, or ,Ishikawa, Kiyoko. Japanese families in the American wonderland: transformation of self-identity and culture. University of Michigan, 1998. p. 221. "It means the JSM, Hoshu-jugyo-ko (its abbreviation is Hoshuko), in Japanese." are supplementary Japanese schools located in foreign countries for students living abroad with their families. Hoshū jugyō kō educate Japanese-born children who attend local day schools. They generally operate on weekends, after school, and other times not during the hours of operation of the day schools.Mizukami, Tetsuo (水上 徹男 Mizukami Tetsuo). The sojourner community [electronic resource]: Japanese migration and residency in Australia (Volume 10 of Social sciences in Asia, v. 10). BRILL, 2007. , 9789004154797. p. 136.
The Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Monbusho), as of 1985, encouraged the opening of hoshū jugyō kō in developed countries. It also encouraged the development of full-time day schools for Japanese students (nihonjin gakkō) in developing countries. In 1971, there were 22 supplementary Japanese schools worldwide.Goodman, Roger. "The changing perception and status of kikokushijo." In: Goodman, Roger, Ceri Peach, Ayumi Takenaka, and Paul White (editors). Global Japan: The Experience of Japan's New Immigrant and Overseas Communities. Routledge, June 27, 2005. p. 179. "Official policy (see Monbusho, 1985) was that Nihonjingakko should be set up in developing countries, hoshuko in the developed world."
By May 1986, Japan operated 112 supplementary schools worldwide, having a total of 1,144 teachers, most of them Japanese nationals, and 15,086 students."Section 4. Well-Being of Japanese Nationals Overseas" (Archive). Diplomatic Bluebook 1987 Japan's Diplomatic Activities. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved on March 8, 2015. The number of supplementary schools increased to 120 by 1987. As of April 15, 2010, there are 201 Japanese supplementary schools in 56 countries."English" (Archive). Penang Japanese (Supplementary) Saturday School. Retrieved on June 22, 2014.
Operations
These schools, which usually hold classes on weekends, are primarily designed to serve the children of Japanese residents temporarily residing in foreign countries so that, upon returning to their home country, they can easily re-adapt to the Japanese educational system.Mori and Calder, p. 292 (PDF p. 3/21). As a consequence, students at these schools, whether they are Japanese nationals and/or permanent residents of the host country, are generally taught in the age-appropriate Japanese curriculum specified by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).Kano, p. 104. Article 26 of the Constitution of Japan guarantees compulsory education for Japanese children in grades one through nine, so many weekend schools opened to serve students in those grades. Some weekend schools also serve high school and preschool/kindergarten.Doerr and Lee, p. 426. Several Japanese weekend schools operate in facilities rented from other educational institutions.Maguire, Mary H. (McGill University). "Identity and Agency in Primary Trilingual Children’s Multiple Cultural Worlds: Third Space and Heritage Languages" (Archive). In: Cohen, James, Kara T. McAlister, Kellie Rolstad, and Jeff MacSwan (editors). ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism. p. 1423–1445. CITED: p. 1432 (PDF p. 10/24). "The other two schools, the Chinese Shonguo and Japanese Hoshuko are privately funded, rent space for their Saturday schools from mainstream educational institutions, and thus have no visible identifiable logo or physical presence as a particular ”heritage language school”."
The majority of the instruction is kokugo (Japanese language instruction). The remainder of the curriculum consists of other academic subjects, including mathematics, social studies, and sciences. In order to cover all of the material mandated by the government of Japan in a timely fashion, each school assigns a portion of the curriculum as homework, because it is not possible to cover all material during class hours. ,() author of "Japanese Community Schools: New Pedagogy for a Changing Population", stated in 2011 that the supplementary schools were dominated by "a monoglossic ideology of protecting the Japanese language from English".Kano, p. 106.
The Japanese government sends full-time teachers to supplementary schools that offer lessons that are similar to those of nihonjin gakkō, and/or those which have student bodies of 100 students each or greater. The number of teachers sent depends upon the enrollment: one teacher is sent for a student enrollment of 100 or more, two for 200 or more students, three for 800 or more students, four for 1,200 or more students, and five for 1,600 or more students. MEXT also subsidizes those weekend schools that each have over 100 students.
North America
In North America, the hoshūkō are usually operated by the local Japanese communities. They are equivalent to hagwon in ethnic Korean communities and Chinese schools in ethnic Chinese communities.Hirvela, Alan. "Diverse Literacy Practices among Asian Populations: Implications for Theory and Pedagogy" (Chapter 5). In: Farr, Marcia, Lisya Seloni, and Juyoung Song (editors). Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Education: Language, Literacy and Culture. Routledge, January 25, 2011. Start page 99. , 9781135183707. – Cited: p. 103. "These, too, exist as a result of efforts made by local ethnic communities. Chinese (buxiban) and Korean (hagwon) schools are the most dominant of these learning environments, while Japanese heritage schools (hoshuko) also exist in certain communities," and "Japanese schools, like the Chinese schools, are usually community-based." These Japanese schools primarily serve Japanese nationals from families temporarily in the United States, or kikokushijo, and second-generation Japanese Americans. The latter may be U.S. citizens or they may have dual U.S.-Japanese citizenship.Endo, R. (Hamline University). "Realities, Rewards, and Risks of Heritage-Language Education: Perspectives from Japanese Immigrant Parents in a Midwestern Community." Bilingual Research Journal, 2013, Vol. 36(3), p.278-294. CITED: p. 281. Because few Japanese children with Japanese as a first language in North America attend full-time Japanese schools, the majority of these children receive their primary education in English, their second language.Mori and Calder, p. 291 (PDF 2/21). These supplementary schools exist to provide their Japanese-language education.
