Abstract
The concept of being an ‘international’ citizen is one that describes an increasing number of people worldwide. This has implications for the educational experiences of many students, which can be reflected in the school choices made by their parents. As part of this study, ‘international’ parents residing in Tokyo were interviewed and the qualitative data gathered were used to compose family profiles; snapshots of the unfolding of their journeys and experiences that were multidimensional. Interviews elicited from these parents detailed information that contributed to a fuller appreciation of international parenting and transnationalism. This article presents nine international family profiles, followed by a subsequent analysis of the international parents’ selection of schooling for their only or eldest child in Tokyo.
Introduction
In an age of increasing levels of dual citizenship, family members residing on opposite sides of national borders, labour contracts based on short-term visas, and faster and ever cheaper lines of contact between nations (Ley and Kobayashi, 2005), it is not surprising that there has been a rise in the number of ‘international parents’. Such internationalisation is becoming a challenge to the ‘adaptive capacity of families collectively and each of their members individually’ (Vercruysse and Chandler, 1992: 68). This is particularly evident in the issue of what form of education these international parents select for their children. Beare (2001) highlighted this as a feature of the rapidly changing world of the 21st century and describes the emerging world as ‘borderless’ (p. 12). Beare (2001) proposed that, as future citizens, children will be living in a multinational and multicultural networked global community, and these changes will have implications for families, schools and communities.
The number and nature of categories into which ‘international’ families can be grouped is to some extent arbitrary, with categories – in a context that is as diverse and constantly changing as Tokyo – likely to be broad areas that overlap. Nonetheless, Wakabayashi (1998: 6) identified three types of students attending foreign international schools (those offering an international curriculum and a great range of cultural diversity in staff and students) in Japan:
Japanese and non-Japanese Asian children, including Japanese ‘returnees’ from abroad, as well as those children who have never been abroad;
Japanese intercultural marriage children;
Foreign (non-Japanese) children who have come to Japan with their international parents who work as business persons, missionaries and diplomats.
Almost a decade later, Greer (2007) distinguished three types of ‘family’ sending their children to foreign international schools in Japan (pp. 56–57):
Japanese intercultural marriage families including a Japanese mother or father and a non-Japanese spouse;
Short-term expatriate families, such as those where the household head is in a business, military or diplomatic post;
Long-term non-English-speaking background (NESB) families, such as business and diplomatic personnel.
These two sets of categories have different emphases, but combining the insights of both would suggest a division of three types of international parents who need to confront choices about the education of their children in Tokyo. With reference to Figure 1, and in simplest terms, it is suggested that the three types are as follows:
Dual Japanese internationally oriented parents wanting their children to have an international education;
Japanese intercultural parents where either the mother or the father is Japanese;
Dual foreign internationally mobile parents (Velliaris, 2010).
Three types of international parents, and their subgroups, in Tokyo, Japan.
While children from all three categories of parents listed here may be advantaged by the opportunities of travel and exposure to a wider world perspective, at the same time they may have limited experience of their homeland culture. In other words, they may never know the sort of cultural certainty that children who are raised in a single culture at home, school and in the community often take for granted (Cameron, 2003; McCluskey, 1994; Pollock and Van Reken, 2001). As will be discussed in this article, international relocation is often a complex event that may involve profound changes for family members as a result of disruption to, and disengagement from, the well-established relationships and the cultural and linguistic patterns of their home. The challenge for international parents is to find a school that supports the educational and professional aspirations they hold for their children.
Group 1: dual Japanese internationally oriented parents
Two subgroups of dual Japanese internationally oriented parents were included in this study, namely (1) those with strong international-mindedness and values, and (2) international returnees. First, there were dual Japanese internationally oriented families who can be seen to exhibit international values and mindedness. Oftentimes, these families have not lived abroad, but for whatever reason desire to foster or maintain their children’s bilingual communicative skills – usually English – through native-level exposure. These parents have had life experiences and adopted an international outlook even though they may have never lived or worked outside the home country of birth – Japan. In this study, all the Japanese parents had international experiences and were predominantly (functionally) fluent in English. Wanting their children to share their international orientation, they sought schools that foster this outlook from the beginning. This usually meant sending them to schools where the language of instruction and the prevailing culture were different from the parents’ and from the society in which the family resided. This orientation should be viewed alongside the fact that, for the past decade or more, Japanese society has existed in a paradigm conflict with regard to its national ‘educational system, educational concepts, and educational philosophy’ (Willis and Yamamura, 2002: 1).
