著者

金井 香里

出版者

日本カリキュラム学会

雑誌

カリキュラム研究 (ISSN:0918354X)

巻号頁・発行日

no.10, pp.113-124, 2001-03

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The influx of "newcomer" children into classrooms in Japanese public schools brought Japanese teachers to deal with the difficulties and problems these children face in learning and participating in classroom communication. The teachers tend to regard the children's difficulties and problems in classroom as the children's handicap in the Japanese language and so to focus their own efforts on improving the children's language ability. The teachers' treatment helps the children adapt to the life in classroom somehow. However, it has been pointed out somewhere (Tsuneyoshi, R. 1998) that such a way of treating "newcomer" children functions in a way to situate them in a lower position or even marginalize them in classroom. The stress on improvement of "newcomer" children's language ability is observed not only in teachers' practice in classroom but also in the current research trend. Researchers have focused on improving the children's Japanese ability in addressing the issues on "newcomer" children learning and participating in classroom. It should be noted, however, that the "hidden" issue in classroom would not be addressed if the research focuses only on the children's language ability. In other words, there is some limitation in the current way of teachers' practice in multicultural classroom as well as the current research trend. In this paper, the author attempts to show a theoretical framework to conduct case studies on teachers' role in Japanese multicultural classroom. As the author's interest is in the way teachers deal with various cultural differences, either implicit or explicit, in a communication process, and the effects of teachers' treatment on the relationship between "newcomer" children and other children in classroom, the concept of border is referred to. The concept has been developed by some sociolinguists and educational anthropologists in the United States (i.e. McDermott, R. P. & Gospodinoff, K., Erickson, F. etc). According to them, a border is an arbitrary line formed by somebody along some cultural difference. A person is treated differently, depending on which side of the border he/she is located in. The author's discussion is twofold. First, the aspect of implicit/covert/invisible culture as well as explicit/overt/visible culture (Hall, E. 1959) is important in exploring teachers' cognition and treatment of cultural differences in classroom. Teachers tend to deal with "newcomer" children's explicit cultural traits (e.g. language). Yet, even a slight difference in implicit culture (e.g. standards of judgment according to which one's own behavior is shaped and the other's evaluated) may have a great effect on the "newcomer" children learning and participating in classroom communication. Furthermore, such difference may cause some conflict or tension between the "newcomer" children and other children. Second, the concept of border helps to analyze the influence teachers' treatment of cultural differences has on the children in classroom. Teachers' treatment of various differences among children means the formation of and the arrangement of borders. It is emphasized that in the teaching practice are formed not a few borders, which a teacher attempts to arrange. A teacher's treatment of cultural differences in classroom possibly has such an influence on the children that the teacher has not expected, i.e., some children may form a culture border and locate the "newcomer" children beyond the border. In conclusion, the author suggests that for exploring teachers' role in multicultural classroom, case studies need to be conducted with the theoretical framework shown in this article.