Author Archives: japansociology

Aggressively accepting refugees

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by Yurika Chiba

According to UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), there were more than 15,370,000 refugees all over the world in 2010. Currently, Japan has more than 10,000 refugees. However, the number of refugees is very small compared to other countries. For example, the United States of America accepts more than 30,000 refugees per year. By contrast, Japan accepts less than 100 refugees per year. It is obvious that Japan does not actively take in refugees. Some people insist that Japan should accept more refugees. However, others do not think so. Which idea is correct?

At first, Japan is said to be a homogeneous country. Basically, the number of foreigners and immigrants is small. I mean most Japanese people do not get used to interacting with people from different countries. It is hard for refugees to fit in Japanese society. In addition, Japan does not have a well-organized system for refugees. For instance, refugees cannot get a job easily. They cannot receive health insurance. There are such problems in Japan. I mean that refugees cannot adapt Japanese society easily even if they are recognized as refugees by Japanese government. What I want to say is that Japanese government should produce a well-organized system to make better society for refugees before Japan increases the number of refugees.

However, some people suggest that accepting more refugees is above everything else. They indicate that waiting for a well-organized system for refugees is the same as doing nothing. It is crucial to take in more refugees as soon as possible. Many refugees would have an impact on Japanese people. Japanese government has to establish the system for refugees if there are a lot of refugees in Japan. I think it is also important to understand refugees among Japanese people. For instance, why they became refugees, why they cannot live in their own country and so on. Actually, I did not know much about refugees because I was not interested in the topic. But, this issue is attractive to me now. I think most Japanese people know too little about refugees because the word “refugees” is not-so-familiar topic. If a refugee moves home to next to our house, we have no other choice to consider how to deal with the refugee. I mean that most Japanese people do not have the opportunity to think about refugees because there are not refugees around us. Expanding the number of refugees might allow Japanese people to understand refugees more and more.

At last, my opinion is that Japan should accept more refugees aggressively. But, it is also important that Japanese government produce the well-organized system for refugees.

References

UNHCR. Retrieved 05/29/13 from http://www.unhcr.or.jp/html/index.html

Japan should become a leader of global society

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by Kazuki Ando

The ratio of refugees’ acceptance is very low in Japan. This data shows that Japan doesn’t accept refugee in some reason. The reasons why Japan doesn’t accept are that Japan is academic career-based society and Japan has large population despite small country. However Japan should accept more refugees.

First, to protect human rights is much more superior than not accept refugee. While most developed country tends to accept refugee, Japan doesn’t. To accept more refugees is possible to change the view of Japan from other country. To become a leader of international society like the U.S. and countries in Europe. Some Asian countries like Singapore accepted refugees are succeeded as well. In fact, it takes much time to make up some supports for refugee because Japanese have stereotypes, and then they regard as “gaijin”. I think it is not big deal if much time passed in order to change because Japan took much time to change into democracy. Besides some multicultural countries can make structures for refugee, so Japan also can do. This is good opportunity to change into multicultural and to contribute international society.

Second, to accept refugee doesn’t have any demerits. Some people say that to accept refugee has some demerits for Japanese society in terms of public safety and employment rate. According to metropolitan police department, the criminal rate of foreigner is quite fewer than that of Japanese. I think the public safety in Japan don’t become bad. Next, now employment rate is very low in Japan, so we can see the news that university student is hard to get a better job. Now Japan has this serious situation, thus Japan can’t afford to accept refugee in terms of employment rate. I don’t agree with that opinion because what refugee work in Japan brings good effect to Japanese society. For example, development of economy, rise of quality of products and so on. Refugee has strong will to work in Japan in order to live in Japan. If they don’t work hard, they can’t live in Japan because Japanese government did not give them enough treatment to live. In addition, Japan has some under populated areas and Japan is declining birth rate and an ageing population society, so Japan needs more workers to prevent such a problem. To accept more refugees is going to be a development of economy for Japan.

To sum up, Japan should accept more refugees to become leader in global society and to gain the development of Japanese economy. It must be necessary of much time, so Japan should gradually change the way of thinking about “gaijin” and make enough supports for refugee to live in Japan.