Rachel Endo of Hamline University,"Endo Presents and Leads at Conference" (Archive). Hamline University. April 20, 2012. Retrieved on March 4, 2015. the author of "Realities, Rewards, and Risks of Heritage-Language Education: Perspectives from Japanese Immigrant Parents in a Midwestern Community", wrote that these schools "have rigorous academic expectations and structured content".Endo, R. (Hamline University). "Realities, Rewards, and Risks of Heritage-Language Education: Perspectives from Japanese Immigrant Parents in a Midwestern Community." Bilingual Research Journal, 2013, Vol.36(3), p.278-294. CITED: p. 282.
As of 2012 the most common education option for Japanese families resident in the United States, especially those living in major metropolitan areas, is to send children to American schools during the week and use weekend Japanese schools to supplement their education.Kano, p. 103. As of 2007 there were 85 Japanese supplementary schools in the United States.Mizukami, Tetsuo. The sojourner community [electronic resource]: Japanese migration and residency in Australia (Volume 10 of Social sciences in Asia, v. 10). BRILL, 2007. , 9789004154797. p. 139. Some 12,500 children of Japanese nationality living in the United States attended both Japanese weekend schools and American day schools. They make up more than 60% of the total number of children of Japanese nationality resident in the United States.
In the 1990s, weekend schools began creating keishōgo, or "heritage education", classes for permanent residents of the U.S. The administrators and teachers of each weekend school that offers "heritage classes" develop their own curriculum.Doerr and Lee, p. 427. In the years prior to 2012, there was an increase in the number of students who were permanent residents of the United States and did not plan to go back to Japan. Instead, they attended the schools "to maintain their ethnic identity". By that year, the majority of students in the Japanese weekend schools in the United States were permanent residents of the United States. Kano argued that the MEXT curriculum for many of these permanent residents is unnecessary and out of touch.
The oldest U.S. Japanese weekend school with Japanese government sponsorship is the ,(). founded in 1958 and serving the Washington, DC metropolitan area."English ." Washington Japanese Language School. Retrieved on April 30, 2014. "Washington Japanese Language School c/o Holy Cross Church, Quinn Hall, 4900 Strathmore Avenue, Garrett Park, MD 20896"
United Kingdom The MEXT has eight Saturday Japanese supplementary schools in operation in the U.K. As of 2013, 2,392 Japanese children in Hythe, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh (school is in Livingston), Leeds, London, Manchester (school is in Lymm), Sunderland (school is in Oxclose), and Telford attend these schools.Conte-Helm, Marie (1996). The Japanese and Europe: Economic and Cultural Encounters (17 December 2013 ed.). Bloomsbury Academic Collections); A&C Black. . (), p. 74. "A total of 2,392 Japanese children currently[...]" (the figure is specific to the 2013 edition)"
– Morley, Erewash, Derbyshire Japanese Saturday School in London – Cardiff – Located in Hythe – Its time of establishment is August 2005 – Lymm, Warrington, Cheshire" — Leeds – Livingston (near Edinburgh), established in 1982 – Stirchley, Telford – Oxclose, Tyne and Wear (near Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
Demographics
In 2003, 51.7% of pupils of Japanese nationality in North America attended both hoshūkō and local North American day schools.Mizukami, Tetsuo. The sojourner community [electronic resource]: Japanese migration and residency in Australia (Volume 10 of Social sciences in Asia, v. 10). BRILL, 2007. , 9789004154797. p. 138.
As of 2013, in Asia 3.4% of children of Japanese nationality and speaking Japanese as a first language attend Japanese weekend schools in addition to their local schools. In North America that year, 45% of children of Japanese nationality and speaking Japanese as a first language attend Japanese weekend schools in addition to their local schools.
List of schools See: List of hoshū jugyō kō
See also Japanese language education in the United States
References Doerr, Musha Neriko (Brookdale Community College) and Kiri Lee (Lehigh University). "Contesting heritage: language, legitimacy, and schooling at a weekend Japanese-language school in the United States" (Archive). Language and Education. Vol. 23, No. 5, September 2009, 425–441. Note: p. 426 states that the "all the names in this article are aliases": It is a common practice in ethnography to use aliases for actual names in order to protect privacy of the students, parents, teachers, as well as the school. Kano, Naomi. "Japanese Community Schools: New Pedagogy for a Changing Population" (Chapter 6). In: García, Ofelia, Zeena Zakharia, and Bahar Otcu (editors). Bilingual Community Education and Multilingualism: Beyond Heritage Languages in a Global City (Volume 89 of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism). Multilingual Matters, 2012. , 9781847698001. START: p. 99.