head is a ‘newcomer’ Korean woman (at the 27 June 2000 interview), with permanent residency in Japan, who speaks Japanese and is thus able to serve as the coordinator. Here, too, the links to the empathizers of the majority Japanese society are evident. The head of the ‘newcomer’ group maintains that it was becoming a member of the above-mentioned assembly, established by Kawasaki City to listen to the voices of the foreign residents (including both ‘oldcomers’ and ‘newcomers’), that made her realize that the voices of foreigners such as herself were important (interview, 27 June 2000). Members also have ties with the Volunteer Association, as they served as guest speakers to Japanese schools through the ethnic culture fureai guest lecturer system of the board. It is thus natural that, in its founding newsletter, the purpose of the NGO emphasizes international understanding education. Its aim is to help build a ‘bright Kawasaki’ in cooperation with Japanese citizens (newsletter, No. 1, 30 April 2000). The group also has a self-help aspect, providing information to fellow ‘newcomers’ and helping the development of networks. According to the aforementioned Korean head, there are informal interconnections between them and other ‘newcomer’ groups, for example, the network of foreign wives of Japanese, as some individual members join both groups. But there is no connection yet with the ‘oldcomers’. Thus, there is an ‘oldcomer’/ ‘newcomer’ divide, even though both representative organizations are headed by an ethnic Korean. Both seem to accept the foreigner/Japanese framework of the dominant society, but, unlike the ‘oldcomers’, the ‘newcomer’ group formed its identity via the mediation of dominant Japanese institutions, and the foreigners are understood in the image of civil diplomats of the countries of origin; the ‘oldcomer’ voice is understandably more human rights oriented, asking for a more just society. There are other ‘newcomer’ Kawasaki groups, such as the South Americans, who stay for long periods as workers. A support group for South American ‘newcomers’ was founded in 1995 and is presently in a state of flux. The group organizes events to bring the South American community together and offers language classes to both Japanese and South American youth. As mentioned in a previous chapter, the length of residence in Japan is increasing (teijyūka) for this population (Komai 1995; Iyotani and Sugihara 1996; Komai and Watado 1997), and there is a generation of South Americans who are growing up in Japan. Yet these youth are suffering from non-attendance and are dropping out. In Kawasaki, where the South American population is scattered and does not have an organized voice, there are no systematic data on non-attendance, but the

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issues (e.g. non-attendance, joining gangs, etc.) seen in other South American diversity points are present. One of the Nikkei staff of the above-mentioned NGO described the situation as ‘mottainai’, in other words, such a waste, as the South American community lost its youth to the streets (24 June 2001, interview with female staff). Again, Japanese empathizers can be identified: one of the key Japanese members of the South American NGO was a person from the self-help group of people from Okinawa and had been exposed to the South American population because many of the South Americans had originated from Okinawa. Another key actor, a Japanese secondary school teacher in a neighbouring district, was known to be very active in accepting South American youth to that school. The interpreters for the Japanese language school classrooms, who were South Americans that were stable residents of Japanese society (e.g. married to a Japanese), were serving as both interpreters and social supporters of the South American community. Such observations point to the multilayered and dynamic nature of interactions shaping the multicultural landscape in the area.

Conclusion The emerging picture of internal internationalization in Japan is a dynamic process. New actors are emerging, and the society is trying to categorize and recategorize the culturally different. For a country that has long held on to a homogeneous self-image, the increasing visibility of the diversity within is challenging the majority society to reconsider its conceptions of difference on the outskirts of society. In light of the internationalization of Japanese society, changes from around the 1980s were perceived to be of a different sort, in that it brought more people in from Asian and South American countries, visibly diversifying the multicultural landscape in Japan. The term internal internationalization signals a growing awareness of the diversification within. The feeling that, compared with internationalization in the past, the changes in society in the last few decades have involved the diversification of ‘people’, lies at the heart of the new term (see Chapters 2 and 6 for continuity with previous immigration). Inside schools, the ‘newcomers’ were a visible challenge to the assumption of homogeneity. I have argued elsewhere that the Japanese model of schooling, especially at the primary school level, with its ideology of togetherness (which I call collective communalism, issei kyōdotaishugi) and its stress on doing things together, cooperatively, and at the same time, helps to sustain an image of homogeneity (Tsuneyoshi 2001). For example, clothing and belongings that are matched with each other mask social class and cultural differences between children. Whole-class teaching is the norm. The ‘newcomers’ visibly challenged this assumption in a manner that Japanese educators could not fail to notice (e.g. they did not speak Japanese). The emergence of the ‘new’ foreigners has accelerated the social construction of new categories. Focusing on the fact that both need assistance in the Japanese language and adjustment to Japan, the Japanese returnees and ‘newcomers’

The cultural diversification of education 169 have sometimes been put together. In other areas, the ‘newcomers’ have been categorized with the ‘oldcomers’. Both face discriminatory practices based on nationality and ethnicity. Judged from the criteria of Japanese middle-class values, studies of ‘newcomers’ have shown that the parenting of these new foreigners is often evaluated negatively, as not providing enough support for their children and not having the ‘desirable’ educational values (Tsuneyoshi 1995, 1996). The same type of labelling that happens to other discriminated-against minority groups is being repeated. The assumption of absolute distinction between Japanese versus foreigners has become newly problematic. The terms ‘oldcomer’ and ‘newcomer’, where people of the same ethnic group can be divided into two, or combining Japanese returnees and the ‘new’ foreigners under the umbrella category of internationalization, for example, might be seen as majority attempts to map out the culturally different. Yet, such categories open up new dilemmas. For example, it is quite obvious that the identity crisis a Japanese Brazilian youth experiences in his/her ancestors’ country is substantially different from the identity crisis a Japanese returnee experiences when his/her parents return to Japan. The examination of Kawasaki as a national diversity point suggests, moreover, that in a society based on images of homogeneity (though such homogeneity is being challenged on the fringes of society), the image of the Other is highly bound to one’s immediate context – more, presumably, than in a society where cultural diversity is projected frequently in the media, in politics, in textbooks – so that even those in homogeneous enclaves are made aware of the diversity within. There are also some attempts to break away from the Japanese versus foreigner dichotomy. For example, using the category of ‘residents’ (Ebashi 1993) breaks away from the dichotomy in that both foreigners and Japanese are residents of the same community. This category, however, is not as useful on the national level, where nationality becomes a crucial dividing factor. ‘Citizen’ is also used in a similar sense. Kawasaki City uses this term in its attempt to include ‘Japanese nationals with foreign cultural background’.11 There are, too, attempts to express a dual identity, somewhere between the categories of ‘foreigner’ versus ‘Japanese’, such as a hyphenated Japanese, but such voices have yet to catch the imagination of the majority. The construction and deconstruction of new categories, as seen in the case of Japan, reflect the efforts of a nation trying to face the challenge of diversification within. The simple Japanese versus foreigner division had satisfied Japanese in the past. Yet, as these categories become newly problematic, the Japanese case reminds us again that such social categories are very much a social construction.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Mr H. Hayashi, Mr Y. Sato, and other supervisors (shidōshuji) at the Kawasaki Sogo Kyōiku Senta, as well as the individual educators and schools.

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Notes 1 This chapter is taken from the following article, with minor revisions. ‘The “new” foreigners and the social reconstruction of difference: the cultural diversification of Japanese education’, Comparative Education, 40(1), February 2004: 55–81. Copyright obtained (2009). 2 The special permanent citizens, the Koreans and others who lost their Japanese nationality at the time of the Peace Treaty, and the descendents of these people, totalled 430,229 persons in 2007, of whom 426,207 were Koreans, 2,986 were Chinese, and the other nationalities a mere 1,036; the total of the three constituted 29 per cent of registered foreigners (Homusho 2008). 3 www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/clarinet/kiko_zi0.html (accessed March 2010). 4 For example, Ebuchi et al. (2000) apply this concept to various minority groups, including the aged, women, and the physically and mentally handicapped, as well as to the relationship between humans and nature. 5 Figures from Kawasaki City: www.city.kawasaki.jp/25/25zinken/home/gaikoku/ shishin/02.pdf (accessed August 2009). 6 ‘Tabunka kyōsei no shakai e – kihon hōshin 12 nen buri kettei (Towards a multicultural society)’, 29 April 1998, Kanagawa Shinbun. 7 Research report of the eleventh Kikoku/gaikokujin shijyo kyōiku ukeire suishin chiiki kenkyu hōkokukai, held at Elementary School A, 10 November 1999. 8 Emerging studies of newcomer diversity points, such as Kojiro Imazu’s action research on Latinos (the presentations at the annual meetings of the Japan Educational Sociology Association, years 2001, 2002, unpublished) in the Nagoya area, similar work by Megumi Yuki in the Oizumi area on Latinos (same as above, 2002), work on the Yamato area and the Indo-Chinese by Shimizu and Shimizu (see References) all suggest the evolution of supportive networks of NGOs and NPOs targeting these populations. 9 Fureaikan (n.d.) ‘Daremoga chikara ippai ikite ikutameni – Kawasaki-shi Fureaikan 10 shunen kinenshi 88–97, p. 36. Interviews of Fureaikan head, 2000, 2001. 10 There were eleven such international classrooms in 2000. Kawasaki City Board of Education, 25 March 2000, Heisei 11 nendo Kawasakishi/Nihongo Kyōshitsu Jissen Kirokushu, 17th edition. The prefecture allots specialized staff to those schools with a number of foreign children (five) who require instruction in the Japanese language. 11 From the Kawasaki unit for human rights and gender equality (jinken/danjyo kyōdo sankaku shitsu), dealing with foreign residents, dōwa policies, gender equality, and human rights. The term citizen used since the law on the Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents; www.city/kawasaki./jp/25/25zinken/home/0001.htm (accessed August 2009).

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–––– (1998b) ‘“Kokunai rikai” to “kokusai rikai”’, Ibunkakan Kyōiku, 2: 58–67. –––– (2008) ‘Renzokusuru orudokama/nyukama kyōiku’, in K. Shimizu (ed.), Kokō o ikiru nyūkama: Osakafuritsu kokō ni miru kyōiku shien, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Nieto, S. (1995) ‘A history of the education of Puerto Rican students in US mainland schools: “losers,” “outsiders,” or “leaders”?’, in J.A. Banks and C.A. Banks (eds), Handbook of research on multicultural education, New York: Macmillan. Noyama, H. (1997) ‘Ōtashi/ Oizumi machi’, in H. Komai and I. Watodo (eds), Jichitao no gaikokujin seisaku, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Nyūkan Kyōkai (1998) Kokusai jinryū 130. Issued by the Nyūkan Kyōkai. Oakes, J. (1985) Keeping track: how schools structure inequality, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ogbu, J.U. (1978) Minority education and caste: the American system in cross-cultural perspective, New York: Academic Press. –––– (1995) ‘Understanding cultural diversity and learning’, in J.A. Banks and C.A. Banks, Handbook of research on multicultural education, New York: MacMillan. Ogura, K. (1998) ‘Kawasakishi ni okeru gaikokusekiboshi no kosodate shien no ayumi’, Shakai Kyōiku, 491, December 1998. Okuda, M. and Tajima, J. (1991) Ikebukuro no ajiakei gaikokujin:shakaigakuteki jittai hōkoku, Tokyo: Mekon. –––– (1993) Shinjyuku no ajiakei gaikokujin: shakaigakuteki jittai hōkoku, Tokyo: Mekon. –––– (2001) Kokusai rikai kyōiku, Tokyo, Akashi Shoten. Shibata, G. (1997) ‘Kokusai kekkon no shinten ni yoru nōson shakai no kokusaika’, in Jichitai no gaikokujin seisaku: uchinaru kokusaika eno torikumi, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimizu, K. and Shimizu, M. (eds) (2001) Nyūkamā to kyōiku: gakkō bunka to ethnicity no katto o megutte, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimizu, M. (2006) Nyūkama no kodomotachi: gakkō to kazoku no hazamano nichijyō sekai, Tokyo: Keisō Shobō. Shiramizu, S. (1996) Ethnic media: tabunka shakai Nihon o mezashite, Tokyo, Akashi Shoten. Tsuneyoshi, R. (1995) ‘Kyōshitsu to shakai—nyūkama no kodomo ga Nihon no kyōiku ni teiki suru mono’, in M. Sato (ed.), Kyōshitsu toiu basho, Tokyo: Kokudosha. –––– (1996) ‘Tabunka kyōzon jidai no Nihon no gakko bunka’, in T. Horio, Y. Okudaira, H. Sanuki, Y. Kudomi, and T. Tanaka, Gakko bunka toiu jiba, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. –––– (2001) The Japanese model of schooling: comparisons with the United States, New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Watanabe, M. (1995) Dekasegi Nikkei Burajirujin (jyo)(ge), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Winston, J. (1996) ‘The making of black identities’, in J. Hutchinson and A.D. Smith (eds), Ethnicity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

8

Schools, communities, and ‘newcomer’ children A case study of a public housing complex Mutsumi Shimizu

This chapter will examine a case study of networks supporting ‘newcomer’ children in a Kanagawa housing complex, the Ichō Public Housing Complex. The Ichō complex is an interesting case to observe, as it originally accommodated many Indo-Chinese refugees and later experienced a sequence of inflows of other major ‘newcomers’ (e.g. returnees from China, South Americans and foreign children of different cultural backgrounds). Whereas Chapter 7 depicted the inflow of ‘newcomers’ into an ‘oldcomer’ district, this chapter focuses on a ‘newcomer’ district that has experienced the inflow of other types of ‘newcomer’. Thus, analysing this case provides an opportunity to observe how such interactions are evolving into a new type of diversity point. A characteristic of such emerging diversity points (see Chapter 7 for their definition) is that networks of citizens, ‘newcomers’ and other related individuals are emerging to support the ‘newcomers’. In addition, as Japan becomes the permanent or extended home for many groups of ‘newcomers’, the community and schools are pushed to treat such children as (semi-) permanent members, rather than as transient populations. The following analysis presents an emerging case of diverse interactive relationships, where the housing complex and the local junior high school provide contexts for such relationships among the different groups of ‘newcomers’. The study also highlights the growing importance of civil society in these interactive networks.1 The term ‘newcomers’ was coined in the late 1970s to describe the rising number of foreigners staying in Japan for extended periods. It was used to distinguish those more recent immigrants from the ‘oldcomers’, or residents of Korean and Chinese origin who chose to move or who were forcibly brought to Japan during its colonial rule and World War II (see Chapter 1). The number of registered foreigners has risen constantly since 1969, growing about 3 per cent a year over the past several years, with a cumulative rise of about 46.6 per cent in the ten-year period from 1998 to 2008 (Hōmu-shō nyūkokukanri kyoku (Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice) 2009). In 2008, approximately 2.21 million people were registered as foreigners (1.74 per cent of the total population). Roughly 1.8 million of these foreigners can be labelled as ‘newcomers’.

174 Mutsumi Shimizu The influx of these ‘newcomers’ can be divided into three periods. Immigrants during the first period, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, consisted mainly of the following groups: female workers from countries such as the Philippines who were engaged in the adult entertainment industry; refugees from Indo-China; second- and third-generation Japanese returning from China; and business workers from Western nations. The second period was from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when the bubble economy was bursting. During this period, many foreign workers entered Japan without proper documentation or overstayed their visas. The inflow of the descendants of Japanese immigrants to South America also took place during this period. The third period, starting in the early 1990s, saw a new immigration trend begin to emerge, as more foreigners married Japanese nationals, and a rising number found employment in Japanese companies engaged in international business. This trend continues (Komai 1997). Given the different patterns of immigration among the ‘newcomers’, their lifestyles in the areas they reside in naturally differ. For instance, Miyajima and Kajita (1996) categorize the lifestyles of the ‘newcomers’ into six different types, based on their social status in their local communities: (1) single worker; (2) living and working as a family; (3) married to a Japanese; (4) contract-based employee; (5) working/studying; and (6) permanent resident. Immigrants’ classifications can change from one type to another in response to changing circumstances. As ‘newcomers’ are now staying in Japan longer, and more are staying permanently, they have become more integrated into local community life, and their concerns in Japan have expanded from employment and salaries for single workers to social security and education for families. This chapter will focus on education, especially those issues related to schooling. When ‘newcomers’ come to Japan with compulsory-school-age children and wish to send them to government (public) schools, they must submit a request to the local education board. Compulsory education applies only to Japanese nationals (Ōta 2000: 139–48). Initially, many ‘newcomers’ found it difficult even to enrol their children in schools because of this entrance procedure; for example, a Japanese Brazilian child was not allowed to go to school because the child did not understand Japanese. A Cambodian family with a school-age child, not having received any information about schooling, did not realize they had missed the school year until a local volunteer found out about the family (Akuzawa 1998: 97–8). Also, the question of whether to place a child in the same grade as other Japanese students of the same age is often raised. Once the children are in school, the institutional framework of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is to ‘treat them the same as Japanese’ (Ōta 2000: 148–53), according to which schooling and textbooks are provided free. ‘Newcomer’ children are expected to participate in classes or school activities with Japanese children. In other words, foreigners are ‘not accorded special treatment’ (Ōta 2000: 25–6) in Japanese schools. This chapter is a case study of networks supporting ‘newcomer’ children in a Kanagawa housing complex with a concentration of Indo-Chinese refugees that has diversified with the inflow of other ‘newcomers’, and where new patterns of

Case study of a public housing complex 175 interactions are emerging. What is happening in these ‘newcomer’ districts, as ‘newcomers’ meet other ‘newcomers’, and different types of ‘newcomer’ meet the Japanese? How are civil society, schools, and the community responding? As different types of ‘newcomer’ enter the scene, the dynamics of interaction are becoming more complex. This chapter takes the example of a key ‘newcomer’ district, in order to analyse these questions.

The public housing complex The public housing complex located in Kanagawa prefecture, the focus of this chapter, was mentioned as a pressure point of diversity by Tsuneyoshi (see Chapter 6). In the area around the public housing complex, ‘newcomers’ began to take up residence in the mid 1980s. Their population increased over two periods. The first, starting around 1980, saw an increase in Indo-Chinese ‘newcomers’ from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. This was precipitated by the establishment in this area of a settlement facilitation centre for incoming IndoChinese refugees.2 During the second period, from around 1988, the increase in the number of immigrants was mainly accounted for by the following groups: Vietnamese; second- and third-generation returnees from China; Filipinos; and Japanese descendants from Peru, Brazil, and Paraguay. The increase among the Vietnamese was probably due to the approval by the Orderly Departure Programme (ODP) to bring in family members. This was limited to Vietnamese, however, as many of them had been separated from their family members when they left Vietnam. The 1990 revision to the Immigration Law, mentioned in previous chapters, contributed to the increase in second- and third-generation Japanese immigrants. The public housing complex sits on the border between Yokohama City and Yamato City in Kanagawa prefecture. It was built in 1974 to accommodate those who opted to live in suburbs when more commuter train lines were established amid rapid economic growth. This complex houses as many as 3,500 households in six high-rise buildings of ten storeys or more, and seventy-eight buildings of five storeys. The number of ‘newcomer’ families in this housing complex is not publicly available, and so their exact number is not known. However, the residents’ association register shows that there are 349 ‘newcomer’ households (16.6 per cent) on the Yokohama City side, and 106 households (7.5 per cent) on the Yamato City side. The households are broken down by nationality: 181 Chinese; 173 Vietnamese; 63 Cambodian; 25 Laotian; and 13 Peruvian.3 ‘Newcomers’ are believed to have begun living in this complex around 1984 – several years after Indo-Chinese refugees were allowed into Japan. In the first six months, the settlement facilitation centre provided them with instruction in the Japanese language as well as assistance in adjusting to life in Japan; once the refugees found work they were to live in housing made available by their new employers. Many Indo-Chinese refugees, however, opted to switch jobs for better opportunities and began to seek public housing, so that they would not have to worry about changing residence when switching jobs. As the number of

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‘newcomer’ households increased, more households from the same countries tended to wish to move there as well. Additionally, Kanagawa prefecture gave preferential treatment, including comparatively lax criteria, to returnees from China and to Indo-Chinese refugees. As a result, there are higher concentrations of IndoChinese refugees living in public housing complexes in this and other areas in the prefecture. This tendency of ‘newcomers’ to be concentrated in certain housing complexes is also observed among the second-period ‘newcomers’. The chapter will discuss various initiatives and experiences at this public housing complex from two aspects. The first is the experience at Shimofukuda Junior High School (public), which children from the Yamato City side of the complex attend. In the twenty-five years from the school’s establishment in 1983 until the redrawing of school districts in 2005, most of the foreign students living in the Yamato side of the complex went to this junior high school; at any point in time, roughly 15 per cent of the students were foreign. Among them were students of various cultural backgrounds, namely Indo-Chinese refugees, returnees from China, and Japanese descendants from South American countries. The case of Shimofukuda Junior High School was a significant deviation from the norm among Japanese schools, where foreign students were not accorded special treatment. The second aspect is the experience of an organization – let us call it the SBM (formal name Stand-By-Me) – established by the foreign children themselves and supported by the educators, volunteers, and other citizens (‘the Japanese’) who took it upon themselves to do something about the situation of the foreign children. Shimofukuda Junior High School provided the necessary context for this. Thus, this chapter discusses the experience of foreign students living in the complex and in the neighbourhood, who tried to empower themselves in order to survive in Japanese society with the assistance of the Japanese civil society and educators.

Shimofukuda Junior High School: creating a class for foreign students Shimofukuda Junior High School began to set up a class for foreign students in April 2000. Shimizu and Kojima (2006) discuss this initiative in detail through the experiences of the people who were involved (i.e. teachers, researchers, local volunteers, interpreters, SBM group members). The teachers and others who interacted with the ‘newcomer’ foreign children faced a number of issues, especially the truancy and delinquency among students (see Chapter 6). Teachers at Shimofukuda Junior High School did not focus on the foreign students from the start. Rather, they were trying to deal with truancy and antisocial behaviour in the student body as a whole, something that they had always done. In the process, the teachers discovered that the levels of truancy and delinquency among foreign students were high in comparison with the Japanese students. The teachers at first seemed to follow the approach of not treating foreign students any differently from Japanese students, an attitude shared by many Japanese educators. As mentioned previously, public schools in Japan accept foreign

Case study of a public housing complex 177 students because the students request it, although compulsory education does not apply to them. As a result, public schools tend not to feel obligated to address the issue of truancy and delinquency among foreign students, the result of this being that the responsibility falls on the students themselves. A teacher’s comment illustrates the problem: When I was assigned to the school in 1994, I was a little surprised with the number of truant students, and the high ratio of foreign students among them. I don’t have exact figures, but I believe two-thirds of them were foreign students. Given that foreign students accounted for about 15 per cent of the total student population, the number of truant foreign students was quite high and indicative of the difficulty foreign students faced to stay in school. As they moved up in grade, the number of truant foreign students increased. There was a blackboard for writing down the names of absent students for each class, and it was normally filled with the names of foreign students. Many of the truant foreign students tended to engage in antisocial behaviour in the local community. They became an issue for the community. Given the situation, some teachers would try to make the classroom a comfortable place for foreign students with the help of other students, but that never became more than an individual attempt at improving classroom conditions. Ironically, the more improvements the teachers made, the less comfortable the classroom became for those foreign students that showed up infrequently. The teachers’ and the classmates’ well-intended help had an unintended effect of making those foreign students feel increasingly excluded from the classroom and school. (Kakimoto 2002) An incident in the summer of 1999 involving foreign students, however, triggered a significant change in Shimofukuda Junior High School’s attitude towards foreign students. Two Vietnamese students, who before the summer were believed by teachers to be adjusting well to school life, began, after the summer, to engage in a series of antisocial incidents with other Vietnamese and Chinese students of the same age (a youth gang) living in their public housing complex. The two students would listen to their teachers and come to school from time to time, but ceased to attend regularly. To understand why the two students had changed in such a short time, teachers at the school began to consult researchers (including the author) who were investigating ‘newcomers’, local volunteers who were providing support in Japanese language and study skills to foreigners, and foreign children familiar with the gang in question. During their investigation, the teachers at the school came to realize a number of things: We have to take seriously the fact that foreign students are doubly excluded. For one, they are often placed on the fringe of school life whether they like it or not. Also, the school curriculum itself is standardized and is designed for Japanese students. Therefore, it is difficult to break through this framework

178 Mutsumi Shimizu no matter how vocally some express the need for ‘international understanding’. Given, especially, that the foreign countries implied in international understanding are the US and European nations, refugee children will always be pressured to assimilate into Japanese society. (Kakimoto 2001: 24–5) Japanese schools with a large number of foreign students try, from time to time, to experiment with a curriculum to teach the students about their native countries in order to inculcate a sense of self-respect. It has been pointed out, however, that such efforts do not always generate the intended result (Ōta 2000). Instead of focusing on whether each foreign student had a sense of self-respect or not, Shimofukuda Junior High School tried to make changes to an environment that was seen as doubly excluding foreign students, who were disadvantaged by attending schools for Japanese (excluded as foreigners) and being pushed to the fringe of school life (being marginalized). To that end, the school set up a venue for foreign students to find out about themselves as foreigners and about their native countries. Simply put, the school began to offer foreign students a kind of special treatment that would empower them.

Special course for foreigners and the expansion of its scope With the above-stated goal in mind, Shimofukuda Junior High teachers established a special course for foreigners over a six-year period from 2000 to 2005.4 This elective course, titled ‘International (Sentakukokusai)’, was a requirement for foreign students. In 2000, it was offered bi-weekly and, from 2001 on, weekly. Participation rates of the foreign (‘newcomer’) students are as shown in Figure 8.1 (Shimizu and Kojima 2006: 252). Some points of interest emerged. First, the course was offered initially only to children of refugees from Indo-Chinese countries (i.e. Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), who accounted for the majority of foreign students at Shimofukuda Junior High School at the time. As mentioned earlier, the Shimofukuda school district was initially a diversity point for Indo-Chinese refugees that later diversified further as other ‘newcomers’ increased. In the second year, the target of the course was expanded to second- and third-generation returnees from China, and then to Japanese descendants from South America, the other growing ‘newcomer’ groups in the school. This expansion of the course was a result of strong requests from those other ‘newcomer’ students. Foreign students at the school wanted to participate in the ‘course for foreign students’ as a way to find out about themselves as foreigners and about their own countries. A major reason the course was limited initially to Indo-Chinese students was a practical one: the teachers lacked knowledge about any of the students’ countries or their political, economic, and cultural backgrounds, and they had difficulty finding specialists or local volunteers to teach the material. Undertaking one region seemed difficult enough. In the present Japanese teacher training process, teachers do not need specialized knowledge about the countries or backgrounds of foreign

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Figure 8.1 The number of participants in the ‘International elective’ subject by ethnic background, Shimofukuda Junior High School, 2000–05

students to teach classes, and the lack of such specialized knowledge does not indicate teachers’ incompetence. Table 8.1 is the 2001 curriculum for the ‘International elective’ (sentaku kokusai), the course for foreigners after its scope became inclusive of Indo-Chinese, returnees from China, and South Americans. The example is the latest version after many changes were made to suit the needs of the students (different learning content and the learning unit changed into whole class, by area, or in groups). Second, as the scope of the course expanded, and the learning unit was adjusted so that students were better able to find meaning in their studies, students with different backgrounds – Indo-Chinese, Chinese, and South American – came to learn about their own political, economic, and cultural backgrounds, as well as those of other students as migrants; they realized that there were similarities they all shared, but that there were also differences depending on where they came from. The following, for instance, was observed during a class on 3 December 2001: During a review on regional studies, Mario (South American) answered questions that other students could not. Mario looks more cheerful now that he better understands the roots of his own family. Mario willingly talked about the family members remaining in South America, and what he

Table 8.1 The ‘International elective’ curriculum, Shimofukuda Junior High School, 2001 Date

Participants

Curriculum

7 May

Whole class

Orientation: geography

– Basic course description – Introductions, teachers, volunteers, students – Using a world map, students look at their countries and regions of origin

14 May

Whole class

Geography

– Basic knowledge of one’s home country

21 May

Whole class

Geography and history

– Reasons for relocation to Japan

28 May

Whole class By area: L. Am. Indo-Ch. China

Orientation Geography Geography Geog. and history

– – – –

4 June

By area L. Am. Geography Indo-Ch. Geog. and history China Geography

Description of country-based classes Natural resources, Latin America Indo-Chinese China, analysing the origins

– Learning by country – Relocation to Japan – the route – Relocation to Japan – names of major locations

11 June

By area L. Am. Geography Indo-Ch. Geography China Geography

– Continued – Learning by country – Major locations and their names

9 July

By area L. Am. Geography Indo-Ch. Geography China Geog. and history

– Continued – Continued – Review

19 July

Whole class

Geog. and history

– Learning by area

10 September Whole class

Orientation

– Finding one’s roots

17 September Whole class

Contemporary– The terrorist attacks on the US topics History (tasks – History of each region, reason the by region) students relocated to Japan

By area 1 October

By area

History

– Continued

15 October

Whole class

History (common group task History (common group task

– Indo-Chinese history and relocation

By group

22 October

Whole class By group

History (common group task History (common group task

– Common task

– Latin Am./Chinese history and relocation – Common task

Case study of a public housing complex 181 Table 8.1 continued Date

Participants

Curriculum

12 November By area L. Am.

History (tasks – by region) Indo-Ch. History (tasks – by region) China History (tasks – by region)

Theme: the independence of colonies and the industrial revolution Theme: Cold War Theme: imperialism and colonization

19 November By area

History

– Continued

3 December

History (common group task History (common group task

– Latin American countries and independence and industrial revolution Common task

History (common group task History (common group task

– Indo-Chinese countries and the Cold War

Whole class By group

10 December Whole class By group

17 December Whole class By group

History (common group task History (common group task

– Common task

– China: imperialism and colonization – Common task

21 January

Whole class Individual

Summary Summary

– Examples of summaries – Individualized instruction

4 February

Individual

Summary

– Continued

25 February

Presentation after school

Source: Curriculum obtained by the author

plans to do when he grows up. Nishioka (from China) and Phu (Indo-Chinese) were writing down with ease on a handout some of the things they have learned; they seem to be quick learners. However, they have to stop and think when it comes to what people think. We need to give them more of the tasks that require thinking. An (Indo-Chinese) seems to understand the conflict between capitalism and socialism, having learned about it repeatedly since last year, though An says it’s difficult. When I told the class that we would be discussing Indo-Chinese issues in the next class and that Phu and Rasmi would get the spotlight, they had this shy but pleased look on their faces, which I still remember to this day.5

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Scenes like this were often repeated. ‘Newcomer’ students have come to share certain knowledge about what is common to migrant or refugee foreigners in Japan such as themselves, while also recognizing differences. They now know that they should not simply be bundled together as ‘foreigners’ as they have qualities that are special to them. At the same time, Japanese instructors teaching these ‘newcomers’ have also come to understand better the diverse backgrounds of foreign students. Based on observation, this process has empowered the ‘newcomer’ foreigners. For example, Chan (2009), who had felt inferior as a foreigner when he was in elementary school, gave a speech to the entire school at the school culture event, based on the content of the ‘International elective’ course at Shimofukuda Junior High. Chan recalls the moment: At that time, my voice was quivering and the tone was high. But I was able to finish to the end. I read about two to three pages, and I don’t think the presentation took more than five minutes. After the presentation was over, all I could hear was the applause. The moment I finished presenting, I thought, ‘I am starting anew as “the Cambodian Chan Sovannarith”’ because for the first time, I was able to express ‘my true self as a foreigner’. I no longer would say that I dislike myself, that I dislike foreigners. After this event, there were other such occasions, and I started to act more confidently. For example, in the senior year of junior high at the graduating school excursion, I prepared Cambodian food, and showed ethnic dancing from Vietnam and Laos. By this time, it was fun to make ethnic food and engage in ethnic dancing, and I was able to express my true self as a foreigner – something I couldn’t do a bit back. I think that the fact that 10 per cent of the student body at the junior high was foreign, the strong support for foreign students, and the focused practices such as the International Elective at Shimofukuda Junior High helped me (come in touch with myself). Here, it is possible to see the changes occurring in the foreign children, as a result of the ‘International elective’ – an attempt to provide ‘special treatment’ in an institutional context that assumes none is necessary.

