The educational views of marriage migrants in Taiwan The life stories of Japanese fathers (婚後移居台灣者的教育觀：從日籍父親的生活故事談起)
Report Submitted to 2019 Taiwan Fellowship. p. 37.
Summary
This paper reports the research outcome of a study funded by the 2019Taiwan Fellowship. In this study, the researcher conducted 18 life-story interviews to understand how educational belief is constructed through the complicated process of migration from Japan to Taiwan. Past studies have predominantly focused on the mothers’ perspectives and left fathers’ stories unstudied, especially in intermarriages. Therefore, this study adopted an experimental method to provide necessary information about fathers by generating three integrated cartoon stories with annotations. As a result, the following aspects of paternal identity were revealed: (1) fathers are in conflict between traditional and modern discourses, more specifically, being the prime provider of both financial and moral support to the family (Daikokubashira) and being the one who voluntarily takes care of his children (Ikumen), respectively; however, being Daikokubashira is considered more important than being Ikumen; and (2) for fathers, being Ikumen includes being responsible for teaching Japanese to children; therefore, they tend to feel remorse if they fail to raise children’s Japanese to the level they expect. Furthermore, as they advance their careers in Taiwan as the Daikokubashira, their job skills are optimized to Taiwanese society, which makes it more difficult to move back to Japan or a third country. In contrast, some individuals with flexible skills, such as business owners and highly skilled professionals, may choose to relocate. In this manner, Daikokubashira discourse binds the choice of fathers’ essential decisions, including the education of their children. Finally, most fathers show tolerance toward deviation from Taiwanese or Japanese standard education models, as if their migration and intermarriage experiences were steppingstones to becoming more accepting and flexible about education.
