2024 Volume 23 Issue 1 Pages 213-222
A Study on Global Citizenship Education from the Perspective of the Inclusion of Heritage Language Education: Raising Minorities Awareness and Eliminating Discrimination through Ainu Language Revitalization Efforts
継承語教育の視点から捉えたグローバルシティズンシップ教育に関する研究
―マイノリティに対する意識向上と差別撤廃に向けたアイヌ語再生の取り組み―
Nyein Su Hlaing(Okayama University)
Abstract
This paper will discuss the benefits provided to majority and minority groups by the inclusion of Heritage Language Education (HLE) in teaching Global Citizenship Education (GCED). The aim of this paper is to raise the majority’s awareness of minorities’ revitalization efforts by taking an example of the revitalization process of Ainu language and culture so that their awareness can be a support in the elimination of their discrimination against minorities and can lead to the society where there is a peaceful coexistence among diversities. The significance of this paper is for ensuring minorities’ linguistic human rights and receiving majority’s embrace with great empathy in heading to a peaceful society. To begin, there will be a brief discussion of Japan’s language policy and languages in Japan. Next, an introduction of Ainu and their language revitalization process will be followed. Then, how the inclusion of HLE in Global Citizenship Education will contribute to understanding minorities’ attempt in their language and culture recovery and reducing the discrimination between majority and minorities will be explained. Lastly, the paper will conclude with a discussion and conclusion.
1. Introduction
In today’s globalized context, peaceful coexistence has become more and more important. No matter how developed each country is by means of technology and physical materials, life is nothing without peace. Countries in the world have their own problems concerning political, economic, and social matters. Especially, today’s multicultural society is encountering many issues such as social injustices, power imbalances, lack of linguistic human rights, discrimination, ignorance, and devaluation of minorities, etc. With these problems and issues, how can the world be completely peaceful? To have peaceful societies, the discrimination and devaluation of minorities within mainstream societies needs to be considered.
In this globalized era, education in most countries emphasizes Global Citizenship Education (GCED). UNESCO defines “Global Citizenship Education (GCED) is an educational approach that nurtures respect and solidarity in learners in order to build a sense of belonging to a common humanity and help them become responsible and active global citizens in building inclusive and peaceful societies” (UNESCO, 2018, p.2). According to UNESCO, GCED is nurturing global citizens who are essential for building peaceful societies. Therefore, both formal and informal education try to cultivate children to become good citizens as well as global citizens. Although schools are trying to educate them by giving an emphasis on becoming global citizens, it is difficult to estimate how much they are aware of the above issues existing in this multicultural context, such as the discrimination between majority and minorities, the devaluation of minorities’ languages and ignorance of their unique cultures, customs, and beliefs. It is my hope that discrimination and ignorance of minorities and their cultures and languages can be resolved by uncovering these unconscious forms of bias. To aid in this endeavor, education is the most basic and important tool that can help to eliminate such kinds of severe things. Education institutions should not be a place that allows children to bully and discriminate against minorities but should educate and raise the awareness of minorities. Therefore, in this paper, I will argue that the inclusion of Heritage Language Education (HLE) in Global Citizenship Education (GCED) can remedy issues such as discrimination and the devaluation of a minority’s language and culture.
2. A brief observation of languages in Japan and Japan’s language education policy
Because of globalization, Japan which is generally known as a mono-ethnic, monolingual and monocultural country has become a multi-ethnic/ lingual/ cultural society. Although there is no national or official language law concerned with the status of languages in Japan, Japan’s de facto national language is Japanese. Japan has other minority languages too because of both globalization and its rich and complicated history. These languages include: (1) Ryukyuan, the language of the Ryukyu kingdom and now referred to as ‘Okinawa dialects’ since 1879; (2) Ainu, the language of the Ainu indigenous group from Hokkaido and surrounding areas; (3) Korean and oldcomers’ languages – Korean and Chinese; and (4) newcomers’ languages – English, Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish (Honna & Saruhashi, 2019).
