and are Japanese-language terms referring to the children of Japanese expatriates who take part of their education outside Japan. The former term is used to refer to children who have returned to Japan, while the latter refers to such children while they are still overseas. They are referred to in English variously as "sojourn children" or "returnees".Fry 2007: 131Kanno 2000: 1 The term "third culture kids" is used by other countries.Kano-Podolsky 2004: 76. The term is more well-known both in Japan and in the English literature about them. Awareness in the United States of third-culture kids and the issues they face is much lower than similar awareness of in Japan.
Prevalence As of 2002, roughly 10,000 children of Japanese expatriates return to Japan every year, with a total of roughly 50,000 residing overseas at any one time, a number that had remained roughly constant during the previous decade after rapid growth in the 1970s and 1980s.Kano-Podolsky 2004: 71, 74 Only 40% attend Japanese schools while living overseas.Iwabuchi 1994
Challenges The Japanese Ministry of Education recognised as early as 1966 that Japan's school system faced challenges in the education and re-integration of children who had returned from overseas.Kano-Podolsky 2004: 72 Under the idea of nihonjinron, which stressed the alleged uniqueness of Japanese society, began to be characterised in the 1970s as problem children who needed assistance in readjusting to Japanese society; they were thought to be too Westernised and individualistic. Much of the image of as "educational orphans" in need of "rescue" came from the parents of such children. During the 1980s, however, came to be seen as a new elite rather than as problems; their language and cultural skills gained respect as valuable tools for the internationalisation of Japan.Kano-Podolsky 2004: 73 As of 1997, over 300 universities offered relaxed admissions criteria for , a system which had been attacked as preferential treatment and reverse discrimination.Kanno 2000: 4 They are often misperceived as fluent speakers of English, though many in fact resided in non-Anglophone countries.Kano-Podolsky 2004: 74
See also Gireogi appa – a South Korean term Haigui – Chinese term for graduate returnees
References
Sources
Further reading
Fry, Rieko (Witan International College). "Politics of education for Japanese returnee children." Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Volume 39, Issue 3, 2009. Published online: 24 Apr 2009. Kanno, Yasuko. "Kikokushijo as bicultural" (Archive). International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24 (2000) 361-382. DOI 10.1016/S0147-1767(00)00006-7. See text version and profile at Science Direct. Erratum: "Erratum Kikokushijo as bicultural" (Archive). International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Volume 24, Issue 5, September 2000, Page 723. Lin Pang Ching (Catholic University of Leuven Department of Anthropology). "Controlled internationalization: The case of kikokushijo from Belgium." International Journal of Educational Research. Volume 23, Issue 1, 1995, Pages 45–56. Available online 20 January 2000. DOI 10.1016/0883-0355(95)93534-3.