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"0 ooo __~_ UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I Ll8RA~V AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF INVISmILITY: EDUCATION & SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN IN JAPAN A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DMSION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ANTHROPOLOGY MAY 2008 By Jeffrey Daniel Maret Dissertation Committee: Christine Reiko Yano, Chairperson Fred Blake Albert B. Robillard Joseph]. Tobin Geoffrey M. White We certify that we have read this dissertation and that, in our opinion, it is satisfactory in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology. DlSSERT AnON COMMITIEE ii ACKNOWLEDEMENTS I cannot adequately express my thanks and indebtedness to Dr. Christine Yano, who-in spite of the ocean separating us--was always close at hand patiently encouraging me to press ahead with the often lonely process of writing a dissertation from the field. I wish to thank Dr. Yano for suggesting funding sources, academic conferences and journals, but most of all for very carefully reading my numerous drafts of these chapters and offering countless insightful suggestions on theoretical arguments, writing strategies and organization. Her wit, intellectual acumen and endless patience greatly improved the pages of this dissertation. (Any shortfalls are entirely of my own making.) I would also like to thank the other members of my committee. Dr. Geoffrey White, who found time for his students in spite of his many responsibilities within the department and the discipline. Dr Fred Blake who encouraged me to think seriously about the meaning (and limits of) intersubjectivity. Dr. Sharon Minichiello helped me to stay organized, especially during the hectic period leading up to comprehensive exams. I wish to thank Dr. Joseph Tobin for engaging his graduate students as intellectual peers and inspiring me with his approach to fieldwork and his always incisive, yet accessible writing. Dr. Albert Robillard very kindly agreed to join my committee during the final phase of the research. He helped me to reconsider my arguments from the perspective of the lived experience of the elementary students. Thanks also to Dr. Jack Bilmes for support during the dissertation writing and for those tennis games while I was in Hawai'i. iii I would like to extend my appreciation to Dr. Tamie Kamiyama, who was my first (and my most demanding) Japanese language instructor. When I was still an undergraduate, Dr. Kamiyama arranged for me to spend a year studying at Waseda University. That year changed my life. Dr. John Qammer, at Sophia University in TOkyo, introduced me to Dr. Takie Lebra's studies on Japanese identity. I count myself as very fortunate to have been able to study under Dr. Lebra during her final year teaching at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Upon returning to Japan for my dissertation fieldwork, Dr. Koichi Iwabuchi kindly arranged for me to be a research assistant at International Christian University's Institute of Asian Cultural Studies. My academic life would not have been possible without generous support from numerous organizations. I would like to extend specific thanks to: The Japan Foundation's Dissertation Fellowship Program, The University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Center for Japanese Studies, The William P. Lebra Memorial Scholarship Fund, The University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Pacific Asian Scholarship Program as well as The Globalization Research Center, The East­ West Center and finally The Japan America Society of St Louis. The topic of my research (youths with special needs) was often tinged with social stigma, yet many individuals in Japan encouraged this research and graciously shared their personal stories with me. I regret that due to the disclosure rules mandated by The Committee on Human Subjects, all of these individuals must remain anonymous. I would like to thank the school children and their teachers at Midorlkawa Elementary (a pseudonym), who invited me into their classroom and their lives. I would also like to thank their caregivers, iv who so quickly integrated me into the special needs community at Midorikawa Elementary School. Special thanks goes to Shinagawa Fumio for making this study possible and keeping everyone he touched smiling. The process of writing a dissertation was a solitary and often a lonely endeavor. The physical distance from my fellow graduate students at the University of Hawai'i at times made progress difficult. Fortunately I discovered two colleagues in Tokyo, who were also in the process of writing long distance dissertations. Our weekly writing workshops greatly aided my progress and improved the coherence of these pages. For all those hours together, thank you David Cannell and Jane Yamashiro. Also I wish to extend my appreciation to Hiro Katsuno for his cheer, intellectual rigor, and his help with the printing and distribution of this dissertation. For countless great meals, red wine, shared smiles and aloha in Hawai'i, I thank Laurel King and Tomoko Iwai. My parents encouraged me to pursue my interests wherever they might take me, although they probably did not envision that I would end up living this many years in Japan. For their selflessness and love, I am forever grateful to Rita & Robert Maret. The writing of this dissertation demanded that I seek ever­ longer periods of time apart from my wife and son, yet they accepted my reclusiveness in good cheer. Aska and Seina, thank you for your patience with my hermitlike, monastic lifestyle these past eighteen months. This dissertation would have been impossible without you both. Now, as promised, I am back. v ABSTRACf This dissertation explores the education, socialization and social discourse on youths with special needs in Japan. There is a common misconception abroad (and to some extent within Japan) that public, compulsory education in Japan consists of a single track, with no accommodations being made for students with learning differences or developmental delays. Actually Japanese public education provides two avenues for children with special needs and/ or disabilities. There are segregated "protective schools" [Jili!.!!i!~: yiigo gakkii] for students with significant disabilities, and some mainstream public schools contain a multi-grade classroom [iiit!!i!1il&: fukushiki gakkya] for students with learning differences. This dissertation focuses on the little studiedfukushiki system. It is based on my fieldwork at a public elementary school in Saitama prefecture, where I worked as researcher and assistant teacher. For nearly two academic years I followed a small group of elementary students, who were classified as having "emotional troubles" [jiicho shiigai] and/ or "cognitive impairments" [chiteki shiigai]. This study draws upon my classroom observations and interactions with these fukushiki students, as well as extensive interviews with caregivers and educators. In order to broaden the scope of the inquiry, I also incorporated an analysis of a popular television drama about the trials of an autistic, first grade boy, who attends afukushiki classroom. While "special needs" can be defined in many ways, within compulsory education there is always an implicit contrast with normative expectations for vi the development of "healthy," abl~bodied student-citizens. Thus discourse about special needs students is also a moral narrative about personhood and citizenship. The youths at the center of this study had impairments that were not written on their bodies. Their dis-abilities only became visible through social interaction with peers, siblings, teachers and caregivers. I explore how educators, caregivers, and the students themselves interpreted and negotiated the fukushiki and sh(Jgaiji [disabled youth] categories, which were made "real" at school. I found that the special needs students came to embrace the fukushiki identity, which functioned outside of the traditional, ag~grade based school relations. Educators looked for opportunities to encourage social bonding within the fukushiki class and to teach normalcy through use of social performance. Caregivers had ambiguous, diverse views of the fukushiki system (and the related disability passbook system), which were seen tactically in terms of opportunities for, and constraints on, inclusion within the larger society. The half-hidden, fukushiki classes lent support to the illusion of uniform ability within the student population and inadvertently contributed to the discourse on homogeneity within wider society. Words: 421 Keywords: Japan, special needs, disability, education, personhood, citizenship vii ON THE ROMANIZATION OF JAPANESE When romanizing Japanese terms, I follow the revised Hepburn system. While this system is not the newest, I feel that it is the clearest and most aesthetically pleasing of the alternative romanization systems. All long vowels are indicated with a macron, while glottal stops [,~l are rendered by using double consonants. Thus school [~~l becomes as "gakklJ," and disabled youth [1!!iIl!!i9r.] becomes "siUJgaiji." Particles are written as follows: ~<I: = wa, " = e, and {f; = o. In a minor deviation from the revised Hepburn system, I always render the Syllabic Iu simply as n, rather than as 'no I follow standard usage for Japanese terms that frequently appear in English. Thus "Tokyo" is used, rather than the more correct, but unfamiliar, Tokyo. When both the surname and the given name of Japanese individuals are used, the family name appears first, as is the common practice in Japan. viii TABLE

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