According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs (2006), the formation of the National Language Research Committee（国語調査員会）in 1902 led to the development of Japan’s official national language policy. The associated Japanese-language education policy needs to follow the decisions by the Japanese Language of the Council for Cultural Affairs. Under this Council’s leading, Japanese-language education has been carried out in various ways depending on the learners. For Japanese native learners, they provide them with ‘national-language education.’ For those who are foreigners living in Japan, there is another kind of teaching Japanese which is called ‘Japanese-language education.’ Besides these, there is also a program for teaching Japanese native learners who are living in foreign countries with the help of “non-profit organizations and quasi national agencies such as the Japan Overseas Educational Services (JOES)” (Honna & Saruhashi, 2019, p. 101).
According to Nobuyuki Honna & Junko Saruhashi (2019), some foreigner parents do not want their children to be assimilated into Japanese culture, so they try to implement their own schools where their respective ethnic languages are used as the medium of instruction. With regard to these schools, Honna & Saruhashi (2019) evaluated the Japanese government’s attitude in:
“Article 6 of the Basic Act on Education says that ‘schools prescribed by law are of a public nature, and only the national and local governments and the juridical persons prescribed by law may establish them’. Therefore, the Japanese government does not accord these non-Japanese medium foreign schools the status of ‘School’ but gives them the tag of ‘Miscellaneous School.’” (p.105)
There are about 200 Miscellaneous Schools or foreigners’ schools in Japan which provide children with trilingual education, teaching “Japanese as a community language, English as a global lingua franca among people from different linguistic backgrounds, and Chinese or Korean as an ethnic heritage language and international language as well” (Honna & Saruhashi, 2019, p. 106). It can be regarded that these miscellaneous or ethnic schools are aimed at maintaining the students’ heritage languages.
Through this short literature review, it seems that the Japanese government does not officially establish HLE programs except for the Ainu language; however, Ainu and Japanese do not call it HLE. Although Ainu are the original peoples, the revitalization of their language could be seen as heritage language education, similar to HLE for indigenous groups in Canada (see Simon Fraser University’s ‘ScribJab’ website [Silverman, 2019] discussed in Cummins [2014]) and Australia (Scarino, 2014). In history, Ainu people had encountered a serious situation which was the Ainu language and culture’s assimilation into Japanese, similar to the histories of the Indigenous groups in Canada and Australia. However, “when the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act came into force in 1997, promotion of the Ainu language was positioned as one of the four main measures the legislation was to enforce” (Kitahara, 2019, p. 195). In addition,
.. with a law to promote inheritance of Ainu culture, religion, and language introduced in 1997, efforts have been made to restore and maintain those cultural assets of the indigenous settlers. Ainu language classes are conducted in Hokkaido and other parts of the country, and language studies undertaken with the publication of textbooks, dictionaries, and linguistic theses. (Honna & Saruhashi, 2019, p. 98)
After releasing the promotion Act, Ainu obtained a new opportunity to maintain their language and culture. The Ainu Policy Promotion Headquarters describes “The Foundation, with the financial support by the national and Hokkaido prefectural governments, offers a variety of opportunities for Ainu people to learn and inherit their own culture” (Comprehensive Ainu Policy Office, 2012). At the present time, Ainu people are implementing revitalization language programs with the support of both national and prefectural governments. I categorize these programs as HLE, as HLE is teaching linguistic minority children the mother tongue of their ancestors which includes non-dominant, minority, immigrant or indigenous languages. According to Fishman (2001), heritage languages are identified as three types: (1) immigrant heritage languages, (2) indigenous heritage languages and (3) colonial heritage languages (Kelleher, 2010). Ainu who became an official indigenous people of Japan in 2019 (Komai, 2022) conduct heritage language learning programs from a perspective of maintaining the indigenous Ainu people’s language. By comparison, teaching Chinese and Korean languages in miscellaneous schools can be considered HLE from a viewpoint of maintaining immigrant languages in Japan. Although they are quite different, both types of HLE have the goal of maintaining heritage or ancestral languages.
Ainu inhabited the present-day southern Sakhalin Island, and “the north of Japan, namely Ainu Moshir (‘the land of the Ainu’), currently known as Hokkaido” (Komai, 2022, p. 146), the Kuril or Kurile Archipelago, and the northern/ northeastern part of the island of Honshu which is mainland Japan (Kitahara, 2019; Komai, 2022). Ainu’s cultural traditions included practices such as fishing, hunting, plant gathering and carrying out agriculture. Their traditional religion is animism also mixed with the beliefs of shamanism. They have a custom of dancing and singing during ceremonies, social gatherings and even their work. Ainu are a people with their own unique language, culture, religious beliefs, and customs (Ainu Culture Center, n.d.).
