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Multicultural Education in Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Eika Tai
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Korean ethnic education in Japanese public schools, which started in the 1960s, is a form of multicultural education that provides useful ideas for multiculturalist teachers dealing with children of newcomer foreigners. In Osaka, Japanese and Korean activists with different political agendas developed two distinctive approaches. Those interested in the homeland politics of the two Koreas tried to develop an ethno-national identity among Korean children, while those involved in civil rights politics in Japan encouraged the development of political subjectivity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 12 , December 2007 , e21
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2007

References

Notes

[1] E. San Juan Jr., Racism and Cultural Studies (Duke University Press, 2002), 9.

[2] Carl A. Grant and Joy L. Lei, eds., Global Constructions of Multicultural Education (London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001).

[3] Nakajima Tomoko, Tabunka kyoiku to zainichi chosenjin kyoiku (Kyoto: Zenkoku zainichi chosenjin kyoiku kenkyu kyogikai, 1995), 45.

[4] Much of the following discussion is based on my fieldwork in Osaka between 2001 and 2006. I interviewed activists and researchers.

[5] Stephen May, “Critical Multicultural Education and Cultural Difference: Avoiding Essentialism,” in May, ed., Critical Multiculturalism: Rethinking Multicultural and Antiracist Education (London: Falmer Press, 1999), 5.

[6] Baogang He and Will Kymlicka, “Introduction,” in Kymlicka and He, Multiculturalism in Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 23.

[7] Grant and Lei, Global Constructions, xv.

[8] Stanley Fish, “Boutique Multiculturalism, or Why Liberals are Incapable of Thinking about Hate Speech,” Critical Inquiry 23 (1997): 378-95.

[9] Matsunami Megumi, “Nyukama jissen ni miru kyoshi no ‘zainichi gaikokujin kyoiku’ kan,” in Nakajima Tomoko, ed., 1970 nendai iko no zainichi KankokuChosenjin kyoiku-kenkyu to jissen no taikeiteki kenkyu (Osaka: Poole Gakuin University, 2004), 194.

[10] Enoi Yukari, “Tabunka kyosei kyoiku to kokusai jinken,” Kaiho kyoiku 397 (2001): 8-17.

[11] May, “Critical Multicultural Education,” 11.

[12] The new nationality law of 2000 allows children born in Germany to non-German parents to hold both a passport of their parents' nationality and a German passport until age twenty-three. Germany has been increasingly seen as a country of immigration.

[13] Okano Kaori, “The Global-local Interface in Multicultural Education Policies in Japan,” Comparative Education 42.4 (2006): 473-91.

[14] San Juan, Racism, 9.

[15] Brett Klopp, German Multiculturalism: Immigrant Integration and the Transformation of Citizenship (London: Praeger, 2002), 187.

[16] Ralph Grillo, “Immigration and the Politics of Recognizing Difference in Italy,” in Grillo and Jeff Pratt, eds., The Politics of Recognizing Difference: Multiculturalism Italian-style (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002).

[17] Okano, “Global-local.”

[18] Nakajima Tomoko, “‘Bunka’ ‘jinken’ ni okeru ‘kokoro-shugi’ to ‘kotoba-shugi,‘” Human Rights Education Review 1.1 (1997): 25-30.

[19] Jeffry T. Hester, “Kids between Nations: Ethnic Classes in the Construction of Korean Identities in Japanese Public Schools,” in Sonia Ryang, ed., Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (New York: Routledge, 2000), 193.

[20] Lee Changsoo, “Ethnic Education and National Politics,” in Lee and George DeVos, eds., Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 163-66.

[21] Ibid., 163-66.

[22] Sugitani Yoriko, “‘Kangaeru-kai’ no ayumi,” in Zenchokyo Osaka Kangaeru-kai, ed., Mukuge (Tokyo: Aki Shobo, 1981), 15-42.

[23] Mukuge, 30 (August 2001).

[24] Sugitani, “‘Kangaeru-kai’ no ayumi.”

[25] Lee, “ Ethnic Education,” 168-69. There were some schools affiliated with Mindan.

[26] Ozawa Yusaku, Zainichi Chosenjin Kyoikuron (Tokyo: Aki Shobo, 1973), 468.

[27] Sugitani, “‘Kangaeru-kai’ no ayumi.”

