Migrant children studying in a Brazilian school in Japan (Source: Japan Times)
A recent study of the educational pathways of the children of Brazilian migrants in Japan offers a most welcome addition to the literature on the educational outcomes of migrant children, which has to date focussed mostly on migrant children in North America and Western Europe. The authors, Hirohisa Takenoshita, Yoshimi Chitose, Shigehiro Ikegami and Eunice Akemi Ishikawa, investigate the factors that influence whether migrant children enrol in high school or not.
The Japanese educational system consists of nine years of compulsory schooling, comprised of six years of elementary school and three years of middle school. These are followed by three years of high school, which is not compulsory. Even so, in practice, almost all Japanese children attend high school. However, among the children of migrants, the high school enrolment rate is only 71%. It is thus obvious that migrant children are educationally disadvantaged vis-à-vis their Japanese peers.
On the basis of a survey of 203 adolescent and young adult second-generation residents in Shizuoka prefecture, Takenoshita et al. (2013) explore the family characteristics and characteristics of the local context that distinguish those who were enrolled in high school from those who were not.
Parental education and employment
It is well known that parental level of education is a key determinant of children’s educational achievement both in migrant and non-migrant populations. However, the researchers found that the correlation between Brazilian parents’ educational level and their children’s high school enrolment was much more modest than is usually the case. That means that parental educational level gets devalued in the process of migration. The devaluation of educational credentials in the migration process with regard to the labour market is not surprising. What is surprising is their devaluation also with regard to parental ability to transmit their educational achievements to their children.
The relative unimportance of parental education can be explained with the way Brazilian migrants are incorporated into the Japanese labour market. Irrespective of their educational level and other characteristics, Brazilian migrants are incorporated into the irregular labour market working unskilled or low-skilled jobs. The regular Japanese labour market, from which Brazilian migrants are largely excluded, is characterised by strong company-based labour unions, lifetime employment, seniority earnings and, overall, a high level of labour protection and stability. However, in Japan, as elsewhere, globalization has involved a concerted assault on labour and the regular labour market has been shrinking fast while irregular jobs have been mushrooming. And that’s where Brazilian migrants find themselves. They are typically employed through agencies in temporary, unstable and poorly paid jobs without benefits.
90% of Brazilian migrants work unskilled or low-skilled jobs under irregular conditions. By contrast, only 30% of all Japanese workers are employed in such jobs and, at only 12%, that figure is even lower for male Japanese workers. As a result of their precarious employment status, migrants work longer hours than their native-born counterparts. This is significant as more time spent at work means less time spent with children – a fact that disadvantages the children of the working poor from Day 1, as Barry (2005) demonstrates.
Indeed, parental employment turned out to be the most significant factor distinguishing enrolled from unenrolled children: having a father employed in standard work was the most significant factor that correlated positively with migrant children’s high school enrolment.
Gender
Gender was also highly significant but in surprising ways: a number of studies have found that, in North America and Europe, migrants girls are doing better in school than boys. However, for Brazilian migrants in Japan it is the other way round: boys are more likely to be enrolled in high school than girls. The authors explain this with persistent gender discrimination in Japan: it is more rational for migrants to invest what limited resources they may have into the education of their sons as girls, by comparison, are not likely to get very far in education and employment anyway. Additionally, when parents both have to work long and irregular hours, girls are often deployed to look after siblings and the household more generally.
Race
On the basis of other studies that had shown that non-Japanese and non-Western children are often bullied in Japanese schools, the authors hypothesized that race might influence high school enrolment, too. Therefore, they distinguished between nikkei and non-nikkei migrant children. The former are born to two parents of Japanese descent and would thus look phenotypically similar to native-born Japanese children while the latter are born to at least one parent who is not of Japanese descent.
It turned out that race played no role in high school enrolment and that nikkei migrant children had no advantage vis-à-vis non-nikkei migrant children. In fact, both groups were equally disadvantaged vis-à-vis their native-born Japanese peers. The authors explain this finding with regard to Japan’s myth as a homogeneous nation and the collective denial that Japan has become an immigration country.
Age at migration and transnationalism
Like comparable studies in other contexts, the authors found that the 1.5 generation is the most educationally disadvantaged: those who had migrated at age 10 or above (the maximum age for inclusion in the study was 14 at the time of migration) were least likely to be enrolled in high school. By contrast, the enrolment rates of those who were 4 years or younger at the time of migration or who had been born in Japan were almost as high as those of their Japanese peers.
When it comes to the educational success of migrant children, younger is clearly better as these children had more exposure not only to the Japanese language but also to the Japanese education system.
By the same token, children whose parents moved frequently back and forth between Japan and Brazil found their exposure to the Japanese language and the Japanese education system frequently interrupted and these interruptions significantly reduced their likelihood of high school enrolment. Children of parents who had no history of re-migration to Brazil were four times more likely to be enrolled in high school than those who moved back to Brazil for an extended period one or more times.
Other studies have argued that a family’s transnational lifestyle influences children’s educational achievement favourably and equips them to thrive in more than one national context. However, Takenoshita et al. (2013) clearly demonstrate that this is not uniformly the case and the value or otherwise of transnationalism depends on the socioeconomic circumstances in which it takes place.
Where migrants are incorporated into the lower and temporary segments of the labour market, as Brazilian migrants are in Japan, their transnationalism is usually related to the vagaries of their employment. Consequently, transnationalism hinders children’s schooling in this case.
Local context of reception
The researchers also explored the local context of reception as a factor in migrant children’s educational outcomes. Throughout Shizuoka prefecture migrants find themselves in highly diverse circumstances as regards the targeted services available to them. The largest concentration of Brazilians in Shizuoka lives in Hamamatsu, an industrial city. Hamamatsu municipal government has provided a variety of special education programs targeting migrant children since the 1990s, including the provision of Portuguese-, Spanish- and Chinese-speaking tutors to provide Japanese language support. Additionally, Hamamatsu municipal government subsidizes private ethnic schools and organizations devoted to the education of migrant children.
Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that migrant children in Hamamatsu are more likely to be enrolled in high school than their counterparts living elsewhere in Shizuoka. This is indeed what the researchers found: residency in Hamamatsu with its targeted services was favourably associated with high school enrolment.