Ainu actively practiced and were confident in their own language, culture, land, beliefs, and customs until the Tokugawa Era (1603-1868). However, under the Hokkaido colonization policy, Ainu people had been ‘Japanized’ and their Ainu language use was prohibited. “Under assimilationist policies of forced agrarianism and the imposition of the Japanese language, the Ainu language, lifestyle and culture were delivered a huge blow” (Kitahara, 2019, p. 188). With more systematic policies in Meiji Era (1868-1912), the Ainu language, culture and lifestyles were severely threatened to disappear. They faced the strict legal prohibitions of carrying out their social affairs for example bear-spirit sending ceremony, and personal affairs such as preventing women from tattooing and men from wearing earrings. They were displaced from their own lands under a ‘modern’ land policy of the Japanese government. The Japanese ‘Wajin’ people who came into the place of Ainu’s areas made their own profit from the natural resources of the Ainu indigenous lands (Kitahara, 2019).
The Ainu language has three categories: (1) Hokkaido Ainu, (2) Sakhalin Ainu and (3) Kurile Ainu (Okazaki, 2019). These three categories are based on different groups: the Ainu of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kurile who were assimilated into the Japanese nation under the assimilationist policies (Kitahara, 2019). Ainu had been assimilated by both the Japanese imperial government and Russia. Their territory had been occupied as Russian territory and Japanese territory through the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875). As a great impact of the Russo-Japanese War (1905) and World War II, the southern part of Sakhalin became territory of Russia. Enciw (Sakhalin Ainu) were relocated to Soya and then to Tsushikari. After WWII, Enciw who came back from Tsushikari to Sakhalin, were evacuated to Hokkaido and other parts of Japan between 1945 and 1948. According to Murasaki (2001), “since they were being discriminated against by Japanese, these evacuees attempted to blend into Japanese society, and many decided not to pass on their culture and language to their children” (cited in Okazaki, 2019, p. 358). Again, Okazaki (2019) highlighted how discrimination against Ainu in Japan society as
being identified as Ainu can leave a person vulnerable to social and economic discrimination in Japan. This trend is multiplied by the idea that not just the person in question, but those associated with them may feel to be at risk of discrimination. (p. 355)
In addition, “Japanese government policies enforced laws that simultaneously prohibited Ainu culture and imposed Japanese culture upon them… women tattooing, men wearing earrings, Ainu-style funeral practices, the Iyomante bear spirit-sending ceremony” (Kitahara, 2019, p. 188). Moreover, they were imposed to adopt Japanese names and Japanese-medium education. Through assimilatory education and policies, Ainu had no choice but to accept a language shift and assimilation into Japanese mainstream society. As a result, the number of Ainu native speakers decreased. According to the UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (last updated on 20th April 2023), there are only nineteen Ainu language speakers with the status of a critically endangered language. Because of the assimilationist policies and discrimination suffered by Ainu in the Japanese mainstream society, they try to hide their Ainu identity. Therefore, it is hard to know the exact number of Ainu today. The population of Ainu is about 50,000 according to the estimation of the Hokkaido Ainu Association (Okazaki, 2019). However, Komai (2022) expressed that the population size of Ainu is between 20,000 and 200,000 in Japan. Through this study, it has been learnt how Ainu language and culture were severely torn away during Japanese’s colonization.
In this section, the contemporary status of Ainu language and its revitalization efforts will be discussed. In April 2019, Ainu were legally and officially recognized as indigenous people by the Japanese government (Komai, 2022). No matter how oppressed they were by the assimilatory education and policies, the Ainu people are trying to recover their Ainu language and culture in various ways. At the beginning of the process of Ainu language revitalization, there were few Ainu language speakers who had native level speaking skills. However, linguists could prepare educational materials for the Ainu language with the help of Ainu speakers who can be called active Ainu language speakers, even though they might not have native level ability. In addition to these educational materials, Ainu community language classrooms were created by Ainu language speakers who did not have enough fluency. Furthermore, there was an insufficiency of reference books or other educational materials (Kitahara, 2019).
