Japan's Diversity Dilemmas: Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Education reveals how Japanese society is now in the midst of dramatic transformation brought on by demographic change and globalization. Foreigners are coming to Japan and many more will come in the near future to meet the demands of an economy that needs workers to compensate for an extremely low birth rate. The ramifications of this influx of foreigners into a society that has based its identity on a mythical ethnic purity are enormous. This book examines the effects of globalization on both new and older ethnic communities. It shows the ways in which minorities, in particular Koreans, are changing their conceptions and practices regarding nationality. It explores issues of human rights and emerging conceptions of citizenship in Japan. It also looks at how forces of globalization are affecting the state ideology of homogeneity and how a new image of diversity and multiculturalism is slowly developing. Several authors focus their attention on implications for education in citizenship education, ethnic education, and international education. Japan's Diversity Dilemmas is not just about minorities, but addresses issues of diversity that impact Japan as a nation in three areas: ethnicity, citizenship, and education. As the population diversifies, the linking of ethnicity and citizenship is being challenged and education is a battleground where these struggles occur. This collection of papers by an interdisciplinary group of authors helps readers to understand Japan's evolving conceptions of the nation and its attempts to balance tensions of unity and diversity. 'Japan's Diversity Dilemmas looks at precisely the kind of issues that need examination and discussion, as Japan stands on the cusp of potentially huge demographic and social changes. This collection of studies will enrich and inform classroom and public discourse and those who follow these issues will find this book essential." -Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News and former Fulbright Fellow, University of Tokyo

Japanese society is now in the midst of a dramatic transformation. An extremely low birth rate and rapidly aging society is resulting in a declining Japanese labor force, fueling a need for non-Japanese laborers and others to maintain economic growth. However, despite a sense of impending crises, Japan continues to be ill equipped to accept non-Japanese workers and add to the diversity already existing within its borders. Currently, many of the benefits of inclusive societies, which lead to a more innovative and fulfilling society, are being curtailed by a pervading notion that Japan is monocultural and that diversity leads to too many problems. Readings on diversity issues: From hate speech to identity and privilege in Japan examines the state of diversity in past and present-day Japan and how Japanese people and the government navigate JapanÕs multicultural society, as well as the way cultural minorities negotiate their lives in a country which still has difficulty accepting diversity.

In this volume, eight leading Japanese scholars present their research on profound and sensitive issues facing Japanese society, much of which has not been available to the English-speaking world. Traveling from Japan to engage in a unique forum at the University of California, they joined eminent professors Befu, DeVos, and Rohlen to bring over fifty leading scholars up to date on the global challenges facing Japan and how education has and will play into the reformulation of its identity. Chapters examine such topics as education policy changes, the education of minorities, including the Burakumin, the hegemony of college entrance examinations, social mobility and basic human rights, increased economic competition and global migration, political influences on educational reform, and the future of Japanese education.

Scholars, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, have studied the greater Taisho era (1900-1930) within the framework of Taisho demokurashii (democracy). While this concept has proved useful, students of the period in more recent years have sought alternative ways of understanding the late Meiji-Taisho period. This collection of essays, each based on new research, offers original insights into various aspects of modern Japanese cultural history from "modernist" architecture to women as cultural symbols, popular songs to the rhetoric of empire-building, and more. The volume is organized around three general topics: geographical and cultural space; cosmopolitanism and national identity; and diversity, autonomy, and integration. Within these the authors have identified a number of thematic tensions that link the essays: high and low culture in cultural production and dissemination; national and ethnic identities; empire and ethnicity; the center and the periphery; naichi (homeland) and gaichi (overseas); urban and rural; public and private; migration and barriers. The volume opens up new avenues of exploration for the study of modern Japanese history and culture. If, as one of the authors contends, the imperative is " to understand more fully the historical forces that made Japan what it is today," these studies of Japan's "competing modernities" point the way to answers to some of the country's most challenging historical questions in this century. Contributors: Gail L. Bernstein, Barbara Brooks, Lonny E. Carlile, Kevin M. Doak, Joshua A. Fogel, Sheldon Garon, Elaine Gerbert, Jeffrey E. Hanes, Helen Hardacre, Sharon A. Minichiello, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Jonathan M. Reynolds, Michael Robinson, Roy Starrs, Mariko Asano Tamanoi, Julia Adeney Thomas, E. Patricia Tsurumi, Christine R. Yano.