Parental Japanese language proficiency
I have left parental proficiency in Japanese for last because the effect turned out to be relatively small. Unsurprisingly, there is a positive correlation between higher levels of self-reported parental Japanese proficiency and children’s high school enrolment but it is one of the smallest correlations examined by the researchers.
The most important positive factors are the regular employment of the father and residence in Hamamatsu. The most important negative factors are female gender, having been aged 10 or older at the time of migration and having experienced multiple migrations between Brazil and Japan.
It is a frequent trope in discourses about migrant achievement that learning the language of the destination country matters most. Migrants are continuously exhorted to learn Japanese (or English or German or whatever the national language may be). Learning the destination language is supposed to be a matter of personal responsibility and integration into the labour market and educational advancement are supposed to be conditional on language learning.
Linguists have known all along that language learning is more complicated than the mantra of personal responsibility suggests. However, even if it were that simple to learn a new language as an adult, the evidence presented in Takenoshita et al. (2013) shows that it actually doesn’t matter all that much. What matters is the material base:
Notably, the family’s economic resources facilitate their children’s enrolment in high school. In other words, Brazilian children’s schooling is impeded by employment instability among their parents. (p. 11)
Barry, B. (2005). Why social justice matters. Oxford, Polity.
Takenoshita, H., Y. Chitose, et al. (2013). Segmented Assimilation, Transnationalism, and Educational Attainment of Brazilian Migrant Children in Japan International Migration DOI: http://dx..org/10.1111/imig.12057
This work is licensed under a
Hi Ingrid! Your article about “Intercultural Communication in Education” in 2017 was recently discussed with Dr. Tenedero in class. As one of the student reporters, these factors, such as parental employment and race greatly resonate with the struggles of migrant children in achieving quality education. However, on my end, I think race is more of a significant factor to highlight than parental employment because even though there are public schools that offer inclusivity for non-native migrants, the students’ and teachers’ immediate biases based on negative stereotypes to treat others drives the educational outcome of the recipient. Moreover, these factors can also be encapsulated in the “hidden curriculum” concept that academic institutions should work harder to promote proper quality education for all. These mentioned challenges remind me of an excerpt that fits the situation. It describes that if we look at children as individuals rather than their linguistic backgrounds, maybe a multicultural relationship would foster and grow by this simple practice.
Immigrants often encounter more problems than locals. Though race, gender, parental education and employment, parental language proficiency do affect academic performances, the most important factor is their attitude to achieve. In order to assist students with their performances at school, strategies and pedagogies for developing second-language skills should be covered in both initial and in-service training for teachers who work with immigrant students. While language training is essential, it should be offered in addition to, not instead of, regular course work.
It is always difficult to adapt and live in the new environment, as an International Student, I face with a lot of difficulties and problems. In the case of migrant, there must be more difficulties for them, especially the sociocultural difference, the language barries or financial problems. Therefore, children coming from the immigrant or CALD family need more support from their parents, family and communities in their academic achievement.
Reading this article made me think of the migrants or even the illegal migrant in other countries like United States of America or any other first world countries whereby the parents wish and hoped that their children will have a better future via “escaping” from the fate of growing up in a third world country. However, I would think that reality is harsh fact that people would be judged by the gender, race, and other factors in the society. I would wish that people are able to help one another in a non-judgemental way.
Immigrants often encounter more problems in literacy learning than local students. These students will learn different literacy practice. The Educational outcomes of immigrant students are restricted by many factors, such as Parental education and employment, gender, rance, Age at migration and transnationalism, local context of reception, parents’ language skills. In my opinion, helping immigrants education and working to improve their educational environment is a fair reflection of education.
I found this article really interesting because the parents of the children have most likely hoped for a better life for their children by going to Japan but in the end the act of going to Japan can diminish the children’s chances of a brighter future. It would be interesting to look at more affluent immigrants in Japan and see if they fared much better than the Brazilian children.I found that the results about gender were also quite interesting as I have many female Japanese friends who have a degree but work in completely unrelated fields that do not require any qualifications and I sometimes wonder about the value of a degree in Japan, so it is interesting to see this reflected in the attitudes and behaviour of the Brazilian migrants.
International migration can have very different results in terms of outcomes for children migrating with their parents and children migrating alone. For example, child migrants are often exploited by the police, detained illegally, working in poor conditions and lacking in the necessary resources to move beyond border areas and apply for asylum. On the other hand, migrant children living in cities have a higher probability of accessing, accommodation, schooling, and NGO support. However, as in many other receiving developing countries, support of South African governmental organizations has been inadequate. Personally, except for some policies effects on migration’ education, parental education plays an important role in their language and culture.
his article offered the generous proof that the select rate of advanced education for the Brazilian vagrant kids in Japan is low because of serval factors, for example, parental training, sex, race, age. To me it is extremely irritating and worried that movement is as yet a calculate influencing individuals’ lives a wide range of regions to such a critical degree. What is especially striking inside this exploration is that the most noteworthy factor that associated with transient kids’ secondary school enrolment has been their dad’s work in standard work.
There are amounts of elements influencing children to enter a high school, including gender, race, local context of reception and parental Japanese language proficiency. Apart these aspects, I believe that the welfare policy of the local government is also a significant part. For instance, the government will pay a part of tuition fee for some families who are satisfied with the policies. This behaviour is helpful for some families whose parents do not have stable work.
It is disconcerting to note that despite the hardships associated with relocating to a new country/ culture/ language, there are so many sociocultural barriers in place to hinder a Brazilian migrant’s success in Japan. I would like to think that the situation in Australia is quite different whereby migrants are able to integrate with relative equality into Australian society. I take the case of my husband as an example. He migrated to Australia from Mexico at the age of 21 with very limited English language skills. 21 years later he has now fully integrated into Australian society, has a high level of proficiency in all four English language macro skills, is a successful businessman, homeowner and father of two children. And this is despite living in a very mono cultural/ Anglo Saxon dominated area of regional Australia. I know many other migrant families who similarly migrated in their early twenties and have been able to have build their lives in Australia with I believe very little if any sense of feeling discriminated against for their migrant background. Unfortunately, it seems for Brazilian migrant children in Japan, these same opportunities shall remain unavailable to them, especially while their parent’s employment situation remains unstable as a result of their education and expertise being undervalued.
