Intercultural Education
Online ISSN : 2435-1156
Print ISSN : 0914-6970
Current issue
Displaying 1-12 of 12 articles from this issue
  • Uichi Kamiyoshi
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 1-17
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Recently, both the number of visitors arriving in Japan and the number of foreign residents living in Japan have reached a record high every year. The revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was passed and enacted in the Diet in December 2018, and the acceptance of foreign workers started in earnest in April 2019 with the implementation of the “specified skilled worker” residency status. This represents a major change in the Japanese government’s immigration policy. Since the 1990s, the government has been promising to “actively accept highly skilled foreign workers, while carefully considering foreign workers.” In June 2019, the Promotion of Japanese Language Education Act was promulgated and enforced.

    In this paper, I will first outline Japan’s recent policy on accepting foreigners. Next, I will provide an historical summary of the discussion surrounding Japanese language education legislation. Then, based on the basic idea that governs the Promotion of Japanese Language Education Act, I will discuss pertinent issues from the following three viewpoints: the Japanese language education popularization plan, quality improvement in Japanese language education, and the continuation of Japanese language learning. Finally, I will discuss the role of Japanese language education in Japan as an “immigrant society.”

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  • Akira Kojima
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 18-36
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of second-generation immigrants in developing Japanese-Language Education in a local community. We interviewed thirteen second-generation Brazilian young people in Japan and tried to understand what they thought about their own acquisition and use of the Japanese language.

    First, we traced the process of the Japanese-language acquisition of our interviewees. Although they acquired the Japanese language mainly at school, it entailed a lot of effort to adapt to their surroundings. On the other hand, they tried to keep a certain constant distance from their ethnic community.

    Second, we found that they were faced with the harsh realities in spite of their fluent Japanese. It was extremely difficult for them to be accepted as “legitimate” Japanese-language speakers by “native” ones. For that reason, the more

    fluent their Japanese became, the more they felt frustrated by or indignant at such treatment.

    Third, we described their way of dealing with difficulties from the view point of recontextualization of the Japanese-language which they had acquired. Our interviewees never accepted things as they were, rather they tried to create alternative contexts in which their Japanese ability would become valuable on the basis of their own experiences. They regarded their own Japanese ability as the one that would enable them on the one hand to live transnationally, on the other hand to connect with a variety of others who could share experiences as a minority.

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  • Yohei Tanada
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 37-49
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Under the assumption that the number of foreign people is expected to increase in Japan, this paper examines the ideal way of regional Japanese language classes, within the framework of “literacy and Japanese” in Osaka.

    In Osaka, there are more than 200 classes of literacy education, such as literacy and Japanese classes and evening secondary schools, the largest number in the country. Many of the learners in these classes of literacy education are foreign people.

    Since the late 1960s, literacy movements in Buraku liberation movements and evening secondary school movements have been promoted in Osaka. Their commonalities were, firstly, the movements by the parties themselves to “recapture the characters and words” that were deprived by discrimination and poverty. Secondly, their movements were to seek a guarantee of the “right to education” as fundamental human right.

    These movements were connected by the International Literacy Year (1990). In 1993, Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City established guidelines for promoting literacy measures, and literacy programs were promoted based on these guidelines. In these measures, the viewpoint of “guaranteeing human rights” was regarded as the basis of literacy learning activities, and support for learning Japanese for foreign people was also positioned as literacy and Japanese education. To disseminate the philosophy and practice of “literacy and Japanese” education and conduct surveys related to literacy, core functions of a network connecting each classes of literacy education are required, in Osaka, “Literacy and Japanese Center” played that role.

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  • Kohei Tsubota
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 50-67
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper clarifies how a local government institutionalized support for foreign women and their children by focusing on the activities of volunteer organizations in Akita Prefecture and Akita City, which are non-residential areas for foreigners. The analysis draws on historical sources and qualitative data from 1985 to 2004. It was found that from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, women-centered volunteer organizations aimed to provide Japanese language support to foreign women and build solidarity among women. Women’s organizations also advocated for continuous Japanese language support by local governments, and by 1995, local governments had institutionalized Japanese language support. Moreover, because of schools’ continued refusal and opposition to providing support for foreign children, volunteer organizations attempted to institutionalize Japanese language support by proposing a policy of integrating it into the framework of education for children with disabilities. At the same time, volunteer organizations fostered social inclusion practices to counter the refusal of institutional support by developing peer support among classmates. These findings reveal the institutionalization process of the minority support policies carried out through micro support activities by women’s organizations and proactive policy advocacy in non-residential areas, where minorities’ support needs are often neglected due to the small number of foreign residents.