Language education against emigrants in Japan

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by Minori Takada

Today, in the world (especially in multicultural countries), the education of the language for the emigrant becomes the problem. Therefore, I report the actual situation of the Japanese education for emigrants in Japan, and in the end I would like to make a suggestion “what we need” for its improvement.

As you know, Japan shows severe posture for immigration intake, and the ratio of foreigner residing in Japan is remarkably lower than other countries. According to OECD, the ratio of the foreigner among the total population in Japan was 1.7% in 2009.

Many of them came to Japan as “emigrants” to get job. And some of them get married after having a job in Japan and get a child, so the linguistic education for the child of the emigrant often becomes the problem in Japan.

To say it plainly, the Japanese education for the children of emigrants is not enough. We can understand this situation from looking at this chart. （Economic and Social Research Institute Cabinet Office Tokyo, Japan. 2012）

Citizenship School attendance (%) Students who go on to high school (%)
Korea 99.8% 93.0%
China 99.4% 85.7%
Philippine 98.1% 59.7%
Brazil 98.1% 42.2%
U.S. 94.3% 87.7%
U.K. 99.5% 98.1%

This is the percentage of students who go on to a higher stage of education.

There are six nationalities’ data, Korea, China, Philippine, Brazil, U.S. and U.K. Here is the average percentage of schools that are compulsory education, and all of them show high numbers. However, percentages of students who go on to a high school greatly falls. This is why that they cannot keep up with classes, because some of children cannot understand Japanese well.

Why does such a result appear? I checked what kind of linguistic education for emigrants is done in Japan.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs research, the number of the facilities that teach Japanese to immigrants was 1,832 in 2011. And in addition, more than 70% are accounted by public facilities. And there are four main supports that are done by the Japanese government.

  • Financial support for the administration of the Japanese classroom.
  • Working-out of the research expense about the Japanese education.
  • Maintenance of the teaching materials about the Japanese education.
  • Holding of the Japanese education meeting for the study.

From this, we can understand that “support” by the Japanese government is only basically financial or superficial things.

Then, what kinds of policies do countries (where a lot of emigrants succeed in their linguistic education) perform?

I nominated Germany for an example, because it is said that Germany resembles Japan.

The biggest difference is that there is an enforcement of the native language education at government level. This is called as “intensive teaching methods”, and children can use only German all the time when they are at school. And in addition, German government holds special measures against children who do not have enough skills to speak and write.

“The education for the emigrant” is established in a school law clearly in Germany, and it may be said that such an education is accomplished well.

In conclusion, based on these things, I point out a refinement of the linguistic education for the emigrant in Japan.

I think the government should be concerned with support more directly. The government should perform not only the support that indirect and financial, but also a more concrete support.

And to plan an opportunity to learn Japanese for as a public thing, as the agency for cultural affairs says, it is necessary to calculate numbers from the results of conventional various educational fronts and accumulation of future data, and research about the language use situation of the foreigner and the Japanese ability.

References

移民統合における言語教育の役割 ―ドイツの事例を中心に― （金箱秀俊 pp.50-76. 2010. 国立国会図書館調査）

日本における外国人の定住化についての 社会階層論による分析 ‐職業達成と世代間移動に焦点をあてて‐ （是川夕 2012. ESRI Discussion Paper Series No.283）

文化庁 海外における移民に対する言語教育www.bunka.go.jp/publish/bunkachou_geppou/2011_08/special/special_04.html

文化庁 世界、日本、地域から見る日本語教育www.bunka.go.jp/publish/bunkachou_geppou/2011_08/special/special_01.html

The Atlas for Emigration: emigration-atlas.net/society/emigration.html

Evolution of gender and migration scholarship and its challenge

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by Ayano Tsukada

Gender, the socially constructed role of and relationship between women and men, is deeply related to our lives. Our thoughts and our behavior are very affected by gender. Migration is not an exception here. In the article published in 2000, the sociologist Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo argues: “We now have a clear understanding that migration is gendered and that gender relations change with migration processes” (116). Women and men take different jobs in destination countries, use their money differently, and so on. Migration is also gendered and gendering. It is very important for researchers to know how and to what extent the lives of migrants are affected by gender. Without taking gender into account, we can easily misdescribe the whole picture of migration.