On another note I would like to mention a trend that is noticeable in Sydney with regards to migrant children entering high schools in Sydney. The selective high schools that take in students based on merits at a competitive examination in year five contain a majority of migrant children , projecting the notion of migrant parents placing education of their children as a top priority in their agenda. However, considering the factors of parental employment and education, local context and reception and parents language proficiency in the dominant language , it is evident that this group of children fall into the ‘minority model’ that Lee,1996, Townsend and Fu 1998 suggest in Li (2003). Li (2003) mentions that this ‘minority model’ as a destructive myth which obstruct insights to the realities of migrant children failing at school due to the policies that govern educational institutions.
Li, G. (2003). Literacy, culture, and politics of schooling: Counternarratives of a Chinese Canadian family. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 34(2), 182- 204.
The article firstly explores various factors that have an influence on the schooling rate of Brazilian migrant children in Japan: Parental education and employment, gender, race, age, local treatment. The most crucial finding is that the parental employment has a greatest impact on whether the Brazilian migrant children go to school or not. It is of my opinion that this finding is reasonable and it may be popular among migrant environments all over the world. In a modern world, it can be said that finance is a key and decisive factors in many aspects and is even more essential for the families who move from one country to another for residence where they have to start everything from scratch. If their parents work a regular job, then they can afford the children with regular schooling education, and vice versa.
In my opinion, the factor which can affect and increase eagerness in education is the job opportunities available in the future — which wasn’t mentioned in this article.
Although parents have undeniable influence on children’s motivation in education, the awareness of future job opportunities and future comfort is an essential factor. There are many reasons for why migrants can’t be confident enough in their education and choose their own way of life. For example, the percentage of acceptance by the communities in their new home, as well as financial issues. This can have a significant effect on children’s academic life.
This article focuses on the significance of monitoring family unit circumstances thoroughly. It is evident from article that migrant children are educationally disadvantaged regarding their Japanese peers. Undoubtedly, parental level of education is a determining factor of children’s educational achievement both in migrant and non-migrant populations. Apart from that factors like gender, race, age at migration, transnationalism, local context of reception and parental Japanese proficiency influence the enrollment rate of and academic performance of children.
It genuinely reflect the real situation when some governments ideally think the new migrants would solve their problems automatically. Even a conserved country like Japan needs to organise some bridging programmes for Brazilian migrants in order to help their second generation emerges into their local school system. Identity such as gender, age, transnationalism are factors affecting the effectiveness of the education outcome but they are not the most vital. The most vital factor is their parents. It seems their parents become their major obstacle in their studies. The parents’ ignorance of the importance of everyday schooling, bias in gender and underestimation their influence on their children give negative impacts on their multilingual education in Japan.
This is an interesting topic as it relates to my final comment in Task 1 (Literacy – the power code). The issue of migrants and education is a commonly debatable topic in Jordan. Jordan has a population of approximately 10 million people, 2.9 million of which are migrants. The 2.9 million consist of refugees, legal and illegal migrants. Syrian and Palestinian refugees are two of the main groups of refugees into the country. Palestinian refugees began their migration to Jordan back in 1948, followed by the Iraqis in 1990s and 2000s. In the last 5 years, the arrival of close to one million Syrian refugees (Amman, 2017). While the first two groups added additional job and economic opportunities to the country. However, the addition of Syrian refugees have posed a threat to the country mainly because the refugees come from the Southern part of Syria which are poor rural areas. Going back to the topic of education outcome of migrant children in Jordan, I would like to focus on the Syrian refugees and their educational journey in Jordan. The issues of access and quality of education are the two main concerns in Jordan. Initial effort to provide education to the children have been sporadic and isolated due to facilities, teaching aids and teachers were not readily available. It was not until 2015 that some form of movement started to address the issue. The main focus is on higher education among youth due to the following 2 matters – 1. the immigration policy is structured in such a way that the refugees are not allowed to return to Jordan once they leave the country, regardless of reason. This has caused unrest and feeling of desolation among youths 2. violence among the age group is on the rise and the government sees providing education is a way to curb the violence and ensure they are equipped with necessary skills to be part of a contributing society. Furthermore, based on the article above on the age factor, in 2017, the World Bank project will inject US$200 million to help Jordan expand access to early childhood education, and improve student assessment, teaching and learning conditions for Jordanian and Syrian refugee children (World Bank, 2017). Jordan has a long way to go before it can claim to be successful in educating the refugees. Nevertheless, continued and growing efforts from the Ministry of Education and other non-profit organisations such as ARDD (Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development) Legal Aid are starting to show positive results. For example, the “New Perspectives” program offered by DAAD and GIZ has developed to include an academic scholarship, a community service portion, community-building, and psychosocial support. This serves to support the varied needs of students as they move through their education (Sherab & Kirk, 2016). The conditions of migrant children in Jordan is indeed different from the article from Piller on educational outcomes of migrant children, nevertheless, the factors such as parental education, gender, race and age of migration have played a part in determining their education pathways.
Educational resources are one of the significant factors when people consider emigrating. There are several aspects impacts the quality of education. In my opinion, the parents are one of the significant features because they decided the environment where children will adapt to. For example, if the parents are engaged in lower labor so that their children will be assigned to the normal educational system. In contrast, if parents work are engaged in highly paid jobs, their children may have opportunities to accept higher level education.
This article offered the substantial evidence that the enroll rate of higher education for the Brazilian migrant children in Japan is low due to serval factors such as parental education, gender, race, age. Not only for the children of Brazilian that mentioned in the paper, but a lot of migrants who are from the non-English speaking country are also suffering the same education problem in English-speaking countries. Young children may feel natural to eliminate the language barrier as they can receive the new culture of knowledge in the early age. However, for the elder children who have already formed a whole language system is difficult to adapt in the new context.
Migrants represent 15% of Malaysia’s workforce, making the country home to the fourth largest number of migrants in the East Asia Pacific region. Some governments of these migrant workers (like Indonesia) collaborate with Chin Student Organisation (CSO) and private sectors in providing education for those children in community centres.
It is however more concerning to know the fate of children of (irregular) migrants (, where they might be denied access to education – a common problem in Malaysia, where children of migrant workers are at risk of being ‘stateless’. These children would not be granted admission into any government funded schools, so long as they do not hold an Identification Card (it is mandatory for Malaysian citizens to apply for the card at the age of twelve), or any document that shows that they belong to any particular state in Malaysia. They would have to therefore rely on community language centres.