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  • Toshiro Goji
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 68-85
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Job hunting systems in Japan are known for their distinct characteristics in the sense that they require applicants to develop a self–understanding and establish the future orientations in life and work through a screening process. This unique screening process presents a different face to international students in Japan; it would help develop a sense of belonging to Japanese society while supporting the navigation of social integration as its effect. Yet few attempts have been made in exploring the association between job hunting and social integration for international students in Japan.

    The present study attempts to fill this gap by investigating how international students envisage the relationship with and participation in Japanese society and, as a result, how their social integration is facilitated in the course of job hunting. The qualitative analysis was conducted based on data from interviews with international students who have experienced job hunting in Japan and foreign employees who received education in Japan.

    The results demonstrate that interpretations of both “sameness” and “difference” facilitate social integration in the course of job hunting: “sameness,” in the terms of the dominant identity and culture in mainstream society and “difference” in relation to the distinct identity and culture of foreign origins. Notably, the assertion of difference in light of corporate profits is highlighted as a strategy unique to the local context of job hunting in Japan.

    The discussion also suggests the positive role of higher education institutions in promoting social integration. Seminars and preparation sessions of job hunting for international students provided by these institutions can contribute to development of social integration by offering support in the way that encourages interpretations of sameness and difference to elaborate the relationship with Japanese society.

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  • Xiaoying Wang
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 86-101
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    The purpose of this report is to examine the present situations and issues of “Children with International Backgrounds” in the transition period from preschools to primary schools. A questionnaire survey was conducted, and the target audience was preschool teachers in charge of five-year-olds at 225 preschools (public and private day-care centers and centers for early childhood education and care) in A city, in the Kansai region.

    As a result, the following three situations of support in the primary school enrollment of children with international backgrounds have been revealed. Firstly, those preschool teachers attach primary importance to those children’s acquisition of Japanese. Secondly, the support for those children requires support for not only children but also their guardians, primary schools, and communities. And lastly, those children’s acquisition of Japanese, the development of their sociality, and the establishment of their daily life habits cannot be looked at in isolation from each other.

    Through the research, the following three issues have been revealed. Firstly, it is important to provide conscious support to children with international backgrounds in their literacy skills before going to primary schools. Secondary, an interactive sharing of information with primary schools is necessary. And finally, it is required that preschool teachers value children’s cultural background in the guidance of their daily life habits and cultures.

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  • Kayoko Aoki
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 102-119
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    As Japanese society gets more diverse, the reported cases of discrimination against social minority groups have been increasing. Educational lessons and programs which nourish skills and knowledge to fight against oppression and social injustice have not been developed enough. This study aims to examine possibilities of improvement of practicing social justice education in higher education in Japan. In this article, the author discusses the features of oppression and privilege, which are theoretical bases of social justice education, as well as conscientization as a process of understanding those ideologies, and then examines a lesson of privilege and oppression that was conducted at the “Multicultural Coexistence” class at the author’s university by analyzing the descriptive and interview data of the students.

    The study showed that the students realized their privilege through the lesson and their own experiences by understanding the ideologies of privilege and oppression, and the feature of and the relationships with the dominant and subordinate groups. At the same time, it was found that some students understood those ideologies only at the surface level, not reflecting their own privilege; others felt hesitant about discussion with international students for overthinking to be a member of the privileged group. Further research for practicing social justice education is needed so that the students would be able to understand privilege and oppression more deeply and learn about how to react to social injustice, by introducing activities such as creating action plans.

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  • Shiori Hirata
    2020 Volume 52 Pages 120-130
    Published: August 31, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: August 31, 2024
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    To have an active social life in Japan, it is necessary to acquire the “Kanji reading and writing ability,” which is an essential element of the Japanese language. However, in community-based Japanese language classes, the main place where foreigners living in Japan learn Japanese, activities are mainly aimed at dialogue/ collaboration and mutual understanding. Correspondingly, little attention is given to provisions for Kanji learning support.

    In this paper, I present the results of a survey of nine classrooms which were visited to clarify problems with Kanji learning support in community-based Japanese classes. The results demonstrate that there are problems of awareness among teaching personnel, lack of manpower, and diversity of learners, all of which underlie the lack of support for Kanji learning.

    To provide effective support for foreign residents in Japan learning the Kanji syllabary, it is necessary to investigate learning methods that would be suitable to the philosophy of community-based Japanese language education.

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