A local immigrant children’s group: the SBM group While Shimofukuda Junior High School was experimenting with a class geared to ‘newcomer’ foreign students, ‘newcomer’ children living in the public housing complex, who attended a supplementary study class run by Japanese volunteers, started, with their assistance, a group called Stand-By-Me, in May 2001. Up to the time of writing (July 2009), the group has organized a variety of activities, gradually expanding both the scope and content of its activities. There were ten ‘newcomer’ children in SBM at the time of its establishment, but by 2004 there were said to be over 200 members, and today, there are too many to count. This is because the group now includes preschool children to college students, those

Case study of a public housing complex 183 in their teens and early twenties who have left school and are now working parttime. As membership is flexible, there are stable members of the group, as well as those who may have participated only once. This reflects the nature of this organization as a loose network of ‘newcomers’, tight in the middle, with loosely tied members on the margins. We can gain insight into the group’s activities from the account by a former leader (a Cambodian senior in a high school) of an event that occurred in December 2004: We launched SBM in 2001, and did what we thought we needed to do. That varies from year to year; at the moment, we rent a room in a community facility adjacent to a junior high school in Yamato City, and do our activities there. Twice a week, we have classes in which (Japanese) high school or college students tutor preschool and elementary school children; there’s also ‘Incredible Class!’, started mainly by second-year junior high school students, where they study and sometimes play sports together; and we also have a class for high school students, a self-study class, a drawing class, and a music class. If some of the students cannot make it to class, sometimes we visit them at home and tutor them. Besides remedial classes for regular subjects, we have classes in native languages, i.e. Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, Chinese, and Spanish. (Japanese) college students or adults in the community come and teach these languages to us. Besides studying, we also play sports and have various events. We have two sports groups – one mostly with elementary school students, and another mainly with high school students and frītā (job-hopping, part-time workers), who get together once a week to do all kinds of sports. Recently, the frītā who attended sports sessions started a dance group, and this has become part of our regular activities. We plan and hold various events that we think we need or want to do. For instance, we have held dances, plays in our native languages, summer camps, discussion groups, Christmas parties, study camps for high school entrance exams, and graduation parties. We also help with the Elective International course at Shimofukuda Junior High School in Yamato City. There were only ten children including ourselves when we first started the group, but now we have more than 200 children and adolescents representing thirteen countries. (Fieldnotes, 11 December 2004) Such activities became more known in the community. Figure 8.2 is from a newspaper article introducing the activities of the SBM, reprinted in the spring version of the publication from the Board of Education of Kanagawa prefecture (life-long learning information journal PLANET Kanagawa 2008 (shōgai gakushū jyōhoshi PLANET KANAGAWA 2008)).6

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Figure 8.2 Stand-By-Me newsletter, March 2008

Beyond nationality One characteristic of the SBM group is its ethnic and national diversity. Children from thirteen countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, South Korea, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina, Iran, and Japan) have participated in SBM’s activities. This diversity differentiates SBM clearly from other groups created by the long-established South and North Korean residents in Japan, who have long organized their activities based on their Korean background (Fukuoka 1993; Kim 1999). SBM, however, could not base its activities on any specific

Case study of a public housing complex 185 ethnicity, as the group’s core consisted of foreigners (‘newcomers’) living in the district. For SBM to solidify its core, its members needed to go through a learning process to overcome different cultural backgrounds among themselves. Nguyen (2006), a male Vietnamese youth, explains this process: When I began to get involved in various activities to help foreign children, most of them were from Indo-China, namely Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, as well as from China. It wasn’t until I met Gustavo, the current leader of SBM, that I began working with children from South American countries for the first time. Gustavo was a senior in a junior high school at the time. I felt close to South American children since we are both from overseas, but at the same time they come from very different cultures, so some distance remained. As I got to know the South American children, I began to realize that we had very different sets of issues and concerns. With a growing number of South American children, SBM hosted an event to discuss various issues with South American youths in high schools and universities, with an aim to find out how South American children and IndoChinese children differed. I found out two differences there. First, South Americans are living in Japan for a different reason than us Indo-Chinese. Most Indo-Chinese people are basically here to stay permanently as refugees. South Americans are living in Japan temporarily to earn money and intend to return to their countries eventually. Second, South American and Indo-Chinese are different when they think about why they live in Japan. Knowing that their parents will eventually return to their native countries, South American children have difficulty finding meaning living in Japan. Their parents may have come to Japan to find work; but they themselves don’t have to work yet, and cannot find any purpose in being in Japan; they cannot help feeling uneasy about their life in Japan. Being Japanese descendants, their parents’ generation feels some connection to Japan, unlike their children who don’t have direct ties and thus feel some distance toward this country. That’s why they have a hard time coming to terms with going to school, studying or working in Japan. They just don’t know why they have to be here at all. All in all, the ways in which I have supported Indo-Chinese children do not work with South American children. (Nguyen 2006) Nguyen, himself a ‘newcomer’, became increasingly involved with a different group of the ‘newcomers’, South American children, through interactions such as those described below: The realization that the ways I assisted Indo-Chinese children would not work with South American children made me feel even more frustrated when I met Ricardo. The more frequently Ricardo came to SBM gatherings, and the more time Ricardo spent with me, the more I realized how complex Ricardo’s issues were. At the same time, Ricardo’s issues were constantly changing for

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Mutsumi Shimizu the worse. And yet, I could not offer the kind of support he needed. That was frustrating and often made me feel unsure of what I was to do. (Nguyen 2006)

Nguyen left the following message to Carlos and to other junior high school students who came to SBM gatherings: In Japanese society, few understand your feelings or the hardships you’ve gone through. Few Japanese would lend their ears to your stories and try to help you. Still, for you to survive here, you need to find the Japanese who would listen to you and be on your side, difficult as that is. That is what I’ve learned through my own experience. But let me tell you, I could not find such Japanese people all through elementary school, junior high, high school, and college . . . To survive in Japanese society, you must stick together with other foreigners like yourselves, studying together in this classroom. That’s why I started the SBM group, and I’ve worked with high school and college students here. The Japanese staff and some of your teachers who help us out at SBM are the ones that I’ve found would listen to our stories. Though, of course, not everyone’s like that. (Nguyen 2006) The central message of SBM, therefore, is to enable the ‘newcomer’ members to ‘live in Japan as foreigners’, to discuss issues together, to accumulate a common experience, and to convey the information to those who are facing the issues for the first time. This commonality (as ‘newcomer’ foreigners) has enabled the members to overcome differences in nationality.

The same nationality, but each has his or her own identity The SBM activities, which aim to enable members to ‘live in Japan as foreigners’, sometimes seem to make those foreign children who do not have the ‘something’ that marks one as a ‘foreigner’ seem out of place. A boy named Nishioka, who was born and brought up in Japan, but is a self-professed Chinese as his parents are Chinese, explains the uncomfortable feeling he had when a Chinese girl, Liu Lifeng, who lived in China until she was 14, started to participate in SBM activities: After Lifeng started to participate in the SBM activities, I had more opportunities to interact with Chinese children whose native language is Chinese. Until now, there were opportunities to meet Chinese children who had come to Japanese elementary or junior high school, but since they spoke only Chinese, even if they came to Stand-By-Me, all they did was receive Japanese as a Second Language instruction and there was no opportunity to learn about their concerns about school or about the family; and what’s more, they never continued to come to Stand-By-Me. The existence of Lifeng seemed to make such children feel at ease because they can communicate in

Case study of a public housing complex 187 Chinese, but that also creates dilemmas for me. This is because Lifeng and these children end up talking among themselves in Chinese. This often happens during the junior high school classrooms, the Chinese class, and the Elective International class. I wonder, in times such as this, what they are talking about now, whether it is something important, whether it is all right for me to break in, whether they are understanding what I am saying because it is through interpretation, what they are talking about with Lifeng. This can go on for more than twenty, thirty minutes. And because I end up being really sensitive to what is going on, it is much more stressful for me than being in the classroom without having to think about anything. I have wished many times that I was able to speak Chinese. When something like this occurs, I find that by the time the class ends, I am mentally tired out. Also, it becomes difficult for me to relate to these Chinese students when Lifeng isn’t around. I don’t know what to talk with them about, and I find myself thinking that I don’t want to mingle with them very much. But I have to, since they are there. I think about such things as I interact with them daily. (Nishioka 2009) Nishioka, at some point, resolved this dilemma as below. The following are his words at one of the SBM events: [Then], who am I? I cannot speak Chinese. In terms of blood line, I am both Chinese, through my parents, and Japanese. But I cannot live as a Japanese. If I were Japanese, what would my parents be? But I am also not a Chinese like Lifeng. Yet, if I wanted to be a Chinese, what should I do? This is the conclusion I reached as a result of a lot of thinking. I thought up my own version of what it means to be a Chinese [watashi nari no Chūgokujin]. I think that I might be able to orient myself towards what is Chinese from my position as a Chinese who is closest to a Japanese. In other words, though I may seem Japanese, if my feelings orient towards being Chinese, I can become Chinese. Therefore, in order to make my feelings stronger, I am thinking of starting to learn the Chinese language. I will stop orienting myself towards being Japanese (as I have done in the past). I am thankful that I was able to meet many kinds of Chinese; because of this, I was able to think of how far away from being Chinese I was, or how close I was to Japan. I don’t think many Chinese who are close to Japanese as I am are able to say that they are Chinese. I don’t know what is down the road for me in this sense, and perhaps this route will be much more difficult than living as a Japanese. But rather than face the dilemmas of living as a Japanese, I want to try to live as a Chinese and to walk untrodden paths. (Fieldnotes, 27 January 2007) As this example suggests, SBM tries to function as a space that empowers foreigners (‘newcomers’ by composition) to survive in Japanese society, but at the same time recognizes differences within the foreigners and, without lumping

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them together, enables each and every one to live in Japanese society in his or her own way.

Conclusion The experience of the residents in the public housing complex in question reveals how people from different cultural backgrounds, including ‘the Japanese’ (teachers, students, volunteers, and locals), have struggled to construct a new framework for multicultural coexistence. In schools, teachers have attempted to create a class for foreign students. Although initially categorizing foreign students of different origins by a single criterion of whether they were doing well or not, teachers at Shimofukuda Junior High School later came to understand better the circumstances unique to individual ‘newcomer’ foreign students and discarded the one-dimensional yardstick. This, in turn, empowered these students as a group and led to a broader understanding of the diversity among the ‘newcomer’ foreign students. Outside the school, children thus were empowered as foreign students to create their own organization, with being foreigners in Japan at the core. This organization offered a range of activities that were valued by its members. The activities addressed the challenges of succeeding in the mainstream society and maintaining an identity true to oneself. Examples of the activities are academic support for Japanese school life; language classes to maintain one’s native tongue and to help maintain or construct ethnic identity; and sports, music, and other events that allow students to express the energy suppressed by the comparative advantage enjoyed by their Japanese counterparts. The more foreign ‘newcomer’ children in this housing complex community were involved in the activities offered by the group, the more they were engaged in the community. In this process, these children seemed to come to understand the diversity existing within the category of ‘foreigners in Japan’, under which they were classified. Through this experience, they became aware of their shared interests and what they could share in order to overcome the differences.

Notes 1

2

3

This chapter is based on my published work (Shimizu 2006) with new data added as a result of my research. My research adopts participatory action research (Kemmis and McTaggart 2000, translated in 2006, p. 595; Shimizu 2009). I have presented my fieldwork results of the ethnography to the research participants (e.g. the teachers, the volunteers who assist the ‘newcomers’, and the ‘newcomer’ children themselves) and collaborated on the planning. Cycles of collaboration and replanning and revising continue to this day. The settlement facilitation centre for Indo-Chinese refugees was established on 29 February 1980 and was closed on 31 March 1998, when the political conditions had stabilized in the three Indo-Chinese nations. The author computed the figures based on the 1999 list of names of the community association (jichikai) members.

Case study of a public housing complex 189 4 5

6

The ‘International elective’ at Shimofukuda Junior High School ended in the 2005 school year as there was a rezoning of school districts, and the public housing complex became part of a school district that did not contain the school. Excerpt from class notes dated 3 December 2001, ‘Footprints of the elective International course’ 2001, Shimofukuda Junior High School, Yamato City, Kanagawa prefecture. (The names are pseudonymous. Nationalities in parentheses have been added by the writer.) www.planet.pref.kanagawa.jp/gigyou/teikyou/pla{44/44}-p8.pdf (accessed 9 August 2009).

References Akuzawa, M. (1998) ‘Mainoritī no kodomotachi to kyōiku (Minority children and education)’, in A. Nakagawa (ed.), Mainoritī no kodomotachi (Minority children), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Chan, S. (2009) ‘Henka shiteiku jibun to tsukiatte’, in M. Shimizu and Stand-By-Me (eds), Icho Danchi hatsu! Gaikokujin no kodomotachi no chōsen, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, Fukuoka, Y. (1993) Zainichi kankoku/chōsenjin – wakai sedai no aidentiti kuraisisu, Tokyo: Chuōkoron (Chukōshinsho). Hōmu-shō nyūkokukanri kyoku (Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice) (2009) Heisei 20-nenmatsu genzai ni okeru gaikokujin tōrokusha tōkei ni tsuite (Statistics on registered foreign nationals as of the end of 2007). Available online at www.moj.go.jp/ nyuukokukanri/kouhou/press_090710-1_090710-1.html (accessed 18 July 2009). Kakimoto, T. (2001) ‘Linguistic conditions surrounding foreign students and Japanese language education’, in Kanagawa Prefecture Education and Culture Research Centre (ed.), With foreign children II: in search of a guarantee for academic learning and paths, Yokohama: Kanagawa Prefecture Education and Culture Research Centre. –––– (2002) ‘Creating schools: how can educational sociology be a part?’. Paper presented at the 54th Conference of the Japan Society of Educational Sociology, Hiroshima University, 22 September 2002. Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (2000) ‘Participatory action research’, in N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of qualitative research, 2nd edn, Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage. Kim, T.Y. (1999) Aidentiti poritikkusu o koete – zainichi chōsenjin no esunishiti, Tokyo: Sekai Shisosha. Komai, H. (1997) Shinrai-teijyū gaikokujin ga wakaru jiten (Dictionary for understanding new and settled foreigners), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Miyajima, T. and Kajita, T. (eds) (1996) Gaikokujin rōdōsha kara shimin e (From foreign workers to citizens), Tokyo: Yūhikaku. Nguyen, T.T. (2006) ‘With foreign children: what should we expect from Japanese society?’, in M. Shimizu and A. Kojima (eds), Gaikokujin seito no tame no karikyuramu: Gakkoubunnka no henkaku no kanousei wo saguru (Curriculum for foreign students: exploring possibilities for changing school culture), Kyoto: Sagano Shoin. Nishioka, A. (2009) ‘Chugokujin’ toshite ikiru koto o kimeru made’, in M. Shimizu and Stand-By-Me (eds), Ichō Danchi hatsu! Gaikokujin no kodomotachi no chōsen, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ōta, H. (2000) Nyūkamā no kodomo to nihon no gakkō (Newcomer children and Japanese schools), Tokyo: Kokusai Shoin Shimizu, M. (2006) Nyukama no kodomotachi – gakkō to kazoku no aida no nichijyō Sekai, Tokyo: Keiso Shobo.

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–––– (2009) ‘Esunogurafi no genkai to kanōsei – Nyukama no kodomotachi to sankagata akushon risachi o megutte’, in Y. Minoura (ed.), Firudo waku no giho to jissai II – bunseki/kaishaku hen, Tokyo: Mineruva Shobō. Shimizu, M. and Kojima, A. (eds) (2006) Gaikokujin seito no tame no karikyuramu: Gakkoubunnka no henkaku no kanousei wo saguru (Curriculum for foreign students: exploring possibilities for changing school culture), Kyoto: Sagano Shoin.

9

(Mis)managing diversity in nonmetropolitan public schools The lack of state-sponsored support for ‘newcomer’ children Chris Burgess

At the start of April 2005, Yamagata Prefecture,1 a region of around 1.25 million people located in the north-east (Tōhoku) region of Japan, was in a state of great excitement. For the first time, a local school had reached the last four of the prestigious national high school invitation baseball tournament. Although they were ultimately to lose in the semi-finals, the success of Haguro High School, from the Shōnai region of Yamagata along the Japan Sea, had practically brought the prefecture to a standstill. A key player in the team’s success was star pitcher Mauricio Katayama, a third-generation Japanese-Brazilian who had studied at Haguro since 2003 in the school’s exchange programme. Aside from Katayama, the team also boasted two other Brazilian exchange students, one of whom was dubbed ‘Haguro’s Ichirō’ (Japan’s most famous baseball player). These nonJapanese students, together with America-educated coach, KentoYokota, who both inspired and bemused viewers with his English-heavy interviews, drew attention to the fact that even non-metropolitan, so-called ‘rural’ areas of Japan are becoming increasingly diverse, both culturally and racially. Nowhere is this more evident than in local schools. This chapter focuses on public and private responses and initiatives to the increasing presence of ‘newcomers’ in Yamagata schools. To date, almost all research in this area has focused on what have been called ‘diversity points’ (Tsuneyoshi 2004: 56) or shūjū toshi, urban areas with large, visible concentrations of non-Japanese, such as Kanagawa prefecture (Kawasaki City), Shizuoka prefecture (Hamamatsu City), Gunma prefecture (Ōta City), as well as Tokyo and Osaka. However, most children who require Japanese instruction are not concentrated in such areas but rather spread across Japan: around 80 per cent of schools and half of villages, towns and cities have four or fewer such students (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) 2008a). In other words, statistically, regions such as Yamagata are much more representative of the experiences of the majority of non-Japanese children in Japan compared with the ‘diversity points’, which even advocates acknowledge are by no means typical (Nukaga 2003: 81). As such, the purpose of this chapter is both to note the existence of a gap in the research and to begin to address that gap through original research.

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The chapter proceeds as follows. The first section will define the terms and categories used in the debate on ‘newcomer’ children. The next section will examine the common notion that Japanese schools are homogeneous places that force ‘newcomer’ children to assimilate to the Japanese language and culture. Then, following a summary of national policy responses towards ‘newcomer’ children, the chapter moves on to an overview of the situation in Yamagata. This section gives voice to parents, children and teachers in Yamagata using questionnaire, interview and other data. The conclusion will reiterate the central argument, namely that, contrary to the impression given by most academic research and media reports, the majority of public schools are unable to provide adequate – if any – support to ‘newcomer’ students. Rather, it is local volunteers and non-governmental organizations that are the major players in supporting ‘newcomer’ children.

Who are ‘newcomer’ children? Research on the latest wave of diversity in Japanese schools (e.g. Ōta 1996, 2000; Miyajima and Suzuki 2000; Shimizu and Shimizu 2001) has tended to focus on the category ‘newcomer (foreign) children’.2 Shimizu and Shimizu (2001: 3) define ‘newcomers’ (nyūkamā) as those who came to Japan from the mid 1970s onwards. Like the term ‘newcomer’ itself, ‘newcomer (foreign) children’ typically refers to children who were born and brought up outside Japan. Children of Nikkeijin (South Americans of Japanese descent) are a typical example. Another example are step-children, exemplified by the case of a non-Japanese woman marrying a Japanese man, who brings (or is later joined by – yobiyose) a child or children (tsureko) from a first marriage (Fukatsu 2003).3 In contrast, children who are born and brought up in Japan (and who have linguistic and cultural fluency in Japanese and, very often, Japanese citizenship), even if one or both parent(s) is a ‘newcomer’, tend not to be included in the category ‘newcomer children’. Nevertheless, such children may also have additional languages, experiences, knowledge and identities. They may also look different. 4 The number of registered foreign children of compulsory school age5 as of December 2007 was 131,898 (Hōmushō 2008), a figure that does not include the children of the more than 200,000 undocumented migrants estimated to be resident in Japan (Burgess 2008a: Table 2). The number of non-Japanese children actually enrolled in Japanese public schools was 72,751 as of 1 May 2007 (MEXT 2008a). The work of Ōta Haruo, an authority in the field, illustrates the difficulties in defining ‘newcomer’ children. In his 1996 article, Ōta (1996) examined nyūkamā gaikokujin no kodomo (newcomer foreign children), mirroring Takahashi and Vaipae’s (1996) book of the same year, which also refers to ‘foreign children/ students’. However, his 2000 book (Ōta 2000) focused on nyūkamā no kodomo, dropping the ‘foreign’ qualifier. This acknowledges the reality that, despite being born and brought up elsewhere, many children do naturalize and become Japanese citizens, a procedure that in recent years has become relatively simple (MurphyShigematsu 2004: 53). However, the popular association of the term ‘newcomer’ with ‘recently arrived’ forced Ōta (1996: 141) to exclude residents (teijūgaikokujin)

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 193 from his definition. The arbitrariness of the distinction between ‘newcomer’ and ‘resident’ – and the difficulty in deciding when a ‘newcomer’ becomes a ‘resident’ – may have prompted a change of tack. In his 2002 article (Ōta 2002), he focuses on ‘children whose first language is not the school language’. This latter category bears similarities (but important differences) with the category adopted by MEXT, namely Nihongo shidō ga hitsuyō na gaikokujin jidō seito (foreign students who need Japanese language instruction). As of 1 September 2007, 25,411 foreign children were classified as requiring Japanese language instruction in public schools, 35 per cent of the total enrolled (MEXT 2008a). Of these, 21,206 (83.5 per cent) were reportedly receiving some sort of support. MEXT’s category is problematic for a number of reasons. First, there is no clear official definition of the term, judgement usually being left to individual schools (Miyajima and Suzuki 2000: 192). Second, once students are adjudged to have reached a certain level of Japanese – usually proficiency in daily conversation and basic reading – they fall outside the Ministry’s scope and ‘disappear’ from the statistics. But, as many have noted, proficiency in everyday language (basic interpersonal communication skills, or BICS), which typically takes one to two years to acquire, is quite different from proficiency in the language of school life (cognitive/academic language proficiency or CALP), which typically requires five to seven years (Cummins 1981; Fukatsu 2003: 16). The result is that, although the ‘problem’ of language and of acculturation to school life is often considered solved after a year or so, in fact such students increasingly fall behind, unable to participate in or follow what is going on in class (Ōta 1996: 128–9). Sasaki and Akuzawa (2001: 108) are particularly critical of the MEXT categorization, pointing out that, even if such children come to speak and act like Japanese, ‘foreigners are still foreigners’. ‘[A]s the number of . . . children who . . . do not require Japanese as a Second Language assistance increases’, writes Tsuneyoshi (2004: 62), ‘there may be a need to coin another term which is sensitive to the diversity within this category.’ In the absence of an alternative category, for the purpose of this chapter I continue to use ‘newcomer children’ as convenient shorthand. However, I focus in particular on those children whose first language is not Japanese (nihongo o bogo to shinai jidō seito), a category more in evidence at the local level.6 This category inevitably excludes key elements of diversity in the student population, such as second- and third-generation migrants, indigenous minorities and ‘half’ children. However, it does avoid the arbitrariness of the MEXT category, including both children who: (a) have attained proficiency in everyday Japanese; and (b) hold Japanese citizenship.7 It also reflects the recent unprecedented diversity – in terms of numbers, languages and geographical spread – which Ōta (2000: 6) has called ‘one of the most significant historical challenges to the Japanese public school system’.

‘Newcomers’ in Japanese public schools Both the constitution and the Fundamental Law of Education guarantee nine years of compulsory schooling for Japanese nationals. Although there is no similar

194 Chris Burgess domestic provision referring to the education of foreign nationals, in practice any non-Japanese child who expresses a desire to go to public school and submits a negaisho (letter of request)8 can enter on the same terms as a Japanese child (MEXT 2005a: 4). This policy of equal treatment, with its roots in the 1965 Japan–Korea Status Agreement (Fukatsu 2003: 13), was originally focused on the children of resident Koreans. Sasaki and Akuzawa (2001: 98) relate the 1987 case of Cambodian parents of a school-age child failing to receive notification to attend school. However, by 1991, local governments were required to send out shugaku annai (information on attending school9) to the school-age children of all registered10 foreign nationals; moreover, educational rights and entitlements are now enshrined in various international conventions ratified by the Japanese government (Okano and Tsuchiya 1999: 136). While some criticize the need to gain ‘permission’ to go to school as making education appear a ‘favour’ rather than a right (Ōta 1996: 124), instances such as the 1992 case of a child being refused entry owing to lack of Japanese ability (Sasaki and Akuzawa 2001: 98) are practically unheard of today.11 While the principle of ‘equal treatment’ ensures that non-Japanese children are treated the same as Japanese children, many writers have noted that difference tends to be suppressed in Japanese education. Tsuneyoshi (2004: 76–7) describes an ideology of issei kyōdōtai shugi (togetherness), which, by placing value on working cooperatively and dressing uniformly, helps to sustain an image of homogeneity. Similarly, Shimizu and Shimizu (2001: 4, 26) describe school culture as uniform, closed and based on a principle of issei shūdan shugi – the group acting in unison, all together – traits that put great pressure on students to assimilate. What is interpreted as ‘assimilation’ usually entails urging students to become more ‘Japanese-like’ (Nukaga 2003: 82). Ōta calls this the principle of national education (kokumin kyōiku) the idea that the fundamental purpose of schooling in Japan is to educate Japanese citizens (Fukatsu 2003: 14). Recent government educational reforms provide some support for this position. For example, the Central Council on Education describes the goal of education as ‘nurturing spiritually-rich and strong Japanese to open up a new path in the 21st century’, noting that ‘it is important to raise (hagukumu) individuals who are conscious of the fact that they are Japanese, who love hometown and nation, and who have proud hearts’ (Central Council for Education 2005: 3). Moreover, a patriotic attitude is listed as one of the key educational goals in the revision of the Fundamental Law of Education (Yomiuri Shinbun 2005a), which was passed by the Diet in December 2006 (Yomiuri Shinbun 2006). In March 2008, MEXT published a revised education curriculum guideline for elementary and middle schools that called for the promotion of patriotism in school education (Japan Times 2008). Yoon (1996, 1997), like Ōta above, is critical of what he sees as a ‘nationalistic’ system of education in Japanese schools and argues for a system more accepting of children with different cultural backgrounds. However, this kind of ‘multicultural’ discourse is not without its critics. Ōkubo (2008), in a study of Chinese and Vietnamese children in a buraku community in Osaka, noted how many

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 195 teachers and volunteers strongly promoted ‘retaining and nurturing ethnic identity’. The slogan of multiculturalism, she argues, resulted in the marginalization of newcomers who were ‘forced to’ claim ethnic identities and ‘expected to’ live as minorities.12 Contradictions are rife. On the one hand, a number of researchers have argued that Japanese schools are homogenous places characterized by strong pressures to assimilate. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that educational assimilation was a key feature in the integration of older minority groups in Japan, such as the Ainu, Ryūkyūjin and Burakumin, and also, at least until the mid 1990s, towards Japanese returnees (kikokuseito). On the other hand, both nationalistic and multicultural discourses can work to marginalize foreigners and exclude them from becoming Japanese, suggesting strong pressures against assimilation. Clearly, non-Japanese children encounter a number of contradictory signals. ‘They should become like us’, writes Fukatsu (2003: 132), ‘and yet they should know that they are different.’ One problem is that many researchers have tended to adopt a generalized, onedimensional view of all Japanese schools, one that ignores their complexity and variety. Rohlen and LeTendre’s (1996) edited volume contains a number of ethnographic studies of Japanese classrooms that suggest that Japanese public schools – at least at the primary level – are not homogenizing but very much studentcentred and inquiry based. Susser (1998: 56–60) provides an excellent summary of other relevant literature in a detailed critique of the common stereotypes of Japanese education as group-oriented, hierarchical and harmonious. Finally, Lewis’s (1995: 12) observation that elementary school teachers devote a good deal of attention to developing a sense of community, so that all children come to feel like valued members of the school community, shows how ‘conformist’ can be reinterpreted as ‘caring’. The only conclusion that can be made is that the kind of environment that newcomer children enter – and presumably the kind of support they receive – varies hugely depending on what stage they enter the school system13 and the individual school itself. Another problem with many existing studies is their failure to acknowledge that students are not passive ‘victims’ moulded by their environment, but active agents negotiating multiple discourses – homogeneity, nationalism, multiculturalism – as they constantly construct and reconstruct their identities. Morita (2002: 1), in a study of three Japanese-Brazilian students enrolled in a Japanese elementary school, describes her subjects as follows: They are not simply passive recipients of obstacles, but are tactically sensitive agents: the seemingly disadvantaged foreign students actually maximize their personal resources and maneuver survival strategies for identity politics, whereby they position themselves as equal to or better than multiple marginal students. The perspective of agency and politics can trigger Japanese researchers to reconsider their static thinking of Japan’s unique demerits (i.e. cultural incompatibility and oppressive homogenizing pressure) as the newcomer foreign children’s major obstacles.