Since Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, refugee children are considered illegal immigrants, thus also have no access to government funded schools. Many attend informal learning centres or “education projects” run by the UNHCR in partnership with non- governmental organisations, or community-based classes organised by the community with the support of NGOs. I used to be involved in one of these teaching programs, in a community school for a group of Rohingya children – as part of a volunteering program arranged by Monash University Malaysia. It was fulfilling to be able to help them in some way, but sad that the level of education they receive (no matter how eager they are to learn) may not be able to help them in the long run, due to a lack of education credentials.
It is interesting to realise how different migration is in each country, some of the key factors that influence literacy development are similar but different at the same time. Migrants’ contexts before leaving their home countries and after arriving in the new country are explained through their local needs and desires for a better life, and thus, their family members are influenced by them as well. I can relate to this situation with Mexican migrants in the US. There are some towns where most men leave their families to find better jobs and send money to their families, and their children grow up with the same goal since they are very little, to cross the border searching for the “American dream”. Some might find support and schooling but others just have to work to survive. There are also Mexican mothers whose children were born in the US but live near the border in Mexico. Their situation is different as their children get up, cross the border and go to school, and then go back home to their moms who cannot cross as they are not US citizens. Most of them are living in poverty and not even literate in Spanish, which makes their schooling more challenging. (This place is Palomas, Mexico – https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/children-cross-mexican-border-to-receive-a-us-education/2013/09/20/1237862a-1bdd-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0700184d5586).
This article addresses a very complicated issue. Migrating always involves sacrifices that in the case of families may also involve the children’s well-being. Takenoshita’s et al. report on Brazilians’ struggles in Japan is not far from what many migrants have to deal with when they move to English-speaking countries. The language barrier is usually the first inconvenience families have to overcome in their process of assimilation to their new communities. Take for instance the state of California in the U.S. where ESL instruction is free and anyone can sign up for it; as an adult, one could access to these programs, and after completing them be able to compete for a decent job position vis-à-vis against locals. However, many householders drop out of ESL schools, after attaining a minimum level of English, because their families depend on them. In this scenario, children may also have to see their options to access to higher education (hence a chance to improve their living conditions) limited or affected by other factors that go from the lack of family support to pursue professional development to the need of supporting their families financially.
Very interesting research done about Brazilian migrants’ participation within Japanese education. To me it is very upsetting and concerning that migration is still a factor affecting people’s lives in all kinds of areas to such a significant extent. What is particularly striking within this research is that the most significant factor that correlated with migrant children’s high school enrolment has been their father’s employment in standard work. Also different to European centred studies about high school participation is that migrant boys are more likely to be enrolled in Japanese high schools than girls. Both aspects, in my opinion, show gender discrimination, which in itself is a concerning aspect of Japanese culture.
9. The article listed up the factors that affect migrant students’ educational decisions. Although I believe that the most important factor is their own attitude of studying, other factors listed in the article play important roles, too, especially parental education and employment. Compare the case in the article with the situation in my country, children of Cambodian migrants are less likely to study well if their parents have low education level or are working at low-paid jobs.
This article has shown one of the cruel parts of the world. I really want to thank you, Ingrid Piller, for all these informative posts. By reading the posts, we can know various important issues which would be unknown to us. To me, it is cruel as the children are deprived of getting their fundamental rights. The age, when they are migrating and involving themselves with challenging work, is the age of going to the school and playing with friends, moreover, enjoying their lives. They even are not matured enough to take the responsibilities but they are bound to take that. This is the common pictures of many other countries. In Bangladesh, in the rural areas, most of the children are not getting the proper education because of their financial conditions and also unawareness of the parents. For the girls, the common scenarios are, they are getting married mostly at the age between 13-16 and some are taking care of their younger siblings and doing households work. For the boys, they go to different middle east countries to do work for supporting their families. In the rural areas, many parents want that their children will work and earn money rather than going to the schools though some parents are doing hard work to educate their children. I believe one day everybody will understand the importance of education and their attitudes will be changed.
The age and transnationalism for the migrants are rather important in my point of view. In Japan, younger migrant children are more likely to gain a better result compared to the ones who are older, due to the younger migrants has more exposure to both the Japanese language and the Japanese education system. Moreover, children who always travel back to there own country will also effect their high school enrolment because their studies are frequently interrupted. Therefore, Children who had no history of re-migration were four times more likely to be enrolled in high school than those who often moves back.
When I was in my last year of university, I volunteered my time on a programme called Coach for College. Volunteers who are American student athletes and Vietnamese students go to a remote rural area in a poor province in Vietnam where there is a high rate of dropping out of school. One of the reasons accounting to this rate is the gender discrimination. Parents in this area are not willing to let their daughters to finish high school for the reason that they want these children to help them take care of their siblings and do household chore when they work on the paddy fields. These cases were so popular in past in Viet Nam, however, I had never thought that now they are still happening until I participated in this programme and listened to many stories from my female students. Their parents also quitted formal school when they finish lower secondary school; consequently they believe that their children have no need to further their study at a higher level.
As presented in the blog post, Professor Piller made a certain number of interesting and intriguing points regarding the “seemingly-never-ending-circle” of literacy and “power”. Being literate opens numerous opportunities for individuals to flourish in various aspects of their lives, among which finance stands on top. However, in order for one to be considered literate, the access to education must be indeed viable. For that reason, breaking the “so-called loop” would not be an easy job that could ever be single-handedly executed by just any organization, much less single entities. Drawing from the mentioning of the industrial city of Hamamatsu, it is apparent that government policies play an utmost important role in providing those migrants the much-needed access to literacy. As for my personal opinion, to break the aforementioned “loop”, one has to be provided initially: either free education, or high financial status. However, such decision would almost always come down to the target nation’s common interests and available resources.
For the children of migrants, mastering the target language as the second language is necessary for them about studying further or job seeking in the future. However, not each child of migrants is so lucky to have the chance to receive the education as their local peers, this article has pointed out the significance of domestic influence, if the first migrants generation can not provide the stable life for their children, their children may not be able to continue studying in schools, moreover they can’t compete with the local workers in job markets.
