Effecting the “Local” by Invoking the “Global”

State Educational Policy and English Language Immersion Education in Japan
  • Gregory S. Poole
  • Hinako Takahashi
Chapter
Part of the Critical New Literacies: The Praxis of English Language Teaching and Learning (Pelt) book series (CNLI)

Abstract

An educational or schooling system can be considered a mirror of society. Certainly many observers would agree that the challenges presently facing the Japanese education system are issues that reflect broader cultural debates within society. The issues that surround such heated educational topics as creativity, critical thinking, the curriculum, literacy, and immigrant students correspond fairly directly with recent societal debates regarding diversity, identity, national pride, and the economy (Willis, 2006).

Keywords

International School Critical Thinking Skill Japanese Language Japanese Student Open Classroom 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Allen, M. (2002). Identity and resistance in Okinawa. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
  2. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London, England: Verso.Google Scholar
  3. Befu, H. (2001). Hegemony of homogeneity. Melbourne, Australia: Trans Pacific Press.Google Scholar
  4. Befu, H. (2009). Societal and cultural context of educational issues. In J. Gordon, H. Fujita, T. Kariya, & G. LeTendre (Eds.), Challenges to Japanese education: Economics, reform, and human rights. New Y ork, NY: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
  5. Bjork, C. (2011). Imagining Japan’s “relaxed education’ curriculum”: Continuity or change? In D. B. Willis & J. Rappleye (Eds.), Reimagining Japanese education: Borders, transfers, circulations, and the comparative. Oxford, England: Symposium Books.Google Scholar
  6. Burgess, C. (2004). Maintaining identities: Discourses of homogeneity in a rapidly globalizing Japan. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies. Retreived from www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/Burgess.html
  7. Downes, S. (2001). Sense of Japanese cultural identity within an English partial immersion programme: Should parents worry? International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 4(3), 165–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. South Hudley, MA: Bergin & Garvey Publishers.Google Scholar
  9. Goodman, R. (1990). Japan’s “International youth”: The emergence of a new class of school children. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  10. Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with two languages. Cambridge, England: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  11. Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (2000). Bilinguality and bilingualism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Hashimoto, K. (2000). “Internationalisation” is “Japanisation”: Japan’s foreign language education and national identity. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 21(1), 39–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Imoto, Y. (2011). Producing the “international” child: Negotiations of language in an international preschool in Japan. Ethnography and Education, 6(3), 281–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Kariya, T. (2001). Kaisōka Nihon to kyōikukiki [Education crisis in stratified Japan]. Tokyo, Japan: Yushindo.Google Scholar
  15. Kariya, T., & Rappleye, J. (2010). The twisted, unintended impact of globalization on Japanese education. In E. Hannum, H. Park, & Y. Goto Butler (Eds.), Globalization, changing demographics, and educational challenges in East Asia. New York, NY: Emerald.Google Scholar
  16. Marshall, B. K. (1994). Learning to be modern: Japanese political discourse on education. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
  17. Mock, J. (2009). Exacerbating educational inequality: Impact of rural/urban split on rural Japan. Presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar
  18. OECD. (2009). Retrieved from http://stats.oecd.org
  19. Pearson, R. (2001). The place of Okinawa in Japanese historical identity. In D. Denoon, M. Hudson, G. McCormack, & T. Morris-Suzuki (Eds.), Multicultural Japan: Paleolithic to postmodern. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  20. Roesgaard, M. H. (2006). Japanese education and the cram school business: Functions, challenges and perspectives of the juku. Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS Press.Google Scholar
  21. Rohlen, T. P. (1983). Japan’s high schools. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  22. Takayama, K. (2008). Beyond orientalism in comparative education: Challenging the binary opposition between Japanese and American education. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 28(1), 19–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Tsuda, T. (2003). Strangers in the ethnic homeland: Japanese Brazilian return migration in transnational perspective. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
  24. Tsuneyoshi, R., Okano, K. & Boocock, S. S. (Eds.). (2010). Minorities and education in multicultural Japan. London, England: Routledge.Google Scholar
  25. Willis, D. B. (2006). Learning culture, learning citizenship: Japanese education and the challenge of multiculturalism. In S. Lee, S. Murphy-Shigematsu, & H. Befu (Eds), Japan’s diversity dilemmas. New York, NY: iUniverse.Google Scholar
  26. Willis, D. B., & Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2008). Transcultural Japan: At the borderlands of race, gender, and nation. London, England: Routledge.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Sense Publishers 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Gregory S. Poole
    • 1
  • Hinako Takahashi
    • 2
  1. 1.Doshisha UniversityKyotoJapan
  2. 2.University of Maryland University CollegeEurope

Personalised recommendations