This article covers the thinking behind the choice of “From Roots to Routes: Where are the Children of the Newcomers Now?” as a special research topic for the 33rd Annual Conference of the Intercultural Education Society of Japan. It also presents what was discussed on that day and the range of that discussion.

This special topic was chosen in order to take another look at the children of newcomers, who grow increasingly invisible, by shifting our viewpoint “from roots to routes.” Their roots are their former homes to which they might be expected to return. On the other hand, their routes are the paths from which they arrived here over the course of various transitions. Roots are invaluable when it comes to rallying and resistance of minorities, but if essentialized, they in fact become oppressive. Instead, we wanted to look at routes, which include unavoidable distortion and differences.

On the day of the symposium, the topic involving the risks of tying children to their roots was discussed in numerous case studies. Even if the intentions are good, the majority demanding that the minority must adhere to its ethnic names, language, and culture can mean forcing the minority into a framework conceived by the majority. In addition, to consider deviant behavior from the point of culture is to ignore the experiences of minorities and abandon them to their fate. Instead, the possibility of opening new routes exists in new stories woven by the minorities themselves and their “significant others.” The self-expressions of the writers and researchers who cross borders also suggest the possibility to take advantage of diversity and mobility.

This article discusses the children of “newcomers,” in particular, the children of Chinese returnees who were born in Japan. By investigating actual cases, this study clarifies that there is a limit to the educational practice focusing only on the roots of these children. It will also suggest in detail, how schools should implement their educational practices and orientation while focusing on the rearrangement of relationships surrounding Chinese children. The author has conducted field work in an elementary school. The children, who came to Japan when they were at the age for middle school, were actively separated from other children. This school not only provides Japanese language support but also helps them maintain their identity as “children with roots in China.” However, these practices do not satisfy the feelings of the foreign children who were born in Japan or that of their parents. Repellence, resistance, and sometimes abandonment and indifference have been observed at this school.

While maintaining the “boundary” as a group with roots in China, these children are required to respect individual diversity, recognize the flexible identity with generational gap in mind, and break the current boundary and make a new one. The kind of support that focuses on the “route” rather than the “roots” of these children includes learning how to overlap their identities with these changes, how to get them actively involved, and how to empower them. There is no universal way to continue living with the newcomer children. The emphasis is on the fact that it should be built in the process of getting closer to each other with respect. Building a school-specific or region-specific framework is desirable.

Numerous young people from foreign countries are growing up in Japan. This reminds us that it is important to support them for a smooth transition from school to work. In order to make that support effective, we need to understand what their perception of their own “independence” is. Otherwise, these young people can only receive support that is vastly impractical.

With regard to Brazilian young people in Japan who left school, these young people created a story about “escape” from an idle life and constructed a context of “independence,” which consisted of making money and then wasting it away. However, pursuing such “independence” led them to a state of confusion. First, this occurred because they had no choice but to create their own story. Second, they did not have the resources to construct the context of “independence” except that in a market. However, the ways of constructing such a context are varied, which will be necessary to give young people the chance of coming up with many other stories about “independence” in their lives.

For the past 20 years, the problem of newcomer children in Japan has been studied. Over the past 10 years in particular, the number of children outside of the existing Japanese school system has been increasing. These children have been spending their life without social respect (in this article described as “worried children”). On the other hand, children without resident permits have been spending their lives without any social rights at all. They are unable to publicly come out and discuss their visa status, nor are they able to receive any kind of assistance. Therefore, they have been staying in Japan as “illegals.” Furthermore, children who were invited to Japan by their parents and have past the age of compulsory education in Japan have less opportunities for acceptance in Japanese schools. These children are not able to think about their future prospects. Similarly, a child with Japanese name and nationality but with a foreign parent confronts various difficulties, such as a lower academic level in school and conflict with their parents because of language barriers. These difficulties may cause serious problems. The Regional International Association has been making efforts at supporting foreigners. The Association has been consistently offering what is known as the Third Place, which is neither school nor home, but a place where children can learn their mother tongue. In this program, children create a model city and can meet different children. This program is approved and its importance is recognized. In recent years, the government and public hold has grown weaker, which has resulted in these children living their life below the poverty line and eventually being subject to social exclusion. In the near future, existing schools and other fields of education should consider and approve the existence of these children.

Newcomer children have been increasingly diversified in terms of the language proficiency, school and life experiences, or social and cultural identities. On the other hand, “Japaneseness” or invisible cultural practices, worldviews, and structural privileges among Japanese create problems by silencing the voices of these diverse newcomer children.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how to re-imagine Japanese schools and society toward multicultural symbiosis through a process of construction, reconstruction, and further reconstruction in terms of “Japaneseness.”

First, the current state of Japanese society as “construction” is analyzed by politics of gaze that either essentializes or ignores cultural differences of the newcomer children. Second, “deconstruction” of the unequal Japanese society is examined by uncovering minority voices and the experiences of those children. Third, its “reconstruction” is discussed by articulating more inclusive multicultural society as universal design in order to meet cultural and individual needs of minority children.