Education is one of the fundamental needs for the children regardless of where they live in and what status they hold in certain country. However, I find it unfavourable for migrant students in this case due to many constraints that impede them to get formal education in Japan. Some factors that have been mentioned in this article can also affect migrant children in other place or country. Yet, in my country Indonesia, especially in West Sumbawa regency there are some foreigners, mostly from English speaking countries, who work and live around a big mining area because their job as miner, controller or other mining-related jobs require them to live there. Therefore, some of them bring their family to live in that mining town. Interestingly, their children do not seem to have any difficulty in getting the education since there’s an international school that facilitates children who do not speak local or Bahasa Indonesia. The teachers are from Australia, America and also Indonesia. So, they can study in their native language as well as learn Bahasa Indonesia. Uniquely, west Sumbawa isn’t a big city, there are many things that you can find in other big cities, but not in this city. Such as malls, shopping centres, movies, etc. It somehow shows the local economic condition of this city. However, the existence of the international school that’s specifically intended to facilitate these non-native Indonesian children (though Indonesian children are welcome in this school as well) is a sign that their parents’ employment also affects their education, but absolutely in a positive way. Their parents’ high-paying job is one of the favourable reasons for them to get the appropriate education. As we all know that school that employs professional native English-speaking teachers and applies international standard teaching will require a great deal of fund and tuition fee. Yet, their parents definitely can afford it.
Being a migrant is undisputedly tough and challenging for certain people especially when it involves children. Indeed, this requires a big responsibility and the parent’s tasks are not simple. They do need to cover the primary needs of the family including the education of the children, foods, accommodation and so on. Thus, I agree with the paper that the parent’s education and employment have a significant impact on the children’s school enrollment.
A well-educated parent might, to a certain degree, prioritize their children’s education and make the process of the family’s settlement in a new place faster than those who are not.
Statistics show that between 2.5 and 3 million Afghan migrants are living in Iran. This raises the significance of the literacy issues concerning the first or second-generation migrant children.
It seems that parental education, age, and job play an important role in Afghan children education. This means that those children whose parents are poorly educated, unemployed and recently migrated to Iran are less likely to enrol in school. This includes primary, middle and high school education in Iran.
Similar to the findings of the article on Brazilian migrant children in Japan, female children of Afghan migrants’ enrolment in school is much lower than the males. This is due to more employment opportunities for educated males and the role of female children in household responsibilities.
Another contributing factor might be the legal status of women in the Iranian society in terms of “divorce, inheritance and child custody” (Naghsh Nejad, 2012).
Recent social marketing campaigns via online media have aimed to fight against such discriminations towards Afghan children.
This article has highlighted many significant factors affecting the educational outcomes of migrant children. Among these elements, I personally think that parents’ perspectives and employment play an imperative role in deciding their children pursing higher education or simply following their education path. Let’s take an example though it is not related to migrant children but this is a very typical situation in my countryside when education is underestimated due to living standard and parents’ viewpoints.
In my countryside, there was one student that I taught mostly influenced by their parents when choosing whether she should continue to study Uni or join labor export market in abroad. She is a very good student who passed a very well-known university specializing in MBA but due to their parents’ expectations, she did not go to uni to go to Japan for working. In fact, her parents work as farmers but their family does not suffer from financial difficulties. One of the factors that motivates her parents to come a conclusion which is because there is a large number of students unemployed after graduation. Nevertheless, I am sure that she is different from other students that her parents mention. She says to me that she has to quit her dreams though I shared with her and her family about the importance of education. Hence, parents play an important role in influencing their children’s education due to their employment, living standard or even the trend of the society.
Thank you for your comment! You might be interested in this post, which explains why education does not always hold a whole lot of promise for poor rural people: https://www.languageonthemove.com/is-english-improving-lives-in-a-remote-indonesian-village/
This is quite interesting to know since my home country is Japan. I am pretty sure that it is probably not easy for children who are migrants to study in Japan since our country is a monolingualism country as many people recognize. I didn’t know that the children’s academic performances at school according their ages, gender and past experiences of migrations. I hope Japan can be a country which are opened more to migrants and make the high school enrollment system easier for those who are migrants so as to go to even higher level of high schools in Japan.
It is worth highlighting how this research paper defies some of the lead discourses in migrant success by showing how the material base was much more influential than the Japanese language level of these Brazilian families. This article also helps to provide a more general view of other factors that could play a role in migrant children school enrolment like gender and age of migration.
It would be interesting to know what happens in Australia in regards to this situation and how the governmental policies here affect positively or negatively the life of migrants.
I think this article reflects comprehensively about the tendency to enrol in high school and higher education of migrants. Actually, as reading this article, I found the points about parental employment and gender very interesting. One of the biggest problems migrants and their families have to face while living in a new country is finance. Of course, parents without a stable job are less likely to be able to afford and support their children; as a result, they are more likely to drop out of schools, which is truly a disadvantage. Interestingly, migrants’ daughters and may also be the first child in a family are more likely to think for their parents and do not want to put more burden on them. It reminds me of some Vietnamese migrants and their children living in Sydney that I have known. The parents have been working really hard in unstable and low-paid jobs due to the language barrier and lack of qualifications, so that the whole families have to struggle and their children stop following their dream to go further in education to help their parents support their families. I feel pity for them and would like to wish them the best things happen in their lives.
It is an unfortunate and paradoxical situation that most migrants migrate for a better life for themselves and their family, but then in some situations end up putting the children in a detrimental situation in regards to their education.
It is positive to read that there are things that can be done to mitigate the problem, as shown in the example of Hamamatsu. The unfortunate side of that is that these kinds of programs could and should be integrated all over the world, but many governments and local authorities either do not see the value or do not want to spend the money.
The educational backgrounds and work of parents can impact on the migrant students for sure, which happens in everyone not just migrants. But I can say that gender is a really important part. For example, in some Asian countries, they prefer boys to gain knowledge and to go to school instead of girls. Gender differences are the biggest problems for these countries.
I am surprised to know that gender discrimination still exists in Japan which is actually a developed country. And more terribly, this issue does have a negative effect on the children’s enrolment at schools. It is true that this also happens in Vietnam at the moment although everyone is now living in a modernizing world. Some families who are backward thinkers just want their daughters to go to school for a first few years to learn literacy skills, and then the daughters are forced to leave the schools and stay at home to do the things housewives often do until they get married. Their parents believe that if their daughters become educated ones and get some jobs, men will not marry them because they think these women are too smart to be wives.