Nonetheless, Ainu have been making an effort for the recovery of their language and culture. Their effort is one of the factors that led to the release of the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act (ACPA) in 1997. The ACPA includes the promotion of the Ainu language in its four main measures. The members from the Committee to Re-evaluate Ainu Language Initiatives make re-evaluations of these measures every five years. Ainu language is an isolated language with three dialects: Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kuril. The grammar patterns for these dialects are almost the same, but their vocabulary and pronunciation are not. Difficulty occurs among committee members with regard to the provision of separate educational materials for each of the Ainu dialects. In addition to this, there are also demands for audio visual teaching aid such as CDs, DVDs, and electronic dictionaries for printed materials (Kitahara, 2019). As a consequence, the Foundation for the Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture made a production of textbooks for Hokkaido and Sakhalin dialects during the period of 2011 to 2014. In addition, there were creation of games such as playing cards and word games, and songs for memorizing vocabulary and grammar based on the customs of Ainu which are used to memorize the names of their deities and ancestors with songs (Kitahara, 2019). Japanese stories in the translated version of Ainu language and grammar books and dictionaries for some dialects are also provided. Nevertheless, there is still a necessity to fulfil the need for audio teaching materials.
Even though there are few demands for Ainu language proficiency skill in professional working areas, except the Ainu Museum in Shiraoi where visitors can hear announcements in the Ainu language, there are still a number of active Ainu language learners. Other efforts can be seen as a revitalization of their language and culture such as: the yearly Ainu Speech Contest and Craft Contest according to the Foundation for Ainu Culture home page. Moreover, today, Ainu speakers and learners can exchange Ainu language especially reading and writing via social media. To aid in this, there is also a learning platform called Niko Niko Douga broadcast by Ota Kamusokkay (Kitahara, 2019).
To sum up, it can be understood that Ainu language speakers and educators are attempting to recover their language and culture according to the above evidence even though they still have necessities and obstacles in teaching materials.
3. Teaching global citizenship education with the inclusion of HLE
In this section, the inclusion of Heritage Language Education (HLE) in the teaching of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) will be considered. First, a brief introduction to HLE and GCED will be given. Generally, Heritage Language refers to someone’s ancestral language (Scarino, 2014), but it also includes non-dominant, immigrant and indigenous languages depending on the country (Cummins, 2014). Therefore, according to this understanding of heritage language, Heritage Language Education (HLE) is teaching linguistic minority children the mother tongue of their ancestors. Aravossitas (2014) referred to HLE as an emerging field of bilingual education which pays attention to teaching and learning of minority languages. HLE differs from dominant language education because it is pursued by children from minority groups as a maintenance and revitalization of their respective language and culture.
When considering this in tandem with GCED, based on the scope of developing global citizens, APCEIU (Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding) defines GCED as follows:
Global Citizenship Education (GCED) is transformative education that can develop knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that students need to make a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world. It is based on the universal principles of human rights, gender equality, non-discrimination, non-violence, and respect for all. (APCEIU, 2018)
According to APCEIU, GCED aims to prepare global citizens who can have knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that play important roles in making this world have justice, peace, and equity. Thus, the HLE’s goals of sustaining and recovering minorities’ languages and cultures not only are beneficial to minorities but also broaden both the majority and minorities’ knowledge of understanding linguistic human rights which can lead to justice and equity that GCED demands the most.
In today’s global society which puts more emphasis on the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and ethnic and linguistic minorities, the inclusion of HLE in GCED can lead to the achievement of GCED’s goals of creating justice, peace, and equity through understanding non-discrimination. Generally, GCED is related to all citizens including majority and minorities and HLE seems to be related to only minoritized groups. If children can have a chance to learn thoroughly at schools what HLE is, why and who learns it, and how important it is for the maintenance of minorities’ languages and cultures, not only they will gain the awareness of minorities around them, but also they can deeply understand the significance of sustaining one’s language and culture which express what unique identity they have. If one’s language becomes extinct, over time it is easy for their identity and culture to also become extinct.
