Japanese Schooling and Identity Investment Overseas : Exploring the Cultural Politics of 'Japaneseness' in Singapore

"This book is about education, ideology, power and identity investment and concerns an influential East Asian expatriate community. Specifically, it seeks to understand particular ways in which the Japanese white-collar elite live as a closed and self-referentially defined in-group, despite the manifestly multicultural ethos of their Singaporean domicile. The study attends to issues regarding schooling, unity, diversity and community based on grounded anthropological observations. Specific observations centre around the particularities of Japanese nation-state schooling practices set in cosmopolitan Singapore, a contrastingly non-Japanese setting. The insights therein are made possible by way of seeing education as an ideological domain and powerful discursive platform. Using this framework, cultural and identity-related practices are viewed dynamically and appreciated for their fluidic reflection of identity praxes. Readers will gain fresh insights into the role of education and ideology in reproducing asymmetry and the value of sociohistorical analyses in surfacing hidden power relations. Researchers, educators and decision makers will appreciate the transparency of grounded ethnographic observation yielding insights into practices which imbricate inclusion-exclusion and privilege-marginalization debates within a neoliberal hegemony. Students of the social politics of education and the cultural politics of language, ideology and identity will find the book a provocative read"-- Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of tables Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1. Japanese culture and overseas schooling: critiquing academic miscreance and pretentions to objectivity and generalizability Giving due attention to matters of accountability, contextual and historical importance Drawing (on) lessons from the response as backgrounding for subsequent discussion on criticality a logically storied concatenation toward praxis Anatomizing generalizability’: miscreance and mischief through the management and subversion of meaning Finding resonance and support in humanizing motifs Chapter content References 2. The Japanese in Japan (and overseas) veracity and actuality within a Japanese ethos as key cultural concepts to understanding Japaneseness and Internationalization, dealings with the outside and its detractors and English language learning in Japan The culpability of the high-hand of history and education in perpetuation Internally constructed meanings, autopoietic aspects and explanations of imaginaries and effects on the imagination and practice Meanings held in abeyance as a frustration as well as a door of hope References 3. Singapore: colonization, independence and industrialization The founding of modern Singapore Independence from British rule and warming of relations with Japan Japan’s contribution to Singapore’s postwar economic growth Growth in volume and scope of Japanese investment Learn from Japan’ drive and Singapore’s admiration for the The Japanese Model’ The signing of Singapore’s Free Trade Agreement with Japan Singapore’s education system: technology, competitiveness and meritocracy Singapore’s interest and involvement in international education International schools in Singapore Concluding remarks References 4. Singapore’s Japanese presence: businesses, institutions and symbolisms Moving into the South’ Understanding the history and politics of Japan’s The proliferation of Japanese businesses in Singapore The Japanese business community in Singapore Foreshadowing other particularities: the schooling of Japanese children References 5. Japanese schooling in Singapore: institutions, ideologies and identity investments Institution A (IA): a social body for Japanese residents Institution B (IB): a Japanese international’ elementary school Institution C (IC): a registered cooperative society Institution D (ID): a supplementary weekend language school Storytelling Deconstructing the workings of ideology: a critical analysis of ideological enactments involving Institutions A to D Ritual and ceremony versus day-to-day reality The structuring of work and work-related structures Bus routes as inventions of borders and as operations over (on) space and place Preparing students for the homeland: the question of (in)tolerance of diversity IA, IB, IC and ID: producing subjective identities of privilege and exclusivism References 6. Japanese engagements with English overseas as a cultural politics of control Explanation of the idiomatically and ideologically short leash The teaching and learning of English in, IB, the elementary school concerned Textbooks, cultural content and the workings of ideology Commentary on the teaching and learning of English in IB to as a way of restoring voice, hope and dignity Moving from References 7. Interrogating ‘Singapore-as-technology’ in the reproduction of Japaneseness A nurturing and naturalizing of elitism and exclusivity through schooling Schooling as a moral, ideological, identity-laden and identity-charged project Harnessing Singaporean technologies and Singapore-as-technology towards reinforcing Japaneseness English language education Observations relating to truly liberating pedagogies beyond regulated or hackneyed forms of didacticism Addressing my superaddressee References Index