196 Chris Burgess By not starting off with assumptions of homogeneity, Morita is able to show how the three students managed to integrate socially by actively taking control of their identities and creating positive senses of themselves. Nevertheless, however resourceful individual students may be, the construction of positive selfidentities clearly depends a great deal on their social interaction with, and the support they receive from, those around them, including (according to Morita’s findings) other ‘minority’ students. Morita’s research, like most existing studies, sheds little light on the situation in non-metropolitan areas, which are typically ineligible for national government aid because ‘newcomers’ are so few in number and rarely concentrated in a single school.

National support for ‘newcomer’ children Although the government had offered support to returnees for many years, ‘newcomer’ children only became an issue following the 1990 revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act and the corresponding increase in Nikkeijin. The first survey on ‘The reception situation of foreign students who need Japanese instruction’ came out in 1991 and thereafter appeared every other year until 1999, when it began to be published annually. Since 1992, the most common form of support has been the dispatch of teachers to individual schools specifically to teach Japanese as a second language (JSL) and to provide guidance on school culture. However, according to Ōta (2002: 96), these teachers are not all Japanese teaching specialists and, in any case, are too few in number, only being dispatched to schools with large concentrations of newcomers. Moreover, as Fukatsu (2003: 19) points out, funding from the national budget for these teachers was abolished in the 2003 academic year. Now, the national government pays a third – down from a half in 2004 – of the salaries of these teachers under exceptional additional expenses (tokurei kasan); the budget for 2008 covered 985 teachers, unchanged from 2004 (MEXT 2008a). Overall, MEXT’s ‘Policies towards returnee and foreign students’ (‘Kikoku/ gaikokujinjidō seito kyōiku ni kansuru shisaku’) (MEXT 2008b) are mostly concerned with guidance on learning Japanese and adjusting/adapting to Japanese school culture. On top of the dispatch of teachers, the support policies implemented at the national level include a once-a-year, four-day workshop for teachers and the creation and distribution of a multilingual ‘Guidebook for starting school’ (see n.9). Two new projects also started in 2007: a large project to survey and research the various policies implemented in twenty-nine regions, and a project to encourage the spread and promotion of a practical JSL curriculum (MEXT 2008a). In terms of policies actually implemented at the local level, the most common measures include dispatch of counsellors fluent in the students’ mother tongue, in-service training of teachers in charge, and setting up of counselling/consultation services offering advice on school and educational matters. An increase in students needing Japanese instruction of 13.4 per cent between September 2006 and 2007 prompted appeals from prefectural boards of education (Yomiuri Shinbun 2008) and the Ministry’s own panel of experts (Nishi Nippon Shinbun 2008a) for more support

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 197 for ‘newcomer’ children; however, it was unclear at this stage whether MEXT would increase the budget or introduce any new measures for 2009. Since 2003, the government has encouraged municipalities to launch tokku special structural reform zones eligible for deregulation. For example, after having its tokku project approved in March 2005, Ōta City hired seven full-time bilingual teachers holding teaching certificates from either Japan or Brazil (Daily Yomiuri 2005). More recently, in what may be a national first, in July 2008, Aichi prefecture announced the establishment of a 700 million yen fund, in cooperation with local firms and residents, to help NGOs and related groups organize language classes for foreign-born students (Nishi Nippon Shinbun 2008b). Again, though, the point is that such funding is exclusively channelled to urban areas with high concentrations of newcomers. In the following section, I examine the support available to, and the problems encountered by, students in a non-metropolitan area.

The research site: Yamagata Yamagata has the highest percentage of three-generation households in Japan (Yamagata Prefecture Tōkei Kyōkai 2005: 24), a statistic that reflects the continued influence of the traditional ie (household) system in the prefecture. Indeed, the desire of some ie to reproduce themselves and the associated agricultural way of life resulted in local governments, concerned at the increase in unmarried eldest sons, implementing kōkeisha taisaku (measures to retain heirs) (Tamanoi 1998: 200). One manifestation of this policy was the ‘importation’ of foreign brides (Suzuki 2000: 147). In 1985, Asahi Town in Yamagata became the first place in Japan to bring in brides from abroad (Shukuya 1988). Today, one in sixteen (6.2 per cent) of all marriages in the prefecture are ‘international’ marriages, compared with around one in seventeen (5.8 per cent) nationally (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) 2007). These marriages have fuelled the rapid growth of the foreign population in the prefecture, which has more than doubled since 1996 (Table 9.1). As non-Japanese spouses become increasingly Table 9.1 Registered foreigners in Japan and Yamagata by number, 1996–2006 1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

Japan 1,415,136 (% increase)

1,512,116 (6.9)

1,686,444 (11.5)

1,851,758 (10)

1,973,747 (6.6)

2,084,919 (5.6)

Yamagata 3,619 (% increase)

4,626 (31)

6,347 (33)

6,926 (9)

7,384 (5.6)

7,548 (2.2)

Notes: Figures are for 31 December of the relevant years. ‘% increase’ is from the previous year in the table. Because of differences in the way figures are tallied up, the locally gathered figures here show slight discrepancies with Ministry of Justice compiled data on the prefecture. Sources: Yamagata figures are from Sōma (2003: 161) and Kokusai Shitsu (2008: 52). National Figures are from the official statistics of the Immigration Bureau of Japan, available at www.immi-moj. go.jp/toukei/index.html.

198 Chris Burgess settled in an extended family, a neighbourhood and a local community, many choose to apply for permanent residence or even citizenship. Despite prevailing images of ‘Filipino brides’, Koreans and Chinese comprise almost three-quarters of registered foreigners in Yamagata, the vast majority ‘newcomers’ rather than ‘oldcomers’.14 Foreign spouses easily comprise the largest group of newcomers in Yamagata. These spouses, rooted in an extended family, a neighbourhood and a local community, have infiltrated local society in a way that many temporary or circular ‘transnational’ migrants in other areas have not (Burgess 2004a; 2008b). Aside from the spouses, another group of newcomers stands out. Yamagata has the second highest number of returnees from China (Nishigami 1999: 225). The presence of several thousand Chinese returnees in Yamagata is due to the high rate of labour migration from the prefecture to Manchuria during the 1930s (Takagi 1997: 100). The number of non-Japanese children (aged five to fourteen) registered in Yamagata stood at 220 as of December 2007 (Hōmushō 2008), a figure that does not include those children born in Japan to one non-Japanese and one Japanese parent, those who have been naturalized or those who hold dual nationality. Data on non-Japanese children actually enrolled in public schools were not available. However, Yamagata City states that there are no non-attendees within the city. As discussed earlier, MEXT data on ‘foreign children who need Japanese instruction’ only cover those foreign students who are considered as needing JSL instruction. Nevertheless, Table 9.2 does give some indication of the number of older children brought to Japan in recent years. As Table 9.2 indicates, students whose mother tongue was Chinese were by far the largest group, with Korean native speakers a distant second. Undoubtedly, this reflects the presence of many Chinese returnees in Yamagata. Children whose first language was Portuguese numbered only two, reflecting the small number of Nikkeijin in the prefecture. This is the opposite of the national picture in which Portuguese and Spanish native speakers comprise more than half of all such children. However, as nationally, children are spread across schools, with the Table 9.2 Foreign students who need Japanese instruction, showing mother tongue and school level, Yamagata Prefecture, 2007a Korean Elementary schools Middle schoolsb High schoolsc Total

Chinese

Filipino/ Tagalog

Portuguese Others

Total

9 5 1

17 17 3

3 1 0

0 1 0

1 3 1

30 27 5

15

37

4

1

5

62

Notes: a Figures are as of 1 September 2007. b Also referred to as ‘lower secondary schools’ in other literature. c Also referred to as ‘upper secondary schools’ in other literature. Source: Kokusai Shitsu (2008: 30).

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 199 sixty-two students scattered across forty-eight different schools (MEXT 2008a). Interestingly, the figure of sixty-two for 2007 shows a sharp decrease from 2001, when the number stood at 110 (MEXT 2002), supporting the assertion that children quickly drop out of the category once they are judged to have reached a certain level of Japanese. In other words, although the figure of sixty-two children ‘who need Japanese instruction’ gives the impression of a very low level of cultural diversity, this should be seen as only the tip of the multicultural iceberg.

Questionnaire and interview data The realization that, contrary to the impression given by most academic research and media reports, the majority of public schools are unable to provide adequate support to ‘newcomer’ students arose from a period of Ph.D. fieldwork in Yamagata carried out from September 2001 to March 2002. During this period, I was affiliated with the International Volunteer Centre Yamagata (IVY),15 a small NPO that, while running some projects in Cambodia, was mainly concerned with providing counselling and language support for non-Japanese in the locality, especially women who had come from abroad to marry Japanese men. Initially, the research focused on the identity construction of female international marriage migrants in Yamagata and their role as potential agents of social change (Burgess 2003). However, during fieldwork, the issue of ‘newcomer’ children came to the fore. The necessity of providing ‘newcomer’ children with appropriate Japanese language support was first discussed at an IVY-sponsored two-day symposium in Yamagata on 22–3 December 2001, entitled ‘Nihon no gakkō de manabu kodomotachi e no Nihongo kyōiku (Japanese Language Education for Children in Japanese Schools)’. This was followed by a March–April 2002 questionnaire, administered by IVY on behalf of the prefectural international office and in collaboration with prefectural and local education boards. The questionnaire results were used by IVY and other local volunteer organizations to establish the first-ever support programmes for these children. Three kinds of data are presented in roughly chronological order. The first consists of interviews with non-Japanese women, conducted during the initial fieldwork period. Although the original research focus had been on the identity construction of so-called ‘Asian brides’, interviewees with children inevitably talked about childrearing and education in Japan during the course of their interviews. The second kind of data comes from the prefecture-wide questionnaire, a survey the author helped to put together and translate while in Yamagata, but that has never been made public. The third kind of data consists of interviews with volunteer teachers and project organizers, conducted via e-mail and during a number of short return visits to Yamagata. Although there is only space to hear brief snatches of the voices of these parents, students and teachers, the data do highlight some of the differences between the kind of support given to newcomer children in urban areas, where most of the existing studies have taken place, and that in non-metropolitan areas, such as Yamagata.

200 Chris Burgess Parent voices Marriage migrants with children from previous marriages can either bring their children with them to start a new life together in Japan or leave them with relatives in their homeland so that they can continue their schooling before joining the mother later. The latter option was by far the most common. One example was Yai, who came from China in 1999 to marry her Japanese husband. According to Yai, among Chinese newcomers in Yamagata, it is often said that, in order for their mother tongue to become properly established, it is better for their children to complete elementary school in China before coming to Japan. Then, because the semester system differs between the two countries, children can enter the second semester of 6th grade in Japan and study Japanese (kokugo) intensively before going on to middle school. But, when she talks of her eleven-year-old daughter in China, she becomes visibly upset: My husband tells me to bring her to Japan . . . [but] I’ve heard bullying is rife in Japanese schools, you see. And besides, China is the best place for her to study. After she’s a bit older and can make decisions for herself, she’ll come to Japan. We always talk on the phone, but it makes me sad, really sad. Yai’s daughter did, as planned, join her mother in Japan and is now attending the local middle school. Yai’s story mirrors that of Myung-Mi, a Korean who also came to Yamagata in 1999 to marry her Japanese husband: There was nobody in the house except for me and my husband and fatherin-law. I was lonely. My daughter didn’t come with me. I was on my own. It was hard. At first I didn’t tell anybody about my daughter. For about a year I really suffered [with that secret] . . . I was worried about my daughter, whether she would be happy living here not knowing the language in a different culture with different customs. Like Yai’s, Myung-Mi’s thirteen-year-old daughter eventually joined her in Japan and entered the local school. According to her mother, she now has no problem with either Japanese or Korean.16 The final interview excerpt is from Kanlin, a Chinese who had come to Japan as a foreign student in 1992 and was now working. She was married, not to a Japanese, but to a fellow Chinese, and was concerned, not with bringing her son to Japan, but when she would take him back to China: Now, my son is a middle school student. I brought him to Japan when he was a first-year elementary school student. He speaks mostly Japanese now, though he can speak Chinese. It’s kanji. He can’t write [Chinese] kanji. Can’t read or write. That’s because we couldn’t teach it at home. Last year we debated whether to go back home or stay in Japan. In the end, we decided that for his sake we should stay a little longer in Japan.

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 201 These excerpts provide some background for understanding the 2002 questionnaire, a survey that represented the first attempt to systematically grasp the situation of newcomer parents and children in Yamagata. Student voices Entitled ‘Nihongo o bogo to shinai jidō seito to hogosha o taishō to suru ankēto’, the questionnaire was aimed at those children (and their guardians) attending elementary and middle schools within the prefecture whose first language was not Japanese. Of the 263 questionnaires, 105 were sent to those identified in MEXT’s 2001 survey as requiring Japanese language instruction, 53 to students deemed in the past to have required instruction, and 105 to the children of Chinese returnees deemed to require (or who in the past required) instruction. In addition, sixteen respondent families (thirteen Chinese and three Korean) agreed to follow-up interviews carried out in their native language. Questionnaires were provided in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Portuguese and English. The reply rate was 27.4 per cent. With questions focusing on learning and lifestyle, results and recommendations were presented in a March 2003 unpublished prefectural report. One interesting point was that over half of the respondents chose to fill out the Japanese questionnaire, while a quarter of children who were judged to require Japanese instruction had Japanese nationality. As pointed out earlier, these children would not have appeared in MEXT’s ‘foreign student’ category. The vast majority of children had been in Japan between six months and three years. When asked what they would like the school or locality to do, replies included Japanese instruction (forty-three), lesson support (thirty-one), dispatch of interpreters (fourteen) and mother-tongue support (ten). When asked who they would like to see in school or in the locality, the top three answers were: someone who can teach Japanese in their mother tongue (twenty-seven); someone who can interpret and counsel in their mother tongue (twenty-three); and teachers who understand their mother tongue (twenty). A child-friendly dictionary (thirty-nine) and bilingual materials (twenty-two) and textbooks (thirteen) were items picked out as most desirable. Although statistical data were useful, it was the (anonymous) individual voices of the children themselves in the free-response part of the survey that provided some of the deepest insights. For example, only individual’s words can fully convey the hardships of the early months: It’s a year and a half since I came to Japan. This year and a half, however hard I study I feel progress in Japanese has been slow. At school, when I see my classmates talking about something interesting and laughing out loud I have no idea what to say. Watching others next to me laughing makes my face stiffen. At such times, I feel really bad. Next year, I will take the entrance examination to go on to high school. At first, I intended to take the exam of the best school in the area, but now, with my Japanese level, it’s extremely difficult. I can’t count on passing. I really don’t know what to do.

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Worry over the future and particularly over progressing on to high school was a constant theme. Some children talked of hating school and study and wanting to go back home, to their native country, to see relatives and friends. Nevertheless, many children did overcome their initial difficulties and achieve some measure of happiness and success: The first year after coming to Japan was really tough. I was troubled by Japanese language study, cultural differences, and relations with friends. However, bit by bit I came to speak Japanese and school became fun. I have made lots of friends and now it’s so much fun I can barely contain myself! I’m going to graduate soon, but even after that I want to strive to do the best I can. Some students even made practical suggestions regarding ways to alleviate the feelings of isolation and loneliness that tended to characterize the first year or so: It was really tough [at first]. Sitting in the classroom, listening to the lesson – well, I couldn’t understand anything. Even if my friends laughed I had no idea what was funny. I was on my own, alone. At first I would have loved to have been taught by a teacher who knew my native language. That had always been a wish of mine. If there had been someone I could discuss things with in my native language, someone who would listen to what I have to say, it would have been fantastic. This kind of comment was fairly typical, a powerful reminder that, in most cases, the students were the only non-Japanese native not only in the class but also in the whole school. Many respondents noted how much easier adjustment would have been if, during the first few months, there had been someone who understood their native language around. In particular, students struggled with Japanese (kokugo) and mathematics, with around 30 per cent saying they could not understand these classes. With only a handful of Chinese- or Korean-speaking instructors of Japanese dispatched by volunteer organizations in Yamagata City itself at the time – and no systematic support at all outside the prefectural capital – IVY identified native-language support and supplementary classes as the key areas that needed to be developed. Teacher voices This results of this questionnaire shed light on some of the difficulties and problems faced by ‘newcomer’ children about which, previously, little had been known. However, despite the fact that the questionnaire was carried out under the auspices of the prefectural international office, public organizations showed little inclination to introduce any policy initiatives.17 Instead, it was left up to local volunteer organizations to provide support. For example, since the 2002 questionnaire, IVY has sponsored workshops and teacher-training courses, career

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 203 guidance sessions with interpreters present and study-bees to supplement regular school classes, including a Saturday class for returnees from China. One Chinesespeaking Japanese IVY member who teaches Japanese (kokugo) part-time in a local high school summed up her experiences as follows: It’s been three years now I’ve been teaching there. In the first year, all I did was to translate letters between the guardian of a Chinese girl, who was in another class, and her teacher. The school didn’t realise that the girl needed academic Japanese support and it seems she couldn’t keep up. In the second year, last year, I had a Korean boy in my class, and this year there’s a Chinese girl . . . The Korean boy was upper class and in that sense he seemed settled.18 The class itself was easy to teach and caring for him was also relatively easy . . . he provided a lot of opportunities for everybody to think about the odd points and special features of Japanese which he noticed. However, despite the presence of some individuals like this within the schools, in Yamagata, ‘newcomer’ children for the most part receive support not inside schools but outside. The key programme here is the Yamagata Schooling Support (YSS) programme, run by the Yamagata City International Friendship Association (YIFA). YIFA, although nominally an independent organization, is closely affiliated with Yamagata City, receiving most of its funding from the city and with the mayor as its head. In May 2004, YIFA made use of a national government regional development grant to establish a ‘Resident foreigner school support programme’ (Zaijū gaikokujin shūgaku shien jigyō) (Yamagata Shinbun 2004). Aimed at children between five and twenty years old and utilizing both bilingual staff and student volunteers, there are three main ‘courses’ on offer, on top of a summer intensive course and a school-visit course. The first is a four-hour-a-day, five-day-a-week Japanese class for newly arrived children. The second provides supplementary classes at weekends for those already attending school. The third is a ‘high-teen’ five-day-a-week class aimed at older children who have finished compulsory education in their own country and who may be thinking of going to high school or university in Japan. From May 2004 to March 2005, there were ten, forty-three and eleven participants, respectively, for the three courses, with countries of birth comprising China (forty-three), the Philippines (eight), Korea (seven), the USA (four), Thailand (one) and Japan (one). As classes take place in the Yamagata City Sister City Exchange Centre – management of which is entrusted by the city to YIFA – most students (60 per cent) were from Yamagata City itself. The Centre also holds various one-off events, such as parties, career counselling, get-togethers for guardians, and workshops for teachers. The YSS programme has been an unreserved success. In some ways, it has been a victim of its own success as the venue has become a popular refuge, where newcomer children who cannot concentrate in school and/or who lack motivation come to hang out, often for hours on end. The key problem is inevitably funding. With the initial government grant of 16.7 million yen being for one year only, there were real fears that the programme might have to be scrapped once this ran

204 Chris Burgess out (Mainichi Shinbun 2005). Eventually, thanks to a 6 million yen grant from the city, a further million from five other surrounding cities and towns19 and some help from local NPOs and the prefectural and national government, the programme was able to continue into its second year, albeit with cutbacks in personnel and classes (Yamagata Shinbun 2005b). One insider, a Japanese teacher who also helps run the programme, describes the situation in quite bleak terms: The effects have been dramatic. In the 2005 financial year, only the coordinator has remained full-time, with the other [four] teachers now paid hourly . . . The two other teachers from last year have gone elsewhere. Of course, the programme has been drastically cut. Despite the fact that we’re supporting children, one precondition [of the new funding] was that we couldn’t dispatch teachers to schools, something I strongly objected to and fought against. Eventually, and only very recently, we’ve been allowed to do this on a limited basis. In terms of how we support [the children], there are too many problems to list, but basically lack of funds mean we can’t run a proper programme. On top of this, the administrative framework and restrictions are too much. I no longer know who this support programme is for and what its purpose is. With the number of newcomers falling for the first time in 2006, support for ‘newcomer’ children was restructured in April 2007, in the form of the Yamagata Kodomo Nihongo Sapōto Netto (Yamagata Support Net for Kids’ Japanese). Since then, Support Net has been dispatching some of its twenty or so volunteers to eleven elementary and middle schools in the Murayama area, where they offer Japanese language support to sixteen children with non-Japanese roots.20 As with the YSS programme, lack of funds continued to be a problem; however, unlike YSS, the Network operated independently from the public bureaucracy. This brought problems of its own, specifically a heavy workload for those running the organization and friction between registered ‘supporters’. Because of these problems, responsibilities for coordination and dispatch of volunteers were due to be borne by local education boards from April 2009, with Support Net to offer only a skeleton counselling service. Another insider describes the overall situation rather negatively: Regarding Japanese classes, there is currently no-one – neither an organisation nor a person – familiar enough with national policy to have the vision to move things forward. It’s really sad. There is the danger that the important role that Japanese language classes play will be overlooked . . . There are perhaps two in the prefectural Association for International Relations in Yamagata (AIRY) who appreciate this, and nobody in the Yamagata City government. The one positive piece of news is a new initiative at one Yamagata City elementary school to help Chinese background students maintain their mother tongue. Sponsored by IVY, the programme began in February 2008 as a pilot

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 205 scheme and, at the time of writing, runs twice a month and teaches fifteen children from both inside and outside the school. The scheme is popular among parents, who have asked IVY to hold classes every week, but budgetary constraints again mean that this is impossible. To sum up, the dilemma is that, while volunteer organizations like IVY and YIFA do not have the funding or personnel to offer proper support on their own, local public funding is often so tied up in red-tape as to compromise their activities. The bottom line is that, in rural areas with small numbers of newcomers, the issue is not a priority, and the conservative members of city, town and village education boards, where decisions are often made, typically take the view that such children should be integrated as quickly as possible. As one recent headline in the local newspaper put it, ‘Nihongo hayaku narete ne’ (Get used to Japanese quickly, OK!) (Yamagata Shinbun 2004).

Conclusion: invisible children Yamagata’s recent success in the national high school invitation baseball tournament was a reminder that diversity is no longer limited to metropolitan areas – or schools – in Japan. This is not to say that places such as Yamagata have large populations of ‘foreigners’. Representativeness is a slippery term, and in terms of registered foreigners it is difficult to say that Yamagata is particularly representative of diversity in Japan. Nevertheless, public schools with small concentrations of non-Japanese are, statistically, the rule rather than the exception. However, to date, it is the exceptions, the so-called ‘diversity points’, that have tended to receive the majority of media and academic attention. Although such work has importance, it is also important to look at what is happening outside places like Kanagawa, Shizuoka and Gunma, in order to broaden our understanding of the experiences of ‘newcomer’ children in Japanese society. The problems with the terms and categories used in the discussion on ‘newcomer’ children work against this broadening of the field of study. The category ‘foreign students who need Japanese instruction’ is particularly problematic for the way it excludes large swathes of diversity, disguising the true extent of multiculturalism in the regions. Nevertheless, the reality is that the 80 per cent of schools who have four or fewer students who are adjudged to ‘need Japanese instruction’ generally do not qualify for national government assistance such as the dispatch of special teachers. As a result, support tends to come, not from inside, but from outside the school. Sometimes, volunteer organizations are the only source of support for the majority of ‘newcomer’ children in Japan. In this sense, Yamagata offered an example of the ways local players outside schools have responded to the growing diversity of the student population. Following the belated recognition of the issue, the initial steps in Yamagata came from a local NPO. Later, the prefectural city – collaborating closely with the NPO – set up a practical programme of support. However, without a clear overall policy statement at the prefectural level for the education of the ‘culturally different’, programmes remain ad hoc and dependent on annual budget fluctuations.

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Two of the most authoritative recent Japanese studies of newcomer children in Japanese public schools have opened with similar observations. For Ōta (2000: 25–6), MEXT’s policy of treating newcomer children the same as Japanese children renders them ‘invisible’ or ‘absent’. Shimizu and Shimizu’s (2001: 34) study observes that newcomer children are, ‘if not invisible’, then ‘difficult to see’ or ‘inconspicuous’. However, the many academic studies, including the two above, that have focused on schools in urban areas that have large numbers of ‘newcomer’ students mean that children in these areas have attained a reasonable degree of visibility. The problem is that the many other ‘newcomer’ children scattered around non-metropolitan areas, who attract neither research nor government funding, have become, if anything, even more difficult to see. This chapter is intended both as a reminder of the existence of these ‘invisible’ children and also as a trigger for further research.

Acknowledgements The original version of this chapter appeared in Japan Forum (2007), volume 19, issue 1 (www.informaworld.com). I would like to thank the editor and reviewers of Japan Forum for reading and commenting on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank Kaori Okano for comments on this new, updated version. Finally, I would like to thank the Japanese Studies Centre at Monash University, Australia, for use of their facilities during preparation of this revised manuscript.

Notes 1 Hereafter, Yamagata. When referring specifically to the prefectural capital, the term Yamagata City will be used. 2 Some writers, such as Sasaki and Akuzawa (2001), have used the term ‘minority’ rather than ‘newcomer’ children. ‘Minority’ generally designates a group that is not only numerically small but also disadvantaged or otherwise has less power (Burgess 2008a). As I (Burgess 2004a: 229) argue in the context of international marriage migrants, the term tends to lock a group into a state of permanent marginality or victimhood, when in fact they may actually have the potential to shape fundamental social change. 3 Such children generally have no problem acquiring a visa if the Japanese spouse is in agreement. However, other cases continue to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Fukatsu (2003: 8) notes that, although Chinese ‘war orphans’ are legally allowed to be accompanied by their children’s families, deportation orders have been issued against those with no blood ties to a war orphan. Courts have issued conflicting judgements on this issue. On a more positive note, the Ministry of Justice has indicated a more flexible approach in granting special permission to stay in Japan to people without proper visas facing deportation, particularly in cases where deportation would result in the break-up of families (Hōmushō Nyūkoku Kanrikyoku 2006). 4 In Japan, those who look physically distinct from majority Japanese, regardless of nationality, tend to be labelled as gai(koku)jin, reflecting the ideology that ‘Japaneseness’ is inextricably intertwined with notions of ethnicity and blood. Children with one non-Japanese parent – particularly (white) Americans who can speak English (Murphy-Shigematsu 2000: 212–3) – are also labelled as hāfu (half). In contrast, those who are physically indistinguishable from majority Japanese are generally expected to behave exactly like ‘ordinary Japanese’.

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 207 5 As Fukatsu (2003: 12) points out, there is a slight discrepancy in the data, as the Ministry of Justice figures are for ages five to fourteen, while the compulsory school age in Japan is from six to fifteen. 6 Municipal and private organizations, who, unlike government organizations, tend to be in first-hand contact with migrants, are often much more sensitive to categorization. For example, IVY, the NPO I was affiliated with in Yamagata during fieldwork, tended to eschew the term gaikokujin jidō seito, instead using the term gaikokushusshin no kodomo/seito (foreign-born children/students) when referring to ‘newcomer’ children. 7 In fact, MEXT has a separate category for ‘students holding Japanese nationality who require Japanese instruction’. There were 4,383 such students in 2007 (MEXT 2005b). One wonders why these students are not mentioned in the shorter download/print version of the survey, and, indeed, why the distinction is necessary at all. 8 Some schools allow students who submit such a request to enter immediately, while others make students wait until the start of the next school year (April). During fieldwork in Yamagata, I heard stories of children who had nothing to do but sit around at home after being refused immediate entry. 9 Since April 2005, a ‘Guidebook for starting school: procedures for entering Japanese schools’ has been available on the internet in English, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish; a summary in each of these languages has been available since 2007 (MEXT 2008b). 10 Although some schools do accept the children of unregistered (i.e. illegal) foreign nationals, this appears to be the exception rather than the rule. 11 Non-Japanese children can attend public school but are not obliged to. As seen earlier, there is a marked gap between the number of registered school-age foreign children and the number enrolled in Japanese schools. In Ōta’s (2000:8) study of a mid-size city in the Tōkai region, 16.2 per cent of newcomer children did not attend elementary school, 39 per cent were not enrolled in junior high, and less than half went on to high school. Moreover, Shimazaki (2003: 22) suggests that absence among newcomer children who are enrolled is significantly higher than that of Japanese children. The situation for Nikkeijin may be even worse: the Brazilian Consulate General in Nagoya estimates that, of 40,000 school-age children in Japan, 15,000 go to regular schools, and 8,000 to Brazilian schools, leaving 17,000 non-attendees (Yomiuri Shinbun 2005b). Many non-attendees apparently no longer live at the address registered on their Alien Registration Card, meaning shugaku annai never reach them. 12 For more on the problems of tabunka (multiculturalism) and associated terms such as kokusaika (internationalization), kokusai kōryu (international exchange), ibunka (different culture) and kyōsei (coexistence), see Burgess (2004b). Given the centrality of these terms in discussions on diversity in Japan – for example, tabunka kyōsei is the official slogan of Kawasaki City – it is disappointing to see them so often accepted at face value with little or no critical analysis. 13 See the case of Yai, detailed in the data section. 14 As of December 2007, there were only 385 special permanent residents (i.e. oldcomers) and 427 long-term residents (teijūsha), the visa-type most closely associated with Nikkeijin, but also available to divorced/widowed spouses having custody of their (Japanese national) children (Kokusai Shitsu 2008: 52). 15 IVY (www.ivyivy.org) was established in December 1991 by a group of citizens interested in global problems. IVY was originally known as Japan Volunteer Centre (JVC) Yamagata and affiliated with the national JVC organization (www.ngo-jvc.net/). In January 1999, it changed its name to IVY and became an independent entity. In June of the same year, it was designated a tokutei hi’eiri katsudō hōjin (literally a special non-profit-making action corporation or NPO). 16 See Burgess (2006) for a summary of this case and of the situation in Yamagata in general.

