The causes of inadequate access to disaster prevention education among foreign exchange studen

A case analysis of disaster prevention information gathering by foreign exchange students

Abstract

This paper attempts to explore the causes of a shortfall in disaster prevention information gathering among foreign exchange students. For this purpose, we analyze the process of disaster prevention information gathering by foreign exchange students in Japan following the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake. The results of the analysis identify five factors, such as (1) anxiety in the Japanese language usage, (2) confusion of public officials who are unaccustomed to foreigners, (3) vertically segmented system inter/intra-public institutions, (4) indifference of officials toward to disaster prevention, (5) a deficiency of the manuals and multilingual audio guides. Previous research has suggested a lack of Japanese language proficiency is the main cause of disaster prevention information shortfall, however, the results of this study suggests other factors.