Internationalization of Japanese Children Overseas : Literature Analysis

Abstract

It has now been over 20 years that Japanese children in significant numbers have been educated overseas. The research about this issue has also accumulated, particularly among the people in cross-cultural education. However, the literature analysis of this research has just started recently. Thus, it is now time to study this body of research thoroughly. In this paper, all documents were divided into six groups according to the writers' backgrounds: governmental departments, industrial circles, educators dispatched overseas, children who have been overseas, their parents, and researchers of cross-cultural education. "The structure of knowing" was used as methodology when analyzing the documents. One of the results of this research analysis revealed that a gap exists between the image and the reality of Japanese children educated abroad. Furthermore, the analysis revealed the ways the images of Japanese children overseas were formed by the concerned parties.