Jumping out of enclosures

Ethnicity, gender, education and language among Latin Americans in Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID7767586
AuthorsGenaro Castro-Vázquez (0000-0002-6633-747X, Nanyang Technological University, SINGAPORE,, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume11
Issue2
Pages218-244
Publication date2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnicities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-7968 • E-ISSN: 1741-2706
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1468796811398835
OpenAlexW2111159576
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited43

This article presents one aspect of an investigation concerning a Japanese language-tutoring programme for foreign children. Here, I draw on a wider, three-year ethnographic study that was conducted with three Latin American families whose children attended three public Japanese primary schools. This article attempts to disentangle issues of ethnicity, gender and language in the children’s schooling from the families’ perspective. A total of 46 group/individual interviews with the informants and extensive participant observation were conducted from 2003 to 2006. In two of the households the mothers were Colombian prostitutes married to Japanese citizens; the third was a Colombian family who had overstayed their visas. Bourdieu’s notion of different forms of capital is used in the analysis of the interviews, which suggested that education was key to understanding the circumstances of these families. Although the informants encountered difficulties at Japanese schools, schooling was reported as a means to break the pervasive influence of their ethnic, gender and language ‘enclosures

Ethnic group · Ethnography · Latin Americans · Participant observation · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology

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