Educational strategy of Japanese-Korean couples: Analytical review of Japanese fathers and mothers in Korea
https://cloud.iliswave.jp.fujitsu.com/iwjs0016opc/TC10109377
Educational strategy of Japanese-Korean couples: Analytical review of Japanese fathers and mothers in Korea
Yukinori WATANABE
Sachiyo FUJITA-ROUND
Wonsuk SUN
This study is a part of a larger research project entitled “Educational strategy of intermarried Japanese, Korean, and Chinese couples,” which is funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), KAKENHI Grant Number 25381142 (2013-2015). Its purpose is to describe how educational strategy is constructed in order to elicit suggestions for the future direction of education in international families. To do so, we have conducted interviews with Japanese-Korean, Japanese-Chinese, and Korean-Chinese couples in Japan, Korea, and China. There were approximately 50 participants in total. In the interviews, we focus on the narratives of Japanese spouses, both husbands and wives, of Korean nationals residing in Korea. Snowball sampling was employed to recruit interview participants who are married to Korean nationals and live in Korea with children between the age of two and eleven. All interviews took place in person, were conducted in Japanese, were audio recorded, and lasted between one and three hours. The main questions addressed the following two areas: language education and school choice. Other questions were asked where appropriate to encourage participants to elaborate on their narratives. The interview transcriptions were analyzed to identify underlying themes across the interviews of Japanese husbands and wives. The study identified the following important features: 1) Husbands often adopt a behavior-conscious attitude to fit in with their wife's families. This is constructed not only by living with the wife's family but also by undergoing schooling in Korea and having had a genuine interest in Korean culture prior to arriving in the country. 2) The fathers struggle with being unable to meet expectations as the provider of Japanese language education due to long working hours. 3) The mothers organize Japanese language education study groups for their own fulfillment. 4) Japanese schools are selected as an outsourcing option for Japanese language education.