Sociological scholarship on gender and migration has a relatively short history.

In the late 1970s, women were depicted in the migration process and became a subject of many studies, however, scholars at the time only focused on women and men or only on the experience of women. They presented women migrants as a special case.

By the late 1980s, the evidence had grown large enough to require redrawing the map of gender and migration scholarship and then, theoretical formulation emerged. Scholars started to look at household economy as a critical site for revealing the relationship between migration and women, but still they were considering men as household heads and by doing so, they limited the data on women. At this point, the scholars studied men and women separately.

By the mid-1990s, the effective use of qualitative methods to understand the dynamics of gender and migration emerged and the new scholarship showed how migration processes are related to the social construction of gender.

From above, we can see the shift of sociological scholarship on gender and migration from the emphasis on documenting and explaining the gendered character of migration towards exploring its gendering effects.

In spite of this progress, many studies often degrade gender analyses to the level of the family or household and let scholars to ignore gender in other domains of the migration process.

There are still some parts that are missing in gender and migration studies. For instance, there are very few data on the consequences of women’s migration while there are many studies on the effect of men’s migration on their families, their communities, and on how gender is exercised in their home countries. What happens to the men and children who left behind when their wives or mothers migrate? Does women’s migration change the gender relationship of their countries? If so, how? Is it positive or negative?

Right now, the sociological scholarship on migration is more like gender-segregated rather than gender-integrated. It is necessary to look at gender as a central element to explore unexplained phases of migration. I hope that migration Studies in the 21st century will integrate gender more than it has done in the past 30 years.

Reference

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. (2001). Doméstica: Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.

Afsar, Risa. (2011). Contextualizing Gender and Migration in South Asia: Critical Insights. Retrieved from http://gtd.sagepub.com/content/15/3/389 on 25th May, 2013

What is beauty?

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by Satomi Tanaka

Now many beauty contests are held in the world but I always guess it is too difficult to choose a most beautiful woman in the world. To begin with, that idea is wrong. We don’t have to decide which woman is most beautiful. It is because we have different faces and characteristics. In my opinion, beauty cannot be compared because it is an abstract idea for three reasons.

First of all, “beauty” is made by people’s common patterns and preferences. Woman in the big contest such kind of Miss Universe are very slender, small face and big eyes. Many people might have these stuffs as the definition of beauty but it is a just an image. There are no specific rules or dates that we can major woman to recognize as a beautiful woman. In the world the same face doesn’t exist. Our own faces are only one. That’s why we cannot categorize or draw a line between a beauty and a bungler.

Second, the definition of beauty is completely different depend on countries. It is deeply related with their culture. For example, in some African countries local people have a beauty definition that women who have black lips is beautiful. This is a traditional common sense. So women tattooed their lips. Many people might think that the idea seems weird or unique. However, our idea of beauty will be thought the same way. In these countries have a one way to decide a beautiful woman but this is one way to measure how the woman is beautiful.

Finally, I often feel that women’s definition of beauty and men’s definition of beauty tend to be different. Especially in Japan, generally most of all women think that “I’m fat.” Then they try to lose weight, because many people in Japan have a pattern of beauty that slender woman is beautiful. On the other hand, many men don’t think so. I think I can say each person has a different preference. Some people think the woman is a beautiful but some people don’t think so. Like that beauty’s definition is different depend on people’s preferences.

In conclusion, world-wide common beauty’s definition doesn’t exist. It is because each country has a different idea of beauty. So we cannot decide the specific woman as a most beautiful woman in the world. And beauty is affected by culture, traditional idea, common sense and preferences. I think I can say that they are very abstract elements of beauty.

Chinese immigrants in New Zealand: A case of educational optimism?