I am very surprised that the high school enrollment rate is only 71% among the immigrant children in Japan. Therefore, it is obvious that immigrant children are disadvantaged in education compared with Japanese peers. In China, almost all children go to high school, which is similar to the situation in Japan. Parental education level is one of the key factors when we talk about children’s education. Generally speaking, the educational level of parents can directly affect their children’s academic achievement. When immigrant parents do not have enough time to spend on their children, their children will be adversely affected in their studies. I hope that every migrant child can have equal access to be educated.
Hi Zhonglian lin
I too was surprised at the rate of 71%, and then I had a look at Australia’s rates. We’re not doing much better here with the non-compulsory (depending on state and year) year 11 or year 12 either. Available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40Mar+201. Although from 2011 (so more representative of a slightly older cohort now a few years removed from school), this shows a 86% rate for non Indigenous Australians, and an approximately 30% rate for Indigenous Australians. Also shows a number of other factors that influence it here.
The rates are a lot lower than I had thought across the board, perhaps my perspective is skewed, I had anticipated much higher rates.
2016 data, 82% rate: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/6227.0
This article reminds me of my hometown in Japan since there is a Brazilian Town with a lot of migrants. I haven’t consciously thought of the reason and gaps of education between native Japanese students and migrant students. However, the causes mentioned in this article sound true. Non-Japanese people tend to work in a factory or somewhere without being required to graduate from high school, which absolutely leads their children to start working earlier instead of going to school. This problem should be resolved to equalize our rights.
For the young migrants, the adaptation is a key important for them to new surroundings such as living in a new setting and studying in a new process of learning. They are encountered some discomfort for a short time which they are unable to do well in a in a new setting. In this article, there are many diversity aspects of these young migrants in Japan; for example, some children were not enrolled in higher education because their families don’t support their choices. In addition, they faced the problems in learning in different language, adapt themselves to new friends, motivate themselves to be strange and learn about other culture and tradition. These problems are often linked directly to their future which are finding work (lack of perceptible experiences and training), language barriers, and racism.
According to this article many factors are influenced the educational outcomes of migrant children such as parental education and employment, gender, etc. It is true that children can adapt to new culture and language easier than adults and in Japan there is a good policy for migrant children to enrol in school; in contrast, in some developing counties, many migrant children cannot obtain education especially whose parents enter counties illegally.
Dear all,
Migration is an extremely tough step in one’s life, thus its outcomes can effect on different aspects of one’s life such as culture, education, economic, and so on and so forth. Migrating to another country specifically when one has children can lead to decisions made which can change one’s whole life and world. Homi Bhabha, a Postcolonial critic, coins the concept of “hybridity,” which is applied to migrants’ children: It means the children really do not know to which country, culture, educational system, and society they belong to. They tend to maintain their own language and culture and at the same time the target’s culture and language specifically if the child is like 14 of age, for part of one’s identity is already shaped beforehand in another context. Besides, other factors such as parents’ occupations, economic status, cultural beliefs, and education can extremely influence the child and his/ her future in terms of education.
With regards,
Pegah
This article discusses some important factors that affect the education of migrant children. I think, gender is one of the important factors that affect a child’s education. I mostly found in my country that after migrating to western countries , girls are highly encouraged to complete their studies though they were not allowed to do it in their country. Another most important factor is parent’s education and employment. Sometimes, it become a burden for parents to continue children’s education after migrating to a different country. If the parents are highly educated they want to make sure their children education at any cost.
A higher level of education is clearly an advantage for people in many ways. In the case of migrants, the difficulties come when there are factors that affect children’s access to education. Factors such as gender and race are quite complex because culture and idiosyncrasy are involved. Eastern countries tend to be more closed cultures than western countries; it is directly related to the race factor, because even when it is normal that a country give better opportunities to its citizens, migrants should not be affected for belonging to a different race. Traditional chauvinist cultures are also related to gender factors, but education opportunities must be equal for boys and girls.
As I have heard many stories from people in my country who migrated to more developed countries to seek a turning point in their life, I can imagine how disadvantaged the immigrants are when moving to a new country. It’s quite similar to Brazil migrant family’s life in this writing.
Some documents regarding immigration problems in ASEAN countries that I have read also mention the correlation between parental employment and migrant student’s education level. It’s sad that as migrant children do not want to lay more pressure on their parents, they tend to quit school earlier to support the family.
However, there are some other findings that migrant students still try their best to enroll in higher education and many of them have even outperformed the local. In ASEAN culture, it is believed that education is one of the best ways to escape poverty. Even though migrant family may face many difficulties, they still encourage children to learn hard. Also, as far as I know, policies on immigration among ASEAN countries are reviewed and discussed regularly to work out solutions and improvement in migrants’ life so hopefully, migrant students will have more chances to access better education because well-educated migrant students can become useful citizens who probably contribute to the country and help reduce social problems.
As for the findings on gender, I agree that in most cases girls are more likely to be deployed to help look after the family. However, I feel like adding that it’s not always true because in many migrant families, the one who has to be responsible for helping parents to raise family is the oldest children regardless of their gender. (I learnt this from my friends in Thailand and Philippines).
According to this article, I have noticed how migration can effect either positively or negatively on the family lifestyle and particularly for children. some children have not enrolled to high schools due to many factors that have limited these families and children education. I agree that these factors play an important roles for impeding the families to support their children for enrolling the high schools. However, I am imagining how suffer these families and children. All children have rights for education. I wonder how those children who did not complete their education do in the future in order to have a decent life as those who complete their studies and have degrees which enable them to have job and also have family.
For me i think the most important element that impact migrant children is the aspect of their parents. In other word, if their parents saw the significant of the education they might encourage their kids to study in higher level. However, as said in the article, it may be hard for migrant kids who moved to japan when they are at the age of 14 because of language barrier (kids may find the difficulty of studying in another language and system differences which will takes them sometimes for adaptation).
This blog post is about investigating factors which affect enrolling migrant children to high schools(Brazilian migrants in Japan). I found out many reasons analysed here. They are parental employment status, gender, race, parents’ frequent to native country, location of living and family economic situation.