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17 For example, in the March 2004 ‘Fifth Plan for the Promotion of Education in Yamagata Prefecture’ (‘Dai 5-ji Yamagata-ken kyōiku shinkō keikaku’), the situation of ‘newcomer’ children – referred to as ‘students from abroad who do not speak Japanese’ – received only a passing mention. Although noting the rise of such children and Japanese society’s ‘international obligation’ to respond, the policy response was to ‘consider’ individual language instruction (Yamagata Prefecture Board of Education 2004: 63–4). According to a knowledgeable local volunteer teacher, one reason for the lack of interest in this issue is prejudice against children brought to Japan by ‘foreign brides’. 18 There is no space to explore the suggestion that the class background of students is a factor in academic success, but it fits in with Goodman’s (1990: 9) assertion that ‘the low status of most of Japan’s minority groups can be more closely related to their class marginality than the cultural or ethnic reasons normally cited’. 19 In March 2005, these five cities and towns, plus Yamagata City, established a permanent kyōgikai or council, officially entitled ‘Japanese Learning Support Network for Foreign Children Residing in the Murayama Area’ (Murayama kōiki zaijū gaikokujin nado kodomo Nihongo shūtoku shien kyōgikai) (Yamagata Shinbun 2005a). 20 See www.yamagata-npo.jp/modules/town/gaiyou.php?num=171. The number of children receiving support as of August 2008 was eleven.

References Burgess, Chris (2003) ‘(Re)constructing identities: international marriage migrants as potential agents of social change in a globalising Japan.’ Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Monash University, Melbourne. –––– (2004a) ‘(Re)constructing identities: international marriage migrants as potential agents of social change in a globalising Japan’, Asian Studies Review: The Journal of the Asian Studies Association of Australia 28(3): 223–42. –––– (2004b) ‘Maintaining identities: discourses of homogeneity in a rapidly globalising Japan’, Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, available online at www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/Burgess.html (accessed 19 April 2004). –––– (2006) ‘Country kids need language support: growing educational diversity not limited to urban areas’, Japan Times, 14 March 2006: 16. –––– (2008a) ‘Celebrating “multicultural Japan”: Writings on “minorities” and the discourse on “difference”’, Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, available online at www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/2008/Burgess.html (accessed 19 September 2009). –––– (2008b) ‘(Re)constructing boundaries: international marriage migrants in Yamagata as agents of multiculturalism’, in N. Graburn, J. Ertl and R.K. Tierney (eds), Multiculturalism in the new Japan: crossing the boundaries within, New York and Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 63–86. Central Council for Education (Chūō kyōiku shingikai) (2005) Kyōiku no kadai to kongo no kyōiku no kihonteki hōkō ni tsuite (Issues in education: concerning the basic direction of education in the future). Available online at www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chukyo/ chukyo0/toushin/030301b.htm (accessed 1 August 2005). Cummins, J. (1981) ‘Empirical and theoretical underpinnings of bilingual education’, Journal of Education, 163(1): 16–29. Daily Yomiuri (2005) ‘Portuguese-speaking teachers help students learn Japanese in Ota’, Daily-Yomiuri, 26 July 2005: 16. Fukatsu, N.N. (2003) ‘Social capital and foreign students in Japan: case study of immigrant step-children.’ Unpublished MSc thesis, School of Education, Indiana University.

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 209 Goodman, R. (1990) Japan’s ‘international youth’: the emergence of a new class of schoolchildren, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hōmushō (Ministry of Justice) (2008) Todōfuken betsu Nenrei/danjo Gaikokujin Tōrokusha (sōgō) (Registered foreigners by locality, age, and sex (general)). Available online at www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/List.do?lid=000001031723 (accessed 28 August 2008). Hōmushō Nyūkoku Kanrikyoku (Ministry of Justice, Immigration Office) (2006) Zairyū tokubetsu ninka sareta jirei oyobi zairyū tokubetsu ninka sarenakatta jirei ni tsuite (Examples of ‘special permission to stay’ cases granted and those refused). Available online at www.moj.go.jp/NYUKAN/nyukan25.html (accessed 18 July 2006). Japan Times (2008) ‘Elementary schools face new mandate: patriotism, “Kimigayo”’, The Japan Times, 29 March 2008: 1. Kokusai Shitsu, Yamagata-ken Bunka Kankō Bu Shinkōka (International Office, Division for Culture and Entertainment, Section for the Promotion of Culture) (2008) Kaigai to kōryō renkei no genjyō ni tsuite (About the state of exchange links with abroad). Available online at www.pref.yamagata.jp/international/interchange/9050001kouryurenkei (accessed March 2008). Lewis, C. (1995) Educating hearts and minds: reflections on Japanese pre-school and elementary education, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mainichi Shinbun (2005) ‘Shien’: gaikokujin no kodomo muke ‘nihongo gakushū kyōshitsu’ sonzoku no kiki: yamagata-shi (‘Support’ – continuation of ‘Japanese study room’ for foreign children difficult: Yamagata City) Mainichi Shinbun (4 February 2005). MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) (2002) Nihongo shidō no hitsuyō na gaikokujin jidō seito no ukeire jōkyō nado ni kansuru chōsa (Heisei 13-nendo) no kekka (Survey results on the reception situation of foreign students who need Japanese instruction (FY2001)). Available online at www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/ houdou/14/02/020214.htm (accessed 9 August 2005). –––– (2005a) Gaikokujin jidō seito kyōiku no genjō to torikumi (The situation of and response to foreign student education). Available online at www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/ shingi/chousa/shotou/029/shiryo/05070501/s014.pdf (accessed 29 July 2005). –––– (2005b) Nihongo shidō ga hitsuyō na gaikokujin jidō seito no ukeire jōkyō (Heisei 16-nendo) (The reception situation of foreign students who need Japanese instruction (FY2004)). Available online at www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/17/04/05042001/ 05042001.htm (accessed 26 July 2005). ——(2008a) Nihongo shidō ga hitsuyō na gaikokujin jidō nado no ukeire jyōkyō nado ni kansuru chōsa (heisei 19-nendo) (The reception situation of foreign students who need Japanese instruction (FY2007)). Available online at www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/ 20/08/08073011/001/001.htm (accessed 28 August 2008). –––– (2008b) Kikoku/gaikokujin jidō seito kyōiku nado ni kanshite monbukagakushō ga okonatteiru shisaku ni kansuru jōhō (Information about policies carried out by MEXT concerning the education of returnee and foreign students). Available online at www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/clarinet/003/001.htm#a09 (accessed 29 August 2008). MHLW (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare) (2007) Todōfuken ni mita fusai no nihon/gaikoku no kumiawase betsu kon’in kensū oyobi kōsei wariai (Breakdown of foreign/Japanese couples by region in terms of marrige numbers and make-up). Available online at www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/jinkou/tokushu/konin06/konin064.html#4-4 (accessed 1 September 2008). Miyajima, T. and Suzuki, M. (2000) ‘Nyūkamā no kodomo no kyōiku to chiiki nettowāku (Newcomer children’s education and local networks)’, in T. Miyajima (ed.), Gaikokujin Shimin to Seiji Sanka (Citizens of foreign nationality and their political participation), Tokyo: Yūshindō.

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Morita, K. (2002) ‘Negotiating identity politics: exploring Brazilian children’s experiences at a Japanese school.’ Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania. Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2000) ‘Identities of multiethnic people in Japan’, in M. Douglass and G.S. Roberts (eds), Japan and global migration: foreign workers and the advent of a multicultural society, London and New York: Routledge. –––– (2004) ‘Ethnic diversity, identity and citizenship in Japan’, Harvard Asia Quarterly, Winter: 51–7. Nishigami, K. (1999) ‘Iryō tsūyaku no shūhen (chūgokugo o chūshin ni) (A report on medical translation with a focus on the Chinese language)’, in Kokuritsu kokugo kenkyūjo nihongo kyōiku sentā (ed.), Chiiki de sasaeru Nihongo kyōiku ’98 Tōhoku (Supporting Japanese language teaching in the regions: Northeast Japan ’98), Tokyo: Kokuritsu kokugo kenkyūjo nihongo kyōiku sentā. Nishi Nippon Shinbun (2008a) 25,000-nin ga nihongo shidō hitsuyō: Kōritsukō no gaikokujin jidō seito (25,000 need Japanese instruction: foreign students in public schools), Nishi Nippon Shinbun. Available online at www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/ item/38506 (accessed September 2008). –––– (2008b) Gaikokujin seito shien ni 7-oku kikin: Aichi, shakai e no tekiō unagasu (Aichi Prefecture to initiate 7 million yen fund to help foreign students adapt society), Nishi Nippon Shinbun. Available online at www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/36372?c=110 (accessed September 2008). Nukaga, M. (2003) ‘Japanese education in an era of internationalization: a case study of an emerging multicultural coexistence model’, International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 12: 79–94. Okano, K. and Tsuchiya, M. (1999) Education in contemporary Japan: inequality and diversity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ōkubo, Y. (2008) ‘“Newcomers” in public education: Chinese and Vietnamese children in a buraku community’, in N. Graburn, J. Ertl and R.K. Tierney (eds), Multiculturalism in the New Japan: crossing the boundaries within, New York and Oxford: Berghahn. Ōta, H. (1996) ‘Nyūkamā gaikokujin no kodomo no kyōiku kadai (The issue of newcomer foreign children’s education)’, in T. Miyajima and T. Kajita (eds), Gaikokurōdōsha kara shimin e: Chiiki shakai no shiten to sadai kara (From foreign workers to citizens: from the perspective of local society), Tokyo: Yūhikaku. –––– (2000) Nyūkamā no kodomo to nihon no gakkō (Newcomer children and Japanese schools), Tokyo: Kokusai Shoin. –––– (2002) ‘Kyōiku tassei ni okeru nihongo to bogo: Nihongo shijōshugi no hihanteki kentō (The Japanese language and the first language in academic achievement: a critical discussion of the “Japanese only” principle)’, in T. Miyajima and H. Kanō (eds), Henyō suru nihon shakai to bunka (Changing Japanese society and culture), Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai. Rohlen, T.P. and LeTendre, G.K. (eds) (1996) Teaching and learning in Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sasaki, M. and Akuzawa, M. (2001) ‘Mainoriti no kodomotachi to kyōiku (Minority children and education’), in A. Nakagawa (ed.), Mainoriti no kodomotachi (Minority children), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimazaki, R. (2003) ‘Nihon no kyōiku genba ni okeru gaikokujin no kodomotachi (Foreign children in Japanese schools).’ Unpublished BA thesis, Tsuda College, Tokyo. Shimizu, K. and Shimizu, M. (2001) Nyūkamā to kyōiku: Gakkō bunka to esunishitī no kattō o megutte (Newcomers and education: on the conflict between school culture and ethnicity), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten.

Diversity in non-metropolitan public schools 211 Shukuya, K. (1988) Ajia kara kita hanayome mukaeru gawa no ronri (The logic of those inviting the brides from Asia), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Sōma, K. (2003) Yamagata-ken nenkan 2004 (Yamagata prefecture yearbook 2004), Yamagata: Yamagata Shinbunsha. Susser, B. (1998) ‘EFL’s othering of Japan: orientalism in English language teaching’, JALT Journal, 20(1): 49–82. Suzuki, N. (2000) ‘Women imagined, women imaging: re/presentations of Filipinas in Japan since the 1980s’, US-Japan Women’s Journal English Supplement, 19: 142–75. Takagi, Hiroko (1997) ‘Internationalization in Yamagata’, in Yamagata University Education Department Planning Committee and Yamagata Regional ‘Recurrent’ Council for the Promotion of Education (eds), Rikai Kara Kōzō e: Yamagata no Kokusaika to Ibunkakan Kyōiku (From understanding to structure: Yamagata internationalisation and intercultural education), Yamagata: Yamagata University Education Department Planning Committee and Yamagata Regional ‘Recurrent’ Council for the Promotion of Education. Takahashi, M. and Vaipae, S.S. (1996) ‘Gaijin’ seito ga yattekita: ‘Ibunka’ toshite no gaikokujinjidō/seito o dō mukaeruka (‘Foreign’ students have come: How do we receive foreign children/students as ‘cultural others’?), Tokyo: Taishūkan Shoten. Tamanoi, M.A. (1998) Under the shadow of nationalism: politics and poetics of rural Japanese women, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Tsuneyoshi, R. (2004) ‘The “new” foreigners and the social reconstruction of difference: the cultural diversification of Japanese education’, Comparative Education, 40(1): 55–81. Yamagata Prefecture Board of Education. (2004) Yamagata no kyōiku ‘inochi’ soshite ‘manabi’ to ‘kakawari’: Dai 5-ji yamagata-ken kyōiku shinkō keikaku (Education in Yamagata – life, learning, and relations: fifth plan for the promotion of education in Yamagata prefecture). Available online at www.pref.yamagata.jp/ky/kyoikusomu/ 237800/5kyoushin-zenbun.pdf (accessed 8 August 2005). Yamagata Prefecture Tōkei Kyōkai (2005) Yamagata kenmin techō (Yamagata citizen’s handbook), Yamagata: Yamagata-ken tōkei kyōkai. Yamagata Shinbun (2004) ‘Nihongo hayaku narete ne: Yamagata-shi gaikokujin no ko taishō ni “kyōshitsu” (Get used to Japanese quickly, OK: Yamagata-city study room for foreign children)’, Yamagata Shinbun, 19 June 2004. –––– (2005a) ‘Gaikokujin jidōra no nihongo shūtoku shien: Kakudaiban “kyōshitsu” raigetsu kara (Foreign children’s Japanese study support: classroom expansion from next month)’, Yamagata Shinbun, 26 March 2005: 30. –––– (2005b) ‘“Nihongo kyōshitsu” jinendomo: shigai kara no ukeire (“Japanese language study room” to be continued this financial year too: (children) accepted from outside the city)’, Yamagata Shinbun, 3 March 2005. Yomiuri Shinbun (2005a) ‘Kyōiku kihonhō kaisei genan: “shinshi ni gakushū” meiki (The Fundamental Law of Education reform draft: “earnest study” expressly stated)’, Yomiuri Shinbun, 13 January 2005: 1. ——(2005b) ‘Nihongo manabenu Nikkeijin (Nikkei who do not study Japanese)’, Yomiuri Shinbun, 11 June 2005: 38. –––– (2006) ‘“Kōkyō seishin” “aikokushin” yashinau: Kaiseikyōiku kihonhō ga seiritsu (Fostering “Public Spirit” “Patriotism”: revised Fundamental Law of Education passed)’, Yomiuri Shinbun, 16 December 2006: 1. –––– (2008) ‘Yosan hensei muke teigen/yōbō (Proposals and demands on new budget)’, Yomiuri Online, 22 May 2008. Available online at www.yomiuri,co.jp/news_kan/ kan080522_6.htm (accessed September 2008).

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Yoon, K.-C. (1996) ‘Kokumin keisei to minzoku sabetsu: sengo kyōiku kenkyū no otoshiana (Nation formation and ethnic discrimination: the trap of postwar education research)’, in Asahi Shinbunsha (ed.), Kyōikugaku ga wakaru (Understanding research on education), Osaka: Asahi Shinbunsha. –––– (1997) Nihon kokuminron: Kindai Nihon no aidentitī (Theories of Japanese nationness: modern Japan’s identity), Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō.

10 The kikokushijo Negotiating boundaries within and without Misako Nukaga and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi

The emergence of kikokushijo and the impact on Japanese education The kikokushijo Who are the Japanese returnees? The Japanese returnees (kikokushijo) are usually children of businessmen families who have spent part of their life abroad. As the Japanese economy grew, more business persons were stationed abroad, and more Japanese school-age children started growing up in other countries. When these families return to Japan, their children are called the ‘kikokushijo.’ Kikokushijo, especially those who have attended a local school for many years, tend to learn the local language and incorporate part of the local culture into their sense of being. It is these kikokushijo, usually those who had grown up in the United States or some other English-speaking country, who first attracted the attention of the media as “unlike Japanese.” However, these kikokushijo are Japanese nationals, brought up by Japanese parents who are usually firmly rooted in the corporate culture of Japanese firms even while they are abroad. In this sense, they are different from the Koreans in Japan or the “newcomers.” Social class also often distinguishes the Japanese returnees from the other populations discussed in this book, as they are often from middle-class families. In many ways, the kikokushijo are part of the majority when seen in relation to the other multicultural groups in this book. Despite this, a discussion of the kikokushijo is important in the understanding of the multicultural landscape in Japan. They are present in classrooms throughout Japan and have been a major force in stimulating the development of international understanding education in the Japanese context. As will be seen in this chapter, associated with “internationalization,” they have served as one framework for how the “newcomers” are understood. They also are part of the unfolding interplay between multicultural actors. As new, more “alien” children enter the classroom, the borderline between the returnees and the Japanese brought up in Japan becomes unclear; compared with Brazilian children, the kikokushijo might seem pretty “Japanese.” In this chapter, to avoid confusion, we are not referring to the war-displaced returnees from China. This group, though often considered as “returning” (to

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Japan) as well, has a very different relationship with Japanese society and is an obvious minority, as are the other populations in this book. How did the Japanese returnees emerge in Japanese society, and what have been the implications? Seen from the viewpoint of the Japanese returnees, how is the multicultural landscape evolving as more “alien” populations such as the “newcomers” enter the scene? Previous studies have focused on the Japanese returnees in themselves, as quite distinct groups, and not in the light of the relationships they have with other multicultural populations. This chapter attempts to resituate the so-called “returnees” in the interpersonal interaction of boundarymaking in the context of the growing diversification of Japanese society. From victims to spearheads of internationalization According to governmental data, in April 2008, there were a total of 61,252 schoolage students (primary and junior high) abroad (see Figure 10.1 below). This number has been steady for about a decade (Kaigaishijo Kyōiku Shinkō Zaidan, 1995 (2002): 236). These children come back as kikokushijo, Japanese returnees, and attend public, private, and national schools across the nation. There are more than 10,000 returnees a year (defined in this context as children who have lived a year or more abroad and returned to Japan during the previous school year).

Figure 10.1 Changes in the number of Japanese school-age children abroad, 1971–2008 Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan (2008) Kaigai zairyū hōjin shijo su tōkei. Available online at www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/tokei/hojin_sj/index.html (accessed July 10, 2008).

The kikokushijo 215 Though the Ministry definition of the returnees in its data-collecting is as above, and schools differ on what qualifies one to take the special exam for the returnees (e.g., whether it is one year abroad, or two or more years abroad), conventionally, any Japanese who has been brought up for some time abroad in his/her childhood, and has returned to Japan, could be referred to as a returnee, and, in daily conversations, the term is even used to refer to adults. Used in this sense, it is possible to keep on revoking the returnee status if it fits one’s identity, is strategic, or if it seems to explain a certain trait in a “returnee” person (e.g., fluency in English, assertive). As the connotations of being a returnee have become more positive, it has become easier to use the returnee status strategically. The 1960s marked the budding of the returnee phenomena. As Japanese companies moved out into the world, more Japanese found themselves conducting business abroad. The first overseas Japanese school was erected in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1956. The first Japanese school in a western country was in 1969, Sydney, Australia. In these early years, the situation of education in the host country and the system of re-entry into Japan was often such that businessmen fathers left their families in Japan, or returnee children faced severe re-entry problems (e.g., placed below one’s actual grade), despite the fact that their parents were often elite employees of large corporations spearheading Japan’s economic success (Mabuchi 2002: 79–80). The plight of the returnees started to catch the attention of policymakers, and the “salvation” (kyūsai) (Sato 2001: 106) of such children started to appear on the national agenda. As the “victims” in this case were often children of families working for firms leading Japan’s economic rise, the families were in a strong position to lobby for the benefit of the returnees. Hand-in-hand with the image of salvation came the assimilationist approach of “adaptation education” (tekiō kyōiku), in other words, encouraging the kikokushijo to adapt to Japanese ways. This assimilationist approach was eventually criticized as destroying the positive “international” aspects of the returnees, which should be encouraged. Policies targeting returnees started to emerge in the 1960s. For example, schools affiliated to national universities started erecting classes for returnees. In public schools, in 1967, the ministry started designating “research cooperation schools” (kenkyū kyōryoku kō) for returnee education, which were to experiment on how better to incorporate this population (Sato 2001: 106). It was then, in the 1970s, that the basic structure of returnee education was formulated. In the early years of the returnee problem in the mid 1970s, there were only about 5,700 Japanese school-age children who had spent more than a year abroad and had returned within that school year, at the primary and secondary level combined, according to governmental figures. Along with Japan’s economic boom and growing numbers of Japanese companies moving into foreign markets, since the mid 1980s, the yearly figures have steadily exceeded 10,000. The pressure to institutionalize re-entry measures for returnees mounted. Public and private efforts targeting the Japanese children overseas and the returnees expanded. In 1972, revisions to the School Education Law were made so that it became possible for graduates of Japanese junior high schools overseas

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to acquire the same qualifications as their counterparts in Japan and to enter Japanese high schools—which was not assured before (Mabuchi 2002: 82). Previously, such children often returned to Japan prematurely, in order to acquire a graduation degree from a Japanese junior high school and to sit for the high school entrance examinations (Sato 2001: 107). As compulsory education ends at junior high, every child needs to take the high school entry examination, unless he/she bypasses the exam by attending a non-public school before that. With the collaboration of the government and businesses, the Japan Overseas Education Services (Kaigaishijo Kyōiku Shinkō Zaidan) was erected in 1971, and has offered consulting assistance since 1974 and correspondence courses since 1972; it publishes guidebooks of schools in Japan for returnee families (Kaigaishijo Kyōiku Shinkō Zaidan 1995 (2002)) and has extended its assistance through various routes. The national Tokyo Gakugei University founded a Center for Research in International Education (formally the returnee center and renamed in 2002) in 1978, which focused on the education of returnees and children overseas. Special entrance examinations for returnees (kikokushijo waku) were adopted by some schools, apart from the regular entrance examinations. In the 1980s, there was a rush to erect overseas high school branches by schools inside Japan, mostly clustering in the western countries, but including a Japanese high school in Singapore. Re-entry routes were also institutionalized. According to the Japan Overseas Educational Services, when the special slots for the returnees started in the 1970s, there were only 3 private high schools that had this system, but, by 2001, there were 9 national, 177 public, and 199 private schools that had special slots (tokubetsu waku) for returnees or had special entrance provisions (Kaigaishijo Kyōiku Shinkō Zaidan 1995 (2002): 264, 312). For the compulsory education level (elementary and junior high), there are schools affiliated to national universities, and various private schools that provide special exams and services for returnees. Public schools of one’s district are also options for returnees, and there are schools designated as returnee-focused, such as the Hayama Elementary School case below. Since 2001, the Ministry has combined education for foreigners with returnee education and launched the “Project for districts that promote the internationalization of education with the returnees and foreign pupils and students” (kikoku/gaikokujin jidōseito to tomoni susumeru kyōiku no kokusaika suishin chīki), which continued until 2005. Thirtythree districts were designated, and Kawasaki was designated as one such district for the 2002 and 2003 school year (Kaigaishijo Kyōiku Shinkō Zaidan 2004: 25). For junior high school students returning to Japan, they can select from a range of choices such as: special exams in national university-affiliated high schools; private high schools (e.g., ICU in Tokyo, Dōshisha Kokusai Kōtōgakkō in Kyoto, Senri Kokusai Gakuen Kōtōbu in Osaka, and Nanzan Kokusai Kōtōgakkō in Aichi were specifically erected to receive returnees); or public high schools that have special returnee exams or take into consideration the returnee status. The advice for returnees and their parents given by the Japan Overseas Educational Services in its 2004 guidebook for returnees re-entering Japan is as follows:

The kikokushijo 217 Many schools do not distinguish the method they select students based on whether the student attended a Japanese school or a local school, but some schools have different selection methods for those graduating from Japanese schools and from foreign schools. The Japanese school graduates, who have studied basically according to the national curriculum, can qualify for the returnee status, but they would also be able to take the regular exam with the Japanese inside Japan. For those returnees who have studied at a local school or an international school, the regular exam is very difficult, so presently, almost everyone is aiming for those schools that have special entrance selections for the returnees. (Kaigaishijo Kyōiku Shinkō Zaidan 2004: 26) The position the returnees occupy in the landscape of multicultural Japan is very different from three decades ago when the increase in the returnees first caught the attention of internationally minded educators. The diversification of the returnee population (e.g., from different host countries, from different types of school in a host country) is one difference; the institutionalization of re-entry routes back to Japan is another. By the 1980s, it was thus quite clear that the returnees were not just a group of children to be rescued and assimilated into Japanese society. Re-entry routes, including affirmative action type measures, had succeeded to a certain extent, and there were even voices accusing reverse discrimination. For example, some started to question whether returnees who had studied in a Japanese school abroad, under Japanese teachers, using Japanese textbooks, spoke only Japanese, and attended private Japanese cram schools abroad needed a special returnee exam to re-enter Japanese schools. It was quite clear, as well, that the returnees within themselves were diverse. As policies started to emphasize the importance of internationalization, segments of the returnees, especially those who had been educated in English-speaking countries and were bilingual, were identified with a positive image of internationalization. The previous discourse that stressed salvation was no longer sustainable. The 1980s and 1990s saw an era when Japan started to feel the wave of the “newcomers” (see Chapter 6). It was also the period when the Japanese government made conscious efforts to internationalize Japanese higher education, and foreign student education was expanded. New theories of intercultural understanding, such as multicultural education and development education, were imported into Japan. The government’s assimilationist framework was accused, and the understanding of the culturally different children became more mutual, stressing the preservation of traits the returnees (and “newcomers”) had acquired abroad, and the assertion that it was Japanese education that had to change (Sato 2001). The returnees were starting to be reconceived in a positive light, as the models of “internationalized” Japanese (Kaigaishijo Kyōiku Shinkō Zaidan 1995 (2002): 313). The 1980s to 1990s was also a period when former returnees, who were now grown up and taking their place in society, became more visible to the public

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eye. Japanese could now see, on the TV screen, returnee announcers who were interviewing foreign celebrities in fluent English; returnee singers who could sing in English with native accents; returnees such as Ms. Sadako Ogata, former Sophia University Professor and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who were active internationally. It is perhaps symbolic that both the Emperor’s Princes married returnee women, though such returnees, who seem to have it all, are but a tip of the iceberg. In addition, the word kikokushijo, a sensational topic of alarm in the 1970s, seemed to be almost out of use in this sense by the 1990s. From kikokushijo to international understanding Unlike in newly independent countries, which face the task of quickly forming a nation from a history of colonization, or unlike immigrant countries such as the United States and Canada, which, from the beginning, faced an inner pressure to unite a visibly diverse population, post-war Japanese “international understanding education” (kokusai rikai kyōiku) started from the outside-in. The year 1945 marked the end of World War II and Japan’s defeat as a military state. The nationalistic and militaristic ideologies that had justified the execution of WWII were uprooted, and the task of teaching for democracy was placed on the shoulders of educators who had, until a moment ago, been asked to be the loyal servants of the emperor’s state. The slogan literally translated as “devils, beasts, Americans, English” (kichiku beiei) was replaced with democratic ideals, and the need for Japan to become a peaceful member of the international community was sorely felt among devoted educators. Kobayashi (1988: 8–9) argues that the idealistic slant that the initial post-war international understanding education had, though it might seem abstract to present-day Japanese, was very real to the war generation, given that few Japanese had contact with the outside world, and that there was the pressing desire to join the international community. Japan joined UNESCO in 1951, identifying with its mission of “building fortresses of peace in people’s minds”; Japanese schools participated in UNESCO projects of international understanding education, and, in the initial years of the post-war period, the UNESCO framework can be strongly identified. Japanese international understanding education practices gradually became more independent from the UNESCO framework, and one of the visible influences that accelerated this was the internal diversification of the school population, the pressure of internationalization within. The first major impacts in this sense were brought by the returnees (Sato 2001). Today, international understanding education is often used as an umbrella term in Japanese schools, incorporating practices as diverse as the education of ethnic minorities, development education, international exchange with foreigners, and English activities. There has, however, been a tendency for educators to prefer the term human rights education (jinken kyōiku) to refer to practices with a strong human rights focus (see Chapter 1). As can be seen in the case study of Hayama Elementary below, international understanding education can include populations such as Japanese returnees and foreign students (Kurachi 1998), who are

The kikokushijo 219 not targets of human rights education as historically discriminated-against minorities (e.g., Japanese Koreans, burakumin). From an interactive perspective, what is especially relevant is the fact that returnee education has served as one of the major models for the “newcomer” foreigners. This is true in academia, as it is in policy and practice. Many of the major scholars in the intercultural field in the older generation had focused on the returnees; in a society where there were very few visible post-war migrant flows until the 1980s, the returnees served as the first wake up call for Japan’s growing “internationalization” of the student population. It is perhaps symbolic that the Intercultural Education Society of Japan (Ibunkakan Kyōiku Gakkai), the representative academic association in this field established in 1981, initially focused on returnees; today, the interests are more diverse, focusing on a variety of minority/foreign populations, “oldcomers” as well as “newcomers,” foreign students, and intercultural issues. The modeling of the “newcomers” on the returnees is also evident in policy and practice. With the restructuring of the Ministry of Education, the former overseas returnee division was renamed the international education unit (Mabuchi 2002: 92), enlarging its scope. Similar moves are evident elsewhere. Since 2002, the Center for the Education of Children Overseas at the national Tokyo Gakugei University was renamed the Center for Research in International Education and has expanded its focus to include foreigners. In practice, returnee classes, or pullout classes for Japanese returnees, have been established in public schools; such types of class now accommodate the “newcomers” who lack Japanese language skills, as shown in the Hayama case below. Again, we see that the institutions and framework used to accommodate the Japanese returnees serve as a reference point in incorporating the “newcomers” into Japanese education. As mentioned previously, the Ministry of Education and localities designate schools to research certain themes to disseminate research, including those pertaining to returnee/“newcomer” education. From 2001, the Ministry has adopted a category that incorporates both the returnees and foreigners under international understanding education and designated thirty-three districts as “internationalization promotion districts incorporating returnee/foreign pupils and students” (kikoku/gaikokujin jidō seito to tomoni susumeru kyōiku no kokusaika suishin chīki). In 2006, the government launched other new projects entitled “support system model for returnee/foreign pupils and children” (kikoku/gaikokujin jidō seito kyōiku shien taisei moderu jigyō), which, since 2007, has been turned into a project named “promoting incorporation among returnee/foreign children” (kikoku/gaikokujin jidō seito ukeire suishin jigyō). Such projects focus on how better to incorporate the returnee and foreign children into Japanese schooling in a manner in which both the Japanese and returnee/foreigner can benefit. The kikokushijo and the foreigners If the first phase of the returnee phenomenon, starting from the 1960s, was when the returnee were the objects of “salvation” and assimilation, the next phase

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stressed a more mutual view, preserving the positive traits of the returnee. With the growing awareness of the internationalization of Japanese society around the 1980s, the society started to see the returnees as spearheads of internationalization who have a positive impact on Japanese education. The third phase, we would argue, is the process of a growing level of interaction. The multicultural landscape of Japan is diversifying. New theories of multicultural existence are entering and taking root among educators and policymakers. The returnee framework has been enlarged and is being merged with the larger framework of international understanding education. It is being used as a conceptual tool to understand “international” populations. The image of the first phase is documented in the English literature (White 1988), and it fits the foreign image of Japanese society—difficult to break into once one is out. The second phase suggests that, despite the image of returnees as victims encountering numerous hardships, some of them are actually now the models of internationalization (Goodman 1993). The third phase, we believe, starts where the second phase left off. The returnees are now becoming one of the players among many in the growing multicultural landscape that is evolving in Japan. Their differences from the “majority Japanese” are becoming negligible in some contexts, standing out in others, both as a result of institutional provisions and as a result of the emergence of other culturally different groups in Japanese society. It is this negotiation of boundaries of difference that is the focus of this chapter.

