Importing Diversity
Inside Japan's JET Program
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11091968 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Leheny (0000-0001-6420-1221, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 596 |
| Publication date | 2001-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | REVIEW |
| Review of | Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program, David L Mcconnell, 2000 |
| Venue | Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-3061 • E-ISSN: 1939-8638 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3089007 |
| OpenAlex | W2042803636 |
| Language | EN |
In 1987, the Japanese government inaugurated the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in response to global pressure to 'internationalize' its society. This ambitious program has grown to be a major government operation, with an annual budget of $400 million (greater than the United States NEA and NEH combined) and more than six thousand foreign nationals employed each year in public schools all over Japan. How does a relatively homogeneous and insular society react when a buzzword is suddenly turned into a reality? How did the arrival of so many foreigners affect Japan's educational bureaucracy? How did the foreigners themselves feel upon discovering that English teaching was not the primary goal of the program? In this balanced study of the JET program, David L. McConnell draws on ten years of ethnographic research to explore the cultural and political dynamics of internationalization in Japan. Through vignettes and firsthand accounts, he highlights and interprets the misunderstandings of the early years of the program, traces the culture clashes at all levels of the bureaucracy, and speculates on what lessons the JET program holds for other multicultural initiatives. This fascinating book's jargon-free style and interdisciplinary approach will make it appealing to educators, policy analysts, students of Japan, and prospective and former JET participants
Business · Diversity (politics · Economic geography · Geography · Jet (fluid · Political science · Aerospace Engineering · Engineering · Environmental Science · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Japanese History and Culture · Law
Global Englishes and the Discourse on Japaneseness
Acculturation in East and SoutheastAsia
The Social Psychology of English as a Global Language
An Action Research Endeavor with International Student Teaching Assistants for Their Development as Teaching Professionals
Communicative interactions in foreign language education
What Level of English Proficiency Do Elementary School Teachers Need to Attain to Teach EFL? Case Studies from Korea, Taiwan, and Japan
Fostering the growth of TPACK among international teachers of developing nations through a cultural exchange program
New Frontiers in Japanese Studies
The Japanese Preschool System in Transition
Circulating Nationalism in the Age of the Korean Wave
The complex and rapidly changing sociolinguistic position of the English language in Japan
Using the paradigm of ‘small cultures’ to explain policy failure in the case of foreign language education in Japan
Unread relics of a transnational ‘hometown’ in rural western Japan
Japan’s textbook inequality
Producing the ‘international’ child
Fostering learning through unlearning institutional boundaries
Ambiguous Aims
The concept of Kokusaika and Japanese educational reform
Japan
Parents' perspectives on the effects of the primary EFL education policy in Taiwan
Compulsory ‘foreign language activities’ in Japanese primary schools
International collaboration and the management of linguistic resources at a diaspora festival in Okinawa
Foreign Language Education at Elementary Schools in Japan
Working towards conceptual consistency in discussing “diaspora” and “diaspora strategies”
Japanese spirit, Western economics
Transcultural teacher development within the dialectic of the global and local
Actualizing Exploratory Practice (EP) principles with team teachers in Japan
Teaching English in a foreign country
Good practices in team teaching in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong
Native-English speaking teachers’ experiences in East-Asian language programs
Internationalism and globalization as contexts for international education
Testing a modified Interactive Acculturation Model in Japan
Japanese national identification and English language learning processes
Global English capital and the domestic economy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |