June A. Gordon

Looks at the key reasons why students from ethnic minorities are not becoming teachers. Containing interviews with over 200 people, this book will enable us to understand the cultural, political and historical forces discouraging teachers.

The Color of Teaching

Takehiko Kariya

Hidenori Fujita

Gerald LeTendre

In this volume, eight leading Japanese scholars present their research on profound and sensitive issues facing Japanese society, much of which has not been available to the English-speaking world. Traveling from Japan to engage in a unique forum at the University of California, they joined eminent professors Befu, DeVos, and Rohlen to bring over fifty leading scholars up to date on the global challenges facing Japan and how education has and will play into the reformulation of its identity. Chapters examine such topics as education policy changes, the education of minorities, including the Burakumin, the hegemony of college entrance examinations, social mobility and basic human rights, increased economic competition and global migration, political influences on educational reform, and the future of Japanese education.

Economics, Reform, and Human Rights

Challenges to Japanese Education

This book integrates ethnographic research with teacher education strategies, with the aim of preparing teachers to work with urban and low-income youth in schools and other social service agencies. Through various case studies, Gordon provides insight into how educators in diverse settings can engage students-be they preservice or veteran teachers-in the process of discovering the complexity of their students' lives, as well as their own.

Ethnographic Inquiry as Pedagogy

Beyond the Classroom Walls

Japan's attempt to project to the world an image of solid middle-class national identity is challenged by the Burakumin, an outcaste group of indigenous Japanese citizens who have been subjugated for centuries to political, economic, and religious discrimination. In the 1960s the efforts of this group and its supporters led to a 40-year national program of economic aid and educational programs designed to move these people out of poverty and increase life options. These programs, recently terminated, have left the Burakumin and other marginalized groups uncertain of their future. Based on ten years of ethnographic inquiry, Gordon's book explores the views of educators and activists caught in this period of transition after having their lives and careers shaped by the political demands of a liberation movement dedicated to achieving educational equity for the Burakumin and their disadvantaged neighbors. Gordon provides the context of the efforts to achieve the human rights of the Burakumin and the complexity of their identity in a Japanese society struggling with economic and demographic globalization.

June A. Gordon

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