Second, there were Japanese parents who had been transferred abroad and subsequently repatriated. Their children are called kikokushijo or ‘returnee’ children (Fry, 2007; Kanno, 2000, 2003; Yoshida et al., 2002; Yoshida et al., 2003), a term first used in the late 1960s by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) for the purpose of establishing policies to deal with the rising number of predominantly ‘elite’ Japanese children returning home after several years overseas, and the problems associated with their socialisation and education (Kamada, 2000: 28). Kikokushijo, especially those who have lived in Western cultures for an extended period of time, tend to be more assertive and individualistic than Japanese children who have only lived in Japan (Miyamoto and Kuhlman, 2001). Kikokushijo’s acquisition of foreign patterns of language and behaviour may alienate them from their Japanese peers and teachers. Hence, these children are often sent to foreign international schools that are more accepting of such character traits. The image of kikokushijo has been slowly shifting under Japan’s national commitment to globalisation.
Group 2: Japanese intercultural parents
Otherwise known as kokusai kekkon, this term is used to describe parents where a native Japanese person is married to a foreign national. This expression is primarily related to the common perception that Japan is a homogeneous society comprising one race that speaks one language (Kim, 2002; Tarumoto, 2003; Willis, 2002). While many kokusai kekkon are visibly international, such as those marriages between Japanese and Western partners, it must be noted that the term also refers to marriages in which the non-Japanese partner may be of Korean or Chinese ethnicity, born and raised in Japan, but without Japanese citizenship (Kim, 2002; Nitta, 1988; Willis, 2002).
The rise in the number of foreigners in Tokyo is attributed to the increase in the number of Japanese nationals marrying foreign nationals. Data derived from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) related to the statistical number of intercultural marriages, however, may underestimate the true number of such couples as the MHLW has no systematic method of collecting information on the Japanese intercultural marriages that took place overseas before (re)entering Japan (Burgess, 2004; Nitta, 1988; Sato, 2004).
Where one parent is a Japanese national and the other is born and raised outside Japan, the Japanese parent has an important role to play in the adjustment of the non-Japanese partner to the host country. Supported by the Japanese spouse, a partner can better adjust to the host environment and enrich the lives of their bicultural children (McAdoo, 1993: 300). In addition, extended family and friends can help provide a broader and deeper ‘in-group’ social network, and this may be one reason why, in comparison to other foreign residents, intercultural couples are less likely to form ethnic or national enclaves.
Group 3: dual foreign internationally mobile parents
Dual foreign parents can be seen to fall into three different subgroups stemming from: (1) foreign/English-speaking internationally mobile parents, (2) foreign/NESB internationally mobile parents and (3) foreign self-initiated internationally mobile parents (Velliaris, 2010, 2014). First, non-Japanese/English-speaking families are typically short-term sojourners. In the Tokyo context, the international parents are predominantly business persons, diplomats, journalists, educators, military or missionary personnel who are expected to reside in the host country for several years. The literature advises that what constitutes a short-term international assignment is typically company specific (Collings et al., 2007: 205). However, as explained by Webb and Wright (1996), it is important to realise that business usually takes longer to conduct in foreign cultures, thus ‘[s]hort stints abroad of less than three years are not conducive to high performance as the expatriate [short-term sojourner] barely has time to adjust before being transferred’ (p. 43).
Second, foreign/NESB families are similar to the families described above; they tend to be business persons, diplomats, journalists, educators, military or missionary personnel who are expected to reside in the host country for several years, and are functionally fluent in English. Regardless of whether or not there are non-Japanese national schools available in the host country, many of these parents prefer to send their children to international schools to acquire English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL). They value the affluence and exclusivity associated with an internationally transferable education (Greer, 2007: 57).
Third, there are foreign self-initiated internationally mobile families (Fitzgerald and Howe-Walsh, 2008; Suutari and Brewster, 2000; Tharenou, 2003). Suutari and Brewster (2000: 434) identified six (sub)groups of people who may fall into this category, namely: young opportunists, jobseekers, officials, domestic professionals, international professionals and dual career couples. They often experience the same privileged standards of living as other foreign families in this grouping. All parents in this group may choose any of the schooling options available in the Tokyo context from free local Japanese national schools to exclusive non-Japanese international institutions. International schools are often viewed as elitist as they can cost up to US$25,000 per annum per student (Jenckes, 2006: 75), although generally, high educational costs do not create a barrier for these families who have usually accounted for such factors prior to initiating an international relocation.
