Read Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program Online
Authors: David L. McConnell
Clearly, the JET Program is an example of smart foreign policy, and key
ministry officials believe that the program's main purpose is to serve national interests. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary celebration,
Hisaeda Joji, director of the Second Cultural Affairs Division at Gaimusho,
stated in no uncertain terms:
From the viewpoint of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it is significant
as part of Japan's national security policy that these youths go back to
their respective countries in the future and become sympathizers for
Japan. In the case of the United States and France, for instance, they
often get criticized by many countries for promoting their own independent international policies. All the same, they will carry through
these policies, because these nations have sufficient national strength.
... In Japan's case, the nation is far from possessing such strength to
carry out policies in defiance of world opinion. Therefore, highly deliberate, even artificial efforts are required to create sympathizers for
Japan as part of national security policy. From this point of view, we
consider the JET Programme is an extremely important and at the same
time effective policy instrument .41
It is precisely this mind-set, however, that program coordinators and JET
participants fought, arguing on many occasions that kokusaika was not ni-
honka: that is, "internationalization" was not the same as "Nipponifica- tion." It also underlies their frequent accusation that the "exchange" dimension of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program has been shortchanged in its implementation.
Of course, Japan is not unique in using cultural programs to suit national purposes; the Peace Corps, the British Council, and other quasigovernmental international exchange organizations have often been accused of being tools of their respective governments. What is most
interesting here is how clearly we can see that the justification for the program has shifted during its implementation. The public proclamations
about opening up Japan and demonstrating that foreigners can be part of
the group have gradually given way to a preoccupation with encouraging
foreign guests to greater sympathy toward and understanding of Japan.
The JET Program is not ultimately concerned with fostering some idealistic movement to create a global village or to blur absolute lines of national
sovereignty; instead, it focuses on getting Japan better press and getting
Japanese better understanding of outsiders, enabling them to avoid unanticipated counterreactions and thereby raise their own relative status in the
world.
Social commentators of all political stripes, both inside and outside Japan,
delight in observing that Japan is on the verge of a momentous transformation, a series of changes "so far-reaching in their import that Japanese
society as we know it' is being transformed irrevocably." But as Robert
Smith has noted, the real question is not one of tradition versus change but
of which version of change is acceptable.' The Japanese have been effective
managers of economic change over the past few decades, but managing
economic and technological change is not the same as managing diversity.
Thomas Rohlen makes the sobering point that "Japan has never before in
history succeeded in being an international leader in cultural, scientific or
political terms."' Is Japan's handling of the Japan Exchange and Teaching
Program an indication of its readiness to assume a new, higher profile in international affairs? What does it tell us about the prospects for cultural and
educational change in Japanese society?
Through the lens of the JET Program, we see competing interpretations
of "internationalization." In its links to foreign policy objectives at the national level, the program makes a certain kind of sense, but the relevance of
foreigners to the daily priorities of local boards of education and schools is
ambiguous at best. Indeed, in its practical implementation JET appears to
be much more fragmented, loosely structured, and marked by competing
goals and communication breakdowns than we might expect. The fit between national-level objectives and local realities becomes increasingly
problematic as the program moves down through the various layers of the
education system-as those administering the program take progressively
greater liberties with official policy. The actions of local school personnel in
some cases run directly counter to the public objectives of the program.
For instance, while there is no doubt that the large numbers of assistant
language teachers have created some impetus for change in the goals and
methods of teaching English in Japan, the contradiction between the ideal
of teaching conversational English and the reality of preparing for entrance
exams remains acute. And the image of Japanese becoming more open to
foreign cultures and accepting a more pluralistic view of their society must
be tempered by our recognition that JET participants at all levels of the
program receive preferential treatment and that the presence of an ALT in
local schools sometimes leads Japanese teachers to maintain identity
boundaries more intensely. If we judge the program by its success in
achieving its formal goals-promoting conversational English and the acceptance of diversity-then the policy lever being applied to its implementation seems inadequate.
Clearly, the events and analysis presented above refute any notion of a
monolithic Japanese response to outsiders, such as has been popularized in
nihonjinron accounts of Japanese culture and society. There is no single notion of internationalization in Japan, nor is there any single body that
could implement such a policy. The story is rather one of competing ideologies and interests, miscommunication, and the reinterpretation of program objectives at each administrative level. In short, we find an extraordinarily complex picture of internal conflict and variation. Spanning three
Japanese ministries, eighteen countries, dozens of consulates, forty-seven
prefectures, thirteen designated cities, hundreds of municipalities, and
thousands of schools and local government offices, the JET Program hangs
together-but only in the most ungainly manner.
But its hanging together is at least as significant as its unwieldiness, for
the diversity in Japanese approaches to the JET Program is held within a
single process, a shared framework of meaning. There has been very little
public controversy within Japan over the program itself, and the government has achieved an extraordinary degree of compliance with its policies
and procedures. Requests from prefectures and municipalities for ALTS
have remained high, and through its bureaucratic arm, the Japanese government has placed more than 20,000 foreigners in schools all over the
country. In the thirteen years since the program began, ALTs have visited
and team-taught on at least one occasion in virtually every one of Japan's
16,ooo-plus public secondary schools.