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by Yuriko Otsuka

New Zealand is not only known for sheep and agriculture, but it is also known as a country which has a lot of immigrants. The population of New Zealand was about 4,252,277 people in 2010, and in that, the Chinese immigrants were about 85,477 people, which placed them as second among the immigrant nationalities in New Zealand (Peoplemovin, 2010). I stayed in New Zealand for a year since I had an opportunity to study abroad, and when I interacted with my Chinese friends, they told me about their life in China. Their parents had high expectation of their child’s grades, and told me that one of the reasons they came to New Zealand as an exchange student is to avoid the pressures from their parents; especially their mother. Chinese mothers, parents are way strict compared to ordinary Japanese moms and dads.

Tiffany (2007) indicated the reason why Chinese parents encourage their children’s education even though they are out of their home country by saying, high achievement and university degree will eventually lead their child to have a good job, and having a good job “represent the access to financial, professional and life success”. From that we could see that Chinese parents are really strict to their children’s education because they think it is good for their child in the long run. In “Chinese immigrants children’s first year of schooling: an investigation of Chinese immigrant parents’ perspective”, Li (as cited in Tiffany, 2007) said that “Although these [Chinese] families have resided in the new country for several years, they still connect themselves to their motherland and indigenous Chinese cultural values”. These ideas and actions make people call the Chinese mothers “tiger moms”, being strict in order for their children to have high academic achievement.

Considering about tiger moms, people may think becoming like them will enhance their child’s academic achievement, due to the results of Chinese immigrants ranking at the top in the classes in New Zealand. However, we should know that being strict and encouraging children do not mean that the child will achieve high academic scores. Colleen (as cited in Heather and Lois, n.d.) find that 87% of the Chinese students had high expectation towards getting good grades from their parents in New Zealand. However, only 37% said they are achieving their parents’ expectation. From this it is not 100 percent sure whether having a tiger mom is a guarantee of their children to achieve high academic expectation.

Not only having a guarantee of a child having a high academic achievement, but there are some problems of tiger moms in New Zealand. For instance, there is a possibility of a clash between the child and the parent. Similar to the Japanese society, I think the Chinese always makes their child to do work instead of letting them have a break time. I think being in to the slow life in New Zealand may make the Chinese immigrants think whether it is necessary to work this hard? Since I experienced the slow life in New Zealand, I felt like that. Acculturating to the host country will let people know another type of the society where the environment might be the opposite of the motherland. I think it is a good thing to have good grades, and parents to interfere their child’s education. However, interfering too much does not mean that the child will achieve high academic expectations. Furthermore, does not mean that children will become happy by having a tiger mom and achieved high academic expectations.

References

Kao, Grace, & Marta Tienda. (1995). Optimism and achievement: The educational performance of the immigrant youth. Social Science Quarterly, 76, 4.

Kavan, Heather & Lois Wilkinson. (n.d.). Dialogues with dragons: Assisting Chinese students’ academic achievement. Retrieved from http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College%20of%20Business/Communication%20and%20Journalism/Staff/Staff%20research%20files/hkavan_Dialoguing%20with%20dragons.pdf

Peoplemovin. (2010). Migration flows across the world. Retrieved from http://peoplemov.in/

10,000 views

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by Robert Moorehead

Props to Ritsumeikan alum Yuya Kuori for having his post “The stereotype of black people in Japan” get its 10,000th view this weekend. The blog has had nearly 80,000 views, so about 1 in 8 of those views have been of Yuya’s post.

Most of the traffic for Yuya’s post has come from Google searches that include the words “stereotype,” “black people,” and “Japan.” So if you’re writing a post, don’t make the title an afterthought! The right title can lead to more traffic to your post.

Most student papers sit unread in a drawer (or on a hard drive) after being graded, but the posts on this blog continue to draw hits long after students have graduated. Congratulations, Yuya. Which post will be the next to hit 10,000?

A Colorstruck World? –not for all, only for a particular group of people

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by Sakiko Yasumi

Who has been struck in this world? Moreover, why have they been struck? When we attempt to answer these questions, we might think of people struggling in certain situations; people undergoing natural disaster or discrimination, suffering from hunger, extreme poverty, or conflicts, etc. These predictions are undecided and imprecise yet. However, definitely, you can come up with the significant answer without any difficulties if you get a hint: “colorstruck”. It might be reluctantly factual that everyone can respond to the questions with a concrete explanation why they think so. As I mentioned above, in this colorstruck world implied in the book ‘Shades of Difference’, people, especially who live in a diverse country like the United States, have been having trouble with the ‘colorstruck society’.