The Case of Hayama Elementary School The kikokushijo before re-entry: diverse patterns of interaction with the host country Before illustrating the process of boundary-making and the evolution of reciprocal and multicultural interactions using a specific case, it is useful to mention briefly the situation of the returnees before they return to Japan. There are definite patterns of whether Japanese children abroad will attend a local school or a Japanese school abroad, depending on the region of stay. This affects whether a returnee will be exposed to the local society (as in a local school or international school), or whether the child will spend most of his/her years abroad in a Japanese expatriate community. This influences who the child plays with and most other aspects of the returnees’ life abroad. As presented in Figure 10.2 below, in North America, the vast majority of children attend local schools (supplemented by supplementary schools on weekends or after school hours). On the other end of the spectrum, in Asian countries, more than 60 percent go to full-time Japanese schools as of 2008 (Ministry of Education 2009). Such children often live in communities that are basically very “Japanese.” In other regions, the percentages are somewhere in between North America and Asia, depending on the availability of quality Japanese schools and international schools. The transnational/expatriate community is quite different

The kikokushijo 221 from, for example, communities of the old Japanese immigrants abroad, although the two may often overlap. The focus among expatriate families is firmly set on going back, the worry of whether their children can readjust and succeed educationally upon return being one of their major concerns. The members of the community are highly fluid, as the members come and go, and yet there is an interesting continuity as they come from a common group of companies. The full-time Japanese schools abroad that many students attend in Asia and other regions have every characteristic of a national school in Japan. Typically erected by the Japanese community (Nihonjinkai) and run by the governing board made up of representatives of the Japanese community, the graduates of the junior

Figure 10.2 Japanese school-age children abroad by place of residence and type of school attended, 2008 Source: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. (2009) Kaigai de manabu Nihon no kodomo tachi: Waga kuni no kaigai shijo kyōiku no genjō.

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high school are qualified to enter a Japanese high school; its teachers (usually public school teachers in Japan) are sent by the Ministry of Japan, rotating every several years. The textbooks are distributed free of charge, and the schools follow the national curriculum standards. When the teachers from these schools return, they become central agents in promoting international understanding education in Japan. In recent decades, the Japanese schools abroad have been encouraged to incorporate an understanding of the local culture (genchi rikai kyōiku) into their curriculum. Some overseas schools have developed their own supplementary material based on the local culture. There are more attempts to share events with neighboring international schools or local schools. Language education, especially English, starts earlier than inside Japan, from elementary school. The experience of those attending Japanese schools abroad, however, basically parallels the experience of schooling inside Japan (e.g., Japanese school activities, the medium of teaching is Japanese, Japanese textbooks and teachers), and thus in its essence is very “Japanese,” whereas those in local schools or international schools undergo a more localized experience. Thus, country of residence, as well as whether they went to a full-day Japanese school or a local school, makes a difference in the kinds and level of difficulty that the returnees face at school upon returning to Japan. These difficulties are also related to how “different” the returnees are perceived to be in light of “regular” Japanese and “newcomer” children at school. The kikokushijo at Hayama Elementary The case of Hayama Elementary School, presented here, demonstrates one local response to the presence of returnees. The observations show how the coexistence of the returnees and “newcomers” affects the ways in which the majority Japanese view their differences and treat them, especially in regards to resource distribution. The data are drawn from participant observation data and interviews conducted by one of the authors, Nukaga, during November 2000 through March 2001, and again in May 2001 for follow-up purposes. Observations took place in a total of ten classrooms in different grades, which had “newcomers” and/or newly arrived returnee children, focusing upon their interaction with the classroom teacher and regular students. Interviews were conducted with eighteen teachers and a principal. The interview questions centered around how teachers viewed the difference of the returnees and foreign children and how they treated them in class. Based on these ethnographic data, we will focus on how the returnees are understood in relation to the mainstream Japanese population as well as the “newcomers.” In other words, we show how the category of “returnee” was evoked, constructed, and strategically used in everyday routine by school members. Instead of understanding returnees in fixed ways, as has often been done in the past,1 such observations suggest that it is important to recognize the complex and fluctuating ways in which returnee children’s differences are highlighted, negotiated, and often muted in a school where children from varied backgrounds encounter one another across different cultural and ethnic lines. Drawing on constructionist

The kikokushijo 223 understanding of “weak” identity (Brubaker and Cooper 2000), we suggest that children’s identification as returnees is something that “must be enacted and portrayed, something that must be realized” (Goffman 1959: 75) by actors in situated interaction.2 From this theoretical perspective, our analysis focuses on “when and how and why” returnee categorization and identification are preferred, rather than “what” returnees are, thus avoiding the trap of essentialism.3 The returnees are situated somewhere between the extremely “alien” and the “perfectly Japanese.” So when do the returnees become just plain “Japanese”? When are they seen as different? As aforementioned, the administrative definition of a returnee is a child who has been away for more than a year and returned within the previous school year. However, the term is often used even if the child has been in Japan for years after the return, and even if the child is no longer a child, in other words, grown-up. It is not uncommon for official categories and everyday usage to differ. Where are the boundaries of difference set? When and how does it happen? What happens when there are other Others, the “newcomers”? These are the questions that will be explored in the following pages. A glance at the morning assembly of Hayama Elementary provides a clue to the types of difference that mark a “returnee.” The morning school assembly (zenkō syūkai) at Hayama, where the children gather in the auditorium, is overwhelming at first sight. At the period of observation, there were sixty-two full-time and three part-time staff, and 1,301 students enrolled in school, which was the largest number among public elementary schools in Kawasaki City where Hayama Elementary School is located. According to school statistics during the academic year 2000, about 15 percent of the students at Hayama had stayed overseas more than a year and thus were labeled as kikoku jidō (returnee child).4 Although the teachers said that there were beteen five and eight returnees in each class in every grade, given that returnees are ethnic Japanese nationals, they were not distinguishable by their appearance in a crowd such as the one that gathers for morning assembly. In this regard, the difference between the returnees and some portion of the “newcomers” is obvious. Some of the foreign children were highly visible, even among a large group such as the one that assembled in the auditorium. For example, during the very first observation day, a girl who was leading the first-grade line stood out because she had a darker shade of skin and facial features that were non-Japanese like. She was a native-born Filipina, whose Filipina mother had married (second marriage) a Japanese man. There were several others who stood out in the crowd because of their white skin and light brownish hair color. Among them was a British boy whose mother was Japanese. In the fourth-grade line, there were twin sisters wearing identical pink sweaters, whose father was Turkish but the mother was Chinese. Compared with these children, the returnees simply blended in at first sight. In total, there were nineteen foreign children enrolled at Hayama in the year 2000, including children of international marriages with Japanese. Compared with the newcomer “diversity points” (Chapter 7) mentioned in the other chapters, in which a certain “newcomer” group clusters (see Chapter 8), foreign children at

224 Misako Nukaga and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi Hayama were from varying socio-economic backgrounds. According to the interview with the principal, most of the foreign children did not come from the lowest socio-economic status, but there was also a certain amount of variety in social class as well. It is only within the last decade that these foreign children of various ethnic and social backgrounds started to enroll in Hayama, and the school began focusing not only on Japanese returnees, but also on educating foreign children who lacked Japanese language skills. Hayama has a long history of accepting and educating returnee children since the school was founded in 1972. The school was designated as a research “cooperation school for returnees education (kikokushijo kyōiku kenkyū kyoryoku kō)” in 1975 by the Ministry of Education and, since 1985, it had served as a “center school for districts promoting the acceptance of returnees (kikokushijo ukeire suishin chīki center kō)” until 2000. In 2002 and the following year, Hayama had been assigned by the Ministry as one of the “center schools for the internationalization promotion district (kokusaika suishin chīki center kō),” a category, as mentioned earlier, that is to incorporate both returnees and foreigners. Because of Hayama’s reputation as a center school for returnee children, many returning families chose to live in this community. It was also the case that Hayama was known as one of the high-achieving public schools in the district. A teacher at Hayama noted: The status of Hayama is different from other schools. Mothers think students at Hayama are smart. Half of our sixth-grade students take the entrance exam for private junior high school. The rest go to the public junior high nearby, but that school also has a good reputation. In our interviews, the teachers often noted that parents of students at Hayama were very dedicated to the progress of their children’s study. This reputation led many returnee families, who usually came from a middle-class background with high educational expectations toward their child, to choose Hayama over neighboring public schools. Consequently, the number of returnees has steadily increased at Hayama since the school was founded three decades ago, and during these several years, the number has stayed around 200. Although these returnees, who comprise 15 percent of the students at Hayama, were “invisible” based on their appearance, school statistics show the diversity within this population. Figure 10.3 below presents the number of returnees by their place of residence abroad. It shows that about 40 percent of the returnees came back from North America (mostly the United States), followed by Asia and Europe. Less then 1 percent came back from locations other than these three continents. Reflecting the large number of returnees who had stayed in English-speaking countries, about 80 percent of the returnees attended local schools abroad. Most of these children went to local public schools taught in English on weekdays and attended supplementary Japanese classes on Saturdays and after school. It was common among the rest of the 20 percent, who mostly resided in Asian countries, to attend Japanese schools five days a week and receive education in accordance with the Japanese national curriculum.

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Figure 10.3 Returnees at Hayama Elementary by place of residence abroad, 2000 Source: Hayama Elementary School.

The length of stay abroad varied from one year to nine years, but four years was average for returnees at Hayama. All these factors—country of residence, attendance at a local school or a Japanese school, length of stay, as well as parental support and a child’s social skill, seemed to affect how soon and how smoothly the returnee child became used to school life back in Japan. In addition to the school’s reputation as a center school for returnees, it is important to note the characteristics of the Hayama community. The Hayama community started to develop as a suburban residential area in the late 1960s, when the construction of highways and railways enabled the residents to commute to central Tokyo with ease. During this time, many apartment complexes (apāto danchi) were built to accommodate middle-class families whose fathers work for large companies. Because these company workers tended to be transferred within Japan and also abroad, turnover rates of the residents in this community were extremely high. At Hayama Elementary, the mobility rate had been around 23 percent during the past ten years. That is, about 150 children leave the school, while about the same number of children enter, each year. According to the survey conducted by the school in 1998, about 46 percent of the families at Hayama had experienced transfer before settling in the community. These families included, not only those who came back from overseas, but also those who had had several transfers inside Japan. To some extent, these Japanese children relocating from other cities in Japan shared the same kinds of adjustment anxiety that returnee children had experienced upon re-entry to Japan.

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The principal and the teachers at Hayama were highly concerned about the effects of the high turnover rate and the large size of the school on children’s social relationships. They believed that ties among children were “weak (kihaku)” at this school. Previous studies have revealed that Japanese elementary school teachers tend to use teaching strategies that are relationship-oriented (Lewis 1995; Shimahara and Sakai 1995); within this relationship-oriented framework, teachers at Hayama were especially tuned in to children’s friendships and emphasized the importance of “contact with people (hito to no fureai),” because they felt that their children lacked such experience. The returnees and the “newcomers” were, on the one hand, a resource in such friendship-making (tomodachi zukuri) in the classroom, as they were equal members of the class, but had characteristics that stood out. This focus on interpersonal relationships and using children who are not yet adapted to the classroom relationships (e.g., children transferring from another school) as a focus for classroom management can be seen in other schools as well, as cooperative classroom management is a paramount concern for elementary school teachers in Japan (Tsuneyoshi 2001). The kikokushijo and international understanding education As mentioned earlier in the chapter, the returnees are firmly associated with international understanding education in the Japanese context. Their image as symbols of Japan’s internationalization, now also shared by the (new) foreigners, tends to make them prime resources when teachers organize international understanding activities. As international understanding education is not a subject, and there is no time allotted to it, with perhaps the exception of the integrated period where international understanding is recommended, the decision to practice it is highly dependent on the context. Sometimes, schools become focused on international understanding education because of a very strong leadership in that direction, or because they have an overrepresentation of returnees or foreigners. Hayama was such a case. As noted above, it has a concentration of so-called “international” populations and, during the period of observation, it also had a strong, internationally oriented leadership. The career of Mr. Noguchi, who became the principal at Hayama in 1999, illustrates an ideal type of the international education-oriented Japanese teacher. In his long career as an elementary school teacher, Mr. Noguchi had been sent by the Ministry to teach at a Japanese school in Prague. When he returned to a school in Kawasaki City, he was responsible for returnee education. Before coming to Hayama Elementary, he had served as an administrator at several elementary schools in Kawasaki City in which many returnees were enrolled. Anticipating that Kawasaki City would be designated a “district to promote internationalization” in 2002, Mr. Noguchi wanted to make Hayama a cutting-edge school for internationalization and international understanding education. Japanese schools tend to set many goals to coordinate group cooperation (e.g., goals of the year, goals of the grade, etc.). In 2000, Mr. Noguchi revised the existing school educational agendas (gakkō kyōiku mokuhyō), which included “Be

The kikokushijo 227 proud and conscious of being Japanese (Nihonjin to shite no hokori to jikaku),” but had no reference to internationalization. In contrast, the new agenda that he developed stressed the term “international” and reads as follows: “Developing rich humanity with individuality and educating energetic (takumashī ) children living in an international society.” The new sub-agenda also stressed an internationalization perspective: “Interacting with others to learn and communicate, improving each other through multicultural encounter.” The principal also frequently reminded the staff that the school was “international (kokuasaiteki)” as well as “multicultural (tabunka),” owing to the fact that there were so many returnees and foreign children at the school. For Mr. Noguchi, international understanding was a term related to multicultural understanding. In the interviews, he repeatedly mentioned that international understanding is a process by which people from various cultural backgrounds come together and inspire one another through understanding the different cultures that each of them possesses. “Multicultural coexistence (tabunka kyōsei)” was a key term that was frequently used in the principal’s statement. As mentioned in other chapters, the word has become increasingly popular as it is incorporated into the political, social, and educational agenda by local government, as well as NGOs, especially in a district with a large number of foreigners. How teachers practice international understanding education at Hayama presents one interpretation of “multicultural coexistence,” which can be analyzed through school-based research (kōnai kenkyū). At a ministry-designated research school such as Hayama, classroom teachers teaching the same grade level are responsible for developing a study plan that is related to the research theme and also, preferably, to other subjects in that grade. Teachers will work on this study plan with their students in the classroom throughout the year and occasionally present the lesson to outside audiences during open study sessions (kōkai kenkyū kai) held several times during the year. At Hayama, the school-wide research theme during 2000 was “international understanding education aimed at multicultural coexistence.” Such consciously constructed lessons reflect how the teachers interpreted “multicultural coexistence” and put the concept into educational practice. They also imply how the differences between the returnees and “newcomers” are perceived in relation to the topic. They show that, as resources for international understanding education, the returnees and the “newcomers” are often perceived in very similar ways by the Japanese teachers. Two very common examples from the fieldnotes are provided below to illustrate this case of boundary drawing, in which the “newcomers” and returnees are placed in the same category. Kikokushijo and the “newcomer” as multicultural resources Fostering cultural awareness in the first-grade classroom The first-grade teachers organized a common study plan on the theme, “Everyone is a good friend.” The aim was threefold: to encourage children to understand

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that there are different people in the world; to encourage them to be friends with foreigners who have different cultures; and to encourage them to be able to listen to their friends in the classroom and accept them for what they are, though some children may have different experiences overseas. In a one-hour open study session held in November 2000, one teacher started the class by asking three returnees from the United States and Australia to introduce their life abroad in front of the class. After taking a brief moment to ask the class what they found different from the life in Japan, he showed several pictures of people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. He told the class that there are people with different colors of eye, hair, and skin in the world. He then asked them to select one person from these pictures and draw him or her on a sheet of paper. Afterwards, children were given opportunities to present who they chose and why. One child, who drew a girl from Africa, raised her hand and said, “I thought she had a nice smile.” The class concluded by singing “It’s a small world” together. Here, the returnees’ experiences abroad were being used to motivate children to take interest in people from other cultures. Fifth-grade classroom with a Chinese student,“Tao-san” Another example along the same line of thought involves not a returnee, but a “newcomer” child. For the fifth-grade teachers, the research theme was “Let’s unite—thinking of unity through food.” In this study plan, the fifth-grade teachers especially emphasized learning about China, because one of the fifth-grade classrooms had a new Chinese pupil named “Tao-san,”5 who barely spoke any Japanese. She came to Japan because her father, working as a researcher, was offered a temporary research position at a research institute in Japan. Although the classroom teacher of Tao-san’s class was surprised at Tao-san’s rapid improvement in Japanese language skill, he was concerned that she still had few close friends in the class. The classroom teacher told me in an interview: You know, we often say that we become closer by eating rice from the same pot (onaji kama no meshi o taberu). That was our idea. We wanted children to get along with Tao-san and we thought learning about Chinese food and actually cooking and eating it together will make children become interested in Tao-san’s background. We also hoped that children would become more interested in foreign cultures and accept the uniqueness of each culture. During a study lesson, the teacher invited Tao-san’s mother, who was fluent in Japanese, to teach how to cook Chinese dumplings. Children, including Taosan, gathered in the home economics classroom equipped with kitchen facilities, wore aprons, got into small groups, and cooked dumplings, listening to the instruction given by Tao-san’s mother. Teachers asked children to think how Chinese dumplings differed from those in Japan. Throughout the year, the teacher encouraged Tao-san, and also several returnee children who came back from China, to speak in class about their experiences in China. They also asked children

The kikokushijo 229 to find their own research theme about China and present their findings in front of the class. Children also got opportunities to play a traditional Chinese game such as “jianzi ”—either individually or in a group. The players compete in how long they can continue kicking a special kind of colorful shuttlecock in the air. This game eventually became very popular among the fifth-graders, and children began playing jianzi in a group during recess time. Among them was Tao-san, who was applauded by her classmates for her great skill in jianzi. The teacher was satisfied to see that Tao-san became more open and was getting along with her friends. Here again, the foreign child and returnee children were both seen as a resource to understand other cultures, as well as a focus to encourage cooperative relations—a major Japanese educational goal at this age level— among the classmates. The examples above illustrate how returnees and the “newcomers” were similarly utilized at Hayama in practices of international understanding education and cooperative classroom management. Above all, returnees and the “new” foreign children were both considered by teachers as gateways to other cultures. As one third-grade teacher noted, “Because our school has kikoku children and foreign children, we are able to feel very close to the distant foreign countries and find meanings in practicing international understanding education.” As in the above examples of international understanding education, the returnee and foreign children’s experiences abroad were utilized in a similar manner by the teachers to introduce the theme of international understanding to the class and encourage other children to take an interest in foreign countries. Many teachers repeatedly cited the importance of “utilizing the characteristics (tokusei o ikasu)” of returnee and foreign children—a phrase that has become popular in the official discourse of returnee education since the 1980s, when the education for returnees was criticized for its assimilative approach (Sato 2001). This “returnees as international resources” framework is now applied to the “newcomers.” The principal and the teachers thus emphasized the importance of understanding other cultures and saw both the returnees and the “newcomers” as similar resources in this regard. This took place within the larger Japanese framework of building cooperative relationships within the classroom. Teachers used international understanding education to build and strengthen friendship among returnees, foreign children, and regular Japanese children in the classroom, in other words, to promote the goal of the cooperative classroom. Teachers talked about “unity” and the friendship-making of the foreign child and/or the returnee, who were both outsiders turned insiders (= classmates). They served as a focus for the classroom to achieve a more harmonious and sharing atmosphere. Such cooperative overtones overlap with the aim of international understanding education. For example, according to Tao-san’s classroom teacher: “I believe that our practice raised Taosan’s confidence. Not only that, I think other children became very helpful to her and our class seems to become united (matomaru) through this whole experience of learning about China together.” In sum, international understanding education at Hayama highlighted the experience of both returnee and foreign children as classroom resources that could

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be utilized by the teachers to encourage children to become aware of, and appreciate, different foreign cultures, as well as build relationships. “Culture” in this context was mostly provided to children in the form of cultural activities and objects that children could share and experience. As the case of children playing jianzi together suggests, these cultural activities and objects enabled children to organize their social relationships and build solidarity among their classmates. In fact, such international understanding activities took place in a way that promoted the larger goal of building harmonious relationships. In this context, both returnees and the new foreign children were not only windows to a foreign culture, in other words, international resources, they were also resources from another important standpoint. The returnees and the new foreign children were more “outsiders” than the other children, deserving the special attention of the teacher to achieve the goal of constructing a cooperative classroom—widely held as a major Japanese classroom goal (Hendry 1989; Lewis 1995; Tsuneyoshi 2001). Here was an ideal opportunity for children to learn to accept different types of friend, and to learn how to deepen ties with their classmates and build classroom unity. At the same time, the issue was largely constructed in terms of culture and cooperation, rather than social justice and human rights. The categorization of the “newcomers” and returnees as symbols of internationalization often allows teachers focusing on just these two groups to explain conflicts as “cultural differences,” without reference to discrimination in Japanese society (Tsuneyoshi 2002; Nukaga 2003). It is revealing that in schools that have a concentration of oldcomer foreigners or the burakumin, however, the discussion of differences in culture is almost inevitably associated with human rights concerns. One might note that this intercultural approach to international understanding education emphasizes appreciation of different cultures, harmonious intergroup relationships, communication skills, and self-esteem of the child, using the cooperative assistance of classmates rather than focusing on conflict and social justice. This resonates with what Sleeter and Grant (1994) defined as the “human relationship approach” to multicultural education. The danger of this harmonious approach is that one can lose sight of the fact that different cultures do not exist in society equally, but are subject to domination and subordination. Negotiating differences and constructing kikoku at Hayama Elementary We have argued that, during international understanding education sessions, the differences of the returnees as well as the “newcomers” were highlighted against the “non-international” regular Japanese children in terms of their experience in foreign countries. Their stories about life abroad were emphasized and utilized by teachers as classroom resources that were useful to meet the purposes of international understanding education. Both the returnees and “newcomers” were similar gateways to learning about other cultures, and their presence also offered opportunities to strengthen classroom unity. However, this is only one of the many ways in which the differences of the returnees were recognized and interpreted at Hayama. During class time, other

The kikokushijo 231 aspects of the returnee children—their need for specific academic support, lack of knowledge about, and/or unwillingness to conform to, explicit and implicit rules, and English skills—were also often understood by the teachers and children as “different” from regular Japanese students. These differences were sometimes shared by the “newcomer” children, as they were even more unfamiliar with school rules, and also had more difficulties in studying in Japanese. Yet, the differences between the returnees and “newcomer” children were also highlighted, thus separating the two groups in such a context. Such multiple boundaries therefore, depending on the situation, marked the line between the returnees and the “majority Japanese,” as well as the differences between the returnees and “newcomer” children. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the image of returnees is both positive and negative. Returnees, who were once the objects of “salvation” and assimilation, began to be seen as spearheads of internationalization for their qualities acquired overseas. As the popular image of the returnees is associated with those who went to English-speaking countries, the returnees are seen as fluent in English, assertive, and generally “westernized.” When seen in a negative light, they are seen to be too assertive and individualistic, and thus are likely to experience interpersonal, academic, and emotional maladaptation. These two widely held discourses about returnees both appeared in the teacher’s view on kikoku, the term that was used to refer to returnee children (kikokushijo) at Hayama. On the one hand, a kikoku was portrayed in a negative light, having problems in learning, following rules in Japanese schools and getting along with their classmates, owing to their individualistic attitude. That is, kikoku was associated with self-centeredness, aggressiveness, and uncooperativeness. On the other hand, there was also a positive view of kikoku, stressing their “international” qualities such as English skills and their experience abroad, which can be used as classroom resources. The ideal type of kikoku thus had contradictory qualities, which were evoked depending on the situation. Whether a child who had spent some time abroad was seen as a returnee or not was highly dependent upon the context in which interaction between returnees and other school members unfolded. If a returnee child continued to show characteristics associated with the aforementioned ideal type of kikoku, even if he/she had returned to Japan a while back, others saw her or him as kikoku. If not, the kikoku status, in the eyes of his/her classmates, gradually faded out as time went by. As will be discussed in the following section, because academic and behavioral “problems” of returnees usually disappeared in the eyes of others within the first several months after their return, it was their presentation of English skills and experiences overseas that continued to mark their status as kikoku. For instance, there was a fifth-grade returnee girl from Canada who was referred to by the teachers and her peers as kikoku, even though it was three years since she returned to Japan. She always made a point to have a personal conversation in English when an American teacher visited her class for English lessons, and she often exposed her knowledge about foreign countries she had lived in to her teachers and classmates. As in this case, such differences needed to be consistently

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constructed and presented to remind others that the child was actually a kikoku, as physically, and in many other aspects (e.g., social class), there was no difference between the kikoku and the regular students. The following section outlines how teachers and children—the returnees, “newcomers,” and “regular” Japanese—at Hayama marked, negotiated, and often muted such on-going differences associated with kikoku. These differences were in part shaped by institutionalized sorting practices and the curriculum, as well as a wider discourse about returnees, but were also constructed and subject to change through school members’ interactions. Therefore, it is crucial to understand that kikoku differences and identification are emergent, fluid, and contextual, rather than fixed. We show that some returnees refrained from speaking English in front of their peers, thereby distancing themselves from the ideal type of kikoku as fluent in English. At the same time, there were returnees who presented their English skills in a way that helped them to gain popularity from their peers. Both are using the same kikoku image that others hold, albeit in an opposite manner. “Disadvantages” in language and academic achievement Perhaps surprising to the foreign observer who is used to reading about the Japanese returnees as social outcasts and academically struggling in a closed and examination-oriented system, it was rarely the case in regular classrooms at Hayama that returnee differences were associated with lack of academic ability. Based on observations, the majority of the returnees, if not all, were able to understand the content of the subject and catch up with the rest of the children in class, at least on the surface, in a relatively short period of time. As to why this was the case, the Japanese pull-out language classroom teacher noted that, based on her experience at the school, the mothers of the returnees had made sure to maintain the academic level of their children, shuffling them back and forth from supplementary schools when stationed abroad, applying for correspondence courses for their children, and helping them at home. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, over the last several decades, assistance for Japanese children overseas became more institutionalized, and the number of educational industries such as cram schools and correspondence learning for those abroad has increased dramatically. It appears that the majority of the returnee parents at Hayama, who knew they were going back to Japan after several years abroad, strategically made use of these Japanese educational institutions and prepared their child to re-enter school in Japan.6 As if to confirm this, in most cases, teachers said that they did not feel the need to pay attention to returnees exclusively in terms of their academic achievement. Some teachers, however, mentioned that kikoku had “disadvantages” because they needed to try harder to keep up with the class. They were referring to a small number of returnees in the school who were being pulled out from the regular classroom for several hours a week to study at the so-called “international classroom (kokusai gakushūshitsu),” which used to be called the “Japanese language (recovery) classroom” until 1998. A female teacher in her fifties was

The kikokushijo 233 in charge of this class. In December 2000, there were seven returnees and seven foreign children in this pull-out program. Only the returnees who attended local schools abroad came to the class for extra academic support, as those who had gone to Japanese schools abroad did not need the extra help. Returnees who attended this class mainly received assistance for reading and writing Japanese, but they also studied other subjects according to their needs. A boy in the second grade, who had just come back to Japan after three years in Hong Kong, focused on writing basic Japanese letters—hiragana and katakana. This mother, on one occasion noted that Other families thought about coming back to Japan and made their child study Japanese, but I thought my child would get confused if I made him learn different languages at the same time, so I didn’t force him to study Japanese. But ours is a rare case in this school. When returnees were pulled out from the regular classroom, the difference was constructed between these children and the rest of the class in the minds of their classmates. When asked by the children in the class why some children go to the “international classroom,” the teachers explained to them that they came back from foreign countries and that they needed extra support in Japanese. Here, only those who were in this pull-out program were marked as kikoku, while the majority of the returnees were not in this program, and thus their status as returnees was muted. It is also important to note that kikoku, in this context, connoted a rather negative meaning by the teachers, who thought that such children had “disadvantages.” This contrasts with the way returnees were seen as resources during periods of international understanding education. It was not only returnees but also foreign children whose difference was marked in terms of their Japanese language skills and academic ability. Of course, given that the majority of the foreign children did not have any prior exposure to the Japanese language before they came to Japan, their academic problems were much more serious than those of Japanese returnees, but the fact that they were pulled out together strengthened the affiliation between these specific returnees being pulled-out and foreign children, while, at the same time, emphasizing the difference from the rest. At times, this provided a framework for friendships to emerge. For example, in a third-grade classroom, three girls who attended supplementary class together were very close and frequently were seen together during recess. Two of these girls were foreign children from the Philippines and China, and the third one was a returnee just came back from Australia. Compared with “newcomer” children, however, returnees exited this pull-out program with more ease, and thus were quickly reintegrated to the regular classroom. According to the teacher in charge of the international classroom, returnees on average stayed in the program for one to three months, but foreign children needed to spend more time. For instance, a Brazilian boy and Filipina girl were in this program for over a year. The teacher noted that returnees knew the “basics” of Japanese language, which speeded up their learning.

