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Japanese Returnees at a Foreign Language University in Japan

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Japanese Returnees at a Foreign Language University in Japan THE PLACE THAT WAS PROMISED: JAPANESE RETURNEES AT A FOREIGN LANGUAGE UNIVERSITY IN JAPAN A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education By Phillip M. Clark May, 2017 Examining Committee Members Eton Churchill, Advisory Chair, Kanagawa University David Beglar, Teaching and Learning Christine Pearson Casanave, , External Member, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey Hanako Okada, External Member, Sophia University Tamara Swenson, External Member, Osaka Jogakuin University © by Phillip Miller Clark 2017 All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Japanese who travel outside Japan in their childhood or adolescence, and then return to the Japanese educational system, are referred to in Japan as kikokushijo [帰国子 女] or returnee students. In this year-long narrative analysis study I focus on three such students in their first year at a gaikokugo daigaku [(外国語大学) foreign language university] in Japan. My purpose is to explore their life stories, including their experiences abroad as children, their returns, and their choices and experiences in their university education. Data gathering includes multiple, in-depth, semi-structured interviews, field notes based on my own post interview reflections, classroom experiences and interviews, and written texts in the form of participants’ emails and online social networking posts. Using sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s (1992) primary thinking tools (p. 160) of field, capital, and habitus, I examine to what degree the participants’ perceptions of their lives and life trajectories fit into what they see as possible or appropriate. I consider participants’ views on the promise of realizing themselves as “global citizens” at the foreign language university, their attitudes toward Japan and Japaneseness, and the prospect of going abroad again. I attempt to help fill the gaps of the lack of studies of returnees at foreign language universities, the lack of studies focusing on emergent international studies programs in Japanese universities, as well as a lack of studies examining the perspectives of individual returnees. Employing narrative re-storying, I present the participants’ stories chronologically in consecutive chapters, covering their early youth through their first times abroad, then into their first year in university, following this with a thematic analysis of the stories using Bourdieu’s sociological lens. I found that the participants possessed different social, cultural, and iv economic capital at each stage, including in their host situations when abroad, and this affected both how they experienced their sojourns, and their re-acclimation after they returned. On enrollment to the foreign language university, they felt the institution served as a sanctuary of sorts from the wider social field of Japan, and a staging ground for a longed-for return to living overseas. The desire to exit the social and wider fields of Japan was common among the three participants. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my advisory chair, Dr. Eton Churchill, for his invaluable advice on draft after draft after draft, exploring winks upon winks upon winks. Both his comments in the writing of this study and his class on qualitative studies revealed to me how much I still needed to learn, and set for me a very high bar of professionalism and the kind of encyclopedic knowledge that I can only aspire to obtain someday. His long-suffering support shepherded me through many a dark valley. I would also like to thank my committee members who patiently counseled me and gave me invaluable advice. Dr. David Beglar was a considerate mentor on style and form issues, continually pushing me to higher and higher standards. Dr. Christine Casanave, even across nearly 9,000 miles of ocean, provided me with insight into the rich possibilities of narrative analysis, and stood me up and brushed me off when I sometimes felt defeated. Dr. Hanako Okada inspired me with her own research, politely corrected my mistakes in Japanese, and provided me much-needed moral support. Dr. Tamara Swenson offered keen and literate insight into the labyrinth of the works of Bourdieu, and was a helpful and thorough source of information on Nihonjinron scholarship. I would like to thank my wife, Maiko, for her patience during the long process of my writing this, both the early days when I was fumbling for an idea, and the even more tedious days after I found the idea—and more ideas—and sequestered myself for long hours in the upstairs office barring the door from our two children, both of whom arrived on the scene well after I began this journey. I am also indebted beyond words to my Temple University Japan cohort of 15 other students, in particular, though in no particular order, Rick Derrah, John Rylander, vi Brett Collins, and Scott Shinall. Their friendship and encouragement pushed me and kept me moving forward. Without them, I would never have finished. In this same vein I gratefully acknowledge my close friend from afar, Dr. Jason Lueg, who paved a path before me in scholarship. I offer my heartfelt thanks to my three participants, Kyoko, Kohei, and Ai, who were courageous, good-natured, and stayed with me until the very end. In this same vein I would like to thank the young woman who, in this study, I call Haruka, who was my start and finish point, my inspiration and my unwitting muse, and who I wish the very best in life. Finally, I dedicate this study to my parents, in particular my mother, Patricia, who sadly and unfairly did not live to see me complete it, but who long ago gave me a love of stories, and inspired and continues to inspire me to be a better person. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... xiv LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... xv GLOSSARY OF SELECTED JAPANESE TERMS ....................................................... xvi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 Haruka ..................................................................................................................... 1 Rising Out of Hell: From High School to University .............................................. 5 What is a Returnee? ................................................................................................. 8 What Do We Do With Them? Are They a Problem or a Solution? ...................... 13 Options for Japanese Education Abroad ...................................................... 13 Options for Re-Acclimation upon Return .................................................... 15 To What Degree Are Returnees a Problem? ................................................ 18 Becoming “International” and the Foreign Language University ......................... 20 Significance of this Study ...................................................................................... 24 Audience for this Study ......................................................................................... 27 Organization of this Study ..................................................................................... 29 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................. 31 Bourdieu’s Concepts: An Overview ...................................................................... 32 Capital .......................................................................................................... 32 viii Symbolic Capital .............................................................................. 33 Economic Capital ............................................................................. 34 Social Capital .................................................................................... 35 Cultural Capital ................................................................................ 36 Field .............................................................................................................. 37 Habitus ......................................................................................................... 40 The “Crisis of Return” ....................................................................................................... 44 Differences in Returnee Experiences .................................................................... 46 Goodman and the “New Class of Schoolchildren” ............................................... 48 Bilingualism and Biculturalism Among Returnees ............................................... 50 East and West in Cross-Cultural and EFL Research ............................................. 54 Returnees as “Un-Japanese” .................................................................................. 56 Feeling “in” and the Tug of “Japaneseness” ......................................................... 63 Research Questions ................................................................................................ 64 Summary ...............................................................................................................
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