[28] Fukumoto Taku, “Changes in Korean Population Concentrations in Osaka City from the 1920s to the Early 1950s,” Jinbun Chiri 56.2 (2004): 42-57.

[29] Asahi Shinbun Osaka, 22 January 1957.

[30] Mukuge, 30 August 2001.

[31] Inatomi Susumu, Nihon Shakai no Kokusaika to Jinken Kyoiku (Osaka: Kinki Insatsu Puro, 2005), 3-5.

[32] ZOK is taken from the current name of the association, Zenchokyo Osaka Kangaeru-kai. ZOK publishes Mukuge, an organizational magazine.

[33] Mukuge 30, August 2001.

[34] Osaka-shi Minzoku Koshikai (OMK), Minzoku Gakkyu (Osaka: Yuniwârudo, 1997), 112.

[35] Sugitani, “Kangaeru-kai,” 21. Leftist members of ZOK were supportive of Chongryun, which defined its members as “overseas nationals of North Korea.”

[36] Mukuge, 30 April 1976.

[37] Mukuge, 30 August 2001.

[38] Mukuge, 30 August 2001.

[39] Japanese teachers donated money to support Korean lecturers.

[40] Mukuge, 30 August 2001.

[41] Inatomi, Nihon Shakai, 22.

[42] Sugitani, “Kangaeru-kai,” 22.

[43] Inatomi, Nihon Shakai, 26.

[44] Mukuge, 30 October 1976.

[45] Inatomi, Nihon Shakai, 6.

[46] OMK, Minzoku Gakkyu, 84.

[47] Sugitani, “Kangaeru-kai,” 27.

[48] Kishida Yumi, “Minzoku no tame no kyoiku to kyoiku no tame no minzoku,” in Nakajima, 1970 nendai iko, 42-59.

[49] Takatsuki City Board of Education (TCBE), Zainichi KankokuChosenjin mondai o kangaeru (Osaka: Takatsuki City, 1990).

[50] Mintoren, Hansabetsu to jinken no minzoku kyoiku o (Osaka: Mintoren, 1992), 12.

[51] Fukuoka Yasunori, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000), 63.

[52] Sonia Nieto, Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives for a New Century (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002), 246-7.

[53] Sonia Nieto, Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (New York: Longman, 1992), 208-21.

[54] Kodokyo, Kodokyo 30-nen no Ayumi (Osaka: ABC Kobo, 1991).

[55] Asahi Gurafu, 25 April 1969.

[56] TCBE, Zainichi, 82.

[57] Kodokyo, Kodokyo, 70.

[58] Fukuoka, Lives, 65.

[59] Ibid., 66.

[60] Abdul R. JanMohamed and David Lloyd, “Introduction: Minority Discourse,” Critique 7 (1987): 5-17.

[61] Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997), 8.

[62] Takatsuki Mukuge-no-kai (TM), Minzoku dakara Omoshiroi (Osaka: Mukuge-no-kai, 1992), 52.

[63] TM, Minzoku, 16-17.

[64] TM, Minzoku, 24.

[65] TM, Minzoku, 17.

[66] Kodokyo, Kodokyo, 74-82.

[67] Mintoren, Hansabetsu to Jinken no Minzoku Kyoiku o (Osaka: Mintoren Mintoren, 1992).

[68] Mukuge, 26 November 1979.

[69] About 10,000 Koreans have become Japanese nationals per year since the mid-1990s. More than 80 per cent of marriages involving Koreans are interethnic.

[70] Tai Eika, “Korean Activism and Ethnicity in the Changing Ethnic Landscape of Urban Japan,” Asian Studies Review 30 (2006): 41-58.

[71] The Korea NGO Centre was created in 2004 out of Minsokkyo and two other groups.

[72] Eika Tai, “‘Multicultural Co-living’ and its Potential,” The Journal of Human Rights 3 (2003): 41-52.

[73] Okano, “Global-local.”

[74] Matsunami, “Nyukama,” 196.

[75] Michelle Anne Lee, “Multiculturalism as Nationalism: a Discussion of Nationalism in Pluralistic Nations,” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism XXX (2003): 103-23.

[76] David Chapman, “Discourses of Multicultural Coexistence (tabunka kyosei) and the ‘Old-comer’ Korean Residents of Japan,” Asian Ethnicity 7.1 (2006): 89-102, 100.