Japaneseness in Immigrant Education: Toward Culturally Responsive Teaching in Japan

Abstract

This article considers the academic and practical implications of culturally responsive teaching and whiteness studies for the studies and practice of immigrant education in Japan. By reviewing what has been found and discussed about the teachers’ roles and their privileges in the studies of immigrant education in Japan, I argue that Japaneseness has been unnamed and made invisible, as well as culturally neutralized by the majority in the educational system. As the population becomes more diverse, I suggest that it is required to study how the image of “Japanese” and “Japanese culture” have been imagined and constructed in education, to deconstruct them and to put them into practice in teacher training.