234 Misako Nukaga and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi It seems to be the case that, when returnees exit the program, classroom teachers no longer see their Japanese language skills as different from the rest of the children in the class. Simultaneously, the opportunities for the teachers and children to mark these children as kikoku decreased. When one of the authors, Nukaga, asked teachers to give the names of the returnees they had in their class, all of them immediately named those who were in the pull-out program, but were not sure about the rest, saying that “there are too many of them.” It should be emphasized that, although teachers tended to see the Japanese language skill of returnees as no different from that of the regular Japanese children if they were not in the program, this does not mean that returnees actually did not have Japanese language problems. The Japanese language teacher mentioned that it would be hard for some returnees to get into a private school if they were not eligible for a special slot for returnees. Although part of the reason for such an academic disadvantage was because they were returnees and had left the Japanese system for a certain period, once they fell out of the institutionalized returnee category, they were treated the same as the regular Japanese children, and their academic failure was likely to be associated with the same kinds of reason attributed to academic failure for other children (e.g., their own lack of effort). In the case of returnees who attend schools that do not have special pullout program like we saw at Hayama, teachers are more likely to overlook their differences and academic needs, thereby often depriving these children of educational opportunities. “Inappropriate” behaviors Teachers and children sometimes marked returnees as “different,” when they saw returnees act in a way that was disturbing to school norms. Although these deviant behaviors were often mentioned by teachers as characteristics of kikoku, again, this only applied to a small number of returnees, who were often at the early stage of (re)adaptation. The majority of the returnees were able to follow the school routines in an “appropriate” way soon after they re-entered the school. Although, for many returnees, experience of “lunchtime chores (kyūshoku tōban),” in which they need to prepare dishes and serve food for the class, as well as “cleaning chores (sōji tōban)” at the end of the day, was completely unfamiliar, they quickly learned the trick of the trade by following other children in class. These children expressed in their essays that they were grateful that their classmates taught them how to carry out these duties. It was also likely that they had support from their parents, especially mothers, who, with their middle-class background, could teach their child how to behave “appropriately” in school. There were, however, some returnees who often displayed behaviors that were marked by teachers and other children as “inappropriate.” At Hayama, like in other schools in Japan, unity of the classroom and cooperative relationships among the children were strongly supported. In a fifth-grade class, for example, there was a girl, Tamura-san, who had been in the United States for five years and came back to Japan two months before the observations began. She was in

The kikokushijo 235 a pull-out program, and her classroom teacher referred to her as “kikoku.” In class, Tamura-san seemed to build a wall around herself. When she took notes, she always covered up her notebook with her arms and put her face close to her desk, so that her neighbors would not see her writing. The teacher frequently cautioned her to sit up straight and put her head up. She also got into small quarrels with her classmates for cutting in line and not trashing her lunch leftovers on her own, leaving it to other children in the same designated group. When these incidents occurred, one child often started to warn her by saying, “You shouldn’t do that,” and others watching this began to echo the blaming. The teacher said to me, “It’s often the case with the kikoku child that they have a hard time opening up to others. They don’t know how to cooperate and can become quite selfish.” While kikoku were often portrayed by teachers as “uncooperative” and “selfish,” it was only during the early stages of returnee children’ (re)adaptation that their deviance was marked and associated with their returnee background. For one thing, returnee children quickly learned how to cooperate with others as they became more used to the school and made more close friends. When Nukaga interviewed Tamura-san’s classroom teacher three months after the first interview, the teacher now expressed a positive opinion about Tamura-san: “She seems to feel more confident nowadays. She has made good friends in class and now she’s very open. She’s willing to lead the class when we have events.” Five months after returning to Japan, Tamura-san’s negative labeling as kikoku seemed to have faded out, and perhaps the negative interpretation of selfishness was being replaced by the image of “having leadership,” though both images fit the image of the kikoku as individualistic and assertive. It should be noted that, even though there were many more returnees than “newcomers” at Hayama, in interviews, the teachers did not emphasize the inappropriate behaviors of kikoku as much as they did the problematic behavior of foreign children. Because some foreign children showed more extreme behaviors than returnees, they were more likely to be described as a “problematic child (mondaiji)” than kikoku by teachers. Here, the extreme examples of the “newcomers” who deviated more from the norm seemed to make the Japanese versus returnee distinction fade in comparison. For instance, in a third-grade class, there was a Brazilian boy of Japanese descent who often came into the classroom without changing into his indoor shoes (uwabaki), which is one of the explicit rules in Japanese schools. He did not get along with his classmates during small group activities in class—very problematic behavior given the cooperative norm in Japanese classrooms. One time, when a classroom teacher asked children to get into small groups and discuss what social studies research theme that they would like to work on as a group, the Brazilian boy became angry and started to yell at other children in the group, “You’re not listening to me!” He then ran out of the classroom and did not come back for ten minutes. Like this case, some foreign children’s “inappropriate” behavior often stood out noticeably in class, which, ironically, obscured the differences between returnees and Japanese children as the difference between the two began to look

236 Misako Nukaga and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi minimal in comparison. Compared with such outbursts, the deviant behaviors of returnees were negligible, and thereby most kikoku were able to avoid being sanctioned for conducting “inappropriate” behavior. English skills A returnee’s English skill was clearly marked as different, often earning respect from teachers and children. As a school that advertises its international atmosphere, there were quite a few opportunities for children and teachers to engage in English activities at Hayama. As part of international understanding education, they occasionally had English lessons, inviting a native English-speaking assistant language teacher (ALT) to the class. The school also had an educational exchange project going on with an elementary school in the United States and invited four American teachers to visit the school for five days during May 2001. Some teachers led a class to sing English songs and play games in English when they found some extra time. Whenever there were English-speaking visitors to the school, teachers asked returnees to interpret for the class. Many teachers noted that, because they were not confident with English, returnees’ English skills were a great help for them. Again, returnees were considered as resources by teachers in this context. In a sixth-grade class, a boy who came back from the United States and a girl from the United Kingdom were often asked by their classroom teacher to translate for the American ALT. When the teacher asked these two returnees to stand up and move to the center, other children in the class cheered, “Go Kenta!” or, “You can do it, Rika!” When they translated some simple English instructions about how to play the game in English into Japanese, there was more cheering from the class: “How do you understand what she says?”; “Only kikoku can do this (sasuga kikoku dane)!” It appeared, in general, that kikoku were identified by teachers and children as people who could understand and speak English. However, this was actually not the reality of returnees at Hayama. Although there were children who were quite fluent in English, not all were. Sometimes, the ideal type of kikoku as fluent in English and “international” that the teachers had in mind contradicted the reality and exposed the diversity within the returnee population. The following is an incident in a fifth-grade classroom with the Japanese language teacher mentioned earlier. Standing in front of the class, the teacher asked them, “I know that there are lots of kikoku friends (kikoku no otomodachi) in this class. Would you stand up?” Eight children stood up from their chair. The teacher asked a boy in English, “How long were you there?” The boy chuckled and said embarrassedly in Japanese, “Sorry, I don’t understand English. I went to a Japanese school.” Other children also started to giggle, perhaps because the boy answered back in Japanese when the teacher expected him to speak English. The ideal image of kikoku as competent in English was sometimes resisted even by those returnees who were fluent in English. Although the English ability of English-fluent returnees was usually acclaimed in class, it was also true that they

The kikokushijo 237 were sometimes accused by their peers of “showing-off (jimansuru)” their superior abilities. For instance, one time when the sixth-graders went on a field trip, a classroom teacher encouraged children to sing karaoke on their way on the bus. When the teacher played a hit song, some children started to sing the words. One boy was a returnee from the United States, who was usually asked by the teacher to become a translator. Another boy was saying to the returnee child, “Why are you only singing the English part? You’re showing off your English ‘cause you’re kikoku.” The returnee child replied with anger, “No I’m not!” The other boy said back, “Yes you are!” After this, the returnee child stopped singing and fell into silence. The classroom teacher told me that this returnee child had told him that his classmates said that he was a snob (namaiki) because he spoke English. Some returnees became more hesitant to speak English in front of their peers as such things happened. Teachers told me that, during English lessons, some returnees, especially if they were fluent in English, refrained from speaking up in class. For fear of being teased by their peers, it seemed that these returnees were striving to obscure their superior English skills, which teachers wanted to utilize in class. At the same time, however, there were also returnees who presented their English skills in a way that attracted their peers instead of inviting hostility. A fifth-grade girl returning from the United Kingdom was popular among her classmates, and she sometimes gathered her friends and taught English phrases to them during recess. Her friends called this gathering “Rika’s English class” and enjoyed learning English from her. As these cases illustrate, presentation of English skills by returnees could have either a positive (e.g., models) or negative (e.g., boasting) effect on their peer relationships, as English was the most sought after language. It was then necessary for the returnees to strategically negotiate the difference posed by the ideal type of kikoku as fluent in the “international” language, to avoid being sanctioned by peers and to better one’s positioning. Although there were foreign children and returnees who were fluent in different languages, English was by far the most popular language that caught attention of the teachers and children. Like returnees, English-speaking foreign children were encouraged by the teachers to become interpreters during English language activities. For instance, in the fifth grade, a boy whose parent on one side was American spoke fluent English with visitors from the United States. Teachers noted that this boy was a good friend of a newly arrived returnee boy, and they sometimes heard the two boys speaking in English during the first several weeks after the returnee boy entered the school. Like this case, bonds were often created among English-speaking returnees and foreign children; English seemed to operate to highlight their difference from the rest, perhaps helping them to share a sense of superiority. On the other hand, foreign children at Hayama, who spoke Tagalog, Thai, Portuguese, or Russian, did not have many opportunities to present their native language skills in school and earn respect from others. The same was true for the returnees who learned a language other than English while staying abroad. Their ability in different language skills was thus muted in the school context, and thus the boundary based on language was not highlighted.

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However, for teachers and children in the fifth grade, the status of Chinese was quite different from other languages, because, as mentioned earlier, the fifth grade developed a curriculum that focused on China. Tao-san and several returnees from China were asked to teach greetings in Chinese in class, and children practiced singing a Chinese song together. As this case suggests, the marking and muting of difference were highly context-dependent. At Hayama, Chinese skills, along with English skills (which are appreciated everywhere in Japan) became one of the markers of difference, largely because of Tao-san and the teachers highlighting her existence and focusing on China.

Conclusion We argued at the beginning of this chapter that it was now the time to resituate the returnee as one player within the larger multicultural landscape. If the first phase of the returnee phenomenon, starting in the 1960s, stressed the “salvation” and assimilation of the returnee, and the next phase stressed the importance of preserving and learning from the positive traits of the returnee, the third phase breaks away from a dichotomous and fixed image of the returnee as understood against the “mainstream Japanese.” With the increasing inflow of a population that is more alien than the returnee, but that also can be sorted into similar categories or can experience institutional provisions such as “internationalization” or classrooms for adapting to Japanese society, the line between the kikokushijo and the mainstream Japanese does not seem that set. The other “international” Other, notably the “newcomers,” have moved into the spaces that were until then reserved for the “international” Japanese. The Hayama case provides us with an example of how the line drawn between the kikoku and the “regular” Japanese shifts in relative positioning against the “newcomers.” At times, it shifts to place the returnees with the “newcomers,” promoting a friendship between the two. The diversification and renegotiation of the returnee boundaries have both positive and negative influences on the returnees’ status and educational opportunities. On the one hand, the positive aspects of returnees are highlighted more than before, as the “newcomers” enter the scene, and teachers highlight “international” characteristics (e.g., international experience, foreign language skills) of both for classroom management and teaching. Also, the returnee children’s “inappropriate behavior,” which used to be the target of criticism, is now seen as much less “problematic” in light of the behavior of “newcomer” children. On the other hand, we should not dismiss the fact that the educational needs of returnee children are often taken lightly by teachers, who are more concerned about the linguistic and academic development of “newcomer” children. It thus becomes necessary for returnee children strategically to negotiate their differences and boundaries in order to gain access to various resources at school as a returnee. Such observations remind us that it is beneficial to understand the differences of returnees as fluid and context-dependent, rather than in essentialized terms.

The kikokushijo 239 This chapter has shown that, although there are images of returnees—both positive and negative—the reality of the returnee population is more diverse and complex, and bound to the context, and that the differences associated with the ideal image of returnees are constantly negotiated and interpreted by the returnees and other school members. Some returnees continued to remind others that they were kikoku by presenting these differences, while some were no longer seen as kikoku when they refrained from showing these differences. These children differed in the amount of resources (e.g., teachers’ attention, popularity/status) that they could gain at school. The status of a child as a returnee is thus not entirely an ascribed one; it is continuously constructed and acquired in the process of negotiating the boundaries between the regular Japanese children and also the foreign children. Such a constructionist view is important in understanding the real life definition of returnee children, who share important qualities with the “regular” Japanese, but are also the prototype of the “international” population, and whose nature appears to be situational, shifting, and negotiated. This viewpoint is also crucial to understanding unequal access to school resources among returnees, which results from their diverse strategies to negotiate returnee differences in specific contexts.

Notes 1

2

3

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5

6

The previous literature has often portrayed returnees as a relatively identifiable group. For instance, White (1988) emphasized the image of returnees as a “threat” and “pitiful,” based on her research in the mid-to-late 1970s, while, on the contrary, Goodman (1993), doing research in the mid 1980s, described them as a “privileged elite.” According to Goodman (2003), these different images of returnees were influenced by the dominant perception of the returnees in Japanese society and thus tended to reinforce, rather than explore, the social status of returnees. More recently, Pang (2000) categorized four “types” of returnee from interview and questionnaire: “international”; “ordinary Japanese”; “new type of Japanese”; and “others.” Brubaker and Cooper (2000) support a “weak” understanding of identity proposed by social psychologists (e.g. Goffman 1959), who emphasize its situational, flexible, and multiple natures. While this view tries to avoid reification of identity and instead focuses on the identification process, proponents of the Ericksonian “strong” view argue that identity is formed through internationalization of “natural” or “essential” characteristics that members of the group all share. Such an approach to diversity and difference is proposed by Thorne (2005). Drawing on Erving Goffman’s focus on situated face-to-face interaction, Thorne explores how individual and group differences are negotiated and constructed in schools, which are prime sites for the marking of difference. The number of returnees at Hayama includes those who had stayed overseas for more than a year at some point before coming to school. Thus, it includes both recent returnee children and those who had returned some time ago. “san” is one of the titles commonly attached to Japanese names. At school, it is used by teachers to address students. Children also sometimes call each other by their last name with “san.” In this chapter, all the names of the teachers and children have been changed. Nukaga (2008) finds that expatriate mothers living in Los Angeles engage in intensive parenting in order to raise their children to be bilingual and bicultural. In places such

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as Los Angeles, where there is a large Japanese transnational community with rich infrastructures (e.g. media, cram schools, and supplementary schools) and networks, parents are able to prepare their children for the future return, while making them go to local school and study the local language and curriculum.

References Brubaker, R. and Cooper, F. (2000) “Beyond ‘identity’,” Theory and Society, 29: 1–47. Goffman, E. (1959) The presentation of self in everyday life, Garden City, New York: Double Day Anchor Books. Goodman, R. (1993) Japan’s “international youth”: the emergence of a new class of schoolchildren, Oxford: Oxford University Press. –––– (2003) “The changing perception and status of Japan’s returnee children (kikokushijo),” in R. Goodman et al. (ed.), Global Japan: the experience of Japan’s new immigrant and overseas communities, London: Routledge Curzon. Hendry, J. (1989) Becoming Japanese: the world of the pre-school child, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Kaigaishijyo Kyōiku Zaidan (Japan Overseas Educational Services) (2002/1995) Shin/Kaigaishijo kyōiku manuaru (New manual for Japanese children overseas). –––– (2004) Kikokushijo no tameno gakko binran (Guidebook of schools for the kikokushijo). Kobayashi, T. (1988) “Ibunkakan kyoiku to kokusai rikai (Intercultural education and international understanding),” Ibunkakan Kyōiku, 2: 4–15. Kurachi, A. (1998) Tabunka kyōsei no kyōiku (Education for multicultural coexistence), Tokyo: Keiso Shobō. Lewis, C. C. (1995) Educating hearts and minds: reflections on Japanese preschool and elementary education, New York: Cambridge University Press. Mabuchi, H. (2002) “Ibunka rikai” no discourse: Bunka honshitsu shugi no otoshiana (Discourse of intercultural understanding: pitfalls of cultural essentialism), Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2009) Kaigai de manabu Nihon no kodomo tachi: Waga kuni no kaigai shijyo kyōiku no genjō (Japanese children studying abroad: present circumstances of our country’s overseas education). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2008) Kaigai zairyū hōjin shijo sū tōkei (Statistics of Japanese living abroad). Available online at www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/tokei/hojin_sj/index.html (accessed July 10, 2008). Nukaga, M. (2003) “Japanese education in an era of internationalization: a case study of an emerging multicultural coexistence model,” International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 12: 79–94. –––– (2008) Motherhoods and childhoods in transnational lives: gender and ethnic identities among Japanese expatriate families in Los Angeles, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, UCLA. Pang, C. L. (2000) Negotiating identity in contemporary Japan: the case of Kikokushijo, London: Kegan Paul International. Sato, G. (2001) “Kaigai/kikokushijo kyiōku: atarashī rinen no kōchiku ni mukete (Overseas children and returnee children’s education: aiming to construct new ideal),” in M. Amano and Y. Murata (eds), Tabunka Kyōsei Shakai no Kyōiku (Education in multicultural coexsietence society), Tokyo: Tamagawa Daigaku Shuppanbu.

The kikokushijo 241 Shimahara, N. K. and Sakai, A. (1995) Learning to teach in two cultures: Japan and the United States, New York: Garland. Sleeter, C. E. and Grant, C. A. (1994) Making choices for multicultural education: five approaches to race, class, and gender, New York: Macmillan. Thorne, B. (2005) “Unpacking school lunchtime: structure, practice, and the negotiation of differences,” in C. R. Cooper et al. (eds), Developmental pathways through middle childhood: rethinking contexts and diversity as resources, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tsuneyoshi, R. (2001) The Japanese model of schooling: comparisons with the United States, New York: Falmer Routledge. –––– (2002) “Kyōiku no kokusaika to tayōna ‘tabunka kyoiku’–Nichibei no kyōshitsu kara (Internationalization of education and diverse multicultural education: from classrooms in Japan and the US),” in M. Kajita (ed.), Kokusaika to Aidentiti (Internationalization and identity), Tokyo: Mineruba shobō. White, M. (1988) The Japanese overseas: can they go home again? New York: Free Press.

11 Concluding remarks Implications for educational research and reform Sarane Spence Boocock

An underlying theme connecting the various chapters of this book is the extent to which the diversification of Japanese society is transforming the lives of minority and majority peoples and the relations among them. When compared with most other developed nations, minorities, including immigrants, still constitute a relatively small proportion of the Japanese population, but their growing presence makes it increasingly difficult for mainstream Japanese to ignore the “Others” in their midst, especially in those districts, termed “diversity points” by Tsuneyoshi (Chapter 7), where the concentration of foreigners and other minorities may be as high as one resident in four. The rapidity with which Japanese society has been diversifying in recent years has outpaced the construction of terminology to describe it—several authors mentioned their difficulties in deciding how to identify the children they were studying. Acknowledging that the labels commonly used “are often simplistic, masking crucial differences within categories,” Tsuneyoshi concludes that understanding the complex reciprocal relations among groups and the shifting boundaries between them will require “the majority society to reconsider its conceptions of difference” (Chapter 7, pp. 154, 168). Moreover, the ethnic and cultural diversification of Japan is occurring in a context of other significant changes. As a result of a precipitous drop in the birth rate (due to young people delaying marriage and children, or foregoing them altogether) coinciding with a considerable extension of life expectancy (now one of the world’s longest), Japan is a rapidly aging society, and, for the first time, in 2005 there was a decline in the total population. Economic fluctuations have precipitated both unemployment and severe labor shortages in some sectors of the economy, and the gaps between individuals and groups in income and social capital are widening rapidly. These trends have important implications for education policy and practice. If further population decline and labor shortages are to be prevented, Japanese women will have to be persuaded to have more children, or the government will have to continue admitting substantial, perhaps even greater, numbers of foreign workers.1 If Japan is to maintain high levels of economic productivity, ample reserves of well-trained workers will be required, many of whom, it seems likely, will have to be recruited from the very groups that are linked in the minds of

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many Japanese with delinquency and crime, poor school performance, and other social problems. Thus, the quality of education provided to minority and newcomer children will have direct consequences for the overall cohesiveness of Japanese society, as well as for the ability of Japanese businesses to compete in the global economy. How well is the Japanese education system serving these children? Are they being adequately prepared to succeed in and contribute to Japanese society? Though the preceding chapters have shown mixed results, a general conclusion is that, with few exceptions (for example, returnee children whose fathers were middle-class businessmen temporarily assigned to the overseas offices of major Japanese corporations), minority students trailed their majority counterparts in virtually all areas of academic achievement, were more likely to manifest behavior and other problems, and were more likely to skip classes or drop out. Despite a government-mandated national curriculum, some authors found considerable variations between schools and school districts in educational policies, practices, and outcomes, to the extent that schooling can be a very different experience for minority and majority students. Minority kids are more likely to attend schools that offer a less demanding curriculum and more teacher-directed, drill-focused methods of instruction, to which many respond by various forms of “withdrawal,” from “tuning out” in class (as observed among buraku girls) to delinquency, both in and outside of school, and truancy or dropping out altogether (as found disproportionately among South American and some groups of Asian newcomer adolescents). Ironically, as Shimizu (Chapter 8) noted, children of foreign nationality living in Japan are not entitled to the “compulsory” education that is legally required of Japanese nationals, but must seek approval from local schools boards to attend school there. Teachers’ handling of minority issues and minority students varied, both across and within schools. Although many teachers made extraordinary efforts to meet the special educational needs of non-majority students and to promote cooperation and friendships among children from different backgrounds (Chapter 10 contains some especially good examples), teachers’ attitudes and behavior could also reinforce prevailing stereotypes. Thus low achievement and misbehavior among buraku children were expected by many school personnel and explained by deficits in their homes and communities (Chapter 3), while, in the urban elementary school studied by Nukaga and Tsuneyoshi, teachers sometimes overestimated the English language skills of returnees (owing to the stereotype linking returnees and English-speaking countries) and were more likely to overlook misbehavior by these children than by foreign-born newcomer children, who were more likely to be socio-economically and academically disadvantaged and culturally different from majority Japanese, and thus more likely to be perceived as “problems” (Chapter 10: 235–6).2 The behavior of their majority schoolmates could also account for the lower “comfort level” experienced by many minority students, who were disproportionately likely to suffer peer abuse ranging from verbal insults to exclusion from majority friendship groups to persistent bullying, to which they not infrequently

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retaliated by mistreating other kids who were weaker than themselves.3 Majority children, many of whom were frightened of, or hostile toward, “different” classmates, were seldom required to examine their own stereotypical views and treatment of “Others.” When schools did offer instruction about the history and culture of minority groups, including the extent of discrimination against them, these classes were often limited to students who were members of those minorities, rather than required of all students, as recommended by minority activist organizations, such as the Buraku Liberation League. Another general theme of this book—really a corollary to the theme stated in the opening sentence of this chapter—is that the educational difficulties experienced by minority children are themselves diverse, reflecting variations in their niche in Japanese society. The preceding chapters have offered a broad range of data on the extent and the ways in which children’s family background, in particular, their race, ethnicity, caste, and socio-economic status (SES ), are linked to educational outcomes (see definitions of these background variables in Chapter 1). Moreover, the combined and sometimes interactive effects of these variables add yet another level of complexity to the evolving multicultural landscape of Japan.

Effects of variations in family background Race The chapters in Part 2 revealed a number of difficulties faced by children whose race set them apart from majority Japanese. Noiri’s study of children born to Okinawan mothers and American fathers (Chapter 4) suggests that mixed-race children were especially likely to be relegated to marginal status.4 As the Okinawans were classified as a minority people (with Japan’s lowest average income and highest unemployment rate), and as the American occupation did not grant Okinawans US citizenship, Amerasian children had the status of a “double minority,” neither American nor fully Japanese—indeed, many had no nationality (a disadvantage shared by many oldtimer Koreans). Stigmatized as haafu (halfpersons), they were frequent targets of peer abuse—Noiri found that the bullying of Amerasian kids, especially those with African-American fathers, was so common that it was considered normal behavior. In contrast, the middle-class returnees who were the subject of Chapter 10 retained their Japanese racial identity while living abroad, and their transition to Japanese schools was relatively smooth, especially if their stay abroad was not lengthy and they had remained fluent in Japanese. This was not, however, the case for returnees from Brazil (Nikkeijin), who benefited far less from their racial origins. Although they looked like “real” Japanese, they were thought to lack Japanese values and accomplishments. Tsuneyoshi characterizes the ambiguous position of many Nikkeijin as suspended in limbo between two cultures, feeling at home in neither: “In Brazil Nikkeijin were ‘Japanese,’ in Japan they are ‘gaijin’ (foreigners)” (Chapter 6: p. 141).

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Ethnicity and caste Although both buraku people and ethnic Koreans have been defined as racially different from, and inferior to, “real” Japanese,5 most scholars now consider the latter an ethnic minority, people with a shared language, culture, and country of origin, who emigrated to Japan at various times in the past and not always voluntarily. Alone among the minority peoples covered in this book, buraku people were until recently an outcaste group, whose exclusion from mainstream society was politically mandated and enforced, who did not have a distinctive culture (including language), and whose arrival in the Japanese archipelago coincided with that of mainstream Japanese. As we have seen, government measures to abolish discrimination have succeeded to some extent in changing mainstream attitudes and behavior; for example, survey data suggest that the proportion of people who believed that buraku people were of a different race from other Japanese dropped from over half in the mid 1960s to around 10 percent by the mid to late 1990s (Kitaguchi 1999). Yet both groups continue to lag behind majority Japanese on most educational, occupational, and standard-of-living measures. Ironically, the very lack of physical attributes that revealed their minority designation placed many buraku people and ethnic Koreans on the horns of a dilemma, forced to choose between alternatives that reinforced their ambiguous place in Japanese society.6 The option of “passing,” that is, concealing their origins by relocating to another part of the country or, in the case of ethnic Koreans, adopting Japanese names offered the opportunity to escape discrimination and move up on the social ladder, but at the cost of having to live with a false identity and the constant fear of being found out. The alternative strategy of “coming out,” for example, by announcing to neighbors, schoolmates, or co-workers that they were Korean or buraku, by joining a club or organization dedicated to studying their group’s history and culture, or by engaging in political activism for the purpose of ending discriminatory laws and practices, promised a sense of empowerment by resumption of one’s true identity (symbolized by Koreans exchanging their Japanese names for their Korean ones), but could also result in renewed harassment or ostracism. In contrast with the physical characteristics associated with race, language is a learned skill, and being able to speak and understand the primary or official language of a society facilitates an individual’s or a group’s integration into that society. We saw, for example, that while the kikokushijo’s re-entry to Japan was eased by their racial identicalness to majority Japanese, their school adjustment also depended upon whether they had kept up their Japanese language skills, in school and/or at home, while they were living abroad. Weighing the effects of the assimilation movement in Okinawa on language choice and proficiency, Noiri found both losses and gains. On the one hand, young people who gain English language proficiency thereby acquire a kind of cultural capital that may enhance their future educational and occupational opportunities. On the other hand, the indigenous Ryukyuan language is dying out, as fewer and fewer young people learn to speak it (Chapter 4, pp. 93–5).