Methodology
The research undertaken involved personally networking with international parents in Tokyo in order to collect original qualitative data pertaining to their experiences of school choice deliberation for their only or eldest child in that context. International parents were recruited throughout the 23 wards of Tokyo, but predominantly from the expatriate and high foreign population areas in and around central Minato-ku (Minato ward), and ranged in age from 29 to 57 years. In each case, one interview was conducted with one parent participant (Table 1), who engaged in dialogue individually and on behalf of their spouse and child(ren) via a face-to-face, open-ended and semi-structured interview method (Kvale, 1996). All interviews were conducted in Tokyo and in English. The face-to-face approach facilitated the establishment of trust between interviewer and interviewee, an important consideration when discussing a sensitive issue such as parent motivators.
International parent interviewees in chronological order of interview (Velliaris, 2010: 148).
US: United States/ citizen: Japanese citizen/ short-term: 5 or fewer years residency in Japan/ long-term: more than 5 years residency in Japan.
The use of an interview guide provided the basic framework for examining interviewees’ recollections of their choices and experiences. Interviewees were encouraged to elaborate on questions in order to provide comprehensive descriptions of the activities, goals, challenges and outcomes of their international lifestyle. A number of optional ‘follow-up’ and ‘probe’ questions (Fowler and Mangione, 1990: 82), were also utilised; the former were related to something the interviewee mentioned (Kvale, 1996: 133; Rubin and Rubin, 2005: 136–137), and the latter were used to explore further and clarify comments. ‘All responsive interviews are built up by combining main questions, follow-up questions, and probes … The balance between types of questions may shift from one interview to the next’ (Rubin and Rubin, 2005: 140). In combination, these techniques enabled the amount of narrative data to be maximised, while maintaining sufficient structure to ensure that the information collected was relevant to this study and consistent across participants.
Given the nature of qualitative research, the findings described below are particular, situated and based on glimpses of attitudes and experiences of certain individuals in a given place and time, and within the natural settings of this study. All 17 international parents residing in Tokyo were interviewed by one researcher in a venue of their own choosing in order to encourage them to speak openly about their experiences. As argued by Gillham (2000), [a]ny research which aims to achieve an understanding of people in a real world context is going to need some interview material, if only to provide illustration, some insight into what it is like to be a person in that setting. (p. 12)
Interviews were discreetly audio-recorded with participants’ permission and later transcribed. Audio-recordings generated a substantial amount of data as participants talked about their experiences of educating their children in the Tokyo context. The interviews generated 17 transcripts lasting an average of 48 minutes each (Table 1). Informed consent was obtained in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (Australian Government, 2007).
International family profiles
For brevity, 9 from 17 international family profiles (Table 2) are presented below: 3 Japanese internationally oriented parents, 3 Japanese intercultural parents and 3 dual foreign parents. The typology of schools in Tokyo ranges along a continuum from national to international (and with many unlisted variations in between). The school choice options can be categorised as four main/dominant types (Velliaris and Willis, 2013):
Japanese national schools. Japanese national curriculum and Japanese cultural homogeneity;
Foreign national schools. Foreign national curriculum and foreign cultural homogeneity;
Japanese international schools. International curriculum and a predominantly Japanese student-body; and
Foreign international schools. International curriculum and the greatest range of cultural diversity in the staff and student populations.
International parent interviewee demographics (Velliaris, 2010: 232).
Family profiles here are largely based on factual information, but in relation to parental school choice and aspirations in particular, they also include statements reflecting the personal thoughts and judgements of interviewees. The specific details discussed within each profile reflect the particular flow of the interview process. Since only one parent per family was interviewed, the data collected were limited to that person’s perspective on all issues, and any expressions of feeling and/or judgment within a profile have their origin in the words of the interviewees.
Group 1: dual Japanese internationally oriented parents
Interviewee D
This Japanese mother was divorced from her Japanese husband, but maintained amicable relations with him for the sake of their two daughters’ education. The elder daughter had recently graduated from a prestigious all girls’ boarding school in England, yet her most proficient language was considered to be Japanese. In contrast, the younger daughter had attended foreign international schools in Japan, and despite the fact that she had never studied abroad, her most proficient language was considered to be English. This Japanese mother, a professional Japanese–English interpreter, communicated with her daughters in either Japanese or English depending on the social situation. The father, although unable to speak English, had continued to support his daughters’ international education to the combined value of approximately US$100,000 per annum.
