Activities of Introducing Cuisine of Parents with Foreign Roots in Japanese Preschool:

What Are Precautions to Avoid Falling Into the Tourist Curriculum?

Abstract

Japanese guidelines recommend that parents with foreign roots introduce their family cuisine to children at schools as a method that provides an opportunity for children to recognize and respect differences in nationality and culture. However, previous studies have pointed out that activities to introduce foreign-root family cuisine may pose a risk of falling into the tourist curriculum, which can lead to misunderstanding and prejudice. This study investigated activities that introduce family cuisine of parents with foreign roots at school lunch by considering the risk of the tourist curriculum. Semi-structured group interviews were administered to preschool teachers and nutritionists. The results indicated that activities of introducing the parents’ dishes at school lunch were categorized into the following three processes: (1) asking parents for their recipes, (2) cooking parents’ dishes at school lunch, and (3) introducing the dishes to children. In the discussion, we examined points to be noted to avoid the tourist curriculum in terms of anti-bias education for each activity process.