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Though diverse in many other respects, adult newcomers were likely to have in common a limited proficiency in Japanese, which in turn limited their ability to help their children with school work and to communicate with school personnel. Indeed, children were likely to become fluent in the new language while their parents were still struggling with it, and some remained bilingual, shifting back and forth from one language to the other depending upon setting and whom they were with. Others favored the language they spoke with their peers and became increasingly reluctant to speak their parents’ native language, even at home (Chapter 6, pp. 142–3).7 Children’s ability to converse in everyday Japanese did not necessarily mean that they had acquired the language skills needed to master the subjects taught in the schools they attended. From her visits to schools enrolling sizeable numbers of newcomer children, Okano observed that the criteria for assessing students’ Japanese language proficiency before transferring them from pull-out classes to mainstream classes were often arbitrary, with the result that many of these students became “semi-lingual,” that is, lacking facility in reading or writing either language. Socio-economic status Of all social status variables, the position of parents on the socio-economic ladder is the best single predictor of their children’s opportunities and accomplishments. The middle- or upper-middle-class status of most of the kikokushijo who were the subject of Chapter 10, combined with their racial identicalness and familiarity with the Japanese language and values, made it easier for them to accumulate the kinds of social capital associated with educational achievement than for minority and newcomer families located on the lower rungs of the social ladder. Similarly, oldcomer ethnic Chinese, who tend to have relatively high income, education, and professional status, are popularly regarded as a “model minority.” That these ethnic Chinese have little contact with newcomer Chinese (see Chapter 2) suggests that social relationships may be more strongly influenced by relative socioeconomic status than by shared ethnicity. In sharp contrast, most of the parents of the South American children discussed in Chapter 7 not only had a limited grasp of the Japanese language and customs, but as factory workers: they were of a different social class from the majority of the children in this upper-middle-class neighborhood . . . Both parents worked late, and the child was often alone after school, while the majority of the other pupils, especially from fourth grade onward, were attending cram schools. (Chapter 7, pp. 164–5, italics added) As Okano and Tsuchiya put it in an earlier (1999) volume on Japanese education, the “practice of schooling continues to reproduce, rather than eliminate, family disadvantages”; while some minority and disadvantaged kids succeed in beating the system, in general, “the odds are stacked against these children” (xiii, 139).8

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Effects of variations in social setting In addition to, and often related to, variations in the social status of minority and newcomer families, the circumstances that brought them to Japan and the social resources of the communities in which they settle are also associated with variations in the education their children receive. Among the theories purporting to explain why some migrants fare better than others, John Ogbu’s distinction between voluntary minorities, who have chosen to immigrate in hopes of a better future and who are likely to see education as a path to success in their new country, and involuntary minorities, who are subordinated through enslavement, colonization, or conquest and who are likely to be suspicious of the schools and other societal institutions run by the dominant group(s) in society, has been particularly influential. Ogbu has often cited as a case in point the very different experiences of ethnic Koreans dispersed to different parts of the world after their country was colonized by Japan. In contrast to the descendants of Koreans who were brought to Japan as forced labor and who are among the poorest-performing students in Japan, Koreans who emigrated voluntarily to the United States and to China have been among the most academically successful groups in those countries, often outperforming their majority counterparts (Ogbu 1992, 1993). Empirical research testing Ogbu’s model has produced mixed results, and some of the studies discussed in this book suggest other situational variables that affect the academic success of minority children. One such variable is intended length of residence. For example, both the kikokushijo and the Nikkeijin entered Japan voluntarily, but while the former intended to become permanent residents, the latter planned to return to their “home” countries after a couple years with the savings accumulated by both parents working long hours at jobs that, though disproportionately clustered in the lower-paying, unskilled sectors of the Japanese labor market, paid higher wages than they had been accustomed to receive in Brazil or Peru. Even Nikkeijin who decided for economic or other reasons to extend their stay in Japan continued to view themselves as temporary sojourners, and their grueling work schedules often left them with little time or inclination to supervise their children’s activities in or outside of school. (Japanese educators often compared the presumably lower educational expectations of South American parents unfavorably with the more “education-centered” culture of their Chinese-newcomer counterparts (Chapter 6), though it should be noted that there is no systematic empirical research comparing the educational values and aspirations of different newcomer groups.) In the absence of parental pressure or other incentives to overcome the disadvantages with which they entered Japanese schools, and unsure of just where they belonged and what the future held for them, Nikkeijin kids were likely to attend school sporadically or drop out altogether. The particular historical era or context in which various groups entered or reentered Japan also produced cohort variations in school experiences. For example, though most of the kikokushijo children came from relatively privileged families, Nukaga and Tsuneyoshi found differences in the ways these children were perceived and treated depending upon when they returned to Japan. The cohort

248 Sarane Spence Boocock who returned during the “first wave”, in the 1960s, were viewed as “victims” who needed to be “rescued” and helped to overcome their presumed difficulties in re-adjusting to Japanese schools and society; in the 1980s, a “second wave” of returnees were redefined more positively as “gateways to other cultures”; in the twenty-first century, as a result of repositioning kikokushisho within the “larger framework of education for international understanding education,” returnee students are now valued as “spearheads of internationalization,” that is, as contributors to, as well as participants in, Japan’s diversifying multicultural landscape (Chapter 10, pp. 215, 220, 229). Finally, newcomer children’s school adjustment was affected, not only by when they came and where they came from, but also by where they settled and, in particular, by the pre-existing local infrastructure in their new place of residence. The Osaka metropolitan area, which has the largest concentration of buraku and ethnic Korean residents, many of them long-time residents, also has the most highly developed education and welfare programs, both governmental and those established by minority organizations. (The national headquarters of the Buraku Liberation League are in downtown Osaka, where the dōwa educational philosophy and teaching practices also originated.) The extensive system of public and private services already in place has undoubtedly facilitated the integration of newcomers, and it is probably not coincidental that this area has the highest rates of foreign nationals and JSL students staying in school beyond the compulsory level and graduating from high school. Special sections to promote human rights education were also established by local education boards in the other two prefectures in the Kansai area (Hyogo prefecture and Kyoto prefecture). Originally designed to guide teachers in charge of dōwa education, these sections have been expanded and modified to accommodate incoming Koreans and subsequent waves of newcomers. In contrast, districts in Aichi prefecture, Shizuoka prefecture, and Toyohashi City with large numbers of South American newcomers, which had not experienced dōwa education (owing, at least in part, to the widespread belief that there were no (or almost no) burakumin in their districts), have not to date established special sections on human rights education (Kaori Okano, personal communication). Given the considerable variations and fluctuations from one locality to another in the composition of their minority and newcomer populations and in community resources, there is probably no single “best” way for communities and schools to accommodate newcomer children and their families, but raising human rights consciousness among teachers and providing them with the training and resources to work with increasingly diverse student populations would seem to be essential components of any effective educational reforms. Without attempting to map the entire multicultural landscape of Japan, the chapters in this book offer a series of admittedly partial cross-sections showing how some areas, metropolitan and non-metropolitan, are dealing with the increasingly permanent and visible minority peoples in their midst. Underscoring the complexity of inter-group relations in Japan, Nukaga and Tsuneyoshi remind us that: “different cultures do not exist in society equally, but are subject to

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domination and subordination” (Chapter 10, p. 230, italics added). Relations between minorities sometimes involve cooperation—for example, the various interactions and alliances among returnees, newcomers, and local organizations described by Tsuneyoshi in Chapter 6, and the discovery by newcomer students interviewed by Shimuzu that: “To survive in Japanese society, you must stick together with other foreigners like yourselves” (Chapter 8, p. 186). But, just as often, inter-group relations involve intense competition and persistent stereotyping (for example, opposition to their children dating or marrying buraku people expressed by ethnic Koreans, even as they borrowed ideas and strategies from the buraku liberation movement). Adding to the complexity of status effects are the increasing variations within as well as between minority groups, caused, for example, by the influx of newcomer Koreans and Chinese into areas of traditionally oldcomer residents (Chapter 6) and the increasing social stratification among burakumin that has created a two-tiered class structure, with a few at the top, and far greater numbers at the bottom (Chapter 3).

Alternative modes of improving educational opportunities and outcomes If, as the dōwa slogan proclaims, the liberation of discriminated-against peoples begins and ends in education, what kinds of education are most likely to bring this about? Given the range of problems identified in the preceding chapters, it seems unlikely that any single approach will be effective for all minority children. Following are the most-frequently-mentioned alternatives. They are not mutually exclusive. 1: Neta ko wa sono mama (“Don’t wake a sleeping baby”) approach This essentially passive approach takes the position that most educational problems will be “naturally” resolved as a result of societal changes (including a growing tolerance of diversity), and that reform efforts can, in fact, perpetuate the problems they were designed to solve, for example, by provoking a backlash. Cohort comparisons suggest that some disadvantages have dissipated over time as perceptions of minority children change and they learn the language and norms of classroom life. But critics of this approach argue that ignoring problems, which has never benefited minorities suffering the most severe discrimination, has become even less acceptable as “Others” become a more numerous, visible, and permanent presence and are less reticent about expressing their opinions about their children’s schools (for example, Burgess’s analysis, in Chapter 9, of foreign students and their families in Yamagata prefecture). 2: Assimilation (“Treat them the same as Japanese”) approach The objective of this activist approach is to enable minority and newcomer students to become “real” or mainstream Japanese, by giving all students the same

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education and, at least in principle, treating all students in the same way. In actual practice, assimilation in schools typically involves separating newcomer and other “culturally different” students in special (“withdrawal” or “pull-out”) classes, where they are given intensive or remedial instruction, especially in the Japanese language. Although fewer educators and researchers favor this strategy now than in the past,9 Burgess’s data indicated that, at all levels of the educational system, rapid assimilation remained the dominant ideology. Lip service is given to notions of multiculturalism and the need to value difference or diversity among children, but in practice the limited resources that are available focus on improving children’s daily and academic Japanese language skills. 3: Liberal multiculturalism approach The educational approach that is most congruent with the “internal internationalization” model of Japanese society, multiculturalism promotes acceptance—even celebration—of diversity, to be achieved by crafting curricula and teaching methods to fit the interests and needs of particular groups of students. An underlying assumption of this approach is that the self-esteem and academic achievement of minority students can be raised by affording them a greater understanding and appreciation of their “roots.” Another assumption of multiculturalism is that it simultaneously benefits non-minority students by developing in them a more inclusive attitude toward people from different backgrounds. Examples of this approach, ranging from after-school clubs where Korean, buraku, and newcomer students could learn about their own heritage, to discussion sessions on minority groups and their problems incorporated into mainstream classes as a component of “moral education” or “integrated study” (sōgō gakushū), can be found in several of the preceding chapters. In a junior high school that enrolled children from thirteen different nations, Shimizu found an extensive system of classes and study and discussion groups designed to offer newcomer students a “venue” in which to “find out about themselves as foreigners and about their native countries” (Chapter 8, p. 250). Moreover, as the scope of the courses expanded, students came to learn about each others’ political, economic, and cultural backgrounds, as well as to acknowledge and respect their similarities and differences. Although the multicultural activities in this school encouraged appreciation of different cultures and cooperative relations among students coming to Japan from different countries, they often separated foreign or newcomer students from majority students at least initially (as did the assimilation approach, though for different reasons). By contrast, in the Kawasaki City elementary school studied by Nukaga and Tseneyoshi, when minority and majority students were in the same classroom, teachers were able to draw upon newcomer and returnee children’s experiences abroad to “introduce the theme of international understanding to the class and encourage other children to take an interest in foreign countries” (Chapter 10, p. 229).

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4: Human rights approach In contrast to the emphasis on appreciation of different cultures and harmonious inter-group relations fostered by the liberal multicultural approach, the human rights approach, which has been most fully realized in the dōwa education model, seeks to attain parity in educational achievements through curricula and teaching methods that: (a) enable all students to develop the cognitive and social skills needed for success in school and later life; and (b) ensure that all students, not just minority students, become “sensitized and informed about the history and extensiveness of discrimination and ways to fight it” (Chapter 3, p. 51). 5: Critical multiculturalism approach An approach that attempts to synthesize important elements of the liberal multicultural approach and the human rights approach while avoiding the limitations mentioned above, the critical multiculturalism model envisions schooling that both encourages students to affirm their ethnic or cultural identities through extensive study of minority languages and cultural practices and, simultaneously, prepares them to succeed in mainstream society. The critical multiculturalism approach emphasizes the limitations of liberal multiculturalism in actual practice. At its most superficial, it may involve little more than inserting a few selected bits of information about a few minorities into a few lessons (producing what some have termed a “pizza curriculum”), without challenging the dominant culture that permeates the curriculum or addressing the reality of minority children’s marginalization and their limited access to the most desirable educational and post-school opportunities. 6: Grass-roots (ground-up rather than top-down) approach Although the concentration and composition of newcomer groups varies considerably from one area of Japan to another, Burgess points out that the influx of “new” foreigners across Japan means that the majority of school districts, even in the “reluctantly globalizing” non-metropolitan areas of Yamagata prefecture, now enroll students who require Japanese language instruction. His analysis led him to propose shifting more policymaking from the prefectural level to the local or grass-roots level, on the grounds that this would ensure greater responsiveness to the most immediate needs of students and their families—not easy to accomplish in a hierarchical society with a powerful national education ministry and where, as noted above, the assimilation model is still so widely adhered to. One positive trend in this direction is that, by 2004, over fifty local governments (at the prefectural, metropolitan, municipal, or township levels) had issued policies on the education of foreign nationals in their schools, many of them incorporating elements of the critical multiculturalism approach (see, for example, Okano’s discussion of Zainichi Gakokujin Kyoiku Hoshin Shishin, in Chapter 5).

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One implication of the grass-roots approach is the importance of obtaining input from students as well as from their parents and teachers. Recent sociological research recognizes the importance of obtaining data about children directly from children themselves, as a means of avoiding what has come to be known as the adult ideological bias: the tendency to perceive kids as passive recipients of adult socialization and to advocate educational policies and practices “based on theorizing a ‘common good’ for all children and then imposing it in a downward fashion” (Smart et al. 2001: 123–4).10 The most extensive use of data that incorporate student perspectives can be found in Chapter 8. The student comments quoted by Shimizu illustrate the kinds of insight that can be gained by allowing young people to speak for themselves about how they experience school life in Japan. Stand-By-Me (SBM), an outside-school organization created by foreign students living in a public housing complex, demonstrates the potential of programs based on a grass-roots approach. By supplementing the school curriculum through a rich offering of classes, sports, performances, and other activities planned by the students themselves and “addressed the challenges of succeeding in the mainstream society [while] maintaining an identity true to oneself,” Stand By Me has attracted a larger and more diverse (in ethnicity/nationality and age) membership than most extracurricular programs for minority and newcomer children with a more top-down approach (Chapter 8, pp. 184ff.). 7: Whole child (“Japanese model” of schooling) approach Japan’s schools continue to rank high in international comparisons, and their successes are often attributed to a demanding national curriculum combined with modes of teaching that promote the values of friendliness, helpfulness, and persistence, and engender, both in academic and in non-academic activities, a spirit of communalism and sense of responsibility toward others in the group (Lewis 1995, Chapters 3 and 4; Tsuneyoshi 2001, Chapter 2). As it appears that majority children are more likely than minority children to be taught in accordance with these principles (see Chapter 3), a proposed solution is to give all, or more, children the benefits of the much-admired Japanese ideal. 8: Focus on early childhood education and care approach In the twenty-first century, there is a growing consensus among educators and policymakers that the most effective strategy for maximizing individual and societal development is to improve the quality and availability of early childhood education and care (ECEC), a claim that is supported by a substantial body of scholarly research from multiple disciplines. Longitudinal studies from several nations offer clear evidence of the educational benefits and cost-effectiveness of high quality ECEC programs, for children in general but especially for children from immigrant, racial, or ethnic minorities, or disadvantaged backgrounds. Among the most often cited examples is the Perry

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Preschool Project, in which severely disadvantaged African-American children, randomly assigned to an enriched preschool program and studied at regular intervals through to age forty, showed consistently higher academic and occupational achievement, more stable personal lives, and less involvement in criminal activities than their control group counterparts, and the gap between the experimental and control groups grew even wider over time (Schweinhart et al. 2005). Swedish studies following larger samples of children from birth into high school have found that the earlier children experienced high-quality day care and preschool programs, the better their academic, social, and emotional outcomes in elementary and secondary school (Andersson 1992). The most comprehensive mapping of preschool and child care, carried out in two rounds in twenty nations11 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 2006), found close connections between children’s ECEC experience and their subsequent educational and occupational performance. Similar findings are reported in the study of preschool experience in ten countries12 conducted by the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, under the auspices of the International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) (Montie et al. 2006). Recent assessments of early childhood development in Latin American, Caribbean, and African countries funded by the World Bank (Garcia et al. 2008; Vegas and Santibanez 2009) and the Bernard van Leer Foundation (Pence and Nsamenang 2008) conclude that increased investments in high-quality ECEC programs provide a cost effective—perhaps the most cost effective—way to reduce poverty and inequality in developing countries as well. Important contributions to the ECEC research literature have also been made by economists, most notably by Nobel Laureate James Heckman, who argues that investing in disadvantaged young children does far more to raise the productivity of society at large than interventions later in life, and that providing enriched preschool environments is the most direct and effective way to reduce the inequalities associated with “the accident of birth” (Heckman 2006; Heckman and Masterov 2007). Heckman’s “productivity argument” incorporates findings from social science research of the sort described in the previous paragraph and from recent biological research showing that the human brain is most plastic and sensitive to experience in infancy and early childhood, and that children’s environment and experiences during this key period affect not only their brain development, but also their physical and mental health, learning, and behavior for the rest of their lives (Mustard 2007). Japan did not participate in the OECD or IEA international studies, and Japan’s highly developed day care and preschool systems have received less attention in the English language literature than the systems in Western Europe and North America. Moreover, while governmental and other agencies maintain very accurate records of ECEC enrollments, staff, and naiyo, or content, until recently there has been relatively little systematic research evaluating the effects of different programs, and almost none on the experiences of minority children. Government officials, ECEC professionals, and researchers interviewed by this author in the

254 Sarane Spence Boocock late 1980s were generally reluctant even to discuss the issue of minority children; only one, the founder and co-director of a league of day-care organizations in Osaka, acknowledged her failure to incorporate minority ECEC programs or organizations into her league, so that virtually all minority children who attended preschools were enrolled in segregated establishments (Boocock 1991). In this book, only Chapter 3, on the schooling of buraku children, focused on the preschool experience of a Japanese minority group, and the findings were mixed. Even ECEC programs that encouraged the development of individual learning skills as well as the ability to work harmoniously in groups did not ensure later academic success, especially when teachers and other students retained stereotypical beliefs about buraku people and attributed school failures to shortcomings in buraku families. However, the rapidly accumulating evidence on the crucial importance of early childhood development implies that, as in other developed nations, the educational opportunities and life chances of minority, immigrant, and other disadvantaged Japanese children may be advanced by enrichment of their preschool environments and more concerted efforts to smooth the transition from preschool to elementary school. In the absence of more systematic research on these and other educational approaches, one can only speculate about their relative effectiveness. Systematic empirical research comparing the outcomes of different approaches would be a valuable next step.

Educational reform as a global issue Reflecting on the future of educational reform, Nobuo Shimahara (2001) identified issues relating to ethnicity, race, and national identity as the most critical challenges facing educators in the first several decades of the twenty-first century. At the same time, he acknowledged the difficulty of addressing these issues, given that the major variables are “mobile and shifting social categories whose meanings are dependent on changing sociopolitical contexts” that are “altering the landscape of schooling throughout the globe” (pp. 10–11). In this book, we have examined the changing landscape of schooling in one country, though we believe that many of the findings will apply to other countries as well.13 Activists lobbying for social change have expressed concern over a “drift toward nationalism” in the Japan government, exemplified by recent revision of the 1947 Fundamental Law of Education (which continues to refer specifically to “Japanese nationals,” thereby withholding from non-Japanese nationals the right to receive a Japanese education), by their continuing resistance to including discussion of Japan’s wartime atrocities in history textbooks, and by pressures to reintroduce the national anthem and pre-war “virtues” in schools (Onishi 2006; Kaori Okano, personal communication). However, the continuing emphasis upon the “internal” in “internal internationalization” is, increasingly, offset by external forces that are precipitating drastic changes in schools and schooling in many countries. Japan is not alone in trying to offset declining fertility rates and labor

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shortages by accepting growing numbers of foreign workers, many of whom do not share the values and customs of their new country and lack the social capital to secure their children’s life chances. Nor is Japan alone in attempting, however belatedly, to redress past injustices and correct current inequities suffered by its minority peoples. Other trends that are altering the social fabric of Japan—an aging population, radical changes in family size, structure, and functioning, and the rising level of skills and credentials required to obtain good jobs in a highly competitive labor market—are also worldwide phenomena. Since we began work on this book, the economic downturn in Japan and elsewhere has revealed how quickly the financial and social stability of any nation can be undermined by economic crises in other parts of the world, underscoring the need for better modes of communication and cooperation across national boundaries. The more Japan becomes embedded in the global society, the greater the benefits of cross-national exchanges of ideas and information about making schools more compatible with their increasingly diverse student populations, raising the self-esteem and academic performance of minority, immigrant, and disadvantaged children, and encouraging positive relations among students of different minorities, as well as between minority and majority students and their teachers. In his keynote address at the World Congress of Comparative Education, held in Havana, Cuba, in October, 2004, Luis Gomes Gutierrez, Cuba’s Minister of Education, urged the members of this international organization to “learn from each other by sharing our diverse experiences and adapting them to our own situations.” We hope this book will contribute to such an endeavor.

Notes 1 Although various government statements indicate that official policy favors the first alternative over the second, preferring to view immigrant labor as a transitory or stopgap measure until the birth rate picks up, governmental efforts to address the “child shortage,” for example, by offering modest financial rewards to women upon the birth of a child, have shown limited results to date in Japan or elsewhere (Golini and Silvestrini 1997; Boocock and Scott 2005: 52–3). 2 Similar findings have been reported from other nations. For example, in an ethnographic study of a top-ranked, competitive-entry high school in a large American city (Lee 1996), it was found that students, teachers, and administrators alike stereotyped Asian American students as a “model minority” of quiet, polite, hardworking high achievers, and African American students as lacking the motivation and abilities of their European American and Asian American classmates—even though all students in the school had met the same demanding entry requirements. Because the Asian American students were assumed to be a homogeneous group with no problems, teachers sometimes gave them higher grades than they had actually earned and were unaware that some of these students were floundering academically or breaking school rules. 3 Data on the close connection between persistent bullying and school refusal in Japan are discussed in Stephens (1995). For a national survey documenting the ubiquity and reciprocity of harassment among American high school students, see Lee et al. (1996). 4 Though increasing in numbers in many countries, biracial children continue to be susceptible to stress and stress-related behavior problems. Preliminary findings from a longitudinal study based on a national sample of American adolescents indicate that

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7

8

9

10 11 12 13

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students who identify themselves as mixed race suffer from higher rates of depression, substance abuse, and sleeping problems than other respondents (Udry et al. 2003). Indeed, one now-discredited theory held that both groups were originally of the same “alien” race and suggests that “the ancestors of today’s buraku people were nonJapanese, or in other words, Korean” (Kitaguchi 1999: 78–9). Note, moreover, that majority Japanese may learn to identify minority or outcaste people through subtle clues or indicators that may not be readily apparent to outsiders. For example, a few of the non-buraku people with whom I discussed my research recalled being taught by older relatives or friends how to tell whether someone was buraku by their clothing, demeanor, or residence. Such behavior is consistent with group socialization theory, as conceptualized by Jean Harris (1995), which posits that, over time and in a number of social settings, kids’ attitudes and behavior come to resemble those of their friends more closely than those of their parents. Although the research reported in this book did not examine the contributions of immigrant children to their families, research in other nations has shown that such children, who tend to learn the language of their host country more quickly than do their parents, often assume the role of interpreter in family dealings with government officials, school personnel, and shopkeepers, helping their parents to make major household purchases and to fill out job, credit card, and social security applications, and income tax returns (Boocock and Scott 2005: 96). A recent cross-national study comparing children’s welfare in a number of Western European and North American countries found, similarly, that recent waves of immigrants, generally of lower-than-average social and educational status, “face multiple cultural and educational disadvantages that can seriously jeopardize their children’s chances.” Even in Sweden, “where the school system has most ambitiously sought to rectify immigrant children’s learning disadvantages,” the large gap between native and non-native children on cognitive test scores did not lessen, and the “probability of school failure is roughly 5 times higher for immigrants than for natives” (Esping-Andersen 2005: 19). For example, Shimahara’s blunt conclusion that: “The traditional paradigm of integrating immigrants into society through assimilation is ineffective” (2001: 11). As Nukaga and Tsuneyoshi’s discussion implies, any teaching approach that purports to value and to treat all students alike overlooks the very real differences in status and resources among individuals and groups. A fuller discussion of alternative sociological methods for studying children and childhoods can be found in Boocock and Scott (2005), Chapter 3. Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States. Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain, Thailand, and United States And vice versa. As we have seen, many of the findings reported in this book replicate, or are consistent with, research published in other developed nations (see notes 1–4, 7, and 8).

References Andersson, B. E. (1992) “Effects of day care on cognitive and socio-emotional competence in thirteen-year-old Swedish children,” Child Development, 63: 20–36. Boocock, S. S. (1991) “The Japanese preschool system,” in E. R. Beauchamp (ed.), Windows on Japanese education, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. –––– and Scott, K. A. (2005) Kids in context: the sociological study of children and childhoods, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Esping-Anderson, G. (2005) “Children in the welfare state: a social investment approach.” DemoSoc Working Paper No. 2005–10. Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Ponpeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. Garcia, M., Pence, A., and Evans, J. L. (eds) (2008) Africa’s future, Africa’s challenge: early childhood care and development in Sub-Saharan Africa, Washington, DC: The World Bank. Golini, A. and Silvestrini, A. (1997) “Family change, fathers, and children in western Europe: a demographic and psychological perspective,” in S. Dreman (ed.), The family on the threshold of the 21st century: trends and implications, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Harris, J. R. (1995) “Where is the child’s environment? A group socialization theory of development,” Psychological Review, 102: 358–89. Heckman, J. J. (2006) “Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children,” Science, 312: 900–2. –––– and Masterov, D. V. (2007) “The productivity argument for investing in young children.” Lecture given as the T. W. Schultz Award Lecture, Allied Social Sciences Association annual meeting, Chicago, January 5–7. Kitaguchi, S. (1999) An introduction to the buraku issue: questions and answers, trans. A. McLauchlan, Folkenstone, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press. Lee, S. J. (1996) Unraveling the “model minority” stereotype, New York: Teachers College Press. Lee, V. E., Croninger, R. G., Linn, E., and Chen, X. (1996) “The culture of sexual harassment in secondary schools,” American Educational Research Journal, 33: 383–417. Lewis, C. C. (1995) Educating hearts and minds: reflections on Japanese preschool and elementary school education, New York: Cambridge University Press. Montie, J. E., Xiang, Z., and Schweinhart, L. J. (2006) “Preschool experience in 10 countries: cognitive and language performance at age 7,” Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21: 313–31. Mustard, J. F. (2007) “Experience-based brain development: scientific underpinnings of the importance of early child development in a global world,” in E. M. Young (ed.), Early child development: from measurement to action, Washington, DC: The World Bank. Ogbu, J. (1992) “Understanding cultural diversity and learning,” Educational Researcher, 21(8): 5–14. –––– (1993) “Frameworks—variability in minority school performance: a problem in search of an explanation,” in E. Jacob and C. Jordan (eds), Minority education, Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Okano, K. and Tsuchiya, M. (1999) Education in contemporary Japan: inequality and diversity, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Onishi, N. (2006) “Japan’s conservatives push prewar ‘virtues’ in schools,” New York Times, June 11, 2006: 26. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2006) Starting strong II: early childhood education and care, Paris: OECD Publications. Pence, A. and Nsamenang, B. (2008) “A case for early childhood development in subSaharan Africa.” Working Paper No. 51. The Hague, The Netherlands: Bernard van Leer Foundation. Schweinhart, L. J., Montie, J., Xiang, Z., Barnett, W. S., Belfield, C. R., and Nores, M. (2005) Lifetime effects: the high-scope Perry preschool study through age 40, Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Press

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Shimahara, N. K. (2001) “Introduction,” in N. K. Shimahara, I. Z. Holowinsky, and S. Tomlinson-Clarke (eds), Ethnicity, race, and nationality in education: a global perspective, Mahwah, NJ and London: Erlbaum. Smart, C., Neale, B., and Wade, A. (2001) The changing experience of childhood: families and divorce, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Stephens, S. (1995) Children and the politics of culture, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tsuneyoshi, R. (2001) The Japanese model of schooling, NewYork and London: RoutledgeFalmer. Udry, J. R., Li, R. M., and Smith, J. H. (2003) “Health and behavior risks of adolescents with mixed-race identity,” American Journal of Public Health, 93: 1865–70. Vegas, E. and Santibanez, L. (2009) The promise of early child development in Latin America, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Appendix 1 Article 26 of the Constitution of Japan

English version: the Constitution of Japan (promulgated on November 3, 1947) Article 26. All people shall have the right to receive an equal education correspondent to their ability, as provided by law. (2) All people shall be obligated to have all boys and girls under their protection receive ordinary education as provided for by law. Such compulsory education shall be free. (National Diet Library of Japan. The Constitution of Japan (based on the English language version by Government Printing Bureau)) Available online at www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c01.html#s3 (accessed August 30, 2009)

Japanese language version 日本国憲法（昭和21年11月3日憲法） 第二十六条 すべて国民は、法律の定めるところにより、その能力に応じて、ひ としく教育を受ける 権利を有する。 すべて国民は、法律の定めるところにより、その保護する子女に普 通教育を受けさせ る義務を負ふ。義務教育は、これを無償とする。 (National Diet Library of Japan. Nihonkoku Kenpō) Available online at www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/etc/j01.html (accessed August 30, 2009).