This is like a story about my self. Although my family and i migrated to Australia under skill migration visa we experienced all the above and still. According to the area i settled down even my son was degraded at the primary school after a month of arrival. Later on got to know that it does not happen in other areas. We had to help his education and we struggled because we were unable to transfer our knowledge to suits to him. Recently we had to move to an area where the rent is very expensive, to enrol him to a better high school.
Therefore, this blog post is truly applicable to most of the migrants. Hopefully, next generation will benefit from this migration. I should be thankful to Prof. Piller to let us to read this post. We understand our situation.
This blog about Brazilian migrant children in Japan raises some very good points in regards to education and the social stigma attached to migrating families and the work their parents embark on, but as I was reading, in the back of my mind I kept asking myself:
* Why are these families migrating to Japan?
* what socio –economic group have they come from in their own county?
* and the value they put on education.
There are many reason why families migrate; fleeing war tore countries, become refugee, better life, love and so on. and I do think the reason is important.
It is evident that language for migrates is a barrier in succussing and that the right support is needed for a child to be successful in their new education system as submersion education, clearly doesn’t work. But I also think that it is a reflection on family values and their culture which determines the success of a child.
One last point I would like to make is, is it affordable?? In Australia we are very fortunate that quality education is essentially free.
This article is very interesting. It helps me to gain insights into factors affecting educational achievement of Brazilian migrants in Japan. However, the correlations between the independent variables ( parental education and employment, gender, race, age at migration and transnationalism, local context of reception and parental Japanese language proficiency) and the dependent variable (educational outcome of migrant children) in Japanese context are sometimes even the other way round compared to those in North America and Europe contexts. In my opinion, this is mainly because cultures and governmental policies vary across countries .
Hello,
This is really disappointing that parents’ lifestyles and education can have direct impacts on their children’s academic success. It is totally clear that Japanese authorities are mainly responsible for Brazilian children’s academic life, their future social status, and the migration obstacles in Japan. Children are mostly not involved in making the decision of migration but are directly influenced by its side effects which is not fair. I think the main step to alleviate this problem to some extent is to provide better working conditions for the Brazilians in the labour market and change the employment systems at least for the benefit of migrant children. Moreover, Brazilian students can be encouraged to build up their improvements and continue their education by provided opportunities which lead them towards a promising future (find their identity and voice in the society). Unfortunately, migration rate has been high in the recent years and many children are posed to the unforeseen/ negative impacts of these movements in different styles, so the concerned authorities should prioritise this issue.
Thank you
Farzaneh Morovati
Dear Ingrid,
I really liked this kind of topic about the discussion between the separately individual effects of both the monolingual habitus and multilingualism in education. The above example about the education of the Brazilian migrant students in Japan is a typical example of “submersion education” as you explained the definition of it in your book Language and Migration in detail. The submersion education is a “sink or swim ” method for students to learn a second language, students are required to study by means of this second language which have not yet been completely grasped by them.
Another examples mentioned in your book is about the undesirable effects of the Indigenous minority students in the Australian Northern Territory with regard to the submersion education, misdiagnosing of English proficiency could be another pivotal cause for the undesirable effect of the submersion education.
Personally speaking, the monolingual habitus is the essential part in submersion educational mode, which are not suggested by lots of linguists, since minority migrant student are more likely to suffer a lot from it. The negative consequences are related with minority migrant students’ academic underachievement, less opportunities for them to hunt a favorable job position with higher pay. Even worse, the academic failure may stunt their further development in both academic field and social lives, eventually it could possibly exacerbate their problems and issues in mental and behavourial well-being. Therefore, bi- or multilingualism educational modes are supposed to be adopted by more and more international countries in view of the irresistible trend of the burgeoning globalization and immigration trend in contemporary society.
In terms of individual and social effects might be generated by different kinds of educational mode, bi- or multilingualism are highly expected to be promoted in schools around the world.
It is helpful to understand that the high school enrollment rate of the students who live in Japan as Brazilian migrants are affected by various factors such as the parents’ occupation, sex, and age of immigration. However, while reading this article, one question came up my mind; Why the remaining 29% students did not enrol in high school?
In Asia countries, the majority of students have a high level of enrollment in high school or college because their parents have the high interest in education. On the contrary, in the western countries, some students who would like to gain deeper knowledge about specific field enroll further education such as university. Th others who do not enroll in higher education spend time on building practical skills or experience related to the profession field or jobs in which they are interested after completing compulsory education. (I’ve seen a documentary that covers different education systems and aims of education in different countries.)
If it is true, in addition to the factors presented in the article, is it possible that cultural differences about education could be a reason why the high school enrolment rate is only 71%?
Hi J.J, I don’t think there’s any need to hypothesize about cultural differences because the researchers already identify a number of factors, which would seem to explain the difference…
This issue stresses the importance of being aware of household situations carefully. I heard that some migrant parents could not have room for caring about their children education because of their harsh, exhausting working environment. Furthermore, because of collectivism or the tendency of conservatism, Japanese are too much afraid of being different from others, so such discriminations or bullying are difficult to be eradicated without cultural understanding and appreciation of difference with each other. Considering these backgrounds, the procedure of multilingual programs by Hamamatsu City is appreciated, because it will provide children with the opportunity of higher education, which will lead to obtaining a stable career in this meritocracy. Now that the situation is totally different from that with a stable economy, Japan should adopt policies which will meet the current situation and create more career opportunities for those with high competitiveness and motivations regardless of nationality.
In my opinion, migrants and education for migrant children is a controversial subject as it needs to be understood from a variety of aspects: linguistics, sociology, and politics. After reading this article, I would like to share two different accounts concerning migrants and rights to education.
In Myanmar, we have a small number of migrants who are from America or a few western countries, and that minority group has certain privileges: parents can get well-paid jobs and so children can go to quality international schools. I think this is because our country is just a developing and poor one that usually favours those from developed and rich countries.
Another story is an unhappy one. It is about Myanmar migrant children, mostly ethnic children who had been displaced to the other countries for a certain period of time due to the internal conflicts between the government and ethnic armed groups and have come back to the country. The problem is that our country has not had a proper education policy for this issue. Consequently, those children usually find difficult to access to education with the right start, specifically, from which grade they can start their schooling. We are still at the beginning of the policymaking process for this case.