The Role of English Teaching in Modern Japan examines the complex nature of Japan’s promotion of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In globalized societies where people with different native languages communicate through English, multicultural and multilinguistic interactions are widely created. This book takes the opportunity to look at Japan and examines how these multiple realities have affected its English language teaching within the domestic context. The myth of Japan’s racial and ethnic homogeneity may hinder many Japanese in recognizing realities of its own minority groups such as Ainu, Zainichi Koreans, and Brazilian Japanese, who are in the same EFL classrooms. Acknowledging a variety of English uses and users in Japan, this book emphasizes the influence of Japan’s recent domestic diversity on its EFL curriculum and urges that such changes should be addressed. It suggests new directions for incorporating multicultural perspectives in order to develop English language education in Japan and other Asian contexts where English is often taught as a foreign language. Chapters include: Social, cultural, and political background of Japan’s EFL education Race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism Representations of diversity in Japanese EFL Textbooks Perceptions of English learning and diversity in Japan The role of EFL education in multicultural Japan

Transcultural Japan provides a critical examination of being Other in Japan. Portraying the multiple intersections of race, ethnicity, class, and gender, the book suggests ways in which the transcultural borderlands of Japan reflect globalization in this island nation. The authors show the diversity of Japan from the inside, revealing an extraordinarily complex new society in sharp contrast to the persistent stereotypical images held of a regimented, homogeneous Japan. Unsettling as it may be, there are powerful arguments here for looking at the meanings of globalization in Japan through these diverse communities and individuals. These are not harmonious, utopian communities by any means, as they are formed in contexts, both global and local, of unequal power relations. Yet it is also clear that the multiple processes associated with globalization lead to larger hybridizations, a global mélange of socio-cultural, political, and economic forces and the emergence of what could be called trans-local Creolized cultures. Transcultural Japan reports regional, national, and cosmopolitan movements. Characterized by global flows, hybridity, and networks, this book documents Japan’s new lived experiences and rapid metamorphosis. Accessible and engaging, this broad-based volume is an attractive and useful resource for students of Japanese culture and society, as well as being a timely and revealing contribution to research scholars and for those interested in race, ethnicity, cultural identities and transformations.