Interviewee J
This Japanese mother stated that the traditional way of thinking for Japanese couples is to send their children to a well-ranked private school, especially in Tokyo. However, when their eldest son was born with a cleft palate and severe speech impediment, the international parents re-evaluated their options. After extensive research, the mother, a director of her own Japanese language school for foreigners, concluded that the Japanese language was not conducive to improving her son’s ability to speak, as the alphabet consists largely of ‘simple’ syllables. Additionally, she believed that Japanese society was harsh on individuals with disabilities, and she did not want her son to endure discrimination. This mother had attended preschool in New York when her Japanese father had been transferred there for employment purposes, and her research, coupled with fond memories of that experience, contributed to her decision to send her child to school outside Japan. However, despite having spent several years in the United States, she chose a British school as she had also discovered linguistic challenges relating to the American pronunciation of words which, again, she did not want for her son. Their second son was following in the footsteps of his elder brother, as the parents were satisfied with their choice of school.
Interviewee O
Together with her Japanese husband, this Japanese mother had not been impressed with the Japanese education system over the previous decade. She believed that MEXT had created a somewhat dysfunctional curriculum and had failed to deal with the widespread issue of bullying. These factors had influenced this couple to avoid any Japanese national schooling for their child. After evaluating more than 20 schools, the mother chose a prominent international preschool in central Tokyo. Through the school community, she became close friends with a British woman who annually invited the family to spend their summer vacations in the United Kingdom. For the most part, both mother and daughter associated predominantly with foreign friends and spoke only English to one another. The daughter’s most proficient language was unquestionably English, and this was beginning to cause a family feud, as her limited Japanese embarrassed some members of the extended family.
Group 2: Japanese intercultural parents
Interviewee K
This American father of Caribbean descent had a 1-year university exchange experience to Japan in the early 1980s. After subsequently graduating from his studies in the United States and following 7 years of employment in the computer industry in Tokyo, he met his Japanese wife who was working as a Japanese–English simultaneous translator within the same corporation. Their daughter attended one of the prominent all girls K–12 foreign international schools in Tokyo until an issue of racial discrimination surfaced. According to the father, the school did not address the issue, and the parents sought to transfer their daughter to another international school, though an immediate transfer was not possible. Fortunately, their daughter was then accepted by a new international school on the outskirts of Tokyo, established to cater for long-term foreign residents, where she was reported to be much happier socially and educationally.
Interviewee L
This British mother had met her Japanese husband while on vacation in Tokyo. They maintained a long distance relationship for 1 year, until she decided to return to join him. At that time, her Japanese husband’s English language proficiency was extremely limited, but when he obtained an employment position that involved much travel and an international staff and clientele, his communicative skills soared. They were together for 12 years before they married and started a family. Their 3-year-old son had been attending a private Japanese preschool since he was 6 months old, which the mother said was a loving family-type environment, although she felt that he had been spoilt there by the Japanese staff. She was considering moving him to a public Japanese preschool where he would be exposed to stricter discipline. She anticipated that her family would remain in Japan at least until the end of her son’s elementary schooling in the Japanese national system. She and her husband would then re-evaluate their son’s education, by which time she believed her son would be old enough to contribute to his own educational decision-making.
Interviewee N
This British father had ventured to Tokyo previously on a European Union-sponsored programme for young corporate-minded people to learn Japanese language, culture and business practices. During the programme, he met his Japanese wife. At the conclusion of the programme, he wished to remain in Japan and arranged for his sponsor institution to find him employment in Tokyo rather than the United Kingdom. This Japanese intercultural couple had one daughter with Down Syndrome. Because they believed that exposure to and ability to play with other children was fundamental to her development, they had originally placed her in a Japanese Montessori preschool. In contrast to their expectations, this school limited her attendance to a few specified hours per day, which only served to magnify her differences to the extent that she became increasingly irritated and confused. During the school’s vacation period, the international parents decided to trial another preschool and discovered that not only did their daughter love her new environment, but it was proving positive to her social and educational development. These intercultural parents perceived that their next challenge would be to identify an equally nurturing Japanese elementary school for her transition in the next couple of years.
