Teaching and Learning across an ethnic divide

Abstract: "My fieldwork at Shiroyama１public elementary school began dramatically, as Mr. Nakamura, a Japanese teacher in his fifties, explained his views on Latino cultures. “‘Hasta mañana’ tte wakaru,” he asked me. (“Do you know ‘hasta mañana’ [until tomorrow]?”)2“Perū-jin mo burajiru-jin mo, ratenjin dakara, shigoto shinai shi, jikan mo mamoranai. Itsumo ‘hasta mañana’ da” (“Peruvians and Brazilians are Latino, so they don’t work, and they don’t value time. It’s always hasta mañana.”) “Raten-kei dakara,” he explained. (“It’s because they’re Latino.”) Amid national and local public policy discussions of developing Japan into a multicultural society, th difficulties of communicating with foreign parents who speak little to no Japanese often frustrate Japanese public school teachers. As frustrations mount, teachers also complain that these parents are not acquiring Japanese language and culture quickly enough and are remaining too foreign. In contrast, foreign parents complain about the structural constraints that limit their ability to effectively interact with the school, despite their desire to be more involved. Based on ongoing research, this case study uses examples from parent-teacher interactions, including each side’s expressed concerns about the other, to explore the often-tense relationship between Peruvian parents and Japanese teachers. This approach challenges some teachers’ “definition of the situation” (Thomas 1923), and highlights structural factors that place the parents in a disadvantageous position when interacting with the school, including poor language support, ineffective remedial language instruction, and the view that parents’ cultural difference is a source of problems at the school. This article also describes Peruvians’ settlement in Shiroyama, and examines the ways that parents’ class and immigrant status are influencing their ability to gain the social and cultural capital necessary for them to more effectively participate in their children’s education." Author: Robert Moorehead, University of California, Davis Source: Pacific Rim Research Program

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