Multicultural Education through Cosmopolitanism in Japanese Classrooms

論

文

Multicultural Education through Cosmopolitanism
in Japanese Classrooms

Ian ROTH

要旨

本論文は，ほとんどの日本の学校で見られる文化的に同質性の高いクラスにおいて，学生の多文化的能力を効果的に発達させる方法を考察する。
文化的同質性という問題に言及し，その主流となっている理解と一致し，かつ重要ないくつかの点においては異なった見解を発展させていく。またその見解を前提とし，コスモポリタニズム（世界市民主義）が問題解決のための枠組みを与えるという事に触れるとともに，その枠組を授業に取り入れうる方法として，内省的学習実践 (Reflective learning practices) を論じる。
Keywords: multiculturalism（多文化主義）, diversity（多様性）, cosmopolitanism（コスモポリタニズム／世界市民主義）, reflective learning（内省的学
習）I.

Introduction
At this point, the growing importance multicultural and cross cultural competencies

has been well-established (Gardner & Mansilla, 2007). This fact has not been lost on
Japan’s officialdom and, doubtless, has contributed to its growing concern over the
inward facing nature of the nation’s younger generations (Furuichi, 2014). But, theargument often goes, implementing effective multicultural education protocols in Japanis no easy task. It is, after all, a uniquely homogenous country with regard to ethnicity

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No. 34and culture.
The purpose of this paper will be threefold. First, it will seek to address the questionof Japan’s cultural homogeneity. Once accomplished, this will serve as a foundation forthe paper’s second main point: establishing the viability of a cosmopolitan approach
to multicultural education. Finally, the paper will provide an example of how such a
cosmopolitan approach might be employed in Japanese classrooms.

II.

Multicultural Japan
Being a country that is famous for its ability to change and adapt (Pilling, 2014), it isno surprise that Japan is also a country that is searching for its identity. The popularity of
Nihonjinron books and the theories they espouse has few, if any, non-Japanese corollaries(Befu, 2001). The country’s ability and willingness to react to the world around it has
both preserved it and prevented it from developing a clear sense of what it means to
be Japanese. Nihonjinron is a result of this as is the common sentiment that the nation
is culturally homogeneous (Befu, 2001). The less secure one is in his or her identity,
the more appealing a singular, overly-simplified identity becomes. But any truth about
identity will always be complex. And so it is with Japan.
A person from Osaka and one from Nagoya speak and interact differently; people
from Hokkaido and Okinawa have different customs and eat different foods. Thoseinhabiting the super high-tech, neon festooned cities and those in the mountains and ricepaddies live very different lives.
It would be foolish to suggest that Japan’s people do not, by and large, share some
cultural characteristics. But, to admit this to be the case is only to affirm the obvious.
The same is true of any definable group. The development of such similarities is, in fact,
part of the evolutionary process of self-identifying groups in general. Schein makes
the argument that for a group to survive it must formulate strategies that will help it toovercome the challenges it faces as a group (2010). If these strategies prove successful,they begin to make their way into the identity of the group as a whole. Different nations,acting as definable groups, have developed different strategies that have become part oftheir identity as a larger unit. All new members are indoctrinated with these strategies(Schein, 2010). Japan is not alone or unique in possessing a national culture. Having sucha culture is, in many ways, a prerequisite for the existence of a nation. It is, thus, correct138

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to claim that Japan is culturally unique for no other country shares its particular cultural
concoction. The incorrect claim is that Japan is unique because it has a national culture
shared in common by the individuals that comprise it. Just like any other country, Japanis simultaneously homogeneous and heterogeneous.
The study of organizational culture has revealed that, while branch organizations
tend to share many cultural elements with the main or original organization, theyalso inevitably display differences (Schein, 2010). These differences are accounted for,regardless of how strict the central control, by the branch organization’s environment,by its unique mixture of constituents, by the context in which it operates, and by theparticular challenges it faces. It is impossible for any branch to perfectly emulate theculture of the organization that spawned it. The same thing must be said of individual
people. In an isomorphic manner, the individuals who make up a society can each bethought of as branch versions of that society. They will embody the pertinent culturalelements, but they will do so in a way reflective of their own experiences and operational
context. So, while there will inevitably be cultural similarities shared by the constituentsof a classroom, there will just as inevitably be entirely unique cultural formulas.

III.