Furthermore, HLE inclusion is a kind of recognition and embrace of minorities’ languages and cultures. It is like a creation of a social space which allows minorities to take pride in their language as well as an encouragement for social participation because they will no longer have a desire to hide their identity by knowing majorities celebrate their languages and cultures. With the awareness of minorities, children can realize more about multicultural societies. Consequently, they come to understand the need for paying mutual respect among diversities and can be aware of discrimination existing between majority and minorities.
Through these above highlighted points, it is clear that HLE can contribute to achieve GCED’s goal which ensures human rights, non-discrimination, and respect for all. Discrimination can be noticed in two ways. On the one hand, we can realize what discrimination is when we are being discriminated against by others. On the other hand, we can notice our biases by gaining self-awareness with good care of what and how we behave when we communicate with minorities. The inclusion of HLE will ensure children become aware of minorities and their own biases, which will help eliminate discrimination and help minorities have more pride in their identities.
4. Discussion
Firstly, the inclusion of HLE in Global Citizenship Education is the inclusion of minorities into the majority by means of their language and culture. With this inclusion, minorities may feel that their languages and cultures are no longer ignored or devalued. As a result, they will have confidence to participate in mainstream society with the pride of their minority identity. In many of the countries where HLE is celebrated (Canada [Aravossitas, 2014; Cummins, 2014], Australia [Scarino, 2014], the US [Carreira, 2014] etc.), it is usually found that the minorities want and try to hide their original identity for fear of discrimination. Likewise, in Japan, the minority ‘Ainu people’ try to hide their Ainu identity for the same reason (Okazaki, 2019).
While most speakers of Japanese or English have never had to hide their ability to speak their respective languages, Ainu speakers agreeing to participate in research or disclosing information have to consider the possibility of having their privacy violated. If they decide to participate in research, they also need to consider the impact on their immediate family and relatives. (Okazaki, 2019, p. 356)
This shows how much Ainu people are in fear of discrimination. By learning what HLE is, the majority can become aware of other minority groups around them. At the same time, children from the minority groups can feel they are embraced by the majority group. This kind of feeling can help a lot between the majority and the minoritized groups. By having an awareness of minorities by the majority group, they can also become aware of their discrimination against minority groups. The majority group can take lessons and reconsider bad deeds that have been committed against minorities so that they can avoid discriminating against minorities. As far as the majority becomes aware of their discrimination against minorities, the cases of discrimination are hoped to be less.
Simultaneously, through HLE the majority will notice the importance of the recovery of one’s unique language and culture. They will come to know the value of others’ languages and cultures in the same way as they value their own language and culture. As a result, there can be a decrease in doing disrespectful behaviors to minorities’ languages and cultures. Likewise, devaluation and ignorance of minorities will be less as students learn how to respect others. Paying mutual respect can lead again to a peaceful society.
Thirdly, the inclusion of HLE in Global Citizenship Education is also ensuring minorities’ human rights, most specifically their linguistic and indigenous human rights. By learning HLE through GCED, all children can gain an awareness of other minorities’ language and culture. As a result, it is also a kind of ensuring human rights, especially linguistic and indigenous human rights. By ensuring their human rights for minorities in a mainstream classroom, it can be an encouragement for minority’s children to pursue their ancestral languages and take a pride in their minority identity. In addition, the encouragement and participation of the majority in maintaining minorities’ language and culture can be a great energy for the minorities. From this energy, minorities can gain strength to study their heritage languages and have a confidence in speaking their minorities’ language in public places. It can be said that allowing to teach HLE in GCED is a kind of giving permission to celebrate minorities’ languages and cultures in mainstream society.
5. Conclusion
This study hopes to raise the majority’s awareness by including HLE in GCED focusing on minorities’ language revitalization efforts. In order to head towards a peaceful society, it is important to have mutual respect, non-discrimination and ensure human rights (linguistic human rights) within a multicultural context. HLE can contribute to achieving this goal. Without the knowledge of minorities, it is impossible to embrace minorities’ languages and unique cultures and deeply understand their feelings, anxiety, and difficulties. Through official learning of HLE at schools in GCED, the majority will come to know more about minorities and have an awareness of living in multicultural society.
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