Educational strategy of intermarried Japanese, Korean, and Chinese couples
About this research
This research aims to explore challenges and characteristics of child rearing strategy of international couples in Japan, South Korea, and China through intensive interview. The more intermarriages between these three countries increase, the more multicultural families that raise children. However, there is a lack of investigation into educational strategies of these families. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap in the field by conducting life story interviews. Unlike this study, few studies applied a similar interview framework to ensure a possible comparison among combinations of the couple’s backgrounds and country of residence.
The study focuses on six types of intermarriage couples. They are Japanese-Korean and Japanese-Chinese couples in Japan, Korean-Japanese and Korean-Chinese couples in South Korea, and Chinese-Japanese and Chinese-Korean couples in China. This research is unique in respect of covering these multi-combination and multi-sited couples within a single study. The main questions includes, but not limited to, how they teach language(s), what influences their choice of school, how they deal with conflicts between the countries.
We hope this study will provide a new framework that helps us to tackle the challenges in child rearing international couples face.
Schedule
2013: Pilot interview (Conduct at least 2 interviews in each country)
2014: Main interview (Collect and analyze 12 interviews in each country)
2015: Output (Publish research papers and final report, host workshops and distribute information leaflets)
Project Member
WATANABE, Yukinori / Sagami Women’s University / Research areas: social education, multicultural education, and language education
FUJITA-ROUND, Sachiyo / St. Paul University, Graduate School / Research areas: Sociolinguistics, Bilingualism, and Intercultural Communication
SUN, Wonsuk / Osaka University of Economics and Law / Research areas: Sociology, social policy, and immigration studies
LEE, Hohyun / Waseda University / Research areas: Social education, multicultural education, education for foreign students, and acculturation
QIU, Xiaolan / Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences / Social education, comparative education, and youth problems
This was supported by the following grant. KAKENHI (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (25381142), 2013-2015
