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You
are here: Challenges for Multicultural Education in Japan
Japan has never been as homogeneous as she appeared or wanted to be, and is undeniably becoming a society composed of people of multinational origins. Although it remains one of the least diverse industrialized nations, Japan has had increased migration since the 1970s and now faces an impending influx of foreigners in the coming years to meet the needs of a rapidly declining labor force (Douglass & Roberts, 2000). Those who cling to the ideology of a monoethnic nation scramble for alternative solutions to fill this labor shortage. However, few doubt that the only way to survive will be to import labor, and there seems to be a grudging pragmatic acceptance that a certain level of immigration is both inevitable and in Japan's national interest (Kajita, 1998).
The growing diversification of Japanese society has a major impact on education at every level. The appearance of large numbers of children in schools whose mother tongue is not Japanese and who have other cultural orientations besides mainstream Japanese culture is a growing phenomenon. The teaching of immigrant and minority children or foreign students is a contested site in which there is a struggle about their role and future in the society.
Japan is embroiled in national controversy concerning the country's capacity to assimilate different people and the role of education in socializing new immigrants. Questions about appropriate or effective educational policies and practice are embedded in larger issues concerning national identity and the responsibility of the government in educating those outside the mainstream (Valdes, 1998). Whether the purpose of education in Japan will continue to be to assimilate minorities or to help them develop their full potential as future citizens remains to be seen.
The very concepts of citizenship and citizenship education are in flux. Will citizenship and the implicit citizenship education associated with it continue to be based on a mythical purity and homogeneity? Or will a newer concept of unity amidst diversity be adopted? Will Japan move from monocultural to multicultural concepts of citizenship and citizenship education (Willis, 2002)?
Expanding debates on curriculum
The entrance of children from abroad has had a powerful impact in areas with high concentrations of these groups. Some local school districts have developed programs to cope with the demands placed on teachers by their new diverse group of students. The Ministry of Education has moved slowly to deal with these needs, but has begun to train teachers on how to teach with foreign students in the classroom and in the teaching Japanese as a second language.
Japan now confronts issues such as inclusion of other languages in the school curriculum and mention of minorities in texts. Dealing with these issues involves a reexamination of basic concepts of Japanese education, and expanding debates on curriculum to include race, religion, and ethnicity. Textbook companies and educators have become more sensitive in recent years to the issues of equality and human rights, but the national curriculum standards still do not include the experiences of minority cultures (Tsuneyoshi, 2001). Alternative ethnic schools continue to be seen as the only alternative for those rejecting this national curriculum, and demands have intensified for the government to support these institutions.
Education about minorities such as Koreans, Okinawans and burakumin have existed, but isolated from the official curriculum. They are now being resituated in the context of multicultural education that acknowledges the ethnic diversity that exists within Japan. Multicultural education is now being hailed by some educators as a palliative for problems of discrimination, but most are unsure how to teach it. They often conceive of this subject as study of the countries of the West, or of exotic cultures. Foreign residents are invited to share their "traditional cultures" in the classroom, and Japanese children are therefore being exposed more than ever to people from other cultural backgrounds in a positive way. However, the problem of overemphasizing differences and instilling frozen national stereotypes is unfortunately an integral part of the simplistic way in which culture is taught.
Most teachers are unsure of what else to do for what is called, "international understanding," and some just teach English. The Ministry has invested in a massive program to bring thousands of native English speakers to work as teacher's aides and instituted English classes in elementary schools. Reform of English education is driven by a deep concern that the low English level of Japanese people hampers international economic competitiveness. Parents and children are also motivated by awareness of the international dominance of English and its importance in entrance examinations. To them studying English is a practical necessity, not a choice.
However, this focus contrasts sharply with the immediate reality in Japanese schools, which have a high concentration of Asian children. Critics charge that an emphasis on English is a reflection of an inferiority complex toward the Western world, and an accompanying sense of separation from Asian neighbors. Some educators therefore stress better relationships with the society's Asian population and Asian nations, as well as teaching Chinese or Korean instead of English. Some approach "international understanding" by teaching about the internal international community or through forming liaisons with neighboring ethnic or international schools, including the North Korean schools (Tsuneyoshi, 2001).
Toward a new model of community
Japanese educational practice encourages children to cooperate and care for one another in building an empathetic community. However, educators are now being challenged to overcome the limits of a traditional model of community that restricts individual freedom and diversity of behavior. They also confront the vexing problem of how to extend caring and empathy to those of other cultures or other countries when homogeneity is valued and children do not experience the impact of diversity in their daily lives. Educators struggle to embrace a belief that acknowledging the existence of minority children advantages both them and the majority children who receive the chance to learn from each other and become friends while acknowledging differences. A new concept that fights prejudice by focusing on the differences within the Japanese group and the similarities with other groups is sorely needed (Murphy-Shigematsu, 2002a).
Another question that needs to be addressed is how to teach minority children about "their heritage." Ethnic education of Korean children in after school classrooms and Korean summer schools has been guided by aims of instilling positive self-images through identification with and appreciation of their Korean heritage. Such programs strive to eliminate the stigma attached to being Korean and instill a Korean identity by acquainting children with symbols of Koreanness that they can use to distinguish themselves from Japanese. This effort is required because there is little to distinguish Korean and Japanese children these days in a cultural sense, and in the absence of essential differences, concerned teachers push children to develop political loyalty and identification with the Korean nation.