In this top-down attempt to orchestrate societal change, the government's success had less to do with its coercive power than with the degree
of receptivity and shared consent that already existed among educators at the lowest levels of the system. Far from being a command system, the entire process seems to have worked through a combination of firm persuasion at the top and a general willingness on the part of prefectures, municipalities, and schools to accept the authority of the next level up even while
pursuing their own interests. Nor was there public outcry from JTLs, who
were asked to team-teach with threatening foreigners without ever having
been consulted about the program. Their receptivity seems remarkable,
particularly given the current wisdom in the United States that top-down
interventions rarely get through the classroom door. Although JTLs are
often taken to task for digging in their heels and resisting communicationoriented approaches, over the long term these local teachers have shown a
surprising willingness to act as learners. They have mobilized knowledge
and striven for perfection and mastery, while not relinquishing autonomy;
the result is that those placed in the difficult position of managing face-toface contact with the JET participants have learned quickly, if not always
smoothly.
In spite of great private ambivalence and even dissatisfaction with the
program, Japanese at all levels continue to salute the flag of internationalization, and some put forth great effort to make it work. We find actors in
all parts of the system mouthing the same words used by government officials to justify the program in the first place: "This is something Japan
must do to survive in the new international world order" (kokusai shakai
no naka ni ikiru tame ni). Yet what Japan does in giving "internationalization" cultural form and meaning begins with deeper assumptions about
selfhood and social relations. For a millennium, foreign elements have been
incorporated into the Japanese value system and subsequently transformed in ways that astonish their originators. Likening the outcome of
Japanese importation of Chinese culture to the process by which soybean
cake emerges after brine (Chinese civilization) is added to clear soup (Japanese culture), Hidetoshi Kato has observed that there is very little "authentic" about Japanese culture; indeed, he locates the essence of the Japanese way of life in the ability to transform outside influences.' Numerous
scholars have shown that fundamental abstractions like capitalism or
democracy, on the one hand, or mundane institutions like baseball, Disneyland, or even department stores, on the other, undergo a sea change
after being adopted by Japanese-they are infused with indigenous meanings that arise from a more sociocentric conception of the self.
While the concept of the JET Program has worldwide scope, its implementation remains very "Japanese" in a number of ways, with mixed results. First, the attention given to form, detail, and careful planning leads to a degree of regulation that frequently clashes with the expectations of the
foreign youth that internationalization will be spontaneous, informal, and
more free-flowing. The program is standardized and ritualized in everything from how CLAIR has targeted every local government entity in
Japan to how team-taught classes and international festivals are conducted.
There is a danger that one "correct" way of doing internationalization will
be assigned and scripted from the top.
Second, as I have argued, internationalization takes on a very different
meaning in a relation-based social order than in those that are more rulebased. That Japanese privilege situational ethics and go to great lengths to
maintain harmony in face-to-face interaction contrasts with the tendency
of most JET participants to confront and debate differences and to regulate
behavior according to general principles. The centrality of social relations
in the Japanese worldview is manifest in a number of ways, including approaches to program evaluation. These evaluations, which are numerous at
every level,4 exhibit an interesting pattern. They rely above all on tabulating the percentage of renewers, the percentage of ALTs who quit early, and
the number of phone calls to CLAIR to measure the effectiveness of the
program. Virtually every evaluation takes the form of a questionnaire designed to discover whether all parties-the JET participants and their Japanese hosts (administrators, teachers, and students)-are satisfied with the
program. The core question is "Are you happy?" Conspicuously absent
from most of these surveys is any attempt to objectively measure the effects of the program.
Finally, internationalization is primarily perceived by Japanese as accommodation to external demands, in particular to demands from Western countries. Kazukimi Ebuchi offers the provocative insight that "to internationalize" is defined in most English dictionaries as a transitive verb-that is, it
involves action on others-whereas most Japanese dictionaries categorize
kokusaika as a passive verb, indicating the process of becoming accepted by
the rest of the world (sekai ni tsuy(5 suru yo ni naru koto).5 Even though
teachers and administrators with whom I talked almost invariably defined
internationalization as becoming more forthright, assertively defending
one's arguments, and generally holding one's own with foreigners in a discussion, the unthinking response in interactions with foreigners is appeasement. As Walter Edwards has remarked, great difficulties remain in overcoming "the long-standing anxiety over Japan's position vis-a-vis the West."6
In this respect, it is telling that the many changes in JET Program policies
over the past thirteen years have almost always come in response to demands made by the program coordinators and JET participants. The parallels between this process and what Margaret Gibson has called "accommodation
without assimilation" on the part of some immigrant groups in the United
States is striking.7