Group 3: dual foreign parents
Interviewee A
This American mother had been born in Israel and her husband in Zimbabwe. They first met in New York and both had travelled the world for their employment. This was not their first secondment to Tokyo, with the father having been transferred there several years previously. Since they had earlier resided in Tokyo when two of their three children were infants, selecting schools had posed no obstacle. The mother had already planned their return, and the preferred schools were those the children were attending. The needs of the three children, born across three continents, had been independently assessed and they were enrolled at three different schools. The eldest child (son) attended one of the major English-speaking international schools, the middle child (daughter) attended a private Japanese elementary school and the youngest child (daughter) attended a public Japanese kindergarten. The son struggled to communicate in basic Japanese, while the older daughter had an English language tutor. The youngest daughter would be following in the footsteps of her sister by remaining in the national system until the end of her elementary schooling.
Interviewee C
This mature-aged American mother was married to a second-generation Japanese-American husband, whose Japanese mother maintained koseki (Japanese family registry), enabling him to be eligible for Japanese Permanent Residential (PR) status. Having achieved success early in both their careers in the United States, this couple had decided to venture to Japan for 1 year, so that their two young children could have an experience of Japanese cultural and linguistic immersion. The father could not speak Japanese, and his American wife (who spoke intermediate-level Japanese) did the translating when possible, which always confused the Japanese. These parents had extended their stay for a second year and were investing great time, money and energy into their children’s education, hoping that they would achieve bilingualism. They chose public Japanese schooling, but found the sociocultural and political processes exhausting. They had already planned to repatriate to a part of the United States which had a reputable Japanese immersion school. In this way, they could continue to promote their children’s bilingualism, while themselves being better able to communicate with school teaching and administrative staff.
Interviewee F
This young Mexican father was newly transferred to Tokyo from London and was awaiting the arrival of his Mexican wife and three children, who had remained in London so that their children could complete the school year. He had been on the expatriate circuit for a relatively short time, with this being his second international secondment. He had found that his biggest challenge was related not to the demands of his employment, but rather to the selection of education for his young children. He explained that although an expatriate lifestyle had advantages, it was essentially difficult and fraught with much instability. His intention was thus to remain an expatriate for several more years and then seek a return to Mexico where his family could settle and better appreciate their heritage. This father believed that the experience was a wonderful learning opportunity for the family and that they had been exposed to great cultural and linguistic diversity, but that returning to Mexico would be better for the children in the longer term.
Findings
The more that international parent interviewees cultivated an intercultural perspective, the more they discovered that challenges could be reframed as opportunities. In interviews, they shared stories of life with their families past and present, their experiences of choosing a school for their only or eldest child, the satisfaction derived from that choice, and their hopes and dreams related to their child(ren)’s future educational and professional endeavours (Velliaris, 2010). Importantly, the findings below encompass the results from all 17 interviewees across the three categories of international families included in this study.
Group 1: dual Japanese internationally oriented parents
All four Japanese mothers stressed that their children’s education was a primary reason for their international orientation. They all supported the literature (Nakamura, 2008: 2) suggesting that many Japanese parents have become dissatisfied with the national education system. To these mothers, the education system was excessively rigid with a focus on collectivism, and presented fierce examination competition. Conscious rejection of national schooling was manifest during the interviews. They were unanimous in their school choice in that, as compared to Japanese intercultural and foreign parents whose school choice was spread across three of the four school types, the Japanese parents in this study chose only foreign national schools (Velliaris, 2010).
Although these interviewees had each considered more schools than international parents in the other two groupings combined, in all but one case Japanese parents chose the British school. This common outcome is all the more surprising given the amount of time and effort Japanese kyoiku mamas (so-called education mothers) expended in the process of selecting a school for their children. It is noteworthy that none chose the Japanese or foreign international school options available, which may provide a clue that the school experience they wanted for their child(ren) was an immersion experience in English and the culture of a specific English-speaking nation. And, once their child(ren) had been socialised in a foreign setting, it was difficult for them to transition to a Japanese classroom; for that reason, the vast majority were continuing their secondary schooling in a foreign institution.
Group 2: Japanese intercultural parents
All seven Japanese intercultural couples had met their spouse in Japan, and the foreign spouse had chosen either to stay after the first visit or to return later. All foreign parents explicitly stated that despite their lack of Japanese proficiency, their spouse’s English was at such a high level that it made communication in the relationship and life in Japan relatively smooth. Interestingly, all but one of the mothers in this group was Japanese. The Japanese mothers did not, however, seem to embody the stereotypical image of kyoiku mamas (education mothers) for whom the education of their children was solely their responsibility. In each case, the husband was described as taking great interest in the education of their children and was equally committed to selecting and fostering suitable social, educational, physical and emotional environments with which their intercultural children could engage.