In the keynote speech made at IESJ’s 33rd Annual Conference by Dr. John C. Condon, Professor Emeritus, the University of New Mexico, he posed five questions for educators about the past, present, and future of the field: 1) Where did we come from? 2) Why did we (you) develop interest in this field? What excited you? What sustains that interest? 3) What motivates our students? 4) How do we teach and conduct research? 5) Our vision: where do we want to go?

In his speech, Dr. Condon discussed the responsibilities of educators and researchers to the people who live in our ever-diversifying society. He used examples and analogies to explain the need for the development of active learning methodologies and the need for collaboration and for crossing the boundaries between different disciplines and methodologies.

The central idea of this keynote speech was how we, as educators and researchers, can continue to adapt ourselves and our fields of study to this new era of diversification.

The purpose of this study is to examine the actual circumstances and issues of “JSL (Japanese as a Second Language) pull-out classes” in evening high schools which have many foreign students, and explore concrete viewpoints to reform the supporting system for JSL students.

At senior high school level, “JSL pull-out classes” are put in practice mainly in evening schools by part-time teachers. However, because full-time teachers and part-time teachers do not collaborate and their teaching isn’t shared nor is it accumulated, the actual issues are still not clear.

I interviewed and gave a questionnaire to full-time teachers and part-time teachers to analyze the issues.

The results are as follows; first, schools don’t set clear educational policies for JSL students; as a result, to respond to students’ various needs and unstable circumstances, “pull-out classes” are left to the hands of part-time teachers, and tend to be influenced by school-specific circumstances. Moreover, the students’ learning tends to be limited to the “closed educational interactions” only between part-time teachers and students. Secondly, individual full-time and part time teachers have different ideas on the equity of “JSL pull-out classes”, and there is a lack of conversation with other teachers and consideration about students’ views. Thirdly, part-time teachers have to do the necessary work as “a shadowwork”, and are alienated from school information and collegiality.

For a reform, it is necessary (1) to have continuous dialogues and collaboration between full-time and part-time teachers, and to take JSL students’ views into consideration, (2) to change “teacher culture”, such as the existing idea of binary division between JSL and other regular subjects, persistency of their own field of specialty, and noninterference to others’ teaching, (3) to guarantee the “shadow work” of part-time teachers as a system, and improve their employment situation and their work system.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between causal attribution of perceived discrimination by Japanese people and indirect contact of Chinese students at Japanese language schools by using a scenario method. A questionnaire was administered to 133 Chinese students. By factor analysis, it was found that the causal attribution of perceived discrimination by Japanese bosses displayed in-group favoritism (Scenario A). Also, the scene recognition and mismatch of passengers due to cultural differences between China and Japans hospitality (Scenario B) showed “out-group,” “in-group self,” “in-group others,” “fortuity” causal attribution of perceived discrimination. In addition, indirect contact with Japanese people was showed as four factors: “self-disclosure,” “positive intergroup norms,” “intergroup anxiety,” and “intergroup relief.”

Moreover, the relationship between the indirect contact and attribution of the cause of the feeling of being discriminated against in the part-time work environment showed that “the number of Japanese friends” and “positive intergroup norms” were positively related to the “out-group” factor. It was found that when Chinese students don’t have a good relationship with Japanese people and when Chinese students have not many Japanese friends, Chinese students tend to be prejudiced toward Japanese people which in the causation of higher level of perceived discrimination by Japanese people at their part-time work environment.

In the present study, in order to reduce the feeling of discrimination in the part-time work environment, it was found that having more Japanese friends and building positive relationships with Japanese people is important.

This paper explores how Filipina newcomer mothers working as domestic workers form, maintain, and use networks as educational resources. This paper describes their subjective activities for forming these resources. The data used in this research were based on semi-structured interviews conducted with seven Filipina women and on participant observations conducted in churches and homes.

Because of the particularity of their work, which their legal employment is, in principle, limited to “non-Japanese” employers, they come to Japan using their personal networks. Then, they start using their networks to find churches in Japan and develop networks through the churches. Contemporaneously, they form local networks. Almost all network members have children of about the same age. The dual-network system (i.e., of a church network and a local network) helps to make the women’s lives in Japan stable.

The children have close relationships, because they grow up together and their mothers are friends. Coleman’s “intergenerational closure” appears to exist in their networks. They can monitor and guide not only children but also mothers. Therefore, it provides social capital to mothers, which they can use in raising their children: they can assist their children in adapting to school and take them to church to teach them about Christianity. Mothers consolidate their ties by educating children together in this manner.

In addition, the solidarity of the networks is cemented by the exclusion of outsiders. For example, mothers show visible distaste for Filipina entertainers and strongly emphasize the differences between them. Regularly attending church, helping each other, and ensuring that children receive a good education might be ways in which mothers emphasize their differences with Filipina entertainers.