For the first question; “who has been struck in a ‘colorstruck’ world?” In the United States, people who have dark skin get many difficulties to live in the society compared to people who have lighter skin, even within the African American communities in the United States. Because of the long and bottomless history of discrimination, African Americans have experienced educational, occupational and income gaps between them and lighter skinned supremacy. What I thought through reading the chapter was that its perspective becomes globally understood and darker skinned people unconsciously tend to attempt to look like a white-skinned person by using skin whitener, straightening their hair, thinning their lips, etc. I am aware of that we, Japanese people also have a tendency to apply sunscreen to our skin, and sometimes to have a plastic surgery to get a white-person’s looks. In addition, two of us have something in common; girls/ ladies heavily care about our appearance compared to men.

The second question is “why have they been struck?” It should have been unnecessary for African American women in the United States to evaluate their self-worth by their complexion. Nevertheless, because they are ‘women’, pursuing beauty is one of the best means to heighten their status and self-esteem. Moreover, it was unexpected that African American women have higher self-worth and self-esteem when compared with whites because sadly, they have been competing within their own group to compare and evaluate themselves rather than in the larger society which causes African American women’s too-high self-esteem and self-evaluation.

In conclusion, I did not mean that having a high self-esteem is inappropriate. Despite, this is regrettable that African American women tend to be evaluated by outside of them and comparisons and evaluations are happened with their coethnics for status achievement. An attempt to have a white-skinned person’s appearance resulted from an ordinary social phenomenon. Their self-esteem must be based on and measured by how they love themselves including their original appearance and personality, definitely not by outsiders given the association between skin tone and perceived attractiveness. For this accomplishment, this ‘colorstruck’ society in where American people live ought to be transformed to the one with the environment which all people are livable no matter what their skin colors are.

Can “color talk” be a proxy for “race talk”?

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by JeeJee Yoon

Throughout the centuries, the world has evolved to become closer and smaller society, as trade between countries and the world population have increased. People share each other’s cultures and economical interests in daily life within this global village. The number of immigrants and migrants occupies a large percentage, so it is easy to find people who look different from the local people in many places (except some closed societies such as North Korea). As situations are changing in this way throughout the world, it is not an abnormal situation to see people with different outlooks anymore.

As the world becomes more and more diversified by having all different types of people, however, the category has been created to divide people into superiority of haves and have-nots. Because of the long history of colonization and African slave era, whites take up the higher part of the stratification of the category while blacks occupy the bottom part. With the appearance that one possesses, whether the person has bright skin color, pointed nose, or oval facial shape of white features became a criteria of racial categorization.

Talking about race, however, can hurt people as it reminds them of their history of the past being oppressed and ruled by the invaders (mostly whites). Thus, some places are trying to avoid talking about  race and rather, talking about how one’s skin color looks. In Veracruz, Mexico, people freely express the darkness or whiteness of one another’s skin color. When Veracruzanos are asked to speak about race, they hesitated and tried to avoid the question. Instead, Veracruzanos brought “color” talk, just saying that their skin is brown, light brown, or dark brown. One reason of this color talk is that Veracruz was one of the largest importers of African slaves in Spanish America where their ancestors were suppressed. Therefore, people in Veracruz avoid speaking out of the race that hurts the feeling and reminds of the oppressed history of their ancestors.

As we can see the case study of Veracruz, Mexico, it is hard for people to say about the race directly because of the history. However, it seems much easier for people to indicate how the color of skin looks like. Raising the issue of skin color seems less aggressive to others and less sensitive to listeners than bringing up the race. Not only the feeling of the people, but also “color talk” is efficient for today’s globalized world. It is unclear to trace one’s race for some people as they have complex mixed family tree. Moreover, there is no clear dividing line on indicating one’s race in many nations. It is not easy to understand one’s race fully because it can hurt people and also the society itself does not have clear boundary lines on race. Thus, I believe “color talks” can replace the realm of “race talk”, which is happening in Veracruz.