Cosmopolitanism
This is exactly the recognition that underpins the cosmopolitan approach. The

individual always already exists at the intersection between the global and the local (Saito,2010) or, in the case at hand, between that of socially prescribed culture and individualized
cultural instantiation. This aspect of human existence is what cosmopolitanism seeks toleverage in order to develop multicultural capacities. It prescribes that the individual first
pursue personal authenticity and a realization of what being a human actor means in its
entirety. This includes the recognition that each person exists within, and is a memberof, a much larger systemic community. Due to its magnitude and the degree to which
this perception is divorced from daily experience, it can be elusive. Yet, its being elusive
does not temper its veracity or importance. Particularly for Japanese students who havebeen raised in a national cultural historically marked by a sense of separateness fromthe world (Zielenziger, 2006), this main tenet of cosmopolitanism can seem abstract andunfounded.
The key to overcoming this barrier is the dialogic interplay between what is shared

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No. 34and what is unique. As previously established, Japanese classrooms are simultaneouslyloci of profound similarity and of radically individual instantiation. A cosmopolitan
approach to multiculturalism must start with each of those involved plunging into theirown experience, context, and understanding in order to develop a sense of how these havecontributed to their own individual emergence. Such self-reflection provides grounding
and the assurance that, while who a person is culturally may not be entirely controllable,
it is at least coherent and sensible.
The investigation of one’s own cultural complexity serves as the background against
which the culture of another person, a thou (Buber, 1971), can be appreciated. Crosscultural conflict and human conflict in general is often permitted by the sense of‘otherness’ (Zimbardo, 2007). To ‘other’ someone is essentially to reduce them to anarrower than actual range of defining characteristics. It is to regard him or her as thething that did a given action or that is responsible for a particular outcome. It is to seea person as a simplified collection of phenomena rather than as a process emerging
from inexpressible complexity. The realization that one is characterized, even from theperspective of oneself, by such complexity illuminates the possibility that other people
operate similarly. In this way, cosmopolitanism encourages the development of empathic
capacities through self-exploration (Snauwaert, 2006). It allows the individual to more
vividly imagine what it is like to be someone else and to stand in that person’s shoes byencouraging the individual to more deeply experience and investigate standing in his or
her own shoes.
Such an approach avoids two common pitfalls that plague multicultural education
efforts. The first is that it honors, rather than summarizes, diversity. Particularly in Japan
where many teachers who are tasked with teaching lessons on multiculturalism may havevery little authentic cross cultural experience upon which to draw (Kerr, 2001), there isan understandable tendency to reduce foreign cultures and their people into easy to digest
stereotypes. The result is not humane understanding, but the sort of distorted appreciation
reserved for oddities. As previously stated, the reduction of a person or people to a setof characteristics is, rather than method for encouraging multicultural capacities, a way
to increase the feeling of otherness. The cosmopolitan approach works by developing a
sense of individual authenticity that leads to the appreciation of both authentic difference
and similarity among those whom one knows best. It starts, not from the position that
other people are different which, by extension, means that the people in one’s own group140

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are the same, but from the realization that you are different. By developing a senseof difference among the most similar of people, it instills the lesson that difference issomething that every person has in common. People from another country may, on
aggregate, share certain beliefs and practices, but individually they are no more the samethan any two students present in the classroom. By starting with individual difference,the commonalities shared by groups ranging from the class to the country to the world
become sought after discoveries in the multicultural exploration.
The other pitfall avoided by the cosmopolitan approach is that, rather than being an
abstract, what-if driven field of study, multiculturalism is made present, concrete, andsalient. It is immediately applicable, not only in the classroom, but even when the student
is alone. The function of cosmopolitan multiculturalism is not contingent upon having an
ethnically mixed classroom or exchange students present. It is, for this as well as the otherreasons that have been detailed, ideal for use in Japanese classrooms.

IV.

Reflective Learning
In application, the suggested approach might manifest itself in a number of ways.