Professor Dana and his colleagues have carefully and successfully put together a collection of chapters on ethnic minority entrepreneurship from all parts of the world. The book comprises eight parts and 49 chapters. Undoubtedly, given the massive size and content of a 835-page book, it is fair to ask, is it value for money? The answer is unequivocally yes! A further comment on the content of the book should probably reassure potential readers and buyers of the book. . . This collection is undoubtedly rich, creative and varied in many respects. Therefore, it will be of great benefit to researchers and scholars alike. . . I will strongly recommend this book to researchers, students, teachers and policy-makers. Aminu Mamman, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research The volume presents an impressive panorama of studies on ethnic entrepreneurships ranging from Dalits in India to Roma entrepreneurs in Hungary. B.P. Corrie, Choice From a focus on middle-man minorities in the 1950s, the study of minority ethnic entrepreneurship has evolved into a vast undertaking. A major ingredient in this expansion is the massive population movements of the past thirty years that have created ethnic minority communities in almost all advanced economies. From New York to San Francisco, from Birmingham to Hamburg, from the Chinese in Canada, to the Turks in Finland, to the Ghanians in South Africa to the Lebanese in New Zealand, more than twenty chapters in this volume treat small-scale ethnic entrepreneurship and the cultural and institutional resources which support it. At the other end of the spectrum, the ethnic Chinese have created ever larger multi-divisional enterprises in the host societies of Southeast Asia. At the mid-point of the spectrum, analyzed in an elegant paper by Ivan Light, is the recently identified transmigrant entrepreneur accultured in two societies but assimilated in neither whose special endowments have provided the lynchpin for for much of the international trade expansion in the global economy over the past decade. And Dana and Morris provide us with much more Afro-American entrepreneurship, caste and class, the theory of clubs, women ethnic entrepreneurs, minority ethnicity and IPOs. In the quality of its contributions and in the reach of its coverage, this Handbook attains a very high standard. Peter Kilby, Wesleyan University, US The new Handbook of Research on Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship, edited by Léo-Paul Dana, constitutes a major contribution to the literature on ethnic enterprise. Unlike previous work, which tended to focus on one country or one region of the world, this book is global in scope. You will find chapters on America, Europe, and Asia, as well as integrative essays that review important principles and concepts from the literature on ethnic entrepreneurship. I particularly appreciate the historical and evolutionary framework within which the contributions are situated. This book belongs on the shelf of everyone who has an interest in immigration and entrepreneurship or ethnic entrepreneurship more generally. Howard Aldrich, University of North Carolina, US This exhaustive, interdisciplinary Handbook explores the phenomena of immigration and ethnic minority entrepreneurship in light of marked changes since the mid-twentieth century and the advent of easier, more affordable travel and more open and integrated national economies. The international contributors, key experts in their respective fields, illustrate that myriad ethnic minorities exist across the globe, and that their entrepreneurship can and does significantly influence national economies. The contributors go on to promote our understanding of which factors make for successful entrepreneurship, and, perhaps more importantly, how negative political consequences that members of successful entrepreneurial ethnic minorities might face can be minimized. This extensive collection of current research on entrepr

Japan's Demographic Revival shifts discussions about employing immigration as the 'best' or 'sole' solution to assuaging Japan's demographic quagmire to a more systematic approach that identifies structural, organizational and cultural impediments that contribute to Japan's (and other countries') declining demographic situations. This edited volume also sheds light on the plethora of changes required to produce a demographically sustainable Japan.Part One includes chapters explaining the endogenous, ethnocultural and structural obstacles that link ethnocultural understandings of citizenship and nationality. Part Two consists of chapters that provide insight into the societal barriers that exist in Japan to address demographic issues. Part Three shifts its focus away from identifying and analyzing the structural, organizational and cultural factors towards chapters that are policy oriented, linking existing policies as contributing factors behind Japan's demographic challenge.

This book is about the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, living in and around Tokyo; it is, therefore, about what has been pushed to the margins of history. Customarily, anthropologists and public officials have represented Ainu issues and political affairs as limited to rural pockets of Hokkaido. Today, however, a significant proportion of the Ainu people live in and around major cities on the main island of Honshu, particularly Tokyo. Based on extensive original ethnographic research, this book explores this largely unknown diasporic aspect of Ainu life and society. Drawing from debates on place-based rights and urban indigeneity in the twenty-first century, the book engages with the experiences and collective struggles of Tokyo Ainu in seeking to promote a better understanding of their cultural and political identity and sense of community in the city. Looking in-depth for the first time at the urban context of ritual performance, cultural transmission and the construction of places or ‘hubs’ of Ainu social activity, this book argues that recent government initiatives aimed at fostering a national Ainu policy will ultimately founder unless its architects are able to fully recognize the historical and social complexities of the urban Ainu experience.

In the twenty-first century, the concept of internationalisation remains a crucial tool for understanding the dynamics of globalising processes. It draws attention to the dimensions of conscious action in inter- and trans-national phenomena, connecting globalisation with individuals’ experience of everyday life. This book explores how internationalisation is imagined, discussed and operationalised in Japan and surrounding countries. The chapters focus on educational, leisure and cultural activities, fields which are often overlooked in favour of economic and political developments in the literature. The conclusion reflects on the concept of internationalisation and assesses how it is likely to develop in Japan in future, taking into account the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.