Language and Education in Japan

This is the first critical ethnography of bilingual education in Japan.

Language and Education in Japan offers the first critical ethnography of bilingual education in Japan. Based on two-year fieldwork at five different schools, the book examines the role of schools in the unequal distribution of bilingualism as cultural capital. It argues that bilingual children of different socioeconomic classes are socialized into different futures and are given unequal access to bilingualism through schooling. While bilingualism is considered desirable for children of privilege, it is deemed a luxury that immigrant and refugee children cannot afford.

YASUKO KANNO is Assistant Professor of TESOL/Applied Linguistics in the Department of English of the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Her research interests include bilingual education, multilingual and multicultural identities, and sociocultural experiences of language minority students. She is author of Negotiating Bilingual and Bicultural Identities: Japanese Returnees Betwixt Two Worlds. She serves on the editorial boards of the Japan Journal of Multilingualism and Multiculturalism and the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.

Introduction * Framing the Study * Nichiei Immersion School * Zhonghua Chinese Ethnic School * Hal International School * Sugino Elementary School * Midori Elementary School * Imagined Communities and School Policies and Practices * Student Bilingualism and Identities * Conclusions: Unequal Access to Bilingualism * Index