However, such measures as pushing children and parents to use ethnic names is not uniformly supported even by the Korean parents or children who participate in these ethnic education programs (Kim, 2002; Hester, 2000). Some parents would prefer to have Japanese children included in the programs to minimize the tendency to antagonistically divide Koreans from Japanese. They do not want what is Japanese to be regarded as alien, because they see their children as Japanese as much as Korean. These parents want their children to know and value their heritage as Korean in their own lives and personal relationships, but they seek a way of being that is harmonious rather than antagonistic, inclusive rather than exclusive, and do not want to be required to constantly present their ethnic ancestry as the most salient aspect of their identity.
Redefining who and what is Japanese
Ethnic education may essentialize ethnic groups in the same way as mainstream education. Both maintain a dichotomous way of thinking of a world where each individual belongs to a distinct cultural group and where they are integrated as enduring entities within the boundaries of the nation-state. The issue is often framed as simply whether the minority should become the same as the majority or should be allowed to remain different. However, deeper questions remain to be faced about the way in which boundaries are maintained, shifted, and redrawn in the process of struggles over the nature of the nation (Murphy-Shigematsu, 2002b).
Questioning the boundaries of the nation involves reexamining who belongs and who is excluded (Morris-Suzuki, 1998). There are many possible answers to the question of exactly what defines a Japanese, and therefore we could say, many measures of Japaneseness and multiple kinds of Japanese identities (Murphy-Shigematsu, 2002c). While conventional analysis of the Japanese and Japanese culture focuses on dichotomous comparison between narrowly defined categories of "Japanese" and "foreigner," our understanding of contemporary Japanese will improve only through investigation of the cultural complexity of these categories and their crossroads and borderlands (Willis, 2000).
Contemporary Japanese society is subjected to pressures to expand the borders of the nation as global forces create stresses on the society propelling it to open its gates and send its citizens abroad and invite others to come to live and work in Japan (Murphy-Shigematsu, 2003). As it becomes more diverse the state also struggles to maintain unity among its people. But old strategies of promoting nationalism based on an ideology of homogeneity fail to integrate new, and also older minorities. Intolerance and prejudice that spring from ethnocentrism lead directly to policies and social practices that discriminate.
The state struggles with its attempts to keep minorities marginal, disenfranchised, and disposable, while the minorities ask to be accommodated in an equitable manner and also to be given the social space to express their own cultural and religious identities. These issues move beyond the local, and even national levels, and enter the international political scene. On individual and group levels, residents endeavor to develop a more open and multicultural Japan, actively challenging various modes of racism and discriminatory practices.
Ethnic diversity poses great challenges for education demanding not only recognition of minorities and acceptance of immigrants, but also deep consideration of the question: Who are the Japanese? Expanding the borders of the nation goes beyond reforming restrictive laws and policies to matters of the heart and soul. Like many other countries, Japan confronts its transforming image in the mirror, raging against the relentless marks of movement and trying to gracefully accept loss and embrace the gifts that change brings.
References
Douglass, M. and G. S. Roberts. 2000. "Japan in a global age of migration." In M. Douglass and G. S. Roberts (Eds.) Japan and global migration: Foreign workers and the advent of a multicultural society. London: Routledge, pp. 3-37.
Hester, J. (2000). In S. Ryang (Ed.), Koreans in Japan: Critical voices from the margin. pp. 175-196. London: Routledge.
Kajita, T. (1998). "The challenge of incorporating foreigners in Japan." In M. Weiner & T. Hanami (Eds.) Temporary workers or future citizens: Japanese and U.S. migration policies. New York: New York University Press pp. 120-147.
Kim, T. (2002). "Identity Politics" and Korean Youth in Japan: A Case Study of a Junior High School Student". International Education Journal, 3 (5), 56-63. http://iej.cjb.net.
Morris-Suzuki. T. (1998). Re-inventing Japan. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2003). "Expanding the Borders of the Nation: Ethnic Diversity, Citizenship, and Education in Japan." In James A. Banks, (Ed.), Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons.
(2002a). Multicultural encounters: Case narratives from a counseling practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
(2002b). Amerajian no kodomotachi: Shirarezaru minoriti mondai (Amerasian children: An unknown minority problem) Tokyo: Shueisha.
(2002c). "Multiethnic Japan." Social Science Journal Japan 5(2), pp. 45-51.
Tsuneyoshi, R. (2001). The Japanese model of schooling: Comparisons with the United States. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Valdes, G. (1998). "The world outside and inside schools: Language and immigrant children". Educational Researcher, 27(6), pp. 4-18.
Willis, D. B. (2002). "Citizenship Challenges for Japanese Education for the 21st Century: "Pure" or "Multicultural"? Multicultural Citizenship Education in Japan." International Education Journal, 3 (5), 16-32. http://iej.cjb.net.
(2001). "Creole times: Notes on understanding creolization for transnational Japan-America." In The Age of Creolization in the Pacific: In Search of Emerging Cultures and Shared Values in the Japan-America Borderlands. pp. 3-40. Hiroshima: Keisuisha.
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu is a professor in the International Center and Graduate School of Education at the University of Tokyo. He also teaches at Stanford University's School of Education and in the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity. His research focuses on Asian and American multicultural and transnational themes in psychology and education. He is also a psychotherapist interested in narrative forms of clinical writing. His publications include the books Multicultural Encounters and Amerasian Children, and articles in Psychiatry, American Psychologist, and the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.
To contact and learn more about the author:
Stanford University
School of Education
485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-2084
smshige@stanford.edu
http://www.ic.u-tokyo.ac.jp/smshige
© March 2003 New Horizons for Learning
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