This paper will explore one such way and will seek to show how simple it would be toincorporate into pre-existing classroom environments. The practice to be detailed is thatof reflective learning.
While the practice of reflective learning can change and grow as the learner develops
and explores, it must begin with two practices. These two practices are known by many
names, but for the purposes of clarity will be referred to as the check-in and the wrap-up.
Facilitating either effectively means drawing on a few principles. Both the check-in andwrap-up should be characterized by openness, inclusivity, and equality (Goff, 2001).
The first principle of openness implies a willingness to treat everyone’s contribution
as valuable. It means allowing people to say what they need to say without interruption
and that those listening give their attention wholly to the current contributor. Reflective
learning cannot operate properly in a judgmental atmosphere or when certain ideas or
feelings are dismissed based on their nature or source before having ever been honestly
considered. In order to promote openness, the participants should remain silent whensomeone is speaking, the speaker should be given as much time as he or she needs, andthere should be a clear signal used to indicate when he or she has finished (Peppers &

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Briskin, 2000).
Inclusivity amounts to everyone feeling like an involved, contributing element. Itmeans that the reflective experience must be one that arises communally from all thosepresent. If even one person who is present is not also included, it is equivalent to a circle
that is missing a connecting piece. As a structure it is weak--as an interaction pattern, it
discourages free and honest exchange. In order to promote inclusivity, the participants
should sit such that each one has a clear view of every other one. Desks and anythingthat might act as a physical and, thus, symbolic or figurative barrier should be removed.
And, to begin (as with a check-in) or end (as with a wrap-up) everyone should be
required to say something. Contributions need not be long, but the act of everyone saying
something creates the communality required; it ensures that each person has a stake inand connection to what emerges from the interaction (Goff, 2001).
Equality must be pervasive. It cannot exist within boundaries but must be the modus
operandi of the group. This means that the teacher/lecturer/professor cannot stand exempt
from the equality. In a reflective environment, learning happens as the relationshipbetween the learner and the learned increases in complexity (Palmer, 1993). The process
is based on self-awareness and meta-cognition. The lessons cannot be taught. In fact, theintention to teach someone something betrays an ignorance of the reality that learning
outcomes are always personal. The more a ‘teacher’ insists on imparting a specificlesson, the more divorced the learner becomes from his or her own authentic learning
practice. It is not possible to force someone to learn something. It is only possible, andpreferable, to facilitate (cultivate, curate, etc.) the process whereby they learn. Thus, in areflective learning environment, there are no teachers—there are only facilitators.
This is an important reframe that will shift the dynamic of the classroom. As far
as the reflective practices of checking in and wrapping up are concerned, the facilitator
approach helps to reinforce the equality required by the process. Equality among learners
cannot be achieved if there is clearly inequality among participants. The implicit andenforced inequality of the teacher-student relationship seeps into every aspect of theclassroom and its proceedings.
This is not to suggest, however, that the facilitator should not be able to guidethe process. That is his or her role. It is merely a reminder that for a hierarchy to behealthy and functional it must arise from the lower levels rather than be imposed by thehigher (Meadows, 2008). The purpose of the elements in the upper levels is to organize

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the efforts of those in the lower, but only insofar as they demand it. The learners in aclassroom are not there to be controlled. Granted, they are each part of a larger whole but,at the individual level, they are each irreducible and self-contained—not parts of a whole,
but wholes comprising a larger whole. Each level of this structure must be respected in allof it multiplicity.
The content of the check-in/wrap-up discussions can be determined by the facilitator,
though room should always be left for emergence to occur. If the group is pushing in acertain direction, it should not be unnecessarily constrained. The most common topics
of focus during dedicated periods of reflection are what the learners will take awayfrom the experience, what their expectations were, what surprised them, how they plan
to proceed, and what questions they had or still have. Through the exploration of these
topics, the diversity of the group is made manifest as a resource capable of revealing new
and previously unconsidered perspectives. It is a simple and powerful practice that has aplace in all group-based learning environments.

V.

Conclusion
The theoretical framework and approach detailed here should provide educational

facilitators with an entry point useful in all classes, but particularly suited to thoselacking in readily apparent racial or ethnic diversity. The cosmopolitan, reflection-based
approach is not a didactic means of instruction concerned with delivering discrete ‘truths’
to receptive learners. It is the learning of a process and of the values implicit in thatprocess. It seeks to develop multicultural sensibilities, not through instruction concernedwith ‘facts’ about other cultures, but through the exploration of principles that can be
employed to simultaneously reduce the alienness of the foreign and increasingly value
it uniqueness. The universal applicability of the principles imparted by this approach
is what allows students to pass beyond the shallow knowledge of many multiculturalist
pedagogies into deeper understanding and, eventually, wisdom. Ultimately, this is what
is required if we hope to appreciate the complexities inherent in the human side ofculture.

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