Your advice or sources for this issue would be highly appreciated.
Thanks
Thet
Thanks, Thet! You might find this PhD thesis helpful:
Li, J. (2017). Social Reproduction and Migrant Education: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography of Burmese Students’ Learning Experiences at a Border High School in China. (PhD), Macquarie University, Retrieved from https://www.languageonthemove.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/LI_Jia_Social_reproduction_and_migrant_education.pdf
Dear Ingrid,
I am very grateful for your kind consideration by providing us valuable advice and resoucres.
Thank you so much.
May you have a nice day.
Best regards
Thet
I found this article very interesting, and would like to know the extent to which the results of this study can be extrapolated to other societies. I was surprised by the similarity between nikkei and non-nikkei students’ outcomes, as I would have assumed racial appearance would play a large role in educational outcomes. However, I was not surprised that the key differentiator in educational outcomes proved to be the students’ socioeconomic status.
For those young migrants, it is difficult for them to adapt a new living and studying environment. Some of them might came from the bilingual family, but some are not. They have to learn a different language and make new friends. And there are also some cultural differences both for them and the local to accept. Parents are playing the important role to help these migrant children to assess into the community, but sometimes it is difficult for parents to educate their children in a different culture.
There are also migrants who are mainly from African countries in some cities in China. In terms of gender, there are also more male students who are able to go to high school than the female students. Some studies show that the culture is one of the important issues to this. Family and members of the neighbors may agree that female students doesn’t need to have that higher education. However, both male and fenale have higher proficiency of Chinese language.
Thanks, AzPc! You might enjoy this post about grassroots multilingualism of African migrants in Guangzhou.
I really agree with that the society should pay more attention to migrant children’s education circumstances. It is true that these migrant children can be exposed to two different languages, they have many challenges to deal with. In particular, some immigrant students who are around 14 years old, some of them are bullied by other locals peers which can have negative effects on their mental and physical health. Also, it is really difficult for some migrant parents to communicate and educate with their children which is because these parents and children are facilitated by a very different culture, and ty even do not have same community and belies. Therefore, we need to find some effective solutions to help migrant children’s educational problems.
As this article presented some factors affecting education of migrant children from Brazil to Japan, it made me remember and reflect on the accounts my fellowmen who migrated elsewhere (America, Australia, Japan, etc.). Accordingly, apart from gender, parental influence and other factors presented in this post, one of the challenges being faced by their children in relation to their studies is their home-country educational policy/background. Several years back, the basic education in my country is composed of only 10 mandatory elementary and high school education, a 2-year lag with most countries in the world. The problem caused by this is when they migrate and send their children to school, the standard of teaching and learning mismatch their learning experience.
Because of globalisation, now, people have more freedom to choose where they would like to study, work or live. This phenomenon can be seen from a positive light, while it also cause problems. As it has discussed in this article, one problem is that migrant children is educationally disadvantaged vis their local peer. Some of the reasons discussed in this article made me really surprised, e.g. gender and race.
However, here, I would like to talk about another interesting phenomenon happened in my real life. There are many Chainese migrants who have already came to Australia for several decades. Therefore, most of their children were born in Australia and we normally call these children ABC ( Australia born Chinese). As these children grown in Australia, they have already seen them as Australian. They speak the same language with local people, have the same dressing style and even eating habits. However, as their parents came from China, they normally cannot speak English well will and hold some Chinese traditional believes. Therefore, it seems their are some difficulties for migrant Chinese parent to communicate or educate their children. They cannot understand each other very well.
I am not sure if these phenomenons are completely true, and I hope to discuss with all of you!
Thank you, Ss! You might want to look up the research of Yining Wang, one of our PhD students in the department, who explores the Chinese language maintenance practices of Chinese migrant families in Australia, with a focus on parents and children’s perspectives.
Certain groups of migrants, such as the participants in this Shizuoka study, are expected to learn Japanese and take full responsibility for integrating into the Japanese system while other groups are not expected as much, if not, exempt from such societal expectation. It is often the case that migrants’ L1 use and cultural roots are condemned as obstacles to local integration, but it’d be quite a different story if, for instance, they are from the West and speak English as L1. Political leaders and academics alike are increasingly urging Japanese youth to be “global thinkers”. English proficiency, along with Chinese as a third language, and exposure to foreign countries are suggested as the prerequisite but not a mention of the need to understand internal racial and linguistic diversity. Such campaign without raising awareness of racism and resulting inequality within the country, seems utterly useless.
Good point. Clearly both from a societal and individual point of view a viable approach would be to encourage young people to learn Japanese (to understand their immediate society), to valorise their parents language (to understand their cultural heritage) and to be proficient in one lingua franca (to have global access). But with English losing its prominence (and having always had a feeling of imposition to it)… it makes you wish we hadn’t given in with Esperanto so soon.
Dear Ingrid, many thanks for sharing with us Takenoshita et al.’s paper which has challenged us to rethink about the ‘value of transnationalism’, ‘gender and educational attainment’, ‘parental education and children’s enrolment” and ‘relevance of destination language proficiency”. Following their investigation, I’d also like to explore the Burmese family characteristics and characteristics of the border communities for the understanding of educational outcomes of Burmese migrant children in China. Any suggestions or recommendations would be highly appreciated here.
Though done in Thailand, Kyoko Kusakabe’s work might be of interest to you: Thailand’s Hidden Workforce
Burmese Women Factory Workers: http://us.macmillan.com/thailandshiddenworkforce/RuthPearson
Dear Kimie,
Many thanks for your kind gesture. This book sounds quite useful for me to refer to as it touches upon many issues on gendered transnational experiences and its ethnographic data seem more convincing to document the “hidden” lives Burmese migrant women in Thailand. Anyway I’ll get the book for detailed reading.
Very interesting piece, thanks.
The counter-intuitive lack of correlation with parent’s language proficiency kind of makes sense… a limited knowledge of the new language could be linked to a strong connection to the original community.
And it wouldn’t be surprising for kids who have a reliable cultural identity to do well at school.
I feel that’s always the matter: strong cultural roots support individuals, but they almost by definition limit integration. It’s like a social version of the hedgehog dilemma.