Appendix 2 The Primary School Course of Study Guide 2008 (Shōgakkō Gakushū Shidōyōryō Kaisetsu, Sōsokuhen) (Taken from the section ‘The instruction of children who have returned from abroad and foreign children’.) With internationalization, schools are accepting more returnee pupils as well as foreign pupils . . . Children returning from abroad, as well as foreign children, have had valuable experiences abroad which Japanese children have not. [Educators should] try to enable these children to build on these experiences of life abroad and contact with foreign cultures while they are learning . . . At the same time, such experiences should benefit other students’ education as well. The ways of looking at things, of thinking and feeling, sentiments, foreign language ability, and other traits [tokusei] that these children acquire abroad should be encouraged . . . particularly during integrated studies . . . when [educators] are conducting hands-on activities in international understanding [kokusai rikai] . . . which provide opportunities to learn about foreign language, life and culture, and where the life experiences of these children can be actively utilized . . . Through such interactive stimulation, it is important to develop an attitude of mutual respect, to deepen international understanding and to build capacities and attitudes desirable for living together as members of international society. (Japan, Monbukagaku-shō (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) (2008) Shōgakkō Gakushū Shidōyōryō Kaisetsu, Sōsokuhen, pp. 78–9) Available online at www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/education/micro_detail/ – icsFiles/afieldfile/2009/06/16/1234931_001.pdf (accessed 12 August 2009).

Appendix 3

Figure A3.1 Guide for foreign students to start school (Procedures for entering Japanese schools) Source: Monbushō (2009) available online at www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/clarinet/003/001. htm#a09.

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Figure A3.1 continued

Index

Page references to illustrations are indicated in italic type. adult ideological bias 252 adult Japanese literacy classes 16 African-American children 253, 255 n2 Aichi prefecture 138, 197, 248; Nanzan Kokusai Kōtōgakkō 216 Ainu 4, 6, 7, 8, 13, 21 n2, 42 n1, 151, 195; activism 30, 32; assimilation 30; as indigenous peoples 30–5, 41–2; poverty among 33; students going on to university 33 Ainu Association 32 Ainu Bunka Shinkō Kenkyū Kikō 34 Ainu Culture Act (1997) 34 Ainu Liberation League 32 alienation 138–9, 143 All Japan International Educational Research Conference 133 Allen, M. 78 AmerAsian School in Okinawa 78, 90, 92–6, 97 Amerasians 4, 6, 8, 17, 35, 77, 244; anti-American sentiment 91; bullying 90–1; Japanese nationality 89–90, 97 n1; marginalization of 78, 90–2; as mixed-race children 87–8; ‘save stateless children’ movement (pre 1985) 88–90; use of term 93 American Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA) 87 Article 26 of the Constitution of Japan 40, 259 Asahi Town, Yamagata prefecture 197 Asian American students: as model minority 255 n2

assimilation 132, 157, 194, 195; Ainu 30, 32; dangers of 120; Japanese returnees 166, 215, 217; Koreans 151; Okinawans 35, 77–8, 80–1 assimilation approach to education 11, 249–50, 251; Okinawa 83–5 Association for International Relations in Yamagata (AIRY) 204 Association of Lawyers 89 Association of North Koreans in Japan 104 basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) 193 Battle of Okinawa 91 behavioural problems: buraku people 53, 243; Japanese returnees 234–6; newcomers 235 Blackness 149 Bondy, C. 65 Bourdieu, P. 94 Brazilian schools 139 Brazilians 130, 138–9, 144–5; see also Nikkeijin Brubaker, R. and Cooper, F. 239 n2 bullying 57, 59, 200, 243, 255 n3; Amerasians 90–1, 244 buraku activism 14, 17, 30, 34, 41–2, 46, 49, 105–6, 117–18, 121 Buraku Kaihō Dōmei 51 Buraku Kaihō Shimbun 48–50 Buraku Liberation League (BLL) 32, 36, 50–1, 54, 55, 65, 66, 69, 71, 106, 118, 244, 248 Buraku Liberation Research Institute 60

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buraku mondai 48–50 buraku people 1, 4, 6, 7, 8–9, 13, 16, 18, 36, 109, 116, 117–18, 132, 195, 248, 249, 254, 256 n5; academic achievement 243; awareness of minority status 65–7; behavioural problems 53, 243; boys 65–6; as a caste 44–5; and discrimination 46–7, 48–50, 53–4; and dōwa education 50–1; educational achievement 52; educational enrolment 52; emotional problems 52; employment 47; as eta 45; girls 66–7; history of 45–6; identification of 256 n6; living conditions 47; local government multicultural education policies 106–9; marriage 47–8; population 72 n1; social stratification 249; status of 73 n2; stereotyping 53–4; see also Kanda Project Burgess, C. 250, 251 caste 5, 73 n2, 245–6 census, ethnic background 29 Central Council on Education 194 Centre for Research in International Education (Tokyo Gakugei University) 216, 219 Chan, S. 182 ‘children who are linked to foreign countries’ 142, 155 ‘children who need assistance in Japanese instruction’ 155, 193, 198 chimei sōkan 48 Chinese 6, 7, 37–9, 131, 141, 154; cultural maintenance 41; and International Volunteer Centre Yamagata (IVY) 204–5; and Japanese citizenship 170 n2; newcomer 8, 37, 38, 39, 130, 243, 246, 247, 249; oldcomer 8, 37, 39, 246; in Yamagata prefecture 198, 200; see also returnees from China Chinese language 238 Chinese schools 38–9 Chongryun 102, 104 Chūgoku zanryū fujin 133–4 Chūgoku zanryū hōjin 134 Chūgoku zanryū koji 133–4 citizen: use of term 169, 170 n11 civil society 144

CLARINET (Children Living Abroad and Returnees Internet) 155 cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) 193 Committee for Research in the Education of Returnee and Foreign Students 122 n3 compulsory education 139, 142, 174, 177, 193, 216, 243 cooperative classroom 226, 229 cram schools 142, 165, 232 critical multiculturalism approach to education 251, 252 cultural diversity 12–13, 156; see also Kawasaki City: case study cultural pluralism 11–12 cultural reproduction theory 65 ‘culturally different’ category 155–6 De Vos, G. 44 De Vos, G.A. and Wagatsuma, H. 47 delinquency 143, 176–8 Department of Defense Dependents School (DoDDS) 92, 93 development education 156, 217, 218 dialect placards 80, 85 difference: and behaviour 234–6; boundaries of 150; and buraku people 46–7, 48–50, 53–4; and English language skills 236–8; and Japanese returnees 230–6; and newcomers 231; social construction of 150 discrimination 169; Koreans 113–14, 117; reverse 217 Discussing minorities in Japan with students: the current situation and guides for teaching 32–3 diversity: images of 161–2; Japanese society 242; social construction of 157–8, 168–9; visibility of 153–4 diversity points 130, 135, 140, 141, 144, 150–2, 154, 188, 242; see also Kawasaki City: case study; Yamagata prefecture doragon 135 Dōshisha Kokusai Kotogakkō, Kyoto 216 dōwa education 36, 54, 73 n5, 143, 248, 251; and buraku people 50–1; committees for the promotion of 109–10; and Koreans 108, 109–10, 116, 118; see also Kanda Project

Index 265 early childhood education and care approach to education (ECEC) 252–4, 254 Ebuchi, K., Sakai, T. and Moritani, M. 170 n4 Eddie-Callagain, A. 89 educational reform: global issue 254–5 egalitarian/equity education 13 ekkyō 54 Emancipation Edict (1871) 45 emancipation education 13 English activities 218 English language 13, 81, 83, 92, 231–2, 243, 245; AmerAsian School in Okinawa 93–5; Japanese returnees 236–8 environmental education 156 equal treatment, principle of 194 equity 12–13 Esping-Andersen, N.K. 256 n8 ethnic education 13 ethnicity 5, 129, 245–6; in census 29 Fass, P.S. 149 Ferguson, A.A. 67 Filipinos 141, 162–3 First Hokkaido Utari Welfare Measures 32, 33 foreign residents in Japan: use of term 118–19, 121 foreigners 17, 18; definition of 160; entitlement to education 41; and Japanese returnees 219–20; and language 237; registered 6; Yamagata prefecture 197–9, 205; see also newcomers Foreigners’ Earthquake Information Center 11 Fukatsu, N.N. 195, 196, 206 n3, 207 n5 Fundamental Education Policy for Kawasaki City Foreigners in Japan 156, 158 Fundamental Law of Education (1947) 194, 254 fureai festival 164 Fureaikan, the 157, 160, 162–3, 165, 170 n9 Gekkan, Okinawasha 82 gender issues 144

Gifu prefecture 140 Ginowan City Human Development Centre 96 global education 156 Goffman, E. 223, 239 n3 Goodman, R. 208 n18, 239 n1 grass-roots approach to education 251–2 group socialization theory 256 n7 Gunma prefecture 138, 141 Gutierrez, Luis Gomes 255 Hamamatsu City 138, 141–2 Harris, J. 256 n7 Hayama community 225 Hayama Elementary School 216, 250; academic ability of Japanese returnees 232–4; behavioural problems 234–6; as centre school for returnees 224–5; Chinese language 238; construction of difference 233; construction of Japanese returnees 230–6, 239; cooperative classroom 226, 229; international classroom 232–4; international understanding education 218–19, 227–9; Japanese returnees 222–6, 228, 239 n4; mobility rate 225–6; negotiating differences 230–6; newcomers and difference 231; relationship-oriented framework 226; school-wide research 227 Heckman, J. 253 High/Scope Educational Research Foundation 253 Hill, B. and Allan, R. 117 Hirasawa, Y. and Nabeshima, Y. 51, 72 n1 hoikūsho 73 n7; see also Kanda Project Hokkaido Education Board 33, 34 Hokkaido Native Protection Act (1899) 31 Hokkaido Utari Association 34 homogeneity 132, 168, 195 human rights 17, 18, 118, 121, 162, 163, 230 human rights education 13, 117, 143, 160, 218, 248, 251 Ichō Public Housing Complex 15, 135, 173, 175–6, 188 ICU, Tokyo 216

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identity: dual 169; and language 186–7; and newcomers 195–6; and Nikkeijin 195–6; preservation of 186–8; understanding of 239 n2; ‘weak’ identity 223, 239 n2 Iha, F. 79 Ikeda, H. 52, 55, 72; reinvention theory 65–6 Imazu, K. 139, 170 n8 Imazu, K. and Matsumoto, K. 139 immigrant labour 131–2, 242–3, 255 n1 Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (1990) 130, 136, 138, 154, 175, 196 Indo-Chinese refugees 10, 15, 17, 135–6, 185; see also Ichō Public Housing Complex inequality 69–70 integrative approach to education 11 Intercultural Education Society of Japan 219 internal internalization 150, 152–5, 168, 250, 254; and Japanese returnees 164–6; Kawasaki City 155–62; and newcomers 165–8; and Nikkeijin 164–5; and oldcomer Koreans 162–4 International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) 253 ‘International elective’ course (Shimofukuda Junior High School): curriculum 180–1; expansion of scope 179–82; Indo-Chinese students 178–9; participants 179; returnees from China 179; South Americans of Japanese descent 179; and Stand-By-Me 187 international exchange projects 207 n12, 218, 236 International Social Assistance Okinawa Inc. (ISAO) 88, 89, 90 International Social Services (ISS) 87–8 international understanding education 13, 143, 167, 213, 222, 236; Hayama Elementary School 218–19, 227–9; Japanese returnees 218–19, 226–9; multicultural understanding 227; newcomers 228–9 International Volunteer Centre Yamagata (IVY) 199, 202–3, 204–5, 207 n6, 207 n15

internationalization 15, 131, 132–3, 207 n12, 213; Japanese returnees 217–18, 238 Internationalization of Education Promotion District Programme 122 n3 involuntary minorities 247 isolation 202 Iwata Public Housing Complex 15 Jackson, P. 71 Japan: nationalism 254 Japan Communist Party 32 Japan Federation of Bar Associations (1981) 90–1 Japan–Korea Status Agreement 194 Japan Overseas Education Services 216–17 Japan Socialist Party 32 Japan–US Status Agreement 89 Japan Volunteer Centre (JVC) see International Volunteer Centre Yamagata (IVY) Japanese as a Second Language (JSL) 15, 95–6, 108, 119, 120, 122 n3, 143, 155, 157, 196, 204, 208 n17 Japanese citizenship 5, 7, 119; and Amerasians 89–90; and Chinese 170 n2; and Koreans 170 n2; and monoethnicity 107; naturalized 6 Japanese constitution 108; Article 26 of the Constitution of Japan 40, 259 Japanese Immigration Act 88 Japanese language 40, 80, 84–5, 142, 144, 157, 163, 168, 193, 232–4, 245–6; see also Japanese as a Second Language (JSL) Japanese Language Education for Children in Japanese Schools 199 Japanese, as ‘majority’ 4, 17 Japanese model of schooling 70, 74 n10, 168, 252 Japanese returnees 4, 6, 9, 132, 133, 152, 153, 156, 168–9, 195, 213, 220; academic achievement 232–4; Asia 220; assimilation 166, 215, 217; context of return to Japan 247; and difference 230–6; English language skills 236–8; experience abroad 228; and foreigners 219–20; high school entry examinations

Index 267 215–16; historical era, return to Japan 247; image of 140, 231, 239 n1; inappropriate behaviour 234–6; institutionalized re-entry routes 216–17, 232; and internal internalization 164–6; international understanding education 218–19, 226–9; internationalization of 217–18, 238; in Kawasaki City 158–62, 159; and language 15, 157, 222, 232–4; negotiating differences 238–9; and newcomers 143–4, 155–6; North America 220; place of residence abroad 224–5, 225; policies targeting 215; racial identity 244; ‘research cooperation schools’ 215; reverse discrimination 217; salvation of 215–17; social class 213; social setting 247; teacher’s view of 231; use of term 215, 223; see also Hayama Elementary School Japanese school-age children abroad 220–2, 221 Japanese schools abroad 215–16, 221–2 Japanese society: diversification of 242 Japanese students: interaction with Koreans 110–13; living abroad 214 Japanese versus foreigner category 155–6, 163, 169 ‘Japaneseness’ 1 jianzi 229 Jiro, S. 74 n10 juku see cram schools Kagoshima prefecture 79–80 Kaihō Kyōiku see dōwa education Kaitakushi (Development–Colonization Commission) 31 Kajita, T. 103, 131 Kakimoto, T. 177, 178 Kanagawa prefecture see Ichō Public Housing Complex; Kawasaki City Kanda Project 54–6; Elementary schools: awareness of minority status 65–7; Elementary schools: curriculum and teaching methods 62–4; Elementary schools: daily life 61–2; Elementary schools: gakkyū hōkai 64–5; Elementary schools: stereotyping 67–8; lack of school success: inadequate parenting 69;

lack of school success: ineffective teaching 70–2; lack of school success: systematic inequalities 69–70; Preschools: children with disabilities 60–1; Preschools: daily life 56–61; Preschools: gender stereotyping 59–60; Preschools: inclusiveness 60–1; Preschools: shūdan seikatsu versus junbi kyōiku 57–9 Kani City 140 Kansai area 248 Karafuto 135 Kawai, T. 79 Kawasaki City 16, 145, 151, 152, 216; as diversity point 169; Filipinos in 162–3; Japanese returnees in 158–62, 159; newcomers in 159, 159–62; Nikkeijin 167–8; official slogan 207 n12; see also Hayama Elementary School Kawasaki City: case study: cultural diversity 156–7; internal internalization 155–62; Japanese returnees and internal internalization 164–5, 165–6; newcomers and internal internalization 165–8; oldcomer Koreans and internal internalization 162–4; social construction of diversity: official discourse 157–8; variations in diversity 158–62 Kawasaki City Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents 167 Kawasaki Zainichi Kankoku/Chōsenjin Kyōiku o Susumeru Kai coalition (The Kawasaki coalition to promote the education for Koreans in Japan) 156, 158 kikokushijo see Japanese returnees Kimura, R. 59 Kobayashi, T. 218 Kobe Chinese organization 39 Kobe City: Chinese school 38; housing 15 Kodomo Tabunka Kyōsei Center 21 n3 kokumin 40 Kokumin kyōiku 83–4, 96 Korean-Japanese 73 n4, 103, 155–6 Koreans 4, 6, 7, 13, 16, 17, 18, 90, 130, 131, 132, 141, 152, 153, 154, 247, 248, 249; activism 30, 34–5, 42, 105–6; and assimilation 151; awareness of ethnicity

268

Index

109; background 39–40; central government policies 104–6, 120; civil rights 90; community-based Korean clubs 116; cultural maintenance 41; demography 101–3, 120; discrimination 113–14, 117; education levels 114–15; entitlement to education 40; ethnic classes 115–16; ethnic schools 102–3; experience of schooling 121; interaction with Japanese students 110–13; interaction with other minorities 117–20; and Japanese citizenship 170 n2; Korean culture study club 116; local government multicultural education policies 106–9, 120–1; in mainstream schools 40, 115–17; marginalization 108, 117; newcomer 8, 39, 101, 130, 154, 243, 249; North Koreans 145; oldcomer 8, 14, 39, 101, 154, 162–4, 244; school–employment link 108, 113–14; and teachers 109–10; understanding differences 117–20; use of Japanese names 108, 109; use of Korean names 153; zainichi Koreans 3, 14, 21 n1; see also Kawasaki City: case study Kyoto: Dōshisha Kokusai Kotogakkō 216 labour shortages 242–3, 255 n1 language 245–6; assistance for newcomers 95–6, 198–9, 233; and foreigners 237; and identity 186–7; Japanese returnees 15, 157, 222, 232–4; native language support 201–2 Lee, V.E. et al. 255 n3 Lewis, A. 67 Lewis, C.C. 70, 71, 74 n10, 195 Lie, J. 131 long-existing minorities 143, 144; education 40–2; and global indigenous peoples’ movements 41–2; as marginalized groups 40; use of term 29 Los Angeles: transnational community in 239 n6 MacArthur, General 82 mainstream schools: Koreans in 40, 115–17 marginalization: Amerasians 78, 90–2; Koreans 108, 117; long-existing

minorities 40; newcomers 195; Okinawans 97 Matsumae domain 31 Matsunami, M. 120 McLauchlan, A. 6, 47, 48, 49–50, 52, 53, 56, 72 n1 McLemore, S.D. 5 Meiji government 35, 36 Mendelsohn, O. and Vicziany, M. 74 n9 Mie prefecture 108 Mindan 102 Ministry of Education (MEXT): data on ‘children who need assistance in Japanese instruction’ 193, 198, 201, 205, 207 n7; ‘Guidebook for starting school: procedures for entering Japanese schools’ 196, 207 n9, 261–2; newcomers as invisible 206; ‘Policies towards returnees and foreign students’ 196–7; ‘Project for districts that promote the internationalization of education with the returnees and foreign pupils and students’ 216; regulations for non-attending students 18; research schools 219, 224; revised curriculum 194; and school nonattendance 95 minority/majority dichotomy 2 minority status, awareness of 65–7 Minzoku Bunka Kōshi Fureai Jigyō 165 mixed race children 6, 255 n3; Amerasians as 87–8 Miyajima, T. and Kajita, T. 174 model minority: Amerasians students as 255 n2; oldcomer Chinese as 246 Monbukagakushō 136 Monnet, J. 47 Morita, K. 195–6 Mukuge Club 116 Multi-ethnic Education Forum 16 multicultural coexistence 14, 142, 156, 158, 163, 227 multicultural education 11–13, 13–14, 155–6, 157–8, 217, 230, 250 multicultural education policies 100, 106–9, 109, 117 multicultural interactions 14–20; policymaking and implementation 17–18; in spaces designed for purpose 16–17; in spaces unintended for purpose 15–16

Index 269 multicultural understanding 227 multiculturalism 13–14, 194–5, 207 n12 Nagel, J. 150 Nakahara Community Centre, Kawasaki City 157 Nakano, Y. and Arasaki, M. 82 nanibito 40 Nanzan Kokusai Kōtōgakkō, Aichi prefecture 216 nation-state: framework of 13 National Association for Research into the Education of Koreans in Japan (ZZCKKK) 106, 119–20, 120, 121 nationalistic system of education 194 Nationality Act 17, 88, 89 Nationality Act (1985 revision) 89–90, 97, 97 n1, 102, 119 negaisho 194, 207 n8 neta ko wa sono mama approach 249 new foreigners see newcomers newcomer versus oldcomer dichotomy 154–5 newcomers 4, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 119–20, 121, 152, 153–4, 156, 157, 168–9, 193–6; academic achievement 233; adult: and language 246; and alienation 143; background 130–2; behavioural problems 235; central government policies 104–6; and civil society 144; delinquency 143; and difference 231; East Asian 132; effect on society 149–50; gender issues 144; and high schools 142–3; identification with returnee category 133; and identity 143, 195–6; influx of 174; and internal internalization 165–8; as invisible 206; and isolation 202; and Japanese returnees 143–4, 155–6; in Kawasaki City 159, 159–62; language assistance 95–6, 136, 137, 143, 233; legal status 144; lifestyles 174; local government multicultural education policies 106–9; marginalization 195; as minority children 206 n2; national support for 196–7, 205; and NGOs 144; Nikkeijin as 130, 132, 136, 151, 154, 155, 192; nonattendance 139–40, 141, 142–3; preexisting local infrastructure 248;

recategorization 143; returnee education model 219; school attendance levels 207 n11; self-organization 167; and social class 208 n18; special schools for 144–5; support groups 136; use of term 173, 192–3; see also Brazilians; Chinese; Ichō Public Housing Complex; Indo-Chinese refugees; Koreans; Nikkeijin; South Americans of Japanese descent; Stand-By-Me (SBM) NGOs, Kawasaki City 165–7, 167 Nguyen, T.T. 185–6 Nieto, S. 154 Nihongo o bogo to shinai jidō seito to hogosha o taishō to suru ankēto 201 Nikkeijin 17, 174, 196, 243; alienation 138–9; background 138–41; Hamamatsu City 141–2; and identity 140–1, 195–6, 244; image of 140; interaction with other minorities 185–6; and internal internalization 164–5; Kawasaki City 167–8; as newcomers 130, 132, 136, 151, 154, 155, 192; Okinawa 141; socio-economic status 246–7; use of term 9–10; Yamagata prefecture 198, 207 n14; see also Shimofukuda Junior High School Nishioka, A. 187 Noiri, N. 244, 245 North America: Japanese returnees 220; see also United States Nukaga, M. 222, 234, 235, 239 n6, 243, 247, 250, 256 n9 Ōkubo, Shinjuku ward 151 Ōkubo, Y. 194–5 Ōta City 138, 141, 151, 188, 197 Ōta, H. 174, 192–3, 194, 206, 207 n11 Ogata, S. 1–2, 218 Ogbu, J. 50, 114, 153, 247; cultural reproduction theory 65 Ogbu, J. and Simons, H.D. 114, 116–17 Oizumi City 138, 140, 151 Okano, K. 246, 248 Okano, K. and Tsuchiya, M. 65, 246 Okinawa 77, 151, 168; under American colonial rule 79–81, 81–3; assimilation approach to education 83–5; Nikkeijin 141; Peace Appeal from Okinawa 86;

270

Index

peace education 91; post war 96–7; prewar 96; return to Japan 85–7; Return to Japan movement 84; Ryuky-ization campaign 82–3 Okinawa Association of School Principals 83 Okinawa Department of Education 78, 95, 96, 97 Okinawa Fundamental Education Law (1958) 84 Okinawa Prefectural Department of Education 86, 89 Okinawa Teachers’ Union 84, 85, 86; ‘Okinawa Kyōiku’ 98 n4 Okinawans 4, 6, 8, 21 n2, 42 n1, 244; ambivalent identity 77–8, 79; and assimilation 35, 80–1; attitude to schooling 80; disassimilation campaign 82; as indigenous peoples 30–1, 35, 41–2; marginalization 97; victimhood identity 85–7; see also Amerasians Olympic-style international understanding education 13 Orderly Departure Programme (ODP) 175 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 253 Osaka 188, 248, 254; Senri Kokusai Gakuen Kōtōbu 216 Osaka City Committee for Research in the Education of Foreign Nationals 106, 107 Osaka City Education Board 107 Osaka municipal government policy (1994) 108–9 outcast groups 5 overseas Chinese 8 Pang, C.L. 239 n1 parents: role in education 69 passing, option of 245 Peace Appeal from Okinawa 86 peace education 91 Perry Preschool Project 253 PLANET Kanagawa 2008 183 population decline 242–3, 255 n1 Primary School Act (1946) 82 Primary School Course of Study (2008) 41, 260 public housing complexes 15 Pyongyang regime 102, 104

Rabson, S. 78 race 5, 129, 244 reinvention theory 65–6 Representative Assembly for Foreign Residents 170 n11 Research Association for Ainu Education 33 ‘research cooperation schools’ 215 residence: intended length of 247 ‘Resident foreigner school support programme’ 203 residents, category of 169 return labourer 141 returnees from China 4, 9, 15, 17, 133–5, 176, 178, 213–14; Yamagata prefecture 198, 203 Rohlen, T.P. 69 Rohlen, T.P. and LeTendre, G.K. 195 Roth, J.H. 140 Rules on Native Education 31 Ryūkūan language 79, 245 Ryūkyū Islands: American occupation 35 Ryūkyū kingdom 77, 79, 79–81 Ryūkyū Kyōiku 97 n2 Ryūkyūjin see Amerasians; Okinawans Saki Municipal High School Dōwa Education Study Society 118 san: use of term 239 n5 San Francisco Peace Treaty 131 Sasaki, M. and Akuzawa, M. 194, 206 n2 Satsuma domain 35, 79 Schlesinger, A. 12 school-based referral system 113–14 School Education Law 104, 215 school-employment link 108, 113–14 school nonattendance 18, 95, 139–40 Seikyūsha 156, 162 Sekiguchi, T. 140 Senri Kokusai Gakuen Kōtōbu, Osaka 216 Shimahara, N. 49, 53, 55, 63, 65, 68, 72, 256 n9 Shimizu, K. and Shimizu, M. 170 n8, 192, 194, 206 Shimizu, M. 249, 250, 252 Shimizu, M. and Kojima, A. 176 Shimofukuda Junior High School 176–8, 188; see also ‘International elective’ course (Shimofukuda Junior High School) Shinjuku Tabunka Kyōsei Puraza 21 n3

Index 271 Shinryōdai prefectural housing complex 15 Shizuoka prefecture 248 see Hamamatsu City Sleeter, C.E. and Grant, C.A. 230 Smart, C., Neale, B. and Wade, A. 252 social class 36, 61, 74 n8, 208 n18, 213 social setting 247–9 socio-economic status 5, 246, 256 n8 solo-parent families 109 South Americans of Japanese descent see Nikkeijin Special Measures for Regional Improvement 32, 36, 47 special schools: Brazilians 138–9, 144–5; newcomers 144–5; North Koreans 145 Stand-By-Me (SBM) 176, 182–4, 252; diversity 184–6; involvement with ‘International elective’ course 187; newsletter 184; preservation of identity 186–8 Stephens, S. 255 n3 stereotyping 249; Asian American students 255 n2; buraku people 53–4 Su-Lan Reber, E.A. 46, 49 Sugimoto, Y. 6 Suiheisha (Levelers Society) 46 Susser, B. 195 Sweden 253, 256 n8 Syuri Middle School 81 tabunka 163 tabunka kyōsei 11 Tabunka Kyōsei Sentā 11, 21 n3 Taiwan 37, 80, 81 Taiwanese 37–8 Takahashi, M. and Vaipae, S.S. 192 TBS 91 teachers: and Japanese returnees 231; and Koreans 109–10; Yamagata Project 202–5 teaching: ineffective 70–2 Third World Conference of Indigenous People (1981) 33 Thorne, B. 239 n3 tokku project 197 Tokorozawa: readjustment promotion centre 134 Tokugawa regime 31, 35, 36, 79; isolationist policy 37

Tokyo 15, 188, 216 Tokyo Gakugei University: Centre for Research in International Education 216, 219 Tokyo Utari Association 32 Toyohashi City 15, 138, 248 Toyota City 138 truancy 176–8, 243, 255 n3; see also school nonattendance Tsuneyoshi, R. 70, 193, 194, 242, 243, 244, 247, 250, 256 n9 UNESCO 218 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 19 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights 108 United Nations International Year of the World Indigenous Peoples (1992) 33 United States: elementary schools 71; research into social class 74 n8 university entry 18, 33, 103, 121 n2 University of the Ryūkyūs 83 Untouchables 73 n2 Utari Association 32–3 variations, effects of: caste 245–6; ethnicity 245–6; race 244; social setting 247–9; socio-economic status 246 Vietnamese refugees 135 voluntary minorities 247 Wagatsuma, H. and De Vos, H. 36 war-displaced orphans 133–5 White, M. 239 n1 Whiteness 149 whole child approach to education see Japanese model of schooling Winston, J. 149 Yamagata City 198 Yamagata City International Friendship Association (YIFA) 203, 205 Yamagata City Sister City Exchange Centre 203 Yamagata Nihongo Sapōto Netto 204 Yamagata prefecture 251; ‘children who need assistance in Japanese instruction’

272

Index

198; Chinese 198, 200; female international marriage 199; ‘Fifth Plan for the Promotion of Education in Yamagata Prefecture 208 n17; international marriages 197–8; language assistance 198–9; Nikkeijin 198, 207 n14; registered foreigners 197, 197–9, 205; returnees from China 198, 203 Yamagata Project: case study: Myung-Mi 200; parent voices 200–1; questionnaire and interview data 199; student voices 201–2; teacher voices 202–5

Yamagata Schooling Support (YSS) programme 203–4 Yamashiro, Z. and Sakuda, S. 84 Yamawaki, K. 131 Yara, C. 84 yōchien 73 n7; see also Kanda Project Yokohama: Chinese school 38, 39; see also Ichō Housing Yoon, K.-C. 194 youth gangs 177–8 Yuki, M. 170 n8 zainichi see Koreans