These Japanese and English-speaking intercultural couples in Japan favoured raising their children bilingually. Through marriage and family formation, it is probable that the foreign spouse will become a long-term resident in Japan and a desire to remain in the host country tends to strengthen over time, which can be partly but not exclusively related to the presence of children. A main concern for kokusai kekkon is to expose their children to diversity while maintaining their bilingual proficiency. Hence, to augment their children’s biculturalism/bilingualism, many kokusai kekkon send their children to Japanese national schools in the early years and then to international schools from junior high school onwards in order to avoid the test-centred educational philosophy that is inherent in the Japanese system. Typically, Japanese intercultural children who are taught solely in Japanese national schools are very much in the minority. If Japanese intercultural parents choose Japanese national schooling for the entirety of their children’s education, they often seek to provide additional opportunities such as overseas visits and/or foreign summer camps to allow their children to experience the non-Japanese parent’s culture and to maintain their bicultural heritage.
Group 3: dual foreign parents
Tokyo had a positive reputation among foreign international assignees in this category. Not only did it present career and financial rewards, but it offered agreeable social and educational benefits for their children. Dependent on the duration of the work assignment and the degree to which the family became involved in the Japanese host culture or the foreign expatriate culture, family members may have experienced a cultural or environmental bubble that was unique to their lifestyle. While this bubble may have provided comfort, after several years of immersion foreign parents needed to choose whether to stay, relocate to what might be another international bubble, or repatriate to their homeland.
These six foreign parents did not consider as many schools as did families with at least one Japanese spouse, though that is not to say that these parents were less concerned with the socialisation and education of their children. Notably, the interviewees with preschool-aged children placed emphasis on the socialisation of their children, while those with children attending primary/junior/senior schooling incrementally increased the focus on academic accomplishments. Overall, foreign parents appeared to limit their school search to establishments in close proximity to their homes or, in the case of one child attending a school on the outskirts of Tokyo, access to private school bus transportation. Despite being highly transient travellers, in the host country these parents preferred to have a somewhat tighter family unit, perhaps due to the fact that they did not have the extended social networks of the Japanese and/or Japanese intercultural parents.
Foreign parents were split in relation to the three types of school choice. Most opted for foreign international schools, emphasising the high priority they gave to the international dimension of their child’s education. In many cases, their interview comments made it clear that this had seemed the obvious or only choice for them; they had not needed to make school choice a long and protracted process. Of the minority who preferred to send their children to foreign national schools, there appeared to be a clear link between the parents’ sense of home and future intentions to repatriate. If a family had firm intentions to return to a particular country, for instance, it was appropriate for the child to be sent to the school that was culturally and educationally the closest to their homeland. The seemingly most unusual school choice in this grouping was a family where the mother was French and the father was from the United States, yet they selected the British school for their child. Upon clarification, the parent respondent indicated that they had a strong sense of home being the United Kingdom where they had previously lived and where they eventually intended to repatriate.
Summary and conclusion
A significant aspect of this study was that it gave voice to international parents in Tokyo. Analysis of the interview conversations provided the challenge of faithfully reporting their thoughts and feelings, and trying to establish a synoptic view of international orientation and/or mobility. Interviewees held a worldview that depicted how life for them should be lived – at home, at school and in the community – and they spoke passionately about their individual experiences. Residing in Tokyo today does not challenge foreigners to adapt to the unfamiliar in every aspect of their lives. Nevertheless, parents who have stepped onto an aeroplane with their children for a temporary, semi-permanent or permanent experience abroad can find themselves responsible for a multicultural family despite each member holding the same national passport.
Presumably, parents have intimate knowledge of their children and their specific abilities, habits, interests and desires. In making a choice of schools, international parents need to complement their knowledge of their children with their knowledge of educational programmes that appear to offer potentially the best outcomes for their children. Parents’ educational choice rests on what they have come to understand as being optimal for their family and child(ren) in familiar/unfamiliar environments – socially, culturally, linguistically and educationally. Whether or not these families choose to become fully immersed in the surrounding host culture, their children will grow up in and among cultures other than their own or that of their parents.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.