著者

柴山 真琴

出版者

東京大学

雑誌

東京大学教育学部紀要 (ISSN:04957849)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.33, pp.211-220, 1994-01-31

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Rapid growth of Thai economy in the 1980's brought about a dramatic increase of Japanese sojourners, which affected Japanese community and socialization environments for Japanese children in Bangkok. This paper is to describe characteristics of socialization environments surrounding children in 1990 comparing with those in the middle of the 1970's which Ebuchi described. One year's participant observation in 1990-1991 found : (1) a drastic increase in the number of Japanese sojourners, along with fewer residential quarters considered to be appropriate for foreigners to live in Bangkok, caused high concentration of Japanese families in a same apartment house, which resulted in a particular pattern of children's circle, that is, playing with the same Japanese children in the same building, (2) the move of Japanese school from the central Bangkok to its suburb forced Japanese school children to be confined in a school bus for an hour or so which curtailed their direct contact with Thai society, (3) an increse of vehicles and poorly equipped traffic facilities prevented Japanese children from going out alone to spend time with their friends without adult supervision, (4) prevalent among Japanese children were Japanese TV games, Japanese video-tapes and Japanese magazines and so on, (5) very limited ability to understand Thai language prevented Japanese children from getting acquainted with social realities of Thailand through mass media, and (6) social contact with Thai people in and out of their families and school remained at the superficial level; consequently their understanding of realities of Thai society is poor. These findings indicate that realities of Japanese children growing up in Bangkok is far from the ideal of overseas education advocated by the Ministry of Education. In order to mitigate unfavorable socialization environments, three proposals were made. (1) The concept of child rearing currently prevailing among Japanese parents and teachers in Bangkok was that children must be prepared for making a smooth transition academiccally and socially at the time of their return to Japan. This concept should be transformed into fostering strength in children to overcome difficulties under unfavorable circumstances. (2) The Japanese school in Bangkok should be re-organized as a center for understanding Thai culture and society for both children and parents. And (3) Japanese parents should be provided with the inter-cultural training which enabled them to understand their problems they faced in Bangkok.